An inspiring night at the Arthur C Clarke awards
Thinking hard about the future has not dimmed the spirits of the thriving SF community

Posted by Sam Jordison Thursday 30 April 2009 guardian.co.uk

Left - Arthur C Clarke in 1984. Photograph: William Coupon/Corbis

Because I enjoyed the Arthur C Clarke award ceremony so much last year, walking back into the foyer of the award venue in the Apollo Cinema in central London last night was reassuring in its familiarity. I had to push past a couple of stormtroopers to get into the hot fug of the crowded foyer, I saw several men sporting Gandalf beards and my nerdometer went into overdrive when I mistook someone for the publisher of one of the nominees, asked if he was nervous and he said:
"I'm not too bad. I've been here before so I know what to expect. It's actually quite nice to get out of the house."
It was only later in the conversation that it emerged that he had been pulling my leg and the joke was on me.
But, no matter. I was having a nice evening. The most pleasing repetition from last year was the excited atmosphere and the general conviction that this award wasn't just about media exposure and money for the winner.

The fans and organisers seemed to share the genuine belief – no doubt inherited from Arthur C Clarke himself – that SF can be a force for good. These books can inspire scientific exploration and discovery as well as amuse and entertain. And that – as someone said – is a worthwhile endeavour in a country where university physics departments are closing because of a lack of interest rather than a lack of funding. Marek Kukula, the public astronomer from the Royal Observatory, proved the point in a short and sweet keynote speech in which he explained how he owed his career path and continuing sense of wonder to the SF he read as a teenager.
It was all quite heartening even if this sense of continuity and lack of cynicism seemed at odds with the world outside the Apollo Cinema.

If anyone was worried about swine flu, for instance, they weren't letting on. As someone pointed out to me, there was no point worrying anyway because the room we were in was so crowded that "we're all fucked anyway. And that's assuming that the tube journey here hadn't got them first".
"It," noted another, "at least provides excellent opportunity to accessorise. I haven't been able to get away with wearing a face mask in public since the days of rave".
Maybe such nonchalance will seem horribly blasé in a few days. Hopefully, it will seem quite the right attitude. I took comfort from the fact that so many science-minded people, (who were also almost certainly well-versed in seriously frightening apocalyptic fiction scenarios) didn't seem to think that the purported pandemic worth a mention.

It was also the first gathering I've been to in a long time where I didn't overhear a single conversation about the recession. Admittedly, my ear-wigging was limited by the fact that the room was too busy to easily move from conversation to conversation, but my overriding impression was one of unusual optimism.
And I did at least manage to overhear a fantastically awkward encounter between two women walking into the prize-giving auditorium:
"Who are you here with?" asked the first.
"I'm one of the judges," the replied the second.
"Ah."

Read about the rest of Sam Jordison's night out at The Apollo here. And see who won as well.