Ken MacLeod's comments.
The title comes from two quotes:
“If these are the early days of a better nation, there must be hope, and a hope of peace is as good as any, and far better than a hollow hoarding greed or the dry lies of an aweless god.”—Graydon Saunders
Contact: kenneth dot m dot macleod at gmail dot com Blog-related emails may be quoted unless you ask otherwise.
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Wish you were here
We used to take photos of our shadows: shadow selfies. ‘Smile!’ the one taking the photo would say, and we’d laugh.
This post is here to fill space. Skip it if you like. After it the blog will get back to its usual intermittent rambling about trivia, politics, science fiction, science, and materialism. I don’t want to click on it to check something, and be thrown back to the funeral. I have that photo of Carol framed in my living-room. This post is here to be a buffer, a shock absorber.
I’ve been getting on with things. I have family, and I have friends, and they’ve helped. There’s a book to write, which is coming together like a shape emerging from fog. There have been other projects. I had engagements, which I left too late to break. The first was a few days after Carol’s funeral, at the Seahorse Bookstore in Ardrossan. It was good to get out, and the owners and staff were lovely. One of my sisters and her husband, who live locally, came along. It was a good event, on a day of long bus rides. The worst pang was the bus back from Largs to Gourock, a short journey I’d often made with Carol.
Back in January, I’d got an invitation to the Gothenburg Book Fair. Carol and I had been to Sweden before, in August 2003. That was when we first met Alastair Reynolds and his wife Josette, and we’d been friends ever since. We’d explored Uppsala and Stockholm and its archipelago, met some of the SF-Bokhandeln people, and had a great time. And I’d been back since, this time on my own and to Gothenburg, in what was for me a busy and fraught year, 2015, for FSCONS.
So of course I asked Carol if she wanted to come with me, and of course she did. We paid her fare, and the Book Fair took care of everything else. They even put us up in the hotel for an extra couple of nights.
The flight was at 06:10 on Wednesday 25 September. I considered booking a taxi for 03:00, and decided to get a train and bus to the airport on Tuesday evening. It felt very strange to be locking the door for a trip and not having Carol going down the stairs ahead of me. I walked along to Cleats, where I had a half pint with the local SF crew, and on to the station. At Glasgow Airport I found a corner seat in Greggs, and read and dozed until it was time to join the queue. Apart from a two-hour delay in Amsterdam, the fight was uneventful. I was met by a taxi at the airport, and taken to Gothia Towers Hotel, adjacent to the venue, an enormous exhibition centre.
Erik Eje Almqvist met me in the lobby, treated me to a beer and lunch in the restaurant, and got me my guest badge and packet. The main theme of the Book Fair was Sápmi, the homeland of the Sámi people. A second theme was space. Quite a number of people in the corridors wore brightly coloured and embroidered Sámi clothing.
The room was splendid and had a spectacular view.
I had a nap, freshened up, and took the lift to the opening party. There the view was even more spectacular and even more people wore Sámi clothing. Everyone was speaking Swedish, but Erik spotted me and steered me into a conversation with a Lutheran clergywoman, so I had someone to chat with over my first glass. Later I had a couple of beers with Glenn Petersen of SF-Bokhandeln. A band played something that was meant to evoke space or cyberpunk, and Johan Stanberg McGuinne performed a joik. I was struck by some resemblances to Gaelic singing and the cadences of Highland heightened speech in preaching and poetry. Afterwards, I raised this rather tentatively with Johan, who surprised me by agreeing. Of Gaelic and Sámi heritage himself, Johan pointed out that these two cultures were unlikely to have influenced each other. An agreeable puzzle.
Thursday was one of my extra days, so after breakfast I picked up a Gothenburg tourist booklet in the hotel lobby and set off on the kind of local wander that Carol and I would have done. This included an amphibious bus tour, a late lunch of a massively filled sandwich at the food market, and a stroll through the botanic garden, which ended in me sitting on a bench and being acutely aware that Carol wasn’t beside me.
I walked back to the hotel just as the rain was starting, and had a look around the book fair, which was spread across four large and crowded halls.
The following days, these halls were packed. Every day, tens of thousands of people turned up. Every publisher and, it seemed, every reader in Sweden was there. I may write more about it sometime. I had a good time, I met new people, and I met up with Alastair Reynolds, Paul McAuley and Peter Hamilton, and we had breakfasts and beers. On the last day Glenn Petersen and his wife Ylva took us and their colleagues out for dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant. I asked Ylva if she could recommend somewhere to go on Sunday, the last of the free days we’d booked, and she suggested Marstrand Island. What I wanted to do, again, was take the sort of sight-seeing trip that Carol and I would have taken if she’d been there. This sounded exactly right.
It was. The bus rides were long, but the scenery was amazing, and every bus was on time. Marstrand Island is a five-minute ferry crossing from the terminus. Its main feature is a naval fortress, which unlike many such around the world has seen action.
Going around it was a pang. In 2023, Carol and I had explored a much larger naval fortress, at Pula in Croatia. Much larger, yes, but the layout has its own logic, and every corner had a sharp memory rising unbidden around it.
The views were great. Carol would have enjoyed it, if she'd been there.
Carol’s funeral
More people came to Carol’s funeral than there were seats in the crematorium chapel: our families, her friends and mine, some of whom had travelled a long way. The funeral directors, P B Wright and Sons, took care of the arrangements kindly and professionally. Catriona Miller, the humanist celebrant, conducted the service and delivered a warm and accurate tribute to Carol. I spoke about Carol’s life with me, and Michael spoke for himself and Sharon about Carol as a mother. Two hymns were sung that had also been sung at our wedding. The closing music was a song Carol had played countless times: ‘Stars’ by Simply Red.
The Order of Service booklet featured a fine recent photograph of Carol by Michael, and some of Carol's own photographs of Gourock's sunset skies.
The collection was for two charities that Carol had actively supported: the RNLI, and Medical Aid for Palestinians. It raised £1138.50, which yesterday I rounded up to £1200 and divided evenly into two donations in her memory.
Many, many thanks to all who attended, and to all who contributed so generously, at the collection and online. Thanks also for the many messages and cards of sympathy, for which I and all the family are deeply grateful.
Carol Ann MacLeod, 11 February 1952 to 16 August 2024
She was the centre of my world, and she's gone.
There will be a funeral service at Greenock Crematorium, on Monday 2 September, at 2 pm, to which all family and friends are invited. Family flowers only please. There will be a retiral collection in aid of Carol's favourite charities.
My Glasgow Worldcon Schedule
As some of you may know, I'm a Guest of Honour at the Glasgow Worldcon. I haven't said enough about that here, I know. I'm well chuffed about it, needless to say. Here are time/places where you can be sure to find me.
Autographing: Ken MacLeod, Thursday 8 August 2024, 13:00 GMT+1, Hall 4 (Autographs)
Opening Ceremony, Thursday 8 August 2024, 16:00 GMT+1, Clyde Auditorium
Morrow's Isle - Opera, Thursday 8 August 2024, 20:00 GMT+1, Clyde Auditorium
Iain Banks: Between Genre and the Mainstream, Friday 9 August 2024, 11:30 GMT+1, Alsh 1
Luna Press Book Launch Party, Friday 9 August 2024, 13:00 GMT+1, Argyll 2
Guest of Honour Interview: Ken MacLeod, Friday 9 August 2024, 16:00 GMT+1, Lomond Auditorium
Table Talk: Ken MacLeod, Saturday 10 August 2024, 11:30 GMT+1, Hall 4 (Table Talks)
The Making of Morrow's Isle - An Opera, Saturday 10 August 2024, 14:30 GMT+1, Argyll 2
NewCon Press Book Launch, Saturday 10 August 2024, 16:00 GMT+1, Argyll 3
The Politics of Modern Scottish SF, Saturday 10 August 2024, 20:30 GMT+1, Castle 1
Reading: Ken MacLeod, Sunday 11 August 2024, 10:00 GMT+1, Castle 2
Autographing: Ken MacLeod, Sunday 11 August 2024, 11:30 GMT+1, Hall 4 (Autographs)
An Ambiguous Utopia: 50 Years of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, Sunday 11 August 2024, 14:30 GMT+1, Meeting Academy M1
2024 Hugo Awards Ceremony, Sunday 11 August 2024, 20:00 GMT+1, Clyde Auditorium
Stroll with the Stars - Monday, Festival Park, Monday 12 August 2024, 09:00 GMT+1, Outside Crowne Plaza
Writing Future Scotland, Monday 12 August 2024, 13:00 GMT+1, Lomond Auditorium
Chengdu Worldcon: Meet the Future
This historic Worldcon has already been very well covered by others, e.g. Nicholas Whyte and Jeremy Szal. For lots of coverage of events, guests and so on, see the con’s Facebook page.
But I’ve been back over a week, and here’s my overdue account.
Last month I spent far too few days in China, at the Chengdu Worldcon, to which I was invited as an international guest. My travel, and accommodation for me and my wife, were covered by the Committee of the 2023 Chengdu World Science Fiction Convention, for which much thanks.
We had a wonderful time. The convention was a smashing success and easily the biggest, and most publicly celebrated, Worldcon ever.
We arrived at Chengdu airport in the early evening of Wednesday 18 October and quickly met volunteers at a stall near the exit, from which were immediately hurried to a minibus that took us to the Sheraton Pidu. Along the way we saw advertisements for the Chengdu Worldcon lining the highways, and the robot panda mascot at numerous intersections. We met the volunteer who was looking after us, Zoe, who was unfailingly sweet and helpful throughout. Our luggage was whisked inside and we were back on a bus for a short drive to the venue.
This combined a traditional Worldcon opening ceremony...
The other ceremonies – the Galaxy Awards, the opening of the Chengdu International Science Fiction convention, the Hugo Awards, the Hugo after-party, and the closing ceremony – were likewise spectacular: a primary school choir sang in one of these, an entire symphony orchestra took the stage in another, and so on.
Thousands upon thousands of people passed through the venue, including many primary-school classes there for the day. Lots of young people, and lots of families. They weren’t just there for the toys and for the impressive tech exhibition hall.
There were hundreds of volunteers, some minding the international guests, others helping visitors to the venue, acting as guides in exhibitions, or adding some elegance to the ceremonies.
Our good friend Fan Zhang, who looked after us so well in Beijing in 2019, now has an important post at the Fishing Fortress college of Science Fiction. He took us out to dinner with two of his staff, and had some interesting proposals for next year, which I’m seriously considering.
We had one side trip organised by the convention for guests: a visit to Chengdu’s famous panda research centre, truly unforgettable.
On our final day, Monday 23 October, Carol and I went on our own to the Wuhou Shrine, a historic site and major tourist destination set in a great park which opens to some old streets, now lined with gift shops and street food stalls.
And on Tuesday we began the long journey home. We had met old friends and made new ones, and it was a pang to leave.
We owe thanks to many people – the organisers and volunteers, especially Zoe, and a special thanks to the indefatigable Sara Chen.
Cosmia Festival
£10 for the day, with a great range of authors, plus workshops and exhibitions: details and bookings here.
Moniack in a Month – Writing Science Fiction
I’m delighted to say that bookings are now available for an online course on writing science fiction which I’ll be teaching this September. Details are here. The wonderful Justina Robson has kindly agreed to be our Guest Reader.