Readercon 17: Sunday
2006-07-22 23:31![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ckdAnd so we reach the third and final day of Readercon.
1000: Terrors of Today
Someone (un-noted who) said that stories were less about terrorism and more about pandemics. Graham Sleight added that the disease/cure model makes for a better story arc. Judith Berman said that she doesn't write about what she's scared about, but rather what she can control in the story. Tom Disch compared PyrE from Bester's The Stars My Destination to the ability of terrorists to strike in nearly any location using few resources, calling it "the triumph of the stupid over the bright".
Gordon van Gelder said that it was easier to tell a personal disaster story, due to the smaller scale. Disch said that if you wanted to do an end of the world, do Tolkien's world [I think this was something about 'fading away into the West' perhaps; notes are incomplete]. The third-worlding and dumbing down of America as a slow-motion disaster; misery takes years instead of the bang of terrorism. Sleight said that scenario reminded him of Miéville's works.
F. Brett Cox mentioned a bar conversation from the previous night on the near future/far future split, and said that one difference is that you can't write the "we can fix this" as a near future story. The panelists then kicked around the comparison of Sterling's Heavy Weather and Hurricane Katrina (but I don't recall any mention of Barnes's Mother of Storms, nor the observation that the Batman "No Man's Land" story arc was considered quite unrealistic yet something similar happened to New Orleans).
Disch suggested that perhaps each disaster should have a group lobbying for prevention and/or preparedness, so that money will be put into those areas. Sleight replied "so you want a lobby against giant mutant bee attacks?"
Disch closed with the suggestion that the worst disaster he can imagine is a virus that removes human memories.
1100: lunch and whatnot
Another $5 lobby table sandwich. Hey, it wasn't bad. I also bought my membership for next year's Readercon.
1200: Social Class and Speculative Fiction
This wound up becoming a bit more about social class in SF writers and editors than about social class in SF characters, but was no less interesting for all that.
Naturally, China Miéville had plenty to say on the topic of social class, saying that even the notion of a protagonist is a form of class. James Macdonald noted that despite the prevalence of military SF, very little deals with the class distinction between enlisted ranks and officers. (IME, it's generally focused on the officer class, with the obligatory Grizzled Veteran NCO around to supplyexposition advice to the young, inexperienced officer.)
As the topic shifted to social class in the SF community rather than in the stories themselves, comments were made about the idea of the "starving artist" as a challenge to producing work rather than as a way to inspire it. Patrick Nielsen Hayden pointed out that artists with a background that gives them a safety net seem to survive the "starving artist" phase better than those without. Shariann Lewitt said that she had suffered and that the experience was not helpful to her writing. "Being dead doesn't make you a better artist." She closed with an observation that while fans/geeks may feel marginalized, "real marginalization results in anger, or giving up, or dying."
1400: My Secret (or Not-So-Secret) Story Structure
See Kate Nepveu's report as well.
While I haven't read most of the works cited in the panel blurb (the exception being Brunner's The Squares of the City), I very much enjoyed having the various authors explain the structures they used for particular stories. Greer Gilman's revelations about the structure she used for Moonwise were particularly interesting. (She also said "I've written a Fibonacci series" in reference to her output covering the range from short story to novel, in size order.)
Tom Disch, as could be expected, had a number of interesting comments. "What if you wrote the end, then the middle, then the beginning? Well, the middle would still be in the right place...." He also said "Writers talk about the structure of novels and it's usually bullshit. It's about story. When I think of structure in literature I think of sonnets."
Gilman wished she could write a novel that was a fugue. John Crowley brought up E.M. Forster, who distinguished between "pattern" and "rhythm"; the former is the overall structure, while the latter is built from internal repetition. Crowley said that since structure is static but fiction moves the story through time, rhythms are a better principle to use when building a story.
Michael Burstein said that he saw a common thread of "structure as liberating" through the comments; Disch disagreed, saying that structure was precisely not liberating (comparing it to the foxtrot), and that when you do something well enough, you can make it look improvised. He gave the example of Dick's The Man in the High Castle and the use of random I Ching hexagrams to build the structure.
In response to this, Gilman closed with "I'm waiting for the anthology of the stochastic fantastic."
1500: Departure
I considered the Gripe Session, but had neither gripes nor any particularly useful suggestions/positive comments; instead, I got ready to leave and noticed some folks poring over the MBTA #350 schedule. I asked if they were headed into town, and they were (eventually to get to South Station for Chinatown bus service back to NYC). Since that would have involved the hotel shuttle to the Burlington Mall, the #350 to Alewife, the Red Line to Kendall, the shuttle bus replacement "service" to Park Street, and the Red Line to South Station I thought it was a bit simpler to offer them a ride since I was headed into town anyway and had room in the car. So off we went, and that was the Readercon that was.
1000: Terrors of Today
Someone (un-noted who) said that stories were less about terrorism and more about pandemics. Graham Sleight added that the disease/cure model makes for a better story arc. Judith Berman said that she doesn't write about what she's scared about, but rather what she can control in the story. Tom Disch compared PyrE from Bester's The Stars My Destination to the ability of terrorists to strike in nearly any location using few resources, calling it "the triumph of the stupid over the bright".
Gordon van Gelder said that it was easier to tell a personal disaster story, due to the smaller scale. Disch said that if you wanted to do an end of the world, do Tolkien's world [I think this was something about 'fading away into the West' perhaps; notes are incomplete]. The third-worlding and dumbing down of America as a slow-motion disaster; misery takes years instead of the bang of terrorism. Sleight said that scenario reminded him of Miéville's works.
F. Brett Cox mentioned a bar conversation from the previous night on the near future/far future split, and said that one difference is that you can't write the "we can fix this" as a near future story. The panelists then kicked around the comparison of Sterling's Heavy Weather and Hurricane Katrina (but I don't recall any mention of Barnes's Mother of Storms, nor the observation that the Batman "No Man's Land" story arc was considered quite unrealistic yet something similar happened to New Orleans).
Disch suggested that perhaps each disaster should have a group lobbying for prevention and/or preparedness, so that money will be put into those areas. Sleight replied "so you want a lobby against giant mutant bee attacks?"
Disch closed with the suggestion that the worst disaster he can imagine is a virus that removes human memories.
1100: lunch and whatnot
Another $5 lobby table sandwich. Hey, it wasn't bad. I also bought my membership for next year's Readercon.
1200: Social Class and Speculative Fiction
This wound up becoming a bit more about social class in SF writers and editors than about social class in SF characters, but was no less interesting for all that.
Naturally, China Miéville had plenty to say on the topic of social class, saying that even the notion of a protagonist is a form of class. James Macdonald noted that despite the prevalence of military SF, very little deals with the class distinction between enlisted ranks and officers. (IME, it's generally focused on the officer class, with the obligatory Grizzled Veteran NCO around to supply
As the topic shifted to social class in the SF community rather than in the stories themselves, comments were made about the idea of the "starving artist" as a challenge to producing work rather than as a way to inspire it. Patrick Nielsen Hayden pointed out that artists with a background that gives them a safety net seem to survive the "starving artist" phase better than those without. Shariann Lewitt said that she had suffered and that the experience was not helpful to her writing. "Being dead doesn't make you a better artist." She closed with an observation that while fans/geeks may feel marginalized, "real marginalization results in anger, or giving up, or dying."
1400: My Secret (or Not-So-Secret) Story Structure
See Kate Nepveu's report as well.
While I haven't read most of the works cited in the panel blurb (the exception being Brunner's The Squares of the City), I very much enjoyed having the various authors explain the structures they used for particular stories. Greer Gilman's revelations about the structure she used for Moonwise were particularly interesting. (She also said "I've written a Fibonacci series" in reference to her output covering the range from short story to novel, in size order.)
Tom Disch, as could be expected, had a number of interesting comments. "What if you wrote the end, then the middle, then the beginning? Well, the middle would still be in the right place...." He also said "Writers talk about the structure of novels and it's usually bullshit. It's about story. When I think of structure in literature I think of sonnets."
Gilman wished she could write a novel that was a fugue. John Crowley brought up E.M. Forster, who distinguished between "pattern" and "rhythm"; the former is the overall structure, while the latter is built from internal repetition. Crowley said that since structure is static but fiction moves the story through time, rhythms are a better principle to use when building a story.
Michael Burstein said that he saw a common thread of "structure as liberating" through the comments; Disch disagreed, saying that structure was precisely not liberating (comparing it to the foxtrot), and that when you do something well enough, you can make it look improvised. He gave the example of Dick's The Man in the High Castle and the use of random I Ching hexagrams to build the structure.
In response to this, Gilman closed with "I'm waiting for the anthology of the stochastic fantastic."
1500: Departure
I considered the Gripe Session, but had neither gripes nor any particularly useful suggestions/positive comments; instead, I got ready to leave and noticed some folks poring over the MBTA #350 schedule. I asked if they were headed into town, and they were (eventually to get to South Station for Chinatown bus service back to NYC). Since that would have involved the hotel shuttle to the Burlington Mall, the #350 to Alewife, the Red Line to Kendall, the shuttle bus replacement "service" to Park Street, and the Red Line to South Station I thought it was a bit simpler to offer them a ride since I was headed into town anyway and had room in the car. So off we went, and that was the Readercon that was.
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Date: 2006-07-25 19:01 (UTC)Kiralee