After two very long days at Supanova, talking about my novel to readers, I left Sydney at 7pm Sunday, looking forward to collapsing into my own bed back in Canberra later that night. Instead, I found myself pitching my book to two cops from the back of their cruiser at 2am.
But let’s begin at the beginning.
Supanova is Australia’s premier pop culture convention, and, improbably, I was an invited guest. Huge crowds emerge from the rabbit-hole of fandom to oversaturate themselves with cosplay, panels, celebrities, light sabre schools, and tables selling art, graphic novels, the universe, and everything. If it’s geek, it’s probably there.
As a long-time nerd, it certainly seemed like my kinda thing. And yet, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take part. I had a stall for my books and was expected to sign them (great), but the selling part did not appeal. I did my time in retail, a long time ago, and I had no real desire to go back to the hard sale.
I was pleasantly mistaken. It wasn’t about venal self-promotion. It was about talking to engaged readers, sharing laughs with fellow writers, and occasionally looking up from my stall to watch the wild, the way out, and wicked cosplayers on parade.
One very elderly gentleman dressed up in a female Star Trek TOS uniform (that is, a length deemed appropriate for a futuristic uniform in the 60s, and dramatically inappropriate for the actual future, today) came over on day one and chatted with me. Clearly, he was having a ball. On day two he was a very credible Monkey, from Monkey Magic, and anyone who knows that outrageous Japanese TV show from the 80s, knows this old guy cosplays like a boss.
I had the impression, for a lot of attendees, that this is the one day of the year they really let loose. They can be utterly themselves, dress however they want, and strut their stuff in a space where everyone is accepting, and where eccentricity is welcome. So, yeah, I liked that.
I didn’t really know the headlining stars for Supanova – the Weasley Twins from Harry Potter. But my sons, who were singularly uninterested when I told them I was going, changed their tune
when I told them about the Twins. “THE WEASLEY TWINS,” they shouted, now looking over at their father with new eyes, impressed.
I did, however, damn well know Michael Biehn, the star of two of the best action science fiction films of the 1980s: Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986). So it was cool when, in the green room before the first day started, Michael sauntered over and joined a group of writers. We’d been talking about He-Man and explained this to Michael, to include him in the conversation. He said didn’t know He-Man, as he didn’t know much about TV shows today. When it was pointed out that He-Man was big in the 80s, he shrugged. “Never heard of him.” I resisted the urge to yell, “I’ll be your huckleberry!” at him, and instead we politely changed the subject to time travel, which Sergeant Kyle Reese was only too happy to oblige. I mean, seriously, he seemed relieved to switch from He-Man to a subject he knew well.
In sum, Supanova was a blast, but also exhausting. I’m a habitual insomniac, and so don’t do great in an unfamiliar bed. I’m a night owl, who had to get up early to shuttle in to the con. I’m also a writer, used to the claustrophobic merry-go-round of my own brain, not the assault of sight and sound and human proximity that is the megacon (as you’d imagine, these trends were only accentuated by the pandemic). I was so tired before my panel on the Sunday, that when the moderator said she was going to ask us to introduce ourselves, I had to look in the back of my book to remind myself of my bio.
Sufficient to say that by the end of the day I was shattered, and looking forward to getting home and getting some sleep. Little did I know…
The bus was delayed an hour, stuck on the same spot as we tried to exit Sydney, reminding me of why I rarely visit the city. My main problem with Sydney is this: it’s a hole. A secondary problem: the traffic’s fucking terrible. I also soon discovered the overhead lights are turned off on buses these days. That is, the individual overhead reading lights have all been disconnected. Perhaps they do this so as not to disturb sleeping passengers.
Instead, the contemporary way to disturb sleeping passengers is for every motherfucker to get on their iPhones – sometimes without headphones, sometimes with sound turned loud enough
overpower headphones – and play them simultaneously. I had a minor dystopian moment as at least a dozen nearby phones lit up in the darkness, playing music behind memes and YouTube and TikTok and somebody shoot me, shoot me now. Unable to read a book, only allowed to be blasted by algorithms of electric shadows, in the darkness.
I arrived back in Canberra past 11pm, frazzled. I ordered a taxi close to the city. It didn’t show up. I ordered a second, asking how long. “Not long mate, not long: there’s plenty of taxis around.”
Thirty minutes later, it hadn’t showed, either, so walked across the CBD, past all the main taxi ranks, all empty. The local taxi industry has been crippled by Uber, yes, but also by their own blistering incompetence. I called my wife, who had long since gone to bed. Her phone was off.
For various reasons, mainly involving the lack of a living wage for the driver, and the ongoing disintegration of full-time work into gig labour, I don’t use Uber as a matter of principle. But it was below freezing, around midnight, and I was buggered: so fuck my principles. I downloaded the Uber app.
And it didn’t work. Why? I don’t know. Bad signal, whatever, I’m not sure, I was too exhausted at that point to figure it out. Then my phone died. My options at that point were limited: find a hotel, or walk home. Too agitated for the former, I chose the latter.
As I made my way out of the CBD, I checked one lost stop. The casino. If there was a cabbie left in the city, looking for a late-night customer on Canberra Sunday, it would be at the cas. And I was right: there it was, the white shining prize. A cab in the rank. I ran to it, heart pounding, wheeled suitcase rattling on the gravel. I was going home.
Empty. The driver was, I suspected, in the aforementioned casino, working his roulette system. So I was standing there on the sidewalk, staring bleary-eyed into the empty cab, when an Uber driver stopped and wound down his window. He asked if I wanted a ride.
I told him my phone wasn’t working. He said he’d take me where I wanted to go for cash (the trip usually costs thirty).
Me: “Oh, great. How much?”
Uber driver: “One hundred.”
Me: “One hundred?”
Uber: “One hundred.”
Me: “What?!”
Uber: “One-fifty.”
Me: “Wha- Fuck you!”
Uber: *drives away*
So I walked. Well, I told myself, I didn’t get much exercise at Supanova. Let’s enjoy this freezing, interminable, 2.5 hour fucking walk toting a suitcase full of fucking books. Great. Fantastic.
The night was long and cold, my friends. At some point I rued my decision not to pay that dickhead a hundred bucks. Many kilometres later, in the long darkling cold of a Canberra night, approaching the witching hour, I was still walking when a police car stopped beside me. I thought: Oh fer fuck’s sake.
Officer: “Everything okay sir?”
Me: *vomits out an incoherent explanation…* At the end of the word vomit, I said: “But look if you’re going that way, you’re welcome to give me a lift.”
I was joking. They police aren’t a taxi service (nor, for that matter, are Canberra Taxis, apparently). But I was trying for a dash of levity in an otherwise cold and miserable night. The officer fixed me with a cold hard stare, which seemed to me to go on a little too long. “No worries, hop in.”
Stunned, I hopped in.
They asked me where I’d been, and I said Supanova, fully expecting neither to have heard of it, and me to have to formulate some simplistic explanation. “It’s the Australian nerd mecca,” or some such. Instead, they were both: “Supanova – yeah yeah, we know that.”
“Oh, well, I was a guest.”
I mean, I figured they were impressed, but they both had their police faces on, not giving me much in the way of a reaction. I asked them if they read much science fiction or fantasy.
Officer B(rett): “Yeah, a bit.”
Officer A(ngel): *proceeds to list off a huge range of fantasy novels, both well-known and obscure. In fact, clearly he’d read way more fantasy than I had.*
Me: “Oh, cool.”
Officer B: “So what’s your book about?”
Me: “Um, gangsters, martial arts, um cyberpunk in Vietnam, like trauma and stuff, cool tech, ah conspiracies or something, and a murder investigation.”
“Oh,” said Officer B, unimpressed. As he should’ve been. I’d perfected my pitch over two days at Supanova, and here I’d forgotten it, mumbling incoherencies instead.
So my pitch sunk, but still, I’d gotten lucky. The officers were finishing their shift, and were on their way back to the station when they picked me up. My place was kinda on the way. As we approached my house, I offered them both signed copies of the novel, as thanks. They, of course could not accept them.
I wished them good night. Relieved, finally, to be falling into my own bed.
But that’s not the end of the story.
Three days later, someone followed me on social media, posting a picture of my novel. The caption said: “Just arrived. Recommended by the author.” Weird caption. I don’t walk around recommending my books, as such.
Then it hit me. The name of the poster was Brett. The same name as the officer who picked me up. My police cruiser pitch worked.
Let me end by saying: cheers. To the cosplayers at Supanova, the writers I met, the readers I spoke to, to Johnny Ringo, and to the two fellow geeks returning to the Woden police station after their shift.
