As I mentioned, this weekend saw the BSFA/SF Foundation AGM event. It was a pretty good day all told, with several enjoyable panels and talks. (I’m particularly sorry I missed the first half of Geoff Ryman’s talk, which appeared to be a story reading interspersed with commentary on said story.) But the highlight was definitely this:
Yes, to mark the BSFA’s 50th Birthday, Foundation brought cake! Two cakes, to be precise, one inscribed with a list of British sf authors active in 1958, and a second inscribed with a list of British sf authors active in 2008. Of course, you can only fit so many names on a cake, so there were print-outs with the full lists:
And here’s the BSFA’s new President, Stephen Baxter, doing the honours:
I’m happy to be able to confirm that the cakes were as tasty as they looked, and much enjoyed by all present.
June 9, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I like Steve’s colour-coordinated shirt paticularly. Did he change into a beige one to cut the 2008 cake?
Nice to see Brian Aldiss on both cakes.
June 9, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Geoff’s talk was called “How I became Sheri S. Tepper without even trying”, and he read pieces of his latest story (a novelette due for publication in F&SF in the next few issues) interspersed with thoughts about the science behind it, and how he solved some of the problems which arose. The story involves a future planet (was it Earth? I don’t recall) populated with human-animal hybrids, where initially it was humans carrying the genetic information of animal species as dormant artificial chromosomes, then when a plague started to kill off all the pure humans the chromosomes were expressed and disease-resistant human-animal hybrids were formed. He said this was a way he found of writing a far-future Mundane SF story, from my perspective the idea of making viable animal-human hybrids this way is as much a magic wand as the idea of wormholes of FTL travel, so I don’t find that argument very convincing, but it’s clear he wasn’t focusing on it as a mundane piece that much anyway, and it sounded like a really interesting story which I would like to read more of.
The cake was very nice and not a lie. And Michael Moorcock is also on both lists.
June 9, 2008 at 5:12 pm
I assume all BSFA members who couldn’t attend will receive a piece of cake in the mail this week? *g*
June 9, 2008 at 6:29 pm
“And Michael Moorcock is also on both lists…” Both lists, but not both cakes. Saying ‘you can only fit so many names on a cake, so there were print-outs’ is all very well and good, but you’re not going to persuade me that a print-out is as prestigious a platform for your name as cake icing. There’s simply no contest. Which is why I shall be submitting a deed-poll to change my name to Adam Aaaberts.
June 9, 2008 at 9:59 pm
All hail El Presidente Baxter! The great Apu malku of our hallowed association. The Ganga Zumba of our little genre. Hail!
June 12, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Isn’t Barrington Bayley on both lists too? The forgotten man almost of British SF.
June 13, 2008 at 11:06 pm
I wouldn’t say he is forgotten but when did he last publish something?