This week has, just about, been a return to something approaching a normal work week for me, with 27 pages of comics and 6600 words of the sequel to London Falling written (plus whatever else I manage today).  The prose word count would have been higher, but Caroline gets Thursdays off, and I like to hang out with her whenever I get the chance (because, of course, she works the weekends).

Last weekend I attended alt.fiction in Leicester, and was glad I reversed my decision to pull out.  (I regained my energy after Eastercon sooner than I expected.)  It's not really a convention, more a literary festival, and it serves well the punters it attracts, who are in what often feels like a fifty fifty ratio with the large numbers of creators, and so get a chance to learn, chat and hang out with them.  Useful panels were had, Emma Vieceli introduced a large number of people to the joys of comics, Adrian Tchaikovsky was funny and insightful as always, and there was one epic night out, led by Tom Hunter in evil mode, which ended up with a pile of us in the bar, including a number of delighted new writers, who I bet felt like they'd been hugged to the bosom of their genre.  I keep meeting this New Wave wherever I go, with so many new short story writers (Colum Paget, Ren Warom, Fran Terminello, Tori Truslow, Al Robertson) and first time novelists (Lou Morgan, Kari Sperring, Anne Lyle, Danie Ware, Tom Pollock, Emma Newman).  It makes one feel glad to be alive in this new dawn.  The organisers had achieved, near as damn it, complete Panel Parity too, and it was a fine thing to hear so many women's voices on panels, and to have a panel about Diversity in Fantasy which served as a useful 101 to the topic, which, judging by the blogs one reads about the event, seems to have said to a new audience that they were welcome here.  I was also very pleased that my London Falling reading was so well-attended, and that said audience included the lovely Ken MacLeod. If you're looking for a first convention, or if you're an aspiring writer, I'd recommend alt.fiction next year as a warm and friendly place to begin.

We went to see The Cabin in the Woods yesterday, which is a fine piece of work.  It'll take an effort, but because of the nature of the piece, this review will be SPOILER FREE BUT HINTING ABOUT STUFF.  (Although that will mean that those of you who haven't seen it will probably get very little out of it.)  The first thing one should say is: this is a Drew Goddard movie, directed by him and co-written by him.  I love Joss Whedon, but Goddard is very much a breakout talent in his own right, and may be seen, down the line, as the most important of the Joss stable of writers.  However, the movie does share the attitudes of what might be called Second Phase Whedon, which began at the moment Buffy looked directly at the audience and sang 'and you can sing along', the point where Whedon turned on the audience that were following him and, brilliantly, told them not to be so complacent, that if they looked to him for answers he would hurt them.  That move is something only the very good are capable of, the alternative to just lying back and lapping up the praise.  The Cabin in the Woods continues the Situationist assault of Dollhouse, then, and indeed, it seems to be the (rather wonderful) fate of actor Fran Kranz to be the face of 'come for the pop horror, stay for the critique of Late Capitalism'.  At the heart of the movie is the same feeling that powered The Hunger Games: youth are trapped in a world they never made, unable to live a natural life, whatever that might be, but instead locked into sacrificial social structures, a phobic response to being born into the grave, given to war and unfairness with no alternative.  The Hunger Games offers hope, at least in the trilogy, the prospect of one gladiator beating, even bringing down, the system.  Cabin agrees, instead, with The Prisoner: the individual under capitalism is so complicit in the horrors done on their behalf that there can be no successful revolution unless one is prepared to end the entire world, and oneself, in doing so.  (A terrorist manifesto?  Discuss.  Actually, no, don't.)  Because to protest successfully is to end one's comfy world.  This isn't a deconstruction of horror movies (which Scream already did, and a genre can really only be successfully deconstructed once, as Watchmen and just about the entire career of Captain Britain have proved), it's a complaint about their existence in a world of real horrors.  Which also makes, having its cake and eating it, for at least the first half of its running time, a show of being a really effective commercial horror movie.  That it has other plans is announced immediately, and that those other plans constitute the true horror here is announced by that sudden, Hammer-style title caption slide.  (I particularly liked the line about the gun, 'that makes it easier'.) Perhaps it is a little too swish, a little too well made.  If this were grainy and in Italian, it would feel like the great truths it wrestles to the shore had been ripped from the heart of nature instead of being expertly made up by... well, the sort of guys we see at the start of the film.  (Which is, of course, part of the point.)  And that grainy Italian version would probably have stopped with the beer party and not allowed us the very mainstream conventions that are only subverted right at the end.  And it is utterly, utterly nihlistic, letting doomed youth off the hook by saying there is nothing to be done.  And in the end these aren't really actually characters, and it stops being horror movie frightening at the moment it becomes SF movie interesting because of that.  But still, this is far far more than the teen popcorn crowd would have been expecting to find here.  And, and I hate to be gleeful about this, because that's my own complicity on show, but that far more may have gone unfound by a lot of them, judging by the reviews that concentrate on the (very fine) laughs and ironies.  This is a movie that enjoys decadence at the same time as it attacks it. It could be said to be an internal picture of the viewer, and put a bunch of those together and you've got a society.  The end is another complaint, about nausea, about living in a Godless (well, sort of, and depending on who is 'upstairs' in a not very fleshed out allusion) universe.  And as for the cameo at the end, well, if this were Scream, and thank God it's not, it should have been Jamie Lee Curtis.  But for this, all I can say is, she became what she beheld.  Get away from them, you bitch.

I should also say, having enjoyed the trailer, how clever Prometheus seems to be.  It's like someone, in the wake of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, made an effective horror movie about what Ygor did with the laboratory left behind.  The Alien is played out, a theme park attraction that fights Predator now.  But what about all this other cool stuff, left behind after the first movie, hardly used?  And the way the captions go 'from the director of Blade Runner and... Gladiator'.  Ha ha ha!  Well played, sir.

On Sunday, Pete Tyler himself, actor Shaun Dingwall, is running the London Marathon, in aid of Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research.  He's nearly at his donation target, and you can help him out on his Just Giving page here. Doctor Who fans are justly famous for their generosity, and I feel that if he can get over the line, so can we.  Go on!

I'm very much for World Science Fiction Conventions, and the core SF fandom that attends them, reaching out to embrace a wider SF fandom that's grown far beyond them, and so I'm delighted that this Orlando Worldcon bid is in the form of a manifesto about just those inclusive policies.  I think it's also important that they get away from the weekend of Dragoncon, or their efforts will be for nothing, and we'll again see especially publishers going where they can sell a lot more books.

The Girls' Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse is a collaborative project of female writers, artists and bloggers, providing a blend of useful tips and know how, with a tongue in cheek view of the end of the world.  It's also a focus for that modern trope of seeing the End as a freeing moment.  There are book reviews, music reviews, portraits of apocalyptic heroines, and the feel of a real community being built.

Having featured the expectations of five Eastercon newbies before Olympus 2012, I thought I'd check in with them afterwards and see how it went.  So here we go, post match reports from the first three of them. First up, Kathryn Peak...

'Well, for reasons of childcare I only made it to the Saturday and Sunday of Eastercon, and so, determined to pack in as much as possible, I arrived early on both days and left late and went to a lot of panels and a couple of readings. And what did I think of it? I loved it. Bear in mind, I knew nobody, I was on my own, so it could have been a rather lonely experience. But it wasn't.
     Having sat quietly at the back for the first couple of panels, I got up the nerve to start asking questions and making comments. I attended the panel on Panel Parity, and another on how not to suppress women writing SF, and I was hugely impressed with the depth of the discussions going on, from the need to support feminist approaches to SFF, to the thorny but practical question of how to get men to buy books written by women (they don’t, mostly). And I felt welcomed to these conversations.
     Beyond this, I went to a panel on fantasy in Shakespeare, just because I like Shakespeare, and a couple of panels on Doctor Who, which were pure indulgence and great fun. Towards the end of a panel on whether Doctor Who is SF (it is but not really seemed to be the general consensus) one woman at the back piped up that we were in danger of over-analysing the subject. I wasn’t the only one that laughed. Of course we over-analyse. If we didn’t, we probably wouldn’t be the kind of people to spend money trekking out to a Heathrow hotel to talk about genre. But top of my weekend I think has to be the panel on heroism in SF, in particular the moment when Tricia Sullivan got out the Bionicles. She was fabulous, I saw her in a few panels and came away from the weekend a bigger fan of hers than I was already.
     Ultimately, I think I was rather awed by the fact that I was surrounded by so many writers: people writing fan fic; those writing short stories in their spare time; the serious writers trying to get a book deal; the ones already in print. That sense of being amongst so much creative effort was overwhelming, and when I did speak to Paul Cornell I’m pretty sure I gave him my best incoherent "happy happy must dash", a veritable Tigger of activity.
     In the days since Eastercon finished I have seen a lot of comments from those who have been many times before, saying that this was the best yet, a reinvention, even better than what had been considered the best. So if I expect just as good again next year am I setting myself up to be disappointed? I don’t think so. I get a sense that those involved have raised the bar, and perhaps it takes all of us to help to clear it. I will definitely go again.'

Thanks, Kate.  (Who's on Twitter as @kathyrynpeak and can be found here. Weird to be referred to in the third person there!)  Now let's turn to Ash Farbrother...

'It's Monday the 9th of April, I'm sat on the Piccadilly Line on my way into London to run a Mario Kart Tournament at my favourite pub. My right knee is still bleeding from some ill advised dance moves, I have the mild edges of con lurg taking hold, and despite not having an actual hangover the numerous pints of Old Rosie and late night discussions/dancing is definitely taking its toll. But through this I grin quietly to myself. The grinning is not some sort of delirium caused by too many pints of fermented apple product, but because Eastercon was awesome. It was everything I wanted it to be and more and I can't wait to do it all over again. Let's skip back to the beginning.
     Upon entering the convention hotel on the Friday I was immediately struck by an air of familiarity. Not because I'd been to that hotel before but because I felt the mild buzz: the crackle in the air that said, "behold, this building contains a thriving mass of fandom". As if to prove my point to the right were people admiring the Iron Throne from the HBO Game of Thrones TV Series, and people were talking, drinking, mingling, and the air was one of quiet jubilation. People were also queuing to collect their badges and information packs, and it is to this queue that we went. It was a brief experience, well organised and efficient, and I was soon staggering away clutching my Olympus 2012 mug with complementary Cadbury's Creme Egg (which would be required for an energy boost as the event went on). We started to find our feet, working out the location of the restaurant, the various venues, and of course the Dealers' Room. The Dealers' Room was interesting, a mixture of goods and wares and books both old and new. It gave the room the air of an old curiosity shop and whilst I did not go as spend-crazy as I could have over the weekend... I did make the odd purchase or three. Despite having been away from the convention scene for some years, once the first panel had been attended I soon began to find my footing and re-entering what I think of as my "Con-Groove". I'd already earmarked a number of panels and events that interested me using paper copies of the timetable. This was soon transferred to the GuideBook app I'd downloaded to my iPhone which not only kept me up to date with changes but politely reminded me of where I was meant to be when (which I only occasionally ignored).
     I feel special mention should be given to this little application. It definitely added to making this convention one of the smoothest and most enjoyable I've ever been to. I barely needed to refer to the "dead tree" information provided to me... it was all in my pocket. The work that went into it and the way it operated was absolutely superb. Between that and Twitter I never felt totally disconnected from the event even though I was staying in a hotel a few buildings down. Bravo to the Con Committee for providing this, it definitely set a high bar for my future experiences of "end user convention experience".
     The panels were many and varied. My EasterCon started with Before Watchmen, and ended with the Podcasting Workshop on the Sunday. There were other panels that we intended to attend but as is often the way of conventions... things happened. Conversations occurred, Blake's 7 stories were acted out in photonovel form, pints were consumed, thrones were sat on, discussions on dressmaking took place. This is just the sort of thing that happens at conventions and I'm glad to say that Eastercon was no exception. The panels that tended to fall by the wayside were the Doctor Who panels I'd earmarked, a conscious decision to dip into topics that I may not be quite as familiar with. Some panels were more entertaining than others... this is not a comment on those who chose the subject, or indeed on those who hosted the panel. Some topics just gel better than others, and I feel we as an audience also have a part to play. Overall the breadth and variety of programming was enjoyable and often informative, be it large scale interviews with the Guests of Honour, or smaller fan-led discussions on more granular subjects. The venues were for the most part easy to find, and the main hall deserves special mention for being well laid out and with a nice large and well managed video-wall to the left of the stage.
     The main hall was also the venue for the Ceilidh and the Saturday and Sunday night discos. I danced, more than I think I had at any previous convention, and I did so freely and with reckless abandon... perhaps a bit too much reckless abandon, as an ill-timed knee slide resulted left me with the hole in my right knee mentioned at the beginning of this write-up, but it was worth it, and a few pints of the (also previously mentioned) Old Rosie acted as a more than adequate painkiller.
     There was something I experienced at Olympus that I don't think had ever been a key factor at Gallifrey... I learned. I learned of TV series that will in time be ordered on DVD or tracked down on Netflix. I learned of the Wild Cards book series, that I immediately tracked down a number of volumes of in the dealers room and made notes to obtain more of the upcoming reissues and future volumes. I learned of Wobblevision and enjoyed the manic experience of enacting Blake's 7 stories around a hotel and getting to "die" in front of a lift. I learned how comfortable the Iron Throne can be. I learned that it doesn't matter whether it's the Gallifrey Convention in LA or Eastercon in London, I will see the familiar (and welcome) hat and form of Robbie Bourget. And I learned how much I'd missed being at a convention, and how much I can't wait to do it all over again.
     To go back to one of Paul's original questions, I don't know if SF fandom will ever become the main fandom hat I wear, but it was certainly fun to try on lots of different forms of headgear over the weekend. Some of them I may wear again, others may be left on the hatstand of 'it seemed like a good idea at the time', but none of them with any sense of regret. My thanks to my fellow convention goers for being warm and welcoming, the Guests of Honour for being accessible and open and friendly, and especially to the Olympus 2012 team for putting on what was, to me, a first rate convention and showing an extraordinary level of care when issues did arise.
     I don't know if I'll make it to Eastercon 2013/2014, but I know I plan to return. I look forward to seeing some of you again the next time round.'

Thanks, Ash (who is on Twitter as @ravenevermore).  And finally this week, let's turn to Sarah Groenewegen...

'Olympus was my first Eastercon. In fact, it was my first SF con in a long, long time. When Paul asked me about my expectations, my response was basically about the social aspects. I knew some people who were going, so my expectation was to meet up with some old friends. I also expected to meet some new people and perhaps become friends with them. The bar, I assumed, would be a focal point, but the programme also intrigued me.
     Olympus delivered. I did catch up with some old mates, and very quickly got chatting to people I'd not met before. My favourite conversations were about Australia in the 1950s - reminiscences of a RAF fellow who'd been stationed in Victoria; riffing about a women only generation starship; and catching up with the AU world. Back when I was a young fan, I wrote what's now called AU. Got them published in fanzines in a time when the Internet was mostly US military tech. I'm fairly up with tech, but that's a vibrant, amazing space I had utterly lost track with. It was great to get a glimpse of what's happening there, and where those spaces are online.
     The programme was ambitious, and at most hours of the day and evening there was something of interest. My Saturday was delightfully feminist - and the Gender Parity panel ended up being passionate and constructive. One of my favourites, actually, of an impressive array of panels I enjoyed. Other panels I chose because of their focus on writing and each one was useful. I realise I was lucky in that the panels I went to were mostly great and with great speakers - both women and men - who knew their stuff, and were interesting, and were respectful of their fellow panellists.
     I enjoyed the experience that much, I signed up for the next one when the winning bid was announced.'

That's great to hear, Sarah.  (Who's on Twitter as @Nyssa1968 and who can be found here. Next week, we'll be catching up with the other two interviewees.

My favourite music this week comes from The Duckworth Lewis Method, to mark my joy at the start of the English cricket season. This lot are Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy and Thomas Walsh from the band Pugwash doing cricket-related songs, and they are glorious.



I may be seeing some of you at a soiree in London tonight to mark the centenary of Bram Stoker's death, and then at SWALC on Saturday.  Until then, Cheerio!