Brief WorldCon Report

[drcpunk]

mnemex and I have spent a week in Glasgow for WorldCon, an international science fiction convention. Here's the very abbreviated version. If there's interest, I can expand in a later entry, behind a cut tag.

mnemex and I managed to hook up with fellow A&Ers (A&E = Alarums and Excursions = a gaming apa), arranging 3 get togethers, although half of the first two were spent planning the next one.

I attended a lot of panels, including:

Return of the Queen: on the problem with making a work set in the Middle Ages have an anacronistic feminist character and how women's rights owe a great deal to technological advances

Gendered Genius: dovetailing nicely with the above, from more of an sf point of view, so I really hope the folks on both panels talked to each other at some point

Steel Blades and Silken Hair: about the portrayal of homoeroticism and homosexuality in fantasy and sf

The Language of Fantasy: dragged myself up at 8:30 am after staying up till 5 am, and it was worth it

Genre Killing Ideas: With a blurb quoting Charlie Stross describing the Vingean Singularity as the turd in the sf writers' punchbowl, I couldn't resist. Four fascinating authors talking about science, how sf writers often fail heinously to keep up with current developments, and what developments and ideas make certain types of stories hard to write

Waiting for the Fantastic: dovetailing nicely with the Language of Fantasy, as the discussion was about works where nothing fantastic necessarily happens, but ever word of the works in question label them firmly as fantasy. Tiny room, not enough space for everyone, which really ticked off John Clute, who did not like that a) people who wanted to get in couldn't and b) people who got in had to stand. Then, Ed Meskys had to get into the room, which was handled with as much ease as possible, considering the combination of his blindness and the crowd.

Heart of Empire: Brian Talbot's presentation on his graphic novel of the same name. I so underappreciated both of his Luther Arkwright novels because he makes it look so easy. Explanations of how he used the golden rectangle and how he played with the way his protagonist is perceived by choosing when to draw her so it feels like the reader is looking up and when he stops doing that, when he draws her with smaller pupils and when with bigger ones. IIRC, he said that people tend to think that people with larger pupils are friendlier and more attractive.

I took a lot of notes.

mnemex and I also attended a reading of excerpts from Ellen Kushner's latest novel, due out next year. This is the book set between Swordspoint and The Fall of the Kings, and will be called The Privilege of the Sword.

I played in a game run by Marcus Rowland, set in the world of Diana Warrior Princess. Alas, that's when the lack of sleep wapped me hard. Fortunately, mnemex stepped in to pinch hit for me, taking over my PC.

There was much filking and chatting, and I got a couple of requests for words to one of Morgan Wolfsinger's songs. I need to find out if her tapes and song books are still in print.

We discovered Mother India Cafe, a really good tappas place. The A&E dinner on Sunday was at a Kurdish restaurant, really nice. It's harder to find haggis than it was ten years ago. I hear, though, that George R. R. Martin set a challenge to fen to find him deep fried haggis at 2 am, and they did.

Parties, including the Evil Geniuses party, the Noreascon 4 Thank You party, and the Xerpes in 2010 party, as well as Brotherhood without Banners, run by fans of George R. R. Martin's series, Songs of Fire and Ice. I like a lot of Martin's fiction, particularly The Armaggedon Rag and Fevre Dream, but I couldn't get into this series. But, the party had mead, and that's good enough for me.

After the convention, mnemex and I went with telynor, her husband, and her son, to their place in London. We took their advice and did one thing on the full day we had, visiting the British Museum. Well, we also walked down Charing Cross Road, but the bookstores weren't as enthralling as I remembered from, um, 15-20 years ago. Part of it is probably that I've tracked down a lot of what I was looking for in used fiction, but part is probably economics and internet sales.

Next was Mythcon / Tolkien 2005, which I may do a short post on later. Lots of papers, lots of dramatic presentations, including a delightfully hilarious 45 minute condensed Silmarillion.

Susanna Clarke's Strange and Norrell won both the Hugo and the Adult Mythopoeic Fiction award. Terry Pratchett's Hatful of Sky took the Children's Mythopoeic Fiction award.

Comments

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Ellen Kushner's latest novel, due out next year. This is the book set between Swordspoint and The Fall of the Kings, and will be called The Privilege of the Sword.

Well, you scooped me - I was about to announce this on my LJ Blog, but now . . . well, I will anyway!

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

My apologies! I figured that, since you announced it at the reading, it was okay to spread the news.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

No apologies needed! It was perfectly OK; I was just - gosh, there's no word for this in English; the French say "plaisanter" - making pleasantries? (Life is hard sometimes for a person who refuses to use emoticons!)

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I sympathize -- I won't use emoticons either.