POT KETTLE
© Joseph Campbell on Unsplash
So ironic you couldn’t make it up, a petition was launched in December calling on the Board of WorldCon (World Science Fiction Convention) to ‘rescind the status of guest of honour from Sergei Lukyanenko’ due to his support of Russia’s war on Ukraine, writes Gary Dalkin. Lukyanenko is best known in the west for his urban fantasy ‘Watch’ series, including Night Watch and Day Watch, both of which were turned into successful films. The irony is that the 2023 WorldCon is being held in August in Chengdu, China, a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world, as a consequence of which many authors and fans have decided to boycott the entire event. At the time of writing the petition, hosted on AVAAZ.org, had received 1,212 signatures.