I know I'm late to the party on this, and that you've probably seen it already.
But sometimes, some days, something like this happens to restore my faith in humanity, and the sheer beauty and wonder of the people living on this Earth makes me cry.
More info at the Caine's Arcade website
Monday, May 07, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
The Man Inside
Well, lookey-here. It's only the trailer for Dan Turner's new film! Script edited by Jason Arnopp too.
Keep an eye on those two young rascals. They'll be going far.
IMDb
Keep an eye on those two young rascals. They'll be going far.
IMDb
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Eastercon Schedule
It's that time of year again.
Eastercon, the British National SF convention runs from April 6-9 this year.
The provisional programme (PDF) has now been released, and it looks like it's going to be a belter.
Here are the items I'm currently scheduled to be on:
Friday, 9pm - 10pm "Doctor Who: The Importance of Scheduling" (panel)
Doctor Who's scheduling has varied over the years, from Saturday teatime to weeknight primetime. This year, for the first time since the new version launched, the season will premiere in the autumn. Is this a good or a bad thing?
Saturday, 11am - 12noon "How to set up a Theatre Company" (talk)
For the last year and a half or so I ran Red Table Theatre, a theatre company producing Children's Theatre. We set up a new business model for Fringe Theatre, were the featured story on the front page of The Stage, got four and five star reviews for our productions, and made a profit. I'll talk you through what we did right and wrong.
Saturday, 3pm - 5pm "Creativity Workshop" (talk and workshop)
For the first half I'll be talking about creativity - how it works, and tips and tricks you can use to increase yours. Then in the second half, we'll put them into practice and create a TV series.
Monday, 5pm - 6pm "Social Medial in SF" (panel)
Talking about both social media as portrayed in SF, and SF told through social media themselves.
There are a few tickets left, but it's getting perilously close to selling out.
Do come up and say hello if you're there.
Eastercon, the British National SF convention runs from April 6-9 this year.
The provisional programme (PDF) has now been released, and it looks like it's going to be a belter.
Here are the items I'm currently scheduled to be on:
Friday, 9pm - 10pm "Doctor Who: The Importance of Scheduling" (panel)
Doctor Who's scheduling has varied over the years, from Saturday teatime to weeknight primetime. This year, for the first time since the new version launched, the season will premiere in the autumn. Is this a good or a bad thing?
Saturday, 11am - 12noon "How to set up a Theatre Company" (talk)
For the last year and a half or so I ran Red Table Theatre, a theatre company producing Children's Theatre. We set up a new business model for Fringe Theatre, were the featured story on the front page of The Stage, got four and five star reviews for our productions, and made a profit. I'll talk you through what we did right and wrong.
Saturday, 3pm - 5pm "Creativity Workshop" (talk and workshop)
For the first half I'll be talking about creativity - how it works, and tips and tricks you can use to increase yours. Then in the second half, we'll put them into practice and create a TV series.
Monday, 5pm - 6pm "Social Medial in SF" (panel)
Talking about both social media as portrayed in SF, and SF told through social media themselves.
There are a few tickets left, but it's getting perilously close to selling out.
Do come up and say hello if you're there.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Mass Effect 3: SPOILERS
So I've just finished ME3. For those of you that haven't, be warned: This post will contain a lot of spoilers for the whole damn thing.
Let me re-iterate. SPOILERS ABOUND. Do not read further if you plan to play the game.
Last chance. SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
Right. For the two of you that have finished the game (and the dozen or so who don't intend to play), here's the skinny:
The ending doesn't work.
It not only doesn't work a little. It doesn't work a lot. In fact, it seems to go against everything we've established over the 90+ hours of gameplay that precede it.
I'm going to argue that this is deliberate. Bear with me.
So for the previous 90+ hours, the game has had one overarching theme. There are a couple of others, but this is the biggie:
Your decisions have consequences.
Again and again, you make choices which are reflected in what happens later. Very early in the first game, one of your squadmates dies. They will stay dead.
In the second game, a suicide mission is assembled. Odds are, most of your team won't make it. Who dies is dependent on the decisions you take.
Throughout the series, there are callbacks to decisions that you made.
And then, after the beam hits you, there are almost no decisions except for one: do you destroy the Reapers (dooming yourself and most likely characters you care for), attempt to take control of them, or synthesize a new synthetic/organic leap to a higher plane of consciousness?
That's a big choice. Right there. And all the gameplay up to this moment has allowed you to take time, think, ask questions. But this time round, the question is barely asked before you have to choose.
You don't get a chance to even re-ask the question. Like, which option is blue and which red, again?
And when you move into position at one of the choice points - you can't move away again. So you can't almost-get-there, then change your mind.
And then whichever choice you make, all of the Mass Relays explode throughout the galaxy.
A choice which leads to exactly the same ending.
A choice which is no choice.
Now, it's possible that the writers, after having spent so much care crafting a game with the theme of choice suddenly took that away from you for the final ten minutes of the game.
But that seems a trifle odd.
Let's investigate further.
Throughout ME3, Commander Shepard has been haunted by bad dreams. A boy you were unable to save. You appear in a snowy forest, filled with whispering shadows, trying to chase down the child. But you can't move properly. All of your actions are in slow motion. And there are no choices to make - if you try and run away, the child will re-appear in front of you.
In other words, the child that you couldn't rescue, slow motion, and the lack of choice signify dreams.
After you are hit by the Reaper beam, you're hurt. You fall unconscious. And when you come to:
You can only move in slow motion.
You can make no choice in your weapons - you simply have a pistol. With unlimited ammunition.
Making it to the conduit puts you in an area piled with bodies. (Why? What were they being used for? They just exist in that corridor... and nowhere else)
The Illusive Man is there before you. (How? How did one man sneak into London and make it through the Reapers?)
Admiral Anderson is there before you. (He even states over comms that he followed you up - but appears ahead of you.)
You meet something that claims to be the catalyst, the last piece of the puzzle. It looks like the child from your dreams.
It claims that it created the Reapers to stop synthetics from destroying organic life. A claim which makes no sense, as helpfully illustrated below.
So, to sum up:
The ending makes no sense given the text of the game.
The ending makes no sense given the themes of the game.
There are strong clues within the text that this is unreal.
Can we chase this down any further? After the game finishes, you get the following text:
"Commander Shepard has become a legend by ending the Reaper threat. Now you can continue to build that legend by further gameplay and DLC."
Note that last: Further gameplay.
Now that I'm the God of all Reapers (option 1)? Seems unlikely.
Now that I'm living in a synthetic/organic higher plane (option 2)? Also unlikely.
Now that I'm dead (option 3)? Well, that didn't stop me before... but I'm still calling a no on this.
So we know that Shepard's story continues... but it can't, in any of the available endings that we played.
In fact, we can't even hit Resume Game to finish off those side-quests. All you get is a replay of the ending.
And then, let's look at the post-credits scene. A man speaking to a child in a snowy forest (now, where have we seen a snowy forest before?).
"Tell me another story about the shepherd."
"It's getting late, but OK. One more story."
To me, this leads to one inescapable conclusion:
That's not the real ending. And was never intended to be.
Let me re-iterate. SPOILERS ABOUND. Do not read further if you plan to play the game.
Last chance. SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
SPOILERS.
Right. For the two of you that have finished the game (and the dozen or so who don't intend to play), here's the skinny:
The ending doesn't work.
It not only doesn't work a little. It doesn't work a lot. In fact, it seems to go against everything we've established over the 90+ hours of gameplay that precede it.
I'm going to argue that this is deliberate. Bear with me.
So for the previous 90+ hours, the game has had one overarching theme. There are a couple of others, but this is the biggie:
Your decisions have consequences.
Again and again, you make choices which are reflected in what happens later. Very early in the first game, one of your squadmates dies. They will stay dead.
In the second game, a suicide mission is assembled. Odds are, most of your team won't make it. Who dies is dependent on the decisions you take.
Throughout the series, there are callbacks to decisions that you made.
And then, after the beam hits you, there are almost no decisions except for one: do you destroy the Reapers (dooming yourself and most likely characters you care for), attempt to take control of them, or synthesize a new synthetic/organic leap to a higher plane of consciousness?
That's a big choice. Right there. And all the gameplay up to this moment has allowed you to take time, think, ask questions. But this time round, the question is barely asked before you have to choose.
You don't get a chance to even re-ask the question. Like, which option is blue and which red, again?
And when you move into position at one of the choice points - you can't move away again. So you can't almost-get-there, then change your mind.
And then whichever choice you make, all of the Mass Relays explode throughout the galaxy.
A choice which leads to exactly the same ending.
A choice which is no choice.
Now, it's possible that the writers, after having spent so much care crafting a game with the theme of choice suddenly took that away from you for the final ten minutes of the game.
But that seems a trifle odd.
Let's investigate further.
Throughout ME3, Commander Shepard has been haunted by bad dreams. A boy you were unable to save. You appear in a snowy forest, filled with whispering shadows, trying to chase down the child. But you can't move properly. All of your actions are in slow motion. And there are no choices to make - if you try and run away, the child will re-appear in front of you.
In other words, the child that you couldn't rescue, slow motion, and the lack of choice signify dreams.
After you are hit by the Reaper beam, you're hurt. You fall unconscious. And when you come to:
You can only move in slow motion.
You can make no choice in your weapons - you simply have a pistol. With unlimited ammunition.
Making it to the conduit puts you in an area piled with bodies. (Why? What were they being used for? They just exist in that corridor... and nowhere else)
The Illusive Man is there before you. (How? How did one man sneak into London and make it through the Reapers?)
Admiral Anderson is there before you. (He even states over comms that he followed you up - but appears ahead of you.)
You meet something that claims to be the catalyst, the last piece of the puzzle. It looks like the child from your dreams.
It claims that it created the Reapers to stop synthetics from destroying organic life. A claim which makes no sense, as helpfully illustrated below.
So, to sum up:
The ending makes no sense given the text of the game.
The ending makes no sense given the themes of the game.
There are strong clues within the text that this is unreal.
Can we chase this down any further? After the game finishes, you get the following text:
"Commander Shepard has become a legend by ending the Reaper threat. Now you can continue to build that legend by further gameplay and DLC."
Note that last: Further gameplay.
Now that I'm the God of all Reapers (option 1)? Seems unlikely.
Now that I'm living in a synthetic/organic higher plane (option 2)? Also unlikely.
Now that I'm dead (option 3)? Well, that didn't stop me before... but I'm still calling a no on this.
So we know that Shepard's story continues... but it can't, in any of the available endings that we played.
In fact, we can't even hit Resume Game to finish off those side-quests. All you get is a replay of the ending.
And then, let's look at the post-credits scene. A man speaking to a child in a snowy forest (now, where have we seen a snowy forest before?).
"Tell me another story about the shepherd."
"It's getting late, but OK. One more story."
To me, this leads to one inescapable conclusion:
That's not the real ending. And was never intended to be.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
David Warner reads The Just So Stories
So as you may recall, some time ago I produced a show called The Just So Stories, based on the classic book by Rudyard Kipling.
The Just So Stories was performed at the King's Head Theatre, the Pleasance Theatre in both London and Edinburgh, and at the Trestle Theatre in St. Albans. It got some fine reviews, and I'm very proud of it.
What you might not be aware of is that we also made an audiobook of the show.
I've loved David Warner ever since I first saw his work, and I'm proud to say that he reads an audiobook of The Just So Stories, together with songs sung by the cast. The audiobook was produced by the lovely Neil Gardner and Simon Willey at Spokenworld Audio, and features the five Just So Stories and songs which were used in the production.
You can find out more and buy the audiobook for just £7.99+VAT from the Spokenworld website. If you want to have a listen beforehand before parting with your money, you can listen to a five-minute preview there too.
Suffice it to say I'm immensely happy with this.
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
#solcomms
Last night, 15,000 civilians tried to save the world from an alien invasion.
We failed.
If you've been following gaming news at all, you may be aware that Mass Effect 3 came out out in the US today. Here's a trailer to bring you up to speed on the background for the game.
So a couple of weeks ago, this Twitter feed starts up.
It's not obvious what it's there for at first, but as time goes on, tweets like the following start to appear.
And then yesterday:
Emily Wong, a reporter and minor character from the first two games, is filing copy via a Quantum Entanglement Communicator. All of Earth's comm buoys have gone down, you see, so she's reduced to a text-only feed of only a hundred and forty characters.
Over the next few hours, in realtime, Emily livetweets the invasion of Earth. And she's using the hashtag #solcomms.
A twitter hashtag is formed by adding a # followed by a word in your tweet. It's then easy to pull any tweets out which have that hashtag in them, and display them all together.
Which means that anyone else on Twitter who wanted to tell their stories about the invasion could too.
I started following Emily's story - the aliens had landed in Los Angeles and were destroying everything in their path. Then other people started joining in. Cities across the world, all under attack not because the writers at BioWare had demanded it be so, but because it was interesting and fun.
People started uploading photographs of the alien attacks. I even took a photo of one myself.
(You'll notice the huge Mass Effect field from the alien starship as it fires its deadly main gun causing a flare that makes it look like a quick photoshop job. Look, I was there, all right? I know what I saw!)
We created our own stories last night. We took pieces of other people's stories and made them our own. I exchanged tweets with people talking about the best places to try and escape from London. Someone tweeted that the last bridge across the Thames had been destroyed, and I built that into my own world.
I asked my (real-life) housemates if they wanted to try to run with me. Nick told me where he'd like to spend his last hour of life.
I tweeted about my run across the deserted streets to Brixton, and then built someone into my story - a biotic (someone with psychic powers) who saved my life, but then slipped in and out of consciousness. And I didn't know how to treat her.
Except I-the-writer did. But I-the-character didn't know the lore about biotics (when they use their powers, they exhaust their stores of energy, and need lots of energy intake quickly to avoid collapsing.)
And I-the-writer decided that unless someone was able to respond to my cries for help within 15 minutes, the monsters would come back and we'd both die there.
And I sat back, nervously, and waited.
And five minutes later, Heidi T Ewing (swiftly followed by several more people) saved my life.
It was a visceral experience.
And it wasn't just me. Thousands of people were telling their stories of the invasion, in real time, across the world. An improvisational drama with no guiding force other than the fact that we all knew the world in which we were playing, and the fact that many millions of people were going to die that day.
I saw stories of heroism, and of fear last night. All created in the moments they were told.
Emily Wong's story came to an end too. To the best of my knowledge the only "official" character of the 15,000 or so playing, she used the only weapon she had left - the skyvan she was flying - to take down one of the invaders.
Millions of people died last night.
We all killed them.
We sent aliens into their houses to kidnap them and impale them while they were still alive.
And this week, most of those responsible will fire up our new games, and take revenge for the destruction that we wrought.
We failed.
If you've been following gaming news at all, you may be aware that Mass Effect 3 came out out in the US today. Here's a trailer to bring you up to speed on the background for the game.
So a couple of weeks ago, this Twitter feed starts up.
Delayed Collider Now Online #AllianceNewsHeadline
— AllianceNewsNetwork (@AllianceNewsNet) February 21, 2012
It's not obvious what it's there for at first, but as time goes on, tweets like the following start to appear.
Buoys at batarian homeworld still down. Governor of Camala colony: "We know the Alliance has stealth vessels. This is obviously an attack."
— AllianceNewsNetwork (@AllianceNewsNet) March 1, 2012
And then yesterday:
Thank you for bearing with us. Earth is currently experiencing a comm buoy outage.#solcomms
— AllianceNewsNetwork (@AllianceNewsNet) March 5, 2012
Emily Wong, a reporter and minor character from the first two games, is filing copy via a Quantum Entanglement Communicator. All of Earth's comm buoys have gone down, you see, so she's reduced to a text-only feed of only a hundred and forty characters.
Over the next few hours, in realtime, Emily livetweets the invasion of Earth. And she's using the hashtag #solcomms.
A twitter hashtag is formed by adding a # followed by a word in your tweet. It's then easy to pull any tweets out which have that hashtag in them, and display them all together.
Which means that anyone else on Twitter who wanted to tell their stories about the invasion could too.
I started following Emily's story - the aliens had landed in Los Angeles and were destroying everything in their path. Then other people started joining in. Cities across the world, all under attack not because the writers at BioWare had demanded it be so, but because it was interesting and fun.
People started uploading photographs of the alien attacks. I even took a photo of one myself.
(You'll notice the huge Mass Effect field from the alien starship as it fires its deadly main gun causing a flare that makes it look like a quick photoshop job. Look, I was there, all right? I know what I saw!)
We created our own stories last night. We took pieces of other people's stories and made them our own. I exchanged tweets with people talking about the best places to try and escape from London. Someone tweeted that the last bridge across the Thames had been destroyed, and I built that into my own world.
I asked my (real-life) housemates if they wanted to try to run with me. Nick told me where he'd like to spend his last hour of life.
Housemates wouldn't evac. Nick's in the garden with gin and tonic, flames reflecting in his eyes. I don't think he'll even run. #solcomms
— Piers Beckley (@piersb) March 5, 2012
I tweeted about my run across the deserted streets to Brixton, and then built someone into my story - a biotic (someone with psychic powers) who saved my life, but then slipped in and out of consciousness. And I didn't know how to treat her.
Except I-the-writer did. But I-the-character didn't know the lore about biotics (when they use their powers, they exhaust their stores of energy, and need lots of energy intake quickly to avoid collapsing.)
Three of those... things... came at us. I'd managed to get her half-way out the rubble, and they just crawled from the ground. #solcomms.
— Piers Beckley (@piersb) March 5, 2012
I think they were human. Once. And she just picked them up and threw them against the wall with her mind. And they broke. #solcomms
— Piers Beckley (@piersb) March 5, 2012
She's slipping in and out of consciousness. Whatever it was she did, it took it out of her. Anyone know anything about biotics? #solcomms
— Piers Beckley (@piersb) March 5, 2012
I've got a biotic who's just saved my life three times over. And she needs something but I don't know the fuck what it is. #solcomms.
— Piers Beckley (@piersb) March 5, 2012
And there's no medi-gel and if I can't figure out what she needs we're both going to die here. And I don't. Want. To. Die. #solcomms
— Piers Beckley (@piersb) March 5, 2012
And I-the-writer decided that unless someone was able to respond to my cries for help within 15 minutes, the monsters would come back and we'd both die there.
And I sat back, nervously, and waited.
And five minutes later, Heidi T Ewing (swiftly followed by several more people) saved my life.
@piersb Can you get her any food/IV nourishment? Hear biotics mess your system up. #solcomms
— Heidi T Ewing (@htewing) March 5, 2012
It was a visceral experience.
And it wasn't just me. Thousands of people were telling their stories of the invasion, in real time, across the world. An improvisational drama with no guiding force other than the fact that we all knew the world in which we were playing, and the fact that many millions of people were going to die that day.
I saw stories of heroism, and of fear last night. All created in the moments they were told.
Emily Wong's story came to an end too. To the best of my knowledge the only "official" character of the 15,000 or so playing, she used the only weapon she had left - the skyvan she was flying - to take down one of the invaders.
You want to see how a human dies? At ramming speed. #solcomms
— AllianceNewsNetwork (@AllianceNewsNet) March 6, 2012
Millions of people died last night.
We all killed them.
We sent aliens into their houses to kidnap them and impale them while they were still alive.
And this week, most of those responsible will fire up our new games, and take revenge for the destruction that we wrought.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Workfare: Stupid or Evil?
There's a saying in which I believe and attempt to live my life by: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
With that in mind, let's run a little thought experiment.
You are the manager of a company, and your objective is to maximise the profit for the company.
You employ two people. Let's call them shelf-stackers. For each hour that one of these shelf-stackers works, you earn £9.
You pay each of your shelf-stackers £8 per hour. You therefore earn £2 per hour profit.
Sadly, one of them dies in a tragic accident involving a sewing machine and the collected works of L Ron Hubbard, and you now require a replacement.
Many people apply for this role as there is a shortage of jobs in the current economy, and so there are many applicants for each job. However, there is a new government scheme: For the first five weeks of hiring a new employee who has been unemployed for more than 13 weeks, you can pay them nothing. You may then, if they're suitable, take them on.
Your profit for those five weeks now increases from £80 to £400. That's, ooh, a 500% increase in profit for helping get people off benefits? You win, the person on benefits gets valuable work experience which may help them in the future. What's not to love?
So, assuming your aim is to maximise profit:
If someone dies or leaves and you pay their replacement minimum wage instead of taking a workfare replacement, you are an idiot.
And this is why workfare is evil. Because it makes forcing people to work for you and paying them nothing the sensible thing to do.
You used to have two paid jobs. Now you have one paid, and the other unpaid. The work still gets done, but you aren't actually paying someone to do it any more. Instead, you're taking the money that you would have paid someone with and using it to line your own pockets.
Worse yet: if you are the unscrupulous sort, there's nothing to stop you saying that they weren't suitable for the job, and then taking someone else on under the same scheme. Repeat as necessary.
And it doesn't even work for the country. Instead of two people paying taxes for 52 weeks of the year, the scheme has resulted in the loss of five weeks worth of tax revenue. More, if the turnover in these jobs is high or the management unscrupulous.
So as far as I can see, the introduction of this scheme by the government requires both malice and stupidity.
It doesn't solve the problem of unemployment; it loses the government money; and businesses have an incentive to use it rather than hiring people at a reasonable wage.
The Boycott Workfare site has more information about the companies involved.
With that in mind, let's run a little thought experiment.
You are the manager of a company, and your objective is to maximise the profit for the company.
You employ two people. Let's call them shelf-stackers. For each hour that one of these shelf-stackers works, you earn £9.
You pay each of your shelf-stackers £8 per hour. You therefore earn £2 per hour profit.
Sadly, one of them dies in a tragic accident involving a sewing machine and the collected works of L Ron Hubbard, and you now require a replacement.
Many people apply for this role as there is a shortage of jobs in the current economy, and so there are many applicants for each job. However, there is a new government scheme: For the first five weeks of hiring a new employee who has been unemployed for more than 13 weeks, you can pay them nothing. You may then, if they're suitable, take them on.
Your profit for those five weeks now increases from £80 to £400. That's, ooh, a 500% increase in profit for helping get people off benefits? You win, the person on benefits gets valuable work experience which may help them in the future. What's not to love?
So, assuming your aim is to maximise profit:
If someone dies or leaves and you pay their replacement minimum wage instead of taking a workfare replacement, you are an idiot.
And this is why workfare is evil. Because it makes forcing people to work for you and paying them nothing the sensible thing to do.
You used to have two paid jobs. Now you have one paid, and the other unpaid. The work still gets done, but you aren't actually paying someone to do it any more. Instead, you're taking the money that you would have paid someone with and using it to line your own pockets.
Worse yet: if you are the unscrupulous sort, there's nothing to stop you saying that they weren't suitable for the job, and then taking someone else on under the same scheme. Repeat as necessary.
And it doesn't even work for the country. Instead of two people paying taxes for 52 weeks of the year, the scheme has resulted in the loss of five weeks worth of tax revenue. More, if the turnover in these jobs is high or the management unscrupulous.
So as far as I can see, the introduction of this scheme by the government requires both malice and stupidity.
It doesn't solve the problem of unemployment; it loses the government money; and businesses have an incentive to use it rather than hiring people at a reasonable wage.
The Boycott Workfare site has more information about the companies involved.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Gender Equality and the Nuclear Option
So, Paul Cornell has done an interesting thing.
A little bit of background: I've met Paul at several conventions, and we've been on several panels together. That men and women are and should be treated as equal, and that in today's society (both in general and in the particular subculture of SF Fandom) they are not yet always treated as such, is not anything that we disagree on.
So in brief, here's what Paul has said:
If he finds himself on a convention panel which does not have a 50/50 balance of men and women (rounding is fine in the case of odd-numbered panels), he will immediately step down from that panel and invite a qualified (ie knowledgeable about the subject) female volunteer from the floor to take his place.
If no qualified female volunteers are available on the floor, he will replace himself with an unqualified female volunteer.
My basic problem with this approach isn't Paul stepping down from a panel. Each of us has things up with which we will not put. Those points of ethics and morality are different for each of us. Withdrawal of labour when all other options have failed has a long and glorious history and is an action which I fully support.
My problem with this strategy is not in Paul stepping down from a panel, which he is perfectly justified in doing; rather it's in his intention to replace himself on the panel.
I don't believe that he has the right to make that call.
If I've shown up as an audience member to a panel, I know (pending sickness or other unforeseeable circumstances) who will be on that panel. I know, hopefully, why they will bring something useful to the panel, or at the least am confident that the convention committee (oft abbreviated to concom, language fans!) have filled that panel with people who will have something interesting to say about the subject.
Now, if I've gone to a panel with this in mind, and instead of the person I've come to see speak I get someone that they have unilaterally imposed on the panel, and then especially if that replacement does not have anything useful or interesting to say, I would take this amiss. If they actually bring the quality of the panel down, I'd be even more annoyed.
And if I was on the panel myself, I'd be livid.
If the replacement has been OKd by the panel, or the moderator thereof, then I don't necessarily have a problem with that. But the current option on the table is a unilateral I-will-replace-myself. Which I feel is unacceptable, and I rather suspect many other people will too.
And were I a panellist on a panel where such a thing happened, I think it likely that I would have to withdraw from the panel myself in protest. Especially if it was a panel in which Paul was more competent than I to speak.
While I feel that Paul, as does anyone, has the right to withdraw from a panel for whatever reason he chooses, I do not feel he has the right to choose his replacement.
So. Given that he plans to do just this, effectively what we have here is a nuclear option with a defined trigger point. You do this, and I'll do this. Your move.
Now, we've had nuclear weapons for, what, 65-odd years now, and they've only been used twice. So it's perfectly possible to come to an arrangement with someone with a nuclear capability without anyone blowing anyone into a cloud of radioactive dust.
What is likely to happen here is that concoms ensure that either Paul's panels are gender-balanced, or he isn't on them. Because every concom will want to avoid the nightmare that I expect to happen if he does go ahead and invite people from the audience to replace him.
So if I know that I'm going to be on a panel with Paul again at any convention in the future, then I'm going to have to ensure it's gender-balanced. Given that I know what he'll do if it isn't, and then what I'll do if he does that, and then there's a whole smoking mess to clear up, which is what exactly none of us want.
And I'm sure many other people will do the same. And this process will result in more gender-balanced panels. Which I think is a good thing.
But I have a problem with the means.
A little bit of background: I've met Paul at several conventions, and we've been on several panels together. That men and women are and should be treated as equal, and that in today's society (both in general and in the particular subculture of SF Fandom) they are not yet always treated as such, is not anything that we disagree on.
So in brief, here's what Paul has said:
If he finds himself on a convention panel which does not have a 50/50 balance of men and women (rounding is fine in the case of odd-numbered panels), he will immediately step down from that panel and invite a qualified (ie knowledgeable about the subject) female volunteer from the floor to take his place.
If no qualified female volunteers are available on the floor, he will replace himself with an unqualified female volunteer.
My basic problem with this approach isn't Paul stepping down from a panel. Each of us has things up with which we will not put. Those points of ethics and morality are different for each of us. Withdrawal of labour when all other options have failed has a long and glorious history and is an action which I fully support.
My problem with this strategy is not in Paul stepping down from a panel, which he is perfectly justified in doing; rather it's in his intention to replace himself on the panel.
I don't believe that he has the right to make that call.
If I've shown up as an audience member to a panel, I know (pending sickness or other unforeseeable circumstances) who will be on that panel. I know, hopefully, why they will bring something useful to the panel, or at the least am confident that the convention committee (oft abbreviated to concom, language fans!) have filled that panel with people who will have something interesting to say about the subject.
Now, if I've gone to a panel with this in mind, and instead of the person I've come to see speak I get someone that they have unilaterally imposed on the panel, and then especially if that replacement does not have anything useful or interesting to say, I would take this amiss. If they actually bring the quality of the panel down, I'd be even more annoyed.
And if I was on the panel myself, I'd be livid.
If the replacement has been OKd by the panel, or the moderator thereof, then I don't necessarily have a problem with that. But the current option on the table is a unilateral I-will-replace-myself. Which I feel is unacceptable, and I rather suspect many other people will too.
And were I a panellist on a panel where such a thing happened, I think it likely that I would have to withdraw from the panel myself in protest. Especially if it was a panel in which Paul was more competent than I to speak.
While I feel that Paul, as does anyone, has the right to withdraw from a panel for whatever reason he chooses, I do not feel he has the right to choose his replacement.
So. Given that he plans to do just this, effectively what we have here is a nuclear option with a defined trigger point. You do this, and I'll do this. Your move.
Now, we've had nuclear weapons for, what, 65-odd years now, and they've only been used twice. So it's perfectly possible to come to an arrangement with someone with a nuclear capability without anyone blowing anyone into a cloud of radioactive dust.
What is likely to happen here is that concoms ensure that either Paul's panels are gender-balanced, or he isn't on them. Because every concom will want to avoid the nightmare that I expect to happen if he does go ahead and invite people from the audience to replace him.
So if I know that I'm going to be on a panel with Paul again at any convention in the future, then I'm going to have to ensure it's gender-balanced. Given that I know what he'll do if it isn't, and then what I'll do if he does that, and then there's a whole smoking mess to clear up, which is what exactly none of us want.
And I'm sure many other people will do the same. And this process will result in more gender-balanced panels. Which I think is a good thing.
But I have a problem with the means.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Rocket Science (Fiction)
Well, if you haven't seen me for the last four or five months, it wasn't because I don't love you any more. It's because I've been working on a magazine called "Spaceships of Science Fiction".
My copies arrived on Thursday.
(Technically speaking it's a bookazine, yes. Hush there at the back.)
It costs £7.95, is published by Ian Allan and is available in shops exclusively at WHSmith in the UK. It's also going to be on sale in the United States soon, but I don't yet know exactly when.
Since my copies have arrived, I think we can safely say it's in the distribution chain now, so should be showing up at some point in the next few weeks on shelves in a bookstore near you.
So: Yay! Spaceships!
My copies arrived on Thursday.
(Technically speaking it's a bookazine, yes. Hush there at the back.)
It costs £7.95, is published by Ian Allan and is available in shops exclusively at WHSmith in the UK. It's also going to be on sale in the United States soon, but I don't yet know exactly when.
Since my copies have arrived, I think we can safely say it's in the distribution chain now, so should be showing up at some point in the next few weeks on shelves in a bookstore near you.
So: Yay! Spaceships!
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Happy Birthday, Chuck
This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens.
Now I've got a bit of a soft spot for Charles. As well as being an absolutely brilliant writer, he helped me to get my start in the business.
The first theatre play I wrote that was professionally performed was an adaptation of A Christmas Carol at the Lion & Unicorn theatre in Kentish Town, directed by the wonderful Mr Ray Shell.
It did well. Lots of lovely reviews, including a four-star in Time Out. So. Not too shabby then.
The year after, I adapted Oliver Twist, which Ray also directed. (And while I'm on the subject of Oliver Twist: Nancy is not a prostitute.) Again, great reviews, an extended run.
And one or the other of them has been performed in London every year since I started writing professionally.
So anyhow, I got to thinking. And what I thought was this:
It's the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens' birth this year. A centenary, no less. Some of you out there might want to do something to celebrate that and not have the wherewithal to pay for a script, or know anyone local who wants to write one.
Mr Dickens has done well for me over the last few years. I'd like to return the favour. So firstly, here are the scripts.
Oliver Twist
A Christmas Carol
Have a read.
If you like them, and you'd like to put them on in the centenary year, then I'll waive my fees. So any performances in 2012 will be completely free, no matter how large or small the production. (Well, apart from the cost of putting on the show. But that's your own problem, and one that I'm certain that you'll be able to cope with magnificently.)
You'll still need to obtain a licence to perform the play (email me for more details about this) but if you put one of these two plays on in 2012 there'll be no writer's fee.
And I'd love the chance to see it if I can.
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