Octothorpe

John is savage, Alison hates paper, and Liz likes stationery.

An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], join our Facebook group, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: harsh criticism (Publications), racism (Picks)

• Glasgow wants your feedback on Facebook

• Glasgow 2024 photographs on Flickr

• Staples

• Join fancon.dev on Discord

• John: The Acolyte

• Cover art: “Armadillo Pins” by Sara Felix (lettering by Alison Scott)

• Alt text: Three pins of armadillos flying colourful spaceships are on top of a piece of paper with blobs of glue that look like planets. The lettering “Octothorpe 118” appears above in a similar style to the pins.

John liked the entertainment, Alison didn’t queue, and Liz wanted soup.

An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], join our Facebook group, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: None

• Letters of comment

• Doug Faunt

• We are recusing for at least the 2025 Hugos

• “Allison [sic] looks exactly like she sounds lol. john does not”

• Stitch and Bitch by Kalanadi

• Cardinal Cox

• Back to Our Futures

• Cover art: “Hugo Evolution” by Iain J Clark (arranged by Alison Scott)

• Alt text: Three photographs dominate the centre of the image. The left-hand photograph is of a prototype Hugo made of rough wood and cardboard; the centre photograph is of a rough-ish wood base and tin foil rocket but with the actual acrylic and etching, and the right-hand photograph is of the finished Hugo Award. Text below the photos reads “protoprototype”, “prototype”, and “2024 Hugo”. Above, the words “Octothorpe 117” appear.

John, Alison and Liz have won Hugo Awards.

An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], join our Facebook group, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: It’s a live recording!

• Credits

• Cover art: “Octothorpe and Others” by Simon Bubb (CC BY-NC 2.0)

• Alt text: John, Liz and Alison (I know, listener, I know) are looking off to the right holding their Hugo Awards as people take photographs of them on the stage at the SEC Armadillo.

John is a busy bee, something’s bugging Alison, and Liz meets a wasp.

An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], join our Facebook group, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: Vote rigging and bureaucracy.

• Glasgow programme

• Saturday, 11:30: “Table talk: Octothorpe Podcast”

• Friday, 14:30: “Ahsoka: Fusing Clone Wars, Rebels and Heir to the Empire”

• Friday, 10:00: “The Difficult Second Album”

• Nothing because she’s saving herself just for you, listeners 💜

• Access is through the members’ portal

• File 770’s report

• Chris Garcia’s in-depth dive into the agenda is at Claims Department #74

• The “don’t do that Dave” resolutions (C1, 3–4): we are in favour

• Consultative vote on the indie film category

• We are in favour of Conann, Lovely, Dark and Deep, Mars Express, Tiger Stripes, and Mollie and Max in the Future

• The Boy and the Heron: released 8 December on 2,325 screens, made $35mn in 2023

• WSFA

• Glasgow has ~8,400 WSFS members, WSFS membership is £45, so 5% is ~£18k

• Here are links to the text of the two redacted resolutions

• D11 Statement of Values for Transparency and Fair Treatment

• c.f. our discussion of Kevin Standlee’s foot in his mouth on Episode 103

• Some of this stuff matters but it shouldn’t get debated this year

• We didn’t think that all of them were worth discussing, so you can assume we’re in favour/ambivalent of the ones we don’t discuss (unless we forgot one that’s very heinous)

• Cover art: “All the Popcorn” by Alison Scott

• Alt text: A giant stripy purple bucket of popcorn on a cinema screen says “Octothorpe 115 WSFS Special”, and John, Alison and Liz sit in the audience, silhouetted in the style of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. John is saying “We’re gonna need a bigger box of popcorn.”

John, Alison, and Liz discuss what they’re voting for in the Hugo Awards.

An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], join our Facebook group, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode:

• Letters of comment

• Ali Baker Brooks

• Fantasy Book Swap

• Alison Scott, Marianne Dreams and Tamarind and the Star of Ishta

• Novella

• ”Gathered in Translation” by Ken Liu

• The Midnight Pals that made Liz laugh

• John: Star Wars: Jedi: Survivor

• Cover art: “Worldcon Community Group Bingo Card” by Alison Scott

• Alt text: ”Octothorpe 114” is at the top, and the word ”Octothorpe” is written on a series of lottery balls. Below that, a bingo card, and below that, the words ”Worldcon Community Group Bingo Card". The items on the card are as follows:

• Can I convert pounds to Scottish money?

John is doing Discord, Liz is doing programme, and Alison isn’t working on the Worldcon.

An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], join our Facebook group, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: None

• Letters of comment

• Karen Schaffer

• Peach and bourbon pie

• Farah Mendlesohn

• The Great Paladin Hunt by Mike Brunton

• Glasgow 2024 Worldcon Community Group on Facebook

• Humble Bundle

• The Streisand Effect

• (I know I got it slightly wrong in the episode!)

• 2024 Locus Award winners

• Brisbane in 2028

• File 770 report (with details of their socials/mailing list)

• The 2024 New Zealand NatCon

• John: Alan Wake 2

• Saga Anderson’s sweater

• Cover art: “Massive Lizard” by Alison Scott

• Alt text: Three stick figures run from Godzilla, who is depicted in the style of Godzilla Minus One. The words “Octothorpe 113” used to be at the top of the art, but Godzilla has knocked off the letters “O C T O”, is holding “H”, and is trying to eat “T”.

John was gaming, Alison was dancing, and Liz was batty.

An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], join our Facebook group, or tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: Wealth privilege (chapter 3)

• Letters of comment

• Chris Garcia

• Starter Villain review

• Post-convention report

• Alan Fleming’s report

• Site selection is open for Worldcon 2026

• John: The Beast

• Spoilery interview with George MacKay

• Cover art: “That Octothorpe Series” by España Sheriff

• Alt text: John, Alison and Liz stand in the transporter on a Constitution-class Federation starship. They are mid-transportation, made of sparkles instead of fully fleshed out. The words “Octothorpe 112” appear beneath them.

John, Alison, and Liz read the 2024 Hugo Award finalists for Best Novel.

An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: Rape and murder during a brief discussion of historically accurate piracy in Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, discussion of billionaires during Starter Villain

• John’s rankings:

1. Some Desperate Glory

1. Saint of Bright Doors

1. Some Desperate Glory

1. Some Desperate Glory

• Cover art: “Favourite Reading Positions” by Sue Mason

• Alt text: John is in the bottom-left, sitting in a chair, wearing a blue shirt and purple trousers, holding a can, and reading an ebook. Alison is in the upper-middle, lying down upside down, wearing a purple shirt and stripy trousers, and reading an ebook. Liz is in the bottom-right, wearing a pink shirt with green trousers, holding a mug of a hot beverage, and reading a physical book. They are surrounded by floating beer bottles, books, the Moon, a mug with a moose on it, and two cats. The text “Octothorpe 111” and “Hugo Novels 2024” appears to the top and the bottom of the image.

John is a professor, Alison doesn’t have a bucket list, and Liz is the country’s foremost fan historian.

An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: More wealth privilege (chapter 2)

• Letters of comment

• Bridget Bradshaw

• Babel wins “Best Translated Work” at the 2024 Xingyun Awards

• John: 0, Alison: 1, Liz: 3

• The Hugo Packet is now available

• John: Sunderland Shorts Film Festival

• Soulmate, Beautiful Things, Ensouled, Finger Food, Bisected, Own Home?, R1CO, The First Time I Never Met You

• Liz’s view on auroras

• Cover art: “Explain 2233” by Alison Scott

• Alt text: Three photographs of the night sky, labelled Newcastle, Bangkok, and “Quite near London” (the labels were written by a Londoner, which is why it doesn’t just say “London”). Text above reads “Octothorpe 110” and below reads “Local Aurora Snapshots”. The Newcastle and London images show photographs of aurora with some minor bits of vegetation intruding; the Bangkok picture shows a skyline of buildings underneath a thunderstorm.

John is middle, Alison is even sadder, and Liz is sorry.

An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: Discussion of access issues (chapter 2), wealth privilege (chapter 6)

• Letters of comment

• Abigail Nussbaum

• The Eastercon members’ portal

• Critical Friends 8

• Dave Langford receives the trophy

• Alt text: Dave Langford triumphantly lofts a blue Bag for Life from Tesco, which we are expected to believe contains the Doc Weir trophy. He is standing in front of a house.

• The results

• “The Pidu district of Chengdu announces a 10-year science fiction plan”

• Town Hall Event: Hugo, Lodestar, and Astounding Awards Glasgow

• John: Dredge

• Cover art: “Voyagers” by Ulrika O’Brien

• Alt text: The background is a starry, lightning-filled square in blues, purples, and yellows. Atop that, there is a spaceship, somewhat like a rocket, with engines coming out of the sides. There are yellow lights shining from it, and a ladder reaches up to a central archway. John, Alison and Liz are depicted as silhouettes, regarding it with wonder. Their shadows stretch off the canvas, and they look faintly alien or futuristic in a hard-to-define manner.