Up, breakfasted and on to the second day of a wonderful Eastercon Science fiction convention.
The first presentation was all about death.
So, You’re Thinking About Murder – Dr Rose Drew
Rose Drew is a forensic pathology expert, and discussed the real challenges of identifying long dead skeletal remains. Despite the title this had little to do directly with murder investigation. Rose drew on slides showing real human skeletons and bone fragments. She has a particular interest in the study of the bodies from the recovered ship The Mary Rose (from the age of Henry 8th). While in most cases, the cause of death was obviously drowning, one body was found to be severely crushed, most likely from being trapped by a moving heavy cast iron cannon as the ship listed and tipped during the sinking.
Rose was dismissive of the instant findings on bodies in shows like Bones and CSI, where gender, age and cause of death are almost instantly worked out. In many skeletons the gender is hard to assess, and often impossible. Even DNA can be hard to extract and analysis of it can take months of assessment as well as being a very expensive process.
Locked Room Mysteries In Space
Me, Allen Stroud, Aliette De Bodard, Mat (Moderator) and M V Melcher.
A panel I was on, alongside some of the finest authors attending the convention. We discussed how SF often draws on aspects of traditional crime stories and whodunnits to give them a science fiction twist. With a body found in space, on a space ship, alien planet, there may be less forensic investigation equipment possible and the private investigator may have to solve the crime rather than wait for investigators coming out into space to take on the inquiries. The detective may be a boffin, or the ship captain.
Asimov may well be the best known SF author to use detective story tropes, in the Mysteries short story collection and in his Caves Of Steel novel and its sequels. Alfred Bester has a killer fooling multiple telepaths, (The Demolished Man) and a killer able to teleport (jaunt) into secure locked down spaces to deal with his enemies.
It was agreed that the SF solution to a crime should still be within the bounds of reader understanding, and not draw on obscure knowledge or techno-babel known only to the detective characters. A lovely well balanced panel in that we all got equal time to speak and voice our angles on the topic, which we barely touched the surface on. Pratchett’s Discworld has mysteries to solve, with the Witches cracking cases and of course The City Watch being the Ankh Morpork police force.
The BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) Awards 2024
Right from our Locked Room event, Allen Stroud went right to the main stage to present the BSFA Awards (though he had to recuse himself from one in which he himself was a nominee (and getting nominated for the BSFA’s is a major win in itself). Worthy winners this year included Adrian Tchaikovsky and Aliette De Bodard. The ceremony itself was nicely managed and no attending winner stretched their acceptance speech out too long.
Doctor Who And The Industrial Revolution
Smuzz, Fiona Moore, Geneveve Cogman, Samuel Poots, Vaughn Stanger, S J Groenewagen (Moderator).
While primarily hinged around the Colin Baker era Time and the Rani story which is set around Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale with George Stephenson caught up in the machinations of the Master and the Rani. The setting was very close to the convention venue. The study broadened to discussion of capitalism and class, economic divides and division of labour throughout the Doctor Who canon. There was reference to slavery of the Ood, the tax collection regime of the hugely under-rated Sun-Makers story, the broken Morlock-like human figures seen in Orphan 55, The Curse Of Fenric, etc.
In Q & A I suggested the most powerful, yet ineffective leaders of industry and social change are The Time Lords themselves with their policy of non-intervention, as if they all behaved as The Doctor does things would be greatly improved. This was countered with reference to Underworld, which features the long term consequences of a rare Time Lord experiment in guidance and intervention that went wrong and inspired them not to try again. That hde Doctor fixes thde problem shows thatthey ought to though.
Book Launch – Cybersalon Anthology Of Applied Science
Ben Greenaway, Eba Pascoe, Rosie Oliver, Stephen Oram (Moderator), Vaughn Stanger, Sophie Sparham, Dr Danbee Kim
A lovely lively launch for a book taking SF back to its definitional roots, showingthe future consequences of current scientific practices. I got a copy of the book which several attending authors in the collection happily signed for me.
Glasgow in 2024 Pub Quiz
A quite tough quiz, presented by members of August’s Worldcon committee. The team I was on came in joint 6th, but we had huge fun with this.
Arthur Chappell