Were you one of the people in the audience on Friday evening at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Chester, when Paul Cornell and I chatted about the current state of SF and how SFX magazine handles it? If you were – thanks for coming; I hope that you enjoyed it and that we answered some of your questions. If not, well, perhaps you were elsewhere in Chester, enjoying the varied delights of the convention .
It was a good weekend for us to check in with some of our literary chums: Paul of course, the lads from Solaris, the Gollancz gang, Deborah J Miller, John Jarrold, Geoff Ryman, Liz Williams and many others. Thanks to everybody who took time out of their hectic weekend to say hello in the bar. Panels this year included "Continuity of Identity", on the subject of copying/uploading/transferring personal identity, "Universal Donor", a talk about how SF bleeds into other genres like the techno thriller or historical novel, and many more.
As well as generally being a great opportunity to hang out and meet like-minded SF fans, Eastercon also saw the announcement of the BSFA Awards on Saturday evening: End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood picked up the best novel, "The Djinn's Wife" by Ian McDonald won best short fiction, and the best artwork award went to Angelbot (cover of Time Pieces , edited by Ian Whates) by Fanghorn.
If you attended and want to share your recollections, feel free to do so in the comments thingie below. In any case, see you at the next event!
