OK, so this is primarily a kind of double-barrelled heads-up message to anyone considering going to the British Science Fiction Association’s 50th anniversary shindig on Wednesday 26th November.

Alert level 1: It looks like I’ll be going. So if that’s off-putting, best cancel your attendance; if that’s a thrilling prospect, book your train ticket right away!

Alert level 2: Other Stuff Is Afoot In London. Geoff ‘BLDGBLOG’ Manaugh is doing two talks on the 26th; the details for the earlier one aren’t out yet, but the evening one has been fully announced: entitled ‘Battlespaces 1′, it runs between 7pm and 9pm at the J Z Young Lecture Theatre at UCL, inside the Anatomy Building on Gower Street (which is about a mile or so from the BSFA bash venue, if my map-fu is any good). Full details are available at the Complex Terrain Laboratory, but to sum it up briefly:

Contemporary political discourse on armed violence and insecurity has been largely shaped by references to spatial knowledge, simulation, and control: “human terrain,” “urban clutter,” “terrorist sanctuaries,” “failed states,” “core-periphery.” The historical counterpoint to this is to be found in the key role the successive technologies of clock, engine, computer, and network have all played in spatializing the practice of warfare. In this context, what implications do “feral” Third World cities, “rogue” cities organized along non-Western ideas of urban space and infrastructure, and “wild” cities reclaimed by nature, have for the battlespaces of today and tomorrow?

Mmmm, Zeitgeist – and very sf-nal, I think you’ll agree; Manaugh was briefly the most interesting poster on io9 before the inevitable economics of search terms ousted his speculative architecture pieces in favour of more Ten Craziest Battlestar Who-Heroes Chronicles SPOILARZ!!-type stuff.

As you may have guessed already, it is my intent to attend this talk (and the earlier one, if it proves to be temporally and spatially accessible), and to drag Mr Manaugh along to the BSFA party afterwards if he’s not too tired/busy/sane (no kidnapping required, as he has already expressed an interest).

If this sounds like something you’d like to come to as well, drop me a line and we’ll make a mission of it. After all, days out in London should be crammed with as much interesting stuff as possible, if only so as to maximise on train fare value. AMIRITE?

Hello, Friday people! The pictures below will explain why there were no posts on VCTB yesterday …

Linden Labs recruitment bash, Brighton

Yup – I was in Brighton last night, after a fairly last-minute decision to meet up with a friend at a Linden Lab recruitment party event-type-thingy. I went with no expectation of getting a job out of it (which was lucky, because that expectation would have been unfulfilled), and nor did my friend (though she’s a skilled builder in Second Life, and wasn’t afraid to mention that to people on the off-chance).

To be honest, I’m not sure what I expected, having never been to a recruitment party of any sort, let alone one in the weirder end of the computing industry.

What we found was a Brighton seafront restaurant (built into an old public toilet block, no less) filled with a large crowd of chancers who, much like ourselves, had seen the LL blog entry and decided to attend for the opportunity of free food’n'booze and meeting some fellow geeks … as well as a few people from Linden Lab and NC Soft bemoaning the fact that no one seemed interested in looking for work.

I gave some people my card and offered my services as a copywriter with experience in software end-user documentation*. I’m not expecting any emails any time soon … but hey, you never know.

[* "Sure, I have experience - I've read loads of it! No, wait, come back ..."]

So, we got a room full of SL geeks, a free bar (that didn’t stay free for very long), a young lady playing guitar and singing (which she usually does in SL, as Smily Raymaker) and a bag of promotional gubbins and nicknacks, mostly for NC Soft games. But my friend and I both fell for these SL cubes:

The light inside slowly changes colour, pink-blue-green. I nabbed one for my desk. My friend, being a sensible female with a handbag of practical dimensions, procured about five for sending to other SL friends. Result.

So, not exactly the kaleidoscopic blast we had hoped it might be. But it was ace to have a night out in Real Life with someone I’ve known through Second Life for a few months. As anyone who’s done it will probably agree, meeting internet friends can be a pretty bizarre experience. The weirdness was overcome by heading back to the hotel room with a few drinks and …

… using the free wi-fi to log in to Second Life and watch Bill Hicks video clips on YouTube. You can’t tell us we don’t live on the edge.

Other stuff

That was the big event of the week, pretty much. I judged at the second heat of the Wedgewood Rooms Showcase on Wednesday night, which was a good laugh for all involved except my liver and kidneys, but otherwise I’ve done very little of any interest – most unusual, I know.

[I would tell you all about the fun of editing book reviews for Interzone while waiting for the last few to arrive, all the while staring into the oncoming headlights of an impeding printer's deadline ... but even my well-honed writing skills balk at the task of portraying the repeated reading of the same on-screen documents many times through (and the simultaneous biting of fingernails) in a manner of interest to a general audience. I'm hoping that with experience I'll become less worried and nervous about the editorial process. In the interim, I'll be budgeting a full week of unreasoning panic into my schedule for the next issue.]

Books and magazines seen

No books this week, but one more mag in the postbox, namely the September issue of F&SF – which features a Ted Chiang story that I’ll have to read sooner rather than later.

Coda

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s instalment of my geekish life as a vicarious experience – it’s been pretty good fun from this side of the screen. My stomach says it’s time for The Friday Curry, and then it’ll probably be an early night to catch up on missed sleep … in the meantime, I hope we all get to have a weekend without appalling weather.

Hasta luego, amigos.