171: No, We Don’t Want Free Jam

John is at Fantasycon, Alison is wrong, and Liz is right.

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 Bluesky or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: None

• Letters of comment
  • Chris Garcia (email)
  • Paul Weimer (email)
  • Renay! (email)
  • Roseanna Pendlebury (Bluesky)
  • Scott Edelman (email)
  • Simon Bubb (email)
    • Dismaland & Banksy
  • We also heard from Heather Rose Jones, Kevin Anderson, Lilian Edwards, Lori Anderson, Shi Lala, and Tero Ykspetäjä.
• Fantasycon 2026: Glasgow, UK
  • British Fantasy Award winners 2026
• Worldcon 2027: Montréal, Canada
  • The WSFS Business Meeting will be virtual
  • Cory Doctorow and Linda Addison have been added as Toastmaster and Guest of Honour respectively
  • Code of Conduct and Policies
• SFFCONZ statement on CoNZealand 2
  • Their website has gone dark but the Wayback Machine sees all
• Malcolm Edwards has died
  • Malcolm Edwards on Fancyclopedia
  • We know there was only one Malcolm Edwards, but there wasn’t a good edit point to take the mistake out!
• Picks
  • John: Hope
  • Alison: Into the Woods
  • Liz: Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
• Credits
  • Cover art: “Cross Stitch” by Roseanna Pendlebury
    • Alt text: Beautifully cross-stitched depictions of John, Alison and Liz with black, pink and purple Octothorpe T-shirts on. They have a speech bubble above them reading “Octothorpe #171”.
  • Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)