To Be Fair, I Was Left Unsupervised: A Disjointed Chronicle of 79th World Science Fiction Convention, Discon III – Day Five
By Chris M. Barkley:
DAY FIVE: THE LAST DAY
Sunday, the very last day of Discon III, was a VERY busy day.
Juli and I had finished packing the night before.
I was also up early (again) because I had a 10am panel; “Inspired Or Copied, The Ethics of Art”, featuring artists agent Jane Frank, attorney at law Harold Feld, and authors Keith DeCandido, J.T. Greathouse and myself. As I looked in the program book, I did not see anyone listed as a moderator. Which made me wonder why I was on this panel to begin with. Oh well, I thought…
But first, there were two other issues on my plate that morning. As I got dressed, Juli informed me that I maybe in hot water with our friend, author Jonathan Brazee. Apparently, I misstated his rank in the United States Marine Corps as “Lt. Colonel” instead of his actual rank upon retirement as full Colonel.
If you think the distinction is rather minor, think again. Consider this; my brain fart is the equivalent of mistaking the rock band Nickelback for The Beatles. I have several friends and relatives who have served in the armed services and nothing upsets them more than civilians like myself getting aspects of their lives dead wrong. So, I got dressed, dreading the prospect of running into the Colonel.
The other thing that caught my attention was a Facebook post by Adam-Troy Castro. In it, Mr. Castro totally eviscerates Jon Del Arroz, a internet provocateur (troll) mostly known for his incredibly egotistical boasts of writing talent and notorious passive-aggressive attacks on progressive writers, women, the LGBTQ community and practically anyone else who casts doubts his on his “greatness”.
Needless to say, I picked up Mr. Castro’s post and spread it all over Facebook (including the DisCon III page) and on my Twitter page with the caption (gleefully borrowed from Game of Thrones): “He who SHOUTS that he is a King, is no king.”
THAT, dear readers, felt very, VERY satisfying.
On my way to my panel, I decided to grab a quick bite of something in the DisCon III Green Room (located just off to the side of the hotel’s main restaurant) to tide me over until I could eat a fuller breakfast. And guess who was there, having coffee with a friend —
USMC Colonel (ret.) Jonathan Brazee
As I started to apologize profusely, he laughed and said that he actually got a kick out of being one of the “luminaries” spotted at the bottom of the first column of this series of DisCon III reports. Totally relieved that I would not be set upon by angry veterans or service members of the armed forces, I grabbed a cup of tea and made my way to my panel. (Subsequently, Col. Brazee contacted me via text and said that no further public apology was necessary but I must disagree. When a mistake of that magnitude is made by a reporter, a correction is not only called for, it’s mandatory as far as I’m concerned.)
As I passed through the lobby, I stopped by the Information Desk for the last newsletter and the traditional hoax parody as well. I also saw that there were several dozen silver colored, Flash Gordon shaped foam rockets on the next table over. Curious, I went over and examined one and saw the red and black label, which is how I found out that the defense contractor Raytheon was an official sponsor of DisCon III. (WHAT? I should have been paying more attention during the con! In my defense, I was unsupervised…)
Raytheon Rocket
Thinking that these would make a nice trinket for my four grandchildren, I grabbed several of them. As I passed by Ellen Datlow, who was seated in the East Promenade eating from the grab and go buffet, I gifted her with one as well. She was very appreciative since this rocket was MUCH lighter than the Short Form Editing Hugo Award she had won yesterday evening.
[Chris Barkley’s report continues after the jump.]
To Be Fair, I Was Left Unsupervised: A Disjointed Chronicle of 79th World Science Fiction Convention, DisCon III — December 17-18, 2021
By Chris M. Barkley:
DAY THREE
After yesterday’s events, I decided to sleep in a bit, until about 9 a.m. Because, you know, Worldcon.
The first bit of news came from Newsletter Number 3, which was published late Thursday evening. The middle column had the BIG news: that the proposal to create a Best Audiobook category had passed muster at the Preliminary Meeting and would be debated at the Main Session on Friday. After my blistering attack on the Business Meeting I feel slightly encouraged. But let’s see what happens next. Watch This Space, as Rachel Maddow intones on a regular basis…
At 10 a.m., I was on the move; today was the day I was going to race around like a whirling dervish and get books signed, come hell or high water!
I dashed down to the Dealers Room eagerly to seek out Mary Robinette Kowal, only to find out her signing session had been rescheduled due to a conflicting panel. So, you may wonder, who else would be crazy enough to get up that early in the morning to sign autographs? Yeah, THIS GUY, fellow Ohioian John Scalzi…
Obligatory John Scalzi Proof Of Life Photo
On my way back to my room, I made a stop at the Press Office. Peter Thomas was there and he informed me that a dozen media reporters had registered and that he did not have a firm number on how many warm bodies were on site, but had heard unofficially form the folks in Registration that the figure may or may not be around 2,500 people. He promised to text me directly if he got any solid information. (As of Friday evening, he did not have any additional information.)
After tempering my disappointment, it was time for breakfast. The weather remained unusually warm with moderate winds and an overcast sky. Our destination was Open City again because our companion Anna, Juli and I were wondering if their breakfast menu was as good as their dinner menu. Readers, we were not disappointed!
Juli had the Chorizo Scramble with an arugula salad, Anna had the California Scramble with a side of fruit. I decided to go big and have the Biscuit (singular!) and Gravy with a Breakfast Burrito. And yes, they serve animal crackers with their tea and coffee!
[Chris Barkley’s report continues after the jump.]
To Be Fair, I Was Left Unsupervised: A Disjointed Chronicle of 79th World Science Fiction Convention, Discon III – December 16-17, 2021
By Chris M. Barkley: There are some days, you just feel LUCKY.
On this fine day, Juli, our friend Anna and I decided to try the Omni’s restaurant for breakfast. After ordering coffee and tea, I suddenly remembered that I had not taken my diabetic meds.
I excused myself and walked back to the elevators. There was a bit of a crowd there so I decided to take the steps up one flight to our room. There are two sets of steps and the convention had posted signs indicating which ones to use going up and which to go down. I went to the right and up the steps.
As I opened the door, I looked down and became very surprised; there on the floor right at the entrance was my convention notebook! Apparently, it dropped out of my pocket as we left our room. I scooped it up and immediately wrote my name and phone number on the inside of the front cover. If I had the cash for a lottery ticket, I would have gotten one today. I was smiling for the rest of the morning…
We were joined at Breakfast by Chicago area super-fan Sandra Levy, who was having a splendid time at Discon III.
Sandra Levy
After breakfast, Juli and I decided to go Vote at the Site Selection area in the Dealer’s Room. Along the way, we encountered Laurie Mann at the Boskone Fan Table, who exhorted us to VOTE!
Laurie Mann
At the Site Selection Desk, Sharon Sbarsky reported that had been a steady stream of fans coming to vote, both yesterday and today.
Sharon Sbarsky (right foreground)
As we wandered through the Dealer’s Room (which I found out later in the day was actually the Omni’s Parking Garage and looks very reminiscent of the sets they used on The Matrix films…) we came across the table of former Worldcon Chair (ConStellation, 1983) and bookseller Mike Walsh.
My eye was immediately drawn to a BIG collection of Krazy Kat comic strip Sunday pages. And when I mean big, I ACTUALLY MEANT GIGANTIC!
Being an ardent fan of George Herrimann, the late creator of the classic comic strip, I was immediately smitten with it. As I frantically wrote out a check to make the purchase, the Best Girlfriend in the World had already whipped out her credit card and gave me a very early Christmas gift. I LOVE you Juli and I thank you for loving my stupid face every day. At 3:00, we checked out the Con Suite, which was located on the 8th floor of the East Wing of the hotel. The food and drink were quite varied and plentiful but due to the pandemic, no one was allowed to eat in the suite. The suite’s balcony was open and a few people at a time did go out to take in the captivating view of Washington D.C.
(Click for larger images)
At 4:00 p.m., we caught up with Hugo Award-winning author Jo Walton (whom we last encountered at the Dublin Airport on the way home) and the Hugo Award winning editor-in chief of Clarkesworld, Neil Clarke. Since I could not bring the many books I’d like to have signed, both happily consented to signing several book plates instead.
Jo Walton
Neil Clarke
(Click for larger images)
Also in the Dealers Room, Dave McCarty introduced me to writer/director Eric Brammer, who is shooting here with a crew for a documentary on Worldcons. He hopes to have either a rough cut or finished version done to show at Chicon 8 next year.
Eric Brammer
Later in the day, Juli and I sat for a while with fan writers and editors Nicki and Richard Lynch, who live about an hour away from D.C. They are longtime attendees of our local Ohio relaxacon Midwestcon and asked about its status for 2022. (It is currently unknown to me.) We were lucky to catch them because they are lovely people (i.e.: baseball fans) and were only attending for the day…
Rich and Nicki Lynch
Nearby, The Hugo Nominee’s reception was in full swing…with The Little Big Band, an ACTUAL swing band!
Little Big Band
In the reception area, constant Filer (and Hugo Nominees) Olav Rokne and his partner Amanda Wakaruk were holding court with Skiffy and Fanty podcast host Shaun Duke.
Amanda Wakaruk and Olav Rokne
Shaun Duke
We had dinner at the Open City restaurant, a delightful eatery located a half a block away from the hotel. Dinner was so delicious that Juli and I agreed that we would make that our destination for breakfast the next day.
As I began writing up the day’s events (and keeping an eye on the Eagles-Chief game on Fox) we tried to find a first run copy of Day One’s Dis ‘N Dat, which featured the first mention of the Site Selection controversy. We examined all the copies we had on hand but they were all the redacted versions.
We eventually surmised that by the time we arrived on Wednesday, ALL of the offending copies had already been rounded up and destroyed.
But anyone who does have an original, is in possession of one of the rarest of all ephemeral artifacts, ground zero of this year’s biggest fannish scandal. I can only imagine seeing it on Antiques Roadshow twenty or thirty years from now…
An Editorial About the WSFS Business Meeting. On the second day of DisCon III, a Preliminary Business Meeting of the World Science Fiction Society was held to confirm the agenda for the Main Business Meeting, which will be held on Friday.
I did not attend the Preliminary Meeting nor do I intend to go to the Main Business Meeting.
The Business Meeting and I became first acquainted in 1999 at Aussiecon 3 and parted bitterly at the Dublin Worldcon in 2019 and I, dear reader, was the plaintiff.
Back on November 22nd, File 770 published a link to Nicholas Whyte’s analysis of the 2021 WSFS Business Meeting’s Hugo Award Study Committee, which, over the past several years, has been charged with recommending rule and category changes to the WSFS Constitution.
What they have done is left a trail of obfuscation, hand-wringing and utter disdain for the proposals that came before them. I should know, I was one of the people doing the proposing.
It was only through the persistence of myself and a dedicated group of supporters and collaborators that any changes have been made at all. They have my undying gratitude for all the time and effort they have put into getting those changes through the arduous process of being ratified.
As many of you regular readers may know, I was one of the main proponents of the Young Adult Book Award, now known as the Lodestar Award.
And, as one of the more recent additions to the WSFS Constitution, the Lodestar Award is up for re-ratification this year. I support its continuation, even though I, and many other people, would prefer it be recognized as a full-fledged Hugo Award category, as it was originally intended.
Reading Nicholas Wyhte’s comments on this year’s Business Meeting agenda stirred up some strong feelings within me.
Specifically, I have found that many times, the proposals that had been made and debated online in advance of the Business Meeting, most egregiously in the case of the Young Adult Book Award, there were motions to delay debate on or outright reject proposals with BM sanctioned committees, like the Hugo Award Study Committee mentioned by Mr. Whyte, for the sole purpose of obstructing and eventually killing any possibilities for new award categories.
There have been arguments that any new award proposals should be accompanied by evidence or statistics that would support a new award. The people making these objections claim they are doing so to protect the integrity of the Hugo Awards but know that such evidence is either hard to collect or nearly impossible to produce.
As any mathematician worth their salt will tell you that a negative cannot be proven. The only appropriate way to see if a proposal is viable is to persuade a Worldcon committee to use its special award privilege as specified in the WSFS Constitution:
3.3.19: Additional Category. Not more than one special category may be created by the current Worldcon Committee with nomination and voting to be the same as for the permanent categories. The Worldcon Committee is not required to create any such category; such action by a Worldcon Committee should be under exceptional circumstances only; and the special category created by one Worldcon Committee shall not be binding on following Committees. Awards created under this paragraph shall be considered to be Hugo Awards.
In the past decade, the members of the Business Meeting have taken very swift action on some issues when there has been a consensus that something needed to be done.
Per wit; the Fancast Award and Best Series Award were fast tracked through the process without too much resistance and legislation was quickly passed and ratified during the Angry/Sad/Rabid Puppy Crisis to deter a rash of slated voting.
In the meantime, the Young Adult Book Hugo Award proposal languished in committees and discussion groups as they argued over the worthiness of honoring a branch of literature that the Locus and Nebula Awards have no problem honoring previously for many years.
The Lodestar Award, sans it’s Hugo Award status, finally debuted in 2018.
As I have argued over the past twenty one years, the Hugo Awards NEED to evolve and change with the times lest they become irrelevant and obsolete in our cultural landscape. And when I say change, which includes the categories I had a hand in creating, the Long and Short Form Best Dramatic Presentation, Short and Long Form Editing and Best Graphic Story or Comic (which, upon further reflection, NEEDS the term Manga added to the title to expand and clarify the category’s reach).
In examining its record over the past few years, I too have concluded that the Hugo Award Study Committee has been a dismal failure, having accomplished nothing except squelching debate on new categories and delaying vitally needed reforms for a whole host of issues, including categories I mentioned above and the Best Fan and Professional Artist categories as well.
As Mr. Whyte mentioned in his blog post, the Lodestar Award is up for a final ratification for a permanent spot on the Hugo Awards ballot. I have every expectation that it will be ratified, seeing that it has more than proved its worthiness having averaged well over 500 nominating ballots over the past four years.
I am also of the opinion that if the Lodestar Award were struck down by the Business Meeting, it would not only be a black eye for the fannish community and it would also invite a backlash from the wider Young Adult readers around the world.
The other measure up for re-ratification is the Best Series Award; I expect that it too, will be a permanent fixture on the ballot, at least until the literary quality of the series being nominated falls off.
The move to limit a television or a streaming series to a single nomination (instead of the current limit of two) is probably a mistake because it will restrict the voting for two connected, serialized episodes, which I think would be profoundly unfair. The only upside I can see is that more people will start nominating an entire mini-series or a season of a series in the BDP Long Form category, something that I have been advocating people to do, even at the expense of some of the longer eligible films.
The solution to this particular conundrum would be to redefine the Best Dramatic Presentation into Best Series and Best Film categories, with a third category for very short items of under one hour’s running time. (This solution was actually submitted to the Business Meeting by myself and Vincent Docherty way back in 2015 when we were both members of another “Hugo Award Committee”. It was summarily dismissed and subsequently ignored.)
While I enthusiastically support the idea of a Best Audio Book award, I am afraid that it will either be voted down not to be considered or, if they’re lucky, relegated to a study committee where it will either be hashed around for several years or ignored and discarded.
I have a word of advice to Michele Cobb and Nicole Morano, the fans who proposed the Best Audio Book Award. The only way to advance your idea is to show up with enough supporters to advance your amendment past the Preliminary Meeting to get to the Main Meeting and hope for some spirited debate between yourself and them.
If you fail, my advice to you is to be PERSISTENT. Show up and keep showing up.
If not this year, then next year and the year after that. Wear them down until they actually listen to you. Persuade people. Build coalitions. Spread the word. Build a groundswell of support among fans of audio books.
And, if you love your idea and believe in it, do not retreat and never, ever, surrender to the naysayers.
The day started out as pretty dreary to fly out of Cincinnati. The morning was punctuated by heavy rain showers and overcast skies. But, as the morning progressed, the skies cleared from the west and the sun revealed itself in full splendor.
My partner Juli and I received our first bit of DisCon III news just before we boarded our plane. Kevin Standlee reported on the geographic distribution of the 2023 Site Selection ballots in advance of the end of voting on Friday. The fact that this dispatch reflected that the Chengdu bid was projected to win in a landslide caused a HUGE kerfuffle online and at DisCon III. So much so that the upper management of DisCon III, asked that the post be removed and/or redacted online. And shortly thereafter, it was.
I must note here that Kevin Standlee has been a very good friend of mine over the past twenty plus years and that my heart goes out to him. But I fear that he has done the Worldcon and the Site Selection process a great disservice by his actions.
This development came on the heels of an editorial published Tuesday on File 770 by the distinguished UK fan Colin Harris, who suggested that if the bid from Chengdu did win that the fan community should take a deep breath and accept the results of the election.
I have heard a great many good things about the members of Chengdu bid, in the earnest efforts to become a part of the worldwide community of fandom and their work towards winning the 2023 bid. I applaud their efforts, but I must say that my only fear, along with many others, is not any racial animus towards Chinese fans but that the authoritarian government of the People’s Republic of China may interfere with the convention committee, its members and its programming.
(Thursday morning addendum: Kevin Standlee has been removed as the Chair of WSFS Business Meeting and also been fired as an advisor from 2023 Winnipeg bid for in an announcement on the JOF Facebook page, “acting without consulting the bid’s senior management”. )
Well, counting Wednesday, there are three more days of voting to go. As NBC’s statistical analyst (and khaki pants advocate) Steve Kornacki will tell you, the early vote may be in but all of the precincts have yet to be heard from and that it’s still anyone’s race. We’ll find out for sure by late Friday night or very early Saturday morning. Watch This Space.
The flight was smooth and the landing was only slightly terrifying. Being seated on the left side of the plane, Juli and I were treated to a 45 second tour of all of the classic tourist sights anyone could want; the Capitol Building, the National Mall, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials AND the Watergate apartment and business complex. So much for sightseeing!
A Brief Glimpse of the Washington Monument
As we were strolling through National Airport in search of the taxi station, we spied a cute CNBC kiosk. We didn’t stop to shop but I am imagining that all of the Brian Williams items have been marked down ninety percent. Just Sayin’…
At first sight, the Omni Shoreham Hotel looks quite massive; it is at least several hundred yards long and ten stories high. The exterior looks rather modern but the interior has the feel of an older hotel. Inside we found a spacious area around the lobby but it feels rather smaller as you journey inwards. Which leads me to the first of several criticisms of the hotel, the elevators are dreadfully small. So I can only imagine how chaotic things are going to get as people want to go to parties, programming events or checking in and out.
Vaccine Check Desk
Top of the Registration Line 2:13pm
The Last of the line 2:15 pm
Registration Area
Writer/Editor Lezli Robyn and Juli Marr
Christmas Tree in the Omni Shoreham Lobby
(Click for larger images)
Accessibility for the disabled was a hot topic before the convention and the Omni Shoreham’s deficiencies were on full display as I noticed many individuals struggling to get to Opening Ceremonies. This is not to say that accessible services are non-existent, but it is sorely in short supply abound the entire hotel. Did I mention that those elevators are REALLY SMALL?
Easily getting through Registration has never been a hallmark of any convention and DisCon III was no exception. The incredibly long line stretched from the Western part of the Promenade all the way to the Eastern Promenade elevator bank. Juli and I entered the end of the line around 2:30 p.m. After fifteen minutes, I decided to go forward to investigate why.
What I found were two people seated at a station near the Registration Desk checking everyone’s Covid-19 vaccination cards. Only two. Around the corner, there were only two or three people relentlessly processing convention badges.
It was at this moment that DisCon III was critically short of volunteers. Everyone reading this knows that Worldcons are run by volunteers.
I, for one, refuse to completely blame DisCon III for the shortage of people working the convention. They have been begging for help for months and due to the pandemic and moving the convention date to December has decimated the number of people who normally would have volunteered.
(Personal Note: I was asked to head up the Press Office earlier this year but I declined because I was unable to persuade the people I usually work with to come to DisCon III. This was the impetus for me to write the Press Office Manual and its anecdotal notes that were published here several months ago.)
But here we are. And we will have to make do with the resources we have on hand.
ON the bright side, EVERYONE was masked and distancing as well as they could.
At around 3:30 p.m., I was beginning to think that Juli and I wouldn’t make it to Opening Ceremonies so I took some drastic action. I hated to cut through the throngs of people waiting but I went to the Press Office (which was conveniently located near Registration), made the acquaintance of Kevin, the Deputy Head of the office, who provided us with press ribbons and made sure Juli and I got our badges. We then rushed off to find the Regency Ballroom, which was located on a lower level of the hotel.
And Opening Ceremonies were a splendid affair, hosted by Ulysses E. Campbell, and featuring a performance from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts Show Choir (who serenaded the group with a medley of Christmas carols, complete with choreography!) and an honor guard as well. I was personally delighted that the recipient of this year’s Big Heart Award was given to longtime fan Linda Deneroff, who was absolutely stunned and speechless (a rare occurrence, I assure you) as she accepted her plaque.
The event climaxed with Sebastian Martorana’s incredibly informative presentation on how he fashioned this year’s Hugo Award base, which were made from the same sort of marble from Baltimore that was used to construct the top portions of the Washington Monument.
Opening Ceremonies
Duke Ellington School of Arts Show Choir
Honor Guard
Ulysses E. Campbell and Chair Mary Robinette Kowal
Sheree Renée Thomas
Steve Francis and Linda Deneroff
Deneroff with her Big Heart Award plaque
Sebatian Martorana with Hugo base
(Click for larger images)
Unfortunately, we had to leave right afterwards because it was 5:15 p.m. and my first panel, “What Makes A Classic A Classic,” was due to start at 5:30. There was another mad dash to find the Calvert Room, which we found with minutes to spare.
What followed was a wild and wooly hour about how the panel felt about what makes our favorite works of sf and fantasy classics. Our Moderator was Shaun Duke of the Skiffy and Fanty podcast and featured myself (singing, wut?!?!?), author, scholar and editor Ellen Kushner, collector and writer Bradford Lyau and the legendary fan editor and writer John Hertz. A full audio version will be posted on File 770 sometime in the next day or so.
Finding dinner was strangely fortuitous; Robert’s, the restaurant located in the atrium of the hotel, told Juli that they were closing at 7:00 p.m. due to a lack of serving personnel and supplies. You would have thought that the hotel would have made plans for extra service with a major convention starting that week. Well, noted and logged…
That threw us both for a loop. After seeing the meager offerings at the pop up takeaway in another corner of the hotel, we decided to go to one of the eateries on the corner of Calvert Street and Connecticut Avenue.
On our way out the door, we encountered mega-fan Bobbi Armbruster, her husband Warren, Kathi Overton and her partner John Pomeranz. They all enthusiastically endorsed going to The Gourmand Grill, a Mexican American place that was a short walk right around the corner.
It was a rather small place down a steep set of stairs but Juli and I were totally enchanted by the atmosphere, the affordable menus and the incredibly helpful wait staff.
When someone canceled an order of Chipotle Shrimp, our server offered it to us at no extra charge. I had the Fish and Chips and Juli had the Meatball appetizer with a small side salad. Everything was eagerly devoured. I am quite certain we will be returning before the end of the convention.
At around 8:30 p.m., I wanted to go find the Con Suite. Juli was feeling rather tired and decided to retire to our room.
After a bit of confusion about its location, I was told that the Con-Suite was located in Room 840 in the Western part of the hotel. Upon arrival, I was informed that they had closed at 8:30. A passerby did mention that there was a party being held by a group called TANSTAAFL on the fifth floor.
While I was there, I was asked by Dave McCarty to engage in a contest. Once he outlined what it was all about, I enthusiastically accepted the challenge. What is it? What is it all about? I’ll explain in a future post, AFTER I have performed my part. Laters!
I snacked on a few dessert items and then I decided to call it a day at around 10 p.m.
After seeing what happened today, I knew tomorrow would be more of the same, if not more so.
More As It Happens, Your Faithful Correspondent
Chris B.
On Site Head Count: Not Available.
Luminaries Spotted Today: Nancy Kress, Dave McCarty, John Picacio, Marah Searle-Kovacevic, Tammy Coxen, Greg Ketter, Ellen Kushner, John Hertz, Andrew Porter, Lt. Colonel Jonathan Brazee (Ret.), Kathi Overton, John Pomeranz and Michael J. Walsh.
By Chris
M. Barkley: Author’s
Note: This column is being written on the day after our return from Ireland.
Because, time travel. AND jet lag.
Field Notes
BREAKING
NEWS:
I received a text from John and incredibly, Carole’s wallet was FOUND with
all of the contents intact. I immediately spread the news on the Dublin
2019 Irish WorldCon Community Group and on my own page. I hope the details
on who found it and where it was lost will be forthcoming. Needless to
say, there was much rejoicing in the land this day!
Dublin
has a taxi service called FreeNow, which, I have come to discover, is
neither. I was considering filing a suit with the World Trade Organization
but HEY, Carole’s wallet was found, so forgetaboutit…
Neither the
flatmates nor myself have turned on the tv since we’ve been here. And
we’re good with that.
My Irish
flatmate Peter has sadly informed me that Hurling is a sport that does not
involve vomiting on a professional level. I told him I was very relieved
to hear this because the programmers at Fox Sports do not need any
encouragement…
I do regret
not getting to John Scalzi’s incredibly danceable DJ session Saturday
night. It probably would have annoyed him if I had pestered him all night
requesting Manchester (UK) bands like The Stone Roses, The Smiths, 808
State, Inspiral Carpets, Swing Out Sisters, Simply Red, Oasis, The
Chemical Brothers, Electronic, The Mothmen, The Mindbenders, The
Buzzcocks, Joy Division, The Charlatans, The Happy Mondays, New Order,
Elbow, The Fall, The Courteeners and The Drones but not Bauhaus. Don’t get
me wrong, they’re a great band, but from Northampton. Sorry.
Women and
people of color and of alternate and non-conforming genders dominated the
Hugo Awards for the umpteenth year in a row. Bravo. There must have been
much squealing of horror from the basements of cis-gendered nerd boys last
evening. White men had dominated fantasy and sf awards for decades so I am
not feeling too sorry that other folks are in the ascendance right now. I
am reminded of what Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was asked in
2010, “How many women would be enough on the Supreme Court?” She replied,
“Nine,
nine… There have been nine men there for a long, long time, right? So
why not nine women?”
I began the day solo because Juli had been hit with a double
play of a sinus infection and a migraine brought on by the raising and lowering
of the house lights during the Hugo Award Ceremony. As such, she remained in
bed for most of the day.
Both Juli and I had one big regret out trip; that we hadn’t had time to very
much sightseeing beyond the city. But, as I was walking about the city and
looking at all of the people from different countries, cultures and languages,
all working and living in this big, bustling cauldron of humanity felt like a
more worldly, more cosmopolitan city than my own home town. I was both humbled
and awed by the city of Dublin.
As I was crossing the drawbridge, I saw an older woman of
indeterminate heritage, sitting off to the right side of the walkway with a
dixie cup of with a few coins in it.. I stopped in front of her.
Several weeks ago, while looking through a grocery trash can
for losing lottery tickets (which could be redeemed for state lottery prizes),
I saw a gleaming flash coming from the bottom. I reached in and pulled out a
one Euro coin. My thought was that it was brought back to the US by a tourist
and was used to rub lottery scratch off tickets and was either accidentally or
deliberately thrown away.
But here I am, an American with an honest to god Euro and I
was going to an honest to god country in the European Union. Right there and
then, I vowed to make sure that this little Euro went home where it belongs.
And there I was on the bridge. I took that Euro and another
coin out of my wallet. I leaned over and she smiled and held her cup up. “ I
found this coin my country,” I said to her as I put the coins in her cup, “and
I am just returning it to its home.”
The woman gave me a broad smile and said something that was
unintelligible to me but to me it felt both grateful and heartfelt. I wish I
had given her more but the only thing I had left at this point in the trip were
a few American bills, which would have been problematic for her to exchange. I
walked on, hoping for the best for her. When I returned later, she was gone.
There was a Sunday session of the Business Meeting but I
decided to skip it for reasons that will become very clear in my final
report.
I checked the schedule of remaining items and there was
nothing of interest as far as I was concerned. So I made a beeline for the fan
exhibit/dealer’s room. I had only been through the room once before and since I
had a limited amount of space and weight allowance for our one suitcase and I
wanted to buy at least one thing while I was in Dublin.
Joe Scilari, Edie Stern and Boston superfan Mark Olson were
manning the Fanac.org table and they proudly informed me that over 3500
pages of information had been uploaded to be archived, a tremendous success for
the organization.
Edie Stern, Joe Siclari and Mark Olson at the Fanac.org table
If you are unfamiliar with Fanac, their website says:
“This site is devoted to the preservation and distribution of
information about science fiction and science fiction fandom. There are
fanzines, photos, and all sorts of strange and wonderful information about
fandom’s past…
So, check it out sometime.
While making my way to the New Zealand bid table, I wandered
too close to the Chicago in 2022 table and was beckoned over by Dave McCarty,
who was sporting the most garishly red Grateful Dead shirt I have ever seen.
Mr. McCarty specifically called me over for the expressed
purpose of explaining, in passionate, excruciating detail, why the US Women’s
Soccer team was being wrongheaded in their approach to their lawsuit against
FIFA for equal pay.
I will not go into detail about what his arguments were (if
you were to contact him directly, I am quite sure he would be MORE than happy
to lay out all of the evidence for you) but I conceded that he may have a
point, which seemed to satisfy him (for now). And before you all label Mr.
McCarty merely a sexist “mansplainer”, I want you to know that he is the father
of a daughter and he desperately WANTS them to achieve to goal of being paid on
an equal basis as the men’s team.
I also had the good fortune of being present when Mr. McCarty presented his
lovely eight-year-old daughter, Mia, with her convention gift, a replica
version of Hermione Granger’s wand.
Dave McCarty and Mia
My next stop was the CoNZealand table where I checked on the
price for a pair of supporting memberships. One of the staff members (whose
name, unfortunately, I did not record) was utterly delighted to see my “Saint”
symbol button and told he about how she obtained a rare copy of the original
Leslie Charteris novel Meet The Tiger and how she was lucky enough to
get it autographed by the late Sir Roger Moore!
Speaking of which, I had my phone out to check on my Paypal
balance when I was approached by a fan named, wait for it…JAMES BOND, who
asked me for some help finding a program item on Dublin’s online Worldcon app,
Grenadine.
“One moment please,” I said as I put my phone down and
reached into my crossbody bag for the printed pocket program book.
“Here you go. I’m analog today, not digital.” Mr. Bond got a
good laugh out of that remark. For the record, I did NOT expect him to
die…laughing. Just Sayin’.
When I finally got around to shopping the dealer tables, I caught sight of a
book that I was very interested in; Farrah Mendelsohn’s The Pleasant
Profession of Robert A. Heinlein, a deep, unflinchingly and critical
look analyzing his fiction and non-fiction and how he influenced science
fiction literature.
While I was buying the book, I was reunited with my fellow File
770 reporter, Daniel Dern. We were also joined briefly by one of Dublin’s
Special Guests, Spider Robinson and his “driver”, writer and comedian Stephan
Herman. Spider had trouble remembering me until I reminded him that I had
scored some pot for him and his late wife Jeanne at the 1994 Worldcon in
Winnipeg, Canada. Ah good times. Also, yay for the statute of limitations.
Spider told me he had a fantastic time in Dublin and was very
excited to sit down with a local genealogist while he was there. “ I have
learned more about my family in that one hour than I ever did from the rest of
my family during my life,“ he gushed.
Spider Robinson
I went back to our flat to check on Juli around 3:30. She was
feeling well enough to go to the Closing Ceremonies at 4:30, but I wanted to
take a short nap myself.
This decision proved to be a bad idea because Juli, thinking
that I wasn’t getting enough sleep on this trip, let me sleep in until
4:15.
We rushed to the auditorium but the ceremony was already
under way and we arrived in time to see George R.R. Martin and his partner
Parris McBride on stage, accepting a Committee Award from Chair James Bacon for
his contributions to Fandom and the Dublin bid in particular. I was saddened to
see Ms. McBride in a neck brace and I sincerely hope she recovers soon.
I was surprised and happy to see that Dublin had recruited
the creator of Artemis Fowl, Eowin Colfer, as the Host of Closing Ceremonies.
Soon enough, Mr. Bacon took to the stage to thank the convention committee, his
staff and volunteers and finally the fans who attended, to make it a memorable
experience for everyone.
Chair James Bacon and the volunteers
Memorable? Indeed it was, But I can assure everyone reading
this that the Dublin convention will be studied, scrutinized and autopsied more
closely than any other recent Worldcon due to the cutoff of the sale of
attending memberships weeks before the start of the convention, the size of the
venue, the imposition of queuing lines by the owners of the convention center
and the confusion they caused between the staff, volunteers and the attending
fans. But, it’s Worldcon. It’s a certainty that things WILL go wrong and there
will be some embarrassments and obstacles to overcome. People may have
been angered over some incidents and inconvenienced by others but in the long
run, the only thing that matters is that everyone survived and no one died.
Having gone the 29 Worldcons now, I can attest to that).
After the gavel was symbolically passed to the New Zealand
bid via interpretive dance and acrobatics, Juli and I headed over the The
Drunken Fish for a celebratory dinner with Wyn, Liz, our flatmates Anna and
Peter and our Australian fans, Susan and Grahame. As usual, I ordered too much
food but, in the spirit of detente between the US and Ireland, I finished it
all. Except for the extra helping of kimchi someone passed my way. There
is only so much kimchi a person can take, I mean, c’mon man.
Wyn and Liz had been in country for nearly a week
before everyone else arrived and took an extended driving tour of Ireland,
visiting many castles along the way.
“Were any of the castles white?,” I asked Liz, who, thinking
of the ubiquitous American fast food restaurant chain, broke out into a
giggling fit.
As a matter of fact, we did see a white castle,” said
Wyn in a very serious manner.
“Really?” I turned to Liz. “How was the food?” Liz collapsed
in uncontrollable laughter. Mission accomplished.
After dinner was consumed, we said goodbye to our dinner
companions The flatmate squad then called a cab and traversed over to the
southside of Dublin for a whiskey tasting at The Market Bar, the nicest looking
hole-in-the-wall that I have ever seen in my life. Since I don’t drink spirits,
I drank in the atmosphere and watched grown adults swoon over whiskey. Good
times.
It took five tries but we were finally able to summoned a
FreeNow cab (which, as I noted above, is neither) and we made our way back
home.
While the flatmates recovered by chatting about their
convention experiences, I began packing for the flight home, which was
scheduled for 12:55 local time tomorrow.
As always, United Airlines advised us to get to the airport
at least three hours in advance of the flight. Juli was particularly
worried about getting there early but hey, when we’ve flown in America,
the wait time was usually a bogus ruse to get us there and buy stuff while we
wait.
Damn it, why didn’t I pack a pair of blue jeans? I mean, blue colored blue jeans? It would have SO matched the shade of blue of my Samuel R. Delany t-shirt. Ah, so it goes.
The weather this morning was brilliantly good. And then came the rain squalls. I had such high hopes. Is this what makes the Irish, Irish?
In case anyone was wondering, my identifying pronouns at the Business Meeting were HE, HEY YOU and THAT GUY.
I am convinced that one of my three flatmates is a cultural saboteur; for several days now I have placed the toilet paper in the bathroom to roll from the top, only to turn late and it’s been reversed. I have vowed to discover who the culprit is BEFORE I LEAVE THIS ISLAND! Enough said.
Speaking of the loo, my first encounter with toilet in the apartment was startling to say the least. As I flushed, an epic Angel/Niagara/Victoria Falls torrent of water crashed into the bowl, scaring me out of my wits. I sure hope that’s all greywater and not the drinking sort.
Chris M. Barkley
Juli and I saw our good friends Robbie Bourget and John Harrold on
the tram this morning. They were headed to the Business Meeting to hear the
announcement of the Site Selection team of the winner of the 2021 Worldcon bid.
They looked remarkable happy at that moment so I suspect that they were either
not working or their jobs were completed and they were enjoying themselves…
The meeting started promptly and, as expected, Washington D.C. was
the overwhelming choice with 798 votes.
The 2021 Worldcon has been dubbed DisCon III and will be held from August 25 (MY BIRTHDAY, WooT!) to August 29. The Guests of Honor are author Nancy Kress, Baen Editor in Chief Toni Weisskopf, Uber Fan Ben Yalow, with Special Guests Malka Older and Sheree Rene Thomas. Co-Chairs Bill Lawhorn and Colette H. Fozard promised that an Artist Guest of Honor will be announced at a later date.
PR #0
Mike Nelson distributing PR #0.Nancy Kress
The runner up results in themselves were whimsical and amusing in
themselves:
None of the Above 18
Minneapolis in 73 3
Tampere in 2032 in 2021 3
Peggy Rae’s House 2
Rapid City, South Dakota 2
Xerpes 2010 2
Any Country That Will Let Me In 1
Anywhere NOT in the United States 1
Beach City 1
Boston in 2020 Christmas 1
Free Hong Kong 1
Haimes, Alaska 1
Helen’s Pool Cabana 1
I5 in ‘05 1
James Bacon’s Living Room 1
Laconia Capital City, Laconium Empire 1
Malmo, Sweden 1
Ottawa 1
Port Stanley, Falklands 1
Ratcon in 2002 1
One of these days a joke bid is going to win and there’s going to
be trouble. I must also say that as an American, I was surprised that there
weren’t a lot more protest votes against the DC bid considering our, let’s say,
turbulent political situation at the moment. The mere thought of the current
president showing up unannounced is a logistical and political nightmare none
of us want. But, we’ll see, I suppose.
Past Worldcon Chairs photo session
Past Worldcon chairs
Soon to be past Worldcon chair James Bacon takes a selfie
Worldcon 76 convention Chair Kevin Roche presented pass along checks of $10,000 (US) to the con-chairs of Ireland (James Bacon) New Zealand (Norman Cates) and Washington. This generous donation was done despite the pending litigation brought against Worldcon 76 by Jon Del Arroz, who filed a lawsuit alleging defamation after being banned from the event.
Mr. Roche promised that more funds would be distributed to current
and future bid when litigation has been concluded.
In other news, the group backing an amendment to establish a Best
Game or Interactive Experience category suffered a minor setback when the
members of the meeting voted to refer the legislation back to the Hugo Study
Committee for another year discussion.
This was done in spite of a fairly extensive 60-page report
compiled and written by the group sponsoring the category. I spoke to one of
those sponsors, Claire Rousseau and several others who were there to see the
outcome. They were all extremely upset that this proposal would not be
discussed in a formal debate for at least another year or more.
Claire Rousseau
As a personal aside, I told them that I had been on the receiving
end of these sorts of setbacks on numerous occasions and while they may be
feeling disappointed right now, they should should remain vocal and more
importantly, persistent, if they feel they have a just cause.
Mark Richard’s advisory motion to also issue an award to translators of Hugo Award winning works was also soundly rejected by the attending members. After the vote Mr. Richard, was approached by Jo Van Ekeren and Joni Brill Dashoff with some helpful suggestions on how to make the proposal clearer and more palatable to the members who opposed it.
Mark Richards
Profound disappointment does not even begin to describe how I felt
about this, but I will refrain from editorializing about this until my final
report.
By a fortuitous coincidence, my final Worldcon panel, “Get Us Out
of the Twilight Zone: the Work of Jordan Peele,” was scheduled right after the
Business Meeting in the same room. My panelists were media critic and Abigail
Nussbaum (who won the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer), Dr. Andrew Butler,
a distinguished film critic from the UK and Dr. Wanda Kurtcu, who organized the
POC meetup the previous day.
Looking through my bag, I could not find the placard with my name
printed on it, which we were supposed to keep and use at each panel. Luckily, I
found a folder filled with name placards and not only found one with a blank
side to write on, I also picked up an autograph as well.
Over the course of our hour, we took an in depth look at Mr.
Peele’s first two films, the Academy Award winning horror film Get Out
and Us, a more overtly ambiguous fantasy film. I believe that while Us
is a more ambitious movie, Get Out had an edge in being my favorite
because of its straightforward and take no prisoners narrative.
Doctor Butler had not seen the first season of the revival of The
Twilight Zone so when the other panelists and I discussed the episodes we
were a little diligent not to drop too many spoilers for him and the other
audience members. Doctor Kurtcu pointed out rightly that Twilight Zone,
like the original Rod Serling series and other shows like Black Mirror, darkly
reflect what is going on in the world today.
Ms. Nussbaum, like myself, were not really ardent fans of the
horror genre but it seems as though Jordan Peele has a true artistic vision to
express that is striving to transcend the usual boundaries of genre.
Towards the end of the session, an audience member said that Mr.
Peele’s next project was a reboot of the Candyman film franchise.
“All right,” I said. “We all know what to do. NONE of us should
say Candyman three times before the film is released.”
We appeared at the Press Room office a little before seven to pick
up a lanyard for Juli so she could attend the Hugo Award Ceremony. We were
delighted to find out that some of the press passes had not been claimed so now
she could sit with me in the designated area. (This is not unusual; when I ran
the Press Office, there were occasions where passes had not been picked up and
I issued them to late arriving reporters or convention staff members who wanted
a seat closer to the action.)
While we were waiting to be escorted to the press section, I came
across UK author Paul Cornell, who I had not been in close proximity to since
LAcon IV in 2006. I was particularly delighted to see him because he wrote one
of my favorite Doctor Who stories of the modern era, the Hugo-nominated
episode “Father’s Day”.
Paul Cornell
The Press section wasn’t that close to the action this year; it
was located in the first three rows of the upper balcony just to the right of
the center of the stage. What it lacked in proximity was made up for by its
height, which provided a sweeping view of the stage.
Hugo Ceremony audience
The first big surprise of the evening was the winner of the John
W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Jeanette Ng. Not surprising that she had
won the award, because she is an exceptionally fine writer and was favored in
this category. Oh no. It was because of what she said in her acceptance speech:
John W. Campbell, for whom this award was named, was a fascist. Through his editorial control of Amazing Stories, he is responsible for setting a tone of science fiction that still haunts the genre to this day. Sterile. Male. White. Exalting in the ambitions of imperialists and colonisers, settlers and industrialists. Yes, I am aware there are exceptions.
But these bones, we have grown wonderful, ramshackle genre, wilder and stranger than his mind could imagine or allow.
And I am so proud to be part of this. To share with you my weird little story, an amalgam of all my weird interests, so much of which has little to do with my superficial identities and labels. But I am a spinner of ideas, of words, as Margaret Cavendish would put it.
So I need (to) say, I was born in Hong Kong. Right now, in the most cyberpunk in the city in the world, protesters struggle with the masked, anonymous stormtroopers of an autocratic Empire. They have literally just held her largest illegal gathering in their history. As we speak they are calling for a horological revolution in our time. They have held laser pointers to the skies and tried to to impossibly set alight the stars. I cannot help be proud of them, to cry for them, and to lament their pain. I’m sorry to drag this into our fantastical words, you’ve given me a microphone and this is what I felt needed saying.
<do the hat thing>”
You can see that “hat thing” (eventually) on YouTube or the
streaming broadcast online.
Jeannette Ng
I was one of the people madly cheering this speech. I posted a
meme on Facebook as she was still speaking: “Jeannette Ng is AWESOME!!!!!”
Moments later, swept up in the moment, I posted another meme, “I’m just gonna
say it: The Name of the John W. Campbell Award SHOULD BE F***KING CHANGED!”
To clamor atop a soapbox for a moment; NO, I am not advocating
that the life and work of John W. Campbell, Jr. be scrubbed from history. But
neither should we turn a blind, uncritical eye to his transgressions. When the
winners of such a prestigious award start getting angry because the person
behind it is viewed to be so vile and reprehensible, that ought to be
acknowledged as well.
I think work and legacies of film director D.W. Griffith and H.P.
Lovecraft have survived fairly intact since they have been deprived of their
privileged status. And that is precisely the point; for decades JWC’s white
privilege has given him cover to be adored by generations of readers, writers,
editors, fans and scholars. The time has finally come to call him out.
Jeannette Ng said out loud what people have been either thinking
and whispering for the past several decades. Rebecca Roanhorse’s speech last
year in San Jose alluding to her discontent was the tipping point. Ms. Ng just
picked it up and threw it over the edge. (Climbs off soapbox.)
Other momentous moments included Charles Vess double whammy for
Best Professional Artist and the Special Category addition for Best Art Book,
both for his meticulous and detailed art for the gigantic omnibus, The Books
of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition. Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers
won Best Series, a dizzying ascension for a writer who only had a draft
version of her debut novel five years. She tearfully thanked her supporters,
readers and the Hugo voters for making “room for her at the table”.
The Best Long and Short Form Dramatic Presentations went to
popular front runners; the former to the Oscar winning animated film Spider-Man:
Into the Spider-Verse and the latter by “Janet(s)” an excruciating funny
episode of NBC’s farce/philosophy seminar The Good Place.
There was a lot of criticism that the Lodestar Award (or, as I
call it, The Ursula K. LeGuin Memorial Award) either would not be very popular
at all or might suffer from “award fatigue” by Hugo nominators in general
reading community. Well, the statistics posted online after the ceremony show
that there were 216 nominated books on 512 ballots. So, as far as I’m
concerned, you can stick a fork in that theory, because it’s done.
Best Profession Editor went to the late Gardner Dozois. I must
report that I did not vote for him; he was a fine person, a marvelous writer
and one of the greatest, if not THE GREATEST, editor we are ever likely to see.
But, I note, he had won fifteen Hugos for editing between 1988 and 2004. Now
his estate has another award that he will never know of or enjoy. It’s fine for
us to honor the dead, but not at the expense of the living.
Best Novel went to Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars,
an alternate history story in which the 1950’s suffers a cataclysmic event and
the “space race” is reframed is an actual struggle for the survival of the
human race, led by women astronauts. I hope that this book, and its sequels,
will not only endure but inspire future generations of young adults and
grownups.
Dr. Jeanette Epps
Dr. Jeanette Epps
A PDF of the voting results and nomination longlists are available
at: www.thehugoawards.org
We headed to Martin’s after the ceremony and almost immediately
ran into Carole’s partner John. He told us that the wallet had not been turned
in yet and everyone is presuming it is lost for good. Credit cards have been
canceled and other friends have offered other help, too. Carole was there, enjoying herself and John
reassured us that she was feeling a lot better since that night. We were rather
concerned so it was nice to see that she was having a good time.
John also said, “Hey got get a drink at the bar. DC is paying for
all of the drinks on their tab!”
I feigned confusion. “Your mean DC Comics?” John gave me one of
those resigned looks he make after hearing a bad joke. “Go get a drink,” he
shouted over the din.
We got into the nearest queue but the DC tab had already been
tapped out so we had to resort to buying our own drinks. Hugo Admin Nichols Whyte sidled up to the bar
and in a burst of American generosity, we bought him two ciders, citing his
fine work for the con.
As we were ordering our own ciders our, I was accosted by an older
man standing next to me, whom I thought was a complete stranger. But it wasn’t;
Jerry Kaufman was a fan we had met previous at the Spokane Worldcon. “So,” her
said, “what are you proposing for the name change?”
Now it was my turn to be genuinely confused. “Excuse me?”
“I heard some people talking about it. It was your Facebook post.”
With that I sat down and whipped out my phone and checked the post
I had completely forgotten about from two hours ago. While it had not gone
exactly viral, it had several “likes” and who knows how many views.
While I sat and posed for a few pictures with my friends, I
suddenly realized that I was drinking this cider on an empty stomach, which
meant that I was going to be incredibly tipsy in the next five or ten minutes.
I told Juli about my dilemma and after some chit chat with some
friends in passing, we bade everyone good night. We stepped into a chilly and
damp night. The walk back was bracing and kept me on my feet as we walked back
to our apartment.
After fumbling to check the Facebook post and send my esteemed
editor a brief, spell check enhanced email, I fell into bed, and, according to
Juli, was asleep in two minutes.
P.S. DAY FIVE BREAKING NEWS! I am incredibly PLEASED to report that Carole’s wallet was turned in to the local police station today, WITH THE CONTENTS ALL ACCOUNTED FOR!!!!
Carole and John have already left Dublin for a tour but will be returning to the city on Friday recover the wallet.
Who’s says there are no Happy Endings at Worldcon? A big THANKS to the local citizens and the Dublin Garda for your diligence in this matter…
A resolution by Mark Richards, Chris Barkley and Juli
Marr has been added to the Dublin 2019 Business Meeting agenda. It has been
designated B4, (although there was another item which had that number.)
B.4 Credit to Translators of Written Fiction
Resolved, it is the sense of the Business Meeting that, for the written fiction categories of Best Novel, Novella, Novelette, and Short Story, when the winner in one of these categories is a translated work, the credited translator shall be awarded a Hugo alongside the author.
Mark Richards explains the purpose of the resolution with these comments:
The choice of translator can make the difference in the impact of a work of fiction in translation, in comparison to its impact in its original language.
Fluency in the original language may be enough for a good translation. We feel that familiarity with the context in which a work was written adds to the quality of the result, and that a translator’s contribution there can make a difference.
For example, Liu Cixin’s Three-Body Problem wouldn’t have been nearly as successful had Ken Liu not gotten all of the nuance of Chinese history during the Cultural Revolution and been able to transmit that emotional impact.
And there’s a collection of connected short stories, Kalpa Imperial, by the Argentine author Angelica Gorodischer, Any decent translator, I imagine, would have given us a good translation. It was the late Ursula Le Guin, however, whose prose style was perfect for giving us as fine a work in English as it presumably was in the original Spanish.
Closing, we feel that a translator’s contribution to the success of a story merits recognition in the awarding of a Hugo.
By Chris M. Barkley: After a brutal and taxing
trans-Atlantic transit on Monday, my partner Juli and I were able to obtain our
membership badges fairly easily Tuesday morning.
Yesterday was mainly spent getting used to our surroundings and
the weather; the city could have been any busy port city in New England in tone
save for the local traffic patterns were the opposite from what we Americans
were used to and the skies were for the most part slightly chilly, overcast
with partial, misty showers throughout the day.
At 10:20 a.m., Juli and I walked to the Convention Centre which was located less than a kilometer away from the gated apartment complex we were renting for the week.
Main foyer
Main foyer
My first panel was at 11 a.m. in a moderately sized room on the
second floor of the Centre, “Crime and Punishment in the Age of Superheroes.”
Since it was early in the morning on the first day, my expectations were quite
low. I met my fellow panelists, UK fan Rachel Coleman and US novelist Dan Moren
in the Green Room situated at the top floor of the building. In our initial
greetings they reminded me that I was the moderator of the panel, which I had
conveniently forgotten and was a momentary source of amusement. Our fourth
member, the Hugo-nominated French author Aliette de Bodard was missing but we
weren’t particularly worried that she might not show.
Imagine our surprise when we walked into our room and saw that it
was nearly standing room only crowd! As we settled in, Ms. de Bodard came
hustling in out of breath but quite able and willing to dive into our subject.
What followed was a lively session in which we discussed the
degree superheroes might be legally liable for their activities, the rendition
of super villains, how any super-powered person might be tried and imprisoned
and what sort of punishment would be appropriate and what would be considered
“cruel and unusual punishment”.
One of the more entertaining bits of discussion was comparing the
relative degree of danger a person the psychological profile like Tony Stark or
Bruce Wayne would be versus some like Peter Parker, who, at least at this point
in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is relatively altruistic.
As always with the panels I moderate, half the time was spent with
the panel and the remaining time we took comments and questions from the
audience.
We could have easily gone on for another hour. At the end of our
time, the audience gave us a healthy round of applause and we were quite pleased with their
participation.
My next panel, “Sports in Science Fiction and Fantasy” was scheduled
for 2 p.m. We decided to cruise through the Dealer’s Room, which was rather
smaller in comparison to the previous Worldcons I have attended but I was quite
happy with the number of vendors and their wares.
Another early shopper was the well-known media mogul/mega best-selling
author George R.R. Martin (pictured below), who was only slightly disguised
(eschewing his usual fishing cap in favor of a Game of Thrones baseball
cap) and enjoying himself immensely. He also took a moment to take me to task
for proposing yet another Hugo Award category (In this case, the Best
Translated Novel, which might be discussed at the Main Business Meeting
if it is passed on from the Preliminary Business Meeting on Friday.)
“It’s getting to be too much,” Martin said. “I hope it doesn’t get
to be like the Emmy Awards.”
“What do you mean,” I asked.
“Well, some of the awards are not going to be televised and are
going to be given out before the show. I don’t want that to happen to the
Hugos.”
I assured GRRM that I did not want that to happen either and that
I personally did not have any plans to introduce any other changes at the
moment. We then parted, he with a somewhat relieved look on his face. Have a
Happy Worldcon, George…
GRRM back
GRRM front
I had to make a courtesy visit to the Press Office, where Daniel
Dern presented me with a spare File 770 “Scum and Villainy” button and
met the Area Head, the gracious and amiable Diana Ben-Aron, who presented me
with a Press ribbon.
UK fan Neil Williamson was the moderator of “Sports in Science
Fiction and Fantasy” along with novelist Fonda Lee, prolific writer Rick Wilber
(author of many baseball and sports related short stories. I described myself
as a lifelong baseball fan whose home is also that of the first professional
baseball team, the Cincinnati Reds, celebrating this year the 150th Anniversary
of the first team.
With that, I pulled out my black ESPN cap and offered a Euro to
the first person who could tell me what the letter “E” stood for. A number of US fans in the
audience were flummoxed by the challenge but a quick-thinking male European fan
remembered that it stood for Entertainment Sports Programming Network. Hilarity
ensued when I fumbled around and was unable to FIND the coin in my change
purse. Anxious to move on, Neil produced a coin and paid off the winner. (Juli
gave me a coin to reimburse Neil and I found the coin later and paid her back…)
Fonda Lee and Rick Wilber gave some excellent examples through
their own works of how the portrayal of sports in fiction gave some insight
into the societies they were writing about. Neil and I mostly mused on how the
sports we love might change in the future. Again, the audience seemed to have
had a good time and gave us all a round of applause.
From there we checked off the obligatory “American food experience
in a foreign country” of the travel list with a lunch at Eddie Rocket’s, a
disturbingly familiar place that served burgers, fries and milkshakes.
(Picture)
Juli Marr
Eddie Rocket’s
Avian interloper
The restaurant was adjacent to the Odeon Theater at The Point our
next programming destination, where artist John Picacio was giving a slideshow
overview of his works. The venue was rather unique because it took place in a
mid-sized movie theater in the complex.
Mr. Picacio regaled the almost full house with stories of how he
became artist, techniques and style tips for beginning artists and some
fascinating stories of how George R.R. Martin roped him into doing the 2012 Game
of Thrones calendar and how the images from this source were highly-referenced
by the producers and casting directors in choosing actors for their roles.
Juli Marr and John Picacio
The highlight of the day was the Opening Ceremonies which also
presented the1944 Retro Hugo Awards. After some festive banter by our hosts
Ellen Klages and Dave Rudden, we were treated to a short comi-tragic play and
the introduction of the Guests of Honor, who also served as Hugo presenters.
Ellen Klages and Dave Rudden
Hilarity ensued through the evening as each successive presenter
struggled to open the award envelopes, which were triple sealed by masking AND
duct tape.
Well, not all of the presenters; Author Guest of Honor Diane Duane
was undaunted because she was the only one who was carrying a knife, because,
as she explained, “Knives ALWAYS work.” She declined to share the knife with
any of the other presenters.
Retro-Hugo presenters: Ginjer Buchanan, Afua Richardson, Sana Takeda, Steve Jackson , Diane Duane, Ian McDonald, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Bill Burns, Mary Burns .
Retro-Hugo Ceremony
Retro-Hugo base
Bob Tucker’s Retro-Hugo for Le Zombie
After that it was off to the parties, which were being held on the
third level of the Centre. As crowded and festive as this gathering was, I can
only wonder what Edie Stern, Joe Siclari and former Worldcon Chair Michael
Walsh were intensely discussing near the escalators away from all the
revelry…
Chris M. Barkley, Juli Marr, and Mark Richards have submitted an motion to create a new Hugo Awards category for Best Translated Novel. It will soon be listed on Dublin 2019’s New Business Agenda. (Update Barkley says this is the text they submitted, but some minor tweaks will be made to the language before it is posted online.)
D.1 Short Title: Best Translated Novel
Moved, to amend the WSFS Constitution for the purpose of creating a new Hugo Award category for Best Translated Novel, by inserting a new subsection after existing Section 3.3.4 and revising sections 3.2.5 and 3.2.6 as follows:
3.3.4: A science fiction or fantasy story of forty thousand (40,000) words or more that was translated and published into English for the first time within the previous calendar year. The Award will be given both to the writer(s) of the work and the credited translator(s) of the novel.
3.2.5: In the story categories (3.3.1-3.3.56 and 3.3.78), an author may withdraw a version of a work from consideration if the author feels that the version is not representative of what that author wrote.
3.2.6: The categories of Best Novel, Novella, Novelette, and Short Story, and Best Translation shall be open to works in which the text is the primary form of communication, regardless of the publication medium, including but not limited to physical print, audiobook, and ebook.
Provided that unless this amendment is re-ratified by the 2022 Business Meeting, this Section shall be repealed and; and
Provided further that the question of re-ratification shall automatically be placed on the agenda of the 2022 Business Meeting.
Proposed by: Mark Richards (Attending Member), Juli Marr (Attending Member) and Chris M. Barkley (Attending Member).
Commentary by Chris M. Barkley and Rachel Cordasco:
Eighty years ago, in July 1939, NYCon 1, the very first World Science Fiction Convention was held in New York City.
The title “World Science Fiction Convention” was a bit of a misnomer; it was about as accurate and plausible as baseball’s championship title “World Series” is today. It was named as such in honor of the World’s Fair exhibition being held nearby in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
We have no doubt that while many of the convention’s participants (and those who were excluded for political reasons) imagined science fiction and fantasy literature had a future, at the time the only thing they could be sure of at that time was that war was on the immediate horizon.
As the decades passed, sf and fantasy literature not only took hold in North American and England, it became a worldwide cultural phenomenon.
And as the Hugo Award grew in stature, so did its reputation outside the confines of the English speaking nations where it was born and nurtured.
Until recently, a majority of the nominated writers in the fiction categories have been dominated by English language authors. In 2015, Cixin Liu’ s The Three Body Problem (translated by Ken Liu) became the first novel translated from another language to win the Hugo Award.
Since then there have been very few non-English language nominees in the fiction categories although there have been two winners in the short fiction categories (Hao Jingfang, also from China and Thomas Olde Heuvelt of the Netherlands).
We feel that it is high time that the World Science Fiction Society honor writers from around the world with one of literature’s highest honors.
Each year, US/UK/Australian publishers are giving us more SF in translation (SFT) to read from countries like France, Iraq, Argentina, Japan, Finland, Israel, and many others. In recent years, the number of translated speculative novels has risen to 60-70. After several decades of speculative fiction flowing mostly from the US and UK into other countries, the tide seems to be turning and people who grew up reading translations of Anglophone science fiction or fantasy have been inspired to become translators themselves. Plus, more presses and magazines are open to SFT, and we now have two online publications that actually specialize in international speculative fiction (Samovar Magazine and Future Science Fiction Digest).
The Hugo Award, like the annual Worldcons, are sponsored by the World Science Fiction Society, and it is this inclusion of the word “world” that is at issue when discussions of a “Best Translated Novel” come up. As Donald Wollheim once wrote, “We science fiction readers whose native language happens to be English-…tend to a curious sort of provincialism in our thinking regarding the boundaries of science fiction. We tend to think that all that is worth reading and all that is worth noticing is naturally written in English. In our conventions and our awards and our discussions we slip into the habit of referring to our favorites as the world’s best this and the “world’s best that.”
Shouldn’t the Hugo Awards recognize more than just those texts originally written in English? SFT is more popular than some people think, and if given the opportunity to recognize a non-Anglophone novel, SFT readers would probably jump at the chance. It’s time to shrug off our Anglocentric perspective, especially in relation to a genre that encourages us to look beyond our immediate environs and learn about those who are sometimes radically different from us.
Simply put, if the Best Novel Category is the equivalent of the Academy Award for Best Picture, the Best Translated novel can serve as our Best Foreign Film. If France, Spain, Israel, China, and other countries can successfully include a “Best Translated Novel” category in their SF awards, so can the US/UK-dominated Hugos.
As the noted philosopher and American football coach George Allen once sagely noted, “The Future is NOW.”
By Chris M. Barkley: First of all, I apologize for the lateness of this report. In all honesty, I didn’t think I’d be writing up a Worldcon roundup at all this year. I did not keep a set of notes of our activities so everything had to be recreated through photos that were taken and the best recollections of myself and my partner, Juli.
There were also some behind-the-scenes intrigue that I am unable to share for personal reasons and frankly, I had a hard time thinking about what to include or not in this report.
On the whole, we had a good time. I was blessed to have witnessed literary history being made in person, as it happened. And weeks later, as I wrote this report, I find that the overwhelming sense of malaise and failure I was feeling before the convention somewhat muted in the wake of what happened at Worldcon 76.
Thursday, 16 August
My partner Juli and I arrived in San Jose on Wednesday out of necessity; the flight from Cincinnati was routed through Salt Lake City and with the layover of several hours and flight time, we got there in the early afternoon Pacific Time but three hours later in body time. We tried sleeping on the plane on the way out to mitigate the jet lag and it seemed to have worked, at least for a little while. Unwisely (I think), I kept my watch on Eastern Daylight Time throughout our stay just to gauge how I think felt against the actual time back home. More often than not I ended up confusing myself so I made a promise to myself to never do that again. A good night’s sleep followed.
I barely remember the San Jose that hosted the Worldcon sixteen years ago, save for the light rail system running just outside the convention center and a few restaurants. One thing that I did notice right away is that there were fences running along the rail lines to keep errant pedestrians (like myself) from jaywalking across them (as I did all too frequently the last time I was here).
Since Juli and I had already picked up our memberships, we thought it would be cool to just hang out in the convention center lobby and see who came wandering by. Among the first people we saw was our good friend Robert J. Sawyer who posed for a picture with me. Over the past year, we both discovered much to our chagrin, that Facebook’s face recognition algorithms cannot tell the difference between Rob and me. The photo Juli took of us, hilariously, was no exception.
The Dealer’s Room opened at noon. Wandering through we spotted David Gerrold hawking books and tribbles. Juli and I jointly presented him with a of a pair socks, a joke tradition that began back when we saw him at Sasquan in 2015. This year, the socks we presented him with were emblazoned with the snarky saying “Adult In Training” which he seemed to like. We also purchased his vampire novel, Jacob and a tiger-striped tribble one for our granddaughter, Lily.
Steve Davidson, editor and publisher of the newly revived Amazing Stories, was receiving a respectable amount of traffic at his booth. I commended Steve for handing out a superb issue for free to attendees.
As the day progressed, I was approached by a number of friends and acquaintances who expressed their condolences and disappointment over the naming (or, rather, the non-naming) of the Young Adult Book Award. I thanked them all and said that I was happy that Worldcon was finally recognizing the works of young adult authors.
I had my first panel in the afternoon; “My First Worldcon” which also featured Cindy Lin (who did not appear), John Hertz (who was running late), and Edwin S. “Filthy Pierre” Strauss. Most of the audience, numbering about twenty people, had never been to a Worldcon before and for a few, THIS was their first convention. To those few I jokingly said, “Well, luckily for you, it’s all downhill from here,” which drew a hearty laugh.
But from that point on, Pierre and I gave out some basic explanations of the origins of Worldcon, what to expect and how to survive the next four-and-a-half days with their wits intact. Twenty minutes in, John Hertz, elegantly dressed as always even in the daytime, waltzed in and brought the proceedings a great deal more gravitas and more practical advice (hygiene, hydration and happiness basically) than Pierre and I had combined. I hope the audience left a little more informed about what Worldcon was all about and had a good time.
From there it was off to Opening Ceremonies, where we were greeted and regaled by a dozen or so members of the local Native American Muwekma Ohlone tribe, who shared several songs with us. Artist Guest of Honor and Hugo Toastmaster John Picacio introduced his fellow artists of the Mexicanx Initiative who were attending the Worldcon at his behest. By all accounts, they had a great time.
One unusual thing; the First Fandom Award and the Big Heart Award were given out and I don’t recall them ever being presented separately and this early in the convention. I surmised (correctly, as it turned out) that John Picacio was planning to run the Hugo Awards VERY quickly. Erle M. Korshak, one of the last living members of the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939 (Robert Madle being the other) presented Robert Silverberg with the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award. The late June and Len Moffatt were inducted into the Hall posthumously. My Editor, Mike Glyer, was announced as the surprise recipient of the Big Heart.
Surprisingly, Mike was not present to accept so I promptly texted him: “Dude, YOU just won the Big Heart Award… CONGRATULATIONS!”
His reply, several hours later was: “Thanks Chris. If only someone had hinted, ‘Mike you shouldn’t miss Opening Ceremonies!’”
As I was checking my Facebook feed at dinner, I saw that Worldcon 76 had an uninvited guest earlier in the afternoon; Jon Del Arroz. His hostile and provocative statements towards Worldcon 76 and previously recorded intentions of disrupting the convention got him banned from attending. Streaming live and commenting as he walked, he filmed himself entering the convention center and tried to register. He was quickly spotted and asked, very politely by Worldcon security, to leave the building.
As Del Arroz was being led out, he repeatedly asked why he was being ousted, knowing full well why he was getting the boot. I only wished I had been there to witness his inglorious exit because as he passed by, I would have piped up and shouted, “You want to know why, Jon? Because you’re a JERK, that’s why!”
Juli and I dined out at a restaurant amusingly called Vietnom, which was situated in an amalgamation of other eateries called SoFA Market. The food was incredibly good and generously portioned. We also heartily recommended Tac-OH, a nice, casual Mexican place with a nice ambiance to our friends and anyone else who would listen to us.
Later in the evening, We did run into Pablo Miguel Alberto Vasquez, with whom we shared several overpriced drinks with at the Marriott bar before retiring.
As my head touched the pillow I remembered that a group of folks from File 770 were going to convene at a bar but completely forgot about it. I made a mental note to try and make the second meet up, which was going to be at another venue on Friday.
Friday, 17 August
The first full session of the Business Meeting was scheduled in the morning. And while I had no doubts about the outcome, I always go in with butterflies in my stomach. To feed those butterflies, Juli and I consulted the Restaurant Guide.
“Hey hon,” said Juli, “what about Peggy Sue’s?”
Something stirred in my memory. “Where is that on the map?”
“About two blocks away.”
Sixteen years ago at ConJose, I usually started my day at an amazing little diner that served amazing food with generous portions. We walked over several streets and easily found Peggy Sue’s on San Pedro Street; a quaint little diner with the sensibility and décor that was straight out of the 50’s and 60’s. The food, eggs, burgers burritos and shakes were the best I have ever tasted. We happily ate there on a regular basis during the rest of our stay.
Frankly, I dreaded going to the Business Meeting. I had no doubt that some there were feeling a certain measure of schadenfreude towards me in the wake of the withdrawal of the proposition to add Ursula K. Le Guin’s name from the Young Adult Book Award. And I did note that several regular attendees went out of their way not greet me or ignore my friendly overtures to make small talk.
There were a few old friends who did come up and either commiserate with my frustration or added the condolences over the situation.
Regular readers of File 770 know that I had been a longtime advocate of making this new award a Hugo Award category. But, after several years and series of study committees (the last of which I did not participate in due to family issues), it was decided that it would be better to have YA novels compete separately from other award categories. But I needn’t have worried about the Friday session; it finished in what seemed to be a record time of an hour and ten minutes without too much parliamentary rancor or shenanigans. Usually these sessions take up the full three hours of allotted time each day.
What would I have said? I would have read the following excerpts from her 1973 National Book Award acceptance speech for her children’s novel, The Farthest Shore, which can be found in her 1979 collection of essays, The Language of the Night:
“I am very pleased, very proud and very startled to accept the National Book Award in children’s literature for my novel The Farthest Shore…
“And I also rejoice in the privilege of sharing this honor, if I may, with my fellow writers, not only in the field of children’s books, but in that even less respectable field, science fiction. For I am not only a fantasist, but a science fiction writer, and odd though it may seem, I am proud to be both.
“We who hobnob with hobbits and tell tall tales about little green men are quite used to being dismissed as mere entertainers, or sternly disapproved of as escapists. But I think that perhaps the categories are changing, like the times. Sophisticated readers are accepting the fact that an improbable and unmanageable world is going to produce an improbable and hypothetical art.
“At this point, realism is perhaps the least adequate means of understanding or portraying the incredible realities of our existence. A scientist who creates a monster in the laboratory; a librarian in the library of Babel; a wizard unable to cast a spell; a spaceship having trouble reaching Alpha Centauri: all of these may be precise and profound metaphors of the human condition. Fantasists, whether they use the ancient archetypes of myth and legend or the younger ones of science and technology, may be talking as seriously as any sociologist – and a good deal more directly – about human life as it is lived, and as it might be lived, and as it ought to be lived. For after all, as great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope.”
Yes, even forty-five years ago, Ursula Le Guin UNDERSTOOD the power, grace and majesty of fantasy and science fiction in modern literature even if her mainstream contemporaries and literary critics refused to, then OR now.
But now, the best moment to permanently honor her, in this fashion, has passed. And so it goes.
After the Business Meeting, Juli and I made a beeline to the Dealers Room to decompress. One of our stops was at John Picacio’s table, where we marveled at his series of images inspired by his love of Loterria, a Mexican version of bingo.
We particularly liked El Arbo, La Valiente and La Luna, which we happily purchased on the spot. His image of La Calavera (The Skull) graced the cover of the Worldcon 76 Souvenir Book and the attendee’s badges.
John Picacio Loteria La-Luna 2
Later that afternoon, Juli and I had the pleasure of playing Loteria (a delightful form of Mexican Bingo) with John and an enthusiastic crowd of several dozen people. We played with cards covered with mystic images, animals and symbols using uncooked beans as cover tokens. John was having a terrific time as our host, giving out prints, posters and cards of his work as prizes. Juli and I came within a space or two of winning but as frustrating as it was, we were having lots of fun and so was the everyone else.
We saw Robert Silverberg wandering in the Dealer’s Room and he said he was looking forward to Harlan’s memorial panel. He then cocked one of his bushy eyebrows at me and asked, “And what are YOU going to share about Harlan tomorrow?”
‘Oh, you’ll see, “ I said with the utmost confidence and a grin. HA! Yeah, I had NO IDEA what I was going to say right then. Then again, it’s never wise to let Robert Silverberg see you sweat.
For dinner, we joined Rick Moen and two full tables of File 770 fans and writers at Back A Yard Caribbean Grill, an excellent hangout with very good Jamaican fare. The Boss was not present but Juli and I were in excellent company.
We also made the rounds of the parties in the Fairmont Hotel. While we had a good time, we were still feeling a little jet lagged from the trip west so retired shortly before midnight.
Saturday August 18
I woke up and lay in bed with a mild case of apprehension.
The “Harlan Ellison Memorial” panel was scheduled at 4 p.m. and I had no idea of what I was going to say yet. I had left the notes I had made when I wrote my remembrance of him for my File 770 column at home.
Former Worldcon chair (and friend) Tom Whitmore was the moderator along with authors David Gerrold, Robert Silverberg, lawyer and photographer Christine Valada and Harlan’s biographer, Nat Segaloff.
And me.
I was a last-minute stand in for another close friend of Harlan’s, Adam-Troy Castro, who was unable to attend. I was pretty damn sure Adam had hundreds of Harlan stories and anecdotes that he could readily remember at a moment’s notice. What did I have?
Of all the people on the panel, Tom and I were the only fans. Realizing that, I knew exactly what I was going to say…
Saturday session came and went as quickly as the previous session. After the YA Award amendment had passed there was a pause in the meeting to provide some maintenance for the video equipment. A friend asked what i thought the YA Award should look like. “It should be a statue of Ursula Le Guin,” I said without the slightest hesitation and a small chuckle. No one knew what the award was going to look like but it was rumored that it was highly likely an engraved plaque would be presented. But I also heard from another well placed source before the convention that there was a surprise in the offing, too.
When Juli and I left the meeting, we determined that there was probably no reason to attend the Sunday session; a proposed amendment regarding the revision of the definitions of the Best Fan and Professional Artist categories had been pushed back to tomorrow’s agenda due to a meeting of the Association of Fantasy and Science Fiction Artists happening later today. ASFA members had read the proposals and wanted to debate their merits beforehand. Since neither I, nor Juli, had an opinion either way about the issue, we decided to skip it. In retrospect, I’ll wish we hadn’t.
After the Business Meeting, we decided to go on another buying expedition back at the Dealer’s room. It was there that Juli and I encountered our good friend Marcia Kelly Illingworth, who beckoned us to her table.
Marcia showed us a vast array of fannish keepsakes, artifacts and jewelry for sale, all the property of Samanda Jeude, the founder of Electrical Eggs. A survivor of a condition known as post-polio syndrome, she started Electrical Eggs in the 1980’s, first to assist physically challenged fans attend Worldcons, and then expanding to local and regional cons as well.
But an object along the back of the table immediately caught my eye, A Hugo Award mounted on a piece of glazed Georgia marble, I picked up and upon reading the engraved plaque, recognized it right away, Judy-Lynn Del Rey’s infamous posthumous Best Editor award from the 1986 Hugo Ceremony. Why do I say “infamous”? Well, Del Rey, a master book editor from all accounts, was so good at handling Ballantine Books fantasy and sf books, she was promoted to editor-in-chief and given their own imprint by Ballantine Books, with the assistance of her husband, Lester, who handled the fantasy line. Judy-Lynn Del Rey suffered a brain hemorrhage in October of 1985 and subsequently died in February of 1986. Fans who knew of her and her work were quick to nominate her in the Best Professional Editor category, which had been dominated by magazine editors since it’s modern incarnation in 1973.
I was in attendance at Confederation when this award was given. Sitting in the audience, and knowing what a curmudgeon Lester Del Rey could be, I had a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach as a representative approached the podium. He (whose name is lost to me and history), read a bitter and forceful statement from Lester Del Rey which more or less said that he was rejecting this award because she was dead and this was just a sympathetic gesture that he want no part of whatsoever. The audience sat there, stunned. The representative left the stage empty-handed. The Hugo Award was taken away, its fate unknown to everyone there.
I felt awed as I held it in my hands. Samanda Jeude and her late husband, Don Cook, members of the Confederation convention committee, were given custody of the Hugo for safekeeping. Marcia explained that Samanda was now in an assisted living facility but needed money to help pay her bills. She also said, emphatically, that this particular Hugo award was NOT for sale; but said that there were competing fund drives being held at Worldcon 76 to determine its fate. We could contribute to one fund to put it up for sale to the highest bidder or the other to make sure it stayed out of the hands of a collector. I pulled out a $20 bill and voted for the latter fund. It belongs in a museum as a noted fictional archeologist one stated. (At the end of the convention, Marcia Kelly Illingworth posted on Facebook that the fans had spoken and the Hugo will be eventually donated to an institution for posterity.)
I also spotted an Incident Response Team desk in a prominent spot in the fan activities area with two staff members at the ready. It was nice to know they were there and on duty.
At around 1 p.m., I decided to take a look outside the north entrance of the convention center. Jon Del Arroz, in his infinite wisdom, had called on like-minded right-wing fans to come and protest hedonism, liberal bias and “pedophilia” of the attendees several weeks earlier. (Which makes his effort to try and register on Thursday appeared to be a rather lame attempt to rile up his supporters.) The call also attracted the attention of Trump supporters and white supremacists, who promised to show up in force. That, in turn, inflamed local antifa members, who promised to be there to counter-protest.
Well, I went to the main entrance, which the committee had forewarned us not to use during the time period of the protest, from noon until four pm. As I descended the stairs, I saw a rather pudgy man trying to enter the front door which was blocked by a police officer and a staff person. I surmised that he was being denied entry because of the sign he was carrying, which said in huge, capitalized block letters: “DEL ARROZ DID NOTHING WRONG.” Oh well, no one said his supporters were smart. I do wish I had taken a picture of that scene, though.
Peering out onto the plaza, I did not see much of anything going on. In fact, it looked as though there were more police officers on the scene than protestors. The official estimate was a total of forty people showed up, evenly divided for each side. The local news coverage bore this out.
The charge of pedophilia against Walter Breen, and by association his wife Marion Zimmer Bradley, are quite real and happened decades ago. Bringing Samuel R. Delany into the discussion is just pure slander. The only thing he might be guilty of is writing “transgressive literature” which some critics and readers must have mistaken for pedophile porn.
I did notice that there were about a dozen people in pink shirts emblazoned with “ I’m Here To Help” acting as escorts for people coming to or leaving the convention. It was a lovely gesture which I am sure people appreciated.
Fifteen minutes before the Ellison panel, I made my way to the Green Room for a drink. As I passed through the lobby, I saw my boss, Mike Glyer, seated at a table with his back to me, holding court with a group of friends. If I hadn’t been en route to my panel, I would have stopped and said hello. In light of what happened the next morning, I really feel badly about that.
As I walked into the Green Room I bumped into my fellow panelist Nat Segaloff, whom I recognized by his Facebook profile picture. And he was there for the same reason I was. After grabbing our beverages of choice, we made our way to Room 210G…
Panelists: Tom Whitmore, Bob Silverberg, Chris Barkley, David Gerrold, Christine Valada, and Nat Segaloff.
And here I must fault the Programming Division on their choice of venue( although it is difficult to predict a panels popularity), which was significantly too small to accommodate the crowd, standing room only; and the time allotted, which was at the very least thirty or forty-five minutes too short. Luckily, Juli got a seat in the back as Nat and I arrived. All of the other panelists were already there except for our moderator Tom Whitmore. I took the third seat from the left, Robert Silverberg on my right, then David Gerrold, Christine Valada and Nat at the very end of the table. I gave David a hug as he sat but he then leaped up and said, “I forgot my recording mikes. Don’t start without me!”, and he ran from the room.
While David was gone, I took the opportunity to show Christine two items I have on my everyday keychain that I keep in remembrance of her late husband, Len Wein; a very small Batman symbol and a metal tag from the Wolverine work shoes. Len did me a big favor by being a guest on my public access sf radio show back in 1983 (as a counterpoint to another interview guest, Marvel’s editor-in-chief Jim Shooter). I think I may have shown them to Len at a Worldcon years earlier and he got a good laugh out of it. Christine hadn’t seen them and was very appreciative of the gesture.
David came running in with his microphones just as Tom had seated himself at the table. As soon as David had situated himself, Tom opened the proceedings.
So, as the fan representative on the panel, I reached back into my childhood memories and said that I knew of Harlan’s work on television even before I had the pleasure of knowing him. I eschewed more sophisticated stuff like Burke’s Law and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. for more works of primal fear like The Outer Limits. I noted my reactions to “Soldier” and “Demon With a Glass Hand” but I also could have included “The Price of Doom” a first-season episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea which was disowned by Harlan under his pseudonym “Cord Wainer Bird” (for the VERY first time, by the way), a nightmare story about a strain of mutant plankton taking over the Seaview.
While I was feeling at ease, I was very worried about David, who was opening shedding tears next to me. But when his turn came to speak, he pulled it together and told memorable stories of how they met, how Harlan inspired him as a writer and most poignantly, helped saved his life by listening and reassuring him during a particularly dark period in his life.
As you can tell from the audio recording there were many stories and anecdotes about Harlan, many of them much better than my own, in my estimation. I wished we had more time to take questions and hear memories from the standing room only crowd but it was not to be. When Robert Silverberg capped things with his eloquent quip, we all rose to a big round of applause. I gave David a hug and a kiss. Mr. Silverberg signed my copy of the special 1977 Harlan Ellison issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction I had brought with me and featured a short biographical memory written by him.
After the panel we discovered that Jon Del Arroz had not even bothered to show up at his own protest. In a video on Twitter shot on a boat at sea (not his own, it appeared) he explained that the air quality in downtown San Jose was unsuitable for his young son (WHAT? He was planning to bring his own SON into a potentially dangerous situation?) and begged off attending. Well, isn’t it nice to know that if ANYTHING had gone screwy, America’s Leading Conservative Hispanic author would have been safely out of harm’s way to protest (and annoy us) some other day.
We dined at Tac-Oh, a very nice restaurant located just around the corner from the convention center. While the ambiance and food was great, we and a dozen other patrons were put off because there was only one waiter on duty taking everyone’s orders.
When we inquired why, the waiter told us that the management was NEVER informed about a convention being in town this weekend. Since the wait schedule was made out in advance, once the management found out about Worldcon 76 they found that their most of their staff was unavailable.
Now, this was not the first time that we had heard this during our stay. I don’t know who might be at fault here but somebody, at the visitors and convention bureau or the convention committee or some third-party in between really dropped the ball on this issue. And its little irritants like this that can really stick in the minds of attending fans. Future convention committees and bids should make a bullet point note of this.
Chris Garcia
From there we traveled back to the convention center for the Masquerade, hosted by Christopher Garcia. While the presentation was plagued by what seemed to be an endless series of technical faux pas and delays, Chris gamely plowed forward as the master of ceremonies, improvising with self-deprecating humor and scattershot jokes all during the show.
Shortly after the Masquerade started there was a surprising presentation; the Seiun Awards, which had a longstanding relationship with the Hugo Awards Ceremony, began without any prior announcement from the convention. (I checked the Pocket Program Book later and there was no notice there either.)
As egregious as Programming’s mishandling of the Ellison Memorial panel was, I felt that this was far worse. The Seiun is a highly respected award and had been, to the best of my knowledge, a part of the Hugo Awards Ceremony for a considerable period of time. While I recognize that the Hugo Ceremony has been getting longer in recent years, the relegation of the Seiun Awards to the beginning of the Masquerade seemed either haphazard or, even worse, a slight to those were presenting their awards. If the length of the Hugo ceremony was the problem, then the Seiuns should have been presented at the Opening Ceremonies or in their own hour-long panel and ceremony. I don’t know how everyone else felt about this but It felt awkward that Worldcon 76 had literally put the Seiuns in a corner instead of a deserving and proper setting.
The costuming presentations resumed and when they were over, we did not hangout for the halftime entertainment or the judges’ decisions. Instead, we headed back over to the Fairmount for another round of noisy and exuberant room parties before retiring back to our room for a good night’s sleep.
Sunday, 19 August
The morning was spent in the company of Juli’s sister Gail, her husband Mauro and their kids Sonia and her younger brother, Dario. We met at Peggy Sue’s and feasted on a mountain of omelets, breakfast sandwiches and pancakes. Juli and I regaled them with our convention adventures and name-dropping the famous writers and creators that we met that week. We heard from both parents that later that morning, Dario and Sonia vehemently argued over which of us was cooler. Heh!
Meanwhile, as the Business Meeting was concluding its Sunday session, there was a motion from the floor to ask the Officers of BM to send a note of condolences to the family of Ursula Le Guin for the upsetting circumstances behind the naming of the Young Adult Award. I found out about the proposed apology and the vote on the matter after the fact several hours later after Juli read a condensed version off of a report on a blog by a mutual friend, Alex Von Thorn. When I read it, I was furious.
I had spent a great deal of time and political effort in creating the YA Award and attaching Ms. Le Guin’s name to it. And now the very people who opposed her name wanted to apologize?
What the actual HELL?
And then we heard from friends in the Dealer’s Room that Mike Glyer had been overcome with some serious ailment earlier in the morning and been taken to a hospital nearby. I immediately texted Mike on my phone through Facebook wishing him well and offered to be a designated acceptor in case he won the Hugo. (I needn’t have worried; he called in Jo Van Ekeren to accept in his stead.)
Since there was nothing to be done about it at the moment, Juli and I split up to attend two separate program items. She went to Celebrating the New Award Category (a panel I avoided for obvious reasons) which featured Anna Blumstein, Sam J. Miller, Sarah Rees Brennan and Ursula Vernon. I attended Black Panther, Luke Cage and the #Ownvoices Creators with Steven Barnes, Sumiko Saulson, Leslie Light and T.L. Alexandra Volk. Juli found her panel a fine opportunity for YA authors to speak to other YA enthusiasts (it was well attended) and was mainly focused on its popularity and where it might be going next. My panel was just fantastic; all of the participants were engaging, excited, serious and funny. About twenty percent of the audience was made up of people of color but everyone in attendance was listening raptly to the conversation about race, sexism, appropriation and the current political and socio-economic conditions in art and fandom today.
After a delicious early dinner at La Victoria Tacqueria, we returned to our hotel to dress up for the Hugos. Juli donned a lovely black satin dress with a white bow in the back. I wore a blue suit with a black shirt, orange tie and and florid blue, white and orange FC Cincinnati scarf around my neck.
When I describe the 2018 Hugo Ceremony as a whirlwind affair, it is not an exaggeration. Clocking in at a little over two hours, it is handily one of the fastest on record. Artist Guest of Honor John Picacio had pledged as much when he was named as the Master of Ceremonies. And, as promised, he delivered the goods. (And displacing the other non-Hugo Awards helped as well.)
John Picacio
As each award was announced, I took multiple screenshots of the video boards showing the nominees and the winners on my phone and posted them immediately to my Facebook page. Several people later reported that they appreciated finding out the winners in real-time.
I was very happy that the boss, Mike Glyer, won the Hugo for Best Fanzine. And as Ms. Van Ekeren accepted for him, it was incredibly classy of him to remove File 770 from future consideration. Mike, as it was later reported, was laid up with an irregular heartbeat that would require the insertion of a pacemaker, so the Hugo was a pick-me-up. Also, Mike had Ms. Van Ekeren mention me by name in his speech, which had me a little chuffed as well. The Best Related Work was won by Le Guin’s collection of essays, No Time To Spare: Thinking About What Matters. I kept thinking how tremendous it would have been to have her name on future issuances of the YA Award and winning her final Hugo in the same evening.
I was quite sure Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form Hugo was going to go to the Black Mirror episode “USS Callister”, a wicked send-up of Star Trek, The Twilight Zone and gaming fandom. Instead, it went to one of the The Good Place’s best episodes, “The Trolley Problem”. I was similarly surprised by Wonder Woman’s win in the Long Form category; the list of nominees was one of the best in recent memory, especially with Academy Award winners Get Out and The Shape of Water in the mix. Get Out ended up finishing a distant second and The Shape of Water (which won the Oscar for Best Picture) was fifth.
Rebecca Roanhorse was also a double winner; she was the winner of John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer AND in the Best Short Story category for “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian ExperienceTM”, a tale that penetrates and shatters perceptions of cultural appropriation.
I was delighted that Suzanne Palmer’s “The Secret Life of Bots”, a comic story of interstellar war taken from a maintenance bot’s point of view, won Best Novelette. It was my first choice that category and would make a great film for Pixar. Hint, hint.
As much as I admired Sarah Gailey’s alternate history adventure, “River of Teeth”, Martha Wells novella “All Systems Red” (which also won the Nebula Award) was my first choice here as well. I would not be surprised if HBO or some streaming service comes knocking on her door for “Murderbot” stories, sometime soon.
Felicia Day’s appearance as the presenter of the YA Book Award took everyone by surprise. And I could not be any happier that Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Warrior was named the initial recipient of the Best Young Adult Book.
Betsy Wollheim
In fact, she actually received two awards; a plaque from the convention AND a trophy commissioned by Toastmaster John Picacio and designed and built by Sara Felix. If you were wondering how she accomplished this feat, here’s a link:
I hope that Ms. Okorafor’s book will be the first of many inspiring books that will win this special award in the years to come.
The Best Novel winner, N.K. Jemisin’s The Stone Sky was the odds-on winner since it was first published last year and I was not surprised that she prevailed. Juli, myself and the entire audience rose to its feet to applaud the first writer in history to win three consecutive Hugo Awards in the Novel category.
And the speech she gave was fearless, ecstatic, wonderful and electrifying:
And it was over. I wandered close enough to the stage to take a few photos, congratulate John Picacio for his hosting skills and, for a few brief moments, hold Mike Glyer’s Best Fanzine Hugo.
Not having an invite to George R.R. Martin’s Hugo Loser’s Party, we made our way to the Marriott’s overpriced bar to toast the winners. We met up with a friend and fellow Cincinnati Fantasy Group member, Joel Zakem and we properly indulged with hard cider and beer. New England fan Crystal Huff and her friends also wandered in and ended up seated next to us and we engaged in some fannish gossip for a while.
When we discovered that Joel’s flight was leaving at the very same time as ours, 1:10 pm, we made plans to share an Uber to the airport.
Monday, August 20
We arose before 8 a.m. and hit the ground running. I went to a nearby post office and brought back several priority mail boxes to ship back the books we purchased and had gotten signed. It was well worth the effort because we had JUST made it a pound and a half under the weight limit for our single, huge suitcase.
On the way back to the hotel, I passed by the windows of the Westin Hotel’s restaurant and stopped to make funny faces at several diners; con-runners Jim and Laurie Mann, John Lorentz and his partner Kathy, author Jo Walton and her breakfast companion and two Pittsburgh area friends, Bob and Carla Dundes.
We met Joel on the curb outside the Westin at around 11 a.m. and before long the Uber driver was taking us to the airport. I longed to make one more trip to the Dealers Room, say goodbye to friend and attend the Closing Ceremonies. But unfortunately, our early flight and the long layover in Salt Lake City would get us into the Greater Cincinnati Airport around midnight. Poor Joel had a longer haul; his flight was routed through Atlanta and he would be getting back to Louisville, Kentucky at an even more ungodly hour than us.
We were not the only ones making an early getaway; as we made our way through our terminal, we spied authors Nancy Kress (sporting a stylish black cast on her right foot from a mishap) and Jack Skillingstead waiting near a Starbucks for their flight.
Out two flights home were long and uneventful. Luckily, the last leg was a half an hour early and we were safely snug in our beds and surrounded by grumpy cats by 12:30 am. Jet lag be damned, we were asleep in ten minutes.