Plans for a Depth Year in 2019

Recently thanks to the Meeple Like Us boardgames blog I learned about the idea of a Depth Year, to cut consumerism, focus on what you already have etc. To read more about the concept, see their post. There’s also a related Facebook group.

I really like the Depth Year idea. My goals are modest. I’m not going to cut out new purchases totally. But I’d like to catch up more on things I already have.

Because of a MS-like illness I rely on ebooks mostly to read now. I can adjust the font size and spacing hugely. My Kindle is a bit of a lifesaver, but I usually buy bargain 99p books I want, that I’ve previously put on my wishlist at full price. I’ll still do that, but will focus on reading things I already have.

Alongside that I have a number of academic books and research projects that I want to get on with. All severely hampered by extreme reading problems and time/energy issues from the illness. My goals there are more extreme: no new purchases next year, and focus on working through my existing ones.

One big weakness of mine is Big Finish Doctor Who audios. I’m prone to buying new ones when I haven’t listened to all my old ones! I’d like to say no new purchases in 2019, but 2019 is a special anniversary year for Big Finish, and they’re bringing out some stunners that I’m very keen to get. And that will shoot up in price after. So I will be buying. But before then I want to prioritise listening to my backlog, and selling on eBay in CD form anything that I won’t want to keep.

That last point also relates to clearing out my study. It’s a calving as I’d be told about my bedroom as a child 😉 So, again, read or listen, then choose to discard (sell on eBay or give away) or for a few things keep. Aim being to clear out stuff.

Where I probably won’t cut back is on my monthly subscription comics. I really enjoy getting these in the post, from Forbidden Planet. But since I usually sell them straight on afterwards, and often for quite a profit, I think that’s ok.

So yes, a mix of modest goals, bearing in mind my situation. Aim to try to catch up on my backlog, reduce new intake, and have a good time.

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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!

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Another flying, albeit memorable, visit to Edinburgh Book Festival

The Edinburgh International Book Festival is billed as the “largest festival of its kind in the world”. It takes place in August each year, in Charlotte Square at the west end of Edinburgh city centre, and is a concentrated venue for talks by numerous authors, as well as related bookshops, cafes, bars, signing tents etc. This year, the 30th anniversary event, saw apparently 225,000 visitors to the book festival over the space of a few weeks, and a rise in ticket sales over the previous year. By any measure it is a massive event.

For me the strength lies in the depth of programming. The printed brochure, or online version, is perused avidly by yours truly as soon as it is released each June, and there are always too many things that I want to go to. Even picking a day at random would probably find events of interest. As it is I have to plan my visit more carefully. Because of an MS-like illness I need to take my wheelchair to the event, which isn’t really much fun by train or pushing it about the streets of Edinburgh at the height of festival season when the pavements are jam-packed with hordes of tourists. So we end up driving and staying in a city centre hotel for a couple of nights, to give me a chance to rest after the journey and before my time at the book festival. So it’s costly! But I think it’s worth it, for the time there, and the memories and experience.

This year I booked us into two talks at the book festival. The first was with Neil Gaiman, who was speaking four times at the event, but I really wanted to get to his talk about his landmark Sandman series of comics and graphic novels. I read these for the first time a few years ago, and was blown away by the power of the storytelling. They’re not like most traditional comics, that focus on superheroes. Instead these are a rich tapestry of stories and ideas, and myth and legend. Quite magical. My husband hadn’t read them though, and I was a bit worried that he wouldn’t enjoy the talk so much, or might be spoiled for the stories. But he said go ahead and book it. He wants to read the Sandman in future anyway.

The other talk that I booked us into was the Iain Banks celebration with Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Ken MacLeod. I’ve only read a little of Iain’s work, but plan to read more. And I enjoyed the Crow Road TV version many years ago, and again more recently. I admire Iain’s writing skills and storytelling, and didn’t want to miss this event. The Iain Banks event was immediately after the Neil Gaiman Sandman talk, in the same venue with half an hour in between. That would be fine, and worked out really well. And because of my having a wheelchair and needing husband to help me we were able to get pre-reserved front row seats, and free admission for my husband. Fabulous. Thank you book festival!

So fast forward to August 24th. We travelled down. Stayed in just about the poshest hotel in Edinburgh – if you’re going to do this you might as well do it right! Lovely meal that first night, me rest the next day, afternoon tea, then taxi, with wheelchair, at 6.30pm to Charlotte Square. That worked out perfectly. The festival site is very well laid out, in a large square formation, with tents for talks around the edge. The walkways are good for wheelchair access, and it’s generally easy to get around. The central grass area is laid out with chairs for people to sit in and drink and/or read, usually the latter whether a drink or not. And it’s just a really cheery place for a book lover to be.

We browsed in the main bookshop for quite some time. As usual I bought too many books. So many in fact that we got a £5 voucher off future sales. Hubby wondered why they couldn’t have taken it off our massive spend already! But I said no problem. We’re going into the children’s bookshop next, we’ll spend it there. And we did. I found a history of the Beano, absolutely gargantuan, that I’ve read before, via university library copy here in Dundee, but was rather keen to own for the future. RRP £25, marked down to £10, then with our £5 voucher that meant this absolute brick cost just £5. Result!

After that, lugging the heavy books with us, we wheeled round to the main theatre at the festival site, to wait for the Neil Gaiman talk that was due to start soon. Because of the reserved seats we could wait by the door. Most people were queuing all round the square. We’d seen this in previous years. It gets quite funny – and difficult to manage! – when the queue loops back on itself. Anyway the doors opened about 7.50pm and we were in at our reserved seats ready for 8pm.

The Sandman talk was excellent. It was chaired by Hannah Berry, whose opening question to Neil was “How are you?” Given that he’s nearly completed a many months international book tour for The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and has been extremely tired, understandably, at times, it was really nice to hear how happy he was to be seeing the end in sight (this week), and buoyed up by this. And he was delighted to be talking to us about Sandman that night, which he hadn’t been talking about for months, so wouldn’t be going over the same ground, both for his own benefit, and for the audience.

Hannah was a very relaxed presenter, prodding Neil on where necessary, though he didn’t need too much encouragement. I’m not going to cover everything that he said, but it was a wide ranging hour’s talk, particularly about the background to the creation of Sandman i.e. how he got the gig in the first place. And how he learned – starting from absolutely nowhere – how to write for comics. Some of the stories were particularly funny, for example his tale of a school careers talk, where he said that he wanted to write American comics, and the careers advisor didn’t take it too well! Anyway the audience enjoyed it, my non-Sandman reading (yet!) husband did too, and it was a great success.

Sadly we had to miss the book signing afterwards because we were going to the Iain Banks event. And because of that I hadn’t brought anything to be signed, though I’d have brought The Graveyard Book if anything. Which meant that when Neil, on leaving, dashed up to me and said that he’d arrange for me to be at the front of the signing queue I was “Aarrgghh!” inside! Anyway it was extremely kind of him. Maybe next time!

As it was we had a prior appointment. And the Iain Banks event did not disappoint. It was chaired by BBC Scotland political correspondent Brian Taylor, who did an excellent job. And as well as the three author friends of Iain’s, all Fifers, by birth or residence, actress Valerie Edmond, who starred in the TV Crow Road, was there to read from Iain’s work. The event was tinged with sadness, but was ultimately a celebration. It covered both the mainstream writings, particularly The Bridge, and Iain’s science fiction work, which Ken particularly talked about. Rather amusingly Ian Rankin revealed that he can’t read sci fi. He’s tried. He tried again when Iain’s cancer was diagnosed. But he just can’t, though he buys Ken’s books for his son.

There was a surprise guest too. Neil Gaiman ran in halfway through, breaking away temporarily from his book signing next door, to tell us all a story about a drunken Iain antic at a world science fiction convention many years ago. The audience loved it, and Neil was really glad to be able to share the story at last.

In the closing moments we saw a clip from Iain’s final interview with Kirsty Wark. I’d watched this on TV, the full-length version broadcast in Scotland, and it was very moving and powerful. The clip they chose to show at the end of the book festival talk was Iain talking about how happy he was with the different types of writing he was able to do. That seemed like a perfect choice, and a very moving point to close on. Also throughout the talk there was the crow book sculpture that had been gifted to the book festival by the anonymous book sculptor in memory of Iain. That sculpture sat on a plinth throughout the talk, for someone who’d gone away the Crow Road too soon, and would be transferred soon afterwards to Stirling University, Iain’s alma mater.

We left the festival site shortly after 10.30pm and were able to pick up a taxi at the west end of George Street moments later. Then one more night in the hotel, and back home the next day. It was a wonderful trip. I’m glad I made it, and I have wonderful memories. It was also nice to see a good recap of the Iain Banks event in The Scotsman newspaper the next day.

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