The Novacon 50 Science Fiction Convention Day 3 – The Palace Hotel, Buxton, Derbyshire
This was the last day of the three day programme of Novacon events, and quite a lot was going on, culminating in the polar opposites of the brilliant Beer Tasting and the disastrous banquet events.
Post breakfast, where I sat chatting with the delightful Christopher Priest, my choice of first event was a talk with leading author, Guest Of Honour – Christopher Priest. The writer of The Prestige (filmed with Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman and David Bowie), it is his wonderfully poetic Dream Archipelago novels that move me most of all. Here he talked cheerfully of serving as ghost writer to astronauts and sport-stars, the long wait for royalties that can often take years to filter through to the authors, his status in the New Wave of the 1960’s and his ongoing career. I got some of his books signed and helped take photos of some attendees proudly standing by his side on their cameras and phones. One of the nicest guests I ever met at a convention.
Apocalypse Or Tomorrowland? – The next panel was essentially concerned with pessimism and optimism for the future. With global warming and a sense of the failure of the Glasgow based climate change works in which we are doomed seemed to dominate the panel’s outlook. The future of flying cars and personalized jetpacks seemed not only less likely, but itself a disaster in the making if it came about as there would be so many mid-air collisions.
I asked if readers of disaster scenario books and viewers of movies about the end of civilization as we know it might try using their memory or even the actual texts as prophetic survival manuals. A recent comedy TV series called Zomboat has characters making their strategies for beating the undead up from what they have learned in video games and from watching George R Romero movies.
For me post-apocalypse is a contradiction in terms. In truly apocalyptic works like OnThe Beach or Earth Abides there are no human survivors. While in post-apoc works like No Blade Of Grass, and even The Walking Deads, there is a sense of where there is life, no matter how bleak, there is hope for a long term recovery for humanity.
With global warming, we need to act now or what could be post-apoc in a few generations might yet be full on apoc.
Scrabble – One of my dear friends, Eira noticed that the con’s games room supplies included a Scrabble set, and invited me to join her in a game, along with Tim and later, Elaine. It was great fun, played with beer in hand, helping to take my mind off some of the stress I was feeling from the stoma crisis – room lock out conflict the day before and though I got lots of great words, ie, Diva, I was tending to open the game up to give the more strategic players with cool vocabularies, easy access to the double and triple word squares.
Handover Ceremony
This was a weekend closing ceremony and a promotion for representatives and bidders for forthcoming conventions, and a chance to thank guests of honour (Christopher Priest, Clair Short and Fanghorn). I was a little disheartened to hear comments from the stage that though there had been complaints about aspects of the hotel they were regarded as minor matters. My own complaint that I had been unable to access my room due to a faulty door lock, during an exploding stoma medical emergency, was suppressed as I tried to give the details to a senior committee member. I was out of sight – out of mind until my reports here and formal complaints have hopefully drawn my concerns back from the shadows.
Scrabble – We finished our final game on the board that was left in place during the handover event, and headed out to the really good beer tasting and catastrophic banquet events, covered separately.
Arthur Chappell
My First Wordpress Blog 