47: Authors Eating John

John is sleepy, Alison is talking to Chinese fans, and Liz went to the Hugos.

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 2); racism (chapter 3); foreign policy and sexism (chapter 4)

• Letters of comment
  • Farah and Fran talking about masking at Novacon
  • A big discussion about BSFA
    • You can get by just NOT TELLING THE BSFA your address (DON’T TRY THAT WITH THE WORLDCON)
  • Chris Garcia
• Site selection at DisCon III
  • Chengdu in 2023 won
    • File 770’s reporting on the win
    • Chinese fans seem nice!
    • The livestream was good, and had 106,000 viewers
    • Lots of different Chinese university SF societies encouraging the bid; spot the flag in Gallifreyan and the monolith
  • WSFS Business Meeting
    • The video of the session we discuss
    • Kevin Standlee’s LiveJournal post about it
    • File 770’s reporting on the session
  • There are legitimate concerns about China
    • John found he generally agreed with these tweets from Jeannette Ng
      • Tweet
      • Thread #1
      • Thread #2
    • The guests are Liu Cixin, Sergei Lukyanenko and Robert J. Sawyer
      • A File 770 commenter outlines the issues with Lukyanenko
• Hugo Awards
  • If Fanzine had 53 fewer votes and Fancast had 42 fewer votes they would not have been awarded
• Picks
  • John: The Psychopath Club by Sandra Bond (paperback, Kindle)
  • Alison: Sibilant Fricative by Adam Roberts (paperback, Kindle)
  • Liz: The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison (epub, paperback, Kindle)
• Picks for Christmas song
  • Alison: Chiron Beta Prime by Jonathan Coulton
  • John:
    • California Christmastime by Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
    • Oh Santa! by Mr.B the Gentleman Rhymer
  • Liz: Bethlehem Down
  • Alison’s playlist of Christmas songs which do not presuppose God or Santa
• Music credits
  • Our theme music is It’s Christmas Time by Frank Schröter, used under the Simplified Filmmusic.io Standard License