A podcast about science fiction and SF fandom from John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty.
Episodes
Thursday Nov 25, 2021
Thursday Nov 25, 2021
John, Alison, and guest Marguerite Smith are live from Novacon 50!
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.
Content warnings this episode: women’s body shapes (we are very positive about all body shapes but we wanted to let y’all know we touch on it)
- Novacon
- Worldcon
- DisCon III
- Glasgow in 2024
- Dublin in 2029
- Picks
- John: Voting in the Hugo Awards because he’s insufferably smug about having done the reading
- Alison: Daangerous Visions: A Faanfiction Faanthology, 1939–2009
- Marguerite:
- A book by Joseph Elliott-Coleman (and apologies that we got the surname wrong in the episode)
- Burning Brightly: 50 Years of Novacon
- How to pronounce the word “grimace”
- Music credits
Thursday Nov 11, 2021
Thursday Nov 11, 2021
John might hire a camper van, Alison might wee twice before bed, and Liz might not plot enough graphs.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.
Content warnings this episode: COVID-19 (chapter 4), sexism (chapter 5)
- We’re doing Octothorpe Live at Novacon at 1pm on Sunday!
- Letters of comment
- Eastercon
- Eastercon in a post-coronavirus world
- There was a thread on the future of Eastercon venues
- UK Eastercon Community Group
- Not to be confused with the old Future of Eastercon group
- Eastercons may need to move beyond hotels
- University accommodation
- Camp sites such as Butlins or Pontins
- Electromagnetic Field (EMF)
- It was pointed out that this has issues with dates
- Easter may be cold/windy/rainy
- Bank holidays and warm weather are a busy time for these sites
- SFX Weekender already does this sort of thing so it is feasible!
- Some hotels have been asking for huge deposits
- This is probably due to increased risk and not enough Government guidance
- It might go away again when these change
- Would a central Eastercon organisation help? (Probably not)
- This is probably due to increased risk and not enough Government guidance
- There was a thread on the future of Eastercon venues
- Redemption 2022
- Picks
- Alison: Dune (outside) and Black Widow (Disney+)
- John: Unfathomable and the Ludoquist
- Liz: The Empress of Salt and Fortune (epub, Kindle, paperback)
- Music credits
Thursday Oct 28, 2021
Thursday Oct 28, 2021
John is critically bereft, Alison made a mistake, and Liz is carving papayas.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.
Content warnings this episode: COVID-19 (chapter 4) and problematic behaviour such as racism, sexism, and abuse (chapter 6).
- This episode is sponsored by Stow Shirts. Use promo code OCTOTHORPE for 10% off!
- We’re doing Octothorpe Live at Novacon at 1pm on Sunday!
- Letters of comment
- Papaya carving
- COVID policy roundup
- Smofcon Europe
- Corflu Concorde (in PR5)
- Theme songs
- Guests of Honour
- Disinvitations
- Reflections on Racefail
- Ghosts of Honour
- Paul Cornell suggested the “foetus of honour”
- Picks
- John: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Disney+)
- Alison: irrelevant waffle [Alison wrote that—Ed]
- Liz: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (PS4)
- Music credits
Thursday Oct 14, 2021
Thursday Oct 14, 2021
John used to have a different face, Alison is going to Smofcon, and Liz is in disguise.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.
Content warnings this episode: COVID-19 discussion (chapter 2)
- We’re doing Octothorpe Live at Novacon on 1pm at Sunday!
- Letters of comment
- COVID: Jonathan Baddeley, Ali Baker, Bill Burns, Chris Garcia, Ang Rosin
- High-school movie round-up: people on Facebook, Bridget Bradshaw, Farah Mendlesohn
- Karen Schaffer
- Smofcon Europe
- Douglas Adams content!
- Chris Garcia
- Alex Holden
- Everyone else
- Liz had these covers
- The BBC Big Read
- Dublin 2029 was announced at Octocon
- Sara Felix is bidding Texas (in 2031?)
- The Science Fiction Encyclopedia
- Edited by friend of the show Dave Langford and John Clute, with Graham Sleight as managing editor and remembering the late Peter Nicholls as founding editor
- The new fourth edition is now self-published, having moved on from Gollancz and SF Gateway
- Octothorpe Live will be at Novacon
- Picks
- John: Lovecraft Country (on Now)
- Alison: Foundation (on Apple TV+)
- Liz: Children of Ruin (epub, Kindle, paperback)
- Music credits
Thursday Sep 30, 2021
Thursday Sep 30, 2021
John is going on holiday, Alison had a cold, and Liz is sleepy.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.
- Letters of comment
- Bug Bradshaw
- Dave Coxon
- Fran Dowd (in the Octothorpe Facebook group)
- Chris Garcia
- Emily January
- Novacon has a COVID policy
- FantasyCon has two webpages
- Ignyte Award winners
- Picks
- Music credits
Thursday Sep 16, 2021
Thursday Sep 16, 2021
John is listening to podcasts, Alison is reading stories, and Liz is watching TV.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast or tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.
Content warnings this episode: COVID-19 discussion (chapters 3 and 7)
- Letters of comment
- Chris Garcia
- Roman Orszanski
- Mark Plummer
- Convention COVID-19 policies
- John forgot to mention the NHS Covid Pass last week
- Eastercon Community Facebook group post about convention COVID-19 policies
- BristolCon has released a COVID-19 policy
- Please wear a mask if you can, no requirement for vaccines or negative tests
- Corflu has updated their website
- They will announce a policy but not until closer to the time
- Upcoming conventions
- Picks
- The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
- Alison’s pick
- The Otherwise Award
- Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora (paperback, ebook, Kindle)
- Liz’s pick
- Star Trek: Lower Decks (on Amazon Prime in the UK)
- File 770 reports the UK has a new National Film and Sci-Fi Museum
- The UK’s rocketry programme
- The Needles Old Battery and New Battery is maintained by the National Trust
- Alison notes “they are super misleading – the [page] has a photo of Woomera on it."
- Black Arrow Replica at the Wight Aviation Museum
- High Down Rocket Test Site
- The Needles Old Battery and New Battery is maintained by the National Trust
- Music credits
Thursday Sep 02, 2021
Thursday Sep 02, 2021
John is at his usual podcasting setup, Alison is in a cauldron, and Liz is on Plague Island.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast or tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.
Content warnings this episode: death (chapter 3) and COVID-19 discussion (chapter 4).
- Coded messages appeared in This Here… #45
- Letters of comment
- Ali Baker
- Fran Dowd
- Chris Garcia (twice)
- Pat McMurray
- Caroline Mersey
- Karen Schaffer
- Peter Sullivan
- Erle Korshak has died
- Convention COVID-19 policies
- DisCon III have released a new COVID-19 policy
- Vaccination required (no exemptions)
- Masks required
- Liz found Dragon Con’s COVID-19 policy
- Vaccination required (medical/child exemptions mean you can test instead)
- Masks required
- 50% maximum capacity
- Novacon are planning to have a COVID-19 policy
- Dave Hicks will be in charge of this
- Corflu do not have a policy on their website and did not respond to a request for comment
- Fantasycon do not have a policy on their website but responded to a request for comment
- No vaccination policy (!)
- Asking attendees to wear face masks and socially distance
- Encouraging attendees to take lateral flow tests
- UK Games Expo
- CONvergence had a similar policy to DisCon III
- File 770 linked to CONvergence’s Twitter thread outlining a COVID case in a convention attendee
- There are also reports on Facebook
- This does not appear to have led to any at-con transmission
- By which we mean, we haven’t found any reports thereof
- DisCon III have released a new COVID-19 policy
- The mysterious case of the toilet on the plane
- Alison is officially part of an Eastercon 2023 bid which is forthcoming!
- Caroline Mullan is the chair
- If selected, the convention will be called Conversation
- Futurecon 2021 is coming up
- Aftershow: Horizon Zero Dawn is quite good
- Music credits
Thursday Aug 19, 2021
Thursday Aug 19, 2021
John, Alison, and Liz are recording around a dining room table.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast or tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.
- Letters of comment
- We didn’t discuss them again but we swear we will next week
- Apologies
- Sorry we don’t really have any topics
- Sorry for the bad sound quality
- Sorry for the interruptions
- Being in person
- Thank you very much to our hosts Steve and Giulia!
- We went to the Double-Barrelled taproom
- It does have a hyphen
- Alison and John might go to Corflu and to Novacon
- We will probably do another Punctuation but we have no firm plans yet
- We might run an in-person Punctuation
- Music credits
Thursday Aug 05, 2021
Thursday Aug 05, 2021
John, Alison and Liz didn’t record this week.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media!
- There are no letters of comment this episode because we recorded this episode OUTSIDE LINEAR TIME.
- Retro Hugo Awards
- Graham Linehan has been booted off Twitter since we recorded
- Ali Baker has started the excellent Fantasy Book Swap podcast since we recorded
- Music credits
Thursday Jul 22, 2021
Thursday Jul 22, 2021
John is wrong, Alison is putting out fires, and Liz is in lockdown.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast or tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.
- Letters of comment
- File 770 reports that Mary Robinette Kowal is the new chair of DisCon III
- This piece contains links to some of the previous events which led to this occurring
- Convention communications
- Alison has a role in the Glasgow in 2024 Promotions Division
- No real links, but a lot of opinions!
- Liz claimed not to have strong opinions before the podcast: fact
- After we recorded, DisCon III renamed their Outreach Division; it is now called Communications
- Fantasy Book Swap (Ali Baker’s new podcast)
- Facebook page
- Podcast website
- Link for your podcatcher (right-click or tap and hold, copy the URL, and your podcatcher should have an option for “Add URL”)
- Books we read as kids:
- Rebecca’s World by Terry Nation is on Audible for a credit
- Books about boarding schools:
- Threads by Foz Meadows on why Anne McCaffrey is inappropriate:
- Music credits