The latest in the series of Unicons, voted for at Unicon 17 (Wincon
V) in August 1999 and to be held at Exeter College,
Oxford, UK over the weekend 18-20 August 2000. An examination of children's
fantasy writing will be part of the convention, but with the number of
computer boffins on the committee don't be at all surprised to find anything
from hard science to comics as part of the programme.
Our guest of honour is Philip Pullman. An award-winning children's author , he has recently won over SF readers with Northern Lights (US title: The Golden Compass) and The Subtle Knife, the first two books in the stunning His Dark Materials trilogy about a fantastic parallel world where everyone has a shape-changing daemon and Oxford scholars are researching anbaric energy; the eagerly-awaited third volume is now due on 10 November 2000 so this is your chance for a preview. Read more about Philip Pullman and his work at the Random House site or enjoy this excellent interview with him
When should I arrive?
On Friday night we have the opening ceremony at 7pm, a panel on fantasy and a
drinks reception to celebrate the launch of Juliet E McKenna's latest book.
Panels start at 10.30am on Saturday and the closing ceremony is on Sunday at
5pm. Philip Pullman will join us on Saturday for an interview and book signing
and on Sunday for a reading from The Amber Spyglass.
Where
is it?
If you don't have a copy of PR2 with the maps and directions, you can download
a PDF file here (approx 600K) or get directions and information about Exeter
College here. If you've reserved a parking space, please
park in Turl Street with your lights flashing while you book in at the lodge,
drop off your luggage in your room and collect your parking permit, then move
your car to the St Cross car park. If you are a dealer or you're delivering to
the college, make sure you've given us your arrival time and go to the Wicket
Gate in Broad Street and press the buzzer for the Porter in the lodge to open
the gate.
Join us now!
If you've not joined Lexicon yet, you still can: please email marypcb@aol.com
with the details from the membership form and bring
your cheque to the convention. Day memberships available on the door for £18.
Accommodation
If you're looking for accommodation in Oxford, this is a
list of hotels and B&Bs in Oxford.
We need your help!
Recently, there hasn’t been as much support for Unicons
from students as in previous years; we want to make sure that the Unicons
continue for another generation of students, so we want Lexicon to be a
success: and to do that we need your help. Do you have ideas for a programme
item? Would you like to moderate a panel? Can you take a few hours over
the weekend to help us with registration, working in ops or as a gopher?
It’s a good way to meet people and get involved – and it’s fun too. Please
volunteer!
Angels and Oxford quiz
To promote Lexicon we ran a quiz at 2Kon, the 2000 Eastercon in Glasgow. If
you missed the con or wanted to check the answers, here
they are!
Lexicon: it's about books...
Our bijou committee, primarily consisting of Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe (chair, publications, programme etc.), Chris O'Shea (membership, treasury, Web pages, barge toting, bale lifting and all the other work ... <grin>), has many years of convention running experience (too much experience to have been suckered into doing it again ... or so we thought!).
Lexicon, 18 Letchworth Avenue,
Bedfont, Middlesex, TW14 9RY
email:
unicon2000@smof.com