Ah, damn, knew I was going to forget something - waay back on the Thursday, on the 1st day of the convention, the very 1st item that we went to was - Gary Gibson`s reading, at 12noon, in a poky wee room in the SECC, which had a good turnout, such that people had to sit on the floor, godammit! During which Gary read extracts from his newie, Against Gravity, which got a lot of postive reaction.

Of course, there was a ton of panels and events which I`d have loved to have gone to, fascinating ones and essential ones which.... I just didn`t have time or the energy to get to.

Oh well, at least we`ve got Eastercon coming to Glasgow next year, being held at the Moat House alone so all the events will be within easy reach. Of the bar, that is!

(mood: afterwork tired - music: Paradise Lost, who are playing Glasgow in a few weeks, so I`m going)

Okay, as promised, here is my take on Worldcon. For those not in the know, it is a yearly event beginning with the 1st World SF Convention which was held in 1939 in New York; the 1st British Worldcon (which was also the 1st Worldcon held outside the USA) was in London in 1957. The 1st Worldcon held in Scotland was in Glasgow in 1995, and this year`s was held once again in Glasgow, at the SECC again, but with the Clydeside Auditorium as an additional venue.
If you look further down you`ll see the panels I was pencilled in for, so I`ll go through them and pass on my after-the-fact impressions.

But before we actually got into the meat of the convention, known as Interaction (every convention adopts its own distinctive name), a whole bunch of Scottish and Scotland-based writers gathered at Borders for the launch of a new anthology of short stories known as Nova Scotia. Edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew Wilson, it contains 22 stories of wildly diverse subject matter, though remaining within the broad boundaries of the term `speculative fiction`. As you might guess, I have a story within its pages, an alternate British Empah romp with its tongue kept semi-firmly in cheek. So yes, we celebrated the book`s launch on the Wednesday (indeed, it might be said that some of us over-celebrated), and then fast-forwarded to the Worldcon`s first day on the Thursday.

Thursday, I was autographing copies of my Shadowkings books at the Forbidden Planet table in the dealer room: the FP guys were generous and kind enough to let me have a wee semi-permanent display of the Shadowkings books available, namely Shadowgod and Shadowmasque, with a few copies of bk1 which I was giving away to those who bought 2 & 3. Once they were gone, I was giving away a few copies of the Shadowkings music CD (as composed and performed by the Edinburgh musician, Peri Urban), and I also had a bunch of A3 posters of the Shadowmasque cover on hand as well. Sales went pretty well, and the FP guys sold about a dozen and a half of books 2 and 3, which made me glad, especially knowing that a lucky handful out there had walked away with all 3 books to read in the one go!

Friday morning was my first panel, From The Glens To The Stars, moderated by myself, and taking a look at the Scottish perspective on SF; panellists were Gary Gibson, Jack Deighton, Richard Morgan and Neil Williamson, and it turned out an interesting and pretty divergent discussion, covering a wide range of topics.

Later that day, I was at the autographing table in the dealer room, sat alongside my Glasgow SF Writers Circle chum, Hal Duncan, author of the dense and very terrific Vellum (which happens to be my tip for a Hugo next year). I had a few things to sign, but Hal was unfortunate in that his book wasn`t officially out and therefore NONE of the booksellers in the dealer room had copies of his book yet....but that didn`t phaze HD for a sec, no, he was willing and able to SIGN ANYTHING, which he did with his customary aplomb and dark chuckle. At the same time, further along the table, Trudi Canavan was signing books for her readers, of which there were, shall we say, noticeable more than me and Hal managed to attract. Good on yer, Trudi!
Friday was also notable for the full-on party marathon that commenced at about 6pm. Er, that is, official and dignified publisher parties, ye ken! First up was the Orion/Gollancz party held at Tiger Tiger in the city centre, and a jolly swish place it was too, all restrained opulence and subdued lighting and tasty snackeroonies laid on. From there I dashed pellmell through the Glasgow streets (with not so much as a hint of temporal anomalies) to Borders on Buchanan Street for the Tor UK party and launch of Hal Duncan`s megamagnum opus, Vellum. Hal was putting on a good performance, swapping bon mots with the likes of Iain Banks while we, his writer- buddies-in-arms, could only stand by and nod approvingly while keeping a weathereye open for odd chaps in blue raincoats....er, just ask Debbie Miller....

From there I then hot-footed it up to Sauchiehall Street for a meal at the very well appointed Loon Fung restaurant, in the company of my agent, John Parker, and other writer-clients of the MBA agency, as well as Lou Anders from new US imprint, Pyr. My tastebuds declared themselves fully satisfied by the end of it all.

Saturday, and I was on a panel called `Is Blogging Hurting or Helping Your Career?` - hmm, if only I could tell. Which was pretty much the essence of my contribution...well, okay, it was a kind of scattergun, water on a griddle, sparky kind of panel. My fellow panellists were Eileen Gunn, Martha Wells, Benjamin Rosenbaum and John Scalzi, all Americans apart from my good self. And y`know, its very clear that I don`t blog enough; my blogosphere activity is right DOWN there with small notes sent by runner through the jungle; in fact, the passing of the `Help us now!` message by fire beacons in the `Return Of The King` is probably of a higher order of urgency...than my usage of my blog. But just let me say this - I have to take my tinfoil hat off to Benjamin and John for showing that you can indeed strap rockets onto a panel item and blast it into a newer, higher, cat-infested orbit where things can make sense, and sense make things....okay, I`m gibbering here, but hey, it was that kind of panel. And cats - soon as I get an new USB cable for my digicam, there will be pictures of cats.
On this blog. You betcha.

Moving right along....Later that day, we had the Nova Scotia reading, attended by myself, Andrew Wilson, Jack Deighton, Gavin Inglis, Hannu Rajaniemi, and others, and yes, we had a great time of it, parading our fabulistic crowdpleasers to all comers. What more can I say? - we had a brill time.

On the Sunday at 11am, I was on the Virtual Activism panel, along with Renee Seiber, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Geneva Melzack and Ian Irvine. I wasn`t sure how this one was going to work out, but we soon found ourselves exploring quite a bit of ground, from eco-activism to progressive politics websites, and the uses of the internet for acitivist organising. There was a good deal of interaction with the audience as well, lots of questions and comments which led to further discussion out in the corridor afterwards, always a good sign. One such chat involved myself and Maureen Kincaid Speller and Paul KS as well, during which I wheeled out my idea of the partial vote - you know, if you fail to vote in a general election, next time you`ll only have 0.75 of a vote, and if you don`t vote again it`ll go down to 0.5 of a vote! But if you do vote, it goes right back up to 1 whole vote! Okay, okay, I was really only thinking of some kind of outrageous suggestion that might shock people into reconsidering the value of their vote, and what it`s for! (Although some might think that it`s just something else to sell…)

Then at 2.30pm I had my own, my very own reading, supposedly half an hour but I got told to wind up after about 20mins. Anyway, managed to read a coupla bits from Shadowmasque, and an extract from a space opera short story I`ve now finished called `Darker Than Death` (and yeah, it`s not exactly a barrel of laffs)(tho it is gripping!).

Then came the evening, and the gorgeously well-formed Orbit publisher party, held in the coolly post-industrial venue now known as The Arches, in the city centre. And a wizard beano it was, too, being there in the company of Ken Macleod, Jay Caselberg, Debbie Miller, Martin Sketchley and sundry other persons of note and quality! From there, we hightailed it back to the Auditorium (by way of tour buses laid on) in time for the Hugo awards, about which other bloggers have declaimed in detail. Suffice to say, it was an excellent venue for the ceremony which was snappy, witty and concise in the temporal meaning of the word. Congrats to the all the winners, of course, and especially to BradfordandEdinburgh`s own Charlie Stross who won a Hugo for best novella. Maybe another next year for best beard-and-kilt-ensemble, eh Chaz?
After that, people dispersed to various parties, mostly held in the Hilton where I wound up in the company of Martin Sketchley and Jack Deighton, as well as the redoubtable Darren Nash and the Orbit posse. But by 1pm my senses were fading fast so I called it a night and headed for home.

Monday morning and, feeling none too good it must be said, I still made it into the SECC, bathed in bright sunshine - which I have to say was not really what I needed just then, as it was heating the interior of the SECC somewhat. Aye, it were hot and I was wilting under the glare of direct sunlight. Still, come 12noon it was off we went to see if Hal Duncan was going to make it in time for his reading….and behold, the man! Yup, he made it - wot a trooper! So we were treated to a couple of teasing extracts from his gigafrajelistic opus, Vellum, after which we repaired to the SECC concourse again, to bake in the warmth like so many two-legged writer eggs.

The last item on the itinerary for me was a kaffeeklatsch, which is basically where an author sits at a coffee table in the biiiggg fan room with his/her fans and just generally chinwags about their writing and anything that comes to mind. Unfortunately, it really was the fagend of the convention, so almost no-one came along to sit with me (sob), except for a very nice lady from the US, one Sirikanya Schaeffer, whom I had seen at a few other prog items over the weekend; turned out that she organises events for the SF Forum at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, and she had a copy of the Nova Scotia anthology (which I duly signed) which she was taking back with her. So we talked about my writing and my colleagues in Glasgow and elsewhere, until I finally realised that I had to go home before I collapsed into a heap of dust.

So that, dear reader, is a summary of the high-jinks, tomfoolery and other grand happenings which I was party to at Interaction, the 2005 World SF Convention. There was another Nova Scotia event, the east coast launch at Blackwell`s in Edinburgh the following Thursday, but I`ll say more on that, and other NovaScotia matters, in the next outpouring!
Namaste!

(mood: 0ptimistic-realist....music: Nightwish - `Once`)

A brief update, as I know that legions of you are breathlessly awaiting my account of all that transpired at Worldcon, but you will have to wait a little longer. This is just to let you know that it was a good experience, lots to see and do, as well as people to talk shoot the breeze with. On the downside, I was semi-clobbered by a cold which I thought I`d shaken off a few weeks prior, such that I was getting around the SECC and the Auditorium/Moathouse in a state of weariness for most of the con, thus was not really in any state to do the full-on party thang and high jinks that some of my GSFWC buddies were getting up to.

Anyway, as I said, more later.