It's a bit worrisome that the Toronto worldcon website has seen fit to issue a disclaimer to the recent WHO warnings rather than acknowledging that a threat exists. I'm no expert, but if the World Health Organization says a place is at risk, I'm inclined to believe them. If the Worldcon were being held tomorrow, and those running it were committed to seeing it through, and all the program participants were still expected to show, I'd still want to go, although I might be less inclined to bring the family. Worldcons, being held in hermetically-sealed, freezing-cold windowless conference rooms, are spectacular in their ability to transmit germs. The fact that you typically sit for hour-plus stretches elbow to elbow with your fellow sf brethren, most of whom would rather be reading than taking a shower or washing their hands, only makes it worse. So to just brush off the warnings and expect people to blissfully go to a city where a health threat exists and submit themselves to those conditions is, in my opinion, shortsighted. How can they declare that Toronto is not only safe now but will be safe in August? Sounds reminiscent of the Iraqi Information Minister's assertions that there were no American tanks in Baghdad. The Worldcon is four months away, and these kind of infections supposedly spread exponentially, such that what may seem to be a handful of isolated cases today could be an epidemic by then. Science fiction fans are generally a paranoid, distrustful lot, so my prediction would be that unless this whole SARS thing blows over in the next couple of months or so it will significantly impact the attendance at the Worldcon. And if it's still seen as a legitimate threat by the WHO come late August, the whole thing may be in the crapper. I hope it doesn't happen, but I also hope the Worldcon committee is looking into Plan B, or at least acknowledging the fact that this could be the Worldcon that wasn't.



I went back and found my predictions for the Hugo nominees and it turns out I did pick "The Scar" as a shoo-in along with Swanwick, and was less certain about "Years of Rice and Salt" (since its not really science fiction, although that's my own prejudice and doesn't seem to have much bearing on nominees in general). Trying to order the Di Filippo story from PS Publishing, see how long that takes to come in, assuming they still have it. I'm less motivated these last couple of years than I was previously to seek out these books in hardcover if there's a strong possibility that I won't be able to read them before the voting deadline (I still haven't read "Blue Mars", for instance). "Years of Rice and Salt" doesn't come out in paperback for a while, and "The Scar" will only be in trade, but the others are all already in paperback, which is unusual. First I have to get through "Vanity Fair", which may take the rest of my life.