Cheryl Morgan

David Mogo, Godhunter

October 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 012, Book Review, Suyi Davies Okungbowa

We are in Lagos in the near future, and the gods have fallen to Earth.

That may bring to mind Aliette de Bodard’s Dominion of the Fallen series, but the gods who have arrived in Lagos are very different from the Biblical demons that haunt Paris. They are Orisha, the gods of West Africa. You may be familiar with some of their incarnations from North American Vodun, but these are the originals. This is a new thing in Western-published fantasy. This is David Mogo, Godhunter.

Your immediate question should be to ask what the author knows about West African religion. Well, his bio says that Suyi Davies Okungbowa lives in Lagos, so I’m guessing that he knows a damn sight more about it than I do. This also means that he knows the territory. The book has an awareness of local geography and politics that you would not get from a carpetbagging Western author.

So who is David Mogo? Well, he’s an orphan, and a demigod. He was raised by a wizard whom he calls Papa Udi, though the man is clearly not his father. His mother, he has been told, is a goddess. He’s inclined to believe that because he has abilities far beyond those of mortal men. He makes use of those abilities to earn a living. Many of the minor orisha are harmless and rather foolish. They get lost, or wander way from the part of Lagos in which they live, causing problems for their human neighbours. The police are useless, so David has a consultancy business rounding up stray godlings and taking them back where they belong. He is the orisha ‘daji, the god hunter.

That, in a city whose economy has been wrecked by the arrival of a bunch of vagrant supernatural beings, is probably the best he can hope for. He’s well paid when he has work, but it is intermittent, and he has to deal with the corrupt police. Then a powerful wizard offers him a massive fee to kidnap two of the higher gods: the Ibeji twins, Taiwo and Kehinde. David knows this is a mistake, but he can’t afford to turn the job down.

The plot develops from there. The book has something of the feel of a fix-up. David conquers one opponent, only to discover that he now has to fight someone even more powerful, and so on. There is an overall story arc of his hero’s journey, but the structure does feel a little repetitive and predictable. There’s an interesting contrast to be drawn between David’s story and that of Thor in the Marvel movies. Thor begins as a powerful warrior and slowly adapts to being an ordinary guy. David goes in the other direction, eventually meeting up with his mother as anyone who has read a few fantasy novels knows that he must.

The most interesting thing about this book is the handling of the orisha. They are a pantheon that will be unfamiliar to most readers, and the cultural attitude towards gods in West Africa seems somewhat different from what we are used to in the West. Yes, they are worthy of worship, but also they live alongside us. I did at one point think that Okungbowa was going to reveal that his gods were some sort of alien species who have recently arrived on Earth, but no, they really are gods. It is more like they have arrived from a different dimension.

There are many ethnic groups making up Nigeria, let alone the whole of West Africa. The specific pantheon that Okungbowa is working with is Yoruba, but some of the gods he mentions are worshipped elsewhere too. This causes interesting problems. As we know, gods acquire power from being worshipped. But what happens to a god when two rival groups of worshippers both claim him? It gets complicated.

It is entirely possible that Okungbowa has played fast and loose with some of the mythology. I was pleased to see him naturally use non-binary pronouns for the sea god, Olókun, who is canonically multi-gendered. One of the other gods may have been given a gender swap.

One thing that does work very well is Okungbowa’s use of what I assume are traditional Nigerian witchcraft rituals. These are how the orisha have always been dealt with by humans, and those methods work just as well now that the gods are living next door. The techniques are a little reminiscent of how characters in a Tim Powers novel might deal with ghosts, but there are references to actual herbs that I assume are from traditional recipes.

The book works well as a traditional male-centred urban fantasy. One of the blurbs characterises it as “A Nigerian Harry Dresden”. But personally I found the orisha much more interesting than David and his hero’s journey. I’d like to see more of them, get insights into their characters and so on. There must be plenty of stories about them.

Of course there may be issues with that. I remember from my time in Australia how badly the Aboriginal community reacted to white people wanting to use their religion as a basis for fiction. Worship of the orisha may well be a living religion in Nigeria, and if it is some people might be deeply offended by fiction using their gods. I will have to leave that to Nigerian people to comment on.

The other thing that struck me about the book is that, although it is essentially a story about a war in heaven, and of a young hero playing a crucial role in that war, it is not a book that glorifies combat. There are occasional references to the Nigerian Civil War, and to Boko Haram. Nigeria is a country that has first-hand experience of being fought over. It knows what war is really about. That’s a lesson that we in the West badly need to re-learn.

Title: David Mogo, Godhunter
By: Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Publisher: REBCA
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Brightfall

October 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 012, Book Review, Jamie Lee Moyer

By the end of the first chapter I was totally hooked on this book and knew that I would whiz through it is a day or two. And I did. However, by the time I got to the end I had, not exactly fallen out of love with it, but rather ceased to love it quite as much as I did initially. Explaining why will require this review to be slightly more spoilerly that what I would normally write. You have been warned.

First, however, I should set the scene. Brightfall by Jamie Lee Moyer is a novel of Sherwood, but a very different take than we are used to. It is 12 years since Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men terrorised the Sheriff of Nottingham. King Richard is dead and John Lackland sits upon the throne of England. Little John has got married and started a farm. Midge has gone home to run his father’s mill. Tuck has become an abbot. Marian lives in a small cottage in the forest, bringing up the twin children that she had with Robin. And as for the Earl of Locksley, he has retreated to Tuck’s monastery to devote himself to God and atone for his sins.

We see the story through Marian’s eyes. In chapter one she is visited by a monk from Tuck’s Abbey. He bears bad news. Will Scarlet is dead. So is John’s son, Ethan. So is Midge. Other former members of the band have also died, all in mysterious circumstances. So mysterious that Tuck suspects magic was used to kill them. Marian, being something of a witch, is the only member of the band with the skill to track down the killer.

It is at this point also that we discover that Robin has put Marian aside, even had a bishop annul their marriage. Marian has found solace in the arms of Will, here cast as Robin’s younger brother. Clearly something has gone very wrong with the Merry Men, and perhaps that wrongness will lead us to the murderer.

I think you’ll agree that’s a pretty explosive beginning to a book. I can understand why many people love it. Juliet did, and it was her review that encouraged me to buy it in the first place. The problems I had with it are subtle, and probably a result of my reading it with my editor hat on. If you haven’t stopped reading yet, here’s where you might want to.

The first thing that occurred to me as I read through the book is that we were missing Robin’s voice. He was clearly going to be a key character in the story. Marian might be the viewpoint character, but she doesn’t really go on a journey. She just goes there and back again. It is Robin who has to come to terms with what he has done in his life; to finally stop hiding behind God and take responsibility for putting things right. And yet all we see of him in the book is a brooding, selfish, angry man who spouts religious nonsense whenever challenged.

Had I had this book submitted to me, I might have asked that it be re-written to have some chapters written from Robin’s viewpoint. It would have been hard. He would have been a very unreliable narrator, if only because he clearly lying to himself as much as he is lying to his former friends and lover. But I think we would have got a much better book as a result.

The other issue that slowly bubbled up in my mind as I read is that the book does not concern itself with the Matter of Sherwood. King John is mentioned in passing every so often. The Sheriff of Nottingham is presumably disgraced or dead; and replaced with someone less rapacious. There is no mention of Saxons and Normans. The Merry Men are in this book to provide a familiar cast of characters, nothing more.

Instead what we have is a story about intrigue in the Fae Court that blows apart a human marriage and threatens to unleash all sorts of chaos in its wake. It is a story of (mostly) good Paganism against (mostly) bad Christianity; a story of a good woman and her woefully inadequate run-away husband. While I might be naturally sympathetic to the Pagan viewpoint I would have liked to hear more from Tuck because I have a lot of Christian friends, some of whom are perfectly OK with Paganism, and who have just as much problem with Hellfire punishment narratives as Marian does.

There are a couple of other things that bothered me about the book as well. This description of one of the villains, for example:

A bend in Mikal’s spine cocked one shoulder above the other, perhaps explaining something of why the Lady had passed him over in favour of his brother. He might have won top ranking, but in the Fae a twisted body was a sign of mixed blood, most often true goblin or greenmen.”

I can see how the Fae court might be rather more prejudiced against disability than human society, and this might turn someone bad, but there was no need for it at all. Another explanation could have been given. And there’s that mention of mixed blood. If you look at the story from the right angle, it is fundamentally one of the dangers of mixed marriages.

It bothered me throughout that the main villain was referred to constantly as “the Demisang” (the Halfblood). I understand that with the Fae you cannot use anyone’s real name because names have power, but words have power too and some hurt more than others. By the time you get to the end of the book the narrative has become one of how the child of a mixed-race union can have problems growing up because of the difficulty of adapting to two different cultures. Of course it doesn’t help if the father is an irresponsible shitbag who runs away at the slightest sign of child-rearing difficulty, and the mother doesn’t exactly win any prizes for sensitivity and compassion either, but the entire narrative turns on the cross-cultural issue. It is, at least to my eyes, the moral of the story.

All of which is desperately sad because the book is beautifully written and has a superb premise. I very much wanted to love it, and I still enjoyed reading it. Had it been written 50 years ago I might have understood that it was written within a prevailing social context that was heavily prejudiced against mixed marriages. These days I can’t give it that much leeway.

I’m fairly sure that Moyer didn’t intend the book to be taken in this way. I think it is much more likely that she intended it be to be a Pagans v Christians narrative. But this is one of those things that, once you have seen it, you can’t un-see. And I have read enough of Aliette de Bodard’s complaints about the treatment of mixed-race characters not to fail to spot this one.

Title: Brightfall
By: Jamie Lee Moyer
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

FantasyCon 2019

October 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 012, Convention Report

October is a busy time for conventions. There’s Octocon in Dublin, FantasyCon, BristolCon and World Fantasy to contend with. But that’s not all. Publishers will be off to Frankfurt for the book fair, and with FantasyCon in Scotland many English and Welsh fans chose instead to head for GollanczFest in London. There’s also the MGM ComicCon at the Excel in London which is now drawing high profile authors away from Bristol. It’s great that the scene is so vibrant, but we aren’t at a con a week yet so it would be nice to have less actual competition.

FantasyCon was in Glasgow, or at least that’s what the advertising said. Dalmuir, where the hotel was located, is “in Glasgow” in much the same way as Heathrow is “in London”. You can get there by public transport, but having arrived you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere and are stuck there for the duration.

Having said that, the hotel was mostly lovely. It was large and spacious. I had a lovely room. The restaurant served great food at prices so reasonable as to make us southerners weep in despair. There was a large, comfy and very reasonably priced bar. The only real issue was the wifi, which was dreadful. Even that would not have mattered had Three, my mobile phone provider, not chosen that weekend to have a major national outage. Thankfully I wasn’t relying on the internet for transaction processing.

With Kevin’s article in mind I should note that the badges failed in most respects. The lanyards were single-point attached, although the badge holders allowed for the more sensible double-point. The badges were easily copied, and there was no art at all so very little memorabilia value. Thankfully the names were big enough to read. Several people seemed to be using badges from other conventions.

The main reason I was at the convention was to support Juliet McKenna, whose The Green Man’s Heir, was a finalist for Best Fantasy Novel in the awards. That meant taking dealer space. Fortunately for me, the lovely people at Luna Press allowed me to rent part of their space, and looked after my books while I was away doing panels or watching rugby.

Yes, there was a small matter of religious observances. I spent two hours on Sunday watching Wales do just enough to beat France and advance to the semi-finals of the World Cup. It was a masterpiece of keeping calm in adversity and doing just enough to win. Profuse apologies to all my French friends. Your boys did pretty well for most of the game.

Because I was in the Dealers’ Room much of the time, I didn’t see much programming beyond my own panels. These were sparsely attended, but both good fun to do. Special thanks to Jeannette Ng for live-tweeting the Fantasy in Translation panel. The non-fiction panel was also fun, and gave me the opportunity to talk about all sorts of things from Dave Langford’s sometimes brutally funny reviews to fan studies and reception studies.

In addition I ran a workshop on Writing Queer Characters from History. This seemed to go down quite well, so apparently I’m now a creative writing teacher, at least in my own little area of expertise. If anyone wants me to do that for their convention, I’d be delighted to run it again.

Overall the programme went very well considering the circumstances. When you hear nothing for ages and then get programme emails from the Chair of the British Fantasy Society you know that something has gone badly wrong. I tried to be as reasonable and accommodating as possible so as not to add to the problems. My congratulations to Helen Armfield for the rescue job.

The Dealers’ Room was well populated. There were the usual suspect such as PS Publishing, good friends from down south such as Handheld Books, and a bunch of people I didn’t know. Chief among those was Lee from The Portal Bookshop in York. The store specialises in queer and feminist SF&F. It has been operating online for a while, but has since opened a physical store. It proved an ideal place to offload most of the remaining Twelfth Planet Press books that I had been looking after since Worldcon. If you happen to be in York, please pop in any buy something.

Another discovery in the Dealers’ Room was Jenni Gudgeon. She’s an artist who makes pictures of the hidden world by etching photographs. It is an ingenious technique that allows her to create pictures of fairies and the like in a natural setting so that they appear to have been photographed. She explains the technique on her website. Check out her book, Folkland Fables, which I think would make a marvellous holiday season gift for a young relative.

There were several book launches through the weekend, and thus quite a bit of free wine. The one that caught my eye was Handheld Books promoting a re-issue of Vonda McIntyre’s The Exile Waiting. This was her debut novel, and it is set in the same world as the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Award winning Dreamsnake. Kate Macdonald tells me that she is currently negotiating the rights to Vonda’s unpublished final novel, which is set in Minoan Crete. I am very much looking forward to that.

For me one of the interesting aspects of the weekend was getting to connect with Scottish fandom. Things are going very well up there. They have their own magazine, Shoreline of Infinity, whose owners also run the very successful Event Horizon readings series. They have their own podcast, Speculative Spaces, and of course Luna Press as a local publisher. They have the long-running Glasgow convention, Satellite, which next year has Aliette de Bodard as Guest of Honour (sadly I will be in Mariehamn that weekend), and they now have Cymera in Edinburgh as well. All of this stands them in very good stead for welcoming back Worldcon in 2024.

I caught a brief glimpse of the dear old Starship Armadillo on my way out on the train. She looks like she’s still in good shape and I hope to see her fly again with a new, younger crew. Maybe Kevin can finally retire his captain’s uniform. But there has been a lot happening in and around Spaceport Glasgow since 2005. It is now a much better site, with more function space and hotel rooms. There are probably more restaurants too. I’ll try to make a trip up there at some point to report, but I think you’d have to be a bit mad to run against them.

The award ceremony went well. Lee Harris had run off to Canada, so we ended up with Muriel Grey as the MC. She did struggle a bit with the running order, but otherwise she did a fine job as one might expect from a hotshot TV presenter. Juliet didn’t win, but we hadn’t really expected that she would. As it turned out the South West did pretty well. Lucy Hounsom won as part of the Breaking the Glass Slipper podcast team, and GV Anderson took the Short Story prize with “Down Where Sound Comes Blunt” in the face of stiff opposition. I was delighted for Tasha Shuri and Priya Sharma, both of whom turned out to be lovely people, and of course for Aliette. And yes, all the fiction writing award winners were women, though the winning anthology was edited by men. A full list of the award winners can be found here.

And that was it for another year. Next year FantasyCon will be in Sheffield, which is much more accessible from down here. I will probably go again, though for 2021 I have my eyes on World Fantasy in Montréal.

Issue #11

September 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan Issues

Here we are with our second issue of the year. This is what you can find in it.

Cover: Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion II: The artwork that Andy Bigwood produced for the cover of Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion II.

Gideon the Ninth: A review of Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Tracking Classical Monsters: A review of Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture by Liz Gloyn

The House of Sundering Flames: A review of The House of Sundering Flames by Aliette de Bodard

Eurocon in Belfast: A report of Titancon, the 2019 Eurocon in Belfast

Dragon Pearl: A review of Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee

Interview – Heather Child: An interview with Heather Child about her book, The Undoing of Arlo Knott.

The Heart of the Circle: A review of The Heart of the Circle by Keren Landsman

About Writing: A review of About Writing by Gareth L Powell

Interview – Anne Corlett: An interview with Anne Corlett about her book, The Space Between the Stars.

Editorial – September 2019: A brief update on what is going on in Cheryl's life, which seems to get more busy by the day.

Cover: Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion II

September 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 011, Andy Bigwood, Art

This is the artwork that Andy Bigwood produced for Wizard’s Tower’s new steampunk anthology, Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion II.

You can see what it looks like on the book below.

Gideon the Ninth

September 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 011, Book Review, Tamsyn Muir

You have probably heard of this book. It is, undoubtedly, the most talked about book of the year. Indeed, it is the most talked about debut novel that I can remember. Admittedly they didn’t have social media marketing campaigns back when Neuromancer came out, or Perdido Street Station (which I know wasn’t a debut, but King Rat was barely noticed). But even Ancillary Justice didn’t get this level of promotion.

The buzz is justified as well. Gideon the Ninth is a very good book. It would not surprise me to see it on the Hugo Award ballot next year. Worldcon will, of course, be in Wellington. Tamsyn Muir might live in the UK these days, but she’s a Kiwi by birth and has lived in Wellington. No New Zealander has ever won Best Novel. Indeed, I’m not sure one has ever won a fiction Hugo, though they have been conspicuously successful with their movies. No pressure, then.

I got to talk to Muir briefly while I was in Dublin for Worldcon. She seems to be coping very well with the fame thus far. But of course the book wasn’t published then. I do hope that her publishers are taking good care of her.

But what about the book?

Imagine, if you will, the Warhammer 40k Spiky Death Metal universe, when all of their enemies have been killed. That would include internal enemies, because once you have perfected the arts of necromancy you have little need for living humans. The dead can do all the physical work for you.

Now, ten thousand years into the future, things are a little slow and cobwebbed. The powerful are very old. Nothing much has changed for a very long time. Yet now the Emperor, Necrolord Prime, King of the Nine Renewals, Giver of Resurrection, His Celestial Kindness, King Undying and so on and so forth, has issued an invitation. He wishes to find new recruits for his elite corps of Lyctors. The heirs of the Nine Great Houses have been invited to apply for elevation. Eight ambitious young necromancers, each accompanied by a loyal cavalier, arrive at the First House eager to be tested, only to find that the Imperial Palace has more in common with Gormenghast than a glittering centre of empire.

Let’s back up a little here. The world of Warhammer 40k has faster-than-light travel. The world of this book seems system-bound. There are nine Houses, each based on its own planet. You can guess where this might be. First House is clearly based on Earth. Second House, home of Cohort, the Imperial army, is Mars. Seventh House is presumably Venus as their logo has a rose in the skull. Sixth House, home of the Imperial Library, is Mercury, as the text eventually reveals. The origin of the numbering isn’t obvious – perhaps it is order of settlement. What is clear that our heroes from Ninth House live far out on dark, tiny Pluto. Yes, it is still a planet. And in a civilisation ruled by necromancers it is Ninth House, in their cold and lonely isolation, who are the Guardians of the Locked Tomb.

Cue ominous bass line.

In some ways this reminds me of Cat Valente’s Radiance, which also plays with the personalities of the nine planets. But it also reminds me of the planetary associations in Sailor Moon because there are so many young women involved. And because a book full of lesbian necromancer sailor scouts is too delicious an idea not to hold on to.

There are very few young people in Ninth House. One is Ortus, the Cavalier Primary. He’s a sickly lad, far happier writing melancholy poems than training with a sword. Worse, he is totally under the thumb of his widowed mother who doesn’t want him doing anything dangerous. He is clearly not his father’s son.

Gideon is an orphan and therefore an indentured servant of the House. Her mother arrived at Ninth House already dead, and her shade refused to do any more than name the child. Gideon hates her life in Ninth. She has only two pleasures in life: pornographic magazines, and sword fighting. If she wasn’t a servant, she would probably be the best Cavalier that Ninth House has ever had. But she is a servant, and a badly-behaved one at that. If young people were not so rare in Ninth she would undoubtedly have been executed years ago.

Finally we have Harrowhark. She is the Reverend Daughter, Heir to the house of the Ninth, and a superbly accomplished necromancer. Harrow is Wednesday Addams on steroids. Or perhaps more accurately Wednesday Addams on whatever drugs would make her more Goth, more cunning, more ambitious, more ruthless and more deadly.

Naturally Gideon and Harrow hate each other. Harrow hates Gideon because there is no weight of responsibility on Gideon’s shoulders. Gideon hates Harrow because Harrow owns her, body and presumably soul as well.

That, then, is your set-up. Gideon the Ninth is a book about comedy lesbian necromancers. Necromancy isn’t inherently funny, but the tradition of things like the Addams Family, not to mention Jonathan L Howard’s Johannes Cabal series, shows that death can be hilarious. I now live in hope of seeing Muir and Howard on a convention panel together talking about deathly jokes. And I hope that the success of Muir will lead to an increased interest in the Cabal books because Howard is a great writer.

The thing about death, though, is that no matter how funny you make it, it is still deadly. What we have here is effectively a country house murder mystery. As the necromancers and their cavaliers start the elevation process it becomes clear that they may not all survive to become Lyctors. Nor are they quite as alone as they seem. All of the Houses have their secrets, Ninth not the least of them. The further we get into the brilliantly designed plot, the more deadly things get.

Eventually we find out what it means to become a Lyctor, and then there will be tears. Thankfully there will be Book 2. I can’t wait.

Title: Gideon the Ninth
By: Tamsyn Muir
Publisher: Tor.com
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Tracking Classical Monsters

September 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 011, Book Review, Liz Gloyn

I know Liz Gloyn through the Women’s Classical Committee, a support group for women who study the Classics, of which I am a member. Before I actually met her in person, however, I saw her on a documentary series called Myths & Monsters which is available on Netflix. When I heard that she was writing a book on monsters I knew I needed to read it.

I should point out that Gloyn is not an expert on fantastic literature (or indeed any other media in which fantastical beasts appear). She is, however, an avid consumer of popular culture, as this review should make clear. In addition, she is an expert on the ancient world. That gives her an inside track on the origins of Classical monsters, and how they were seen at the time.

Of course, the way in which a Mycenaean Greek thought of Medusa or the Minotaur is very different from the way in which an Imperial Roman would see the same creature. And, as Gloyn notes, her book falls within the remit of Reception Studies which is all about how the subject is seen in the period under discussion. Nevertheless, the Classical insight is valuable in tracing the development of the careers of the various monsters. It also turns up some lovely little gems. I had no idea that archaeologists have found several shrines in Greece apparently erected by victims of nympholepsy: that is, they were erected by people who believed that they had been abducted by nymphs.

Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture can be divided into three main parts. The first is theoretical, the second comprises case studies of particular films and TV series mostly set in the Classical world, and the third comprises case studies of two monsters who are common sights in media set in the modern world.

The theory section sets out Gloyn’s plan for the book and provides a basic introduction to the creatures under study. It includes a chapter titled, “Classical Monsters and Where to Find Them”. Gloyn is well aware that she cannot hope to cover the whole field. Monsters run amok in modern media, everywhere from books and comics to film and TV to video games and table-top role-playing. All that she can hope to do is draw a map. Here Be Monsters. And there will be many more to be found.

To me one of the most interesting aspects of the book is the agency that it gives to the monsters themselves. One might expect an expert Classicist to first set out the nature of each monster, as defined in Classical myth, and then get all curmudgeonly about how inauthentically they are represented by Hollywood, or in the D&D Monster Manual. Gloyn does nothing of the sort. Instead she regards each monster as an independent cultural meme that keeps popping up in new guises, adapting itself to whatever environment it finds itself in. Classical monsters, it turns out, are particularly resilient and adaptable, at least for now. That is in part due to the fact that most of them have no definitive source text.

The film and TV case studies cover a range of productions including the works of Harry Harryhausen, the Hercules and Xena TV series, and Doctor Who. Sadly monsters are not a major part of the Xena storyline. Much more time has to be spent on Hercules whose career is basically that of a monster slayer. Unexpectedly this section has left me with a desire to watch Dwayne Johnson’s 2014 film of the Hercules legend which sounds far more intelligent that I would have expected from something designed to allow The Rock to show off his muscles.

Gloyn makes some interesting observations on the effect of film on monsters, in particular freezing their appearance as if we partake of Medusa’s power when watching them. Giving Medusa a snake body from the waist down was Harryhausen’s idea, but almost every version of her since has followed his lead. Gloyn is also sceptical of the value of CGI, seeing is at focussing on the technical wizardry of the image at the expense of the monster’s character. (I’d be interested to know her view of Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Smaug, which I felt was one of the few bright spots in the otherwise execrable Hobbit movies.)

The two monster case studies are on Medusa and the Minotaur. The latter includes Sara Douglass’s Troy Game series which I really should have read back when I was doing Emerald City. It also, rather strangely, includes Neverwhere. The description of the Beast of London in the book is very clear: it is a pig-like beast with razor-sharp tusks. I’m pretty sure I remember Neil telling me that it was inspired by Twrch Trwyth, the giant boar from the Mabinogion that is hunted by Arthur in Culhwch and Olwen. However, the Beast does live in a labyrinth, which is very much a Minotaur thing to do. And of course in the BBC television series it was infamously played by a rather placid highland cow.

Those of you who have seen my Amazons talk will have heard me talk about how the legend of Medusa may have been inspired by African women warriors who wore their hair in dreads. Diodorus Siculus talks of the Gorgons as a tribe of women warriors who lived in Libya, and Ovid also notes that Perseus flew over Libya on his way home after killing Medusa. You only have to look at the more ancient Greek depictions of the Gorgons to see that they are black. The beautiful white woman with actual snakes on her head as opposed to dreads is mostly a Roman invention, though as I recall Classical Greece started it. Much to my delight, Gloyn cites Dorothea Smartt as having come to the same conclusion; and having written a performance piece about Medusa based on this.

I think this book will appeal to anyone with an interest in monsters and their place in popular culture. It is possible that experienced fantasy scholars will find some of it a little obvious, but most readers should learn a lot. What’s more, unusually for an academic text, the paperback and Kindle versions are reasonably priced.

I accepted a review copy of this book from Bloomsbury’s academic division because they still believe that a reviewer is an independent expert, not a paid employee of the publisher.

Title: Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture
By: Liz Gloyn
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

The House of Sundering Flames

September 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 011, Aliette de Bodard, Book Review

The House of Sundering Flames is the third and final part of Aliette de Bodard’s Dominion of the Fallen series. The books tell the tale of life in a post-apocalyptic Paris in which fallen angels have returned to Earth and set up their own mini-kingdoms in the city. Book 1, The House of Shattered Wings, tells of House Silverspires, ruled over by Morningstar himself and headquartered in Notre Dame (where else?). But old Lucifer is not the power that he once was, nor do his schemes and dreams have much currency in this strange new world. Book 2, The House of Binding Thorns, takes us to House Hawthorn, centred around the Eiffel Tower and ruled over by the seemingly sadistic Asmodeus. But the old demon proves more adaptable than his former master, ending up sharing his rule with Thaun, a young dragon prince from a kingdom under the Seine.

Here we must backtrack a moment. Why are there dragons living under the Seine? Well, because this series is in part about the clash between Vietnamese and Western cultures. Vietnam was part of French Indo-China, and consequently creatures from Vietnamese mythology have found their way to France. Water dragons are among them. Like the Fallen, they are much diminished, and they mostly hide away underwater. But Thaun seeks to find a way in the world, and ends up in an unlikely but very passionate affair (I hesitate to call it a love affair) with Asmodeus. The Lord of Hawthorn only wants is best for his House and his people, and sees in Thaun an opportunity for advancing his cause, as well as a source of great sex.

Book 3 takes us briefly across the river to the Trocadero, but only briefly because right at the start of the book House Harrier is consumed in a massive explosion and burned to the ground. Truly it is a House of sundering flames. The rest of the story tell of various characters’ attempts to escape from the ruined House, of the attempts find out what happened, and of the consequences of this attack for the city as a whole.

The book introduces two new major characters, both rooted in Vietnamese mythology. Hua Phong is a magical being made, apparently, of flower petals, who has come to Paris seeking aid for her masters back home. The other, well, you will have to read the book for yourself, but he’s more than a match for the Fallen.

De Bodard is moving into post-colonial fiction here. The Vietnamese are rightly angry at what was done to their country by the French. But how restitution should be made, and who is responsible for paying it, are not easy questions to answer.

Meanwhile Thaun is walking a tightrope trying to keep his own people and those of Asmodeus from fighting each other. Both sides, inevitably, behave badly, as both believe that only they know what is best for House Hawthorn in this time of danger.

We also get a look at the survivors of House Harrier and how the Fallen amongst them adapt to their much reduced status. Guy, the head of the House, retreats into typical Fallen cruelty, whereas others learn that in times of disaster they might find common cause with their mortal servants and dependents.

Much of the focus of the book is on Philippe, a dragon who was exiled from Vietnam and now works as a physician amongst the poor of Paris. He and his friends seek only to survive, because it is all that they can hope for. Yet they are a lesson for the city as a whole. When disaster threatens, people have two choices. They can seek to become the mightiest cockroach on whatever charred heap remains of their world, or they can work together to preserve what they can.

It is, I think, a masterful conclusion to the series, and takes the story in a direction that most readers will not expect. De Bodard is not interested in perpetuating traditional (Western) fantasy tropes, she wants to blow them up. Morningstar, in particular, whom readers might expect to be central to the story, becomes so only as a result of his own hubris. When the world is on fire, no one will care who is King of Paris.

Title: The House of Sundering Flames
By: Aliette de Bodard
Publisher: Gollancz
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Eurocon in Belfast

September 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 011, Convention Report

Titancon was a convention that probably shouldn’t have worked, but actually did very well.

To start with there were three very distinct groups of members. There were those (mainly Americans) who had been to Worldcon in Dublin, wanted to see more of Ireland, and signed up for Titancon without much intention of attending the convention. Being in the con hotel was a bonus because all of their friends were there too. Then there were those Eurocon regulars who didn’t go to Dublin and were trying to have a proper convention. And finally, there were those like myself who were trying to do both conventions but were pretty much dead on our feet by the time we got to Belfast.

The con was held in the Belfast Hilton which is over in the west of the city just south of the Titanic Quarter. It is very convenient for the Lanyon Place railway station, which would have been great had the Enterprise line from Dublin not been afflicted with engineering works just when we needed it. I came up by bus, stayed in the Hampton Inn near Great Victoria Street station, and commuted into Lanyon Place by train every day. It was very quick and cheap, and the trains were very frequent except on the Sunday. I also had a lot more food options in the evening.

Having arrived a few days early, because the Belfast hotel was cheaper than staying in Dublin, I went to see the Game of Thrones exhibition. This was at an exhibition centre in the Titanic Quarter. Belfast has done some amazingly good work rebuilding the harbour and docklands, but it has all been designed for cars. My feet were very sore by the end of the day. The exhibition itself was great if you are into costuming, which I am, but might have been a disappointment otherwise. I loved the fact that all of the costumes were displayed on headless mannequins, making it look like Alice’s Red Queen had paid them a visit and deprived the entire cast of their heads.

Back now to the Hilton, which had plenty of space for all of the programming scheduled for it. This was a blessed relief after Dublin. There was also a good-sized Dealers’ Room. However, for some inexplicable reason Francesco Verso and I, who were the only new book dealers in the room, were hidden away in a far corner. There was no art show.

As I said earlier, the convention should not have worked. Around a year or so ago there was some sort of major committee meltdown. A lot of work was put in behind the scenes by the Eurocon Board, in particular by Carolina Gómez Lagerlöf, to rescue it. However, as one person told me, it seemed like the convention was cursed. Even a few weeks before the event disasters were still adding up. Martin Hoare had been the Treasurer for the new committee, and his untimely death provided yet another problem for Carolina to solve.

Miraculously the convention mostly worked. The signings and kaffeklatsches were not fully scheduled before Worldcon and were a bit of a black hole, and at least one really interesting programme item materialised at the last minute so that I missed it. But everything I was scheduled for or knew in advance that I wanted to see ran fine.

I was on three programme items, and asked to moderate all of them. The small press one was a bit thin, but I livened it up by telling the story of The Green Man’s Heir. The panel on Writing Vulnerable Men was OK though it did get a bit feisty at one point. Ian McDonald had to miss it due to domestic issues, and I was left with two panellists who did not see eye-to-eye on one issue. As moderator it was my duty to move things on. However, outside the panel I am free to express an opinion. It is never “unrealistic” to write about certain types of people if people of that type exist in the real world. It doesn’t matter if they are a small minority, they are still real. And complaining that something is “unrealistic” when you are writing speculative fiction is frankly laughable.

The panel that I was most looking forward to was the one on The Matrix. I had some film studies experts on the panel so I knew I would not be short of good input. My role, beyond moderating, was to address the issue of the film(s) being a trans allegory.

I hadn’t watched the sequels before the convention because everyone keeps complaining about how bad they are. I was pleasantly surprised. The second film wasn’t really my cup of tea as I’m not into car chases or kung fu, but I could appreciate the technical wizardry. The third film is now my favourite Star Wars movie. Given that the three films are so different, it doesn’t surprise me that the trilogy as a whole found it hard to attract a fan base.

The trans allegory aspect of the first film is pretty obvious if you happen to be trans yourself. Also the whole idea that taking the red pill means taking cross-sex hormones is very funny given how alt-right conspiracy theorists have adopted the red pill for themselves. But I think that we should be wary of taking the allegory too far.

In one of the extras on the Jupiter Ascending disc Lana Wachowski talks about how many people, including herself, have unhappy lives that are suddenly transformed, and can therefore relate to the story of Cinderella (because Jupiter Ascending is totally a Cinderella reboot). She’s right, and it isn’t just that story either. As a kid I became obsessed with the story of the Ugly Duckling and half-convinced myself that I would turn into a beautiful girl as I grew up. The trans experience is a fairy story for those who survive.

So firstly, The Matrix is a trans allegory because many fairy stories are trans allegories. And secondly, once we move beyond Neo, the correspondences drop away. It is particularly dangerous to see Cypher as someone who can’t hack being trans and wants to de-transition. Many people do find post-transition life difficult, and some people do de-transition. However, those are not overlapping circles on the Venn Diagram, and most people who de-transition do so for very understandable reasons. It would worry me a lot if I felt that Lana and Lily were using Cypher to say that de-transitioners were traitors to the trans community. I can’t see them taking that position.

We spent quite a bit of time talking about the proposed Matrix 4 film. I don’t think any of us understood the need for it, beyond Hollywood wanting endless sequels, but we all hoped that it would be good.

Kevin and I had offered to do a kaffeklatsch on translation and awards, but it didn’t get scheduled in time and only two people turned up, both of whom just wanted to talk to us. It turned into a discussion on WSFS governance and Kevin is hoping to write an article for me based on the ideas we tossed around.

Sales in the Dealers’ Room were not great, but both Francesco and I had done very well in Dublin and many people told us that they had no more room in their luggage.

The ESFS Awards were handed out at Closing Ceremonies, with Carolina and her team doing amazingly well to get through the whole thing in 20 minutes. The full list of winners is available here. I’d like to repeat my congratulations to Ian McDonald, Charlie Stross, Francesco Verso and Petra Bulić, all of whom thoroughly deserve their awards.

Weirdly Closing Ceremonies was not on the last day of the convention. The Sunday was given over entirely to tourism. Most of the attendees headed off on the coach trip around Game of Thornes filming venues. I stayed at my hotel catching up on work, but did join the others for the evening’s mediaeval banquet. I was disappointed at how few people bothered to make any sort of attempt at costuming for the evening (well done, Philippa!). On the other hand, the banquet was not bad for a hotel.

One of my personal highlights of the convention was St. George’s market, which was just a few minutes walk away from the Hilton. I bought lunch there twice, the second time dragging Kevin along with me. If I lived in Belfast I’m sure I would shop there regularly, especially for cheese, bread and fish.

Next year’s Eurocon will be in Rijeka, Croatia. Site selection for 2021 was won by Fiuggi, Italy. We had been expecting a close vote between Italian and Romanian sites, but sadly fan politics in Romania caused them to withdraw their bid at the last minute. I’m looking forward to both events. Wizard’s Tower may have a surprise or two for people in Rijeka.

Dragon Pearl

September 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 011, Book Review, Yoon Ha Lee

The latest novel by Yoon Ha Lee is part of the Rick Riordan Presents series and comes under a Disney imprint. Dragon Pearl is what is generally called a Middle Grade novel, aimed at younger teenagers. It is a child’s adventure rather than a coming of age narrative, and there’s no teenage romance drama. That’s quite a change from the clever and sophisticated military SF of the Machineries of Empire series. Yoon, however, is very much up for the challenge.

Middle Grade fiction, unlike YA, is very clearly not intended for adults. The level of suspension of disbelief required to accept the ability of its teenage protagonists to run rings around everyone else in the book is fairly substantial. Once you relax into that, however, you are left with a fast-paced, plot-centred story that is quick to read and very entertaining.

Our heroine, Min, comes from a poor, backward planet in a galaxy-spanning civilisation. For various reasons Jinju was never properly terraformed, and the inhabitants eke out a miserable existence. Min’s one hope in life is to follow her elder brother, Jun, into the Space Force so that she too can leave home and see the galaxy. Just 13 years old, she has two years to wait until she can take the entrance exams.

Then a visitor arrives at Min’s family home. He is an investigator of some sort, and he claims that Jun has deserted his post. Min’s brother is believed to have joined up with pirates seeking the legendary Dragon Pearl, a powerful artefact that can be used to terraform planets. The man has a letter for Min from Jun, which he thinks may contain a secret message. She knows that it does, and she knows that her brother is in trouble. She is not about the turn him in to the authorities, so she has to head off to rescue him herself.

Ordinarily a 13-year-old girl would not stand a chance at such mission, but Min’s family are Fox Spirits. They have excellent shape-shifting abilities, and can also charm others into seeing or believing things. Thus Min ends up on an adventure into space to find the Dragon Pearl and clear her brother’s name.

Along the way we discover that the world of the book is full of creatures from Korean mythology. Min befriends two young Space Force cadets: a dokkaebi (goblin) and a dragon. There is a vengeful ghost she must deal with. And the captain of Jun’s ship turns out to be a Tiger Spirit.

As we should probably expect from Yoon, there is some playing with gender. Fox Spirits get to choose what gender to be, and most choose female though Jun is an exception. Min spends much of the book disguised as a young boy, but that doesn’t shake her own identity. Sujin, the dokkaebi, is non-binary, and this is unremarkable in the world of the book. Earlier on we met a security guard whose name badge noted that they used non-binary pronouns.

Eventually Yoon manages to bring the book to a very satisfying conclusion in which Min, thanks to being modest and selfless, triumphs over a bunch of greedy adults, which is exactly what you would expect. Nevertheless, exactly how this obvious conclusion is to be made to happen remains in doubt until the final chapters.

I suspect that many of you will find this book a little too lightweight, but I loved the worldbuilding which is thoroughly infused with Korean mythology. I’m also delighted that Riordan is continuing his championing of the trans community by asking Yoon to write for him and allowing him to put gender narratives into the story.

Title: Dragon Pearl
By: Yoon Ha Lee
Publisher: Rick Riordan Presents
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Interview – Heather Child

September 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 011, Audio, Interviews

This is an interview with Heather Child that I did on my radio show. It is mainly about Heather’s book, The Undoing of Arlo Knott, which I reviewed last issue.

The Heart of the Circle

September 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 011, Book Review, Keren Landsman

When I was looking for new people to meet at Worldcon, my Israeli friends were adamant that I should make the acquaintance of Keren Landsman. She has a novel out in translation from Angry Robot, and it has queer content, so it was a no-brainer for me. I’m pleased to say that it was also an excellent decision. Keren was clearly the life and soul of the Israeli delegation in Dublin. I warmed to her immediately. But I still had to read the book. Here are some thoughts.

The first thing to note is that, while this is Landsman’s first book in English, she is no novice. She is a three-time winner of the Geffen Award, Israel’s national award for speculative fiction. That included an award for the novel, Broken Skies, in 2015. The translator is Daniela Zamir who, according to her LinkedIn profile, has 9 years’ experience as a freelance translator and an academic career in areas such as gender studies and political science, which would certainly have stood her in good stead with regard to this book.

In an interview for Civilian Reader, Landsman states that The Heart of the Circle was inspired in part by the news that a 16-year-old girl was murdered during Jerusalem Pride. She states, “We live in a country where religion and inequality influence every waking hour, and you can’t dismiss it.” The book therefore falls pretty squarely into allegory territory.

The Heart of the Circle is set in Tel Aviv which, my Israeli friends tell me, is the most liberal city in the country. Several of the main characters are queer, including the hero, Reed. However, it is not their queerness that sets them apart. Rather their difference is a result of them having magical powers. In another universe they might have been called Mutants, but in Landsman’s world sorcerers have always existed. Many of them have elemental powers of either air, earth, water or fire, but some are empaths and others precogs.

A slight diversion into worldbuilding here. Landsman takes a cue from modern queer culture and has the sorcerer community adopt nicknames for the various subcategories. Empaths are “moodies” and precogs ae “damuses” (a contraction of Nostradamuses). Cleverly she has young sorcerers adopt a completely different set of nicknames, and also has the American visitors in the novel have their own terminology. This tells me that she has spent some time mixing with trans people.

Back with the book, however, we have to address the issue that real queer people do not have superpowers. We certainly can’t defend ourselves from attack by casting spells. There’s a common criticism of the X-Men as queer allegory that goes along exactly these lines. Nevertheless, queer people, and these days in particular trans people, are claimed to have magical powers by the media. Trans people are, if you choose to believe what is written about us, incredibly powerful politically, able to immediately shut down any voice raised against us, and to force government to do our bidding. We also have the magical power of turning anyone we meet trans. Young people are, allegedly, particularly susceptible to catching Trans Cooties. Landsman also makes good use of the religious conflicts in her own country, taking Old Testament condemnations of sorcery as actual ancient reactions to the existence of sorcerers. That, of course, parallels the common appeals to Biblical (or other religious) authority by people wishing to attack queer folk.

So the allegory works. Or at least it works as well as the X-Men, and they have been accepted as queer allegory for a long time. What about the science fiction? This aspect of the book is dependent critically on the existence of precognition.

If you have people in your story who can see the future, that creates particular issues for the plot. We have understood this at least since the days of the all-knowing Hari Seldon, whose psychohistory could unerringly predict the future course of galactic history. Before long Asimov realised the trap he had created for himself, and he introduced The Mule, a character born with the ability to foil psychohistory’s predictions.

Landsman has the benefit of learning from Asimov, and many other writers who have tackled the same themes. In her world damuses from rival groups plot to influence multiple potential timelines so that they coalesce into a desired actual future. If a particular person is destined to become an important political leader, that person’s enemies will have their damuses try to arrange an assassination. Groups of damuses working in opposition can be kept busy playing chess against each other with future timelines as their boards and living humans as their pieces.

In the case of the book the enemies are the Sons of Simeon. I’m no Biblical scholar, but I’m assuming this is a reference to the second son of Jacob who was notoriously zealous in his desire to cleanse the world of sinners and unbelievers. He was also one of the ringleaders when Joseph’s brothers decided to gang up on him for being too flamboyant in his clothing (something that some of my queer Jewish friends have taken to be an implication that Joseph was gay, because clearly only a gay man would wear a rainbow coat).

Anyway, the Sons of Simeon are a group dedicated to the eradication of sorcerers. They are the ones who turn up at Sorcerer Pride rallies and try to murder the attendees. Interestingly they are sorcerers themselves, which provides parallels to the small group of trans women who have aligned themselves with the anti-trans movement.

The basic plot of the book is that Reed is a pro-sorcerer activist who can’t stop himself from volunteering, standing up for the cause, going on demonstrations and so on. His parents and his non-sorcerer brother, Matthew, are beside themselves with worry. Reed doesn’t share their concern. His flatmate and best buddy, Daphne, is one of the best damuses around, and if she hasn’t foreseen him getting killed then he’ll be OK.

Which is fine up until the point when the future timelines shift and Daphne informs Reed that his time is up. He could save himself, but what she sees is him giving his life to protect someone else. Being Reed, he’s not going to prevent himself from doing that.

The plot then boils down to finding a way to cheat this new future. It is a difficult thing for a writer to pull off. How can you change the future when a whole lot of people who are your enemies can foresee your every move? Landsman goes for a fairly obvious answer, but to many readers this type of story may be new. In any case the plot resolution is by no means the only important aspect of the book. There’s plenty of great characterisation, a fair amount of gay sex, and a solid understanding of queer culture. Landsman also puts her day job in medicine and public health advocacy to work in the worldbuilding.

Finally, I should note that, because this book is written by an Israeli living in Israel, there are aspects to it that reflect Israeli culture. Things that you would not find in a typical American novel. For example, all the characters talk about military service. It is a fact of life for them. Something that they assume everyone does. I also had to keep reminding myself that none of the Biblical references would be to the New Testament. One of the reasons I love translated fiction is the glimpse into another world that you get from it.

Title: The Heart of the Circle
By: Keren Landsman
Publisher: Angry Robot
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

About Writing

September 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 011, Book Review, Gareth L Powell

Confession time: I haven’t read many writing guides. For someone who does as much writing as I do, you would have thought that I might have tried to improve my craft, right? But I am generally allergic to self-help books, and I have the distinct impression that more people are making money from teaching writing than are making money from writing. I mean, teaching writing is a job. Being a writer is something that people tend to do in their spare time.

Publishing, it is a crazy business.

However, Gareth Powell is a mate. And the folks at Luna Press are good pals too. So I definitely wanted to pick up a copy of this book at Worldcon. And of course I am glad that I did.

About Writing is a very short book. It is by no means a detailed instruction manual for being a writer. If you want detail I warmly recommend Reading Like A Writer by Francine Prose. Powell’s book is as much a book about being a writer as it is about writing. There are, after all, a lot of people who want to be writers. There’s a reason why Powell subtitled the book, A Field Guide for Aspiring Authors. There’s a whole lot of aspiring going on out there, probably not enough doing, and certainly not enough submitting.

For some time now Powell has been using his Twitter feed to dispense help and encouragement to fellow writers. This book is essentially a collection of the sort of thing he says in those discussions. It has a bunch of practical tips to get you going, and more tips to help turn your great ideas into something that works. Powell shares a lot of his own techniques, but he’s also wise enough to understand that what works for him isn’t going to work for everyone. The focus is not on telling you how to write, but on helping you find a writing technique that works for you.

The book covers the entire lifecycle of writing, all the way from “where do you get your ideas from?” to getting an agent, getting published, and promoting your book. It includes some sage advice on how to deal with the anxiety that can result from this very solitary occupation, and on how not to be an arse on social media.

In short, this is a great little book. It probably won’t contain a huge amount new for people already started on their careers (though some successful writers could certainly have done with learning about the pitfalls of social media). It will, however, be a great source of ideas and comfort to people who are just setting out on what they hope will be a career. And when you have read it, you should follow Powell on Twitter. There’s lots more that you can learn from him there.

Title: About Writing
By: Gareth L Powell
Publisher: Luna Press Publishing
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Interview – Anne Corlett

September 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 011, Audio, Interviews

This is an interview that I did on my radio show back in September 2018. I never got around to putting it on the podcast feed until now.

In the interview, Anne and I talk about Anne’s debut novel, The Space Between the Stars. The story addresses themes of reproductive justice and disability rights in a post-apocalypse universe.

Editorial – September 2019

September 30, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 011, Editorial

Hey, I’ve managed another issue! Only another 100 or so to go to match Emerald City. Not that I’m particularly worrying about that at this stage.

I was hoping that this issue would have more on the fallout from Worldcon, but the past couple of weeks have been a bit crazy and I’ve not had time to write much. It is good that I wrote a pile of book reviews earlier in the month.

Of course one of the reasons I have been busy recently has been that I have been working on Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion II, the latest book from Wizard’s Tower. The ebook should be available on pre-order from Amazon, Kobo and B&N by the time you read this. And the paper edition should be available at BristolCon. My thanks to Roz Clarke & Jo Hall for the editing, and to Andy Bigwood whose cover art also adorns this issue. A special shout out to for Charlotte Bond who came in to do some last minute copyediting when the timescales were getting a bit frantic.

Oh yeah, and the book has some great stories. And one by me.

Later this month I will be at FantasyCon in Glasgow, where I am crossing my fingers that Juliet McKenna will come home with an award for The Green Man’s Heir. I’m hoping to do some interviews while I am there. And of course there will be BristolCon at the end of October (just when I need to be putting issue #12 together).

Next month there should be reviews of books by JM Alvey, K Arsenault Rivera and Kate Heartfield, among others. And I have an interview with Ellen Datlow from Titancon to run.

Issue #10

August 28, 2019 Cheryl Morgan Issues

Well, we’re back, sort of. Welcome to Salon Futura, the fanzine. There is a full explanation in the editorial. In the meantime, here is the contents list.

Cover: The Green Man’s Foe: The artwork that Ben Baldwin produced for Juliet E. McKenna's latest novel, The Green Man's Foe.

Editorial – August 2019: Cheryl explains why she is bringing back Salon Futura as a fanzine.

Worldcon #77 in Dublin: A report on the 2019 World Science Fiction Convention held in Dublin, Ireland.

The Calculating Stars: A review of The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

Gods of Jade and Shadow: A review of Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Interview – Regina Wang: An interview with Chinese science fiction writer and promoter, Regina Wang, made at the Åcon X convention in Finland.

The Undoing of Arlo Knott: A review of The Undoing of Arlo Knott by Heather Child.

Finncon 2019: A report on the 2019 Finncon, at which Cheryl was a Guest of Honour.

Interview – Farah Mendlesohn & Cathy Butler: An interview with Professor Farah Mendlesohn and Dr. Cathy Butler about their plans for a conference devoted to the work of Diana Wynne Jones.

Cover: The Green Man’s Foe

August 28, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 010, Art, Ben Baldwin

This is the artwork that Ben Baldwin produced for Juliet E. McKenna’s latest novel, The Green Man’s Foe.

You can see what it looks like on the book below.

Editorial – August 2019

August 28, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 010, Editorial

OK, what’s all this then?

It goes like this. The stats issued after the 2019 Hugo Award ceremony showed a distinct lack of interest in the fanzine category. As a former fanzine editor, I found that sad. Nicholas Whyte felt that we were on the verge of having to drop the category for lack of interest. Aidan Moher opined on Twitter that all of the cool kids are booktubers these days, and perhaps they are. I certainly look forward to seeing one of them win a Hugo. But I also believe that different people have different skills. I know that I can’t do video. I’m terrible on camera. I think there should be room for people who want to just write.

Now obviously I have quite enough Hugos. I’m not looking to win another one. But perhaps by getting back in the game I will encourage more people to think about the fanzine category, and to vote in it. My vote would go to Rachel Cordasco’s wonderful Speculative Fiction in Translation.

As I had the Salon Futura website, and there seemed to be no possibility of re-launching it as a semiprozine, I decided to reinvent it as a fanzine. Its not that I haven’t been generating suitable material. I have put this issue together primarily by using material that I put on my blog, Cheryl’s Mewsings, during August. The only new material is the Worldcon report. In future any book reviews, con reports and audio that I produce will appear here rather than on the Mewsings.

It my intention to consolidate all of my reviews and interviews here, even when they aren’t part of official issues of the ‘zine. That will obviously take a little while.

I also need to do a bit of clean-up of the old material as it hasn’t always fitted well into the new look of the site. Sorry about that, but I did want to get this issue out in August.

Next issue will include fiction reviews of books by Aliette de Bodard, Yoon Ha Lee, and hopefully Tamsyn Muir. There will also be non-fiction reviews of books by Gareth L. Powell and Liz Gloyn. I will run the interview that I did with Heather Child on my radio show as that will be gone from the Ujima Listen Again service by then. And I will have a report on this year’s Eurocon, TitanCon in Belfast.

Looking forward I plan to feature articles on the future of Worldcon. I have some thoughts on improving the international nature of the convention, and Kevin has some views on how the governance of WSFS might evolve.

I’m not actively looking for other contributors, but if people do have ideas please get in touch. I’m particularly interested in material about fandom and fiction from outside of the English-speaking world.

Worldcon #77 in Dublin

August 28, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 010, Convention Report

It is a long time since I did one of these, but Worldcon has changed a lot in that time. There are many new people becoming part of the Worldcon community, and inevitably they don’t have much idea of how Worldcon works. Worldcons definitely do get things wrong, sometimes disastrously so, but if we want them to get better we need practical solutions that stand a chance of working. So I figured I should do a bit of explaining. Hopefully this will help.

Also, as I have been out of the loop for some time, I may have got stuff wrong. If I have, please tell me.

The Venue

Dublin is a lovely city, and the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD) is a beautiful building with gorgeous views over the city from the escalators (unless you have a phobia about heights, which people I know do—thank goodness for the elevators). A great setting can make an uncomfortable experience feel a lot better. Nevertheless, Dublin was right on the edge of the number of people it could handle, which is why they took the unusual decision to close membership purchase prior to the convention.

When they were bidding I heard people complaining that the convention would be a disaster because the venue only held 2000 people. That’s nonsense. Sharon Sbarsky told me that she and some other fans had been on a bus tour of the city after the 2014 Eurocon and the tour guide had quoted this figure. Perhaps that’s where the story came from.

The actual theoretical capacity is somewhere between 5000 and 6000, which is a typical Worldcon size. But close to capacity it becomes difficult to manage. Helsinki, which had similar capacity issues, had the option of simply renting more space in their huge convention centre. Dublin didn’t, hence the decision to take space in The Point, a newly built facility one stop down the Luas line from the convention centre.

Having two venues that are 10-15 minutes apart creates scheduling problems. The convention did a smart thing in staggering the schedules. Program items in the CCD started on the hour, and those in The Point started on the half hour. That way you had time to get from, say, an 11:00 item in the CCD (finishing at 11:50) to a 12:30 item in The Point. Even so, I think a lot of people took a decision to stay at one venue or the other. No matter how well you prepare, that’s inevitable.

Even with the split sites, queuing for program items became a problem. It took several days before the CCD had something that worked. I understand that a lot of volunteer time was spent on corralling and entertaining the crowds. Huge thanks are due to the people who did that difficult job.

The CCD staff were less good at crowd control. Some of them were lovely. Some were unnecessarily officious. The same was true of staff at The Point. At one point I tried to leave my jacket and (very heavy) rucksack at the cloakroom in the CCD. I was told that it was full, despite the fact that there was very obviously lots of room; and loads of unused coat hangers. I’m afraid I had a sobbing fit. It was a Very Heavy rucksack. Thankfully they relented, but that just proved the point that there was plenty of room. On the other hand, when I arrived with two heavy suitcases on the Monday, a CCD security guard helped me carry them into the building, despite the fact that I didn’t have my badge on at the time.

I found the Luas very simple to use and very frequent. Fortunately, my AirBnB was fairly close to a Luas stop. However, the Dublin experience reminded me of how essential it is for people doing a lot of work on the convention to have a convenient nearby hotel room. I had to carry a laptop around with me for 3 of the 5 days; and had my suitcases with me for a 4th because AirBnBs don’t have luggage storage facilities. Kevin had an even worse experience, having to be at the Business Meeting with a pile of equipment for 9:00am on 4 of the 5 days.

The other minor complaint that I have about the CCD is that there was a distinct lack of public seating space. That again seems to have been a building capacity issue, in that I could not see where you could have put more.

Martin’s

The one big area of public seating was the con bar, Martin’s. This was named after Martin Hoare, a British fan who died suddenly a couple of weeks before the convention. Martin was one of my oldest friends in fandom, and indeed the person who encouraged me to start attending conventions. I still can’t quite believe he’s gone. Naming the convention bar after him was exactly the sort of tribute he would have wanted.

Registration

My first and primary experience of queuing chaos was on Thursday when I went to register. I was told that I had to enter the building by a side door, but when I got there it was not obvious were the registration queue was. It looked like there were no queues. My apologies if anyone thought I was queue jumping.

Eventually I found out where to stand, and everything proceeded very smoothly. I think I spent more time trying to find the queue than actually queuing.

The best thing about Registration was the badges. Names were clearly visible, and there was a little round space for a pronoun sticker. Those were available on tables around the foyer, and the Dublin folks had even thought to provide blank ones for folks who use neo-pronouns. I was very impressed.

Opening Ceremonies

I have to say that Dublin got off to an unimpressive start. Opening Ceremonies had a bunch of problems, including in the part that Kevin and I were responsible for. Thankfully, if you screw up this part of the convention, you have time to fix the issues before the really important stuff.

As with the last couple of years, Kevin and I, with the assistance of Susan de Guardiola, were planning to do live coverage of the Hugo Award ceremony via a text-based system. The one that we had been using, CoverItLive, has gone out of business, so we had to find an alternative. We elected to cover the Retro-Hugo ceremony, which was part of Opening Ceremonies, to give us a chance to get used to the new software. I’m so glad we did.

In Helsinki the issue we had was that no one was expecting us. I spent much of the convention tracking down Josh Beatty, the Hugo Ceremony Director, and negotiating a place for us to sit. An internet connection was no problem. I just had a quiet word with Otto Mäkelä and a connection was provided.
In San José Kevin was in a senior management position and able to secure everything we needed in advance, but in Dublin he wasn’t. Josh, bless him, remembered us and made sure we had a place to sit. In fact, he got us a booth at the back of the auditorium. It was a little cramped, but we had peace and quiet and did not need to worry about people seeing the results of the awards over our shoulders as we were working. However, the only Internet connection we had was the general CCD wifi, and it was painfully slow.

Thankfully we didn’t have many people online during the Retro-Hugo Ceremony, and those that were there were very understanding of the issues we were having. But we absolutely had to get something better for Sunday. More of that later.

Our own problems were matched by those of the ceremony itself. There were mix-ups with the order in which awards were announced, leading to the wrong slides being shown, and at one point the wrong presenter was announced. In addition the envelopes with the winners’ names in them were so tightly sealed that it took a minute or so to break into one. Thankfully the presenters soon took to making a joke of it, and Diane Duane produced a useful Swiss Army Knife. Order slips for the plaques on the trophies had been left in the envelopes, and this further confused the poor presenters. I sent up multiple prayers to the fannish ghods that things would not go so badly on Sunday.

I’m also a little concerned about the tone of the Opening Ceremonies. I know there are not many places to put a Retro-Hugo ceremony, or the Big Heart Award, or the First Fandom Awards (of which there are now several). But the end result is that Opening Ceremonies is almost entirely about old people and dead people. That doesn’t really get the convention off on the right footing. I don’t, as yet, have any solutions, but I think we need to find one.

Program

I missed most of the program because early on I took a policy decision not to go to anything that I wasn’t on panel for. The queues looked bad and there were lots of people at their first Worldcon. I wanted to give them a chance to have the Worldcon experience.

There were, however, plenty of interesting panels, many of which I wanted to see. My panels went well. Only one person said, “I don’t know why I’m on this panel”, and that was because they were a bit overawed by the credentials of the other panellists. They made some very valuable points during the panel.

I heard very few reports of panels going bad. Apparently, the CCD staff were rather heavy-handed with the LGBT meet-up session because it was over-subscribed. I also heard complaints from one panel that a male panellist repeatedly interrupted the women on the panel; and tried to make the whole thing his own personal comedy show. That one I was in a position to do something about. I had a quiet word with someone in programming, and the moderator of the otherwise-all-female panel he was scheduled for that day. As a result, the women on the first panel got an apology from the convention, and the second panel went smoothly. I can’t always make magic happen, but sometimes knowing a lot of people can be very useful.

I think, however, that a few things went awry prior to the convention. My friend Virginia Bergin was told that she wasn’t required for programming, despite being a recent winner of the Tiptree and there being several YA and gender panels scheduled. I understand that other authors were also turned down. And yet a few days before the con I got an email from Programming asking for volunteers to be on a bunch of program items that had insufficient members. That was weird.

One of the big changes since I was last a Worldcon regular is the use of the Grenadine software to schedule programming. This isn’t just a cool tool. I understand that Programming was keeping tabs on sign-ups through Grenadine and using the data to move program items to appropriately-sized rooms each morning. That’s a very useful thing to be able to do. Later in the convention they also got Grenadine to display room capacities, so attendees could make judgements as to what items they stood a chance of getting into. It is nice to see technology being well used.

One thing that was rather annoying was that access to the Green Rooms (one at each venue) was restricted to people with an upcoming panel. I’m assuming that this was due to lack of space, but I could have done with somewhere to sit quietly for a while. I did blag my way into the Green Room at The Point on Saturday because it was empty and all I wanted was a chair.

Dealers’ Room

This was my first Worldcon where I had significant numbers of books to sell. In Helsinki I went through my good friends at Rosebud as I only had Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion to sell. I think we sold 3 or 4. For Dublin I had Juliet McKenna’s Green Man books. One of them is an award finalist, the other was new at the convention, and Juliet is part-Irish. Francesco Verso of Future Fiction very kindly gave me some space on his table. I sold 50 books; and could probably have sold more if I’d had them. I was very pleased.

Francesco also did very well. His new anthology of translations sold out before I could buy one. Twelfth Planet only had 15 books left, which I know because Francesco and I took them to Belfast to sell at TitanCon. Other dealers seemed very happy as well.

There was plenty of room, and what seemed to be a good mix of different types of dealer. There was also a De Lorean parked at the entrance. All in all, it went very well.

Art Show

This was at The Point. If you didn’t head down there to look, you missed a treat. The space it was given was massive, and there was a lot of natural light which is just what an art show needs. Dublin had paid particular attention to artists and had got a lot of good people involved, including Jim FitzPatrick whose work I love. A bunch of UK artists had come over to exhibit, and even John Picacio managed a small entry despite the difficult of shipping art across the Atlantic.

In addition to the main art show, there was also a large Lego exhibition which was very impressive.
I have one small request for future art shows. Could you please have some carboard tubes for sale for the benefit of idiots like me who keep forgetting to bring one?

Masquerade

I missed this. I was just too tired by Saturday night and went back to my apartment to get some sleep. Kevin Roche and Andy Trembley were running it, so it should have gone very smoothly. They told me that they were full, which I think meant 40 entries. I’ve not heard any complaints.

Newsletter

This came out regularly and seemed to have good information in it. Attempts to provide information in Gaelic either didn’t go well, or there was a running joke about them not going well, I couldn’t work out which. It was called The Salmon of Knowledge, which is a smart reference to Irish mythology.

There was also a one-off hoax newsletter called The Trout of Doubt which appeared on Monday afternoon. I thought it was pretty funny.

Business Meeting

Despite having so much business that they had to run into a fourth meeting on Monday, this year’s Business Meeting actually did very little. For detailed reports of what happened, please see Alex Acks, or the videos of the meeting which are now available on the WSFS YouTube channel.

Jesi Lipp presided over the meeting. It was their first time, and I’m delighted to see new people getting involved. Kevin tells me that there are a number of young, keen fans that he’s been working with. This is very good news. The comment in the hoax newsletter about Business Meeting attendees under the age of 50 having to be accompanied by an adult was funny for a good reason.

I’m told that Jesi did very well, but if there’s one thing they messed up on it was the order of the motions (which the BM staff gets to set). You should always try to get the controversial items early on the agenda. That gives the attendees plenty of opportunity to debate something important. If you don’t do that, they will start to debate things that should be non-controversial. So leave the non-controversial stuff to the end when hopefully the smart-asses are tired.

The result of this was that the BM spent an inordinate amount of time debating what should have been a simple change to bring the Constitution into line with GDPR requirements. Instead of it being nodded through, this got aggressively amended and, as I understand it, ended up making us even less GDPR-compliant.

Much of the business before the meeting got referred to committees. I know this is irritating to people who want to see change happen. Unfortunately, people who bring motions before the BM often don’t think them through very well, or discuss them in advance with people they will affect. It is much better to take the time to pass good legislation than to pass bad legislation in a hurry.

The one motion I was concerned about was the proposal to create a Best Translated Novel Hugo. Pretty much everyone I know in the translation business was against this, including Neil Clarke and Francesco Verso. We don’t want translated works to be shoved into a ghetto where there is only one Hugo available. We want them to keep competing, and winning, in the main fiction categories.

I am aware that many people are upset about the level of commitment required to participate in the governance of WSFS. I’m pretty sure that Kevin doesn’t want to be spending 4 mornings of the convention in meetings and 4 afternoons uploading video either. But this is much too big a subject for a con report. We’ll be addressing the issue in more detail in a future issue.

The Hugos – Getting Online

After the problems that we had during Closing Ceremonies, Kevin and I spent quite a bit of time over the next few days trying to ensure that we would have a better internet connection for Sunday night. We got there in the end, but it wasn’t easy.

After it was all over I discovered that part of the problem was split responsibility for IT. The main IT department was under facilities. Those people had access to a much better connection, but they refused to let us use it. (I’m guessing those responsible were Keith Smith and/or James Turner.) Fortunately, there was also an at-con IT group under Logistics, which was run by Rick Kovalcik. Rick knows us well, and so does the head of Logistics, Brian Nisbet. Much to our relief, Rick managed to secure a portable wifi router with a decent connection that we could use for the evening. We are very grateful to him.

This highlights a wider issue with the text-based coverage. It only works because of personal contacts. We got a room because I had made friends with Josh in Helsinki. We got a connection thanks to Otto in Helsinki and Rick in Dublin. If we don’t have those networks, we can’t do the job.

We get into these situations because Worldcons do not value what we do. There is an assumption that, because they have the live video streaming, what we do is not necessary. But the live streaming sometimes fails. There are people who don’t have the necessary bandwidth to watch it. And we provide an additional service in that we give commentary. We had over 450 people online on Sunday. Some of them were in the convention bar watching the streaming on the big screen, which I know because they told me.
Susan in particular has been a huge asset to us. While Kevin and I do the set-up, she goes around the pre-ceremony reception snapping photos of the finalists in their finery. She then does color commentary alongside Kevin’s factual reporting of what’s going on. It makes a huge difference, and it is the only chance most people get to see the unsuccessful finalists because they don’t get to appear on stage.

My job is moderating the chat window. The new software separates chat from the main flow of commentary, which is not ideal but it was the best we could find at the time. We will be looking for alternatives. Susan tells me that some of her friends were trying to participate in the chat but never saw their comments come up. I only deleted two comments: both for making unflattering comments about the physical appearance of finalists. So if comments did go missing that’s another issue with the software that we need to address before next year. Unfortunately there are not many such services, and even fewer that will let you try the software out to see if it does what you need before you have to pay lots of money for an account.

I know I am blowing my own trumpet here, but I think this is a valuable service and I think that future Worldcons should take it seriously. Despite all of the time and effort I have put in over the years, I have never once been recognised as staff, or even as a volunteer, and yet I am doing something that appears on the official Hugo Awards website. If it is me that is the problem I wish someone would tell me and put someone else in place to do the job, because it needs to be done.

The Hugos – The Ceremony

Much to my relief, the main Hugo Ceremony went mostly flawlessly. There were two main issues: the speech-to-text system, and pronunciation of names.

The failure of the speech-to-text system is entirely on the con committee’s senior management, and the one major mistake that they made. They were told beforehand that the cheap system they wanted to use was useless, and they went ahead anyway. A better system has been in use at the Business Meeting for some years. When Jesi Lipp heard that they were being forced to use the cheap system they refused to use it at all because they knew how bad it was. That should have rung alarm bells for the Hugos, though by then it might have been too late to change.

Future Worldcons should take note of this.

Pronunciation of finalist names is also a solved problem. When Neil Gaiman was toastmaster in 2004 he spent much of the pre-ceremony party checking with each finalist. I’m told that John Picacio did the same last year. When I was a presenter I did the same checks for the category I had been assigned. It is part of the job. There may be names that people can’t get right because the language is too unfamiliar, but you should at least make an effort.

The Hugos – Winners

I’m well aware that my tastes and those of the Hugo voters don’t massively overlap. This year I was astonished that I had read 4 of the 6 Novel finalists and 5 of the 6 Novellas. I’m delighted for Martha Wells and Murderbot. I am deeply disappointed for both Cat Valente and Janelle Monáe, but not surprised that neither of them won.

Nicholas Whyte has done an excellent post digging into the numbers. I don’t have much to add to it. Like him I am particularly sad for Dirty Computer, but it is really hard to win BDP: Short with anything other than a TV episode because all of the TV fans will give their preferences to other TV episodes.

I do want to give a mention to a number of friends who appeared on the long lists. I have hopes that we will see them as finalists one day. Emma Newman’s Before Mars made the Novel list and Planetfall was listed in Series. There were several great novellas that didn’t make the final ballot. GV Anderson’s “Waterbirds” did very well in Short Story. Anna Smith Spark was longlisted for the Campbell.

I understand that special congratulations are due to Simone Heller for being the first German-born person to be a Hugo finalist.

The Campbell Thing

One of the two major talking points of the convention was Jeannette Ng’s acceptance speech for the Campbell. Much outrage has been expressed by right-wing parts of the community, but given that Michael Moorcock described Campbell as a fascist back in 1971 I don’t think anyone can complain much about Jeannette doing so now. He was, by most accounts, a particularly nasty piece of work.

However, as I have pointed out elsewhere, the Campbell Award is not owned by WSFS. If we want it changed, the correct thing to do is to write to the management of Dell Magazines (who publish Asimov’s and Analog) and ask them to change it. Presumably some of you did so, because they have already announced that the name of the award will be changed. That should be an end to this issue, but I understand that a bunch of clowns are trying to insist that, because the award is called the Campbell in the WSFS Constitution, Dell has no right to change it; or if they do change it then the award must be excluded from the Hugos. The Business Meeting in Wellington could get quite interesting.

After the Hugos

The other major talking point of the convention was the chaos surrounding the Hugo Losers’ Party. Again I have written about this elsewhere. I don’t have much to add. I had hoped to get to talk to George or Parris at TitanCon, but Parris is recovering from surgery and George wasn’t around much.

To recap, it is only recently that George took over running the Loser’s Party. He did so in order to give awards to all of the people who had missed out because of the Puppies. Before that the party was a damp squib that no one who knew how bad it was would mind missing. Worldcon runners were doubtless delighted that George took the thing off their hands. However, the main lesson from this is that letting other people run your events is a hostage to fortune because they might do so badly and then you will be blamed for the disaster.

Of course, going back to having the Losers’ Party run by the upcoming Worldcon will go back to it being a poorly resourced event in a hotel room that is much too small. It will also mean going back to having entry controlled by SMOFs who may have an axe to grind. I think the best thing that Worldcon can do is allow George to carry on running the party but not take any part in organising or promoting it. It can become George Martin’s After-the-Hugos Party. Those of us who are not invited or, in the case of Kevin and I, can’t go because we have to update the Hugos website, can channel Groucho Marx and be happy we are not part of that club.

One thing I will say is that I don’t think there was anything personal in what happened. Some people were unlucky with timing, and the party organisers messed up on how many people they could take. Mary Robinette got in, not because of who she was, but because she was very late and lots of people had left. I say this because I have been deliberately and personally disrespected as a Hugo finalist at least twice. On the other hand, I just had people be rude to me (which I countered by winning the Hugo in both cases). I totally understand that having to stand outside in the rain in your party gear is a whole different level of pain.

I should note that Mary Robinette was very late because she stuck around at the CCG talking to fans and showing off her trophy rather than disappearing off to the swank party. I remember that she did this in London in 2014 as well. This, people, is how you build your legion of fans.

By the way, both the pre-ceremony reception and the Losers’ Party are being affected by the burgeoning number of Hugo categories. Both are hugely expensive to run, and both require a very large space that will be difficult for the convention to find. I think most people will agree that we don’t want the Hugos to be sponsored. If you think you have seen drama, I’m assured it was nothing compared to 1987 when the convention committee allowed the Scientologists to sponsor the Hugos. But if they are not sponsored then we can’t have flashy parties for the finalists, except by charging people more for memberships which would be bad.

The Verdict

So how did it go? Pretty much everyone I spoke to said that they had a great time in Dublin. I’m sure that there will have been individual issues, but the overall impression is of a job well done.

I certainly had a good time, despite not seeing much of the event and being exhausted for most of the time. My biggest complaint, apart from the weight I had to carry around, is that I didn’t get to see many of the people I knew were there, and wanted to see, but never ran across. All things considered, that is a very minor complaint.

So well done James, and Irish fandom in general. You have done us proud.

Where Next?

Next year Worldcon will be in Wellington, New Zealand. It will be much smaller, because many people will not be able to afford to go; or will have concerns about the environmental cost of flying. I have been saving up QANTAS points for 10 years in the expectation of needing to go to Wellington, so I’m OK on the cost and very much hope to be there.

Washington DC has won the right to stage the 2021 Worldcon. I am unlikely to be there because I see no possibility of my being allowed to travel to the USA ever again. Other people have different concerns about US travel. We have had a couple of great European Worldcons, and there is a Glasgow bid for 2024 that stands an excellent chance of winning, but the USA is still the country with the most experienced con-runners and the best facilities. It is going to host a lot more Worldcons in future because there will be no viable alternatives. It is my view that if we want to maintain the international nature of the convention we must find more ways for people to participate online. And that’s something I plan to write about in the next issue.

The Calculating Stars

August 28, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 010, Book Review, Mary Robinette Kowal

I read this one as part of my Hugo voting research (unusually I had read 4 of the 6 finalists before the ballot was announced, which I think makes this a Very Good Year). However, I held off reviewing it until voting closed because it seemed unfair to do just one, and because I have a particular take on the book.

The Calculating Stars tells the story of Elma York, who was a WASP pilot during WWII but is now having to adjust to a world in which little ladies are supposed to stay at home and keep house while their menfolk do all of the fun and money-making stuff. Fortunately for Elma, she is a genius mathematician, so job openings do exist.

Those openings suddenly get a lot more commonplace in 1952 when a Bigger-than-Chicxulub meteorite destroys most of the Eastern USA and ushers in what looks like being extinction-level climate change. It seems that humanity’s only hope is to escape Earth and make our home elsewhere. As a consequence, the space programme suddenly becomes an international top priority.

Elma’s husband, Nathaniel, being a genius engineer, gets one of the top jobs at the space agency and is soon in charge of the space flight programme. Elma wants to be an astronaut, but such jobs are reserved for men. Instead she has to content herself with working as a Computer, one of the many human mathematicians whose job it is do all the calculations that the engineers need doing, because the calculating machines that IBM have produced are frankly not up to the job. If you have seen or read Hidden Figures you’ll know what this is all about.

From there on the plot is very predictable. Elma keeps wanting to do astronaut stuff. The men, primarily the misogynist chief astronaut, Colonel Stetson Parker, keep getting in her way, but they cannot thwart the needs of the programme, nor the arc of history, forever. While the exact means of Elma’s triumph isn’t easily predicted, the fact that she will triumph is obvious.

There are things that Mary Robinette does extremely well. She captures the misogyny, antisemitism and racism of 1950s America. She has conflict between those women who are happy to play the role of sex object, those who prefer to work behind the scenes, and those who are the public face of feminism. She has Elma confront her white privilege. She has black women who are prepared to trust her attempts to help, and those who unable to do so. There’s a lot of admirable politics in the book.

Another aspect to the book is a venture into Emma Newman territory. As the wife of the chief engineer, a pretty young woman, and a good communicator, Elma quickly becomes the public face of the space programme. But she is terrified of public speaking and suffers massive anxiety attacks. Her struggles with this, and the inevitable point at which it gets used against her, are a significant plot strand.

Finally, Mary Robinette has spent a lot of time hanging out with actual astronauts and NASA people. I have no actual idea whether there are any holes or short-cuts in her portrayal of the technical issues, but the science sure sounds very convincing. For all its intersectional feminist politics, this is a hard science fiction novel.

I should also add, from a personal point of view, that it is a pleasure to find a book that features a husband and wife team who are both very competent in their own fields, who love each other very much, and who work well together. It is kind of like how the MCU has been portraying Hank and Janet, although us long-time Marvel fans all know that Hank Pym couldn’t tie his shoelaces without Janet to show him where his feet are.

The Calculating Stars has already walked off with the Nebula, and with the Locus Award for Science Fiction Novel. I expect it to win the Hugo as well. Perhaps, in this year when we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Moon Landing, and Carol Danvers is everyone’s favorite superhero, this is appropriate. But…

I’m not an engineer, I’m an environmental scientist, and an economist. When I see a scenario in which life on our planet is faced with extinction my immediate thought is, “How can we fix this?”, not “Let’s go live on the Moon”. The environmentalist in me thinks that it can be fixed, and the economist knows that any extra-terrestrial colonies will provide sanctuary only for the wealthy few, not the vast mass of humanity.

Obviously the point of the novel is to showcase Elma’s battle against misogyny, and to a lesser extent against antisemitism and racism. But in doing so it fixates almost entirely on the space programme and largely ignores debates that must be happening in world politics over whether this is the right thing for humanity to be pouring all our resources into. I know that the sequel is already out, and that Mary Robinette read from book 3 in London recently. I’ll be getting the sequels because this one was good, but I very much hope that they take a look at the wider issues.

Title: The Calculating Stars
By: Mary Robinette Kowal
Publisher: REBCA
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Gods of Jade and Shadow

August 28, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 010, Book Review, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

One of the many reasons why it is good to have books written by people from different cultures is that they provide very different reading experiences. I loved Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Signal to Noise because it was, on the one hand, a great story about teenagers and love of music, and on the other set in Mexico City, a place that the author knew well. Reading about other worlds is what us speculative fiction readers are supposed to enjoy, right?

Gods of Jade and Shadow is also set in Mexico, but it goes back in time to the Roaring Twenties. Mexico is in the process of recovering from La Revolución. Meanwhile the USA is suffering under Prohibition, which is proving a big money earner for Mexico because hordes of rich Americans are coming south of a weekend for a beer or two. The book, however, is not about Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, nor is it about Al Capone and Eliot Ness. The story is both much more domestic, and much more epic in scale.

Casiopea Tun lives in a small town in Yucatán. When her beloved father — a keen amateur astronomer who named her — died young, she and her mother were thrown on the mercy of their rich relatives, the Leyvas. Grandpa Leyva is a selfish tyrant, and the rest of the family has learned from him. Casiopea and her mother are given a home, but are treated like servants. It is no life for an intelligent young girl, especially as Casiopea must share her new home with her cruel, stupid and arrogant cousin, Martín.

However, Grandpa Leyva has a secret. His source of wealth is not hard work, or good luck. Instead it is a consequence of a deal that he did in his youth; a deal with the God of Death.

We move now into the realm of the Mayan holy book, the Popol Vuh. This is a collection of mythological tales from the Kʼicheʼ people, one of the ethnic groups that made up the Mayan Empire. One of the greatest myths of the Kʼicheʼ is the tale of the Hero Twins, Hunahpú and Xbalanqué, who travel to the Mayan underworld, Xibalba, and take on its rulers, Hun-Kamé and Vucub-Kamé. It appears, to my admittedly untrained eye, to be a tale about how the people rebelled against the human sacrifice of Ballcourt players.

This story is, of course, not about the Hero Twins. It is about Casiopea and Martín. Moreno-Garcia creates a new story using the materials from the Popul Vuh. It is a story about a revolution in hell. Vucub-Kamé has grown fed up of having to play second fiddle to his elder brother, Hun-Kamé. Also he has ambitions to restore the Mayan Empire to its former glory, whereas Hun-Kamé is content to let history take its course. So Vucub-Kamé, through a bit of divine trickery, manages to cut off the head of his brother and usurp the throne. However, he can’t kill Hun-Kamé, so he has the god’s bones locked in a casket and given to a convenient human for safekeeping.

What are young girls for, if not opening forbidden caskets?

The bulk of the book, therefore, is about how Casiopea and Hun-Kamé go on a quest to reclaim the throne of Xibalba. Along the way they must deal with demons and sorcerers, against a beautifully drawn backdrop of 1920s Mexico. The inevitable conclusion takes place in Xibalba itself, and features characters such as the great Death Bat, Kamazotz.

The mythological shape of the story is predictable. What is different about this story is what it brings to Mayan mythology. The denizens of Xibalba are terrifying beings who revel in human sacrifice. However, during their quest the human girl and the death god must learn to work together. They cannot be unchanged by that experience.

You don’t get many fantasy novels that use the Popul Vuh as a setting. There are even fewer written by actual Mexicans. Gods of Jade and Shadow is a fascinating book simply for that reason. But what I love most about it is the myth-making that Moreno-Garcia engages in. This is a new story using characters from Mayan mythology, and one that changes the nature of the Mayan gods. It looks very much like neo-paganism in action. I’d love to know whether the author saw it that way.

Title: Gods of Jade and Shadow
By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Interview – Regina Wang

August 28, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 010, Audio, Interviews

This is an interview that I made at Åcon X. Regina and I had a chat about her work promoting Chinese SF around the world. Here are links to some of the things we talked about.

The Undoing of Arlo Knott

August 28, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 010, Book Review, Heather Child

One of the hardest things for a new writer to do is carve a niche for herself. There’s nothing new under the sun, right? How do you mark yourself out as someone different and interesting? Heather Child is, I think, making a good job of this by writing character-driven science fiction that is very much about how we live now.

Her first book, Everything About You, was a psychological thriller whose central premise was that “personal assistant” software on your phone would come to know you far better than you know yourself, and thereby learn to manipulate you. Her third book, she tells me, will be about narcissism and selfie culture. But we are here to talk about book two, The Undoing of Arlo Knott. The premise of this one is, “What if your life had an ‘undo’ button.”

Early in his life, Arlo Knott is involved in a very unfortunate accident. It is, to a large extent, his fault. The guilt will haunt him for the rest of his life. However, shortly after this happens he discovers that he has the ability to turn back time, to undo events and re-do them in a different way. He can’t change The Thing That Happened, of course. That’s now a long way in the past. But any recent action is fair game.

Now imagine that you got this power when you were 14. What might you have done with it? Kick the school bully in the nuts and undo it? Talk back to a teacher and undo it? Kiss a girl you fancy and undo it? All these things that you want to do, but suspect the consequences of doing them will be very bad, you can try out and then erase.

Power, as they say, corrupts. As he grows older, Arlo discovers that his powers are useful in other ways. At the casino, put all your money on black, and if red comes up undo it and try again. If a chat-up line doesn’t work on a girl you fancy, undo it and try something else until you have found what works with her.

As the novel progresses, Arlo discovers that unearned success doesn’t bring happiness. He tries to grow up, but how can he when he need never face the consequences of his actions? He throws himself into more and more dangerous situations, desperate to be seen as a hero, but knowing all the while that he’s cheating.

As to where that leads him, well, you will have to read the book to find out. Suffice it to say that I found this book more polished than Everything About You, and quite griping towards the end as Arlo finally finds himself in a position that tests his abilities to the utmost.

Heather and I have had a couple of interesting conversations about this book. She very kindly asked me to interview her for the book launch, and I had her on my radio show a few days later. Our most interesting discussions have focused on the issue of regret.

Regret is certainly an obsession of the modern world. There was no difficulty finding music choices to go with the interview. Popular music is full of songs, the story of which is basically, “I done wrong and my girl has left me.” Arlo, of course, need never regret anything, at least not anything simple. But why are we obsessed with regret, and should we be? I know I’m not.

I, of course, happen to be a member of a group of people who are constantly being told that we should regret our life choices. How could we possibly not do so, given the awful things we have done to ourselves? And yet, the overwhelming majority of trans people do not regret transitioning. If we can avoid the social opprobrium that comes with it, we are almost always much happier afterwards. Maybe I’m an unusual case. Maybe most cis people are consumed with regret.

Maybe it is because I’m old. After a life full of choices, many of which don’t go well, and some of which turn sour even though they seemed absolutely right at the time, perhaps we know that you can’t predict what will happen and should just chill.

Maybe it is a cultural thing. Perhaps, because society is becoming more and more focused on ideas of personal choice, we are becoming more and more obsessed with making the right choices. Maybe the fact that I’m older simply means that I grew up in a time when making the correct life choices was less of a critical issue than it is to young people today.

I’m not sure that this has much to do with Heather’s book. However, the fact that is has sparked such conversations, and meditations, is surely evidence that it touches on some deep and important issues. If you like a book that gets you thinking, The Undoing of Arlo Knott is probably for you.

Title: The Undoing of Arlo Knott
By: Heather Child
Publisher: Orbit
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Finncon 2019

August 28, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 010, Convention Report

How do you write a review of a convention at which you were a Guest of Honour? I mean, it wasn’t perfect. No convention, not even a Finnish one, is ever perfect. Here, however, I will be turning a blind eye to whatever small things went wrong, for it would be churlish to point them out when I had such a good time. You may therefore see this as more of a report than a review. That’s OK by me.

I should probably begin a few days before the convention. My friends Otto & Paula, who live in Helsinki, had offered to drive me up to Jyväskylä, where the convention would take place. They also offered a little tourism along the way. That began with a side-trip to the Estonian capital, Tallin.

Being a rather small country, Estonia makes money as best it can. One of the wheezes it has come up with is to lower alcohol taxes significantly so as to lure day trippers from around the Baltic. The Finns, most of whom have never met an offer of cheap booze that they didn’t like, are all in favour of this. So the ferry from Helsinki is very busy and has even more impressive on board shopping than the one to Åland.

We, however, were more interested in being actual tourists. This is how I discovered that in the 13th Century the Christian nations of the Baltic, finding it inconvenient to head for the Holy Land, opted to serve God instead by launching Crusades against their heathen neighbours. This year saw the 700 anniversary of the conquest of Estonia by a Danish Crusader army. The anniversary gave us the opportunity to spend much of the day exploring the ruins of Tallin’s walls and castle, and generally keeping out of the way of the sun and the swarms of Chinese tourists.

If ever you happen to be in Tallin, I warmly recommend a restaurant called Farm. Don’t be put off by the cheesy taxidermy in the window, the food is superb. Indeed, it is so good that Ellen Datlow remembers it from her trip which I suspect would have been in 2017.

Then it was off up north. Otto proudly showed me his company’s Cray computer, which lives in a data centre in a midlands town. I also got my first introduction to 3D VR gaming, which I got to quite like once I understood that it was really a dance game, not a sword-fighting game. (I’m a fencer, I abhor sword-fighting games that encourage extravagant movements.)

That evening I got to stay in the Golden Dome Hotel in Iisalmi which used to be part of the local Orthodox Church. That would have originally been the Russian Orthodox Church, but it is now the Finnish Orthodox Church because the Winter War is a thing that happened. There cannot be many hotels in the world that have a dining room with a massive stained glass window and walls covered with religious paintings. I’m very pleased to have got to stay there.

On then to Jyväskylä and the convention proper starting, as is traditional with sauna. This was mainly for the Guests of Honour so it was a small event, and the convention managed to secure hire of a wood-fired sauna for us. This is the gold standard as far as sauna is concerned. Kersti Juva, one of the Finnish guests, told me that she wasn’t going to bother coming until she heard the location. Sauna is not a rare thing for Finns, but wood-fired sauna very much is.

The lake was a bit cold. I very much doubt that I’ll ever re-capture the magic of the last night in Tampere with Cat Valente where we had warm water and a superb sunset, but any evening of good sauna and skinny-dipping in a beautiful lake is something to be treasured. I only got one mosquito bite. It seems like the Finnish Air Force prefers the taste of Scottish persons to Welsh women. Poor Feòrag was covered in bites.

The convention put us up in the Hotel Alba, which GoHs at previous Jyväskylä Finncons will remember well. It is just down the hill from the University, where the con takes place, and on the side of a lake. (Jyväskylä, like Madison, is built on a strip of land between two huge lakes). Sadly the weather wasn’t great over the weekend and there wasn’t much call for breakfasting outside and midnight swims.

As is my wont, I attended the academic conference that takes place before the convention. We had some great papers, and I got introduced to a fabulous café which, sadly, I didn’t have time to revisit. That was Friday morning. In the afternoon us GoHs did a panel item where we were interviewed about our writing. Or, more correctly, Charlie Stross got interviewed about writing, Kersti got interviewed about translating, and I got interviewed about editing. Given the complexity of her subjects, Kisu did a great job of grilling us.

At this point I should say a few words about Kersti. I’d not heard of her before the convention, and I’m now very ashamed of that. Many years ago, as a young woman just learning her craft, she made the first Finnish translation of a book that was causing waves throughout the English-speaking world. That book was called The Lord of the Rings. Her translation was a huge hit, and Tolkien fandom is still a big thing in Finland today. In a very real sense, Finnish fandom would not exist in the way it does now had it not been for those brilliant translations that inspired a whole generation of fantasy readers.

Kersti has since gone on to a stellar career as a translator of mainstream literature. She has won the Finlandia Prize. She could easily turn her nose up at her youthful exploits, but she doesn’t. She seems to love fandom, and Finnish fandom absolutely adores her. For me the convention was like being a special guest at a party being thrown for someone who is the beloved grandmother of thousands of fans.

I had a fairly light programming load. There was a panel about sexbots which was a lot of fun. And there was a panel on Lovecraft which I got to moderate and which featured Charlie Stross and Hannu Rajaniemi. But my big GoH event was a solo talk which, to fit in with the AI theme of the convention, I titled “Robots before RUR: The Prehistory of Robotics”. It seemed to go down very well. If you’d like to see it, the Dublin Worldcon has invited me to do it for them. I’ll be on at around 15:30 on Saturday afternoon.

I did get to do the masquerade judging thing again. That’s become something of a tradition at Finncon. As a bribe us GoHs got treated to dinner at the local branch of Harald. So I got to introduce Charlie and Feòrag to the delights of cinnamon beer, tar ice cream and silly horned helmets. They loved it.

I should say a word as well about our other Finnish GoH. Professor Raine Koskimaa was the academic GoH and spent much of his time in the academic track. I only got to see him at dinner. He is an expert in games. That is, he works at a university and gets paid to play games for a living and write about them. How cool is that?

As I was a GoH I also got given a Kaffeklatsch. It was very kind of them, but really there is no need. I don’t have fans the way authors do. No one is keen to get to meet me and ask where I get my ideas from, or what will be in my next book. A few friends will doubtless turn up to one, for which I am very grateful, but overall it is a bit embarrassing for all concerned.

I didn’t go to much programming, but I did make a point of dropping in on the academic track to see Sylvia Spruck-Wrigley present the latest iteration of her research on older women in SF&F. It is a fabulous and much-needed project. Sylvia, bless her, kindly presented me with a little knitted Spawn of Cthulhu at the Lovecraft panel. For a cosmic horror it is remarkably cute.

All too soon it was Dead Dog time, and inevitably sauna. I did the traditional thing of plying the Finns with whisky to say thank you for having me. As always it went down well. Then it was time to rush back to Helsinki and head off to London. But it is not farewell. Next year’s Finncon will be in Tampere, and Mike Carey will be one of the GoHs. I cannot resist temptation like that. Finland, it seems, cannot get rid of me.

I should end by saying a huge THANK YOU to the convention committee, especially Irma who is the best friend anyone could wish for. Also thanks to Saija, Anne, Otto and everyone else who conspired to give me such a wonderful time.

Interview – Farah Mendlesohn & Cathy Butler

August 28, 2019 Cheryl Morgan 010, Audio, Interviews

The interview is with Farah Mendlesohn and Cathy Butler. It is about an conference that took place in Bristol at the start of August. I recorded the interview at BristolCon in 2018, but only published it in the run-up to the event.

Farah and Cathy are always good value for a chat, but there is no better subject to set them off on than Diana Wynne Jones. I hope you enjoy the interview.

New Podcast: SF Encyclopedia

October 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan News

There is a new episode available on our podcast feed. In it, Cheryl Morgan talks to Graham Sleight about the newly launched Third Edition of the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, which was launched yesterday around the same time that iTunes was processing the podcast. Graham is the business manager for the enterprise. The encyclopedia is being written primarily by John Clute, David Langford and Peter Nicholls, with a large number of guest specialist contributors.

The official website of the new encyclopedia is here. There is also a working website here with sample entries and the contact form by which the editors can be contacted.

The encyclopedia blog, which Graham mentions in the interview, can be found here.

The new encyclopedia is part of the Gollancz SF Gateway project, which is online here.

The podcast is also available here, or you can download the mp3 from this link.

Issue #9

May 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan Issues

This is issue #9 of Salon Futura. As noted last month, this will be our last issue for a while as we need to secure new funding if we are to stay in business. The website will remain up in the meantime. See the Editorial for more details.

In the meantime we have plenty of good material for you. Alex Preston looks at Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes in the light of the recent “nihilism” controversy. Sam Jordison examines one of this year’s Orange Prize nominees, from Serbian writer Téa Obreht. Our podcast looks at the often controversial subject of book covers.
» Read more

Swords, Gold and Needlework

May 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan 009, Articles

Cheryl Morgan looks at the opening volumes of two new fantasy series, and a postscript to an old SF series.
» Read more

The Salon: Making A Book Cover

May 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan 009, Discussions

This month on The Salon Cheryl Morgan and her guests discuss how book covers are designed. With Cheryl in The Salon are artist, John Picacio, art director Irene Gallo, and former Barnes & Noble buyer, Joe Monti.
» Read more

Interview: Liz Williams

May 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan 009, Interviews

Cheryl Morgan talks to author Liz Williams during the 2011 Eastercon in Birmingham.
» Read more

Interview: John Clute

May 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan 009, Interviews

Cheryl Morgan talks to critic John Clute at his home in North London.
» Read more

Editorial: May 2011

May 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan 009, Other

Let’s start with the good news. Working on Salon Futura appears to be good for fertility. When we launched Anne had just given birth to her daughter, Rosie. A couple of months ago Karen announced that she was pregnant. And last week Jonathan’s wife, Kati, gave birth to a son. Congratulations to all. The world needs new book readers, and we appear to be doing our part to supply them. This makes me very happy.

The prognosis for the magazine is rather less hopeful. As I said last month, the downturn in the global economy means that I am no longer able to subsidize Salon Futura, and so we are going to have to close, at least for a while. I do not intend to keep going by turning the magazine into a fanzine. I firmly believe that good writers deserve to be paid for what they do, and if I can’t afford to pay them then they should go and write for someone who can.

The website will stay online for the foreseeable future. There may also be the occasional podcast going out through the Salon Futura iTunes feed. Kevin and I are planning to do another Hugo Award rules podcast soon. If I can get the funds to do occasional issues I shall do so.

In the meantime I’m planning to do some redesign work on the Salon Futura and bookstore websites. I have learned quite a lot over the past few months and now have a much better idea of what is required.

Before we go, I have a whole lot of thanks to make. Without help from Karina Meléndez creating the websites we would never have got launched on time. Our regular contributors: Sam, Karen, Jonathan and Alvaro, have done a great job in providing Salon Futura with the sort of high quality material. I should also thank all of our guest contributors, and our cover artists. I’m particularly grateful to people such as John Coulthart and John Picacio who can sell their work elsewhere for much more money, but were happy to find something I could use. Thanks are also due to those who helped behind the scenes: Anne and Kevin. And of course huge thanks to everyone who donated money, bought ebooks and otherwise helped keep us in business. People in Finland and at the Bay Area Science Fiction Association have been exceptionally generous. Finally thanks to everyone who has read the magazine. Hopefully we will be able to bring you some more of them soon.

Cheryl

Issue #8

April 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan Issues

This is issue #8 of Salon Futura. As usual we have a variety of content for you. Gary Westfahl celebrates a major anniversary in the history of science fiction. Raz Greenberg provides our first ever video game review. Alvaro goes looking for the legendary literary essay, and Jonathan follows this month’s Japanese writer to the British Museum.

Please do read the Editorial this month as there is some important information in it.
» Read more

Contenders

April 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan 008, Articles

Cheryl Morgan looks at two books that are being tipped as future award winners.
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The Salon: YA Science Fiction

April 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan 008, Discussions

This month on The Salon Cheryl Morgan and her guests discuss writing science fiction for young people. With Cheryl in The Salon are David D. Levine, Imogen Russell Williams and Ben Jeapes.
» Read more

Interview: Nick Harkaway

April 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan 008, Interviews

Cheryl Morgan talks to author Nick Harkaway at his home in North London. Our apologies for Nick being an odd shade of blue early on. It took a while for the camera to adjust to the lighting. He looks a lot better later on, we promise.
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Interview: R.F. Long

April 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan 008, Interviews

Cheryl Morgan talks to author R.F. (Ruth) Long at the P-Con convention in Dublin, Ireland.
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Editorial: April 2011

April 11, 2011 Cheryl Morgan 008, Other

Well, this is an editorial I hoped I wouldn’t have to write for a while.

As you probably all know, this is not the best of times to be starting a new business. With all of the economic uncertainty, people are buying less, and that includes books. Fortunately Wizard’s Tower was planned to require little in the way of operating expenses. We will be able to keep publishing books (indeed we have two more coming out this month), and running the bookstore. However, Salon Futura is not so cheap to run, primarily because we pay our contributors. I had been subsidizing the magazine because I knew it would take time to build a reputation, but the economic crisis has just hit my other business rather badly and I can no longer afford to do so.

There is enough money in the bank for one more issue, but unless there is some sort of miracle in the coming month then issue #9 will be our last. I’m not going to run a “Save Salon Futura” campaign, because what the magazine needs is regular income, not one small injection of cash. But I will keep looking for sources of funding.

I’ll do a proper thanks editorial next month, as there are a lot of people to thank, but in particular I’m very grateful that we did have a small number of regular and supportive readers.

Cheryl

Alan Moore Interviewed

March 17, 2011 Cheryl Morgan News

Irish fan, Pádraig Ó Méalóid, is an expert on the works of Alan Moore. The two talk often, and the results of their latest chat can be found online here. Moore talks about his new magazine, Dodgem Logic and various other new projects.

Issue #7

March 14, 2011 Cheryl Morgan Issues

This is issue #7 of Salon Futura. We are delighted to welcome two new guest contributors this month. Ken MacLeod should be known to all of you, and he brings us a fascinating article about how academics use science fiction in the study of international politics. David Barnett is a British writer and journalist whose columns can often be seen in The Guardian.

Also please check out the Editorial for news of our new subscription offer.
» Read more

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