Category: SF

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Worldcon 2005: Interaction

We’ve just signed up for next year’s World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow. Interaction takes place from 4-8 August 2005, and will be the first Worldcon in Europe since 1995, when Intersection sailed the Clyde.

In August of 1995:

  • I was a new teacher, fresh out of teacher training college.
  • Abi was still an accountant.
  • I was running a Mac Classic, and had yet to build my first PC.
  • I had never touched Windows 95.
  • Internet? I was still running CompuServe 2.x. Forums were cool, Usenet was a pain in the neck. Dial-up at 28.8K was fast.
  • Bob Shaw was still alive.
  • Mobile phones? Nahhhh.
  • Kids? Nahhhh.
  • We were a month into owning our first car: the original Sun Pig!

Lots has changed:

  • After retraining as a programmer, I’m now an IT consultant.
  • After retraining as a programmer, Abi is now an IT consultant.
  • After building and running PCs for a decade, I’m wondering if it’s not time to switch back to using a Mac.
  • I’m very glad to have finished touching Windows 95.
  • 750KBps broadband, our own domain, and our own web site. Usenet is still a pain in the neck.
  • My Bob Shaw collection continues to grow. (100+ books, 50+ magazines and anthologies)
  • Camera phones.
  • Two kids.
  • We are a couple of months into owning our second car. It doesn’t have a name yet, though.

I’m looking forward to Worldcon, and the next ten years. I’m guessing I’ll be a plumber by then.

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Farscape, season 1

farscape season 1 on DVDMmm, look what the Amazon Fairy brought me yesterday….

Abi’s not mad keen on Farscape, but I like it. I’ve seen most of the first series, a lot of the second, but practically none of seasons 3 and 4. The Sci-Fi channel is still running repeats, but we’ve got completely out of the habit of watching TV for specific shows. If we have the TV on, it’s either tuned to CBeebies, or to one of the Discovery/History/National Geographic-type channels as a background drip-feed of infotainment. It’s exceedingly rare for us to actually sit down and just watch a TV programme for its own sake.


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Space Elevator

Via (ultimately) Electrolite, I just came across a wonderful blog dedicated to the Space Elevator. If you’ve never come across the space elevator idea before, it’s basically a giant cable that stretches vertically from the equator right up into space. Strap some powered cargo or passenger capsules to the cable, and you’ve got an express lift to geostationary orbit–and beyond.

The surprising thing about the space elevator is how damn feasible it is. It sounds insane at first, but the physics behind it is simple. And although building the cable would be expensive, once it is in place, it is vastly cheaper at lifting stuff into orbit than conventional rockets.

Yes, there are technical issues to overcome before we could actually build one in real life, but they are mostly in the realms of materials science and engineering. Primarily, it’s a question of creating a material that is strong, light, and cheap enough to make the cable. But there are no fundamental theoretical hurdles to overcome.

The blog features a great paper by Arthur C. Clarke that explains the theory of the space elevator, some of its practical issues, and the history of the idea: “The Space Elevator: ‘Thought Experiment’, or Key to the Universe?” (Note that this is a paper from 1981. The space elevator idea has been around for a long time.) Two novels that give an excellent treatment of the concept are Clarke’s The Fountains Of Paradise and Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars.

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Hugo Awards 2003

Around this time each year, the World Science Fiction Convention (“Worldcon”) takes place. It touches down in a different city each year. The last one we attended was Bucconneer, in Baltimore in 1998. Before then, we went to Intersection in Glasgow in 1995, and I attended ConFiction in Den Haag in 1990. This year, the event was called Torcon 3, and it took place in Toronto. (We didn’t go. We were visting friends and food in the South of The Netherlands instead.)

Worldcon is also where the Hugo Awards are announced. The Hugos are the “audience awards” of the science fiction world. Publishers like to tout their Hugo-winning authors. People who have not heard of an author might pick up a book that has “winner of the Hugo award” splattered over its cover. For people who didn’t attend the conference itself, the awards are one of the biggest pieces of news to emerge from it. You’d think that they’d maybe put the results up on the front page of their web site, wouldn’t you?

Okay, say they didn’t put up the results on the front page. Say the results are stuck on a page somewhere deeper in the site. Surely they’d have a link to it right on the home page! Surely?

Hello–2003 calling Torcon! Anyone home? Anyone heard of content management systems? Blogs? Personal publishing tools?

The SF community has embraced fanzines and mini-publishing totally. SF fans love getting together for cons. We love hanging out on the Internet in chat rooms, on Usenet, IRC and bulletin boards. Given the sheer volume of geeks and netheads involved in SF fandom, how is it possible for Worldcon web sites to be so uniformly rubbish?

I complained about this last year as well, and nothing has changed in the intervening period:

  • 2002: ConJosé. (Okay, so they did eventually put a link to the Hugos on their front page.)
  • 2003: Torcon 3. (Framesets…argh.)
  • 2004: Noreascon 4.
  • 2005: Interaction. (Ooh, pebble texture background…very 1997!)

At least Noreascon 4 has a blog. But do you notice any difference between the main site and the blog? Something to do with clarity of design, readability, timeliness of information? Is there some kind of WSFS rule that says you’re not allowed to use a graphic designer to put together a set of page templates? Some bizarre bylaw that makes information architecture and user testing a punishable offense?

The simple, old-fashioned HTML isn’t about accessibility, either, as the frameset design for Torcon 3 does a great job of preventing useful navigation for anyone without a frames-capable browser.

Yet it’s perfectly possible for sites to be accessible, well-structured, and good-looking–all at the same time! Good visual design isn’t child’s play, but it’s not rocket science. Usability testing can be done simply and quickly. Simplicity of design can be combined with depth and breadth of information and interaction.

It’s not too much to ask, is it?

(Oh, and about the actual results for the 2003 Hugos: Robert J. Sawyer’s Hominids won the award for best novel. I haven’t read it yet, but some of the comments about it make me ambivalent about starting.)

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Blake’s 7: The comeback?

Via Blogdex comes news of the return of Blake’s 7:

“One of the stars of cult sci-fi series Blake’s 7 has signed a deal to bring the show back to screens more than 20 years after it ended.

“Paul Darrow, who played the ruthless anti-hero Avon, is in a consortium that has acquired the rights to the show from the widow of its creator, Terry Nation.
“…A new TV mini-series, starring Darrow, will have a budget of $5-6m (£3-3.7m), the show’s website said.”

Which leads to the show’s web site. Looks vaguely promising.

The Register warns not to be too optimistic for a succesful relaunch, though:

‘But don’t hold your breath for A Rebellion Reborn. Planning is at an early stage. In a message on its flashy web site, B7 Productions says it will not be entering pre-production “until April/May 2004”.

‘Which marks a step-up on the last time the show was supposed to return to the screens. Reg Reader Andrew Larcombe has pointed us to an almost identical piece of pre-production puff – from three years ago.’

But the BBC’s article from 2000 says that the producers were “lining up” Paul Darrow to play Avon again. Yesterday’s article refers to Darrow as being part of the consortium that is producing the show. That somehow sounds a bit more definite.

I just hope they’ll remember what made Blake’s 7 great: strong story lines, snappy dialogue, and excellent characters. Blake’s 7 was never about special effects, which is good, because they were rubbish. And even now, in the age of digital effects, the BBC has consistently proved that they are still rubbish at them.

If I want to see cutting-edge space special effects, I’ll go and buy the latest Star Wars film on DVD. (Actually, I did…and it was still pants.) Nothing the BBC (or any other sub $100M production facility) can do will even come close, so don’t even try because it’ll only disappoint. Spend the budget on some decent script writers, some half-decent costumes, a couple of well-built sets, and the hire of a Welsh quarry for a couple of days’ filming. The space ships are just cut-scenes to get from one place to another.

What I really want to see is Avon snarling and plotting and scheming. I want to see his predatory, ice-cold grin as he cuts the heart out of his enemies’ fiendish plans. I want my childhood back….

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Ken MacLeod and Richard Morgan

Abi is down in London for a few days, so Alex and I are on our own for a while. Partaaay!

Well, it is if you call going out to science fiction author readings partaaaying. Ken MacLeod and Richard Morgan were in session at Waterstones this evening. Before it started, I asked them if it would be okay if we sat right at the back, where Alex would have some space to sit and play, and they said that would be fine. I had bought him a couple of new books, and I was hoping that would keep him quiet for at least some of the time.

On the whole, Alex was pretty well behaved. There was some noisy plumbing in the back of the room which probably masked some of his cooings and mumblings, but there were occasions where he got very excited at having nifty plastic chairs to climb on. A couple of times he seemed too energetic, and I took him out of the room. Through the fire escape at the back there was a staff private where he could play a bit more loudly. (Fortunately, the staff didn’t seem to mind.)

Although I am completely smitten with Alex (obviously), I do know that not everyone is quite so fond of children. And when you go along to an author event, you probably don’t want the constant burblings of a toddler interrupting the flow. I do feel bad about possibly having disturbed some people’s enjoyment of the evening. Plus, having to pay half a brain’s worth of attention to Alex all the time (combined with the joys of Obscure Auditory Dysfunction), meant that I probably didn’t even catch half of the conversation between Messrs MacLeod and Morgan. So although it was a fun adventure for us, as an author event it was only a mixed success.

I did, however, get to pick up the last volume of Ken MacLeod’s Engines Of Light trilogy, Engine City, and get it signed. Amazon reckons it isn’t released until 7th November, so that’s a bonus–especially as I’m a quarter of the way through Dark Light already, and will probably finish it in another few days.

And finally, I managed to ask Richard Morgan to sign a book…that he’d signed already. Abi bought a copy of Altered Carbon earlier this year, and it must have been pre-signed when she bought it. Mr. Morgan was game enough to sign it again, though, and add a humorous little message as well.