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more Baycon panels
May. 31st, 2010 11:03 pmVery quickly.
Hard SF, the good stuff: Lots of names thrown around: Bujold, Hogan, Reynolds, many others. Elizabeth Moon got mentioned a lot. My entries were my two favorite novels of realistic scientists at realistic work (in both cases particle physics), Timescape by Greg Benford and Broken Symmetries by Paul Preuss, plus UKL's Always Coming Home as a meticulous anthropological survey, and our Potlatch BoH, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, which includes a scientific attitude towards living after the collapse of civilization. How long can you survive on the infrastructure before it breaks down? What do you establish then, a salvage economy or a subsistence economy, and how much of each?
The first two panelists to introduce themselves were both credentialed rocket engineers (and both women). I said, "After that, I need to burnish my scientific credentials. I could say that I studied molecular biology under Nobel laureate Donald Glaser at U.C. Berkeley. That sounds good. Actually, I took a freshman lecture course from him. It is a neat thing, though, to be a college freshman and take a lecture course from a Nobel laureate. And I worked on a pilot nuclear fusion research project at Lawrence Berkeley Lab. Actually, I did their secretarial work. So, though I'm not a scientist, I've always been interested in science. When I read Michael Behe's Dover testimony, I realized that, though he's a Ph.D. biochemist, I know more about how evolution works than he does. And I wish that were more of a boast."
Ghostwriting, collaborating with deceased authors: Diana Paxson talked about how she came to take up MZB's mantle and what she did with it. Others had their own experiences. My entry was to say a little about what Christopher Tolkien has done. No, he didn't write The Silmarillion from notes and scraps himself: it is mostly his father's work, and what he did was more complex than that, and more devious.
Literary Classics of SF: As moderator, I shoved the panel topic awkwardly around, and accepted gentle nudges on the steering wheel from the most experienced panelist, but got compliments on my preparedness and organization afterwards. What worked best on this panel was the panelists' various ideas on what characteristics make SF classic beyond (or even without) simple literary quality: philosophical resonance, scientific education, a sense of the vastness of the universe, allegorical or satirical perspectives on present society, and so on.
Filk History: I was one of the people responsible for organizing filk out of an occasional random fannish activity into a full-fledged sub-fandom. But I regret what we did, because filk became a sort of self-devouring monster, in which people not only got tired of belting out the old favorites, they denied they ever liked them. It appears, from what I learned on this panel, that the clash between newcomers who are charmed by the older songs, and the Old And Tired filkers who only have an appetite for the new, and throw everything out after a few months, hasn't changed in 20 years. I still miss filking, but I'm still not going back.
Hard SF, the good stuff: Lots of names thrown around: Bujold, Hogan, Reynolds, many others. Elizabeth Moon got mentioned a lot. My entries were my two favorite novels of realistic scientists at realistic work (in both cases particle physics), Timescape by Greg Benford and Broken Symmetries by Paul Preuss, plus UKL's Always Coming Home as a meticulous anthropological survey, and our Potlatch BoH, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, which includes a scientific attitude towards living after the collapse of civilization. How long can you survive on the infrastructure before it breaks down? What do you establish then, a salvage economy or a subsistence economy, and how much of each?
The first two panelists to introduce themselves were both credentialed rocket engineers (and both women). I said, "After that, I need to burnish my scientific credentials. I could say that I studied molecular biology under Nobel laureate Donald Glaser at U.C. Berkeley. That sounds good. Actually, I took a freshman lecture course from him. It is a neat thing, though, to be a college freshman and take a lecture course from a Nobel laureate. And I worked on a pilot nuclear fusion research project at Lawrence Berkeley Lab. Actually, I did their secretarial work. So, though I'm not a scientist, I've always been interested in science. When I read Michael Behe's Dover testimony, I realized that, though he's a Ph.D. biochemist, I know more about how evolution works than he does. And I wish that were more of a boast."
Ghostwriting, collaborating with deceased authors: Diana Paxson talked about how she came to take up MZB's mantle and what she did with it. Others had their own experiences. My entry was to say a little about what Christopher Tolkien has done. No, he didn't write The Silmarillion from notes and scraps himself: it is mostly his father's work, and what he did was more complex than that, and more devious.
Literary Classics of SF: As moderator, I shoved the panel topic awkwardly around, and accepted gentle nudges on the steering wheel from the most experienced panelist, but got compliments on my preparedness and organization afterwards. What worked best on this panel was the panelists' various ideas on what characteristics make SF classic beyond (or even without) simple literary quality: philosophical resonance, scientific education, a sense of the vastness of the universe, allegorical or satirical perspectives on present society, and so on.
Filk History: I was one of the people responsible for organizing filk out of an occasional random fannish activity into a full-fledged sub-fandom. But I regret what we did, because filk became a sort of self-devouring monster, in which people not only got tired of belting out the old favorites, they denied they ever liked them. It appears, from what I learned on this panel, that the clash between newcomers who are charmed by the older songs, and the Old And Tired filkers who only have an appetite for the new, and throw everything out after a few months, hasn't changed in 20 years. I still miss filking, but I'm still not going back.
