Boskone 49 Recap

This past weekend was Boskone 49, a science fiction / fantasy literature convention down in South Boston. After great experiences at ReaderCon the past couple of years, I decided to head down and partake in the fun for the spring, hitting up a bunch of panels and getting to meet up with people that I've largely talked to online over the past couple of years.

Stepping in the door (after a typical Boston driving experience) on Friday afternoon, I saw one of my former college professors, F. Brett Cox, and Lightspeed publisher John Joseph Adams, which was nice, before heading off to the first of several panels: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror in the Classroom, led by Brett, where they talked at length about the recent acceptance of the genres in the academic field. Since Cyberpunk has become a subgenre, it's become relevant, but with the addition of several literary heavyweights, such as Michael Chabon and Margaret Atwood, it's become more acceptable.

Typically, short fiction seems to be one of the best ways to get the literary themes across, but novels and films are also well used. What everyone seemed to agree on was that students really took to the genre, regardless if they were fans: students seem to identify with it quite a bit more than other genres.

Someone on the panel had a great quote, one that applies to more than just learning, but also critical reviewing and thinking as well: "I get to look under the hood and see how this works."

The next panel was Occupy SF: Corporations in Science Fiction, which was a fascinating talk. Charles Stross opened with some interesting things to think about: what holds up value in an interstellar empire? Apparently, this is the topic of his next book, and it drove discussion a bit early on, with some discussions about the very nature of money and economics. In comparable situations, letters of credit have been used on Earth, but how does this work when distances across space can be hundreds, if not thousands of years? Stross also suggested that if we're going to use metals for currency, we should simply use plutonium: it literally burns a hole in our pockets, and if we have too much, we can simply blow it up.

Finally getting to the point of corporations, they were likened to that of a hive: individuals carry out instructions on the behalf of the corporate hive, for its own (and presumably theirs), betterment. This is fine, in theory, but when you have an unchecked capitalist model, it will simply consume itself, because people aren't good at looking and planning in the extreme long-term: corporations simply work to make money and continue their operations (good and bad).

Leadership followed this discussion, and the point to which we've gotten represents a major change in how corporations were led: a very good point was brought up about who leads these places and what governs them: corporate behavior rewards psychopaths, and interestingly, a set of objective rules are set up to govern success: the value of experience has been lessened, because the rise of the MBA degree essentially has made corporate leadership interchangeable. Top earners are promoted and valued, regardless of how they become those top earners. As someone in the audience commented, that undermines what the customers think of the corporation. Long-term, that matters, but not so much in the short term.

This was an enlightening talk, and it was one of a couple that were very, very thought provoking for me personally, and gave me some great, solid ideas for a couple of projects that I've got in the works.

Saturday morning, I started with SF As a Mirror on Society, which I came in for about half of. Fortunately, this time, I left my car in Cambridge and rode in on the T, which reminded me that I dearly miss public transportation. I wish that I could ride a bus, subway or train to work. As I entered, I came in on a discussion of the 'Other', and some discussion on how some of the neglected characters should be handled: essentially, not embellished.

Following that, it was off to lunch, with Theodore Quester and John Joseph Adams, the Lightspeed crew present at the convention. Good times.

Lunch went a bit long, and when I got back, I got into a panel a bit late: Robocop Futures. This was a fascinating panel. As I got in, there was some discussion on the the role of people in systems: increasingly, we're living in a world that's guided by policy, rather than human intervention. I was reminded of something that P.W. Singer talked about when talking about robotic systems: people in the loop. People are increasingly out of the loop, where they're able to defer responsibility.

This is connected to law policies: increasingly, there are mandatory sentences and policies. One of the panelists mentioned a case where a Briton was prevented from entering the US because of a tweet. In this instance, everybody involved knew that it wasn't a serious or credible threat: policy demanded that the airport report it to law enforcement, who was in turn forced to investigate it, despite knowing that it wasn't a serious or credible threat. In the same manner, mandatory minimums for certain crimes: people aren't able to use their judgment in the process.

This discussion ended up on automated systems, which parse our conversations online. Increasingly, we've found ourselves turning to automated systems that absolve us of responsibility. Fortunately, computers are pretty bad at making sense of human relations. At the same time, people in the system are the weaker links that can potentially be exploited.

After a short break, Table Top Games in the Digital Age was the next one, with Ethan Gilsdorf moderating. This one was really one of the bigger letdowns: I'd been hoping that there would be some discussion about how table-top gaming might make the jump into the digital age, but there was a lot of lamenting about how the day of face to face gaming seemed to be going by the wayside (from the audience as well). It felt very oppositional to me, rather than a group looking at what was both inevitable coming, but also how to work the social aspects into the gaming world. This was covered, but briefly.

The next panel was fascinating: War of the Worlds and Dracula, compared. Both novels are ones that I read a long time ago, back in college, and I've been meaning to revisit them at some point. Discussion started right off with a look at both novels as reactions to Britain's place in the world: essentially, they're both reverse colonization novels, with two different models that tapped into an undercurrent of fear from British society:

1. Invade, and replace the inhabitants with your own people.
2. Invade, and change the inhabitants into your own people.

As someone noted early on, the Martians did to the British what the British did to the Zulu: invade, use overwhelming force and wreck havoc. In addition to these two novels, there was an entire subgenre of invasion novels from around the 1870s, right around the same time that Germany had begun to gain power in Europe. Britain's place in the world had begun to fall, and that's expressed in these novels: it's not too unlike the Cold War between the USSR and US. Both novels feature bloodsuckers feeding on Englishmen.

Something that I realized shortly after that both novels relied on the inherent strengths within the British lifestyle and culture: The British prevailed because their very biology helped them in War of the Worlds, while Dracula was hunted down with modern technology, which again taps into the patriotic element of both books. It was a fantastic panel, one that I learned a lot from.

The panel on Cover Art was an interesting talk, and the last for the night, with representatives from Tor Books and Baen. Baen's was interesting, where they have a particular style to their covers, but it was interesting to see their rational behind the art. Tor had some great cover examples, and overall, it was fascinating to see everything that goes into the covers of a book, and how it's used as a marketing tool.

On Sunday, Joshua Bilmes (Agent), David G. Hartwell (Editor), Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Editor), John Scalzi (Writer) and Toni Weisskopfgot (Editor / Publisher) together for their Top Ten Tips for the Prospective Writer, which was a interesting talk for anyone who is looking to become a professional author. There were actually more than ten tips, but they were all good ones. In short form:

• Be a good writer.
• Get used to sucking. You're at the beginning of a journey through incompetence. Keep writing until you don't suck.
• Divest yourself of attachment to writing times/locations: set aside a time, and write where ever. You'll have a new excuse everywhere you go to not write.
• A writer can do anything, provide its not what he's supposed to be doing.
• Write every day. Now is a good time to write.
• Two things: you can be a writer, then you can be a published author.
• Treat it like a job: be professional about it, and commit to it.
• Write to entertain someone else, not you.
• Know your audience.
• Who's going to be your first audience? Your editor and publisher.
• Give yourself space with no other intention other than to learn. Write so that you know how to put together a story.
• Publishers want to see a manuscript that you care about: they don't want to see your nanowrimo novel.
• Acknowledgments are a good roadmap.
• Understanding the industry are extraordinarily important. You have a better chance sending things to the right people. However, it is a moving target: trends change quickly. Urban fantasy was big four years ago. Much smaller now. If something's hot, it's too late.
• Write the book that you'd like to read.
• Half of your money that you earn goes to taxes.
• There will be people who are better than you and some who are worse. Publishing isn't fair.
• Publishers will put money where they think they'll get a return.
• Workshops are good, but make sure that you apply the advice that you get. Do some work shopping and then stop. The same workshop will ultimately give you the same advice over and over again.
• Your submission manuscript that's accepted is your final one: you're in the pipeline, not your writing workshop. Don't make drastic changes.
• Wheaton's law: don't be a dick.
• Scifi has an unusual amount of flow between pro and fan. Be nice to others.
• Esteem of your peers: nice to have it, but it's not essential.
• Don't be distracted by non-paying things that don't help you.
• If you enjoy it, you should do it. Don't do it if you don't like it.
• Write the best that you can, understand that everyone else is writing the best that you can, and don't crap on people. Admire the good works of others.
• Learn how to apologize and learn how to do it sincerely.

Good primer of advice there from some people who know that it works.

I got to wander around a little, before ending up at John Scalzi's reading, where he read from his upcoming novel Red Shirts and his non-fiction book, 24 Frames into the Future.

Redshirts sounds hilarious, and I'm glad that I've been watching Star Trek, because it's got a lot of inspiration from that particular franchise. It'll be interesting to see what Trek fans think once it's published. John's got a very fun style when it comes to panels, and this one was rapt with attention and a healthy dose of dry wit. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to stick around, due to a death in the family. I didn't get my copy of Fuzzy Nation signed, but that's okay: I got my copy of Rule 34 signed by Charles Stross, and The Warded Man by Peter Brett (which I'm going to read soon!), which was very cool.

With that, it was a good convention: I'm not sure I had as much fun as Readercon, but it was a good time, where I got to meet up with some very cool people: Myke Cole, F. Brett Cox, Peter Brett, John Scalzi, Charles Stross, Ian Tregillis (who's book Bitter Seeds is now on my to-read list), John Joseph Adams, Genevieve Valentine, Theodora Goss, Irene Gallo, and a whole bunch of others that I'm forgetting. Already, I can't wait to go back next year.

Geek Things of 2010

This was possibly one of the best years that I’ve had in a long time. There were geek things abound, in all facets of life: in literature, film, current events, science, music and people. 2010 was a fantastic year for me. In roughly chronological order, here are the notable geek moments of the year:

This year seems to have been the year for newly-published authors. Nora Jemisin exploded out of the gate with her book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the first of a trilogy in an excellently conceived of world, one where gods and humans interact and where there are consequences for those who were chained, and those who held the chains. I was particularly blown away by this book, and look forward to diving into book two: The Broken Kingdoms sometime in 2011.

Canadian Science Fiction author Peter Watts became a bit of a martyr in the eyes of many in the science fictional world when he was thrown into jail for resisting arrest at a border crossing earlier this spring. News of his imprisonment and the details of his predicament spread like wildfire, spurring outrage. Watts has since been convicted and released, and won't be able to travel into the U.S..

I trooped in February with the 501st in New York City to support a product launch. What a surreal day: who would have thought of the combination of Star Wars, Snoop Dogg and Adidas?

The long-running UK show Dr. Who saw its latest rejuvenation in the form of Matthew Smith this year, along with show runner Steven Moffat, who's penned some of the best Dr. Who episodes that I've seen in the latest run. I only was able to catch a couple of the new episodes, but what I saw, I really liked.

One of the films that was a sure train wreck from the trailers was Clash of the Titans. It's decent, mindless monster porn with action and special effects, but for a regular movie? It was pretty bad, and the slapped together 3D helped show audiences that it's a stunt on the part of movie studios to rake in more money per ticket. Where 2009 saw Avatar as the big bright moment for 3D, 2010 saw that it was only good when natively filmed with the extra dimension, rather than slapped on with additional CGI.

Another new author broke into the ranks of the published, author Blake Charlton, with his first novel, Spellwright. While the novel wasn't perfect, it was enjoyable, and I've had the good fortune to talk extensively with him over the course of the year (while he splits writing time with his medical education). This book in particular draws upon Charlton's own experiences with Dyslexia, which allows the book a unique feel when it comes to the mechanics of world building and magic. Bring on book two, Spellbound, due out this year. !

One of my favorite authors from high school / camp, Karin Lowachee, returned from several years of absence for a new book titled The Gaslight Dogs, one of the better Steampunk books that I've read thus far. Set in an unconventional world to the North, Lowachee weaves together some interesting characters and settings in an entertaining novel. I eagerly await the sequels for this planned trilogy.

Earlier this year marked a major uproar when amazon.com attempted to flex its muscles against Macmillan publishers, who had been pushing for higher prices for its new hardcover books. Amazon pulled the books from the publisher, which outraged a lot of people - authors who found that their books weren't being sold for a couple of days before they were all put back into place.

April 20^th saw a massive explosion on the Deep Water Horizon oil rig when a plume of natural gas came up the well that they were drilling. The resulting oil spill lasted for three months and involved a major engineering and environmental effort to cap and contain the oil spill. Undoubtedly, the effects will be seen for years to come in the environmental and economic health of the region. The containment of the well itself is an achievement in and of itself, with an apt description of the process as similar to the Apollo 13 rescue.

Vermont singer/songwriter Anaïs Mitchell gained quite a lot of attention with her concept album Hadestown, a post-apocalyptic folk opera retelling of the legend of Orpheus. It's a mouthful, but an extensive cast of notable singers (such as Bon Iver and Ani DeFranco) join her in an impeccable work of music, story and art. This album was absolute perfection.

In July, at the urging of a former college professor, I drove down to ReaderCon, a regional science fiction convention that boasted an impressive list of authors and fans. Unlike most of the conventions that I've been to, this was devoted extensively to literature, and while there, I was able to meet a number of authors that I've long admired (and learned of there) such as Charles Stross, Allen M. Steele, Elizabeth Hand, Blake Charlton, Paolo Bacigalupi, David Forbes, N.K. Jemisin, and quite a few others. I had an absolute blast this year, and I'm eagerly awaiting the trip next year. Hopefully, I'll be able to visit some other similar cons this year.

I didn't catch this until later in the year, but Predators was a film that was released that had been one that I'd wanted to see in theaters. Where the first film was an 80s action film with too much brawn and no brains, this film was a smart, dynamic science fiction thriller, one that vastly improved the franchise. As io9 said, it's the perfect B movie. I'm inclined to agree.

While it was a sparse year for good genre films, one stood easily out amongst the others: Inception. It was a fantastic balance between action and story, with a thought-provoking storyline that dips its feet into the science fiction pool just as much as needed to push the story forward, exploring the mind and the possibilities of imagination. It’s on my slowly growing list of top science fiction films ever.

1B1T proved that Twitter could be more than mindless, as Wired Magazine ran a poll to see if they could get all of twitter reading the same book. The result? Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, broken down into an easy reading schedule – it made for a great excuse to re-read the book and talk to a number of people on a global scale.

Another new author, Charles Yu impressed me with his short story collection, Third Class Superhero this past spring and doubly so over the summer with his book, How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe, a brilliant time travel story that stands out from most books that I read this year. Yu's book becomes part of the story itself, and can easily be compared to the works of Douglas Adams with its dry humor.

Last year, Paolo Bacigalupi blew me away with his novel The Windup Girl, and this year, his follow-up YA novel Ship Breaker could easily fit into the same post-oil world. Global warming is rampant, people are exploited, and with that in the background, there's a very basic and interesting story that pulls the reader through. Bacigalupi's a guy to watch, and this book demonstrated that he's no one hit wonder.

Apple launched their new device and product category this year, the iPad, and when a really good deal came through earlier this year, I bought one, something that I wasn't expecting to do. So far, it's easily the best thing that I've bought all year long. It's an amazingly good computer, and it works very well with what I've long used a computer for, while being more convenient than a laptop. It's a multi-purpose device that I've been able to use extensively over the course of the year, for writing, reading, web work, music and games. For my first Apple early adoption, it's come off far better than my first iPod.

This year's Hugo Awards presented a rare event: a tie for Best Novel: Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl and China Mieville's The City and The City (more on that in a moment) both received the award in addition to every other award that they scooped up along the way. (Quite a few!). Moon also picked up the movie award.

The animated Star Wars Clone Wars TV show has been popular, but for me, up and down in quality. The opening episode was impressive, but from everything that I've seen beyond that, it's become an exceedingly boring show. When the ads point to the passage of an arms bill in the Republic senate as the exciting bits, you should probably reevaluate. Hopefully, it'll get a bit better soon.

When it came to television shows that disappoint, LOST came to an end is year with a finale that ended the show, but one that didn't wow me like it should have. There was too much lost when it came to possibilities, and it felt more like an ending and an epilogue that wasn't needed.

Masked is a superhero anthology, featuring a number of authors taking on the super powered and the caped. I've yet to finish it, and while I've been enjoying most of it, there are only so many stories of a Batman clone before I have to question the need for the story to be included.

One of the better anthologies that I read all year, Stories: All New Tales, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio is an impressive book that looks to the idea that stories should be things that demand that you turn the page to find out what happens next. This collection of stories, which boasts an impressive list of contributors, is one that I really enjoyed reading through - there's a bit of every genre here, from science fiction to fantasy to horror to crime fiction. Worth picking through and reading for all of the excellent stories.

Military science fiction stories are fascinating reads - I've read a number of them this year, and by far, the most thought-provoking was Adam Robert's New Model Army. The premise is one that's very modern: what happens when the wiki-culture moves into warfare? While I think that a lot of what would have happened in the book would never come to pass, it does have some interesting ideas behind it, and by far, was one of the better books that I read all year.

Iron Man 2 would have done well to capitalize on the military science fiction stories that the first was known for: a tight, interesting and well conducted special effects spectacular. The trailers looked awesome, but the film just fell flat: it was overblown, nonsensical at times, and not nearly as good as the first one. It did have its good parts, such as Sam Rockwell's zany character, and some fun action scenes.

Kirby Krackle completely rocked my world this year. Their sound is pretty basic when it comes to the actual music, but they rocked it pretty well. In a world where there a few songs that are so passionate about Green Lantern or zombies, their album E for Everyone really stood out for me, and it's an awesome bit of music to bounce around to. These guys are the new voice of fandom.

The first big cancellation from SyFy earlier this year was Caprica, which launched with a great cast of characters and a whole lot of potential, this precursor to Battlestar Galactica was a show that really needed to be trimmed down and to find its focus a bit. Numerous storylines, characters and themes all running together worked well, but the writing was on the wall early on: the show could have been just as good or better than BSG, (and was, at points), but its ratings couldn't sustain it. It's a real shame: the show could have been better than BSG.

In it's second season, Stargate Universe continued to impress me, and it's recent cancellation has me far more upset than the axing of any other television show that I've watched (even Firefly, although I saw that post-cancellation). A step up for the franchise as a whole, this season of Universe was brilliant, well acted and had a lot going for it, and I hope that the next ten episodes will see some good closure and storytelling. Still, maybe it'll be one of those shows that was awesome and never had a chance to get bad, much like Firefly.

One of the absolute best books that I read this year was China Miéville’s The City and The City, which was up for a number of awards this year, including the Hugo. I picked this up after the hype started to go, and it lived up to, and exceeded my expectations by a long margin. Wonderfully plotted in a well thought-out world, Miéville crafts a murder mystery with a fantastic background, and puts to paper one of the best books of the year.

The mathematician who was responsible for some major advances in mathematics and theory died earlier this year, Benoit Mandelbrot. Also the subject of a Jonathan Coulton song: Mandelbrot Set.

Stephen Moffat ruled the Dr. Who universe for a while now, but I liked his take on Sherlock Holmes far more. Set in the modern day, Sherlock is a retelling of the story, with Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson and Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes. A far better take on the character than Robert Downey Jr.'s in the film adaptation (which was also quite fun), Sherlock was fantastic from start to cliff-hanger. I already can't wait for Series 2.

In the wake of Sherlock, Martin Freeman was selected to play Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, which is finally moving forward, along with what looks like a great cast. It’s still a shame that Guillermo del Toro isn’t directing though.

Zombies have been all the rage for a while now, and (no pun intended) have been done to death. The Walking Dead falls into a couple of categories with me. The pilot episode was fantastic - one of the better takes on a man waking up to find civilization gone, but it's a story that really doesn't add much to the canon, and while it had its interesting points, it's something that I'm more or less indifferent to. We'll see how Season 2 goes.

While Zombies have been very popular, 2010 saw a bit of a decline in the hysteria over Vampires, while Steampunk came in as a solid genre. The Steampunk craze has gotten some major attention: Sherlock Holmes took on a couple of Steampunkish elements, while Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) in the show Castle became a convert as publishers such as Pyr and Tor have published a number of books in the genre. It's something that's here to stay, that's for sure.

When it comes to Pyr books, one of their offerings for the year that I read earlier this was Ian McDonald's River of Gods, which took place in a futuristic India. The Dervish House is his latest book, taking place in a futuristic Turkey. I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm loving its rich attention to culture and interconnected storyline.

Going back to geek music, a friend of mine, John Anealio, turned me towards Marian Call earlier this year at ReaderCon, and when she came through Vermont on her 49 state tour this year (an impressive feat in and of itself), I was able to catch her at Montpelier's Langdon Street Cafe for a geeky set of music and a couple of quick words with Marian. She's a lovely singer, one who's popular for all of the right reasons. Geek music was something that I focused on quite a bit this year, putting together a playlist that's almost 700 songs long, and while doing so, came across a strange trend with some of the more higher-profile stuff that trends more towards Geek Pop music. Songs like G33ks and G4m3r Girls by Team Unicorn were almost unlistenable earworms, laundry-lists of popular geek things without the real soul of "geek" stuff to begin with. It'll be interesting to see if there's more of it as geek stuff gets more and more popular.

Speaking of John Anealio, he's someone to keep an eye on, and someone that I befriended earlier this year at ReaderCon. John's an excellent geek musician, with some fantastic songs released earlier this year, such as 'Stormtrooper for Halloween' and 'I Should Be Writing'. Kirby Krackle might speak for fandom, but Anealio speaks for the fans themselves. I can't wait to see what he comes up next.

Another outfit to keep an eye out for is Symphony of Science, which continued to release a number of tracks of auto tuned scientists (namely Carl Sagan) with a wonderful collection of music that speaks to science and the wonders of the universe.

One of the films that I'm practically drooling over in anticipation for is Battle: Los Angeles, which can best be described as Independence Day meets Black Hawk Down. The early buzz from San Diego Comic Con was good, and the trailer showed that there was going to be some excellent looking action. The film is due out in March of 2011, and I really hope that it'll live up to my expectations.

While I panned iFringe when it first came out, but I've grown to love it and really rued my words: with Stargate Universe off the air, it's easily the best science fiction show on TV right now, and while its ratings have dropped and it's been moved to Friday nights, I'm hoping that the show will continue onwards. This season has seen less of the blood and gore, but has an excellent alternate universe storyline that's heating up. I can't wait for new episodes starting up later this week!

One of the coolest things to happen in the realm of space exploration happened was the Deep Impact Probe, launched on 2005 to take a look at the 9P/Tempel comet. The probe released an impactor earlier this year and took a number of high resolution pictures as it passed by and analyzed the impact to see what it was made of.

The other top book of the year was easily Joe Hill's second novel, Horns, mixing popular culture, horror iconology and religious allegory together in a story that absolutely gripped me and blew me away while I was reading it.

It was a sad day in December when Leslie Nielsen passed away. Airplane is one of my favorite comedies, while Forbidden Planet is easily one of my favorite science fiction films. He will certainly be missed. Right on the heels of Nielsen was Irvin Kershner, who directed the greatest of the Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back. It's a shame that his work was never quite matched with the franchise. Ironically, his film was one of 25 preserved by the Library of Congress's National Film Registry.

On December 9th, the private space firm SpaceX made history when it launched it's Falcon 9 rocket into orbit carrying a dragon capsule. It became the first private firm to orbit the earth and safely return, joining a small number of countries who have accomplished the same thing.

When it comes to dragons, a film released this year that I only just caught was How To Train Your Dragon, a great kids film with a fun story and some good graphics. At the same time, I can also recommend Toy Story 3 for many of the same reasons - excellent storytelling and a positive end for that franchise.

Wikileaks occupied most of the news coverage for the last part of the year as they released thousands of diplomatic cables in addition to their leak of classified military dispatches written over the course of the Iraq / Afghanistan war. The leaks demonstrated the power of the internet: and the necessity to keep secrets a bit more secure. Given the lack of ability of the British government to keep track of their own files, I'm surprised that they haven't been the target of more leaks.

I first saw the original Tron earlier this year in anticipation for Tron: Legacy, and I came out of the theaters with a film that met my expectations. It was a blockbuster that was fun, but it could have been so much more than it was. With Disney working on sequels and a television series, I'm not sure that the franchise is going anywhere, but box office results have been somewhat lax, given all the advanced hype and marketing for the film.

That ends out the year. It’s been an impressive one, and one that marked a couple of milestones for me: I’ve written, talked to, read and watched so much in the speculative fiction genre, and I’m loving the immersion. There’s a long list of people to thank for it: Annalee Newitz, Charlie Jane Anders, John DeNardo, John Anelio, Patrick Hester, Aiden Moher, Blake Charlton, Charles Yu, Paolo Bacigalupi, David Forbes, Jim Ehrman, N.K. Jemisin, John Scalzi, David J. Williams, Christie Yant, John Joseph Adams, Karin Lowachee, Megan Messinger, Bridget McGovern, Brit Mandelo, Scott Eldeman, Blastr, everybody at io9, SF Signal and Tor.com, people who commented and e-mailed me because of what I wrote and everyone who encouraged my writing and reasoning over the year. Most of all, Megan, for everything. It’s been the best year for me to date, and I’m looking forward to an even better 2011.

ReaderCon Wrap Up

This last week, Tor.com has posted up eight of my panel recaps from ReaderCon. The convention was quite a bit of fun, and the panels that I attended (and the book room) was quite a bit of fun to go to.

Here's what I wrote about over there:

ReaderCon Panel Recap: “How I Wrote The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms”

At a convention that featured so many writers, and aspiring writers, panels that helped to illustrate the workings of a book were invaluable help to all interested, but also to those who really enjoyed the books in question. Jemisin’s talk about The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms felt like a behind-the-scenes look at what I thought of as a very good book.

ReaderCon Panel Recap: “Everybody Loves Dirigibles—Science For Tomorrow’s Fiction”

Additionally, it is good to keep in mind that not all technologies last, a couple examples being talking cars and vending machines, which were noted as being highly irritating, but somewhat futuristic. At the same time, things such as the eight track tape, laserdisc and high definition discs have also gone by the wayside because of consumer demand. The same can reasonably be expected of other technologies. They might be fairly good ideas, but that in and of itself might not be an indication of longevity.

ReaderCon Panel Recap: “The New And Improved Future of Magazines”

...good magazines required good editorial oversight regarding its selection of stories and authors in order to bring about a certain level of quality for the magazine or anthology as a whole. This, rather than the specific format in which the stories are released, is the more important factor in gaining readers and retaining them.

ReaderCon Panel Recap: “Citizens of the World, Citizens of the Universe”

One of her main assertions was that science fiction had become formulaic. Going back as far as the classics of the 1970s—with works by notable authors such as Arthur C. Clarke—she found that there was a predominantly American outlook on the world. This did not make sense simply because the world is far too diverse and different between cultures.

ReaderCon Panel Recap: “Interstitial Then, Genre Now”

Genre, according to Michael Dirda, is really a creation of the marketplace, an artificial wall that helps publishers and marketers push towards dedicated audiences. This is a topic that I’ve covered a couple of times in my own writing, and the concept of a genre not an unfamiliar one - it is a term that is really tacked on afterwards, based on the story elements that are put together in the story.

ReaderCon Panel Recap: “Folklore and its Discontents”

...folklore, as a definition in a form of nostalgia, is a way of looking into the past to undocumented claims or stories—things people believed to be true as opposed to something that was empirical and well documented. Someone on the panel probably said it best when they said: “A folk song is something that nobody ever wrote.”

ReaderCon Panel Recap: “Global Warming and Science Fiction”

nuclear warfare was generally regarded as an event that was outside of the general population’s control, removed by several levels of authority, while the nature of global warming is something that is really the cumulative result of the general population. Where one is a wholly dramatic, singular (or limited) event with massive consequences at the onset, global warming is something that has arisen slowly, with little attention paid to it and with the general population not likely to take any major steps to change until there are catastrophic results.

ReaderCon Panel Recap: “New England, At Home to the Unheimlich”

A lifelong New England resident, I can attest that there is something that certainly adds to the feeling of horror and gothic wonder that seems to have been a major influence for some of the seminal works in the genre, and ever since taking a class offered by Brett Cox, I have felt very differently about my state of Vermont, with a sense of wonder for the mountains, small towns, rivers, and the weather here.

ReaderCon 21

This past weekend was consumed with a convention called ReaderCon, which was hosted down in Burlington, MA. As a member of the 501st, I've attended several different types of conventions before, but out of all of them, I think that this convention was one of the best ones that I've ever gone to, and already am looking around for comparable ones to attend. Far from the costuming and media cons that I've visited in the past, ReaderCon lives up to its namesake: it's all about speculative fiction literature.

Never was this more apparent when I arrived on Friday morning and picked up my badge. Patrons in the lobby were engrossed in books, reading away, waiting for the first day's events to start. There was quite a few panels and discussions throughout the weekend, and I was particularly interested in a select number of these, for the content of the panel, but also because of some of the people that were attending: Blake Charlton, Paolo Bacigalupi, Allen M. Steele, Samuel Delany, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Hand, Brett Cox (My Gothic Lit professor) and Nora Jeminsin, just to name a couple. The entire participants list numbered over two hundred people, but those names were ones that I had particular interest in meeting, as I've read all of their books.

Over the course of the weekend, I attended a number of panels: New England: At Home to the Unheimlich, about the propensity of horror writers to be influenced by the region, Influence as Contagion, about films and expectations, Citizens of the World, Citizens of the Universe, Global Warming and Science Fiction, about new directions for the genre to take, New And Improved Future of Magazines, Folklore and its Discontents, Science for Tomorrow's Fiction, How I Wrote The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and How to Write for a Living, to speak nothing of the hours that I spent in the bookstore looking over what was for sale, and carting away my own, large, expensive pile of books.

The highlight though, was getting to meet a couple of authors whom I've befriended or talked to as I've worked for SF Signal and io9 over the past year or so, Blake Charlton, Paolo Bacigalupi and Nora Jeminsin. These three authors were ones who have just delivered their first novels, recieving quite a bit of acclaim (Bacigalupi has already received the Nebula award, the Compton Crook and Locus awards for Best First Novel, and apparently, is on the short list for the John Campbell Award for his book The Windup Girl) Meeting these guys was just amazing, because not only did they sign my books, I got to talk to them extensively about their books and science fiction, and generally have a good time. Along the way, I also met SF/F author David Forbes, whose book I picked up at the conference, as well as geek musician John Anealio, whom I've talked to online (I was on his podcast at one point) and who's music I really like.

This convention seemed to be much in line with what the science fiction scene seemed to be back in the 1970s when there wasn't much beyond the literature scene for science fiction and fantasy materials. That's largely changed with the introduction of blockbusters, with major Comic Cons springing up all over the place, which get a little tiring beyond the autographs and vendor tables. ReaderCon offered a stimulating experience for me, with a number of panels and opportunities that really got me thinking and interacting with a lot of other fans of the genre.