Readercon 17: Saturday
2006-07-22 23:28![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ckdHey, "only" two weeks after the convention, I have finally finished the con report.
The change to Saturday morning traffic instead of Friday afternoon traffic meant arriving in plenty of time for the 1000 start of programming without any problems.
1000: David G. Hartwell/Kathryn Cramer (kaffeeklatsch)
Of the several wonderful choices in that time slot, I chose the Hartwell/Cramer kaffeeklatsch on two grounds: first, that it sounded like the best wake-me-up option for the morning; second, that it was the one least likely for anyone else to post a con report from.
This was an interesting discussion. A large part of it was about the process of doing the Year's Best SF anthologies and the tradeoffs involved as the choice of stories to include is affected by their length, balance between different authors, and similar issues. The Nature short stories were mentioned in particular, since their limited length means that they're more likely to be able to be fit into YBSF where a longer story might be harder to squeeze in.
The Hard SF Renaissance and the recently (since Readercon!) released The Space Opera Renaissance [which I have just picked up from the library] were also discussed; the latter was apparently split off from the former due to length limitations there, though it took a few years before being completed and making it to shelves.
1100: Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden (kaffeeklatsch)
This wound up adding Karl Schroeder, who had the ill fortune to be up against what was possibly the most popular kaffeeklatsch of the con; nobody signed up for his. The two tables were pushed together, and the additional space was used to add more folks to the Nielsen Haydens' kaffeeklatsch.
As might be expected, this was very much like Making Light around a table, and moved far too quickly for even an attempt at taking notes. A few points of interest, though, did strike me as notable enough to jot down.
During a discussion of reading protocols and expectations (echoing the previous night's Readercon 101 panel), I was struck by the parallels between SF reading protocols and the way certain types of systems documentation are intended to be read. UNIX "man page" documentation is written in a particular style, and it's expected that the reader is able to recognize the implications of what is (and isn't!) included in the page to make the best use of the program.
Quotable: Ernest Lilley calling J.K. Rowling the "master of just-in-time exposition"; Patrick Nielsen Hayden likening over-workshopping a story to "literary freezer burn".
1200: lunch and bookshop browsing
The $5 pre-packed buy-in-lobby sandwiches weren't bad, actually. I'd thought of making a mall food court run, but didn't bother.
1300: Architecture, Science Fiction and Beyond: Building a Grammar for Reality
The description in the program guide didn't really help me understand what this was going to be about, but I figured that it was worth a shot and I could always sneak out if my brain started leaking out my ears.
I'm so very glad I went to this.
The talk, and Cramer's odd journey through the past year, started with an attempt to teach math to young kids using Mathematica as a tool. This led her to read up on architectural metaphor and the classical art of memory (the good old "memory palace" trick) as a way of better understanding how the brain does math and connects ideas.
Then Hurricane Katrina hit. She realized that the news media weren't putting the pieces together to give a full picture of what was going on with the levees. She therefore started putting together the pieces using various tools (including Google Earth), with help from a bunch of folks around the net (using her blog as a force multiplier/coordination point). She eventually got a set of instructions written, since a million people wanted the info and having a small group give it out wouldn't scale.
Instructions written and posted, she figured that it was "problem solved" and headed off to vacation in an area with no cell service. She checked her email...six press queries, from organizations like the New York Times and Forbes. The Times article led to more queries. The Forbes article got the attention of someone in the White House, who contacted the Google Earth folks and said "we have 2000 new NOAA photos; how quickly can you process them?"
This led to her being invited to the Wolfram technical conference, where she met Theodore Gray and Stephen Wolfram. They discussed ways to use Mathematica as a tool for disaster visualization, and said "we'll have to do this for the next disaster".
While she was still at the conference, the Pakistan earthquake hit.
She told Stephen Wolfram: "Pakistan has had a stroke. Time is brain." His response: "come with me." They took advantage of the many very smart people at the conference to start getting things together. The challenges were often greater than the ones she'd hit with Katrina, particularly bad data (differing information on the latitude and longitude of Islamabad) and missing data (there was a UN ban on good satellite images of the area due to the India/Pakistan disputes over Kashmir, which was lifted after the quake).
The results of this effort led to a commentary for Nature, which asked for a high-resolution graphic to accompany it...and wound up using it for the cover.
Cramer's talk ended with some discussion of other aspects of her blogging about private military companies, her use of her weblog as a "sensory organ" to gather information, and a return to the original topic of mathematics in young children. (The example of trading Pokemon cards and creating a measure of relative value that nicely matches their price on eBay or similar venues was given.)
1400: another bookshop visit, random socialization
I had a chance to chat with a number of folks, including Michael and Nomi Burstein, Elizabeth Bear, Deb Geisler, Geri Sullivan, and many more who I am not intentionally slighting by failing to remember them in this report. (Sorry.) During my perambulations, I was also asked by a Boston Globe reporter about the convention, why I had come, and so forth. The article ran on July 13. I got sort-of quoted. (As I suspected from the questions the reporter was asking, the lead was pretty much "wow, they're not all dressed like Captain Kirk!" Sigh.)
At this point I still hadn't bought many books; I'd put a few dollars on some used paperbacks from one of the $1/book tables, but nothing more. Of course, this would not last, since books are my DOOOOOOOOM.
1500: Baseball and the Fantastic
This started off with the panelists giving their suggestions for a canon of baseball-themed fantastic literature, including Malamud's The Natural ("magic realism") and Kinsella's Shoeless Joe, as well as Michael Bishop's Brittle Innings.
The discussion then turned to other topics, including the comparison of Stratomatic to RPGs (game scenarios, dice...) and the role of baseball as an anchor for American myth. (Without the historical myths of other cultures, we had to come up with something....)
1600+: book shopping
This is when the danger zone hit. Most of my book buying was done Saturday afternoon.
Among my finds was Blue State Blues, which I wouldn't have expected to find at a science fiction convention...but the Wesleyan University Press folks had brought some copies in case any of the Cambridge/Somerville folks there might be interested. Since I live in the district Slavitt ran in and remembered his campaign, I figured it was worth a look and the random page test impressed me enough with his writing voice that I was thinking about buying it; since they weren't staying for Sunday I was offered a "I don't want to pack it up and haul it back" price, which I took.
Other book haulage included a few more $1 used books; Charles Stross's short story collection Toast; Future Washington (signed by the editor, Ernest Lilley); the Ace Double that contained DeVet & MacLean's Cosmic Checkmate (since I liked the novelette "Second Game") [and Rich Horton's review makes me think that this is the version I want]; Bill Fawcett's How to Lose a Battle; and a signed copy of Elizabeth Bear's The Chains That You Refuse.
After the book shoppage, more hanging around and chatting, then I wound up as part of a group headed to the Thai restaurant Lemon Tree. (Since I had a reasonably-sized rental car, I could take some more folks along....) A good dinner and much good conversation later, we returned to the Marriott for:
2000: The 20th Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition
My notes on this all wound up in the clammy embrace of the Hell-Thing. There was a silent explosion of crimson light.
After that, more hanging about in the bar, visiting the various parties (the Montréal WorldCon bid is looking pretty good to me), an amusing debate on watch-wearing between Ernest Lilley and Bob Devney, and finally watching part of a game of Mafia before heading home.
The change to Saturday morning traffic instead of Friday afternoon traffic meant arriving in plenty of time for the 1000 start of programming without any problems.
1000: David G. Hartwell/Kathryn Cramer (kaffeeklatsch)
Of the several wonderful choices in that time slot, I chose the Hartwell/Cramer kaffeeklatsch on two grounds: first, that it sounded like the best wake-me-up option for the morning; second, that it was the one least likely for anyone else to post a con report from.
This was an interesting discussion. A large part of it was about the process of doing the Year's Best SF anthologies and the tradeoffs involved as the choice of stories to include is affected by their length, balance between different authors, and similar issues. The Nature short stories were mentioned in particular, since their limited length means that they're more likely to be able to be fit into YBSF where a longer story might be harder to squeeze in.
The Hard SF Renaissance and the recently (since Readercon!) released The Space Opera Renaissance [which I have just picked up from the library] were also discussed; the latter was apparently split off from the former due to length limitations there, though it took a few years before being completed and making it to shelves.
1100: Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden (kaffeeklatsch)
This wound up adding Karl Schroeder, who had the ill fortune to be up against what was possibly the most popular kaffeeklatsch of the con; nobody signed up for his. The two tables were pushed together, and the additional space was used to add more folks to the Nielsen Haydens' kaffeeklatsch.
As might be expected, this was very much like Making Light around a table, and moved far too quickly for even an attempt at taking notes. A few points of interest, though, did strike me as notable enough to jot down.
During a discussion of reading protocols and expectations (echoing the previous night's Readercon 101 panel), I was struck by the parallels between SF reading protocols and the way certain types of systems documentation are intended to be read. UNIX "man page" documentation is written in a particular style, and it's expected that the reader is able to recognize the implications of what is (and isn't!) included in the page to make the best use of the program.
Quotable: Ernest Lilley calling J.K. Rowling the "master of just-in-time exposition"; Patrick Nielsen Hayden likening over-workshopping a story to "literary freezer burn".
1200: lunch and bookshop browsing
The $5 pre-packed buy-in-lobby sandwiches weren't bad, actually. I'd thought of making a mall food court run, but didn't bother.
1300: Architecture, Science Fiction and Beyond: Building a Grammar for Reality
The description in the program guide didn't really help me understand what this was going to be about, but I figured that it was worth a shot and I could always sneak out if my brain started leaking out my ears.
I'm so very glad I went to this.
The talk, and Cramer's odd journey through the past year, started with an attempt to teach math to young kids using Mathematica as a tool. This led her to read up on architectural metaphor and the classical art of memory (the good old "memory palace" trick) as a way of better understanding how the brain does math and connects ideas.
Then Hurricane Katrina hit. She realized that the news media weren't putting the pieces together to give a full picture of what was going on with the levees. She therefore started putting together the pieces using various tools (including Google Earth), with help from a bunch of folks around the net (using her blog as a force multiplier/coordination point). She eventually got a set of instructions written, since a million people wanted the info and having a small group give it out wouldn't scale.
Instructions written and posted, she figured that it was "problem solved" and headed off to vacation in an area with no cell service. She checked her email...six press queries, from organizations like the New York Times and Forbes. The Times article led to more queries. The Forbes article got the attention of someone in the White House, who contacted the Google Earth folks and said "we have 2000 new NOAA photos; how quickly can you process them?"
This led to her being invited to the Wolfram technical conference, where she met Theodore Gray and Stephen Wolfram. They discussed ways to use Mathematica as a tool for disaster visualization, and said "we'll have to do this for the next disaster".
While she was still at the conference, the Pakistan earthquake hit.
She told Stephen Wolfram: "Pakistan has had a stroke. Time is brain." His response: "come with me." They took advantage of the many very smart people at the conference to start getting things together. The challenges were often greater than the ones she'd hit with Katrina, particularly bad data (differing information on the latitude and longitude of Islamabad) and missing data (there was a UN ban on good satellite images of the area due to the India/Pakistan disputes over Kashmir, which was lifted after the quake).
The results of this effort led to a commentary for Nature, which asked for a high-resolution graphic to accompany it...and wound up using it for the cover.
Cramer's talk ended with some discussion of other aspects of her blogging about private military companies, her use of her weblog as a "sensory organ" to gather information, and a return to the original topic of mathematics in young children. (The example of trading Pokemon cards and creating a measure of relative value that nicely matches their price on eBay or similar venues was given.)
1400: another bookshop visit, random socialization
I had a chance to chat with a number of folks, including Michael and Nomi Burstein, Elizabeth Bear, Deb Geisler, Geri Sullivan, and many more who I am not intentionally slighting by failing to remember them in this report. (Sorry.) During my perambulations, I was also asked by a Boston Globe reporter about the convention, why I had come, and so forth. The article ran on July 13. I got sort-of quoted. (As I suspected from the questions the reporter was asking, the lead was pretty much "wow, they're not all dressed like Captain Kirk!" Sigh.)
At this point I still hadn't bought many books; I'd put a few dollars on some used paperbacks from one of the $1/book tables, but nothing more. Of course, this would not last, since books are my DOOOOOOOOM.
1500: Baseball and the Fantastic
This started off with the panelists giving their suggestions for a canon of baseball-themed fantastic literature, including Malamud's The Natural ("magic realism") and Kinsella's Shoeless Joe, as well as Michael Bishop's Brittle Innings.
The discussion then turned to other topics, including the comparison of Stratomatic to RPGs (game scenarios, dice...) and the role of baseball as an anchor for American myth. (Without the historical myths of other cultures, we had to come up with something....)
1600+: book shopping
This is when the danger zone hit. Most of my book buying was done Saturday afternoon.
Among my finds was Blue State Blues, which I wouldn't have expected to find at a science fiction convention...but the Wesleyan University Press folks had brought some copies in case any of the Cambridge/Somerville folks there might be interested. Since I live in the district Slavitt ran in and remembered his campaign, I figured it was worth a look and the random page test impressed me enough with his writing voice that I was thinking about buying it; since they weren't staying for Sunday I was offered a "I don't want to pack it up and haul it back" price, which I took.
Other book haulage included a few more $1 used books; Charles Stross's short story collection Toast; Future Washington (signed by the editor, Ernest Lilley); the Ace Double that contained DeVet & MacLean's Cosmic Checkmate (since I liked the novelette "Second Game") [and Rich Horton's review makes me think that this is the version I want]; Bill Fawcett's How to Lose a Battle; and a signed copy of Elizabeth Bear's The Chains That You Refuse.
After the book shoppage, more hanging around and chatting, then I wound up as part of a group headed to the Thai restaurant Lemon Tree. (Since I had a reasonably-sized rental car, I could take some more folks along....) A good dinner and much good conversation later, we returned to the Marriott for:
2000: The 20th Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition
My notes on this all wound up in the clammy embrace of the Hell-Thing. There was a silent explosion of crimson light.
After that, more hanging about in the bar, visiting the various parties (the Montréal WorldCon bid is looking pretty good to me), an amusing debate on watch-wearing between Ernest Lilley and Bob Devney, and finally watching part of a game of Mafia before heading home.
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Date: 2006-07-23 14:10 (UTC)