home > SF > cons > LX: Eastercon 2009

The 60th British National Science Fiction Convention
10-13 April 2009, Cedar Court Hotel, Bradford

GoHs: Tim Powers • Jon Courtenay Grimwood •  David Lloyd (art) •  Bill and Mary Burns (fan)

Official LX: Eastercon 2009 pages.

A new venue: the Cedar Court Hotel in Bradford was friendly, provided good cheap food all day (in a very slightly cramped dining room), and had lots of convenient function rooms -- no twisty little passages to get lost in. Lots of great programming, with many new items, and some stalwarts.

Programme highlights

• Nicholas Jackson • The Poincare Conjecture
• Panel • Re-Creating History
• Panel • Bad Biology
• Dave Hardy • Faces of the Moon

• Panel • The author and their work
• Dr Adrian Bowyer • 10th George Hay Memorial Lecture: RepRap
• Jon Courtenay Grimwood • GoH interview
• Panel • Not the Clarke Awards
• Panel • SF as protest literature
• Dr Who • Planet of the Dead
• Symphonic Fantasy •  National Festival Orchestra

• Panel • The Appeal of Steampunk
• Panel • They Keep Killing Hitler
• Panel • Pacifism and non-violence in SF & fantasy
• Dr Shana Worthen • 1st BSFA Lecture: Visualising Time in the Middle Ages
• Filk Concert -- including "If I were a Carpenter, and You were a Walrus"
• Play: " Insidious "

• Panel • World-building with Music

Nicholas Jackson • The Poincare Conjecture

• or ... "If it looks like a sphere, it is."

• a fascinating talk that got the packed audience to the point of understanding the statement of the conjecture (that is, understanding what "looks like", "(3) sphere", and "is" mean) -- via gravestones, a real glass Klein bottle, why flying cars are a bad idea, and analogies of the 80s arcade game of Asteroids in weird geometries [I think there's a sales opportunity there!]

• Slides of the talk
• short LiveJournal con report by Nicholas

Panel • Re-Creating History

Chaz Brenchley, Shana Worthen, Stephanie Burgis, Kari, John Clute

For every official history there are competing unofficial variants, for every orthodox explanation, there are competing unorthodox ones. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century's satirists and philosophers wrote 'fake' memoirs and accounts of imagined places in order to critique the events of their day. Modern alt.history likewise complicates and alters the past. How do writers write history and what do they do with it?

• this panel is not about alternate histories, like "wouldn't it be cool if Queen Elizabeth was a vampire?", but rather about how history is used, layered, textured, in world building
• [from intro]: "John Clute, connoisseur of all that is interesting and multisyllabic"
• "History -- do we really need it in fantasy?"
  • do you have a world if you don't have a history?
  • can't avoid history in any genre of the fantastic
  • often a generic history of "inns, stew, wenches, ..." -- the world is "thin", a backdrop only
  • unlike George R. R. Martin , where a little reference here and there points to a complex past
• Trying to define art by its qualities never works -- something can be art but bad -- similarly, don't say it's not history just because it's bad history
  • can't escape the fact that anything we write has a relationship to our "planetary history"
  • can use a shallow template that's not been thought through -- that's the author's privilege -- but it doesn't mean it's not history
• "I much prefer history, true or feigned" -- J.R.R. Tolkien
  • can really take that history seriously -- eg, there's a book that's not just "Regency with dragons": in this world there have always been dragons, which makes it very different
  • Little Brother is rich world building and history, even though it's just our history
• "Waste Paper Basket" in The Hobbit -- a 19th century invention, before that paper was too valuable to waste -- I take it to imply a whole technology of paper in that universe
  • or he had a careless moment!
    • The Hobbit wasn't originally written in the Middle Earth timeline -- there are also tomatoes
  • how to stop obsessing over this?
  • issues of register, and whether it's important in our assessment of the book
    • is it a clue, or a mistake? -- is it a register error or a marker of alternativeness?
    • it there is a possibility that it's not a mistake, it gives an extra richness
  • The Lackey s of this world are careless with their histories
  • Anne Bishop -- a guilty pleasure, but it makes no sense whatsoever!
    • going shopping for new clothes in a Mediaeval world!
• historian's "red button"
  • Connie Willis' Doomsday Book hit the wall, twice
  • have you ever been able to read a time travel book?
    • once, but I was 13!
    • whatever you research for your book, some reader knows it better!
• when we discovered history, we also discovered the future
  • can set a story 1000 years hence, but if nothing has changed , it's not in the future -- there used to be very little predictive stuff (except Revelations -- a well-established genre at the time)
  • non-Western -- often circular -- what has happened will happen again -- history as a warning for when it happens again
  • there was no sense that the future could be "larger" than the past, be radically different
    • so we may be misreading ancient historians
    • no "ruins as aesthetic objects" before 18th century
      • we can contemplate the past of the ruin -- leads to the idea: what if someone is contemplating us ? -- leads to stories set in the future
  • Thomas More -- Utopia -- written shortly after "discovery" of rest of the world
    • change in world view -- led to a Utopian genre
    • Utopia itself has a map (added by publisher) and an alphabet (added by a fan -- the earliest example of an invented language)
  • Industrial Revolution -- can no longer assume that society will be the same in 50-100 years
• Arthuriania -- 15th-16th century -- a yearning for the past, for better times
• have lost the "tutoring" novel (except for environmental disasters) with the moral "we're all going to hell in a handbasket"
  • Little Brother is such, but it's YA
• research: texture is what remains -- I read a lot and don't take notes -- it's not about what the people have done, but how they approach and use things -- six years of reading Chinese history and no notes, gave Dragon in Chains
  • [Daniel Fox == Chaz Brenchley]
• you build the world to suit the things you want to work with
  • need the right people in the right world for interesting consequences
  • do research, be accurate -- but in the end it must be a good story
  • it's about being credible rather than accurate
• I write a quick first draft -- dialogue in a white room -- then go back and fill in details, pace it, add texture
• "Tiffany problem" -- it was a perfectly common name in Norman times -- but if you used it in a Norman setting, it would throw people out of the book, they would assume it was a modern name
• my publisher said "you must have been writing in that world for years " -- but everything I know about that world is in the book!
• my PhD is on 18th century Venice -- can't write there because it hurts to mess it up -- 19th century Venice is okay!
• as long as you are true to the spirit, the details can change

• problems with metaphors and similes -- one book has loads built around guns/firearms in a world with no gunpowder
  • "shot" is okay -- if you have bows
• with some books I'm "there", others it's just a flat, brightly-coloured film set
  • if it is too easy to identify with the protagonist, it the protagonist is "transparent" but 200 years in the past, it's a bit "whiffy" -- should have to work a bit
  • history is no good if it's transparent -- what's the point of telling history is the people are just like us ?
  • distance and transparency are not the same dimension
• "futuristics" -- romance sub-genre that uses SF as a backdrop only -- could actually be set anywhere
• "Teflon" worlds -- nothing sticks
• films
  • BBC's Persuasion with Amanda Root -- a version where you see dirt!
  • Robin Hood-type films -- people did know how to hem !
  • it depends on when it was written/filmed -- need to know this to appreciate conventions of the time
  • "I'm a Mediaevalist, and I really like A Knight's Tale -- it's true to the spirit of the time!"

Panel • Bad Biology

Alastair Reynolds , Pepper, Paul McAuley , Ang Rosin

We always talk about bad physics, but is the biology in SF just as bad?

• every alien is bad, wrong, nonsense -- dealing with unknown unknowns
• biology is not the kind of thing you can extrapolate
  • if you" played the tape again ", would not get us -- evolution is non-deterministic -- but this doesn't mean you have licence to make it all up -- mostly it's bad stuff made up
• what gets me is what authors do to human bodies
  • the high speed collisions characters walk away from -- superhuman powers of ordinary humans
  • although I have seen a person with a piece of garden strimmer in his frontal lobe -- he walked into A&E off the street! -- the radiologist was very excited...
• aliens won't be us with slightly lumpy foreheads
  • but Conway Morris talks of "ubiquitous convergence"
  • that's because he's an anatomist, not a geneticist -- evolution is conservative -- ruses genes (like the homeobox genes) -- these arose very early on -- convergence is nonsense
• strange ad hoc Darwinian arguments used to justify the aliens are often very bad -- we need a "jack-in-the-box", so let's retrofit a Darwinian argument -- but think of the really strange stuff in the deep sea (say) -- we know less about them than we know about the stars at the centre of the galaxy -- if you want to talk about alien life!! -- it's very difficult to construct an argument for their existence -- there's loads of stuff on earth we can't explain
  • Hal Clement -- Mission of Gravity -- aliens in high gravity won't be giraffes -- that's okay
  • advanced cultures can have genetic engineering -- products of which have no good evolutionary explanation
  • Larry Niven -- his aliens aren't all cats!
  • Poul Anderson -- some really strange aliens, like sponges (and sponges, we've just discovered, are really strange)
  • Jack Vance -- The Dragon-Masters -- various evolved kinds of humans -- early genetic engineering
  • Greg Bear -- Anvil of Stars -- alien aliens -- braided ropes, shifting identities as braids change
  • James White -- Sector General -- good aliens -- but they all think like humans -- puzzle of anatomy/physiology
  • Peter Watts -- relentlessly grim Darwinian -- but still good
• there's one species we could eradicate from the planet and not change the ecology: dogs
• lots of SF has been predictive: cloning, genetic engineering
  • what's the point of cloning humans? -- people assume it's photocopying, but clones would have different personalities, interests, etc
  • Greg Benford is a clone -- an identical twin -- but he's not indistinguishable from his brother
  • even with identical DNA, different genes activate differently in different places, at different times -- think of a caterpillar and a butterfly!
  • women have two X chromosomes -- express different ones in "patches"
• real bugbears
  • "they're dragons, but they're really horses"
  • humans evolving on a different planet, coming late to earth
  • humans and aliens can breed
  • need to think of biology, ecology, biome, habitable region around star, elements in proto-disc, ...
    • stories with aliens evolved on a planet around a red giant -- not enough time
    • there's no point where biology stops and physics begins
  • brain transplants
    • better to transplant whole head
    • if you take a brain out of the skull, it swells -- how do you stuff it into the new skull?
      • [well, if that's the only problem you can think of...]
  • Dune is full of bad biology -- ecology of Arrakis wouldn't work -- what do the sandworms eat?
    • maybe they're breatharians ?
    • at least he tried -- at least it's not a planet with no life at all, but still with oxygen
  • planets with one climate zone
    • Mars has one zone!
      • no, actually it has many
      • from fsking cold to bloody fsking cold!
  • radiation and mutation
    • fruit flies have lots of variation, because of radiation -- but none of them are useful mutations
  • Stanley Weinbaum -- one story says there are no bacteria on mars, but lots of other organisms -- is there any way to get this?
    • most diversity is in bacteria -- most processes in the biosphere are mediated by bacteria
    • could use weird clay -- clay can interact with DNA
    • RNA-world could "do chemistry" without bacteria
  • carbon-based life
    • well, it is a common element
    • if you have silicon-based, you have to explain why carbon doesn't dominate -- temperature?
      • Hal Clement -- Iceworld -- a silicon-based humanoid -- high temperature
    • silicon-based compounds are very variable -- some are soft -- organisms don't have to be rock-like
  • bad biology that's not so bad
    • Alien -- the double mouth -- eels, pike have these -- but the acid blood, etc -- that's the Home Secretary!
    • Jack Cohen says you make up something very weird, but the real world trumps it every time!
  • genetic engineering as Meccano/Lego
    • reality: tweak one protein at a time
      • one gene one protein is not true (except in bacteria, mostly)
    • or plasmid exchange between bacteria
• recommended reading:
  • Carl Zimmer -- Microcosm -- E.coli as an example to illustrate Darwinism
  • Sean Carroll -- Endless Forms Most Beautiful -- evo/devo
  • Neil Shubin -- Your Inner Fish
  • Stephen J. Gould -- Wonderful Life
  • Atul Gawande -- Complications: a surgeon's notes on an imperfect science
  • Ben Goldacre -- Bad Science -- and his related blog

Panel • The author and their work

Stephen Deas, Gareth L. Powell, Cory Doctorow, Maura McHugh

Can you still enjoy books by an author whose views you disagree with? Is this harder to manage in the age of blogs and increasing online contact of readers and authors?

• there are books I read 25 years ago, with no info about the author, that I enjoyed -- now more info is available -- I can know if they have strange views -- I don't want to be preached at, even if I agree! -- if I didn't know the views, I probably wouldn't even notice it in the writing
  • LitCrit looked to the author's beliefs -- it was rarely done by amateurs, and at a remove
  • there have always been public authors, but they used to be a minority
• John Kessel's essay " Creating the Innocent Killer ", about Ender's Game -- brilliant criticisms -- shows it's a set-up to justify pre-emptive violence -- then we learn Card has the same views about invading people who might do us harm
• I like to be challenged, so I wouldn't select only texts I agree with
  • I have a difficulty with Internet lynch mobs -- even if you don't like someone, they can write novels with merit
  • Oscar Wilde: "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all."
  • I want something that can stand up to lots of different kinds of analysis
• I had to write a difficult letter to an employee -- I was advised to separate facts from feelings -- this is exactly the opposite from writing fiction -- there is a seamless blending of fact and feeling so that readers can't spot the moving between
• Kessel's essay opened my eyes -- Ender's Game put one over on me -- it undermined my rational views with irrational beliefs, and I didn't notice -- it's well written, but it's ideologically bad
  • You've now diminished Ender's Game for me !
• If I know in advance the author's views, then I know what to think, which reduces my involvement
• So should you self-censor your views on your blog?
  • there is a difference between your public and private life -- the registers are different -- not self-censorship -- there's a different dynamic in public and private forums
  • you behave differently with different people
  • a blog is a public forum -- it's not a good idea for certain things to be written down -- casual small talk is private -- also not write to bring other people into an open forum
• Justin Hall -- wrote the first blog -- every conceivable personal detail for 15 years -- regretted it -- videoed himself crying about this, then put it on the Web! -- he's now leading a perfectly happy life not on the Web
• what I want from an authors website, in order of importance:
  1. where you are at with your next book
  2. where you are appearing so I can meet you
  3. okay, now amuse me with some stuff
• if you post something once, you can probably get away with it -- if you do it again and again, it's probably something important to you anyway
  • if you are very well respected, you can get away with more
• a very large percentage of people never read blogs -- although that percentage is lower in the SF community
  • Internet lynch mobs -- people rush along without understanding the issues -- always go back to the primary sources!
  • I always have difficult with people demanding a ban/boycott
    • might not be a boycott per se , but a reprioritisation of what you spend your time on
• even in the past, could meet authors -- sometimes not a good idea!
  • sometimes it can put you off a work, sometimes it's still okay -- sometimes I deliberately read their works to see if their views permeate it -- sometimes I'm horrified by how much I still love the work!
• I'm prepared to make allowances for stuff written, say, > 50 years ago -- more uncomfortable with modern writes
  • everyone pastiches Lovecraft's tentacles, not his eugenics
  • everyone pastiches Heinlein 's action adventure, not his self-indulgent sex tales
    • Charlie Stross -- Saturn's Children -- is a Heinlein-self-indulgence pastiche -- brought up to date -- very good job
  • did anyone have a penny-dropping moment with Narnia ?
    • I read The Last Battle as an adult -- I really want to unread it!
• if you know the author's view, you can look for it, and you will find it, even if you have to try v hard -- confirmation bias
• SF had this knowledge before blogs -- newsletters, etc
• E.L. Doctorow (no relation) -- Creationists -- its first essay is a LitCrit of the book of Genesis, and the motivations of the authors, etc -- mind opening
• anti-charisma -- certain writers are just uninteresting in person
  • there's a non-fiction writer of the Singularity -- the books are good, but his public appearances make it sound really dull
• publishers push blogging -- they say it's now an integral part of the business -- they push the author into the public domain
  • true of all technology shifts -- vaudeville valued charisma over virtuosity, then radio rewarded virtuosity over charisma, etc, etc
  • maybe this is the era of performative writing -- allows new kinds of authors to be successful
• you might go to a blog just for info, but would you go back ?
  • SF is about writers who sit around and talk to you about stuff
  • will there be a push to make the blog postings be in the same "voice" as the fiction?
    • it's important for the voice to be natural
• Jo Walton -- initially, participated in Usenet, posted poetry, etc -- smart, funny, conveyed well on-line -- was contacted by a publisher who asked "do you write stuff"?

Dr Adrian Bowyer • 10th George Hay Memorial Lecture: RepRap

3D printers that can make solid objects on demand have long been a staple of SF, from George O Smith's Venus Equilateral to Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. But now a team at the University of Bath is building a prototype - one that can make copies of itself.

• RepRap = The Replicating Rapid Prototyper
  • it can make most of its own parts -- the rest are commercial off the shelf components, costing ~ £500
  • all open source (GPL) designs
  • the plastic it prints with is polylactic acid, made from starch
    • [so, will the PrintCrime enforcement officers raid allotments that are growing too many potatoes for "personal use"?]
  • icing sugar is a good soluble scaffolding
    • or complex cake icings: "It amazes me how many people want to print with food"
• other resources:
  • RepRap blog
  • RepRap website

Panel • Not the Clarke Awards

Claire Brialey, Farah Mendlesohn, Edward James, Tanya Brown, Simon Bradshaw, Tony Keen

Our panel of ex-Clarke judges discus the latest shortlist, what they would pick, and predict the result

• The shortlist for the Arthur C Clarke 2009 award is
  • Ian R. MacLeod • Song of Time
  • Paul McAuley • The Quiet War
  • Alastair Reynolds • House of Suns
  • Neil Stephenson • Anathem
  • Sheri S. Tepper • The Margarets
  • Mark Wernham • Martin Martin's on the Other Side

• what's out? what has no chance?

• Martin Martin
  • it's puerile and pointless
  • rather brilliant evocation of London
  • interesting things start happening about two thirds of the way through, but then he does nothing with them -- that's more disappointing than if it had been bad all the way through
  • consumerist distopia -- author doesn't believe in it as a real world

• The Margarets
  • starts as a reasonably decent SF novel of overpopulation -- rescued by aliens, some want to save us, some want to exploit us -- not bad -- then ends up as a weird fantasy where we meet real gods -- ritualised homophobia -- racism (good alien species and bad alien species) -- giant extraterrestrial cats that give us their deformed kittens -- ends in genocide, but it's okay, because the people wiped out are evil
  • I rather liked it! -- either it's been slightly misrepresented, or differently read, or my edition is different? -- but I don't think it's a Clarke book -- this is a fairy tale : Margaret splits into seven pieces, be nice to random strangers and animals
  • moves from SF (the universe doesn't give a toss) to fantasy (you are specially protected)
  • if it were a P. K. Dick novel, it would be All My Mary Sues Dismembered
  • sheer degree of self-loathing that permeates it -- visceral dislike of human beings
  • there's a lot of "what we're doing to our planet and how we might get out of it" -- this isn't one of the better ones
    • wasted possibilities, wasted potential

• Anathem
  • v good book, but it's a thin book trying to get out of a fat one -- far too long, loses track in the middle, self-indulgent, far from his best work
  • first 300pp would be a good novel -- I gave up around p600
    • so, you never got the the Philosopher Monks in Spaaaace?
  • I enjoyed reading it -- fascinating ideas -- not sure there was a plot -- very thought-provoking and accessible -- it absolutely is SF and in this volume -- but it took me a phenomenally long time to read because I couldn't carry it, couldn't read it lying down
    • an M&S 99p canvas food bag is just the right size to carry it
  • it's A Canticle for Leibowitz written like The Name of the Rose with bits of Learning the World (alien space bats) -- I enjoyed the characters, philosophy, maths -- very well written -- but annoyed by the unnecessary homophobia
  • I feel I've been shoved into saying this is a winner because of the other choices
  • Adam Robert's review nails it -- creaking under the weight of ostentatious world-building -- "worldbling"! -- moderate flaw rather than major criticism -- enormously fun read
    • "annoylogisms" -- no, they are crucial
  • there's no Stross-criticism "and then weird shit happens that's nothing to do with the plot" ending -- weird shit happens, but it is to do with the plot
  • it seems a bit frothy and lightweight to me!
  • I liked all the individual elements -- but when you put it together it's slightly less than the sum of its parts
    • [that's presumably to do with its gravitational binding energy?]
  • "fascination overload" -- all of that is the point
  • the Clarke Award jury read all the shortlist books again -- we've read only once -- can play v differently on a second reading -- there's a lot in Anathem -- but will it seem so a second time around?
    • Black Man won -- it is one that gives more on a second read
  • I'd like to read Anathem again when I have a month's free time and a Wikipedia link to look up all the references
    • there's a website already

• Song of Time
  • a relatively short novel -- exploring human society in the next century or so -- problematic in structure and pace -- was initially absolutely captivating, but about half way through, I found I was bogging down -- all fascinating, but interest slipped away
  • beautiful read, but has no real story -- I didn't care about the main character or the others -- not interesting
    • lots of "and suddenly"s -- doesn't make for compelling fiction, loses narrative drive
  • I grew up in the location, and never recognised it -- wrecked the book for me
  • I became disappointed with the plot -- the mysterious stranger never delivers -- felt underwhelmed by the resolution -- event though it's v nice, v well-written, a joy to read
  • interesting politics, SF, other bits -- but not interesting characters
  • love the use of music
  • young bloke writing an old woman of different race -- and he gets it spot on
  • all the SFnal stuff is happening in the background -- I was more interested in the scenery!
  • could be v different on a second reading -- will it be even more lightweight, or will more start poking through?

• House of Suns
  • awful writing -- we get told things again, and again, and again ... in the same paragraph!
    • this is a classic "and suddenly" book -- a murder mystery, where the investigators figure out nothing, but keep meeting entities who tell them what they need to know
    • wonderful scenery, great space opera stuff -- but
  • we've been reading a different book again!
    • writing is wonderful -- that staccato thing is deliberate
    • great scope, sweeping
    • long term, long distance love affair is subtle
    • questions about identity via cloning
    • this is the sort of SF that makes me want to read Space Opera again
  • impressed by the way it deals with scope -- set 6 million years in the future -- does it well
    • I don't think it's "SF by the numbers", but it's too similar to The Prefect -- similar structure
  • I really enjoy Al Reynolds' books -- they converted me to Space opera -- because of scale and scope of imagination and action -- does structure of narrative v well -- but this is simpler, less too it, than his others
  • reading it was like having a load of Chris Foss book covers and Roger Dean album covers in my head
  • really enjoyed the frame story -- but homophobic -- the clones who are lovers are of opposite sexes -- irritated by the assumptions
  • endless inane conversations of the main characters
  • nothing in this year's list grabbed me in the first 100pp -- unlike The Execution Channel and The H-Bomb Girl last year -- but this was closest

• The Quiet War
  • the only one with no homophobia!
  • it's Paul McAuley doing some of the things he does really well -- what humanity is doing to itself and how it might evolve -- reminded me a lot of ideas SF has recently been exploring -- but not derivative -- firmly rooted in the field -- good space scenes, good genetics -- great sense of place around solar system
  • this is the only one I forgot I was reading for a purpose! -- absolutely fascinating infodumps -- interesting characters
  • there's a lot I admire about this book -- sensawunda, poetic -- but it's like Wagner: "wonderful moments, and dreadful quarters of an hour" -- the infodumps -- quiet and understated style that makes me glaze
  • v difficult to write mid-future SF -- still linked to now, but on the way to becoming post-human -- enormously imaginative and v gripping
  • nothing is inevitable -- genuine sense that everything is the outcome of decisions -- no automatic black hat/white hat, just different ideologies -- some working together, but for only a few moves of the game -- no right answer
  • a bit like Paul McAuley doing The Cassini Division with a hint of Brazil

• decision time!
  • 4 votes for McAuley, 2 for Reynolds -- but that's what we want
  • real panel -- depends on what repays a second reading -- MacLeod, Stephenson?
  • as long as it's not the Tepper I don't care!
  • 4 books are excellent candidates -- it will depend on the mood of the panel

• both the Stephenson and the McAuley felt like Wikipedia pages cut and paste
  • everything Stephenson cites turns out to have a consequence!
  • a critic said "people don't have that sort of conversation down the pub" -- he doesn't go to the same pub I do!
  • in the Stephenson, the narrator has historical and philosophical perspective on the events of his time -- an unusual narrative approach
    • a good picture of a young academic becoming an older academic, realising he will only be second best, but that even second best is pretty good
• what would you have put on the shortlist rather than the Wernham?
  • Matter
  • loads of others!
• people who have a lot of spare time like Stephenson; people trained as speed readers (like editors) don't
  • speed reading convinces you that a novel is dull if it is, because there's nothing there to slow you down
  • we all felt we had enough time -- some of us were wrong!

[ Song of Time won the ACC award]

Panel • SF as protest literature

David Barnett, David Lloyd, Gareth L. Powell, John Clute, Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Science fiction has a long tradition of stories written as a reaction to current events, such as V for Vendetta, Czech and Russian SF, and the reaction to terrorist legislation. Can SF have any impact?

• "with CCTV cameras on every corner, peaceful protesters [or even innocent bystanders] dying after being shoved by the police, and the Home Secretary [or at least her husband] buying porn -- welcome to the distopian future!"

• protest literature argues against some situation -- if you can capture it in entertainment, it's a good way to get your message across
  • can also protest for another state -- forward looking, the way things should be
• SF and other genres are structured as protests -- estranged from the ordinary world, threatening
  • if we are writing/reading about a world other than this one, it's inherently a protest
• it is hard to think of any SF novel worth its name that doesn't have a warning in it -- most are not happy stories! -- we don't even think Utopias are SF
  • distopias are much easier to write, and much more interesting
• Flash Gordon is SF, but way over to the edge -- he doesn't care about the things we care about -- unless we stretch it to "defending a decent way of life"
• Ken MacLeod writes good political SF
• Eastern European SF -- allowed writers to tell stories that got past the censors that they couldn't tell in a mainstream realist novel
  • pretended to be talking about something else, but everyone knew what it said
  • " Aesopian language " -- removed from dangerous present
  • it's astonishing they got away with it -- not a lot of disguise
    • an element of bluff -- saying to the censors: "is this about you?" -- challenging them to admit it was
• long tradition of left-leaning in UK, right-leaning in US -- not sure if this is still the case
  • US SF didn't protest its own world, but rather the rest of the world, or the future, or against the "left wing conspiracy" -- took the UK a while to realise it could write a different sort of SF
• V for Vendetta was written in the 80s, the Thatcher years -- now seems v relevant again
• main problem with US SF -- it's "romance", full of fables of solution
  • Little Brother , all "can do", there's a solution (even though Doctorow is Canadian)
  • we don't do that very well in the UK -- that's not to our discredit
  • v difficult to hold to a description of the nature of the world if you have all the tools of escape
  • Ken MacLeod does well for someone who tells the truth
• SF does preach to the converted to a degree
• In society at the moment we are facing what have traditionally been SF issues -- cloning, whatever -- the mainstream is sitting up and saying "where did this come from?" -- maybe we should be leaving these, and looking for the next thing
  • nearly all mainstream writers writing SF show a bad world -- use it as a protest tool
• CCTV is okay in a democracy , it helps solve crimes
  • no it isn't -- you don't need to be evil -- just a mistake can be devastating
  • it's establishing systems that don't allow for common sense
• constant tension between the freedom of the individual and the good of society

• does Western SF taken into say Chinese SF shape the form of protest that's acceptable? -- eg Chinese SF films express more Western anxieties than do Chinese sword films
• Indian SF -- they have such a long rich history, they've seen lots -- if a cataclysm occurs, it doesn't matter, they've seen it before
• knowledge of a possible future can make it not occur -- but that knowledge needs to be around for a while, to have a drip effect
  • rare to have an Uncle Tom's Cabin effect, immediate effect
  • subliminal effect, including vocabulary
    • "Frankenstein" allows people to protest change -- even those who haven't read the book, where the Monster is the only character who has any reader sympathy
  • 1984 -- certain sections of government regard it as a "how to" manual
• SF can also show that our solutions can cause bigger problems than they were trying to solve

Panel • The Appeal of Steampunk

Venetta Uye, Peter Harrow, Kim Lakin-Smith, Tim Powers, Cory Doctorow, Toby Frost

Costumes, home-brew clockwork technology, even steampunk tea-parties and dances: why is steampunk an increasingly popular genre and aesthetic? Does it point to dissatisfaction with current technology, and its lack of romance and flamboyance? Does the hands-on nature of retrofitting your own technology give it new appeal? Does steampunk consider the less appealing aspects of the Victorian era they are emulating?

• The Anubis Gates -- everyone thinks it takes part in the Victorian era, although it doesn't!
  • Henry Mayhew -- London Labour and the London Poor -- lots of detail -- all the research in one place! -- life of Mudlarks, of people who breed birds obsessively, ...
    • Jeter found it, and we [Powers, Blaylock , Jeter] all wound up writing based on it
  • something intrinsically interesting about Victorian London, from Dickens to Jack the Ripper -- loads of colourful stories possible
• Wells -- steampunk, or just Victorian SF?
• what's the contemporary attraction?
  • squaring the circle between artisanship , with a degree of autonomy, and industrialisation, striping workers of all autonomy -- workers as cogs -- with great productivity gains
  • artisans don't make steamships or locomotives
  • steampunk has the sole Heinlein-hero, producing stuff that looks like industrial product
    • The Time Machine fits here
  • "when it's time to railroad, we will get steampunk!"
• cyberpunk is distopic -- steampunk is "cuter", maybe "twee"?
  • Victorian outlook allows you to ignore the darker elements if you want to
  • can also see people/aliens through a "colonial" lens
  • cyberpunk has a much more "realistic" viewpoint
    • Gibson swears Neuromancer is optimistic, because it's not set in a cloud of radioactive ash!
  • "the street finds its own use for things" is cyberpunk's rallying cry, but is also v steampunk
• steampunk doesn't have the same voice as real Victorian novels
  • it doesn't come within a mile of saying anything important about this or any other world
    • TP: I certainly don't say anything serious!
  • although Perdido Street Station contradicts everything I just said!
• as a reader, even when it's jolly shiny, the dark underbelly of Victorian society is implicit
• Victorian ethics and morals are of self-improvement, philanthropy, personal responsibility and obligations -- cyberpunk is enormous corporations ruling the world
  • currently -- the nation state is rescuing the corporate state -- a return?
• exposed wiring, naked flames, wood, grime, ...
  • a reaction against sterility?
  • a move against the hermetically sealed world
    • " if you can't open it you don't own it ", "screws better than glues", ...
  • gauges, instructions, knowing what's going on
    • David MacKay -- Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air -- shows how putting a current meter on the mains add info
    • a lava lamp that draws almost as much power off as on, so that the manufacturer could save 1p on the transformer
  • reaction against powerlessness
  • valves, levers, gears -- but with little curlicues and flowers!
    • just part of the culture, and charming
  • machines would have name of manufacturer and the name of the man who built it
• steampunk may not have more idea of what's going on inside (a decorated iPhone, for example) -- it's the care of adding detail, cherishing, pride in possessions -- not "disposable"
  • also an extension/alternative to Gothic lifestyle
  • exposed working provide "legibility" -- eg project that mods cheap off-the-shelf robot dogs to converge on toxic spots in waste sites -- more "legible" result than columns of numbers
  • Clock of the Long Now -- to be sustainable for 10,000 years, it has to be obvious to anyone with any background just by looking
• Don Norman was all about how form follows function -- in a book I call Don Norman Discovers Feng Shui , he now says the natural state of all technology is "broken", and what matters is how angry you are when it breaks -- beautiful things, when they break, we nurse back to health
• I'm more comfortable owning a car built before 1965 -- modern car engines look like the back of a TV set! -- message is "don't touch this, it's for experts only, which you are not!"
  • can no longer just "fix anything" -- no longer the "competent hero"
• Frank R Paul's Cities of the Future covers -- giant towers with biplanes flying around them
  • paleofuture
• information technology as a force multiplier to the artisan, to allow industrial-style production -- no longer need to be out-performed by industrial scale
• Orwell : technology gives power to the state over the individual -- cyberpunk : technology gives power to the individual over the state
• not just engineering -- Victorian era was about discover of microbes, rejection of phlogiston, etc
  • also fantastical element -- psychic research
  • attitude as well as engineering
    • individuality of the engineering and of the characters
• Is The Island of Dr Moreau steampunk? it's biology
• biohacking -- "if you can't open it you don't own it" applied to your own body
  • Quinn Norton -- magnet in the fingertip -- can sense many kinds of magnetic and electrical effects
  • John Varley story -- little girl on one of Jupiter swapping her kidneys out [I'm unable to identify this one?]
• nowadays, we're always worried about the consequences -- in Victorian times, they just went ahead and did it
• we're applying a Xena-lens to Victorian SF -- they were actually writing technothrillers
  • steampunk is as much derived from Mary Poppins as from Mayhew -- nostalgic view -- Mr Toad's Wild Ride
• Victorian sewers with stained glass -- a temple to engineering -- a Saviour
  • depends on who you are -- architect or sewer worker?
  • we like to pretend the Morlocks don't exist!

Panel • They Keep Killing Hitler

Julian Headlong, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Edward James, David Devereux, Paul McAuley

There are many alternate histories [AH] which use the same turning points, from the outcome of World War II to the assassination of JFK. Why are they used so often, and is there a greater challenge in coming up with your own spin on an often-used scenario? What neglected moments in history would make a good turning point for an alternate history?

• Is Hitler a more common turning point than the American Civil War?
  • need to write about history that readers know about -- transparent
  • if I write a book about how Barbarossa didn't die on his way to the 3rd Crusade ...
    • "I'd buy it!", "I'd buy it!", "I'd buy it!"
• is it necessary to reveal the hinge point?
  • yes, but it doesn't need to be recent -- it's history, no-one is bothered by it
  • historical periods where you can write historical fiction:
    • publishers' view: Tudors, Crusades, Napoleon, Vikings (maybe)
    • public knows more, probably [Romans, surely?]
• WWII didn't really end until 1989 -- fall of the Berlin Wall -- so we [Brits] all know it well -- and it's why we couldn't get over it, why it's so important to us in the UK
  • In the US, they're still fighting the Civil War!
• have to believe in the Great Man theory of history?
  • much easier to hang a plot on a known name
  • Kim Stanley Robinson -- The Years of Rice and Salt -- Neil Stephenson -- Anathem -- more interesting because they are about types of history
  • also "great events" -- Black Death in the case of Rice and Salt
  • Jo Walton -- Farthing -- Hess' negotiations different, so WWII doesn't happen, but looked at through the eyes of non-historic people
  • Great Man -- useful wallpaper
    • Stalin should figure more strongly -- he survived WWII -- looking forward to a Cold War AH novel
• what's the point of AH? why not straight history?
  • looking at it from a different point of view -- the view that things are not absolute -- something else could have happened
• what are other nations obsessed with?
  • Japan -- lots of novels about what happened if Japan won WWII
  • in Russia, it was the government rewriting history!
  • The Years of Rice and Salt recentred the world away from the West
  • it's strange how Americans obsess about the British Empire too
    • S. M. Stirling -- The Peshwar Lancers
  • let's go back before the 20th century
    • Stephen Baxter -- 14.6 billion years ago!
    • Greg Egan goes back a trillion years and invents a universe in which Stephen Baxter couldn't exist...
• sometimes spend 200pp exploring an idea without a plot -- can be worthwhile for the intellectual interest
• hard to imagine what it would be like now if the hinge point is longer ago, eg 2000 years
  • Spartacus 2000AD!
  • also an American obsession with the Roman Empire lasting another 2000 years, simply transposed to the modern day
  • Byzantium as Roman Empire -- 1500 years of history -- what if it had lasted another 300 years?
  • Harry Turtledove -- Agent of Byzantium -- I enjoyed it
    • we can get away with this sort of thing because we are obscure
  • are there topics we can't touch?
    • S. M. Stirling -- Marching Through Georgia -- probably shouldn't have been written -- all you can say is WWII could have been worse!
• even in AHs, characters still seem to have our mindset -- not written from "within"
  • older stories often had a reference/contact to "our" world
  • Keith Roberts -- Pavane -- is good for mindset -- Elizabeth the First assassinated, Spanish conquest, Catholic England
    • but the coda spoils it -- link to our world -- justifies torture and banning technology, because the alternative is Hitler!
    • author shouldn't make moral judgement
• most say we live in the better world? -- most are distopias?
  • Edward Bellamy -- Looking Backward -- but that's SF
  • It's a Wonderful Life meme
    • even though he would still have gone to jail!
  • L. Neil Smith -- Probability Broach -- turning point is one word in US constitution -- made their world a (libertarian) utopia
  • Terry Bisson -- Fire on the Mountain -- John Brown succeeded in the sparking a slave rebellion -- black socialist state in the centre of America -- America fragmented and more peaceful
  • Kim Newman -- Anno Dracula trilogy -- Count Dracula fought in WWI
  • Move -- the hero can move between alternate strands -- keeps moving to a better life -- but the moves cause problems [I failed to identify this one?]
• how about making Hitler a nice guy, making social reforms without war, and without exterminating the Jews?
  • Hitler staying an artist, then coming back to save Europe from squabbling kingdoms
  • goes to South America and becomes SF pulp writer!
  • doesn't David Irving already write these kinds of things?
  • Howard Waldrop -- You Could Go Home Again -- Hitler is in power, but there's no war (yet(
  • you can't have a nice Hitler -- he's established his politics by Mein Kampf , 1925 -- and he's not the only anti-Semite in Europe!
  • to make Hitler nice, would need a different ending to WWI and its Treaty of Versailles , which produced an embittered generation out for revenge
  • Harry Mulisch -- Siegfried -- Hitler's son
• to get Utopia, can't have real people -- it everyone is happy with their world, something is wrong
  • The Culture ?
  • Kim Stanley Robinson -- Pacific Edge trilogy of AH set in the future -- Utopian equality, etc, but still unhappiness
• Rita Rudner looks at cookery books in the same way : "this ain't going to happen"
• all SF becomes AH when its future catches up with it
• Waterloo -- if the Prussians hadn't shown up, we'd have lost in another 4 hours
  • Code Napoleon, rolling over Europe -- so different laws, etc, 100 years later
  • first AH novel is French, written in 1836 -- where Napoleon does win
    • Louis Geoffrey -- Napoleon et la conquête du monde — 1812 à 1832 — Histoire de la monarchie universelle
• Alternate Presidents and Altrernate Kennedys -- anthologies
• Cromwell -- if he'd named his second son Henry as heir -- he could have controlled the army -- no more Stuarts
  • the Restoration burnt documents, rewrote the past
  • the English Civil War is no longer part of the National Curriculum
    • [it seems to appear as an option in Key Stage 2 , local history study, but otherwise it's straight from Tudors to either Victorians or post-1930 (oooh look, they leave out WWI and the Depression, too!) -- my own (O-Level History) studies, back in the 1970s, covered just 1603-1815, so I fall right in the gap!]
  • Eric Flint -- 1632 "Grantville" stories -- time travel -- take history books back, Charles I arrests Cromwell, and so radicalises him 10 years earlier!
• John Whitbourn -- A Dangerous Energy -- To Build Jerusalem -- Elizabeth dies of smallpox in 1562, and Mary Queen of Scots takes over, with a Catholic Counter-Reformation
• Jon Courtenay Grimwood -- Arabesk trilogy -- 150 years since the turning point -- a lot can happen in 150 years
• alternate explanations for things that have happened in this world
  • why the SOE essentially "vanishes" at the end of WWII -- off fighting Hitler's magic
  • various Secret Histories
• Neville Shute -- In the Wet -- socialist Britain, Royal Family move to Australia
  • [not AH -- published in 1953, set in the 1980s -- so actually SF]
• AH is one area where SF does overlap with a lot of other authors
  • is it Fan Writing for historians?
  • most historians regard it with deep suspicion -- they think it philosophically wrong to think about things that didn't happen
    • so what's their ultimate sin, their equivalent of Slash fiction?
    • plagiarism!
      • I marked a student essay that copied 3 paragraphs from Wikipedia, including the hyperlinks!
• 1066 -- an Anglo Saxon England would have been a good influence on Europe -- Harold was a poor king, but the structure was closer to a Republic than Absolute Monarchy
  • typo in a student essay: "in 1066 the Mormons invaded England"
    • The Earlier Day Saints??
    • they are frighteningly interested in genealogy!
• Ian McKellen in the updated Richard III -- need AH to justify the uniforms
  • what other classic worlds could be updated? -- "transposition"
• Zipang -- Japanese anime -- a modern Japanese warship is thrown back in time, and fights in WWII
  • the modern Japanese sailors abhor the 1940s Japanese totalitarian government
• It Happened Here -- film of German-occupied Britain
• how much knowledge of history does the reader need to bring to AH?
  • delicate balance between expecting them to know, and infodumping -- have to put in info for those who don't know without insulting those who do
  • which is why WWII is so good -- it's "well known"
  • question asked once of a history prof after a lecture: "do I take it from your references to World War Two that there was a World War One ?"
• Incas beat Cortez -- can just make it up from then on -- spacefaring Incas with mysticism!
  • no! -- they would still have all died from the diseases
• Sideways in Crime -- anthology of crime stories in AH

Panel • Pacifism and non-violence in SF & fantasy

Farah Mendlesohn, Nick Harkaway, Kim Lakin-Smith, Sam Kelly

In a genre known for swords and blasters, is a pacifist universe a viable alternative? What challenges does it present, and where has it been used successfully?

• [I missed the first 5 minutes of this]
• it's a beautiful idea -- but we'd all be zombies if we didn't fight for our ideas
• it's difficult -- violence is quite cool -- there's light-sabres!
  • all SF seems to be about war, dying, killing
  • most of us have never been in a war
  • the Vorkosigan Universe is the ur-text for pacifism
    • you are kidding !
    • Miles often finds solutions that don't involve violence -- even though he starts off by killing someone in a v unpleasant way
    • we see violence -- but the focus is on the after-effects on people, which are not good
• it's not the violence, but how the author integrates the consequences of the violence
  • a death has to have consequences, not be a throwaway
  • but depiction of the horror doesn't always work
  • certain characters don't work without a level of violence
    • especially alternative sub-cultures, which have to fight for their right to exist, which get attacked
• it's human nature
  • no, you have to work at it
• historians like writing about wars, but there have been huge swathes of peace -- war is in some way an exception
  • there are laws against murder, but that's not why we don't kill each other
  • non-violence is not the same as pacifism -- there's direct action
• Quakers regard democracy as a form of tyranny of the majority over the minority
  • Quakers are pacifists because the believe only this world counts -- Jehovahs Witnesses are pacifists because the believe this world doesn't count
  • Quakers have 300 years of pacifist direct action
• those huge times of peace -- doesn't mean someone wasn't beating up their neighbours -- most conflict is small
• EU solved problem of European conflict, by exporting it -- the Cold War solved US/USSR conflicts by exporting them to Africa
• there is the violence of capitalism, of displacement
  • I was taught "drama is conflict"
  • one conflict resolution practitioner would make the parties come to her house and explain things to her 5 year old
    • [I wonder what the 5 year old thought of this?]
• is violence a "boy problem"?
  • women like to think of themselves as peaceful -- but there's loads of conflict in women's groups!
  • self-defence classes -- men freeze, women scream -- it's easier to turn a scream into action
  • armies find it hard to train individuals to kill -- most bullets fired don't hit anyone
  • war is consensual
    • mutiny is threatening, because it challenges that consensus
    • in WWI, the troops evolved routines not to kill -- the generals had to break these -- even without explicit collusion, there was tacit agreement not to violate barrage timetables, etc
      • Robert Axelrod -- The Evolution of Cooperation
    • similar things in Vietnam -- "Seek and Avoid" missions
    • Asterix in Britain -- stop fighting for "hot water and a drop of milk" (tea not discovered yet!) -- so Caesar fights only at 3pm
  • there are few who are more anti-war than soldiers -- fewer than 1 in 10 fire a shot in anger at the enemy
• violence in 17th century Philadelphia -- 15 died in one year!
• even in martial arts, it is difficult to get people to hit one another
  • it's even harder to get a soldier to kill a wounded man
• examples
  • Enemy Mine -- they have to work together to survive
  • Terry Pratchett -- Jingo -- the police arrest the army for disturbing the peace
  • Xena -- Gabrielle is pacifist for half of season 4
  • The A Team -- no-one ever got killed
  • Poul Anderson -- "The Live Coward" -- primary law not to kill, but violence is outsources to the "lesser breeds" -- displacement
  • Harry Harrison -- Stainless Steel Rat books -- in one, an entire civilisation walks away from violence
  • Charlie Stross -- mainly economic warfare
    • Quakers say that starving people is no better than bombing them -- sanctions are violence
• if it is so difficult to get people to engage in war, maybe we should stop the strategies that get us to that point
  • Stanley Milgram -- Obedience to Authority -- abdication of responsibility to systems of authority
    • the book is much scarier than any of the stories you hear
  • Charlie Stross -- Glasshouse -- they find a way around the authority
    • it's a rewrite of The Feminine Mystique
  • we educate to "behave well", that is "do as you are told"
    • in WWII, some of the bravest people were criminals, who are used to breaking the law
    • some "people traffikers" are actually helping refugees -- doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons
  • doing evil is incremental -- where is the line you stop at?
  • L. D Adlington -- The Diary of Pelly D -- YA novel about genetic discrimination leading to a Holocaust -- the evil creeps up v v slowly
• does the morality extend to alien species
  • LoTR -- morality of the orcs
  • Terminator -- a non-human is killing people -- Terminator 2 is naff, because he becomes more human, that's not the point
  • Orson Scott Card -- Xenocide -- (the clue is in the title!) -- 4 categories of aliens -- one of which is so alien that it is incomprehensible and inimical
• "othering"
  • Harry Harrison -- Stainless Steel Rat books -- one with aliens who don't like us, because we're not squidgy and tentacle-y -- solution is to start a meme that we're squidgy (tears) and tentacle-y (fingers) enough
  • othering is a behaviour of groups, dysfunctional groups -- military training is precisely forming such groups
  • also in dysfunctional schools
    • bullying is so much worse in US schools [than UK schools] because social status in school is related to that outside school -- eg, being captain of the football team
      • it's not true that bullying is worse in US schools -- The Wave , an experiment that turned high school kids into Neo-Nazis, never really happened -- the Columbine shootings had nothing to do with them being bullied, they were popular well-respected kids, and they were themselves the bullies [argument seems a bit inconsistent here?]
  • break up such groups
• there isn't really a science of pacifism
  • Rory Miller -- Meditations on Violence -- about rapid response to violence in prisons -- what's happening, what's the morality of the situation -- deciding what level of response -- evaluating consequences
  • what level of violence are we prepared to accept?
    • let the hostage die, because anything else encourages hostage taking
    • Quakers: stand further back -- "what have you done to promote the conditions for peace?" -- note the " conditions for "
• Battlestar Galactica season 1 episode "Flesh and Bone" -- discussion of the right to dehumanise and torture
  • [lots in BG about torture being okay because Cylons aren't human, despite the fact that for the torture to work , they have to be able to suffer ]
• Starship Troopers film is a remake of Zulu -- a colonial feel
  • SF literature is frequently about colonialism rather than violence -- encounter the other, and try to come off better -- will result in (some) violence
  • more problematic in fantasy
    • Diana Wynne Jones -- The Dark Lord of Derkholm -- about what all those quest fantasies look like from the point of view of the host nation
  • in the Starship Troopers book, Heinlein was a world-statist
  • Plato -- can have Utopia as long as you have an external lot to beat up on
    • if there aren't any aliens, can we have world peace anyway?
• even technologies that have a war and peaceful use, there is hundreds of times the investment in the war side

Dr Shana Worthen • BSFA Lecture: Visualising Time in the Middle Ages

• the first in a new lecture series on Arts and Humanities, to complement the George Hay lecture

• Happy New Year!
  • King Philip Augustus of France started the New year on Easter Sunday -- a movable feast -- years have different lengths -- the same day could occur twice in one year
  • Lady Day -- 25th March -- tax year
  • Michaelmas Day -- 29th September -- still used by Universities
• As a Mediaevalist, I have no idea when the Middle Ages were! anything from 150 years in 12th-13th century, up to 1500 years ending at the Reformation
• the Hedgehog of the Destruction of Nineveh
• "noon" comes from Latin "nones", for "ninth hour" -- no-one knows why it moved to mid-day -- maybe they wanted their lunch sooner?
• "clock" from German "Glock" -- a bell
• sand-glasses appear to have been invented after mechanical clocks
• Kronos (Saturn, with a sickle) / Chronos (time) pun is source of Father Time with his sickle/scythe

He's Spartacus presents... Insidious, by David Wake

"Warning: if you can hear this, you are in danger."

" Inveigle " saw Molly, a schizophrenic, attending the funeral of her brother, Adam. However, the voices forced her to swear aloud in church. Dita, her widowed sister-in-law, never accepted the 'mad one of the family', and the two quarrelled at the wake. Also at the funeral were others, who seemed to be controlled by the same voices that Molly hears.

"Let me whisper something in your ear," they said, and so the group-mind grew.

During the struggle, the group used words to destroy their enemies, scrambling their brains with the right meme combination. Dita was taken over, but Molly used her medication to free her sister-in-law. The two learnt to work together to fight against the newcomers, Molly gaining the power to kill with words, and they managed to escape. But the drugs wore off, and Dita remained behind, one of them.

It's now two years later...

Inveigle, at Contemplation 2007, was a break with Eastercon tradition for David Wake -- no hilarious comedy, but instead a "straight" play, set at a funeral, which only gradually revealed its truly SFnal plot, and with a heart-stoppingly scary ending.

Now he's back with the sequel. Again excellent -- it's amazing what you can do with a nearly bare set, and the "chorus" of voices is now not just in Molly's head, but in everyone's, as the hive-mind fights the meme-wars. But again, Molly hears more than anyone else...

The next day at the con, walking past a lift and hearing a disembodied "doors closing", was a consequently spooky experience...

Panel • World-building with Music

John Clute, Ricardo Pinto, Vince Docherty, Valerie Housden

An exploration of the power of music to inspire imagination and world-building. From the ring stories of Wagner and Tolkien, to Narnia and the works of Marianne L'Engle, H. Beam Piper and others.

• Tolkien's world is sung into existence -- Silmarillion -- at the End of Days the song will be complete -- a wonderful image even if you're not a Christian
  • others have used music as part of their creations myths
• Wagner -- Ring Cycle -- drama + music + mythology + dance + stagecraft -- whole is more than the sum of its parts
  • allegedly -- the whole of the Ring Cycle is contained in the primal chord -- everything that follows is an interpretation of that
  • some SF is like that
    • Gene Wolfe -- The Book of the New Sun -- an initial scene that unpacks into the rest of the novel -- even though there are no overt musical analogues in the books
• is a quest story intrinsically musical?
  • leitmotif in music, "recognition" in text
  • quests tend to be linear (uninteresting), or cyclic "myths of the return"
    • by the end have sung the song of the hero
• symphony -- movements, progression, resolution, journey that encounters themes, etc -- structure of a narrative
  • a real problem of 20th century music -- "doctrinal", and the doctrine was to refuse motific repetition -- nothing exactly repeated
  • it may have been necessary to go through this ordeal, now abandoned
  • has a parallel in non-realist story not adherent to the storyline -- lack of repetition makes a story surreal, or impossible to follow
  • it can take a while to get to the repetition -- hours in some cases with Wagner!
  • as music gets more complex, themes get longer, stretched, have to have much longer attention span -- following the complexification of culture
• Western/Christian -- narrative built into the culture -- so music has narrative too -- progressive
• Eastern -- more contemplative, less narrative drive -- strange evolving shapes, no linearity
• toxic hallucinatory power of Western music, from classical to pop, in other cultures -- like catnip! -- dangerously powerful -- we have narratised our arts
• Japanese haiku -- not narrative -- contemplation of a moment -- similarly with their music
• Somtow Sucharitkul -- Starship and Haiku -- he's Thailand's national composer -- his writing seems intrinsically symphonic in form
• tone scales get more complex as you go East
  • 12 -- us
  • 16 -- Middle East -- it sounds weird to us -- ours sounds simplistic to them
  • 22 -- China
• Anthony Burgess was also the composer John Anthony Wilson
  • I can't think of any profound use of music in his writing
  • Tennyson was musical, Browning was not -- Tennyson sounds mellifluous, but Browning has genuine musical compositions, fugues, etc
  • Burgess is more a Tennyson than a Browning -- A Clockwork Orange is like singing, it sounds musical, but it has no musical architecture
• RP: when I'm writing I can't play percussive music -- mucks up the rhythm of the text -- I can only listen to "mood" music -- I use music as a soundtrack to the film in my head that I'm projecting to my readers -- iTunes is great for this -- I have a playlist for each chapter, which I put on random play -- when I do rewrites I put the playlist on again, it puts me back in the space I was before
• Alzheimer's patient -- can't speak two words in succession -- but can sing several stanzas of songs
  • music seems more primary than speech
  • we're born to sing!
  • there are instruments with the quality of the human voice
• the better a form of art works, the harder it is to translate into a different medium
  • Wagner did manage to take a text into a form where you can't separate the words and music
  • but we make art too well for it to be "paraphrased"
• ballads -- we get "fragments" of a story, and construct the rest -- we understand the narrative elisions
  • music gives structure to help the memory of the story
  • Yeats was famous for wanting to sing his poems
• if you can chant a text, then its acoustic structure is pretty good -- otherwise probably a bit clunky
• fantasy trilogy -- a structure of movements?