Space Station Hinckley
01/05/2005 . Source: Ken Macleod 
Author Ken Macleod spent the Easter weekend at the Hinckley Island Hotel, as one of the Guests of Honour at Paragon 2, this year's Eastercon or British National Science Fiction Convention. I spent the Easter weekend at the Hinckley Island Hotel, as one of the Guests
of Honour at Paragon 2, this year's Eastercon or British National Science Fiction
Convention. The hotel is outside Hinckley and, as its name suggests, is a bit
isolated. But not to worry. Bar the odd trip by supply rocket (£5 inc tip),
it's fairly self-contained. Its reception area is a mirror-ceilinged polygon
dominated by a 4-metre plaster statue of Neptune. (The god, not the planet.)
This docking pod is at the end of one of the station's long habitation arms,
which radiate from a central hub with a glass roof, through which you can observe
the universe. These arms are called streets, and are lined with fake shop windows
full of real tat, which you can buy at reception.
There is one real shop, which sells cigarettes, magazines, and newspapers,
except on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, when by ancient tradition nobody
smokes and nothing happens. The whole forms a starfish starship shape half-buried
in an artificial mound built by some folk whose rituals required broad expanses
of flat tarmac. It faces on to a fake lake containing real fish, on whose bank
is a fake museum containing a real stage-coach and a real hackney cab, between
the shafts of which are fake horses.
The bar serves real beer, and also by tradition, this ran out by Sunday.
Being an Eastercon GoH was, for me, a real honour, and I was very well looked
after by the con committee - for which, many thanks. I took part in several
programme events, went to more, and spent some time in the bar. Vivid memories
include having a sort of continuing conversation across several panels with
Richard Morgan, who heroically volunteered for every panel; longer bar or dinner
conversations with Justina Robson, David Langford, Geoff Ryman, Ian Hocking,
Frank Wu, Del Cotter, Farah Mendlesohn, Neil Williamson and friends, Charlie
and Nojay; watching Dr Who on a big screen in a packed hall; accepting on behalf
of the artist Stephan Martiniere the BSFA Award for best artwork, for the US
cover of my novel Newton's Wake; eating elk salami on rye at the Scandinavian
party; and having my brain eaten by Chthulu. Beyond that it's all a bit of a
blur.
I came away from the conversations with a few new thoughts, which I intend to
return to here over the next few weeks. Here's one for now. SF fandom is an
odd community, and one that those outside it tend to lump together with media
fans, technology geeks and enthusiastic hobbyists.
But it isn't like that at all. The only group I know that is like SF fandom,
and which oddly enough barely overlaps with it, is scientists. Scientists, at
least the kind I used to know, dress idiosyncratically, drink lots of beer,
talk about anything and everything, and talk in italics. 
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