Wiscon: Sunday
May. 25th, 2008 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacA stomach flu bug has felled a number of attendees. Ugh.
Panel: "Philip Pullman vs. C.S. Lewis: Smackdown!" Fortunately the panelists did not take the title literally, and held a serious discussion largely focusing on what Pullman owes to Lewis thematically, and the degree to which he is likely to realize it. Unfortunately the panel was at 8:30 on Sunday morning, a time when many interested persons are likely to be at church. Janice Bogstad observed that Pullman's trilogy resembles Lewis's Space trilogy as much as it does Narnia. And, some including me added, in the trilogy's That Hideous Strength as well as in The Screwtape Letters one can find Lewis being as skeptical of organized religion as Pullman could want.
Panel: "Why Return a King (or Queen)?" Why do democrats set fantasy novels in monarchies anyway? (And are there novels about the return of the queen? Yes, several were named, starting with The Land of Oz.) Some writer-panelists shrugged at the underlying assumption and said, they write medieval fantasies, the default medieval political assumption is a kingship, so that's what they write. Fortunately the panel did not remain at this extremely demotic, beer-money level. Patriarchy, longing for good government, the US President as a Frazerian harvest king who has to be renewed every four years, the Marian cult of Princess Diana, all mentioned. Sarah Monette noted that stories explicitly about the return of a king usually concern an individual who's never yet been king himself. "He's fresh, he's right out of the box."
Panel: "The Fictional is Political" Supposed to be a comparison of SF that has an explicit political agenda with SF's that's about politics as a subject. Ran aground on political thrillers obviously only set in the near future to permit the introduction of fictional characters in the big cheese roles. Also on SF that has an implicit political agenda. Crim, is there any that doesn't? Concluded with a call for more Wiscon panels on politics. That would make some people very happy, but not others.
Talk: Ellen Kushner on her Riverside books. How she tried to write further stories with the same settings as Swordspoint without running the characters through repetitive sequels or undercutting the special qualities of the original. (I think she succeeded, and said so.) What Delia Sherman contributed as co-author to The Fall of the Kings: in particular the historical perspective and details of the university setting. How Ellen took lessons from a swordsman who was - she didn't know this at the time - legally blind. What authors (and TV shows) inspired her ideas of Riverside. Lots of goodies for Kushner fans.
Guest of Honor speeches: L. Timmel Duchamp told a harrowing story of institutionalized sexism that she encountered as a young music school composer in 1970, and then asked us to consider it as a story. To what audiences would it make sense; at what times and places would people understand what offended her, and why she failed to challenge it? Maureen McHugh told of her involvement in a new form of storytelling. Put a cryptic reference in a movie poster: people will Google it, find a website with reports from the movie's fictional world; enter your e-mail there and the characters will send you messages telling you where to find the case of Canadian Club, whoops wrong storytelling. It's non-linear and the user has to seek it out and understand it without context. McHugh admitted that this medium is still primitive, which is good because it reminded me of the old computer game Myst, in which the player enters an island and has to know to go to the library and read a bunch of old parchments before being allowed to address the question, Why should I bother?
Panel: "Philip Pullman vs. C.S. Lewis: Smackdown!" Fortunately the panelists did not take the title literally, and held a serious discussion largely focusing on what Pullman owes to Lewis thematically, and the degree to which he is likely to realize it. Unfortunately the panel was at 8:30 on Sunday morning, a time when many interested persons are likely to be at church. Janice Bogstad observed that Pullman's trilogy resembles Lewis's Space trilogy as much as it does Narnia. And, some including me added, in the trilogy's That Hideous Strength as well as in The Screwtape Letters one can find Lewis being as skeptical of organized religion as Pullman could want.
Panel: "Why Return a King (or Queen)?" Why do democrats set fantasy novels in monarchies anyway? (And are there novels about the return of the queen? Yes, several were named, starting with The Land of Oz.) Some writer-panelists shrugged at the underlying assumption and said, they write medieval fantasies, the default medieval political assumption is a kingship, so that's what they write. Fortunately the panel did not remain at this extremely demotic, beer-money level. Patriarchy, longing for good government, the US President as a Frazerian harvest king who has to be renewed every four years, the Marian cult of Princess Diana, all mentioned. Sarah Monette noted that stories explicitly about the return of a king usually concern an individual who's never yet been king himself. "He's fresh, he's right out of the box."
Panel: "The Fictional is Political" Supposed to be a comparison of SF that has an explicit political agenda with SF's that's about politics as a subject. Ran aground on political thrillers obviously only set in the near future to permit the introduction of fictional characters in the big cheese roles. Also on SF that has an implicit political agenda. Crim, is there any that doesn't? Concluded with a call for more Wiscon panels on politics. That would make some people very happy, but not others.
Talk: Ellen Kushner on her Riverside books. How she tried to write further stories with the same settings as Swordspoint without running the characters through repetitive sequels or undercutting the special qualities of the original. (I think she succeeded, and said so.) What Delia Sherman contributed as co-author to The Fall of the Kings: in particular the historical perspective and details of the university setting. How Ellen took lessons from a swordsman who was - she didn't know this at the time - legally blind. What authors (and TV shows) inspired her ideas of Riverside. Lots of goodies for Kushner fans.
Guest of Honor speeches: L. Timmel Duchamp told a harrowing story of institutionalized sexism that she encountered as a young music school composer in 1970, and then asked us to consider it as a story. To what audiences would it make sense; at what times and places would people understand what offended her, and why she failed to challenge it? Maureen McHugh told of her involvement in a new form of storytelling. Put a cryptic reference in a movie poster: people will Google it, find a website with reports from the movie's fictional world; enter your e-mail there and the characters will send you messages telling you where to find the case of Canadian Club, whoops wrong storytelling. It's non-linear and the user has to seek it out and understand it without context. McHugh admitted that this medium is still primitive, which is good because it reminded me of the old computer game Myst, in which the player enters an island and has to know to go to the library and read a bunch of old parchments before being allowed to address the question, Why should I bother?
