October - Octocon report, my Panel on Dragons, and Unseen University

Edit: free SF book! Octocon is the Irish National SF&F Convention and this year is the lead in to Dublin’s WorldCon in 2019. I’m a panel member of the Dragon Panel on Saturday 20th; from the draft schedule:
A Breath of Fire: Everything is Better with Dragons - Saturday 11am – 12pm.
Is there anything that can’t be made better with dragons? Our panellists discuss the popularity of dragons. Why do they feature in so many different mythologies, what are the best recent depictions, and how do they fly anyway?
Panellists: Diane Duane, Peter Morwood, Catherine Sharp (moderator), Clare O'Beara, Gerry McEvoy.

I’m also representing Fresh Fiction, and below is my report for Fresh Fiction on the 2017 Octocon.

Recently I attended a special Terry Pratchett talk as part of Culture Night in the Trinity College Long Room Hub. The Librarian, who enjoyed showing an orang-utan image, told us about Trinity’s enormous and varied Pratchett collection; I’ll describe it next month.

Octocon 2017

The Irish National Science Fiction Convention was held at Camden Court Hotel in Dublin in October 2017. I attended to represent Fresh Fiction. Areas included a dealer room and panel rooms, signing and photo opportunities (with no fees), boardgames, RPGs and socialising. The theme was the Dune novels, so rooms were named after planets such as Arrakis or Caladan. In the dealer room I found fascinating arts and crafts, comics, books from independent authors and a stand from the sponsor Hodges Figgis. Chatting with the staff I learned that HF is the oldest bookstore in Ireland. That week they had a special window display to promote Octocon and its author guests.

Octocon got off to a flying start with the panel on Future Fashions. Joint Guest Of Honour Nik Vincent-Abnett is a game writer and novelist from England. She asked for developments to make clothing useful, for instance interacting with home heating. Panellists agreed that clothes could be attuned to the needs of diabetics, or display in accordance with mood hormones and could have circuits embedded. Printed circuits may react with medical procedures such as an MRI scanner; but wearable tech is removable. Clothes could have inbuilt SPF to protect against sunburn. Nik asked for equal clothing rights in videogames. She complained that women characters get given chainmail bikinis while men are in full armour. She has worked in game devops and says it is all male oriented.

Deirdre Thornton suggested three-d printed clothes could be on the way. Designers could make the designs available to be purchased. Other comments included that in books or film, clothing styles can be political or military and uniforms can be imposed.

In a post-apocalyptic world, though, natural fibres would be needed. Nettles and flax were staple fibres of the Irish clothing industry, said Deirdre, who has a degree in history. Clothes makers would be highly valued and cloth might be rationed. Society passed making and mending skills from mother to daughter, so single men would be at a disadvantage. With today’s tendency to treat clothes as disposable and their manufacture harming the environment, mending skills are being lost. The panel agreed that people always want variety, and advertising on their clothes could go to extremes. I asked about RFIDs in clothing allowing marketers to follow the customers around. The panel agreed that privacy issues need to be revisited.

Monsters or Aliens was another panel I attended. Author Jo Zebedee has written about aliens invading Belfast and destroying a lot of the city. Allen Stroud has a PhD in monsters in F&SF. He said that the dragon is an apex predator, showing that we cannot domesticate everything. Urban fantasy challenges archetypes with new softer, sparklier vampires. The panel said that monsters which are close to humans are creepier than those which are animal forms. They also agreed that monsters won’t obliterate all life on the planet, since they live here too, but aliens might decide they wanted a different kind of atmosphere. Jo thought that aliens come down to archetypes of the big lizards or green men variety too often.

Taking SF to other worlds allows writers a chance to create a relatable rationalised world which is different to our experience. We may also see our own world through an alien’s viewpoint. I asked about the alien as allegory, because that is what I am writing. Jo agreed that her writing allowed her to shine a new light on Northern Ireland. Allen felt that allegory can be very powerful and cited the TV series Alien Nation.

Another panel called The Robot Will See You Now looked at medicine. Oisin McGann YA author, wants to see smart devices added to wheelchairs, and chatbots to interact with people with dementia. Carol Connolly, author, said robots had better not be like our phones, continually trying to sell her upgrades. Automation and old age are both expanding, but new tech requires constant upskilling and it would be harder for older users to adapt to frequent changes. Carol said while a robot to chat to a person with dementia is not ideal, it would give the person company and it would not get bored or annoyed. Robot diagnostics are constantly improving and don’t get tired or have biases. Oisín said a hospital diagnosis form he saw now includes ‘Have you been in space?’ as a valid query about bone density loss. Concerns were raised about hacking medical devices like a pacemaker or insulin pump. The Internet of Things has poor security.

How far can we travel? Was the subject of another panel. Peter Morwood explained that when we leave Earth we are towing all the resources we are going to have. So a sustainable human expedition needs a big caravan of supplies. We could capture an asteroid, hollow it and make it into a spaceship, cannibalising it for resources. The panel asked if we have the right to just take what we need, colonise or threaten others? The Outer Space Treaty was cited, which says that no nation can own a celestial body but it can go to a body and extract resources. The panel agreed that ethical arguments may be made but people will always justify their actions.

Spacefaring humans could outlive Planet Earth in multigenerational ships or colonies but due to the expansion of the universe, if two ships head off in opposite directions, eventually they will never be able to talk to each another again. The concept of space Mongol Hordes versus space Federations was discussed. Resettlement was seen as likely to occur in response to population pressure or need for workers.

I particularly enjoyed Michael Carroll’s solo talk as a Comics Writer, for Judge Dredd and superheroes. Using a slideshow he explained the business of writing, which mainly consists of sitting down, cancelling distractions and getting on with it. He said that 99% of the world’s writing money probably goes to 1% of writers. However, it’s a big market and has never been bigger. “People will forget what you told them, even what you did for them, but not how you made them feel,” he quoted.

Research, fascinating and necessary, is capable of slowing down the writer and stopping the forward motion of the story. For this reason, Michael advised getting the first draft down and coming back later to make the prose perfect and do the research. If you don’t know what kind of submarine to describe, use square brackets around [submarine] so later you can do a search for [ and find anything that needs data. He also advised that this can stop you getting stuck when the writer doesn’t know how the characters get out of a situation. Write [they get out of trap] and proceed.

The party on Saturday night was lively as ever with many comic-book characters as well as sparkly dancers. The décor and music of course were chosen to suit, and after Thriller (when I pretended to be scared by a bat hanging down from the ceiling) we enjoyed Thunderstruck which gave Thor a chance to show off his hammer.

On Sunday I attended the Couples Who Write panel. Last year’s GOHs Diane Duane and Peter Morwood, who live in Wicklow, swapped experiences with this year’s GOHs Nik and Dan Abnett. Diane said their first collaboration was a Star Trek novel which they wrote on honeymoon because Diane had contracted for it and only had sixteen days to write it. The Romulan Way spent eight weeks on the NYT bestseller list.

Dan said that writing is very solitary, but collaboration involves handing packets of work back and forth and discussing it. Getting into computer games means more human interaction as he visits game studios and sees the game developing. Working as a couple, you understand each other’s ideas and thought processes, but working with other people can slow you down. Both pairs found a director can take it for granted that the man is the senior partner, when it varies with individual experience. Both women take care of the business end of the process. They take joint responsibility for any criticism.

As freelancers, the Abnetts could not refuse work, part of why they collaborate. They have individually preferred areas. Dan wrote comics for ten years, including Doctor Who, before novels; comics are famously unagented. In comics, he said that reboots of characters happened every six years, because that is the lifetime of the new young comic reader. Now the couple are writing novelisations for Torchwood, a BBC series. Diane and Peter each write separate novel series.

Dan and Nik recalled one year when they were so rushed, they had six days off including Christmas. They decided not to do that again. Dan learned seven years ago that he had epilepsy, meaning overwork and stress is out. They get out of the house and take breaks. Diane and Peter schedule breaks once a month for travel, cooking, website work and Cons. At Cons, they like to get out of the hotel and explore the city.

I greatly enjoyed meeting old friends and making new ones. Some visitors brought short films they had produced to the international Golden Blasters Awards. The audience watched these films and voted for their favourite, and the panel of judges decided all the other awards. This year the winner on both accounts was a Spanish film called Einstein-Rosen, a charming story of a little boy who discovers a wormhole, to his brother’s astonishment. Other popular films included Dead Air about an Irish local radio station still broadcasting after the zombie apocalypse, and Made of Meat, about two aliens visiting Earth who can’t imagine how the natives communicate, given their obvious shortcomings. A special award was made to Dan Abnett for his creative achievements.

The supported charity was Seal Rescue Ireland so everyone had a chance to learn about risks to the seals around Irish coasts. With the WorldCon 2019 on its way to Dublin, the mood was very good and the hard working Octocon team deserve many thanks.
Edit:
To celebrate Octocon, I have made a book free in my SF series.


Dining Out On Planet Mercury
Free during Octocon! Grab it 19th - 22nd October.
And folks, I would really appreciate a review, even a couple of words.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dining-Plane...

https://www.amazon.com/Dining-Planet-...

DEATH IN KENSINGTON
When a girl from Mercury is suspected of murder, the police need Irish journalist and hacker Donal as interpreter.
CRAMMED IN TO CRICKLEWOOD
Off-world workers are being exploited in more ways than one.
LAST MINUTE ELECTION ROW
With a British Parliamentary election under way, the police need to keep fear and suspicion from getting out of hand.
DESPERATE MEASURES IN AUSSIE DROUGHT
At such times, not even London’s Eye reporters are safe. Can Donal and his Jafraican colleague Myron uncover the truth?