Mike Harrison at Swecon 2004

I have started to prepare for next weekend's GoH interview. Carolina persuaded me to do the interview of M. John Harrison at Swecon. I'm flattered of course, but I don't know why they couldn't find someone who has read more of his oevre to do the interview. I've read at least The Pastel City, The Centauri Device, The Course of the Heart and Light, so I should be able to pull it off, I guess. I've been sitting this afternoon reading some older interviews that I've been fortunate to track down on the web. I have nothing against the idea of doing the interview; Harrison is one of the most fascinating writers of the field and it will be a lot of fun to ask him about his views of things. But I do feel an author GoH deserves someone who is a dedicated and well-read reader of his works. I think the idea of having Mike Harrison as the author guest of honour at a convention mainly geared to Trekkers is hilarious; I sure hope he thinks so too. I'm conducting a wee survey on the mailing lists at the moment to get an idea of how many in the audience that I can expect to have read anything by Mike, to know whether I should explore the books in some detail or just interview him about literature, art in general, life, and politics, to try to whet people's appetites. At the moment it certainly looks as if the latter will be the wiser course. The last few years we've been lucky to have several really interesting writers as guests at our cons, Ken MacLeod, Justina Robson, China Miéville, now M. John Harrison, and next year Charlie Stross in Gothenburg.