47: Authors Eating John

John is sleepy, Alison is talking to Chinese fans, and Liz went to the Hugos.

Please email your letters of comment to [email protected] and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: COVID-19 (chapter 2); racism (chapter 3); foreign policy and sexism (chapter 4)

Letters of comment
Farah and Fran talking about masking at Novacon
A big discussion about BSFA
You can get by just NOT TELLING THE BSFA your address (DON’T TRY THAT WITH THE WORLDCON)

Chris Garcia

Site selection at DisCon III
Chengdu in 2023 won
File 770’s reporting on the win
Chinese fans seem nice!
The livestream was good, and had 106,000 viewers
Lots of different Chinese university SF societies encouraging the bid; spot the flag in Gallifreyan and the monolith

WSFS Business Meeting
The video of the session we discuss
Kevin Standlee’s LiveJournal post about it
File 770’s reporting on the session

There are legitimate concerns about China
John found he generally agreed with these tweets from Jeannette Ng
Tweet
Thread #1
Thread #2

The guests are Liu Cixin, Sergei Lukyanenko and Robert J. Sawyer
A File 770 commenter outlines the issues with Lukyanenko

Hugo Awards
If Fanzine had 53 fewer votes and Fancast had 42 fewer votes they would not have been awarded

Picks
John: The Psychopath Club by Sandra Bond (paperback, Kindle)
Alison: Sibilant Fricative by Adam Roberts (paperback, Kindle)
Liz: The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison (epub, paperback, Kindle)

Picks for Christmas song
Alison: Chiron Beta Prime by Jonathan Coulton
John:
California Christmastime by Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Oh Santa! by Mr.B the Gentleman Rhymer

Liz: Bethlehem Down
Alison’s playlist of Christmas songs which do not presuppose God or Santa

Music credits
Our theme music is It’s Christmas Time by Frank Schröter, used under the Simplified Filmmusic.io Standard License