This is the second article I wrote for Journey Planet, and was written in order to plug my candidacy for the 2011 TAFF Race to Renovation, the 2011 Worldcon. This was written and published during an incredibly stressful point in my life, and I’m fairly happy with how it came out, especially the non-linear nature of the story!
Published in Journey Planet #8 (ed. James Bacon, Chris Garcia & Claire Brialey), p12; available on eFanzines.com
This contribution to this brilliant fanzine arises because I’ve been asked, alongside the three other fantastic candidates for TAFF,1 to pen something on the subject of what makes me a science fiction fan. It’s a tough question, and I have decided to answer it by explaining how my first interactions with other fans and my entry into fandom really marked a distinct change (or number of changes) in my life, for which I am extremely grateful. This is also something that I talked about, briefly, in the first issue of my own fanzine, Procrastinations, alongside the article on T-shirts as a fannish equivalent of tribal tattooing.
The first change was attending two AGMs of ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha. They are a totally awesome club and if you are fond of The Hitchhiker’s Guide, you could do much worse to give them a look, even though my three or four years of active service have now come to an end. This really opened my eyes to the sorts of people that existed in fandom. Through the events I met people like Doug, Flick, James Bacon and many more people, as well as interacting with my very first Beeblebear.
The second change (a slightly misleading title, since it happened between my two ZZ9 AGMs) was attending the Peterborough SF club for the first time. I am eternally indebted to Max for inviting me along to my first meeting alongside the rest of the denizens of the society. It was at that club that I met Tobes, too, and for a long time I went religiously, like clockwork. It provided me with a place to go and discuss something that was very dear to me with people who had the same sorts of interests. My friends at school were good to me, and I enjoyed their company, but I was definitely the geek of the group – it was nice to know that other people existed who shared my interests, and that those people were, undoubtedly, the sort of people I wanted to meet more of.
The third change (which occurred before the second change) was being introduced, by Doug, to LiveJournal and the role it plays in wider fandom. Not everybody is on LiveJournal, but when you’re 14 years old and you can’t just get the train down to London being able to read about what other fans are doing and see what’s going on in the wider world of fandom really was a lifeline for me. I threw myself into the online world with gusto, and indeed, there was a time when I posted on LiveJournal almost every day (although now I am back to the levels I used to achieve when I first started on the site, and the days when I had to go back over a hundred entries to catch up in the morning are long gone).
The fourth change (which does actually come after the first three changes), which came around mostly as a result of the second and third changes, was my first event in more general fandom. This took the form of <Plokta.con> π: The Dangercon, which was my first one-day convention, held in London. This was a change for me in two important ways: firstly, it marked the pubbing of my first ish of Procrastinations; secondly, it marked my first real entry into wider fandom. I appeared on a panel or two, and failed spectacularly to win the balloon debate I appeared in.
I remember vividly arriving at London Bridge Station and looking around to see how to get to the pub at which the event was to be held. Having not often visited the city, and not often visited the station, it was slightly disorientating! However, as good fortune would have it, I saw two people who I decided to ask for directions on the basis that they looked like fans. Those people were Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer, and they were able to direct me superbly! I promptly gave them a copy of my fanzine, which turned out to be a fine investment as it has lead to be reading several a brilliant fanzine in return.
It was that event – the atmosphere, the discussion on the panel items, the conversations in the bar, the lovely, lovely people, that made me decide that I needed to attend a convention. My first Eastercon (indeed, my first convention at all) was Contemplation, in Chester, in 2007, and represents the fifth, and arguably the biggest, change of them all. Some people would say that it was a bad choice, since it was a smaller convention with no GoH, but actually, I think if it had been a larger convention, I would have enjoyed it less as my entry into the con-going world. From there, I sailed gaily onto Year of the Teledu (in Leicester) and Recombination (in Cambridge), both of which were also brilliant.
Some might assume that the answer to the question, “What makes you a science fiction fan?” is, “I like science fiction.” Whilst it’s true that the impetus for getting involved in science fiction was Douglas Adams, I think the thing that really makes me a science fiction fan is the people, not the subject matter. Having said that, being a science fiction fan is definitely increasing the amount of science fiction I consume (I make a point of trying to read something by every GoH at every convention I attend, something which has introduced me to some very fine literature!), and I do avidly enjoy it. I love appearing on panels (a particular highlight was a panel on The Hitchhiker’s Guide in front of hundreds of people with Neil Gaiman and three other brilliant Guide fans!) and I love being able to talk intelligently about things I’ve read or watched with other people who really get it.
Fandom vies with university as being the best thing that ever happened to me. It’s a huge part of my life, and I hope it will get even bigger as I continue into the future.
- You should definitely vote for one of us – I think you should vote for me, but I am, after all, biased. ↩