Demons and Dragons in Dublin
From Dracula to cinematic dragons, Dublin has a long and proud association with science fiction and fantasy. Octocon, the Irish National SF&F Convention, was held on 20–21 October 2018 in Blanchardstown Crowne Plaza Hotel, ahead of 2019’s WorldCon. Both conventions are run by fans, not commercial bodies. Those attending are likely to be computer professionals, readers, creative artists or authors. I was invited to sit on the Saturday panel which discusses how dragons make stories better.
Dragons first appeared in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. Previous myths told of gods and demigods, but Beowulf was just a man. He faced three challenges: a troll, a witch, and the first depiction of a fire-breathing dragon in literature. This was source material for Tolkien’s Smaug. Today’s literary / screen dragons are often partners with humans, helping to win their battles, as in Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series and George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones. SF&F films feature among the highest earning films annually. Data source: Screenrant.com
The dragon is also allegory: in Shrek, the dragon was an insurmountable challenge; when its humanity or femininity was appealed to, the dragon underwent a positive change. The dragon imparts a sense of intelligent menace; Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo would have come across differently if she’d had a chihuahua tattoo. Dragon evolution is fascinating discussion fodder, but these apex predators would crash the ecosystem, as depicted in 2002 film Reign Of Fire. Made in Wicklow starring Christian Bale, Izabella Scorupco and Matthew McConaughey, this used the Dublin docklands as a stand-in for ruined London.
Ireland’s heritage has no shortage of fantasy. Bram Stoker was a newspaper theatre reviewer and civil servant in Dublin before heading to London, where he became manager of the Garrick Theatre, then writing Dracula (1897). The vampire genre had first been penned by Irishman Sheridan LeFanu who created the female vampire Carmilla (1872).
Gulliver’s Travels 1725
Carmilla 1872
The Picture of Dorian Grey 1890
Dracula 1897
The King of Elfland’s Daughter 1929
The Turf-Cutter’s Donkey 1934
Hospital Station 1962
The High Deeds of Finn Mac Cool 1967
Orbitsville 1975
Gulliver’s Travels (1725) was a satire by Dean Jonathan Swift of St Patrick’s Cathedral. Lemuel Gulliver sailed to many lands including Lilliput, Brobdingnag, the flying island of Laputa and land of the speaking horses Houyhnhnms.
Classic SF novelists James White (Hospital Station) and Bob Shaw (Orbitsville) were born in Belfast during 1920s — 30s and found that their love for science fiction transcended all boundaries. James White was an Octocon regular until his death in 1999.
Many writers from overseas have settled in Ireland and contributed threads to its rich fabric; Anne McCaffrey, Morgan Llewellyn, Harry Harrison, Peter Morwood and Diane Duane all were or are regular Octocon guests. Katherine Kurtz wrote St Patrick’s Gargoyle about a senior gentleman who fights evil by assisting a gargoyle from St Patrick’s Cathedral.
Demon Hunter (2017) is a film written and produced by visionary Zoe Kavanagh. She used a Credit Union loan to bring Shotokan master Niamh Hogan to the screen as Taryn Barker, a young Dubliner who searches the city for the demon who killed her sister. Having been turned down for arts funding Kavanagh had to do much of the post-production work personally; this won her a host of awards including best director, best editing and best feature at international genre conventions.
Recent young adult novels include Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant series, devised as he worked on his parents’ North Dublin farm. The main character is an undead sorcerer who works as a detective.
Michael Carroll is a Dublin author of Judge Dredd comics and superhero novels, and is a former chair of the Irish Science Fiction Association. He regularly guests at Octocon and passes on writerly knowledge.
The fans bring books for autographing and their enthusiasm to Octocon each year. Panel topics range from medical robots and generational starships to LBGT characters of books and screen. The Golden Blasters Awards are an international short film contest for speculative fiction films. Both a panel of judges, and the audience who vote for their favourite, determine which film makers return home with the coveted Golden Blaster trophies. 2017’s winner Einstein-Rosen won the best of the previous winners in 2018. The fancy dress contest occurs along with the disco, and themes have included time travellers and revolutions.
Octocon is a place to network, getting valuable advice in panel discussions about agents, publishing, screenplays, comics creation, and writing realistic fight scenes. Recent Guest of Honour Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of Sir Terry Pratchett, started by reviewing games and won journalism awards, moving on to scripting for games such as Tomb Raider and Overlord. She has won the Writers Guild of America Award for Achievement in Videogame Writing. Her late father Terry was a Guest of Honour at an earlier Octocon, and his entire body of works has been gifted to Trinity College Library by literary agent Colin Smythe.
Dublin hosted Eurocon in 2014 with a large attendance from Eastern Europe; authors included Andrzej Sapkowski, creator of The Witcher which started as a book series in Polish, was translated, became a videogame series and is now being filmed.
The Hugo Awards voting and ceremony are attached to the annual Worldcon, which will be run by the Octocon team in 2019 in the Irish National Convention Centre. Many members travel around a number of Cons each year, and the Irish venue has attendance capped at 5,400.
Worldcon Guest of Honour will be Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the Northern Irish astrophysicist who discovered the first radio pulsars, for which her thesis supervisor won a Nobel Prize. She has been President of the Royal Astronomical Society and President of the Institute of Physics. Other guests include author Ginjer Buchanan, Diane Duane, who wrote for Scooby Doo and Star Trek as well as original novels, Hugo winner Ian McDonald, who has worked in Northern Ireland TV production, and game creator Steve Jackson.
Star Trek uniforms and steampunk costumes pepper the seats at Octocon, but mostly the camaraderie is expressed by pictorial t-shirts and ingenious accessories. If a panel discussion is interrupted by a mobile ringtone, it’s sure to sound like a dematerialising Tardis or the first bars of a Star Trek theme. To find accessories, one doesn’t have to look far: a member said his young nephew came to ask him for some lunch money. “Didn’t you get pocket money from your mum?” he asked. “Yes,” replied the lad, “but then I went in the dealer room.” Dragon figures and books are equally as popular as model starships and graphic novels featuring vampires or demons (even the ghost of Oscar Wilde). Local authors, artists and crafters stock tables with wares alongside major bookstores like Hodges Figgis. And next year, they will all be joining the thousands of fans coming to the Worldcon in Dublin.
