Since I genuinely can’t remember the last time I attempted to do anything at 9am on Saturday morning that didn’t involve snoring, I’m rather lo0king forward to the panel on “living forever” – I may record it to find out what I said later. Extra bonus points for anyone who brings me toast to that one!

Niamh and Moira are coming to their first Eastercon, so I’m hoping everyone will make them welcome and I can’t wait to see what Niamh makes of fandom…

Details after the break…

Friday, noon
Room 12
“Animatronics – Artificial Intelligence?”
Moderator
Is UGOBE’s PLEO baby dinosaur a real example of artificial intelligence, or just the product of simple programming?

Friday, 4pm
Commonwealth
“Utopia – How the Concept has developed in Philosophy and SF”
Panellist
The idea of utopia – the ideal civilisation – dates back thousands of years and has become a staple of modern SF. Has anyone managed to write a truly utopian society, or is does utopia for some automatically mean dystopia for others?

Friday, 6pm
Royal C&D
Conflicts book launch – Newcon Press
Contributor Conflicts is a new anthology from Newcon Press that will include my story “Proper Little Soldier”

Saturday, 9am
Connaught
“Living Forever – good or bad?”
Panellist
Many SF writers, eg Moon, Morgan, Heinlein, Banks have speculated about rejuvenation or other possibilities for extending life for 100 years or even longer. Scientists and others discuss whether it can be done, and whether it would be ethical/desirable if it could be done.

Sunday, 1pm
41 (Winchester)
“Arthur C Clarke – Still worth Reading?”
Panellist
Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov were once the ‘Holy Trinity’ of Science Fiction. Do their books still have something to interest new readers coming to Science Fiction today?

Sunday, 6pm
Commonwealth
BSFA Awards Ceremony
Announcing the winner of the James White Award Short Story Competition

Personal Eastercon hightlights:

• Moderating a panel with Cory Doctorow, Amanda HemingwayigHi, China Mieville and Ruth O’Reilly on Politics in Young Adult Fiction – which I thought was a really interesting discussion.
• Managing to make space for Cory, Amanda and China to get their say, despite the determination of Ruth O’Reilly to dominate the conversation with her incessant ranting in the above panel*
  
• The ease with which it is possible to make Gemma – Neil Beynon’s much better half – blush.
  
• The look of terror on Charles Stross’s face when he realised Gemma (see above) was staring at him – again! **
  
• The FFF panel – small, but perfectly formed – and meeting all the guys
  
• The BSFA Awards – there was a great vote, a great turn-out for the presentation, a lot of love in the room and Flick’s beautifully made awards (origami rockets) were the most lustworthy things I saw all weekend
• Mitch Benn – much ruder, much funnier than I was expecting.
  
• Sex and the Singularity – the panel that will, forever, change the way I think about hippos
  
• Drunken conversations – you all know who you are.
  
• Sharing tables with writers like Paul Cornell, Cory Doctorow, China Mieville and Ian McDonald and not being able to detect the slightest whiff of ego – people talk about the openness of sf fandom and it’s easy to be dismissive, but you know it is true 99% of the times
  
• Ian Watson makes me laugh (in a good way)

And the not so highlights

• Introducing China Mieville and getting the name of his book, Un Lun Dun, wrong – twice.
• The corridors – my bad knee hurts.
• The bars – we’re going back to this hotel for Eastercon in 2010 – I hope by then they’ll be able to organise things so that it is possible to buy a round for a largish group of people that includes a variety of drinks (cider, lager, real ale) all in the one place with staff who show some (i) talent and (ii) interest in service.
• Being introduced to Aliette de Bodard (author of “Deer Flight” and “The Lost Xuyan Bride” in recent Interzones) and assuming she was Gareth Lyn Powell’s wife (it was late, I was getting drunk, I’m a bit of an idiot – she was French grace personified)

* This might not be true.

** Neither might this.