INTUITION Progress Report I November 1996 INTUITION PROGRESS REPORT ONE November 1996 INTUITION CONTENTS British National Science Fiction Convention (“Eastercon”) 1998 From the Depths of the Sofa - Fran Dowd 10-13 April 1998 Hotel Jarvis Piccadilly Connie Willis: a One-Sided Dialogue — Manchester Paul Kincaid Intuition Committee Is that a “Science” in your Acronym or Sofa are You just Pleased to See Me? Science Programming at Intuition — Fran Dowd AmandaBaker Treasurer David Cooper Discovering Ian McDonald — Paul Kincaid Secretary Jenny Glover Crossword — Jan Taylor Membership Secretary Drama and SF — Kathy Taylor 10 Kathy Taylor Operations News from the Committee 12 Fiona Anderson Programme, Publications and Fran’s Breakfast Mushrooms — Fran Dowd i Publicity Claire Brialey Overseas Agents 13 Maureen Kincaid Speller HelenSteele Membership List 14 Amanda Baker(Science) COVER: by Sue Mason PRI Edited by: Helen Steele Intuition Progress Report One was produced on Microsoft Internal Art by: Word and Quark Xpress on the PC and the Mac(twice — an idiot Sue Mason burglar hasthe first paste-up...) Proofreading by: If you are interested in advertising in subsequent progress reports or in the programmebookpleasesee page 12 for details. the committee INTUITION PROGRESS REPORT1 From the Depthsof the Sofa Fran Dowd Welcometo Intuition. I’m a left-handed woman, aware of sexual and social undercurrents, break- so I’m supposedto havea lot ofit. ups, fights, pick-ups and loveat first sight, and men tend not to be. Groups of women in more Intuition is mystical, irrational, stubborn.It has formal situations use consensus management, no place in modern scientific thought. Intuition whereas mixed groups or groups of men are is being convinced that your plane will crash, more involved with power and dominance that your numbers will come upin the National games. Someof this comes out of our education, Lottery. Intuition is sloppy, an excusefor rational where we were encouraged to read books about thoughtpractised by primitive cultures, women, left-handers, drug-users, young people, old relationships more than action, watch chick- flicks rather than Arnie movies, study arts and people, sailors, soldiers, police, doctors in US humanities rather than maths and science. Be medical soaps and anyone else who ISN’T ME. soft, not hard. Someofit is a remnantofthe skills As a left-hander, the books! say I think in a womenneededto get on in the world. How else different way. Using visual imagery rather than could youget a rich man to marry you? abstractions, absorbing a problem and spitting The word “intuition” madeits earliest appear- out a solution rather than detailing a logical, ance in the English language in the fifteenth linear progression of thought. A high proportion century, and originally meant contemplation, or of artists, writers, and musiciansare left-handed. In the traditional right-thinking world, I’m view. By the sixteenth century, it had come to supposed to be crap at following directions, mean taking into account, or havingreferenceto, immediately knowing or understanding some- completing projects, analysing and deducing. I thing. It wasn’t until the eighteenth century that shouldn’t be any goodat law, mathsorscience. it got its current meaning of immediate insight. Slang words for me in many languagescall me So it isn’t the blinding flash that comes out of awkward, clumsy, sneaky andevil — sinister. nowhere, it is just a way of using the mass of Right-handers however are adroit, dextrous data you already have, of shining the light from and correct. Ever since we started manufactur- a newdirection. ing things, tools have been designed for them to use, which lands me with a double whammy. Enough twaddle, what's this got to do with an Aboutonein ten of the population is born left- Eastercon? handed, and despite the best efforts of teachers, Well, we want to show you your world using parents, and even Dr Spock, nowadays in the some different spotlights. And we want to lay Western world mostof us grow up that waytoo. bare some of the wiring involved and look at But whatsort of future do we have, where we how someofthe thinking behind it works. How can’t use tools easily, can’t even think correctly? do scientific breakthroughs really happen? Where do newideas come from? Whatwill new Women are supposed to think differently as well. That used to mean that we couldn’tthink at technologies do to the way our minds work, our perceptions of ourselves, our dreams, our views all, that it wasn’t worth educating us, that we of the past and the future? Whatare the myths, shouldn’t be alloweda voicein politics, religion, legends and histories that colour these percep- science, commerce. Those days are starting to fade away, and the emphasis has shifted from tions? How do we know what we know? And “not being able to think” to “thinking in a differ- we want to party on while we’re doing it. My ent but equally valuable way”. I’m not going to intuition tells me that gin is the natural fuel for discuss political viewpoints on the rights and creative thought, and I intend to proveit using wrongs of modern feminism, but it is my scientific methods. personal experience that women of my genera- Intuition is the only wayto handle information tion perceive things in a way which men do not. overload. They may not have let womenin, but Whetherthat is innate or trained I don’t know, one in four of the Apollo astronauts was left- but wecertainly reinforce it. On a casual level, handed. westill go to the loo in groups. Why?It isn’t because wecan’t pee without someone holding Fran Dowdis the Sofa of Intuition. our hand, or because we need each other’s advice on adjusting clothes or makeup.It is to 1 including The Natural Superiority of the Left- combine and process information about whatis Hander, James T. de Kay (Frederick Muller Ltd, going on “out there”, discuss viewpoints, devise ISBN 0 584 10438 3) strategies. In party post-mortems, women are INTUITION PROGRESS REPORT1 Connie Willis: A One-Sided Dialogue Paul Kincaid I didn’t get to meet With the exception of Connie Willis when she Novels and Short Story Collections Doomsday Book, you're was over here at the not normally known as Glasgow Worldcon, so a writer of bleak it’s going to be a great Water Witch, w. Cynthia Felice, Ace 1982 fictions. In fact, a lot of your work has been pleasure to meet her at Fire Watch (short story coll.), Bluejay 1985 Intuition. After all, it comedy to some degree Which do might give me a chance Lincoln’s Dreams, John W. Campbell Award (Best Novel) or another. to ask some of the Bantam 1987 you find easier, the things you always find Light Raid, w. Cynthia Felice, Ace 1989 comedy or the realism? yourself wanting to ask And why is it that Doomsday Book, Hugo, Nebula & Locus (Best Novel) a writer whose work Hollywood seems to Bantam 1992 you admire. For feature in so many of instance: Impossible Things (short story coll.), Bantam 1993 your comedies, like the novel Remake for The New Hugo Winners, Vol. 3 (ed.), Baen 1994 What is it about instance? How muchof Britain? I mean, you’ve Uncharted Territory, Bantam 1994 a film buff are you — set more stories in that novel had so many Britain than any other Remake, Locus (Best Novella) Hugo nom.(Novel) Bantam 1995 film references in it that American writer I can I got the impression you think of — except for Bellwether, Bantam, 1996 must have spenta life- those who are actually Futures Imperfect (coll. Uncharted Territory, time in front of the resident over here. The Remake & Bellwether) Science Fiction Book Club 1996 video? story of yours that first introduced me to your Promised Land, w. Cynthia Felice, Ace March 1997 There’s one thing I’ve work was “Fire Watch”, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Bantam Summer 1997 noticed in quite a lot of which is set during the yourscience fiction — a Blitz in London. Then trick that I’ve not seen there has been “Jack” any other sf writer (whichis also set during the Blitz, come to that - attempt, at least not with the same success: you does the war hold a special fascination for you?) take a scientific principle and then reflect that and of course Doomsday Book, along with a few principle in the behaviourof your characters. Let other stories. They’re not researched on the metry and explain what I mean:in yourlatest ground, are they? (Am I right in thinking novel, Bellwether, you have one character Intuition will be only your second visit to this researching into fads and another character country?) researching into chaos, and of course the two cometogether. But the way they come togetheris Doomsday Book, of course, raises another inter- because of the way that the situation in the esting question. It tells the story of a time-travel laboratories where they work is descending into experiment which sends a researcher back from chaos and several key characters seem to be near-future Oxford to the Middle Ages, but constantly taking up new fads. So the idea because of a small mistake she ends up in the behind the novel is directly reflected in the middle of the Black Death. Hardly a usual sub- action of the novel. It’s a very neat device and ject for a science fiction novel, but what makesit I’ve seen it a number of your other stories as that even more unusual is the gritty realism well, like “At the Rialto” and “The Schwarz- makesthe historical sections of the book almost schild Radius”.