Octothorpe

85: Super Smart or Completely the Opposite

John is at a convention, Alison is in a cottage, and Liz is not at a festival.

Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: COVID (chapter 1)

• Letters of comment
  • Tammy Coxen
  • Alex Holden
  • Dave Mansfield
  • Chris Garcia
  • Perrianne Lurie
  • Abigail Nussbaum
  • Chris Garcia
  • Randy Smith
  • Chris Garcia
• Cheese
• Satellite 8
• Jim Shull
• Picks:
  • John: All These Worlds: Reviews and Essays by Niall Harrison
  • Alison: Shining Girls (Apple TV+)
  • Liz: Striking Out
• Credits
  • Cover art: “To-do List” by Alison Scott
    • Alt text: A moose mug, a keyboard and a to-do list on a desk. The list reads: “Watch the cricket. Sit in the garden. Plan holidays. Octothorpe 85 art. Summer of fun.”
  • Theme music: “Surf Shimmy” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

84: I Do Not Like to Be Delighted on Every Page

John, Alison and Liz read A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge.

Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: Spoilers for the book

• Credits
  • Cover art: “Little Baby Cheeses” by Alison Scott
    • Alt text: Three cheeses sit on a shelf. The first cheese is thinking “FACE #1: CHEEZY GRIN”. The second is thinking “FACE #2: LONG SUFFERING ARTIST”. The third is thinking “FACE #3: FIVE EXPRESSIONS? YOU WERE LUCKY. YOU SHOULD TRY BEING CHEESE.” The words “Octothorpe 84” hang above them.
  • Theme music: “Surf Shimmy” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

83: Efffffffff

John would like more drawers, Alison uses the floor, and Liz is okay with shelves.

Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: COVID (chapter 4)

• Letters of comment
  • Chris Garcia
  • España Sheriff
    • Joe Manganiello’s D&D series
  • Esther MacCallum-Stewart
  • Farah Mendlesohn
  • Fran Dowd
  • James Shields
    • Andrew January’s GitHub issue
  • Jonny Baddeley
  • Raj
• Chengdu is a shower
  • Sunny spells this week
• Fan Funds
  • TAFF: Congratulations to Sandra Bond, who will visit Pemmi-Con
  • EFF: Congratulations to Matylda Naczyńska, who will visit Konflikt
• Conversation
  • Roughly half and half between COVID chat and not-COVID chat
    • MUCH LIKE THE COVID RATES, BOOM [Alison doesn’t know I wrote that—John]
• No picks this week – what have y’all been into?
• Credits
  • Cover art: “Carry On the Conversation” by Alison Scott
    • Alt text: John, Alison and Liz have bottles of porter and wear pink T-shirts in the centre of the art, as various farcical figures surround them looking remarkably like convention attendees. “Carry On… the Conversation” is written in big friendly letters on the cover, above the words “An Octothorpe 83 production • John Coxon • Alison Scott • Liz Batty”.
  • Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

82: Metatextual Dinosaurs

John, Alison and Liz talk about their Hugo Award nominations.

Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: None

• Letters of comment will be coming next week!
• Giant Hugo spreadsheet
• Fancast
  • Hugo, Girl!
• Fan Artist
  • Iain J Clark
  • España Sheriff
  • Sue Mason
  • Alison Scott
  • Sara Felix
• Dramatic Presentation (Long Form): - The TV shows are in Episode 77’s show notes - Don’t Worry Darling - The Astral Pole - Everything Everywhere All at Once - The podcast Liz mentioned - Men - Nope - Prey - Turning Red - Google - Vesper - Horizon Forbidden West
• Short stories:
  • John:
    • “Requiem for a Dollface” by Margaret Dunlap
    • “Transference” by Vivian Shaw
    • “Family Cooking” by Anamaria Curtis
    • “Lily, the Immortal” by Kylie Lee Baker
  • Liz:
    • “Critical Mass” by Peter Watts
    • “Rabbit Test” by Samantha Mills
    • “The CRISPR Cookbook” by MKRNYILGLD
• Novelettes:
  • John:
    • “Your Eyes, My Beacon: Being an Account of Several Misadventures and How I Found My Way Home” by CL Clark
    • “If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You” by John Chu
    • “Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold” by SB Divya
  • Liz:
    • The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix Harrow
    • What the Dead Know by Nghi Vo
• Novella:
  • John: “Radcliffe Hall” by Miyuki Jane Pinckard
  • Liz:
    • Undercover by Tamsyn Muir
    • The Two Doctors Gorski by Isaac Fellman (ebook, Amazon)
• Stars & Stripes FOREVER!
• Earwigo
• Credits
  • Cover art: “Octothorpe, Octothorpe, Octothorpe” by Alison Scott from an idea by Sandra Bond
    • Alt text: Three red pandas hold “Octothorpe” football scarves with “here we go”, “earwig o” and “be kind to your web-footed friends” as lyrics floating above. Text above that says “82: HUGO NOMINATION RECOMMENDATION SPECIAL”.
  • Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

81: It Wasn’t an Interjection From the Room, It Was My Face

Alison, Liz, John and Alison are live from Conversation!

Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: COVID

• Eastercon 2025: Reconnect
• Funcon 1
• Picks:
  • John: Adrian Tchaikovsky
  • Alison: Plague
  • Liz: Nocebo (Netflix)
• Credits
  • Cover art: “Conversation” by Sue Mason
    • Alt text: The dragon and robot from Conversation’s logo, either side of a shield depicting two rockets with a moose head above it and a sleeping black cat below it. Text reads “Octothorpe 81: Live from Eastercon”.
  • Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

80: Four Constituent Blobs

John is jetlagged, Alison is working, and Liz is under pressure.

Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: Eating octopus (chapter 1), N*zism (chapter 8)

• Letters of comment
  • Mark Plummer
    • Nicholas Whyte
  • Ian Hillman
    • They Called Us Enemy (Forbidden Planet, Amazon)
  • Gwen Frazer
  • Briardene Books
  • Karen Schaffer
• Chengdu is a shower
  • Their website is back!
• Picks:
  • John: Digger by Ursula Vernon (read online, Kickstarter)
  • Alison: The Eastercon programme (not quite yet online, keep an eye on their website)
  • Liz: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (hardback, epub, audiobook, Amazon)
    • Joe Manganiello’s D&D campaign
• Eastercon
  • Programme coming soon
  • Discord now available!
• Corflu Craic
• Credits
  • Cover art: “Intelligent Spider Aliens” by Sue Mason
    • Alt text: Spiders looking like John, Alison and Liz hang from the top of the art on webs, with “O80” written on their abdomens.
  • Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

79: You Get to Be a Little Cat

John wants new gloves, Alison is foreshadowing, and Liz scrolls past spiders.

Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: Spiders (chapter 6)

• Letters of comment
  • Raj
  • Bridget Bradshaw
  • Chris Garcia
    • Bigbug (Netflix)
    • OSS 117 (Amazon)
    • Brice de Nice (Hoopla)
  • Lori Anderson
  • Curt Phillips
• Chengdu is a shower (but not as bad as the BBC)
  • They have opened Hugo nominations
  • Conversions for Chinese language nominees: “A factor of 1.6 will be used when converting from English words to Chinese characters. As such the fiction category breakpoints will be: 1) Short Story: fewer than 7,500 English words or 12,000 Chinese characters. 2) Novelette: between 7,500/12,000 and 17,500 English words or 28,000 Chinese characters. 3) Novella: between 17,500/28,000 and 40,000 English words or 64,000 Chinese characters. 4) Novel: greater than 40,000 English words or 64,000 Chinese characters.”
• Nebula nominees are out
  • Strange Horizons argues erroneously that Our Flag Means Death is fantasy, actually
• BSFA nominees are also out
• Everything Everywhere All at Once prop auction(s)
  • Everything Everywhere All at Once shop
• Picks:
  • John: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (ebook, paperback, Amazon)
    • Force Majeure Outer Dark Trilogy Part 2 Episode 1 - “In Space, No-One Can Smell Your Frog”
    • The Dark Room by John Robertson
  • Alison: Allegiance by George Takei
    • Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford (ebook, paperback, Amazon)
  • Liz: Los Espookys **(HBO, Now TV)
• Credits
  • Cover art: ”MidJourney Into Space” by Alison Scott
    • Alt text: Three adorable little rockets with faces corresponding to John, Alison and Liz above the text “Octothorpe 79”.
  • Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)
  • “Announcement” from Orange Free Sounds (CC BY-NC 4.0)

78: Sqrrl Grrl

John is chuckling, Alison is conversing, and Liz is critical.

Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: Immigration (chapter 2), COVID (chapter 3)

• Letters of comment
  • Ang Rosin
  • Dave Coxon
  • Raj
  • Chris Garcia
    • Fempire by Honora Talbot
    • Lost Beyond the Stars by Kayla Arend
    • Bean Feasa by Daniel Butler
    • AlieNation by Ray Raghavan
    • I XXXX My Sex Doll by Fay Beck
• Chengdu is a shower
  • PR1
  • The USA says “reconsider travel”, which is level 3 of a 4-level alert, partly due to COVID which may change before October. They have level 4 alerts which are “do not travel”
• Conversation COVID policy
  • Liz thinks Boskone has a nice, straightforward policy
• Picks:
  • John: Living with Ghosts by Kari Sperring (only available in the US: ebook, Amazon)
  • Alison: Spider-Man: Far From Home (Disney+)
  • Liz: The Owl Job
• Credits
  • Cover art: Sqrrl Grrl by Alison Scott
    • Alt text: John and Liz are squirrels with acorns and Liz is Squirrel Girl, sitting in a tree under the words “Octothorpe 78”.
  • Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

77: Slightly Less Troglodyte-y Than You

John has trauma, Alison has poetry and Liz hasn’t got Paramount+.

Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: None

• Letters of comment
  • Raj on Mastodon
  • Hugo, Girl! on Twitter
    • Whisper.cpp
  • Chris Garcia
• Chengdu is a shower
  • Dave McCarty on Hugos
  • Since we recorded, people are reporting seeing emails about Hugo voting – they seem to be landing in spam folders. John posted more info on Mastodon.
• Hugo handicapping
  • The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom
  • Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form
    • John
      • The Expanse: “Babylon’s Ashes”
      • Severance: “Defiant Jazz”
      • Star Trek: Strange New World: “Spock Amok”
      • Moon Knight: “Asylum”
      • The Boys: “Herogasm”
    • Alison
      • Severance: “The Way We Are”
      • Ghosts: “It’s Behind You”
      • Mythic Quest: “Across the Universe”
      • Harry Josephine Giles’ performance of Deep Wheel Orcadia at the Edinburgh Book Festival
      • Severance: “whatever other episodes, they’re all great”
    • Liz
      • Andor: “One Way Out”
      • Star Trek: Lower Decks: “Hear All, Trust Nothing”
      • What We Do In the Shadows: “Go Flip Yourself”
      • For All Mankind: “Stranger in a Strange Land”
      • Stranger Things: “Chapter Four: Dear Billy”
• Picks:
  • John: The Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist
    • The official website for the award doesn’t have historic shortlists on it (why) so have a Wikipedia article instead
  • Liz: Strange Horizons’ 2023 criticism special
  • Alison: More print and play games
    • In lieu of a list of games, you can browse Alison’s post history on the BoardGameGeek forums to get an idea for what she’s playing
• Credits
  • Cover art: “Denizens” by Alison Scott
    • Alt text: In black and red, three fantasy creatures resembling John, Alison and Liz.
  • Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

76: Does It Matter What We Think?

John is watching movies, Alison is making games, and Liz isn’t picky.

Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on The Wandering Shop) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: China (chapter 2), death of a parent (chapter 4)

• Letters of comment
  • Claire Brialey
  • Tammy Coxen
  • Chris Garcia
    • Journey Planet on Chinese Science Fiction and Space
  • Irwin Hirsh
• Chengdu is a shower
  • Tip of the hat to File 770 for some sterling reporting on this
  • Chengdu Worldcon changes dates, site
    • Mockups appear to show buildings permanently branded with Worldcon/WSFS marks
  • Images of the proposed Chengdu Science Fiction Museum
  • Chinese fans are not best pleased
    • It’s no longer in the summer so students will be in school and not able to go, and the students are the ones who brought the con to China
  • But, Chengdu can take credit card payments now
    • Fiona Moore confirms
• GUFF
  • Alison announced in Octothorpe 73 that she was going to go after the coronation
  • But there’s now an Australian Natcon (Conflux, 29 September to 2 October) with which Alison is aiming to intersect
• Picks:
  • John: Prey (Disney+) and Invasion of the Body-Snatchers (1956, MGM)
  • Alison: Print and play games
    • [Alison went out for the day and did not give me links to the games, listeners! I’ll try to fill this in before next episode – John]
• Credits
  • Cover art: Groundhog Day by España Sheriff
    • Alt text: Three groundhogs in the general shapes of John, Alison and Liz regard their shadow, in the shape of an octothorpe, beneath the text “Octothorpe 76”.
  • Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)