Vector 271 Worthen 2012-Wi
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Vector 271 .I§§"'·iiies:MMs••·.Ii;, ARTICLES Vector Editorial htlp://vectoreditors.wordpress.com ShanaWorthen ... 3 fe.turn.Edltorl.1 sn.n.WOI1hen FantalticLondon.eo.uk • ndLett....: t27fofestRoad.Loughton. Esse"IGt01Ef.UK Edward James .. ..••••••...••••••••••......... 4 vector.edilorsOymail.eom The SbilpeS of London IbrtlnLewls 14 Ar1tonyIiouse.Perrbury Paul CQrnell... 6 f'*::e.LonOon.E58GZ Memories of Futun: London PhilipReeve . ... 8 British ScI8nce fiction Association Lld London is Fraetal TheBSFAwasloundedin 1958 and is a non-prolilmaking organI5a1JOn entirePySlalledbyunpaidvolunlee<s.RegiSleredinEngIand.LirrlI1ed Sophia McDougall ... 10 bygu.alanlee. The future of London i. already here, it'. jUlt B$FAW&bsile CompanyNo,921500 11. not evenly distributed: user's guide to WUliam Registered address: 61tvycroflRoad,WRI1on. Giblon'. London Tamwor1h,Staffordshire.B79OJJ Tom Hunter • 12 DanieWare Internl!!W Jon Court.....y Grimwood Tom Hunter 15 "nWhaIeS chlirObsla.co.lA< RECURRENTS MattlnPotU; (1IIYyClortAoacl,Wanon,Nr Tamwor1h.B79OJJ Foundation Favolll'lle.: hood Man bslatreasurerOgmail.eom Andy Sawyer 17 Kincaid in Short:The Cold Equations "-lerWllklnson F1a14.SlratlonLodge. Paul Kincaid .. 19 799u/WerRoad.Ban'l81. Picture This: No Marvel or DC Her11ordshire,EN55EU Terry Martin 22 bslamembershipOyahoo,CQ.Uk Resonances:Where exactly is Zoe Heriot'sWheel MEMBERSHIP FEES In Space? UK t29pa(orunwage(l-C20paj Stephen Buter 24 Lilemerrtlership £500 OIMil;teUK JoinIIIarnilyrnembership '"Addt2to1heaboveprioes The BSFA Review LI Hunt" continues the London theme with a review of Michael Moorcock and Allan Kausch's London Peculiar FOCUS: THE BSFA MAGAZ1NE FOA WRtTERS And Other Nonfiction; new releases by Eric BroYm, Editor: Ale. Barlty Peter F: Hamilton and Greg Egan are reviewed; and foc:usmagOmangozine.eom Tony Keen celebrates the return ofTargel" DoctorWho BSFAAWARDS novelisations. .. .. 26 Administrator: PubliahedbylheBSFALldC2012 ..... ISSNOSO!i0448 ORBITER WRITING GROUPS Online: VECTOR 271 - WINTER 2012 Torque Control ondon 2014. As voted on al this year's Worldcon, Gibsonian coffee advice in particular, this is the article to the World Science Fiction Convention is coming tumto. Lback to London after a forty-nine year absence. Another highlight of London with respect to science This time it'll be al Excel, in the city's often-surreal fiction is Forbidden Planet, the bookstore where Danie Docklands, where the Light Rail winds aerially between Ware works. After years of organising signings with many the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf like a futuristic vision of science fiction's best-known authors, her first novel, from the '50s. The conference centre is located between Ecko Rising, is coming oul. Tom Hunter interviews her compact City Airport and the expanses of the erstwhile for Vector, discussing the overlap of science fiction and docks themselves. In breaks between programming fantasy, the challenges of time management, and her items, allendees of Loncon3 will be able 10 catch fresh favourite online tools. air by the water and watch cable cars transporting people Andy Sawyer's Foundation Favourites column high above the Thames. The Thames Barrier, a feature of focuses on a 1934 novel set in part in London. In a lovely any number of science novels, is not far away. bit of circularity, the Person in Proud Man (identified as This issue of Vector is themed around London and a work by Murray Conslantine - read the column for an SCience Fiction. in honour of Loncon3. The science explanation of the ambiguity), having moved 10 London, fictionality of the city is a rich subject. So much has spends time reading Brave New World there. happened in it, from H.G. Wells' life 10 the opening In their regular columns, Stephen Baxter discusses chapters of John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids to Doctor Who, Paul Kincaid examines the logic of "The Cold the most recent book to arrive in the post, Tiffany Trent's Equations~, and Terry Martin surveys recent and varied The Unnaturalists. intriguing comics. And, of course, there are numerous Over the next couple of years. Edward James will book reviews to explore in The BSFA Review. be busy cataloguing the geography of London's science fiction connections through his new Fantastic London website, which he introduces in this issue, Perhaps he'lI find the rest of this issue useful in helping to track down This is the third and last Vector of 2012. Normally, the breadth of the subject. as that's exactly what the there would be four issues in a year but, as you likely contributors have provided us with. know from the replacement mailing of letter and book, Paul Cornell was London-conscious. growing up in a group of factors waylaid the prOduction of summer's Wiltshire. It's always been a place to be near and to visil. issue. Between giving birth, resigning. and family health From Baker Street to Amersham, from pubs to rivers, issues, three of us who were meant to be working on Cornell considers how the city has inspired him and his the magazine were not as available as expected. This new novel which is set Ihere. Bonus: he gives advice on issue was originally meant to be in support of the London how to locate comics shops. Worldcon bid; I'm delighted that it won without it, and Philip Reeve, whose spectacular Hungry City London glad that this issue can now serve the further goal of rolled menacingly and complexly through his Mortal celebrating and publicising the bid's success. Engines, explains how he was inspired to write about Thank you very much 10 the many people who London in particuar. The city loomed over Brighton from volunteered to help out in the future with both Vector, and the perspective of his childhood, despite containing other aspects of the BSFA more generally, as a result youthful highlights like zoos. of the replacement mailing. The BSFA is entirely run by The harsh geography and impact of social change, volunteers. We have no paid positions, and our success as they have affected London's recent developments, in fulfilling our commitments and expanding our activities, are the subject of Sophia McDougall's exploration of whether one-off booklets or articles, or ongoing work its landscape. Here is an unforgiving and underserved such as producing the magazines or running the monthly London, fraught with the consequences of holding the London meetings, is at the mercy of available volunteers Olympics. The aftermath of Olympic and Paralympic to do so. Please do enquire about volunteering in the cheer lingers on, but she quite rightly reminds us of future, should you have the capacity for it, or consider the spectres of well-grounded and related fears which proposing articles for Vector or Focus, or booklets for preceded il. (And how appropriate that she in particular publication and distribution to our members, or content do so, whose Romani/as sets out from alternate history for the BSFA's website. modern Roman London.) Tom Hunter gives us London through William Gibson's SHANA WORTHEN Blue Ant books, a guide to some of the city's highlights, EDITOR as seen through an advertising agency's priorities. For VECTOR 271 - WINTER 20' 2 FantasticLondon.co.uk Edward Jarnes hat will Fantastic London be? I intend it to be course, so I don't want 10 bother him more than I have a website that serves as an introduction to two to. And in case any reader of this piece is foolish enough W aspects of London, as a site for the fantastic to rush in with offers of help, please hold back! At this and the science fictional. It will map, and offer informa very moment I am not doing anything with the pro;ect: tion about, the places in London where SF&F writers I am trying to finish a book on lois McMaster Bujold for have lived and worked; and it will do the same for those the new HMasters of Modem Science FictionH series pub sites in London which have formed a setting for SF&F lished by Illinois University Press. (The first volume to stories and novels. 11 wilL of course, be infinitely eJlpand appear is going 10 be on John Brunner.) But when Bujold able and thus never finished: the amount of relevant ma~ is finished, later this year, I shall be working on Fantas ferial is enormous. (Do I want,. for inslanre, to list every tic London in earnest. So far I have not got very far in science-fictional or fantastic sighting of Jack the Ripper preparing to set it up. In terms of gathering information, on the streets of Whitcchapel? Well, maybe J do....) aliI have done is find out the addresses of every single J expect many readers of Vl'("tor saw Mark Slater's fantasy and s<iencc fiction writer who has a Bluc Plaque wonderful promo video for the London 2014 Worldron outside his or her house. That was fairly easy: there are bid, which featured scenes of London from SF TV and thirty-four, ranging alphabetically from Kingsley Amis movies. (If not. ~ http://bitJy/cS2ryS.) London was at (at 194 Regents Park Road) to Oscar Wilde (J;! Tire Street, tacked and/or destroyed in numerous imaginative ways; Olelsea). As you might suspect, few of those commemo- or at least Big Ben was. Why do alien inv,lders have such a f,lsOnalion with Big Ben? (And, yes, I know that what I really mean is the PalareofWestminslerClockTower....) I know the answer, of course; it has an iconic status only distanlly rivalled by Tower Bridge, St Paul's, the London Eye and the Gherkin (all of which also fealured, usual ly in the act of being destroyed.. on the video). It stand~ metonymically for London,. with the added advantage that it is attached to Parliament itself; which stands met onymically for the UK itself.