From time to time this column has referred to SF conventions in an oblique sort of way, rather as Hitler might have let fall the odd comment about Auschwitz. A few faithful readers who haven't actually attended such an event may have picked up the idea that these conventions (cons, for short) involve people sitting in orderly rows to hear lectures on science fiction. This view has a certain measure of truth, as does Hugo Gernsback's famous delusion that science fiction is fiction all about Science; at the same time it's as misleading as those modern commentators who'd like you to believe that Auschwitz wasn't that much different from Butlins in the slack season. To set the record straight, this seventh Fission Fragments has disguised itself as a fifth column working to expose the secrets of British cons....
The obvious example is the annual Eastercon: Yorcon II in Leeds this Easter will be (or was, depending when you read this) the 32nd in the series, not counting five earlier British cons before and during the War, so the pedigree is quite impressive. Eastercons run from Good Friday to Easter Monday – with 100 or more particular enthusiasts turning up on the Thursday night – and are normally held in a largish hotel Taken Over for the duration. One difference from your average business convention is that attendance doesn't cost £50-£100 per day exclusive of hotel bills; this year a mere £6 covers attendance for the entire con, and the hotel offers cheapo room rates in addition. (To use a hotel isn't an invariable tradition, by the way. One legendary Eastercon was held on a college campus, and the general consensus was that by comparison, Auschwitz rated four stars.) Beforehand, the committee arranges a programme of speakers and suchlike in the main con hall, and suitable rooms for book dealers and art exhibits, and – here's another small difference from business conventions – haggles furiously about bar opening hours.
Let us hide the sordid truth no longer. The throbbing core of an Eastercon isn't 100% in the main convention hall where the speakers are, it's in the bar. The first event at most cons is held in the hall with a view to introducing the SF celebrities present: "Where's Bob Shaw! Bob, will you please stand up?" Chorus: "He's in the bar!" "Oh all right, where's Chris Priest? I know he's here somewhere –" Chorus: "He's in the bar!" You get the general idea. The programme continues with talks both serious and silly, with films, debates, panels, quizzes, 'Call My Bluff' games (using strange SF words, of course – quick, what's sebalism?) and other esoterica; people drift in and out, seeing only those items they want to see, and the rest of the time.... Come with me into the bar – and here they all are. There's Bob Shaw holding a pint (he's dieting and confines himself to holding his pints these days, or so he says) and chatting about his new hobby of making stained glass windows; modestly he says nothing about his forthcoming The Ceres Solution (Gollancz, April). There's Chris Priest talking about Status Quo and fending off inquiries as to his forthcoming The Affirmation (a non-SF novel about his 'Dream Archipelago', to be published by Faber) – he rightly believes that books speak for themselves and shouldn't need lots of explanation from the author. Priest's A Dream of Wessex is to be filmed, starting this summer. John Brunner is speaking in several languages on continental conventions (more of them below) and his recently-finished historical novel Steamboats on the River: "even huger than Stand on Zanzibar." Ian Watson is speaking in several more languages – including Japanese, of course – on how his Gardens of Delight has sold to Corgi while a US editor is demanding a rewrite of God's World before publishing it: this comes a bit late in the day, since it's already published by Gollancz over here. Brian Aldiss is, by a private tradition, throwing mouldy pork pies at Harry Harrison. Rob Holdstock is spilling beer and knocking over tables in his eagerness to tell everyone how F&SF have at last bought a story from him (damned good story too, called 'Mythago Wood': watch for it), while some twisted composer has based a symphonetta on his Earthwind.... Garry Kilworth is smoking a huge cigar and being apologetic about the title of his fourth book Gemini God (Faber, summer '82) – it started with a much better title which the publishers didn't like. Hundreds of other writers and fans are about, including even such miserable worms as drunken Langford telling everyone to buy his again-postponed War In 2080 (Sphere, April) and Facts & Fallacies: A Book of Definitive Mistakes and Misguided Predictions (with Chris Morgan; Webb & Bower, June; thanks to Ad Astra readers who helped with this one). In and out wander strange people dressed as five-foot Darth Vaders, rosy-cheeked Spocks or that variety of Martian Princess which doesn't believe in too many clothes: these, though very much in the minority at ordinary SF cons, are of course the ones who get their pictures in the paper and are reported as saying "Gosh wow, it's all just too fantastic," etc.
In the small hours, when and if the bar has closed, the social action shifts to parties in various hotel bedrooms. There is an increase in sebalism (ah, I thought you'd never ask – the word for 'bestial lasciviousness' in Jack Vance's Marune: Alastor 933), whisky flows like water – usually over people's trousers – and the conversation becomes so in discreet as to be unreportable: "You know XXXXX only buys YYYYY's rotten lousy stories because ZZZZZ won't let him ***** if he doesn't?" Let us turn with an immense effort to the people who aren't at your average British con. Michael Moorcock, I gather, thinks fans are puerile: who am I to argue? Keith Roberts (who has some shorts upcoming in F&SF), Edmund Cooper and 'Richard Cowper' aren't con enthusiasts either: I put Cowper in inverted commas since, as you surely know, he's really John Middleton Murry – not the critic JMM but his son, which is why his SF appears under the Cowper name and his two marvellous volumes of autobiography under the name 'Colin Murry'. And certainly Harlan Ellison wouldn't come all this way to tell us how he's being sued (with Comics Journal) by one Michael Fleisher for $2,000,000 – this is because Ellison praised Fleisher in the usual Ellison manner by calling him wonderful, weird, twisted, crazy, nutty, etc., and Fleisher rather ungratefully took the opportunity for publicity and/or profit. And alas, writers Doris Pitkin Buck, H. Warner Munn, Kris Neville and Stephen Tall (real name Compton Crook) will attend no more cons: all died recently.
My picture of an Eastercon may sound idyllic if you like the opportunity for several days of SF conversation, drinking and socializing with several hundred others; if you don't, it won't. Lots of other, smaller events come under the SF label, right down to secret and jealously guarded 'conventions' attended by only a couple of dozen people with no programmed events whatever – a weekend party for fans who already know each other. There are also media-oriented affairs – Star Trek cons probably being the most popular – which tend to be a bit less drunken and a bit more expensive than plain SF cons, since they like to fly in (say) Star Trek actors who, while not necessarily more interesting than SF authors and editors, seem somehow to cost a whole lot more. Other cons centre on films and have virtually nonstop showings; attendees emerge at the end looking like strange cave creatures, all pale and pink-eyed. There are comics-oriented cons of which I know nothing beyond a few horror stories of minimal programming and nothing to do but buy overpriced comics from the rapacious dealers who fill the convention areas (it can't be that bad, surely). And, planned but not yet seen in action, there are the huge multimedia cons Space-Ex 1984 and Project Starcast (1982, described last issue by an unbiased organizer). Both seem relatively pricy, but Starcast organizers point out that you get four simultaneous conventions with four main programmes for your money. The trouble with that, fans reply, is that it's physically impossible to attend more than a quarter of the events you're paying for. Well, we shall see.
Snippets: The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations (new edition) has discovered SF, with bits from Asimov (the laws of robotics), Heinlein (just the title Stranger in a Strange Land!), Clarke, Brunner, Aldiss and more. Most unexpected is Larry Niven's bit: asked at a con "What is the best advice you have ever been given?" he replied, "On my 21st birthday my father said, 'Son, here's a million dollars. Don't lose it.'" ... Greg Benford has instructed Pocket Books (US) not to mention their new 'Timescape' line of books in adverts without plugging his own Timescape, which Pocket will not be issuing as a 'Timescape' book – oh I give up.... Hitch-Hiker won a 1980 UK Radio Award as best 'programme/series for young listeners'.... After protests from guess-who about the term 'sci-fi', Short Stories Magazine promised not to do it again – February issue, p.10. But on p.109 we find: 'Aries 1 (Sci-Fi) ed. John Grant; David & Charles £5.50'.... Savoy Books went bust this year.... The publishers of Isaac Asimov's now plan Science Fiction Digest, which, each issue, will do to three SF novels what Readers' Digest does to formerly interesting articles: readers and authors beware!
Will our hero be stabbed in the back by vengeful SF personalities? Will he escape, only to be captured again by evil galactic overlord James Manning? Wait for the next mind-shattering instalment from ...
DAVID LANGFORD