Good second day at Worldcon, including book history and Doctor Who

Yesterday was the third day of the Worldcon, but my second day there, and indeed my last day. Because of my MS-like illness I need to pace myself very carefully, resting before and after big days. So once the programme of events was confirmed I decided to attend on Thursday and Saturday only. My husband however is attending on all days.

First impressions on our return to the convention were that there were more staff and volunteers visible, something I’d voiced concerns about in my last blog post. Security staff were checking that everyone coming in to the events was a paid-up Worldcon member. And there were more volunteers and helpers, including an access lady who was standing by the lift on Level 3, and gave us our proper access ribbons (to be visible for extra help mobility-wise, for me, and husband as my plus 1) to replace the temporary versions we got on Thursday. We also noticed more cosplayers i.e. fans in costume e.g. Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Lara Croft, Link from Zelda, and many others. And there were more people generally.

That last point caused some problems. In particular a number of rooms were overcrowded in terms of people wanting to get in, but were turned away. In addition I think some panels had been placed in too small venues, including the Doctor Who panel I attended, which was filling up rapidly half an hour before start time, and in the end was standing room only, despite rules introduced that said people without seats shouldn’t stay – at least more fans got to experience the talk, but it should have been in a larger room. Other people on Twitter commented about this in other panels.

My first panel of the day was at 10am, a retrospective looking at 1938 in scifi and fantasy, picking up on 1938 being the Retro Hugos year at this Worldcon. The panelists, including Jo Walton and John Clute, really knew their stuff, and gave a fascinating insight into the time. I particularly liked their analysis of differences between what scifi fandom then and now would perceive to have been the best works of 1938, based partly on what we are familiar with, including earlier and later years, but also based on how a 2014 audience defines scifi compared with a 1938 one. For example the panelists thought it unlikely that massively selling pulp magazine “Weird Tales” would have been perceived as scifi, and likewise both “The Sword in the Stone” – which won this year’s Retro Hugo award for best novel in 1938 – and “Out of the Silent Planet” were at the time viewed as respectively a children’s book and a literary work. As someone who voted in the Retro Hugo awards this year I found Jo Walton’s observations on the difficulties voters faced echoed many of my feelings. I only felt confident enough to vote in the Best Novel and Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form categories, and even then I had not read or listened to all of the works, but was confident enough in my assessment that my choices “The Sword in the Stone” and Orson Welles’s radio version of “The War of the Worlds” were outstanding, and I should vote for them anyway. Both won the Retro Hugo, which the panel agreed with, albeit with the caveat that the book would not have been even shortlisted. But I felt quite unable to vote in the short story or other categories, and this is largely because I’m not familiar with the pulp magazines of the time, and the Retro Voting Packet did not include the material. As a book historian I found some of the statistics for the pulps astonishing: circulation figures of hundreds of thousands in North America, which meant that they were the main way many people encountered sci fi, far more so than in published books. A fascinating panel anyway, and remarkably well attended – a packed room – for 10am on a Saturday morning, as one panelist observed.

After that we explored the dealers’ hall again. I was particularly keen to get back to the PS Publishing stall, a UK publisher I’ve bought a lot from in the past. This time I wanted to look through their reprints of 1950s horror comics, which I’d considered buying previously, but being able to flick through them and choose just the ones I wanted was much better. I found out later I got a real bargain: both paperback books for £8 each at the Worldcon stall, versus £14.99 each if bought normally. After that we looked at some more of the displays, and especially those about the history of Worldcons and scifi fandom in the UK. I photographed a bit of a poster about the history of Leeds fandom – Leeds apparently held the world’s first scifi convention in 1937! – and emailed it to my Yorkshire-born Dad, whose Dad was born in Leeds.

Then we had early lunch at the Cornish pasty shop further along the boulevard on Level 1. My husband’s paternal ancestry is Cornish, and indeed our surname is Cornish, so it hadn’t taken him long to find that stall the day before and try it out! Tasty lunch, and convenient and quick. And best of all, as we were sitting munching, my husband spotted my former university classmate and friend walking by, and called him over. It was wonderful to see him again. We don’t live too far apart in Scotland, and keep meaning to arrange to meet, but with my fluctuating health it’s difficult. But we were students together, graduating in computer science 20 years ago, and the only two single honours students in our year which had a tiny class size. So we were able to catch up, and had a lovely chat. I also met his academic mother (St Andrews has a system pairing new undergraduates with more senior students – their “academic parents”) which was nice.

After this we headed towards my second panel of the day, the Doctor Who Restoration Team. As I said earlier I think this was put into far too small a venue. Fortunately though we got there early, and I was able to nab a good wheelchair space. I twittered about how packed the room was, which gave another friend warning to leave his panel early and come round promptly to be sure of a seat! And I was able to meet someone I’ve only corresponded with online before. The panel was good, though let down a bit by the panelists being out of sight for most of the audience, too low down. Also it was a little too talky, at least at the start, but improved as it went on, and the various panelists got into the nitty gritty of how they do the restoration. This wasn’t just about restoring the visual images, but also how they restore problems with the audio tracks, as guru Mark Ayres explained. We also learned how old material is still being thrown away even now, which was thoroughly depressing. The panel included a number of clips from “Out of the Unknown” which the team has been working on recently. There was also a fascinating question and answer session at the end, including one lady – Scottish no less! – who had worked at the BBC in the 1970s, and had probably created some of the video recordings which the team were now trying to restore. All in all very enjoyable, and very glad that I got to this event in particular.

After this my husband and I explored the fan village for the first time. We saw the TARDIS model on display, though the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones had been removed by now. I also picked up some material for the proposed bid for a Worldcon in Dublin in 2019. I’d love to go to that, as someone with a Dublin-born great granny. We even got a Dublin 2019 badge ribbon to add to our growing collection. And then because we were both so thirsty we plumped for cider. Really strong cider! My husband is from Somerset, and he was rather bowled over by it. After that there was time to browse some of the free leaflets, before we headed back to our hotel.

As I said it was the last day of the con for me, but I’m delighted I came. I enjoyed all the panels I went to, had great fun in the dealers’ room and displays, and had a great chance to meet friends old and new. Generally I’ve been impressed by the organisation, which has, by and large, run very smoothly. I like the venue used, and as a wheelchair user while here found it easy to get around. I also found all the fans I enountered friendly, smart and cheerful, and a very good advert for scifi and fantasy fandom in general. And yes, if it comes back to this rough part of the world in 2019, I will be back!