|
by Paul
Skevington
 Picocon
is the annual one-day convention held by the Imperial College
Science Fiction Society and a remarkable event it is too. Although
the organisers provided attendees with several entertaining
diversions such as the destruction of dodgy merchandise, the
driving force of the day was the program, which consisted of
hour-long author talks and the group panel that closed the convention.
First up was Liz Williams, author of innumerable excellent SF novels such as
The Poison Master and Nine Layers of Sky.
Liz read from her forthcoming novel before discussing her
own writing process and how she managed to juggle this with
running two occult shops in Glastonbury. She also described
her experiences with the Milford SF writer’s workshop.
The conversation then moved on to her new role as part of
the editorial team of Interzone and how her own experience
as a writer informs this work. Liz also reminisced on her
time spent in Kazakhstan and how the project she was involved
with there unintentionally caused upheaval within that country’s
government. She confirmed that she had indeed seen the Borat
movie and was most definitely not amused.
Next up was Paul Cornell, perhaps best known for his outstanding
work on Doctor Who. In a panel that proved to be
both informative and extremely funny, he went on to describe
how it is possible to create a career in SF writing which
spans all potential mediums. He talked of his life-long love
affair with Who and his slightly less passionate
flings with shows such as Primeval. He also treated
us to his opinions on the less critically successful Robin
Hood, detailing how a promising beginning soon turned
into a creative nightmare for the show’s writers as
scripts were altered beyond recognition. Cornell then illuminated
the audience on his work with Marvel, including his upcoming
project Captain Britain and MI: 13; he stated that
working in comics was generally low-paying for authors, unless
the work in question was something gigantic like Civil
War. He confirmed that most authors become involved due
to their sheer love of the format.
The author Cory Doctorow treated the gathering to a reading
from one of his soon-to-be-released works, which sees a group
of teenagers rebelling against tight technological restrictions,
skipping class in order to play an elaborate game that features
both online and real-world elements. Doctorow’s talk
covered several of his recurring themes such as freedom of
information and proved that his well-developed skills as an
orator are at least a match for his writing ability.
Finally in the group panel, whose topic “Futurism Sucks”
was suggested by Doctorow, the guests discussed our tendency
to fill our visions of the future with a healthy dose of the
present. The conversation then moved to an open debate on
the environment and its future, with several contributions
from the audience. As a fellow attendee commented to me afterwards,
it was heartening to see that despite the disagreements voiced,
everyone in the room had an opinion of some sort.
The convention then happily retreated to the bar where hopefully
someone was already planning the return of this extremely
well run convention.
|
