Writer and planetary modeller David Angus reminisces about science fiction (SF) conventions over the years and his friendship with SF icon Brian Aldiss.
During Easter I was in Birmingham Exhibition Centre at a science fiction convention. I transported one of my 2ft diameter planets up there by train, having the confidence to do so because I’d already taken it to Bristol by the same method. Occupying a seat, it became a conversation opener amongst the passengers, apart from one guy who had a nap leaning his head on it. I let him do that, for it amused me that I’d wrapped it thoroughly enough to provide a comfortable head rest.
At the station I met my room mate who was an old friend I’d introduced to SF fandom. He turned out to be a true friend when I discovered I’d forgotten my bank cards! I had enough cash on me to last half the convention, but he became ‘my bank’ and has since been reimbursed.
That still left the problem of the hotels only accepting cards, although I could buy food with cash at the station and in a development across a small lake from the hotels. Luckily this was a convention where I rediscovered that I had more – many more, I think – friends than enemies. One of these friends offered me a small amount of money on his card, which he wanted to discontinue. Then he discovered the card was in debt: an occasion for laughter over a pint. By that time I’d dealt with being cut off from alcohol by giving whatever friend was nearby enough cash to reimburse them for buying a pint for me. Or even enough for pints for both of us.
The Art Show went well enough with the discovery that a neighbouring artist was absent with Covid, resulting in a table each for me and another artist I knew and was on good terms with. We were supposed to be sharing a table.
The first SF convention I attended was Novacon; also in Birmingham but way back in November 1982. I remember doing it on the cheap, by staying in a nearby Salvation Army hostel and sleeping the last night in the bar. Next morning a member of staff woke me by asking me if I’d spent a pleasant night? You could do that in those days.
Next year I went to three conventions. One Star Trek-related one in Essex and another Novacon. It was there that I met an author whose work I’d enjoyed since I was an adolescent: Brian Aldiss.
I’d already written to him before the convention, sending him a montage I’d created of the opening scene of the first novel I read of his, Hothouse. He said he admired its ingenuity. I wrote to him again after the convention, suggesting that I make a model of his planet Helliconia: a world of seasons several hundred years long in a double star system. That world was the setting for a trilogy of his novels. I was delighted to get the green light and it must have been early in the year when I visited him at his Oxford home to begin the project. The city of dreaming spires was bathed in an ethereal orange misty morning winter light: the right setting for the beginning of a real adventure. For although experienced in relief model-making, it was the first time I’d worked on another world, so to speak.
There was another reason for it being early in the year. I had the model ready for the Easter SF convention, so I must have worked on it like a dog! The model was on a flat base with a sliding perspex cover, on which names were Letraset. I think my father – who was more practical than me – helped me on that part. It was one of the most complicated models I created. I foolishly chose an interrupted Mollweide projection, which didn’t match the layout of the Helliconian continents, although it was taken from one of Brian’s maps. I was lucky anyway, for he loved it. I think he appreciated the hard work and detail I put into it. Later I saw it on TV on Pebble Mill at One. He was being interviewed there and had taken my model.
Further spinoffs from this success were: first, being invited to a party (complete with a band) at Brian’s mansion in Boars Hill near Oxford. There I met Ray Harryhausen, the famous movie special effects creator. A big bald headed man with a deep voice. I felt he was what a movie mogul should look and sound like.
Then there was the time Brian showed up in Portsmouth at an event attended by the local SF group. He was delighted to see me, which surprised the group. We all went to the pub afterwards and the evening ended with Brian and I singing ‘Hitler Has Only Got One Ball’. He was a World War II veteran after all, having fought in Burma. He once told me that a banyan tree he marvelled at while recuperating from the Kohima battle was the inspiration for his novel Hothouse.
The other author in SF circles I worked with was Dougal Dixon, although he didn’t go to many conventions. Dougal wasn’t a science fiction writer as such; more of an earth sciences man, extrapolating his knowledge and enthusiasm into publications factual and otherwise. Examples being his book After Man and the docufiction miniseries The Future is Wild.
I’ve seen his artistic explorations into an array of related alien life, resembling meticulous Victorian fauna and flora illustrations. On first looking at them, that’s what I thought they were. Then I realised ‘these are creatures not of this world’. I think we clicked not only because we loved dinosaurs, but also because we loved exploring with our imaginations (and brilliant art in his case) our subject expertise. The difference being with Dougal it was zoology and evolution; with me it was bits of geography.
Projects I worked on with Dougal include models, which I still have, of Jurassic USA and another alien planet. Jurassic USA involved the paleogeography of 150 million years ago. A party of schoolchildren were expected to complete a very impractical and hazardous journey through savannahs and mountains infested with Allosaurus, Sauropods, Stegosaurus and lord knows what else. Oh well, children love dinosaurs!
The alien planet was called Greenworld though the vegetation was red. It was so named because of green issues arising from colonisation. The book was published in Japan so the only writing I could understand was my name appearing in the credits, next to the bestowal of honourable Japanese.
I also participated with Dougal in a play written by him set on Greenworld. That was at the 2014 Worldcon in London. There in one evening, I not only took part in the play, but also attended a party where I met the last hero of the Soviet Union and astronaut Helen Sharman. She told me if I could hike across Hampshire at 64 (I just had done) I was fit enough to be an astronaut. I was in orbit with alcohol as rocket fuel for the rest of the evening.
Then there were other authors:-
Iain Banks, whom I entertained with my account of a journey. He sadly died of cancer.
Christopher Priest, whom I last saw at the Kiev Eurocon.
Harry Harrison: a close friend of Brian Aldiss. I bought him a round at a London SF pubmeet.
Colin Greenland: I attended one of his writing workshops.
Jack Cohen, an alien biology expert I had many conversations with.
John Brunner, likewise with conversations, though not as often as Jack. He died at a World convention.
Although there are problems in SF fandom such as cliques, self-righteous moralising and associated gossip, its social world opened up many possibilities for me in terms of friends and sometimes work. The earliest royalty deal I got I gained at a convention, when I wasn’t even sober. For better and worse, it’s formed a major part of my life.
Image of Veil Nebula (NGC 6960), in the constellation Cygnus, by Ken Crawford via Wikimedia Commons
