Festive Fun: My Fantasy Christmas Dinner Party by Jordan Bell

Tonight it's time for the next Fantasy Christmas Dinner Party which is hosted by author Jordan Bell which she has described as Dinner in Space... enjoy.

Staring at my bookcase as I sought inspiration for my dinner party, I couldn’t help but notice the long line of Iain M. Banks novels taking up the top shelf. I began to imagine dinner onboard a gigantic Culture General Systems Vehicle, perhaps The Anticipation of a New Lover’s Arrival, or Congenital Optimist. I’d ask the Ship Mind to generate a bubble of atmosphere on the outer hull and we’d dine al fresco beneath the stars, travelling through space at a ferocious clip. 

The guests: Jernau Gurgeh, the skilled player of games; Diziet Sma, Special Circumstances agent, and her companion Drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw; Lady Sharrow of Golter; and Banks himself, reincarnated after death for a visit to the universe he dreamed up over four decades. 

He spends the first part of the meal gazing around at the world he has found himself in, but recovers his composure after the second course and starts a lively dinner-table conversation with his characters. Gurgeh, recently returned from Azad, is disconcerted by the lack of human servants, as drones manipulating force-fields bring the molecularly-engineered foods to our table. Skaffen-Amtiskaw, of course, doesn’t eat, but spends the meal making sarcastic asides about biological organisms and juggling cocktail spheres with his fields. Sma eats sensuously, wringing every drop of pleasure out of the meal by judiciously stimulating her drug glands, and checks with the Ship to see whether any of her past lovers might be aboard for a post-prandial dalliance. Sharrow talks to Sma, mostly, ignoring Gurgeh and laughing quietly at Banks’ jokes. 

After dinner, Gurgeh tries to convince everyone to play Prallian Scope but Sma begs off, saying that Gurgeh’s skill simply means he will have memorised all 372 perfect endings and thus no-one else can beat him.  The diners peel off one by one, until Banks is left alone at the empty table, staring out at the stars and marvelling at the chance to experience this night. 

Jordan Bell is a psychologist and educator, with a passion for science communication. She has a PhD in Educational Resilience, and is a nerdy parent who loves reading to her daughter. When she couldn’t find enough children’s fiction with a strong STEM message to help her daughter learn about the world, she wrote Aunt Jodie’s Guide to Evolution, available at www.gumtree.com/jordanbell.