Hello, and welcome to September’s Irish SF News. And only two weeks later that I said it would be. As I promised last time, I’m going to be concentrating on Octocon, the National Irish Science Fiction Convention (to give it it’s full title). I’ve also news on a new Irish comic, and various other things. Don’t forget to book your tickets for the Crazy Dog Audio Theatre radio plays (as mentioned in the last newsletter), as I’m told the tickets are going fast. Now, Octocon...

Since it’s foundation in 1990, Octocon has been held annually every October. Of the previous twelve conventions, ten of them have been held in the Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire, of which I am very fond, although this is not a universally held opinion. Attendance figures are usually around and about the 250 mark, with two major exceptions.

In 1991 the committee decided to celebrate what was then 25 years of Star Trek (the first episode of which originally aired in the USA on September 8, 1966 at 8:30pm) at that year’s convention, and to dedicated 25% of the con to Trek. This was reported in the papers as being a Star Trek Convention, and the con was mobbed by expectant Trekkies. This led to conversations like “but you said it was a Star Trek convention” “no, WE said it was a science fiction convention. The PAPERS said it was a Trek con, and this would not be the first time they got something wrong...” It all got sorted out in the end, but only after the Trekkies took over the video room!

The other larger event was on one of the two occasions that the convention strayed from the Royal Marine Hotel. In 1997 Octocon amalgamated with Eurocon, which was held in Dublin Castle for that year. I’m not entirely sure what the attendance figures for that were, but I know that it was not as successful as it possibly could have been. These things happen, mind you, and everyone who’s gone on a con committee should know that there’s always the possibility they might have to put their hand in their own pocket. In fact, attendance figures appear to be down for this year’s con, but this is a worldwide phenomenon, it seems, with the recent WorldCon being down about a thousand on expected preregistrations. In any event, the Octocon committee were smart enough to run a quiz night recently to help forestall costs, which raised €180 towards the running of the convention.

This year’s convention is back in the Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire. The Guest of Honour this time around is China Miéville, who, since he agreed to be GoH, seems to be winning awards all around him. A number of other guests are due to appear, although a few of the people who had originally hoped to attend have had to offer their apologies, for various reasons. I had already mentioned that John Higgins was unable to attend, and he is regrettably joined by Rachel Armstrong, Simon Clark, Paul J Holden and Graham Joyce. This can happen, especially when guests tentatively agree to attend a year in advance. It’s not for nothing that all guest lists have the caveat ‘All guest appearances are subject to work commitments’ appended to them. There have been a few changes at committee level too, it seems, with Bairbre Tynan leaving, and Randall Shepherd and Brian O’Farrell coming on as membership secretary and guest liaison respectively, I believe.

The convention has a website at www.octocon.com although it is not updated as often as it could be, perhaps. China Miéville has an excellent site at http://runagate-rampant.netfirms.com/

Although the con is only a two-day event it usually starts on the Friday night in the hotel bar, and ends up on the Monday afternoon in The Porterhouse Bar in Temple Bar, where Dave Lally, the convention’s long standing UK agent, hosts a post-con wind-down.

If you’ve never been to Octocon, I unreservedly recommend it to you. I’m always envious of people going to their first SF convention, as I’ll never forget the enormous sense of wonder that I felt at my first one.

I’ve managed to get not one, but two sponsors for my monthly quiz. Forbidden Planet and The 3rd Place, both of whom are in Dublin, have agreed to give me a prize to the value of €20 each, so from this quiz on, I’ll be pulling two names out of the hat, and you’ll both be getting something. I’ve to send prizes to various people, both for the last two quizzes, and for the world cup draw I organised in a moment of madness a while back. Anyway, the winner this month is… David Farmer, who is in the USA, but will be over at Octocon, where he’ll collect his prize. I’ll be handing out most of the rest of them there, too, so I’ll be in touch with anyone I owe something to shortly. Really.

This time around, I’m going to ask something slightly different. I’ve decided that I need a name for the newsletter. If Dave Langford can call his newsletter "Ansible", then I think that I’d like something a little less prosaic than "Irish SF News". The best suggestion will be used, and will get a prize, and all the other decent ones will be put into the now legendary Fez of Evil, from whence one other will be pulled. Mail your answers to irishsfnews@yahoo.co.uk. Enter now!

If you’re not getting Ansible, by the way, you should be. You can find it here.

I’m sure you’ve all seen the footage on the news of the terrible flooding in Europe over the last number of weeks. Colin Smythe, who is Terry Pratchett’s agent, wrote to me to tell me that:

Here's the address :http://www.dwcon.org/prize_draw.php3 so go buy tickets, folks.

I may have mentioned that I write reviews for The Alien Online, which can be found at http://www.thealienonline.net. The Alien has recently been nominated for a British Fantasy Society Award, in the Best Small Press category. I’m don’t for a moment imagine it has anything to do with my minor contribution, but I will none the less be insufferable if we actually win, I promise. Congratulations are particularly due to Ariel, my wonderful editor over there. Yay!!

I recently mentioned the Gay Trekkies. I got a mail-out from them, which I reproduce here:

They’re good and charming folk, so look them up.

Sub City have relaunched their in-store freebie 'zine. It is now an A4 8-pager, with an illustrated cover, several pages of comics news, and two pages of reviews, concentrating on graphic novels, a number of which reviews I’m responsible for, I’m afraid. Even despite this, it’s well worth a look. Robert Curley is at heart a fan, so likes to put something back into the system. Which brings me to the next item...

Robert Curley, co-owner of SubCity, Ireland's largest chain of comic shops (which means there's one in Dublin, and one in Galway...) has just launched the first issue of 'Naked Lunch', the first release from his 'Atomic Diner' comic company. This is a quarterly anthology title, which consists of three eight-page stories.

"Beating the Rap" is written by James A Mason, with art by Stephen Mooney, "Cookie Corral" is entirely by Dave Smith, and "Duplicitous" is written by Murra Mac Rory, with art by Stephen Thompson. The production qualities are sky-high, too. It's on lovely shiny paper, with good, sharp black and white artwork. This one gets my patented "Zaphod Beeblebrox three thumbs up", and bodes well for the future of the comic industry in Ireland. More titles are due soon. You can pick up a copy in SubCity, as well as elsewhere.

The next few SciFiClub meetings are:

• October is simply a non-topic meeting, giving people the opportunity to talk.
• The November meeting is on UFOs, with a speaker from one of the Irish UFO groups on hand to explain all.
• December is about children’s TV, and the
• January 2003 meeting is on the subject of Freemasonry. The New World Order can be only a stone’s throw away...

All meetings take place on the first Tuesday of the month, in Bowe’s Pub in Fleet Street in Dublin 2. The meetings, obviously, starts at 8PM sharp. No CC, but a raffle instead, to raise funds.

Brian Kelly, who has been running the Dublin Toy & Train Fair in conjunction with Terry McNally for over ten years has given me the dates for their events for next year. They are:

• Sunday 16th February 2003
• Sunday 11th May 2003
• Sunday 21st September 2003
• Sunday 23rd November 2003

The venue is the Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire, for the second year round.

Brian & Terry are not the only people running toy fairs, with Toys of Yesterday still holding a regular event in the Sandyford Community Centre every month. They are on the 29th September, 20th October, 10th November and 15th December. Not only that, but there is another toy fair in Wynn’s Hotel in Abbey Street in Dublin 1 on the 13th of October. I just hope some of you are actually interested in all these!! I always try to get out to the ones in the Royal Marine, anyway, as much to meet people as anything.

• Those of you who know Gerry Doyle, who used to work in Phantasia in Temple Lane, and who fondly remember his as the grumpy old coot that he undoubtedly still is, may be interested to see him in his days with a band called The Venetian Blond. That’s him in the right hand corner, playing the synthesiser. I’m sure he still has that shirt...(Visit the website here)
• Crazy Dog Audio’s first radio play went down a treat last Saturday, and there are five more to come. The next one features a character called James J Ó Méalóid who has a newsletter, it seems. More information at RTÉ’s website.
• Two colleges are thinking of holding conventions next year, I hear. UCC are saying they’ve a con on the weekend of 28th February to 2nd of March, to be called Confusion. (Visit the Confusion website)
• Meanwhile, a Dublin college is rumoured to be attempting to expand their games con by adding a group of SF guests. More on all this as I get it

Emmett Taylor, who regularly attends Octocon and the various comics’ cons as a dealer, has asked me to point out that:

Emmett is also responsible for the comic Dope Fiends, which I recommend, if you can find it.

• Bizarrely, the last mail-out I did on behalf of Octocon has ended up on a Romanian website. I don’t know why he chose to put it up, and a polite letter of enquiry has elicited no response. It’s not that I mind, as such, I’m just *really* mystified as to how it got there. (Visit the website here)
• I still haven’t gotten around to doing that piece I’ve been promising on what’s going on in Belfast. Hopefully next month.
• I’m also going to try to do pieces on the Transylvanian Tavern, like I’ve been promising to do for a while now. You’d imagine I’d have enough sense by now not to be promising things! Anyway, I’m hoping to do a bit on the Tavern, along with the Bram Stoker Dracula Museum out in Fairview, and the Ghost Bus Tour that I was on recently. It’s my pathetic attempt to theme the next NL to Halloween, you see.

Go gently,
Pádraig Ó Méalóid