Octothorpe

88: Someone Somewhere Must Know What’s Going On

John is on brand, Alison wants to do Mark, and Liz had a few twinges.

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Content warnings this episode: COVID (chapter 2)

• Letters of comment
  • Chris Garcia
  • Duncan MacGregor
  • Mark Plummer
  • Niall Harrison
    • Adam Roberts’ future books:
      • The Death of Sir Martin Malprelate (2023)
      • The Midas Rain (2023)
      • Lake of Darkness (2024)
  • Raj
  • Various congratulations from our lovely lovely listeners
• Octothorpe COVID round-up
  • Levitation are soliciting signups to their eventual COVID survey
• Hugo Awards
  • The finalists have been announced
    • Chinese recommendation posts
    • Did Octothorpe have an effect?
  • What are your favourite episodes from 2022, listeners?
  • SB Divya declined two Hugo nominations
  • España Sheriff did not, but blogged on her thoughts anyway
• Chengdu Worldcon
  • Emails have been sent to members about the programme survey
  • “The Stars and the Sea”
• Picks
  • John: The Scarlet Keys
  • Alison: Plutoshine by Lucy Kissack
  • Liz: Tour de France
    • Cyclists near Alison’s house
• Credits
  • Cover art: “Rocktothorpe” by Alison Scott
    • Alt text: Three Clangers wearing homages to Sean Connery in Zardoz stand on the Moon, painted on a rock which is in turn against a purple background. The words “Octothorpe 88” appear in yellow/orange at the top.
  • Theme music: “Surf Shimmy” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

87: We Didn’t Imagine the Third Option

John isn’t picky, Alison is in a field, and Liz is very hungry.

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
  • Abigail Nussbaum
  • Chris Garcia
  • Karen Schaeffer
  • Malcolm Hutchison
  • Peter Sullivan
  • Raj
  • We might have Tweets of comment but who knows?
• Chengdu is a shower
  • Moar Hugo award delays
  • Now you see them, now you don’t
  • This episode will go live when the Hugo finalists do
• Locus awards
  • From Locus #750: “The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi won with the smallest winning lead this year, just 17 points ahead Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, which had the most votes and first-place votes, and would have won without the doubling of subscriber points.”
  • Scalzi’s grumpy tweet
• BSFA awards
  • Non-fiction is split into short and long
  • Novella
  • Collection
  • Original audio fiction
  • Translated work of short fiction
• Picks
  • John: Across the Spider-Verse
    • Not Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman
  • Alison: Museum Catalogues (In the Black Fantastic and Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination)
  • Liz: Stealing From the Sky by Adam Roberts
    • In the style of Donald Westlake
• Credits
  • Cover art: “One Moose-Sized Alison” by first-time Hugo Finalist Alison Scott
    • Alt text: John and Liz stand in front of a moose-sized Alison wearing antlers in a cage fight. Alison is saying “BEWARE MY SIGNATURE MOVE THE MOOSE”, John is saying “I THOUGHT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE SUMMER OF FUN” and Liz is saying “IS IT TOO LATE TO PICK 100 ALISON-SIZED MOOSE?” The words “Octothorpe 87” are at the top.
  • Theme music: “Surf Shimmy” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

86: The Joy of Hemispheres

John can do one, Alison don’t like cricket, and Liz will never get to bed.

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: Poor working conditions (chapter 2), COVID (chapter 3)

• Letters of comment
  • Abigail Nussbaum
  • Chris Garcia
• Chengdu is a shower
  • Hugo Award delay
  • Venue under construction
• COVID Round-up
  • New recommendation: 5 air changes per hour (ACH)
    • The Lancet COVID-19 Commission Task Force on Safe Work, Safe School, and Safe Travel
  • HSE has general ventilation advice
• Seattle is the only Worldcon bid for 2025
• Pemmi-Con
  • Virtual memberships have been announced
  • You will have a supporting membership if
    • you voted in NASFiC site selection or
    • you got drunk and bought a $65 Moose T-shirt at Chicon 8
• Glasgow in 2024
  • You can volunteer to be on programme or suggest an item
• Arthur C. Clarke Award
  • Liz has read one of them
  • John has read a different one
• GUFF
  • Alison has dates and a plan
  • If you’re in Australia and want to have Alison (and maybe Steven) to visit, let us know
• Picks:
  • John: UK Games Expo
    • Earthborne Rangers
    • Solar Sphere
    • FlickFleet
    • Asteroid Dice and Shape Invaders
    • Catacombs
    • Dungeon Drop
    • Final Girl
    • Find stockists for any of the above games through BoardGamePrices
  • Alison: Cricket
  • Liz: Rivers of London, specifically the most recent novels (False Value and Amongst Our Weapons)
• Credits
  • Cover art: Apparently It’s Beach Cricket by Alison Scott
    • Alt text: The three of us wearing cricket clothes in front of a picture of a beach that Liz took to taunt us.
  • Theme music: “Surf Shimmy” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

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)