Evolution PR 2
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Start here! EVOLUTION nly a yearto go... By the time you read this, we'll all have enjoyed Confabulation- if you went home feeling tired but happy, remember we'll go home tired, happy and ed ON Ee Oe Si ea with the realisation that we're next. Now you're probably getting ready for intersection, saving up for the hotel and putting off till rather later all thoughts of 1996. Rest assured, we're still planning ahead, so that when you're ready to think about Evolution, we'll have plenty for you to think about. In the mean time, this happily with more We're still looking for PR brings you more Evolution recipes. volunteers and Pat details about our site, The list of current McMurray offers some the sybaritic Radisson members is on the back encouragement. We'll eked Edwardian, news about page — please check soon be selling highly- the room rates and an your details. If you're a evolved T shirts for exploration of the pre-supporting member, volunteers — yet another Committee surrounding area (you now is a good time to get reason to give us a hand Bridget Hardcastle ........ eT might be pleasantly your full membership -— as well as a delightful (FT) eeeWhereis surprised). remember you get your depiction of the Simon H Le Gros Bisson ..Programming We also have news of £1 discount. If you still evolution of the fan. Ad:eeeeee Ops what our guests are up to have your pre-supporting So, we're still here and | Wire TeVLt arora Publications - if you've always receipt, it would make Evolutionis still Manager wondered exactly what life easier for us if you evolving. Watch this Pat McMurray.............. SCT Jack Cohen is, read on. can let us know the space. YEL@ceUre| eeeWiESTet Some last minute news number when you send - Mary Branscombe (HaraCla about our guests —- we us your membership. Publications Manager Steve Glover................ CUE OT | now have a combined fan UeMLCT guest of Maureen Speller and Paul Kincaid as well. Staff Little Rex has alreaty set Registration................ eras) out for the con and we're Foreign Adviser ............ ETTLy still cooking away Video Programme......... eC el? SeerCU eeeeeseeeeee ; Pete Wright TTT1)See eeeeeeee Tim Broadribb astercens are run by the people Because conventions arefriendly Dealers’ Room ............. Mark Plummer whealwaysrun conventions, aren't places, you'll meetpeople and start te Hotel Liaison ............... ATUSO) UT reeretaa they. And you'llfind the usualsupects make friends whatever you de at your Eddie Cochrane helping outon the registration desk first convention.Hewever velanteering and holding the microphones (you gives you a stractureto base your first Membership & Enquiries know who you are, antl assoon as convention around, rather than Until 18th April 1995, attending you're recovered from Intersection, wondering which ef the many say membership is £20, £12 supporting or child we'llwelcome you with open arms). rate (between 5 and 14 on Sth April 1996 - Bat if you're aot thesort of enjoy the convention! —Ed). children under 5 are free). After this it person normally suspected of What you do at your second rises to £24 attending, £14 supporting or volunteering toheipata con, did you cenvention dependson what happens — child rate. Contactusat: everwonder hewthey got inte it aad at your first. If you likevolunteering Evolution, 13 Lindfield Gardens, whetheryou should? _ you can doit again,if you'd rather net. Hampstead, London NW3 6PX, UK ‘My first convention was Helicon, you cando something else (like E-mail: general [email protected] theEasterconheld on Jersey in 1993. | enjoying the convention?—Ed). tt membership [email protected] wasvery nervousaboutgoing. | knew you're anlucky or carelessyeucae end there’d be hundredsof people there, uprunningIt... Advertising Rates whe all knew each ether, and didn’t time at Helicon.1 __ Uhad a good = £40 per A4 pagefan rate, £100 knowme.f'd actually patoff going to worked in the GreenReom,the professional. Deadlines for PR 3 — 1st ‘conventions ferSeveralyears because -hespitality suitefergeestsani = iaCen eeGee Sear aeeTerage ekeoe UC ot thisfear. _ panellists, which isafanjeb tede. 1 guarantee your ad in a particular PR, Whatfinallyccemned meto go met some interestingpeople and : ERT)ee MCTLes UI Eneoe was justenelittie snippet of — started buildingsomegood — - Contact Mary Branscombe 18 High Street, infermation. Conventions are ran friendships. AtSou’Wester,nysecond Twerton, Bath, Avon BA2 1BZ purely by volunteers,aadthey always Eastercon | didthe samething (when! E-mail: [email protected] need morevolunteers. People are wasn'tselling pre-suppertsor‘actually always welcome,but especially - presentingabid forEvelution). This — Creditz volunteers.ff you volunteer, you'll get time,as site liasion, Igetto pick the NeeaTCMCa aeCm Sea) te meetSiemeee Greer Reom. Branscombe e printed by PDC Copyprint. working with, theseyou'rehelping. As always, we need your help to : Someof themwill beald and — ~ make this a goedconventionbut we're Guests of Honour experienced hands,some will be rank net the only oneswhocan benefit. neoslike yourself(andme two years Velunteer. I'll changeyour life,at Vernor Vinge Dr. Jack Cohen ago}, but they'll all begladtesee you, least a little. eeeC aLULL -=PatMcMurray andIt’sasmall step:from there to : padphon- makingtriends. : Meet our Guests of Honour Jack Cohen: Alien Designer (UK title Dragons of Heorot) which believes the subject has something to do should be available by the time you read with organisms. (Jack was once an this. ’ve read it in manuscript, and organism himself: Chair Organism of the Jack’s biological paw-prints are all over West Midlands branch of the Institute of it. | also reckon it’s the best book Niven Biology 1990-94 — to avoid charges of has written for several years, though I’m speciesism.) In fact, that was what he not claiming there is any necessary wanted to talk to me about. connection between those two He knew of my association with statements. Chaos Theory, through my best-seller Does God Play Dice? (just the one gratuitous A universal uncle advert allowed! — Ed), and he wanted to One of the things about Jack that struck know how the devil complicated things me when I first met him was that like organisms could possibly work when whoever | mentioned, he claimed to their insides were chaotic. We spent a know personally — SF authors, large numberof lunchtimes in pubs scientists, pet-shop owners, actors... At thinking about this, and the upshot was first | wondered if he was simply The Collapse of Chaos (due out from spinning a line, but as time went by | got Penguin in mid-1995). Jack has written scheol students than to meet a lot of them myself — six other books including The Privileged anybody else | know, mostly about Life sometimes at Jack’s instigation, Ape, Reproduction, and Living Embryos. on Other Planets and sex. He does sometimes not — and they always Our joint brainchild is unusual, because innumerable radio broadcasts, and confirmed his story. Jack has a huge the second half completely revealed his deep knowledge of almost stable of fascinating (this is another everything when Heather Couper and| polite term, this time for “eccentric”) beat his team in The Litmus Test. The acquaintances, nearly all of whom seem two of us once did an interview for BBC to bear him a surprising amount of of radio on the latest Star Trek movie — goodwill. | say “surprising” because neither of us having actually seen it at Jack is of the “speak your mind and the time. His latest TV epic is in the camn the consequences” persuasion, so Channel 4 series Reality on the Rocks in he often puts his foot where angels fear which Ken Campbell tries to find the to put theirs. You either love him or you Meaning of Life, the Universe — and hate him, but the balance, | have chips. To help, Jack eats a definitive observed, is hugely positive. chip in the delightful setting of the Coventry Cross pub in the first episode, Credentials and chaos Did It Begin? He also drives Ken around Jack is a real scientist, too — real in his (Jack’s, not Ken’s) Peugeot diesel enough to have taken early retirement with a camera crew hanging out of the from Birmingham University when he passenger window. noticed it was starting to forget what On exactly two occasions mylife real science ought to be. He is now contradicts the first half, has beentotally transformed by a Jewish based at the University of Warwick, with and both are assisted by conversations scientist banging on my door. The first one foot in each of the Mathematics and with the aliens of the planet Zarathustra. time wasin the United States, when a Biology Departments.(This is a bit like The Zarathustrans are incurable mathematician called Marty Golubitsky straddling the Maginot Line at the start octimists — they like the number 8 — appeared during a Connecticut winter: of World WarIl.) He is a biologist, except of course for those who are that encounter changed my entire belonging to that quaint old school that septimists. The first half gives the research area. The second time was orthodox scientific view of everything when Jack showed up in my office, and from atoms to ecosystems; the second that encounter changed just about half gives our view, which turns most of everything else. the first half on its head. We’ve got For the hetter, you understand different organisms with the same DNA, — lan Stewart organisms whose genes don’t tell them what sex they ought to be, organisms that evolve while their Ci OTS PeealLa genes stay the same and PTRGee SL EYa stories in Analog. He's stay the same while their ites occasional short genes evolve, planets n for his regular Mathematical ieYee uo that move in octagons..