{"id":3955,"date":"2009-08-04T10:48:27","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T10:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2009\/08\/04\/where-ill-be-at-worldcon\/"},"modified":"2009-08-04T10:48:27","modified_gmt":"2009-08-04T10:48:27","slug":"where-ill-be-at-worldcon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2009\/08\/04\/where-ill-be-at-worldcon\/","title":{"rendered":"Where I’ll Be at Worldcon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Worldcon<\/a> program has been posted, but only as a giant, confusing PDF<\/a>. I was getting cross-eyed trying to figure things out, so I ended up creating my own blank grid sheets, and making notes on those.<\/p>\n

The following is a by-no-means comprehensive list of things I think look interesting enough to attend. There are only a handful of thing that I’ll definitely be at (I’ll mark those in bold<\/b>), but I’ll probably choose many of the rest from this list:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Thursday<\/strong><\/p>\n

15:30: Re-reading
\nGraham Sleight, Jo Walton, Kate
\nNepveu, Larry Niven
\nThere is a school of thought that re-reading
\nis a juvenile habit, something children
\ndemand as a way to gain comfort. Yet most
\nfans re-read. All critics do. What is it we
\ngain from re-reading, do some texts bear
\nmore re-reading than others? And does
\nthis notion of comfort reading have any
\nvalidity?<\/b><\/p>\n

(We’ll be arriving not long before this starts, so nothing earlier is likely.)<\/i><\/p>\n

17:00: The Life and Work of John M
\nFord
\nNeil Gaiman, David Hartwell, Jo Walton,
\nTeresa Nielsen Hayden, Patrick Nielsen
\nHayden
\nJohn M Ford, who died in 2006, is
\nacknowledged as one of the semi-secret
\nmasters of the field, an incredibly versatile
\nnovelist, story writer and poet whose work
\nhas influenced Neil Gaiman among others.
\nHere, some of those who knew him and
\nhis work gather to celebrate his achievements.<\/p>\n

(Maybe. I might need food\/rest at this point)<\/i><\/p>\n

19:00: That was the Noughties, That
\nWas
\nCarl Fink, Helen Gbala, Michael Skeet,
\nS.C. Butler, Virginia O’Dine
\nWe’re four months off the end of a decade
\n– time for a retrospective. What were the
\nbest sf\/fantasy novels of the last ten years?
\nWhat will the decade be remembered for?<\/p>\n

(Book recommendations are good.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

19:00: The World is Large and Strange
\nAda G. Palmer, Henry Spencer, Teresa
\nNielsen Hayden
\nAnd there are boojums out there. Are our
\nworlds sometimes a little too familiar, a
\nlittle too cosy? Do we really make use of
\nthe full range of human experience?<\/p>\n

(Could be fun, quirky stuff<\/i>)<\/p>\n

19:00: Canid Ethology and Evolution
\nRichard Crownover, M.D., Ph.D.
\nRichard L. Crownover is the author of
\n_Breeding Violence_ which documents
\nthe scope and practices of professional
\ndogfighting in North America.<\/p>\n

(The history of canid evolution is a long, slow process of incremental improvements leading to Emmy. According to her, anyway.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

20:00: Who Pays for Science?
\nChuck Walther, John Park, Mark L. Van
\nName, Michael Sestak
\nIn harsh economic times who should pay
\nfor blue skies research? Should governments
\nfoot the bill for big telescopes or
\nshould we rely on rich benefactors? Are
\nthere any alternatives?<\/p>\n

(A good topic, but kind of late. I may have lost interest in panels by this point.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

Friday<\/strong><\/p>\n

10:00: How to Effectively Talk about
\nScience to Non-Scientists and
\nWhy it Matters
\nChad R. Orzel
\nPresenting one’s ideas is ever more crucial
\nfor scientists. If we don’t do it well, you can be certain someone else will do it
\nbadly.<\/b><\/p>\n

(Duh.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

11:00: Breath-catching, Dealer’s Room, Early Lunch<\/p>\n

12:30: Snobs R Us
\nEmma Hawkes, Jane Carnall, Paul
\nCornell
\nWhat kinds of fiction in our *own* world
\ndo we ignore, put down or exceptionalise?
\nWhy do we dismiss YA books and tie-ins?<\/p>\n

(Paul Cornell is really entertaining.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

12:30: The New Media
\nMelissa Auf der Maur, Tobias Buckell,
\nCory Doctorrow, Neil Gaiman, Ellen
\nKushner
\nHow has turn of the millennium technology
\naffected the arts? Books, Music, Film,
\nComics and the Web — are they all in the
\nprocess of merging into one mixed media?
\nWhat media will the artist of the future
\nwork in?<\/p>\n

(What an interesting assortment of people…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

12:30: Legal Systems, Past and Future
\nBradford Lyau, James Morrow, Kate
\nNepveu, Charles Stross
\nA place’s legal system tells us a lot about
\nits values. Laws are made by culture and
\nmake culture.<\/p>\n

(Spousal loyalty…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

14:00: From SF Reader to Economist
\nPaul Krugman
\nEconomist and current Nobel recipient
\nPaul Krugman talks about why science
\nfiction lead him to entering the field of
\neconomics. Q&A follows.<\/p>\n

(That’s not your usual Worldcon program item…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

15:30: Anatomy for Writers, Heroes
\nand Tavern Brawlers.
\nDarlene Marshall, Jetse de Vries, Sean
\nMcMullen, Kristen Britain
\nAuthor, karate instructor, fencer and first
\naid officer Sean McMullen provides a tour
\nof how the human body can and cannot
\nbe damaged. Want to know where a hero
\ncan be punched without any effect? Worried
\nabout his vascular dilation? Curious
\nabout the real-life version of Mr Spock’s
\nnerve pinch? Not sure whether a really
\nlong sword fight is three hours or seven
\nseconds? Wondering why readers are
\nlaughing because your hero has microsecond
\nreactions? Come along and find out in
\ncomplete safety<\/p>\n

(I’m puzzled by all those other names, when McMullen is the only one mentioned in the description…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

17:00: Tall Technical Tales
\nBill Higgins, Chuck Walther, David Clements,
\nMark Olson
\nTrue, humourous and occasionally
\neducational stories from the front lines of
\nscience. Just what should you do if you
\nswallow Liquid Nitrogen? Listen to our
\npanel’s stories then share your own.<\/p>\n

(AKA True Lab Stories: The Panel. I may be going to dinner, though.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

20:00: Mad Social Scientists
\nAlison Sinclair, Sparks, Shariann Lewitt
\nWhy do the chemists get all the fun? Why
\ndo you have to be a physicist to destroy the
\nworld? The panellists discuss the possibility
\nof using social science to destroy the
\nuniverse.<\/p>\n

(Step 1: Start a hedge fund…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

Saturday<\/strong><\/p>\n

10:00: The Philosophy of Science
\nChad R. Orzel, Greer Gilman,
\nJames Morrow, Jeff Warner, Richard
\nCrownover, M.D., Ph.D., DD Barant
\nTo what extent does SF explore the meaning
\nof science for scientists and create the
\nideas that our culture has of science?<\/b><\/p>\n

(Greer Gilman appears to have dropped off this in the latest revision. I’m moderating, which is good because I don’t have to have anything interesting to say…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

11:00: Writing Textbooks about the
\nFuture
\nJulie E. Czerneda, Geoffrey A. Landis,
\nSteven R. Boyett
\nCan you describe the future? Can you
\nprepare people for futureshock?<\/p>\n

(Geoff Landis is reliably fun.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

Abby Normal: Comedy and SF
\nJames Zavaglia, Joe Pearce, John Scalzi
\nThe 35th anniversary of the Mel Brooks
\nspoof “Young Frankenstein” is a good
\nexcuse to look at movies that treat sciencefiction,
\nfantasy and horror not with reverence
\nbut for laughs. How difficult is it to
\nbalance the genre with the comedy? Movies
\nlike “Galaxy Quest” and “The Princess
\nBride” get it right, while recent spoofs like
\n“Epic Movie” get it horribly wrong. Do
\nyou have to love the genre to laugh at it?<\/p>\n

(Pro: Funny is good. Con: Over-analyzing funny is excruciating.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

12:30: How are We Getting on Towards
\nthe Singularity Then?
\nJo Walton, Robert Charles Wilson
\nThe rapture is beginning to feel a bit like
\nthe Second Coming. Any moment now!
\nDo we live for it? Do we live in hope? Are
\nwe learning to think of it as a future we
\ndesire only in theory?<\/p>\n

(Old topic, but really sharp panelists…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

12:30: We are the Knights Who Say
\nf***!
\nDavid Anthony Durham, Guy Gavriel
\nKay, Marc Gascoigne, Pat Rothfuss
\nDiction in fantasy used to be pretty formal,
\nand, indeed, this can be a problem for the
\ncontemporary reader in getting on with
\nThe Lord of the Rings. But more recent
\nepic fantasies have had their characters
\nspeaking more demotic language (and with
\na fair bit of Anglo-Saxon thrown in). What
\nare the costs of doing this? Does it really
\nmake things easier for readers?<\/p>\n

(What, no George R. R. Martin?<\/i>)<\/p>\n

14:00: Real World Nanotechnology of
\nSpintronics
\nKevin Roche
\nKevin Roche, an advisory engineer\/scientist
\nin IBM Almaden’s Magnetoelectronics
\nand Spintronics group, gives us a short
\ntour.<\/p>\n

(How dorky is it to go to a SF convention and listen to talks about real science?<\/i>)<\/p>\n

15:30: Canadian Space Agency Presents:
\nExploring the Red Planet
\nVictoria Hipkin
\nThe Mars Exploration Rovers have been
\nexploring Mars for more than 5 years. The
\nPhoenix mission landed in the Mars high
\narctic at the Mars latitude and longitude
\nequivalent of the Yukon. What are we
\nlearning and what does the future of Mars
\nexploration hold?<\/p>\n

(Seriously, is that too dorky? I don’t want to be too dorky.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

17:00 Is Blogging an Art Form, or Just
\na Fanzine by Any Other Name?
\nCheryl Morgan, Kathryn Cramer, Niall
\nHarrison, Heather McDougal, Tobias
\nBuckell
\nDoes a blog require a different style? A
\ndifferent layout? A different mode of approach?
\nDo the technical requirements
\nmake it more or less accessible a medium?<\/p>\n

(Or, more likely, dinner.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

19:00: Naming Pluto – The Venetia
\nPhair Story
\nDavid Clements, Geoffrey A. Landis,
\nHenry Spencer, Jordin Kare
\nScreening “Naming Pluto” a 13 minute
\ndocumentary about Venetia Burney Phair,
\nwho named the planet Pluto in 1930 when
\nshe was 11. Followed by a panel discussion
\nwith Astronomers.<\/p>\n

(Everybody’s favorite not-really-a-planet…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

19:00: Getting It Right: Warfare and
\nHistory
\nDavid Anthony Durham, Dawn Hewitt,
\nL. E. Modesitt, Jr., Mike Resnick
\nPanelists discuss military history around
\nthe world and how to get it right in your
\nwork, whether you’re writing fantasy, science
\nfiction or alternate history.<\/p>\n

(“This isn’t really a question, but more of a comment. Mike Resnick, I hate your Hugo-nominated stories…”<\/i>)<\/p>\n

21:00 Fireworks: South Africa
\nThe entry from the Republic of South
\nAfrica for The Montr\u00c3\u00a9al International Fireworks
\ncan be viewed from the food court
\narea on the East side of the Palais. The
\narea will be opened starting at 21:00. The
\nfireworks themselves begin at 22:00.<\/b><\/p>\n

(Kate has this marked with stars and exclamation points…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

Sunday<\/strong><\/p>\n

9:00: How Not to be a Jerk Online
\nCatherynne Valente, Kate Nepveu, John
\nScalzi, Michelle Kendall
\nIs there an equivalent of Miss Manners for
\nthis modern age? How to avoid flamewars
\nand actually learn something.<\/b><\/p>\n

(Kate may be the best person on the Internet to moderate this panel.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

10:00: SF Graphic Novels: Recommended
\nReading
\nDominick Grace, Eric In the Elevator
\nZuckerman, John C. Wright, Scott Edelman,
\nStephen H. Segal, Stephen Saffel
\nThey’re not your dad’s comic books anymore.
\nWhat are the classic graphic novels?
\nWhat’s currently on the cutting edge? So
\nmuch stuff gets turned out that sometimes
\nsome really good stuff slips between the
\ncracks. What graphic novels are worth
\ntracking down even if it wasn’t turned into
\na Hollywood blockbuster? What’s out there
\nfrom the stars of the future?<\/p>\n

10:00: Science for SF Writers
\nJulie E. Czerneda, Alison Sinclair, David
\nClements, David D. Levine
\nWhere can you get crash courses on
\nscience for science fiction writers? Is it
\nactually useful?<\/p>\n

10:00: Realism in Science Fiction
\nChris Howard, kyle cassidy, Pascale
\nRaud, Fernandes, Joel Polowin, Tobias
\nBuckell
\nA lot of near-future SF novels duck the
\nproblems we read about in the news – climate
\nchange or energy shortage – in favour
\nof problems which look more solveable.
\nWe all know that SF shouldn’t be pure
\nprediction, but how much of a duty does it
\nhave to be based on realistic assumptions?<\/p>\n

(A whole bunch of maybes. The science one is the most likely.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

12:30: Is Privacy a Thing of the Past?
\nJason Bourget, Steven R. Boyett, John
\nScalzi
\nGovernments spy on us, we photograph
\npolice officers, and our children broadcast
\ntheir sex lives on the internet. Does privacy
\nmatter any more? What is it for?<\/p>\n

12:30: Lots of Planets have a North
\nBob Sojka, Camille Alexa, Eric Choi,
\nJack William Bell, James Cambias
\nToo much SF depicts a planet-wide civilization
\nas being one homogenous unit. We
\nknow how diverse human civilization is;
\nshouldn’t alien worlds be the same?<\/p>\n

12:30: SF Graphic Novels You may
\nhave Missed
\nJohn C. Wright, Tom Stidman, Stephen
\nSaffel
\nSo much stuff gets turned out that sometimes
\nsome really good stuff slips between
\nthe cracks. What graphic novels are worth
\ntracking down even if it wasn’t turned into
\na Hollywood blockbuster? What’s out there
\nfrom the stars of the future?<\/p>\n

(Another big group of maybes.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

14:00: The Invention of the Canon
\nEvelyn Leeper, Graham Sleight, M. D.
\nBenoit, Mike Resnick
\nHow do we as a field decide that a work or
\nan author is a “classic”? Do all the awards
\nwe give out help? What about Year’s Best
\nbooks\/lists, reviews, and indeed panels
\nat conventions? And what about authors
\nwhose reputations fluctuate over time?<\/p>\n

(“Hi, Mr. Resnick. I still hate your stories…”<\/i>)<\/p>\n

14:00: Gateway Drugs
\nFiona Patton, Regina M. Franchi, LeAmber
\nKinsley, James Bacon
\nParanormal romance, Harry Potter, and
\nmovie tie-ins, all are often the first SF and
\nfantasy books that readers encounter. We
\noften sneer at them, but they really do
\nseem to provide a new crop of readers.
\nWhy? What do they change about the
\nexpectations of genre?<\/p>\n

(Much more likely.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

15:30: Locus Interviews Tom Doherty
\nTom Doherty, Gary K. Wolfe
\nLocus staffers Liza Trombi and Gary K.
\nWolfe talk to Tom Doherty about his life in
\nscience fiction.<\/p>\n

(Doherty has some good stories, and tells them well. Why isn’t Trombi on the participants list?<\/i>)<\/p>\n

15:30: Economics of the Star Traders
\nJames Alan Gardner, James Cambias,
\nSteve Miller, Larry Niven
\nHow do you keep an interstellar economy
\ngoing?<\/p>\n

(What, no Karl Schroeder?<\/i>)<\/p>\n

17:00: Science Blogging – The New Science
\nJournalism?
\nBen Jeapes, Daniel P. Dern, Mur Lafferty,
\nSumitra Rajagopalan
\nTouted as a new way of reaching the public,
\nhas science blogging matched its initial
\npromise? Has it caused more problems
\nthan it solves?<\/b><\/p>\n

(Now with more me…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

19:00: Why Do We Read Fantasy?
\nPeter Atwood, Toni Lay, Sarah Smith,
\nS.M. Stirling, George R. R. Martin
\nArguably, fantasy is a more diverse genre
\nthan science fiction. Is there such a thing
\nas “a fantasy reader”? If not, are there any
\nthings in common between the pleasures
\nthat readers of different kinds of fantasy
\nget?<\/p>\n

19:00: Lasers and Rockets and Bugs,
\nOh My!
\nJordin Kare<\/br>
\nJordin Kare talks about some unusual applications
\nof lasers: power beaming (he’s
\na founder of LaserMotive, which recently
\ncompeted in the NASA Centennial Challenge
\nfor Beamed Power), space launch,
\nand ..bug zapping? Find out what you can
\ndo with a 5000-watt laser system besides
\ncook hotdogs, and how Star Wars research
\nled to Weapons of Mosquito Destruction.<\/p>\n

(Laser bug zapping is cool…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

20:00: Cross-Genre Hard SF
\nP. C. Hodgell, Peter Watts, George R. R.
\nMartin
\nWhile there are many instances of cross
\ngenre SF – horror\/fantasy, romance\/fantasy
\n– hard SF usually isn’t involved. Why
\nis this?<\/p>\n

(The first half of the Hugos is usually boring, anyway…)<\/p>\n

Monday<\/strong><\/p>\n

9:00: No User Servicable Parts Inside
\nC Meeks, Cory Doctorow, Howard Davidson,
\nJack William Bell
\nAs more and more items, from cars to
\ncomputers to TVs, are filled with computerized,
\nclosed black boxes it becomes
\nharder and harder for people to tinker with
\nthings or fix their own property when it
\ngoes wrong. Is this a boon for the service
\nindustries or a bane for the enthusiast?
\nWhere is this going to lead? And what are
\nthe challenges to this way of thinking? Can
\nwe reopen the black box?<\/p>\n

(Might be skipped in favor of a late breakfast.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

10:00: World Without the Internets– Oh Noes!
\nJudith Lewis, Laurie Mann, Michael
\nCitrome, Tom Galloway
\nWe’re now so used to internet everywhere
\nthat it seems the world might not work
\nwithout it. What happens if the machines
\nstop?<\/p>\n

10:00: The Inspiration of Failed Art
\nAlter S. Reiss, James D. Macdonald,
\nSonya Taaffe, Emmet O’Brien
\nSometimes it’s the really bad, not the really
\ngood, that’s inspiring….<\/p>\n

10:00: A Little Learning is a Dangerous
\nThing
\nAmy Thomson, Carl Fink, Christopher
\nDavis, Karl Schroeder
\nWhat happens when physicists try to write
\nbiological SF; or when a writer’s research
\ngoes badly wrong?<\/p>\n

(A bunch of maybes. The last is the most likely.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

11:00: The Drake Equation and the
\nFermi Failure
\nAlice Bentley, Ian Tregillis, Thomas
\nWomack, Jordin Kare, Peter Watts
\nRecent discoveries have enhanced our estimates
\nof the number of planetary systems
\nin the galaxy; recent analysis suggest that
\nthe silence dominating the hydrogen band
\nmay be more an artifact of signal dissipation
\nthan evidence of an empty universe.
\nIs there any real point in describing the
\nfrequency of technological civilizations
\nusing a 7-variable equation for which 5 of
\nthe parameters are completely unknown?
\nDo we even know enough to *have* a
\nreasonable debate?<\/p>\n

(As the answer to the final question is “no,” I may pass on this for a final troll through the Dealer’s Room, or checking out of the hotel.)<\/p>\n

12:30: Hard SF: Is it What You do, or
\nHow You do it?
\nAmy H. Sturgis, Marc Schirmeister, Jo\u00c3\u00abl
\nChampetier, Gabrielle Harbowy
\nMany critics – including David Hartwell –
\nargue that hard SF is as much defined by
\nan attitude (how you depict science in an
\nSF story) rather than to do with detailed
\ndepiction of science. So a story, like Ted
\nChiang’s “Tower of Babylon” could be
\nhard SF whilst being based in a completely
\nimaginary scientific foundation. Is this a
\nuseful way to see things?<\/p>\n

(I don’t know any of these people, so it’s hard to predict what this will be.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

12:30: Technobabble Quiz
\nChristopher J. Garcia, Kevin Roche, Kij
\nJohnson, Steven H Silver, Frank Wu,
\nJames Bacon
\nA quiz show with strong audience participation.
\nJoin your quizmaster and three
\npanelists as they go through science, technology
\nand science fiction and do battle
\nwith the audience to see whose knowledge
\nand comedy will reign supreme.<\/p>\n

(Could be fun, could be painful…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

14:00: Fan’s aren’t Slans!: Pathologies
\nof Fannish Culture
\nChad R. Orzel, Kate Nepveu, Patrick
\nNielsen Hayden, Steve Green
\nA long look at the various groups and
\nsubgroups within fandom, and how they
\nall get along, with each other and with
\nreality. Evidence may be drawn from this
\nweekend!<\/b><\/p>\n

(In which we insult people who have stayed for the bitter end…<\/i>)<\/p>\n

And that’s what looked interesting to me in the preliminary program. So, if you’re in Montreal, and want to say “hi,” those are the palces to look for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Worldcon program has been posted, but only as a giant, confusing PDF. I was getting cross-eyed trying to figure things out, so I ended up creating my own blank grid sheets, and making notes on those. The following is a by-no-means comprehensive list of things I think look interesting enough to attend. There are… Continue reading Where I’ll Be at Worldcon<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,18,35,37,11,29,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-books","category-movies","category-pop_culture","category-science","category-sf","category-television","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}