Last Thursday evening I attended the launch of the Out of this World science fiction exhibition at the British Library. I’ve blogged about the exhibition for work.
The launch night was fun in a peculiarly geeky way as I got to play spot the author/critic/BNF. Some people (Kim Newman to give the obvious example) are easy to spot but far too many fall into the general category of middle aged men with greying beards. In fact I could easily have been looking at the crowd at Salute or @media instead.
At the same time that I was listening to China Miéville give a speech to open the show, Lettice was at a different exhibition launch with Cilla Black and Ringo Star. There’s probably something profound in that contrast but I’m really not sure what.
Does the exhibition look like its worth a visit? I’m really tempted to take a trip down after seeing two excellent exhibition at the British Library last year.
It’s been put together with the BL’s normal high standards, but at the end of the day it boils down to a room full of (fascinating and well chosen) books. It also doesn’t fill the space quite as much as the other exhibitions I’ve been to there.
Worth going to? Yes. Worth a trip down from Liverpool just to see it? Not sure.
Thanks – I’ll probably try and combine it with visits to some other exhibitions if I decide to see it rather than making a special trip.