John has COVID, Alison wanted to do a podcast, and Liz had no better offers.

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Content warnings this episode: None

Find a text version of our answers to Cora’s questions here!

Cover art: Sue Mason

Theme music: Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

John, Alison and Liz have been nominated for a BSFA Award! (Also, Liz is on holiday, naturally.)

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Content warnings this episode: None

• Letters of comment

• Chris Garcia

• The Flying Fantastical Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

• Chris for TAFF

• We recommended some things on Cora Buhlert’s blog

• Liz:

• Who’s running it and why?

• Are there significant drawbacks?

• Expanding on who’s running the convention a little

• How much will it cost?

• Liz: The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams: The Complete, Uncensored, and Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek (hardback, epub, Kindle)

• Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 4.0 license

John is a spoilsport, Alison is promoting and Liz might come to Eastercon.

Please email your letters of comment to [email protected] and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: COVID-19 (chapter 2), Spider-Man: No Way Home casting spoilers (chapter 6)

• Letters of comment

• Chris Garcia

• TAFF ebooks

• TAFF administrators’ FAQ

• Reclamation are requiring vaccination for all attendees

• The Incomparable Gameshow

• Liz: Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson (paper, epub, Kindle)

• tick, tick… BOOM! (Netflix)

• Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 4.0 license

John is exchanging, Alison is rekindling her sensawunda, and Liz is watching the builders.

Please email your letters of comment to [email protected] and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.

• We are fifty! That’s kind of unbelievable.

• Bill Burns

• You can follow us on:

• BoardGameGeek (John, Alison)

• Liz has been listening to the Caribbean SF Podcast

• Brandon O’Brien Can You Sign My Tentacle?

• Redemption has been postponed by a year

• The TAFF Free eBooks page

• Alison says “Anders for TAFF!”

• Thank you to whoever nominated us!

• John: Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey (hardback, epub, Kindle)

• Tweet

• Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 4.0 license

John is demanding, Alison joined a Discord, and Liz knows a lot about the WSFS Constitution.

Please email your letters of comment to [email protected] and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: Genocide and war (chapter 1), racism and capitalism (chapter 2), sexism (chapter 5)

• Letters of comment

• Liquid of comment from This Never Happens (Cornish branch)

• Fran Dowd: Platoon

• Kindle Direct Publishing took down Ekpeki’s account shortly before having to pay him royalties

• Salon Futura’s write-up of DisCon III

• “Hugo nominations will open later in January, and will run through mid-March. All members of DisCon III and anyone who joins Chicon 8 before the 31st of January 2022 will be eligible to nominate in this year’s Hugo Awards.”

• Nicholas Whyte answers our questions

• Commentary and interesting history courtesy of File 770

• The Incompleat Register 2021

• If you’d like to join then contact the chair, Cliff Dunn

• John: Publish more fanzines and make an app

• Alison’s super nerdy iPad board game challenge

• Alison: Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction translated and edited by Xue Christine Ni (epub, Kindle)

• Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 4.0 license

John and Alison are watching cutting-edge TV, and Liz is hungry.

Please email your letters of comment to [email protected] and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: genocide (chapter 2); war and defence contracting (chapter 4)

• Letters of comment

• Farah Mendlesohn asks “but what did you think of DisCon III?”

• UK House of Commons motion

• Octothorpe was almost nominated for the Hugo Awards

• Octothorpe was the last fancast to be eliminated from the ballot!

• Helsinki’s explanation of how this works

• It always has delights on it and this year is no exception

• Best Series: Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London

• 2022 open for your suggestions now. Get those fanzines and fan writers and fan artists and fancasts that you think are absolutely great on there!

• Shaun Duke points out that Raytheon was one of the contractors that was employed in launching the James Webb Space Telescope

• File 770 reports that Winnipeg are pivoting to a 2023 NASFiC

• File 770

• Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

• Brice de Nice

• John can walk 804.672 kilometres

• Alison: The Expanse (Amazon Prime)

• OK she is a bit behind but it is a 2022 Plan

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Coco (Disney+)

• Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 4.0 license

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

Please email your letters of comment to [email protected] 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

• You can get by just NOT TELLING THE BSFA your address (DON’T TRY THAT WITH THE WORLDCON)

• Chengdu in 2023 won

• File 770’s reporting on the win

• The video of the session we discuss

• John found he generally agreed with these tweets from Jeannette Ng

• Tweet

• A File 770 commenter outlines the issues with Lukyanenko

• If Fanzine had 53 fewer votes and Fancast had 42 fewer votes they would not have been awarded

• John: The Psychopath Club by Sandra Bond (paperback, Kindle)

• Alison: Chiron Beta Prime by Jonathan Coulton

• California Christmastime by Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

• Our theme music is It’s Christmas Time by Frank Schröter, used under the Simplified Filmmusic.io Standard License

John is afraid, Alison is in Portugal, and Liz is an absolute unit.

Please email your letters of comment to [email protected] and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: COVID-19 (chapters 1 and 2, but particularly chapter 2)

Thanks to Stow Shirts for sponsoring this week's episode! Use code OCTOTHORPE for a 10% discount.

• No letters of comment this week, we will do them next week!

• World Fantasy Convention

• The person who got COVID Tweeted

• Alan Bellingham

• Deadline on 14 December for returning PDF ballots

• Liz: Did Alison already have Hades or can I have Hades?

• Roguelikes vs Roguelites

• Sushi Go Party!

• Based on the Philip K. Dick book (paperback, ebook, Kindle)

• Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 4.0 license

John, Alison, and guest Marguerite Smith are live from Novacon 50!

Please email your letters of comment to [email protected] and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: women’s body shapes (we are very positive about all body shapes but we wanted to let y’all know we touch on it)

• Novacon

• DisCon III

• John: Voting in the Hugo Awards because he’s insufferably smug about having done the reading

• A book by Joseph Elliott-Coleman (and apologies that we got the surname wrong in the episode)

• Our theme music is Rattlesnake Railroad by Brett Van Donsel, used under a CC BY 4.0 license

John might hire a camper van, Alison might wee twice before bed, and Liz might not plot enough graphs.

Please email your letters of comment to [email protected] and tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: COVID-19 (chapter 4), sexism (chapter 5)

• We’re doing Octothorpe Live at Novacon at 1pm on Sunday!

• Carved turnip

• Reclamation has a hotel

• There was a thread on the future of Eastercon venues

• UK Eastercon Community Group

• University accommodation

• Electromagnetic Field (EMF)

• Easter may be cold/windy/rainy

• This is probably due to increased risk and not enough Government guidance

• It might go away again when these change

• Alison: Dune (outside) and Black Widow (Disney+)

• Liz’s comment on the Dune soundtrack

• Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 4.0 license