Seacon'84: Eastercon 1984

35th British National Science Fiction Convention
European Science Fiction Convention: Eurocon 1984
20-23 April, Metropole Hotel, Brighton


GoHs: Christopher Priest , Roger Zelazny , Pierre Barbet, Josef Nesvadba, (fan) Waldemar Kumming


My first con. With some of the best talks I've heard (and not just because it was the first time I'd heard them!)


Programme highlights

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  • Bob Shaw : "Ten Years, but not Decayed": A Serious Scientific Talk
  • Panel: Fantasy Costuming -- Julian May exhibited some of her Pleistocene costumes -- "For those who took flash photographs of the projected slides, none of them will come out!"
  • Vogon Poetry Contest : some truly dreadful doggerel -- won by someone who's native language is not English, but who uses words like 'extemporise' in casual conversation!
  • Jack Cohen
    1. Concepts, Copouts and Confusion
    2. On Its Knees Man, Not on Your Back, Dearie
    Genes aren't blueprints: there isn't a gene for "lion's head", so you can't put a lion's head on a different body by splicing in that gene -- alien sex is different
  • Tom Shippey : Shippey On Tolkein -- a discussion centered around his book The Road to Middle Earth
  • Dougal Dixon : After Man -- evolution hasn't stopped -- Star Wars hairy desert elephants and hairless arctic dinosaurs don't work -- slow worms in the Raiders of the Lost Ark 'snakes' scene