Glasgow Worldcon 2024

As is traditional, I’m making this post in a very timely fashion; a mere three month after this year’s Worldcon has concluded. Well done, me.

In case you don’t know what Worldcon is, it is a yearly science-fiction convention, and every year it takes place in a different city around the world. And this year it took place in Glasgow. In Scotland! (Not an entirely redundant thing to say, there are also Glasgows in Canada, Suriname, and about a dozen in the USA (yes, I looked it up)). Scotland!! Scottish Scotland!! I’ve been to quite a few Worldcons over the years, and all have involved flights. Some quite short, others to the other side of the world, but now, here it is at home! A mere train journey away! A train journey where I don’t even have to make any changes! Oh, the sheer luxury. Already this meant I was heartily biased in favour of it being The Best Worldcon Ever.

It was, by any reasonable standard, a very good Worldcon. It was well-organised, there were many, many interesting panels, it was an excellent space where you never felt crowded or incredibly confused or lost, and there were food trucks. And one of them sold halloumi gyros. Even the Hugo ceremony went reasonably well. Traditionally, that part of the con tends to have…problems. It goes on for about fifteen hours, or there are confused people who aren’t quite sure what’s happening, or there are technical difficulties. But this one breezed by with a pleasing efficiency, and I didn’t start to feel old and decrepit because my seat had a lack of lumbar support.

But what really tipped this over into being my personal The Best Worldcon Ever was the history track. I don’t know who was responsible for this, but they’re clearly an inspired genius who was extremely keen on making me the happiest I’ve ever been at a con. It was Scottish history. But it was niche Scottish history. So deliciously niche. Stuff I didn’t know about at all, and I do very much like my Scottish history. My only complaint is it was in far too small a room which meant I was unable to get in for the discussion of the church minute book recordings of the Corstorphine witch trials. Indeed, not even half the queue lined up outside ten minutes before it started managed to get in, never mind any poor stragglers.

But I can’t be too bitter (that’s a fib, I am, deeply deeply bitter. It’s a convention with a high US attendence and this was a presentation about Scottish witches. A very narrow, very in depth part, but clearly there is going to be a bit of an audience for that.) There was, to the surprise and delight of the academics presenting, a very healthy audience for every one of these presentations I attended (which was most of them.) And there were no bad audience questions. A true convention miracle.

Amongst the magic of these panels were such delights as: Scotland’s First Flight 1507 (my personal fav, and a valuable lesson about not jumping off castles while covered with chicken feathers), Jacobites, Amerdinians, Liberals, and an Alligator, We Sang To Stop Ourselves from Crying: Women’s Work Song in the Scottish Herring Industry, and The Dance From France: the importance of Scottish sources in the study of early nineteenth century French quadrille technique.

The quadrilles one was especially fascinating. Not because I’m particularly interested in quadrilles (Sorry, professor of dance) but because it showed how delicate our knowledge of history is. In the grand scheme of things. the development of the quadrille dance in 1820s France, and the scarcity of records of how the dance developed until the 1850s, may not rank all that high. But we only have a couple of Scottish manuscripts to fill in a gap of several decades. For something that happened less than 200 years ago. (I have almost certainly got these dates wrong, sorry, but for me the most important thing is the near complete absence of written records on the subject for two decades, and from so recently. It’s a really beautiful demo of how fractured our understanding of history is.)

Beside historical delights my other great joy was the music. Several marvellous concerts were put on in the Armadillo, and there was a gorgeous performance of organ music from the composer for Interstellar. If it’s not a Star Trek film or or one of my big childhood films, I tend not to notice film music all that much (please don’t judge me too harshly) but when I watched Interstellar earlier this year I paused and rewound several times as certain sequences made me feel all epic and wondrous and the music was a big part of that. So to have the composer for the one film I’ve seen in the last decade that’s entranced me with its music be the one there…well, that’s some top notch pandering.

The other concerts were both pure video game music from the Irish Video Game Orchestra, and a programme from the Worldcon Philharmonic Orchestra focussing on Scottish and video game music. Both marvellous.

I think I may actually have attended some panels about science fiction and/or fantasy too.

So, a smashing convention, and twas a joy to see so many friends in my country. Being lovely about Scotland! Mostly – someone dissed Irn Bru and I can’t remember who it was, but I will find out, and then they are going on the Petty Grudge List. Oh, and I got to play in person with my D&D group for the very first time! There was a giant model mammoth involved. (I say giant, I mean giant compared to the other little figures, not actually a huge giant towering over me and about to crush real me mammoth. Though that would also have been cool.)

And I’ve just got back from another convention, so in two to three months I expect there’ll be another post here extolling how great Thoughtbubble, and how I always leave feeling all zingy with creative energy when I come home.