George R.R. Martin reflects on Glasgow Worldcon and his Howard Waldrop short films

It's been an exciting week in Westeros! On Monday, HBO announced that the third season of its Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon had officially begun production. To go along with it, the studio announced two new cast members for the series, and showrunner Ryan Condal sat down for an interview with Entertainment Weekly where he dished on everything from Aegon II Targaryen's future, to the Battle of the Gullet, to the importance of Otto Hightower's newphew Ormund Hightower and more. He also addressed George R.R. Martin's critical blog post from last year, where the Song of Ice and Fire author laid out some of his issues with the show and HBO responded with a flurry of damage control.

Martin himself hasn't weighed in on any of the new House of the Dragon announcements. Instead, he took to his blog this week to discuss another of his adventures from 2024, when he spent part of the summer traveling around Europe, doing speaking events and visiting the set of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. This time, he homed in on his time at Worldcon in Glasgow, Scotland. If you're not familiar with Worldcon — the World Science Fiction Convention — it takes place in a different city each year and is dedicated to celebrating all things fantasy and science fiction. This Hugo Awards, one of the most prestigious awards in genre fiction, are also a part of Worldcon. Martin has a long history with the convention, and after missing the last few, it was important to him to make it out to this one.

"The last scheduled stop on our European travels was Glasgow, and the World Science Fiction Convention. This was the third Glasgow  worldcon. Parris and I attended the other two, the first in 1995 and the second in 2005, and we have fond memories of both, so I was determined to make this one too. I am glad we did," Martin writes. "For me, worldcon was a family reunion, a gathering of friends new and old. That was what drew me back, year after year after year. Glasgow reminded of that."

Martin wasn't on any of the programming at Glasgow Worldcon, but he still had a great time, seeing old friends, attending dinners and spending time at the bar. He also held a small screening for three short films he produced, based on the works of his longtime friend and fellow genre fiction writer Howard Waldrop.

"Regular readers of this blog will know that for the past couple of years I have been producing a series of short films based on the works of Howard Waldrop, my oldest and dearest friend in fandom, and one of the greatest (and most original) short story writers in the history of the field. We had five films in various stages of production (and a sixth, not based on a Waldrop story, just underway), and were able to wrap up three of them before worldcon: NIGHT OF THE COOTERS (d. Vincent d’Onofrio), MARY MARGARET ROAD-GRADER (d. Steven Paul Judd), and THE UGLY CHICKENS (d. Mark Raso.) We’ve had them out on the festival circuit, but I brought them to Glasgow as well, thinking I might be able to screen them at the con. That’s more complicated than it sounds, for various reasons, and I was never able to get anyone to return my phone calls to see what could be worked out, alas. Fortunately, the hotel where we were staying had a small screening room in the basement, so at least I was able to invite a couple dozen friends over for a semi-private show."

As it happens, I was in attendance at the semi-private screening Martin mentioned, and enjoyed the short films quite a lot. "I am pleased to say the shorts seemed to be well received," he writes, sharing a link to my review from that event (!). If you want to learn more about the short films, how they were produced and Martin's plans for them, you can read my impressions of them here.

"Howard liked them too," Martin added. "We were able to screen the final cut of MARY MARGARET for him just six days before he died last January. I am so happy he was able to see it."

The Alfie Awards of 2024

Another highlight of Martin's Worldcon is that he hosted the Alfie Awards. If you've never heard of them, don't worry; they're something of an inside joke that has developed over the years. "The Alfies are named in honor of Alfred Bester, one of the giants of the field, the author of THE DEMOLISHED MAN, 'Fondly Fahrenheit,' THE STARS MY DESTINATION, and a long list of other great stories," Martin writes. "Bester was the winner of the first Hugo Award for Best Novel (for THE DEMOLISHED MAN, at the 1953 worldcon in Philadelphia). He turned up at the very first Hugo Losers Party as well, in 1976 at Big Mac in Kansas City, and insisted he still counted as a loser since that first Hugo trophy was a made from an Oldsmobile hood ornament, and had rusted and corroded over the years. We all laughed, and let him in."

The Alfie Awards originated in 2015, at the Worldcon in Spokane. That's the same year as the Sad and Rabid Puppy scandals, where groups of jaded conservative authors and publishing people tried to manipulate the Hugo ballots by pushing slate voting. Its a far more complicated scandal than we've time to get into here, but as Martin says in the blog, there's plenty of information about it out there. As a result of both the Sad and Rabid Puppy agendas and some of the measures taken to push back against it, like voting "No Award," there were people who would have been nominated in a normal year who were left off the ballot. This in turn caused Martin to make the Alfie Awards as a way to still honor those who would have been nominated under normal circumstances.

The Alfies were on ice the past few years, but after the scandal at Chengu Worldcon in 2023 where several nominees were preemptively censored from the ballot out of fear their work might upset the Chinese government (often erroneously), Martin decided it was the perfect time to honor the affected creatives with Alfies at Glasgow. That included the excellent episode "The Sound of Her Wings" from The Sandman television show, which was disqualified for the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form Hugo; Paul Weimer, who was ruled out for the Best Fan Writer Hugo for the outrageous reason that the Hugo board thought he had visited Tibet (Weimer has never been to Tibet; he visited Nepal); Xiran Jay Zhao for the Astounding Award for New Writer; and R.F. Kuang, whose novel Babel was disqualified for the Best Novel Hugo.

All four of them had enough votes to make the ballot, making their exclusion extremely suspect, not to mention unfair. "Fortunately, I still had a garage full of old hood ornaments. And our hotel had a room that just the right size for a small, invitation-only celebration to honor those who were wrongfully denied their chance to contend for a Hugo rocket," Martin writes. "Will there be more Alfies in the years to come? Only time will tell. But Glasgow was fun. And I hope to see you all again this year, in Seattle."

Fortunately, the Hugo Awards at Glasgow went off without a hitch, so it isn't likely Martin will need to bust out more Alfie Awards this year, when Worldcon comes to Seattle, Washington. How the current disruptions to the United States tourism industry will affect that event, however, only time will tell.

Want to learn more about George R.R. Martin's history with Worldcon?

If you enjoy hearing Martin talk about Worldcon, we have one more treat for you. During his stay at the convention, I was lucky enough to get to interview Martin about his history with the event and with fandom in general, as well as a number of other topics. You can read that full conversation right here:

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