ALDISS AND HEAVEN TOO!

The 23rd World Science Fiction Convention was held at the Mount Royal Hotel, Marble Arch, London over the August Bank Holiday weekend and will be remembered by its attendees for many years to come.

About 350 visitors came, mainly from Britain but with groups from America, Germany and France.

On the Friday afternoon, the Film Show opened, which was attended by a continually growing, though never large, audience. The main feature film was ZOTZ - a not very successful comedy.

At about 8 p.m. the official opening of the Convention was made by the Convention Chairman, Ella Parker, who then introduced some of the more well-known fans to the audience.

Harry Harrison followed the introductions with an hilarious talk titled “SF - the Salvation of the Modern Novel” There was the inevitable tossing of a meat-pie between Harry and Brian Aldiss, and when Brian had joined Harry on the stage, the talk was constantly interspersed with references to meat-pies. The talk was light-hearted and it certainly got the Convention off to a most auspicious start. This was the only event on Friday and so everyone left to start the room-parties and discussion groups beloved of convention-goers.

Ella Parker again started off with introductions on the Saturday morning which was followed by the formation of a panel to discuss “SF In Europe”. This panel consisted of Walter Ernsting, Maxim Jakubowski, Josef Nesvadba, Franz Ettl and Josef Dolnicar, the panel chairman being the Guest of Honour, Brian Aldiss. The panel members each gave a short report on the position of SF in his respective country and each put forward one author who, in his own opinion, should be translated into English.

Geoff Doherty was unable to attend and give his programmed talk so Forrest J Ackerman stood in for him and talked about SF films old and new.

The fan-panel, ‘All Things to all Fen”, comprised of Irene Boothroyd, Beryl Henley, Doreen Parker, Charles Platt and Dave Busby finished off the morning’s programme.

The afternoon started with a quiz, a United States team versus a European team. The European team won with our ‘Information man2, Jim Groves, answering the most questions correctly.

The Delta Group then made their first contribution to the activities - an amusing skit on the Monster Movies, called CASTLE or TERROR. This had a delightful custard- pie sequence, between the various monsters and their maker.

After this short spell of humour, the Convention launched into one of its highspots. John Brunner gave a talk under the title “How to get High, Without Going into Orbit”.