Convention Review

The 2024 Glasgow Worldcon

The 82nd World Science Fiction Convention
8th – 12th August, Scottish Event Campus, Glasgow.
Tim Atkinson reports on his first Worldcon to give
his initial impressions of the community.

Attending this year’s Worldcon in Glasgow (8-12 August, I made it for the middle three days) was a big deal for me. As a first-timer - and solo at that – I knew I needed a strategy.

As a tabletop gamer and environmental activist of many years standing, this wasn’t my first time turning up to a large building populated by strangers with hats, beards and a certain personal flamboyance.

But Worldcon was different – a nearly entire Scottish Event Campus with 7,081 in-person attendees and a little over 600 watching online; a mix of sub-cultural gathering, international literary festival and hard-nosed networking opportunity. In the face of this, being a mere spectator was not an option conducive to my own sanity.

I swiftly decided the odds of me penetrating the mass of interlocking networks, friendships and 'Vonnegut-style karasses' (a group linked by the cosmologically significant) that made up the heart of Worldcon were next to zero. So, instead, I made the best use of my position at the margins: I worked the heck out of the formal programme, made myself useful as a Discord volunteer for several panels (to help those registered for the convention online), explored, people-watched, investigated the stalls, exhibitions and the vast dealers hall, checked the vibe. I even met a few fellow lone explorers like me to compare notes.

Glasgow's industrial heritage crane, outside the Worldcon venue.

And so had a very good time indeed! It was enough to confirm my sense that that there was a tremendously rich community here, with a lot of time going into events like Worldcon which maintain, nurture and renew it.

The dealers hall wall had tentacles.

The emphasis on renewal here is crucial – the number of young people there was really heartening, as was the explicit emphasis on celebrating the diversity of the fannish movement. Guests like the Three Black Halflings podcasters (two of whom along with other guests improvised their way through a very funny tabletop D&D game on stage on Friday night) were a great addition to the programme.

With a couple of exceptions, I managed to get into all the sessions I aimed for. A few (such as a panel on Government featuring Arkady Martine) were oversubscribed for the rooms they were assigned to, but getting that right all the time is an impossible task.

And even in those situations it was easy enough to pivot to an alternative, given that the number of sessions running at the same time. There were more than 900 to choose from over the course of the event, with strong scientific and academic tracks alongside more accessible subjects such as table-top role-playing and parenting within fandom.

Here are my personal highlights (which should give you a flavour of the content):

Readings: one of the reasons I came to Worldcon was to see some of my favourite authors read from their work. Doing a reading well is a performance art and John Scalzi and Charles Stross did not disappoint.

Solarpunk: this is a term coined by Brazilian Gerson Lodi-Ribero in 2012 and then translated by Fabio Fernandes in 2018. It is now the title of an anthology Francesco Verso (who was on the panel) has edited of near-future SF. The term continues the fight of cyberpunk but with progressive solutions to current technology problems. This programme item this ticked many boxes for me – literary responses to the climate crisis, technology, politics and the relationship between SFF and action. Interesting to hear Francesco Verso, whose The Roamers I’d previously reviewed on SF² Concatenation, speak very articulately about the importance of a solarpunk literature and politics which included the Global South.

Writing diasporas in SFF: featuring writers who were all members of different diaspora communities, this included some powerful reflections on authenticity and ‘writing your culture’ while still retaining the space for self-expression, and how all of this manifested when diaspora authors wrote (say) secondary world fantasy or generation starships.

The Aldiss Award: being in the room when a new world-building award in honour of Brian Aldiss and his work on Helliconia was announced by his son Tim.

The Award is supported by the BSFA, BFS and UKIE (the UK Interactive Entertainment Association), the award covers fiction, video games, tabletop role-playing-games and more.

I did get to see some of the Guests of Honour in action – hearing Ken McLeod discuss Scottish independence was very much wind him up and let him go – other GoHs included writers Nnedi Okorafor and Terri Windling, artist Chris Baker/Fangorn and fans Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer.

It was an immense relief to all that the Hugo Awards took place with no further controversy after votes had been ruled out by the administrators a month beforehand, not to mention last year’s debacle.

A botched pre-record from one of the presenters was the only challenge on the night, swiftly overcome by a little improvisation.

Tim Atkinson

Tim Atkinson is a regular book reviewer for SF² Concatenation. A lifetime reader of SFF, in real life he is a campaigner for a health charity, an environmental activist, tabletop gamer and tired dad. You can find him online at twitter.com/magpiemoth.

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