Convention Review

On Not Being There
Some Scattered Digital Impressions
of the 2024 Worldcon

The 82nd World Science Fiction Convention
8th – 12th August, Scottish Event Campus, Glasgow.
Not everyone had attending memberships
over 600 attended virtually (6% of registrants)
including Steven French who reports on his digital experience
which complements Mark Yon's virtual experience.

Introduction
This was my first ever Worldcon, so in my enthusiasm I registered early, booked my hotel immediately it became available and then was just about to buy train tickets to Glasgow when … stuff happened.  When I realised that I was no longer able to attend in person, I asked the organisers for a refund (which they very kindly granted) and joined the 617 others participating on-line, amounting to around 6% of the total attendees. According to the Glasgow Worldcon website (as viewed at the end of the convention), and reported in SF² Concatenation's autumnal edition 9,872 people in total were registered, with 7,081 badges reportedly issued at the venue.

Disappointed as I was over not actually being there, going digital does come with certain advantages, of course. There’s a greatly reduced risk of catching CoVID (apparently there were some cases) or the infamous con-crud, for one thing, as well as no obtrusive security (except for the dog, hoping for a snack), plus tea and meals on hand instead of having to forage for expensive food and drinks… But of course, virtual reality is precisely that, virtual!

Still, despite the odd hiccup, the tech worked pretty well overall, with Ring Central providing on-line video access to the panels, interviews, ceremonies etc., and Discord used for chat, both general, covering such important topics as where to buy haggis pakoras, and specific, with threads associated with particular events, such as the business meeting and particular panels… of which there were many.

The Programme Guide listed 957 event items in total, so accessing the list on-line was definitely easier on the forearms (and I have to be honest – I’ve long since become accustomed to PDFs rather than paper copies of books, papers, newsletters, whatever, although I appreciate that not everyone feels the same way), plus not only could you select events by location or format, you could also pick out all those involving a particular author, say. And once you’d tagged those you were interested in, it was straightforward to set up your own personal schedule, with links and QR codes to share with your other devices.

Tech Talk
The video quality was generally fine, with only a few stutters and although the sound was a little on the quiet side here and there, generally speaking it was nice and clear. What was disappointing, however, was just how many events were not accessible on-line. Although I can understand how some participants might have been reluctant to have their contributions live-streamed and recorded, the issue of accessibility, for those who can’t be there in-person, for whatever reason, medical or otherwise, should loom large in convention planning. Indeed, arguably it should take precedence over other considerations, unless there is some overwhelming countervailing reason. As it was, by my count only 252 events were streamed, representing 26% of the total (I asked the Press Office for details but they never got back to me); however, according to the convention report in Locus, there were 789 in-person sessions, 79 online only, 89 hybrid and 152 of the in-person and 71 of the hybrid events were streamed.

As for Discord, this has been around for almost ten years and originating as it does in the gaming community, it should now be familiar to many SFF folk. Glasgow 2024 had 72 channels set up, ranging from those associated with certain fannish activities such as gaming and filk, to those tied to specific rooms at the Scottish Event Campus, where you could chat about what was happening or pose questions to a panel, say, via that particular session’s ‘voice of on-line’. Having said that, some session chairs or panel moderators were more attuned to the presence of on-line folk than others, so the sense of participation varied over the five days.

What follows are some of the highlights of my own ‘personal schedule’, covering panels, author interviews and, surprising perhaps, for anyone who knows me, the Masquerade.

Panels: From Shakespeare to Sounds of the Future One of the more practically effective panels was on 'Online Writers' Communities and Critique Group's, in which David Goodman and Nicholas Binge, two authors who are involved in various writing groups, offered useful advice about starting, joining and, importantly, leaving such groups. As they emphasised, ‘if it’s not working for you, just walk away’ (words that are applicable to many life-situations).

Another discussion that was not only insightful but also, surprisingly perhaps, very accessible was 'All the Shakespeare: The Bard’s Influence on SFF' with Dave Klecha (moderator), Em X. Liu, Ian Nichols, Sharon Emmerichs and Verity Allan. Kicking off with Pratchett’s Lords and Ladies as a retelling of Midsummer’s Night Dream, who could not find themselves captivated by the discussion of the Klingon version of Hamlet, in which Shakespeare’s tragedy becomes a fable about rightfully reclaiming one’s place in Klingon society?!

Equally fun and fascinating was the panel on 'Soundtracks of Space and Time', with Anna Smith Spark, Dr Anne-Marie Czajkowski, Russell Smith, Sarah Pinsker and Tej Turner. This offered an interesting set of exchanges about music for writing to, with Spark telling us how she would hammer away at the keyboard with one finger in time to a beat and Pinsker noting that sometimes you just have to invent your own tunes, as she did for her Hugo Award winning short story, ‘Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather’. Unfortunately, this was one of those where there was no Discord input so The Great On-line Masses remained voiceless.

Music was likewise the theme of ‘The Sounds of Futures Past: Speculative Sound Design’, from the 'Futures in Creative Practice' session, by Drake Andersen, writer, composer and, crucially, sound designer. This was one of the most engaging talks of the whole convention, with lots of sonic examples, including a scene from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in which the combination of traditional music and spacecraft sounds is used to brilliant effect in order to underpin the tension between tradition and modernity in the movie. However, Andersen also went further, exploring the way in which, by using sound, we project our own experiences into representations of the future and concluding with the fundamental question: exactly whose future is being sounded?

Music from the Masquerade
It was a musical interlude that also provided one of the more surprising discoveries of the convention: I’m not really into cosplay or costume design (although I can certainly appreciate the skills involved) but with so many sessions sadly not accessible on the Saturday evening, I decided to tune in to the Masquerade. And while the judges were deliberating between the likes of Sabine Furlong’s wonderful ‘My Star Trek Activity Book’ and Holly Swinyard dressed as Terry Pratchett’s Moist von Lipwig (awarded Best in Show), Ada Palmer’s filk group Sassasfrass sang some of their acapella Norse saga based folk songs. They were so good and so clever, I promptly downloaded the album (available here).

More Panels: On the Interplay Between Science and Fiction
Of the other sessions, two in particular stood out which dealt with the relationship between science and fiction in SFF. In More Fiction Than Science', Barry Tilton, Jack Glassman, Liat Shahar Kashtan, T. J. Berg and Z. K. Abraham threw out the usual examples of ‘fake’ science, such as Star Trek’s infamous ‘inertial dampeners’, Snowpiercer’s apple trees and all the films and TV shows that include medical tests that implausibly require only one drop of blood. But the discussion also covered the conflation of the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics with multiverse cosmology and the myriad problems with visual presentations of spaceships turning (an example of ‘Warner Brothers physics’!). It ended with a firm prediction, that ‘ dark energy’ would be the device of choice in the next generation of movies.

That contrasted nicely with 'Has Science Ruined SF?' featuring Alastair Reynolds, Emma Johanna Puranen, Helen Pennington, Jason Harley and Miguel Mitchell, who all resoundingly answered ‘No!’. This generated another wide-ranging debate covering various topics from the creation of Frankenstein to the possibility of moon colonies, with the role of science in SF in general held up to critical scrutiny. Interestingly, in the question period someone asked, “Has politics ruined SF?” As was noted in response, Charles Stross has repeatedly pointed out how much harder it is to write dystopian fiction in these dark times.

Interviews and Memorials
There were also several sessions focussed on individual authors, including interviews with Guests of Honour Ken Macleod (with Niall Harrison). The former told us how publishers couldn’t categorise her early work, as African SF was simply not recognised back then, but now she is a publisher herself, she is looking for that African ‘voice’ that is ready to take a risk. Sadly, this was another case where there was no engagement with those of us hanging out on the Discord channel.

Macleod, in his session, emphasised that SF is, of course, intrinsically political and allows him to develop ideas that would be difficult to explore in mainstream fiction. Reminiscing, he recalled how he was prompted to write his first novel, Star Fraction, by his friend Iain Banks, who was the focus of the panel, 'Iain Banks: Between Genre and the Mainstream' with Farah Mendlesohn (moderator), Ken Macleod, Nick Hubble, Paul Kincaid and Ruth O’Reilly. Peppered with anecdotes from Macleod again – including a story about how someone became outraged at Iain M cashing in on the popularity of the other Iain – this was an often poignant tribute to a great author, with Kincaid emphasising the degree to which Banks’ SF and non-genre works informed each other.

The relationship between so-called ‘literary’ and genre fiction was also explored in the 'Christopher Priest Memorial', which included Alastair Reynolds, Lisa Tuttle, Matt Hill, Nina Allan, Paul Kincaid, again, and Wendy Aldiss. And here it was noted that Priest’s legacy is secured in the continued conversation of the SFF community, and beyond, with his work.

And Finally, the Awards…
And, of course, there were the award ceremonies, including the Nommo Awards, which recognise works of speculative fiction by Africans (and which operate with admirably inclusive definitions of both ‘speculative’ and ‘African’). Wole Talabi won Best Novel for Shigdi and the Brass Head of Obalufon and promptly announced that he was permanently withdrawing from the awards to make space for others. In such situations, one should “Drink and drop the cup” as he nicely put it.

Also, in a session that combined a new award announcement with remembering another of our finest writers, 'The Aldiss Award for World Building in SF and Fantasy 'was launched, sponsored by the British Science Fiction Association, the British Fantasy Society and UK Interactive Entertainment. The aim of encouraging depth in world-building was emphasised with the Helliconia trilogy given as a prime example, for which Brian Aldiss had interacted with academics at Oxford to get the details right.

Finally, there came the Hugo ceremony, in all its glitchy glory. This has already been covered extensively, so, again, I’ll just mention my personal highlights.

Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith, won Best Related Work for their book, A City on Mars and expressed their concern that they might have upset SF fans with it but that they felt they had to follow the truth, which is, bluntly, that it is a lot harder to colonise Mars than certain billionaires seem to think! Best Novella went to Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon), who came on stage in an impressive hat and gave an equally impressive speech about a small creature who does an overlooked job, namely the Noble Sea Cucumber… who turns out to be crucial to ecosystems (who knew?!) and are inhabited by mating pearl fish (say what now?), who eat their innards. But some sea cucumbers have anal teeth (oh god …!) and if she has to live her life with that image in her head so do all the rest of us (gee thanks!). And finally, finally, Best Novel was awarded to Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh, who looked shocked and said she might just quote the birthday speech from LoTR and then run away pretending to be invisible but then decided that maybe she’ll do that next time because you can only win the Hugo for the first time once and should take it seriously… So she expressed her hope that her book would not be proved right as it was inspired by the worst of what is happening today and she urged everyone to imagine the best we can be and achieve and act, to support victims of war in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan and victims of recent racist riots and transphobia and to prove her wrong!  Which seemed a fittingly strident end to the proceedings.

Conclusion
Although I enjoyed participating from afar, and definitely appreciated not having to run along corridors from one session to another, or having to queue up for the more popular ones, I did miss the ‘physicality’ of it all. There is something (a lot) to be said for being able to just wander around, taking a gander at whatever takes your fancy and, if you’re sociably inclined, stopping to chat with other attendees. I was frustrated by not being able to view the various exhibits or, especially, by not being given access to any of the 'coffee klatches' with assorted authors. And finally, I do think that if Worldcon organisers are serious about accessibility, they're going to have to up their game, where that means, in addition to such measures as wheelchair ramps, of course, and captioning for those with hearing loss (for all events please!), better online support (again, across the entire programme) – which shouldn't be that hard, really, since, after all, we have the technology!

Steven French

Steven French is one of SF2 Concatenation’s many book reviewers. In a previous life he was an academic who started off in physics and ended up in the history and philosophy of science. He has been a SFF fan for over fifty years and every now and again one of his own stories breaks free and finds a home in some obscure niche of the internet.

Other coverage of the 2024 Glasgow Worldcon, elsewhere on this site, includes:
  - There's just one bid for the 2024 Worldcon – Great Britain
  - Britain's 2024 Worldcon bid has been formally launched
  - Glasgow is the proposed venue for Britain's 2024 Worldcon bid
  - The Glasgow bid is still on but overcrowding is not being addressed
  - Glasgow is still the sole bid for the 2024 Worldcon
  - Glasgow 2024 is now officially an unopposed Worldcon bid
  - Glasgow wins the site selection vote for the 2024 Worldcon
  - Fake 2022 and 2024 Worldcon merch on sale
  - What special Hugo Award category for 2024? (Editorial)
  - Glasgow Progress Report 1 now out
  - There's a need for WSFS governance motions at the 2024 business meeting. (Editorial)
  - Glasgow Progress Report 2 now out
  - Glasgow delays virtual membership price rise
  - Glasgow's one-year countdown announcement
  - Are Worldcons becoming unfannish: Glasgow ignores WSFS rules. (Editorial)
  - Glasgow replies to SMOF questionnaire
  - Glasgow releases disease mitigation policy
  - Glasgow has new guest – T. (Tendai) L. Huchu
  - Worldcon publications policy. (Standalone article)
  - WSFS desperately needs an overhaul at Glasgow 2024. (Editorial)
  - Scotland's Astronomer Royal Glasgow's virtual guest
  - Glasgow Progress Report 4 now out
  - Glasgow 2024 has new registration rates
  - Glasgow Chair effectively confirms abandonment of WSFS publication rules
  - Mark Yon's virtual Glasgow Worldcon report
  - Tim Atkinson's physical Glasgow Worldcon report
  - Worldcon publications policy
  - Glasgow: An introduction for visiting SF folk
  - The 2024 Glasgow Worldcon has been held
  - The Glasgow Worldcon Science Programme
  - The Glasgow Worldcon Business Meeting

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