Concatenation Receives Eurocon Award at 2004 Festival

Jonathan Cowie
with the award
A surprise Award was given at the 2004 Festival of Fantastic Films' opening ceremony. Jim Walker, hot foot from the European SF Society's Eurocon, held the previous fortnight in Plodiv, Bulgaria, presented the e-zine Science Fact & Fiction Concatenation with a Eurocon Award for services rendered to the European SF Community. Jonathan Cowie (Editor) accepted the Award on behalf of the score or so on the Concatenation team. In the audience was co-editor Graham Connor; past team member Charles Partington attended the Festival the following day.

It was appropriate for the Award to be presented at the Festival as it has many links with Concatenation (notwithstanding the Fest reviews on the Concat ' site). In the mid-1990s the Festival sponsored Romanian fan attendance -- Antuza Genescu (SF book translator) and Cristian Lazarescu (film student) as part of a science and SF cultural exchange being organised by Concatenation and the NW Kent SF Society. Furthermore, in 1987 Festival founder Harry Nadler, with Charles Partington, printed The Science Fact & Fiction Concatenation's first edition (in the days when it was a print magazine).

Eurocon Awards

If all this was not enough synchronicity, this year's Eurocon had as its western Guests of Honour Robert Sheckley and Ian Watson. Sheckley's The 10th Victim happened to be shown at this year's Festival while Ian Watson wrote the screenplay for Kubric's (and then Spielberg's) film AI, which was initially to be based on a Brian Aldiss short story. Wheels within wheels.

(Left) Robert Sheckley (author of over a
dozen novels, two of which became
films: Freejack & The 10th Victim).
(Right) Ian Watson, author of several novels
and the screenplay of AI.

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