incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

Katherine was introduced to the series by proofreading the paperback of A Civil Campaign. Memory is favorite.

Ian ditto but "The Weatherman" (which became part of The Vor Game) for a magazine. ACC is favorite, line about honor and reputation really resonates.

Meredith: favorite and least favorite is Memory. pivot point, where momentum fetish stops working. ACC is genre switch.

these might still be Meredith? my notes aren't clear: disability as cultural context, what gets considered as such, fact that never cured. Mark & fatness, fascinating reclaiming. Bothari as generational trauma.

I think I asked about least favorites and/or caveats (as we did in this related panel).

Meredith: least favorite: Cetaganda, Miles is too good at everything. things warn people about: Cordelia's defending the personhood of fetuses; Ekaterin's marriage.

(much comment after the panel about the terrible specificity of that depiction.)

Ian: tends to skip Ethan of Athos, Cetaganda as less central to overall story. likes Captain Vorpatril's Alliance for Ivan getting fully on stage. rereads for how LMB writes so well; hard to put into words, but generally goes for macro over micro but flows sometimes, not often, into more poetical prose

Katherine: whole brother conspiracy thing is just okay. (I am not sure now if this is Brothers in Arms or the overall Admiral Vorkosigan cover story.) Miles should not sleep with underlings; he gives himself too much leeway in cosplaying his lack of power.

(I did not reread for this panel and oooh yeah, that's a thing that I hope would have jumped out at me if I had.)

Katherine: teaches "The Mountains of Mourning" as how to write an action scene from a rhetorical standpoint, part where Miles is worried that his horse will be attacked. Way sentences move from longer to shorter, his POV versus what is actually happening. (now this I want to reread!) wishes could steal Warrior's Apprentice as exquisite cascading disaster in perfect line

I asked about successors. The only one I could think of was Everina Maxwell, who has two planetary space operas out; I like the second one, Ocean's Echo, better.

Meredith: contemporary but, Steve Miller and Sharon Lee's Liaden series

Ian: not much fun space opera in the era we live in

Meredith: Victoria Goddard, Hands of the Emperor series

Katherine: Murderbot?

audience: as 14 year old, imprinted on Drou & Kou, especially Drou

me: yes, we took for granted in this discussion what the books, especially that book, was doing with gender

audience: recommends Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series

audience: something about ACC, which prompted Katherine to say that Dono's plotline was actually formative for their understanding of their gender

Meredith: ACC allowed to get dude friends to read Heyer

audience: how successful were the books in constantly switching genres

Meredith: keeps fresh over large number of books, not genre change per se but in tone and focus

audience: Memory was adventure then changes to mystery X chapters in

I think I asked about how the availability of large chunks of sample chapters, which isn't really much of a thing any more, affected our reading?

Katherine: Miles being miserable in bureaucracy (I think, at the start of The Vor Game?) was fantastic; I think the implication is the rest of the book was a letdown?

audience: recommends John Scalzi

I had kind of been threatening to talk about morality for a while, and eventually led into it by saying that the whole thing is about xenia (which I had a momentary terror of pronouncing), the very specific set of moral obligations of guest and host, and the ways they are upheld and broken in encounter after encounter. Interestingly, Odysseus doesn't always uphold them. Walking into Polyphemus's house (the cyclops) while he's out, rummaging through his stuff, and eating his food? Not, in fact, being a proper guest (as Ken and Sonya assured me). Polyphemus shouldn't have then eaten members of Odysseus' crew—but the fact that this violation is met with disproportionate violence is really interesting when it comes to the end, in which Odysseus traps and kills 100+ people for ... being bad guests. (Someone, possibly Sonya, said that the language here reverts to that of The Iliad, which is very different and very violent.)

Moreover, Odysseus knows that ordinarily, when someone kills one other person, they are exiled from their home—he claims in one of his lies that's what happened to him. Athena tells him a couple of times that he's thinking like he's still at war and he's wrong to do so. We see people mourn the slain genuinely. And the poem ends on that very abrupt and inconclusive note of a literal deus ex machina and Odysseus being sent away. So it is far from clear that the text approves of Odysseus' actions.

What's important about Epic, for these purposes, is that it's trying to make Odysseus's actions morally palatable to modern sensibilities. (At least that's the only way I can interpret it.) As I mentioned in the booklog post, he angsts about killing Hector and Andromache's infant son. (Still does it, though.) He does not have sex with Circe or Calypso. (Fine, whatever.)

But to justify killing the suitors, it turns the Polyphemus episode (plus some other things) into the lesson that, to quote one of the songs, "Ruthlessnеss is mercy upon ourselves." That's Poseidon talking to Odysseus. Not only that, but he tells him, "you totally could have avoided all this / Had you just killed my son."

And here I thought the lesson was that Odysseus could have avoided all this if he'd just kept his mouth shut, like his crew begged him to do!

This comes up over and over, and then the suitors are not only planning to murder Telemachus but are specifically stating their intention to imminently rape Penelope, when Odysseus attacks. Just to make it doubly justified.

So it's fascinating to me, the way that trying to make it understandable in modern terms makes it ... worse? In a way that I'm not sure it recognizes, and am sure that it doesn't actually grapple with? But it also shows how difficult it is: to understand the mindset of the characters; to recognize the ambiguity in the text; and to adapt the story in light of the general cultural assumption that Odysseus is clever (positive) and that we should root for someone who just wants to go home.

(The Nolan movie hadn't come out when we were doing the panel, and I haven't seen it because I haven't had time. From what I understand, it is genuinely interested in these questions; but that will have to wait for another day. (Which means please don't discuss it in these comments? Thanks.))

Michael: founded Reckoning, journal of environmental activism. specifically not solarpunk because wanted wider scope

Gillian: struggles with writing in difficult times. activist work largely through security for demonstrations.

Marissa: activist work for years of supporting ICE detainees in Minnesota. when I tell people I'm from Minneapolis it hits differently now

Daniel: lot of community organization before publishing, some of transferred to being pain in the ass to publishing industry as much as possible

Elaine (E.C.): start by bringing out examples of works of fiction that have caused change in world.

Michael: I got nothing for this. two that are defaults are non-fiction: Silent Spring: which everyone uses and is a very old example. and Braiding Sweetgrass changed me

Gillian: A Modest Proposal, satire to puncture people's assumptions about appropriate to talk about re: rights of people. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett, little/big lies conversation. [*] don't know if one piece can push big changes, but can change ideas and how think about world. once temped at Harvard School of Public Health in 2016, always talking about: have you seen new episode of Westworld? people need things to escape to. I do recommend understanding that fiction is important and changes minds, but different than more direct action like filling a food pantry with food.

[*] ... HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

“So we can believe the big ones?”

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

(I apologize that my ebook copy-paste rendered that as all-caps and I don't have time to convert to small caps)

Marissa: people often looking for something as large-scale as Uncle Tom's Cabin. but people don't recognize that impact was very partial compared to the goals. if what you needed was to be convinced that Black people are human, then I'm glad that did it, but that's very short of the goal. writers need to look at works that bolster activists in their work, and recognize that drastic changes aren't the only kind.

Marissa cont'd: Winifred Holby, South Riding, Yorkshire in the 1930s. beautiful novel. but characters talking about friends in Germany that hadn't heard from. public did not rise up, but Holby's circles kept conversation going. so lots of examples but need to be interested in scales and willing to work on lots of scales.

Daniel: love this conversation. a lot of these things are incalculable. thinks that one thing is rise of independent work, beyond normal corporation media through different platforms. webtoons (small w), YouTube and then sometimes moving off, e.g., Dropout. much more open to radical work.

Daniel cont'd: Andor, recent Superman: to have mass-media works to be talking about genocide (which is fantasy but clearly Gaza) in way that cannot ignore is powerful. took a lot of work from activists on the ground. we are always part of a larger movement, writers/activists always think about selves as singular savior, which is bullshit

Elaine: Silent Spring opens with a narrative, story structure that brings reader into the silent spring that's the title of the book. (missed some stuff here, but basically) narrative is useful even when not fiction. also Black Beauty was specifically written as activism

(me: child me was deeply convinced I should be nice to horses by that book)

Elaine cont'd: example that makes angry which was not intended as activism: Harry Potter. is from NH therefore very privileged in US politics. decided should take advantage of that. 2020, would be sitting in online meetings and hearing 20-30-year old activists using terms like Dumbledore's Army and Room of Requirement, know that's why they're there. hates that JKR has been revealed as terf because betraying what people took away from it, banding together and rise up against greater force.

Gillian: I think a number of people who read those may have already had that seed of, I want to do something. these kind of books give people the language for it. book becomes popular because of what's in the zeitgeist. can seed things but people have feelings looking for place to put.

Michael: as writers, cannot set out create huge change. Silent Spring and Uncle Tom's Cabin, matches were already there. what Reckoning is, is encouraging not to produce the match but support in working toward. aiming for match seems doomed to frustrate, aim for individuals

Marissa: having conversation with new writer here who wanted to know how current should be in writing. encouraged to think broader, value in "here's what happened today" but also in "what I learned is". strange that thinking more broadly can have less perceptible impact. aches for W.H. Auden that could not stop Holocaust with his poetry, which he wanted to do. but poems opened up for people. and he did the work of activism, we can point to people he saved. big and small go together in weird ways

Gillian: 100% agree. circles been in, people used incrementalism as insult, don't want anything to actually change like establishment politicians. that's in mix but the glorious revolution that happens overnight needs to be seeded for decades beforehand.

Marissa: and when we see changes in the world we imagine more changes. as big an imagination this convention has, I don't think we have imagined how good things can be.

Elaine: Philip Zombardo, architect of Stanford Prison Experiment, which is also reference to Hannah Arendt's work on banality of evil, which rediscovered the whole thing. Zombardo grad student asked, what makes ordinary person a hero? article, "The Banality of Heroism", started Heroic Imagination Project that does hero training around the world, inspire ordinary people to be willing to move beyond being a bystander. specifically talked about story as giving people language that we can use to encourage to step up.

(me: the conclusions of the experiment specifically are more complex than I think the popular view is, which is not addressed to the panel, just a side note)

Daniel: struggle with: story is double-edged sword. SFF been overwhelmingly white supremacist for so long, also harmed people and justified genocide, our legacy. how do we reckon with, not to burden with guilt but to look it in the face. don't deserve to wield an implement that you won't fully look in the face or understand. if really honor power, have to take that responsibility so seriously and lovingly. let that move through me as I write, otherwise will not just fail, but hurt people.

Gillian: fiction as holding space for exploring ambiguity and morality that wouldn't do in real life. "I don't eat people." (see: forthcoming debut novel) so as horror writer, don't confuse fiction for parables. but make sure that writing people as full complicated people. sense of truth of world you are communicating to people. would be remiss if didn't mention Ring Shout by GoH P. Djèlí Clark which is wonderful and all about Birth of Nation releasing spell that causes white supremacist monsters to ravage the U.S., which is kind of what happened. propaganda but also (paraphrased) very well-crafted action movie. once take it apart, see all the pieces of e.g. Superman and modern action movies that have been built with it. also important cannot erase that people did protest movie. not like overall getting more moral.

Marissa: scariest thing as writer: there are things in your work that weren't in your brain consciously. some of most damaging things are things people didn't know they believed and were conveying, like who has worth. no substitute for fixing your heart. it will come out in your work. the people who love you will tell you, if you are honest, that your own flaws are there

(me: I'm guessing that fixing heart is a Twin Peaks/David Lynch reference)

Gillian: D.W. Griffith's next movie Intolerance got buried. seems to have been partly, no I'm a good person actually, so not learning and growing. but still buried. contrast Tamora Pierce recognizing that she'd messed up and would try to do better (I don't know this reference off the top of my head)

Daniel: context of world that we're putting our work into matters so much. hear about Founding Fathers, Lovecraft: "men of their time." no, super racist even at time. but also people were always fighting. that phrase means white men of time and not even all of them. flattening of history, have to let that go. and let go of crushes: "Lovecraft is not going to fuck us."

audience: works that have had largest effects, is emotion going for not hope but outrage (Silent Spring, Birth of Nation)?

Daniel: find outrage very hopeful, if not outraged, what's going on. work like 1984 and Brazil held up as great activist works but so depressing, nowhere to go from there, very counterproductive.

(me: why I wanted my seven books to be resistance in the face of oppression)

Daniel cont'd: job as writers, truth of story and how interacting with world and outrage of. Borges quote, paraphrased, taking outrage of time & turning into music. not negating but there's a beauty to it

(I think this may be from "The Art of Poetry":

To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.

which is lovely and I'm glad to have found it regardless.)

Marissa: outrage is the loudest, and have culture that amplifies the most. cannot live in outrage, will damage you, we know this because people have been forced to do and see that damage in bodies. can choose to try and amplify other things that are more constructive. reads lots of 1930s women writers: Winifred Holby, Rose Macaulay, Naomi Mitchison, Sanora Babb; who were also were fighting and building. good tired from packing food or helping deportees, not like if I scroll.

Gillian: getting angry about social media checks a little box in your brain: I did something. building awareness is great, genuinely. is it the same as talking to your neighbor

Marissa: hear a lot from other activist-minded people and in minoritized groups: this is not my job; but I can take it on anyway.

Gillian: our system where work 40+ hours week, you're very tired: that's on purpose. figure out way to contribute anyway.

Elaine: Gailey's essay contains links

audience: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle needs to be reissued right now

audience: bouncing off of how perception of works changes over time, think something released now that will be seen as more or less important in future? R.F. Kuang gets a lot of backlash but think will be very important in future

Gillian: graphic novel memoir Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe, most challenged; thinks become classic because of criticism and wild accusations

audience: Maus, Art Spiegelman (also graphic novel memoir)

Gillain: Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi, recent death brought back, memoir. loves romances, do think very escapist, wonder how dark romance and romantasy will be looked at in context of deterioration of women's rights, thinks created to deal with feelings about helplessness within patriarchy

audience: do we need violence, what would Gandhi say

(me: @@4EVA [my eyes roll forever])

Marissa: you've popped off a rant. non-violence is a tactic, often very effective, but treating it as a tactic means there are skills that you have to teach, can't just send people out. what tools are you using from the toolkit

Gillian: recommend book This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed, Charles E. Cobb Jr.: civil rights movement, people did have to show up with guns to make sure got out alive

audience: recommends Naomi Kritzer's YA books, also Harry Potter and Hunger Games mentioned (somewhere I didn't make a note of); is it YA in particular?

Marissa: when targeting older middle grade and YA, that's audience first tasting wide-scale agency, has inherent power. maybe not works but audience

Gillian: for every of those works, there are hundreds of stories that didn't get same cultural power. but don't put all eggs in one basket, encourage teens to read widely

Elaine: David Hartwell quote, the golden age of SF is 12

(which the audience doesn't seem to have heard before given the reaction! amazing)

Gillian: Sailor Moon when was 12!

as we get the STOP sign:

Elaine: go out and make change!

Gillian: go out and join local organizations and talk to your neighbors!

Katherine's list:
* A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein. Irreverent joking side of humanity on full display.
* The Incredible Journey, Sheila Burnford (yes, the one with the pets trying to get home). Accessible story about friendship, teamwork, etc.
* The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo (Wiki). another kids' book, accessible, explores grief, generational trauma, figuring out yourself when you don't feel you fit in, coming of age.
* Lord of the Flies, William Golding. Dark side of the species, inherent raw primal tribal element.
* Contact, Carl Sagan. How hungry we are to find companionship.
* The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. Her fifteen-year-old pitched it, pointing out that it is published in a single volume.
* World War Z, Max Brooks. Brilliant, represents contemporary humanity in crisis and social conflict.

Graham's list
* Kindred, Octavia Butler. Bad things humanity can do; race.
* Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany. Range of states of human consciousness. What can do with language.
* The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin. We can in fact conceive of non-owning-stuff societies.
* Solaris, Stanisław Lem. We've never met aliens before and we're not going to be very good at it, please cut us some slack.
* The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson. Climate change.
* The Unconquered Country, Geoff Ryman. Geopolitics can lead to bad things; here's the potential for the fantastic to describe them.
* Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, James Tiptree, Jr. Another warning to aliens.

Graham noted that he did not intend this, but is fairly sure that this list is all Readercon Guests of Honor or Memorial Guests of Honor, and therefore would have an alternate suggestion, that the aliens come to Readercon.

My list
* The Lost Steersman, Rosemary Kirstein. Recognizing and connecting with deeply dissimilar minds.
* The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin. Resistance in the face of oppression.
* The Fortunate Fall, Cameron Reed. Arguments about what humanity means.
* Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke. Joy of language.
* All Systems Red, Martha Wells. How to person, specifically under capitalism.
* Heaven Official's Blessing, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. I wanted a love story.
* Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie. How to person, specifically under military imperialism.

I prefaced my list by saying that I fully respected Katherine's choice to go with accessible works, but I had deliberately gone the opposite way: if they're literary they'll do all the background reading necessary! (Also, this is basically exactly the order that I came up with stuff in.)

Rich's list
* The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson. What we have done, and what we hope we can do, to the planet.
* Kindred, Octavia Butler. What Graham said.
* "Out of All Them Bright Stars," Nancy Kress. Talking to aliens.
* The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin. Dreams, their positives and negatives.
* Engine Summer, John Crowley. Living lightly on the land; one of the most beautifully written novels.
* "Sultana's Dream," Begum Rokeya. 1905 short story about a feminist utopia written by a Bengali Muslim woman. Wanted to expand cultures represented.
* Kalpa Imperial, Angelica Gorodischer. Epic history and deep time.

Random things I remember about the discussions: an audience member suggested that Le Guin should only get one; I believe Rich withdrew The Lathe of Heaven in response. Another audience member asked about the official English translation of Heaven Official's Blessing being not so great; we decided that the aliens could read other languages than English. I was very mean and asked whether The Incredible Journey was actually speculative fiction; loved the nomination, was trying to find easy ways to eliminate things. (I used my two vetoes on Rich's two short stories on the ground that we needed to get more stuff in; Rob kicked out the Kress but kept the other.) It was reasonably suggested that popularity was not irrelevant, as it indicated how many people the book had spoken to; that was the ground on which both The Lost Steersman and The Fortunate Fall got knocked out eventually. Rich did an amazing job defending Engine Summer until the bitter end (did I use my final veto on it? I think I might have.).

* A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein.
* Kindred, Octavia Butler.
* The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin.
* Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, James Tiptree, Jr.
* The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin.
* Heaven Official's Blessing, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu.
* Kalpa Imperial, Angelica Gorodischer.

My thoughts:

Silverstein was a genius call. Kindred and The Fifth Season sailed through with basically no discussion. I really need to reread The Dispossessed, as I don't remember it at all. I'd forgotten that the Tiptree was a collection, though on reflection, I'm not sure I would have disputed it on those grounds regardless. I kind of can't believe that Heaven Official's Blessing made it through, but the fact that we mentioned it was written in Chinese probably helped, if that was the only thing people knew about it. And Le Guin ended up getting two after all, as she did the (extremely good) translation of Kalpa Imperial.

We are asked if we thought humanity was going to survive. I said that by the time the aliens were done reading Heaven Official's Blessing, we could probably come up with some contingency plans. (But seriously, I think this is a great list.)

I opened by saying that most of us were a little puzzled by the premise of the panel.

Bethany had been recommended Vorkosigan via the Queen's Thief fandom as, if you like trickster stories...

Marissa thought that, on reflection, all three had a Dorothy Dunnett influence: very chiaroscuro, high highs and low lows, especially in the YA context when Turner and Pierce started. Also all very concerned about the apparatus of the state.

(Sophia, later: all very interested in the connections between the personal and the political.)

Victoria noted that all three have a lot of characters getting through traumas and being really dramatically changed by it, which can be very compelling especially if you're reading in a fandom.

Sophia thought there was more Dunnett-esque stuff in Pierce's Emelan books, in terms of the character Briar and the worldbuilding. Unfortunately two of the Circle Opens books (Magic Steps and Street Magic) are virulently racist, far beyond the kind of bog-standard racism of the Alanna quartet or Turner's treatment of the various thinly veiled historical inspirations in her series.

I asked what else people might caveat their recommendations of these three authors for.

Bethany: a friend really dislikes narrators withholding information and therefore could not with The Thief.

Many people noted the extremely ... difficult to characterize without major spoilers but morally complex and troubling ... nature of Queen of Attolia, the second Turner book.

Marissa: there's a lot of sexual violence in the Vorkosigan series. Also, to shift to Bujold's other major world, the Chalion-verse, takes place in a setting in which the clear Islamic analogue is demonstrably wrong. Me: yeah, it was a bad day when I learned that The Curse of Chalion—which I'd really enjoyed!—was "what if Isabella and Ferdinand were awesome?"

Someone pointed out, possibly also Marissa, that one thing that those works shared with Pierce and Turner were pantheons with pretty personal relationships with the characters.

Somewhere I noted that I hadn't remembered the last book of the Queen's Thief series at all, and I'd just reread it last night. It was interesting that the narrator of that is also a physically disabled young man in an aristocratic society, but in a very different way than Miles.

An audience member asked about the famous Bujold writing advice of thinking of the worst thing you can do to your character and then doing it. Marissa: terrible advice. Often what writers think of as "the worst" are very common things, none of which is really the worst, either specific to that character or in general. (Me: I'm relistening to The Odyssey and every time Odysseus says he's suffered like no-one else ever, I'm like, what about the slaves you've taken from the cities you've sacked?) Should be something like, of the things that it would be interesting to have happen to your character, do the worst of them.

Sophia, I think: Queen of Attolia is about what the character thinks the worst thing would be and then what it actually is.

A number of other authors and works were suggested:

Victoria, I think Marissa, and I all suggested Elizabeth Wein. Victoria suggested The Sunbird, particularly since it does move from Britain-or-equivalent to Africa-or-equivalent. I caveated that the first book of the series is even more incest than one would expect from Arthuriana. I also recommended Code Name Verity for the Lymond protagonist; caveat, it's World War II.

Sophia: some actual Indian writers: Indra Das; Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta. Also if you've seen me on a panel before, you've already heard me say it, but The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera.

Marissa: Ellen Kushner. Caroline Stevermer. (I would not have thought of Stevermer, who I adore, in this context, but everyone should read When the King Comes Home anyway.)

? Bethany: The Poet Empress by Shen Tao, dark and messed up (my paraphrase even more than usual!)

Sophia: She Who Became the Sun, Shelley Parker-Chan

audience: T. Kingfisher? me: Pierce yes, very interested in craft and competence. not sure about the others.

audience: withholding narrators?

Sophia: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn.

Me: a little bit The Incandescent by Emily Tesh but it's third person so it doesn't seem the same as The Thief. Some Desperate Glory is wonderfully unreliable in a totally different way.

someone, possibly from the audience: The Raven Tower, Ann Leckie (also interesting gods). also the Imperial Radch trilogy (me: more than once, we only know the narrator's crying because someone asks her about it! why should she tell us such a thing?)

someone recommends The Captive Prince trilogy by C.S. Pascat. (Caveats: slavery; racism.)

Bethany: The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills.

Marissa: Dunnett starter rec, standalone historical King Hereafter, which is Macbeth without Shakespeare.

(Also an audience member, possibly the one who'd put the panel suggestion in? had a very kind compliment about the discussion.)

And that was time.

The book is set in Russia about 300 years in the future. Previously: America ("the Guardians") conquered most of the world [1], committing genocide through lowest-bidder concentration camps and ruling for 50 years. They were defeated probably 75 years ago, mostly by an army of ordinary people who were mind-controlled by a computer virus that erased itself from their minds once it detected victory. (Africa, which is now a walled-off technological paradise, took Egypt back from the Guardians without the virus.)

Maya is a camera, which means she broadcasts news as her senses experience it—except with a screener to filter out not just distracting bodily urges, but also forbidden topics, lest she attract the Weavers (immensely scary censors who live in the internet to prevent another mind-control virus). Screeners instantly know their cameras' minds in full. Cameras have no such reciprocal knowledge. As the book opens, Maya is broadcasting a series about why the reign of the Guardians is barely remembered, unlike the Holocaust and the Terror-Famine [2]. And she has a brand-new screener, Keishi.

But actually, the book does not open there. It opens with Maya writing to her audience:

The whale, the traitor; the note she left me and the run-in with the Post police; and how I felt about her and what she turned out to be—all this you know.

What a first line.

The prologue ends with another banger:

I will give you my thoughts since that time, but not on moistdisk. I will not let you explore the twining pathways of my thoughts as I explore them—not again. I will hide instead behind this wall of words, and I will conceal what I choose to conceal. I will tell you the story in order, as you’d tell a story to a stranger who knows nothing of it: for you are not my friend, and what you know is far less than you think you know. You will read my life in phosphors on a screen, or glowing letters scrolling up the inside of your eye. And when you reach the end, you will lie down again in your indifferent dark apartment, with the neon splashing watercolor blues across your face, and you will know a little less about me than you did before.

(In addition to the narration, it's useful to know that the book moves through different modes, and some people find the last half to be a jarring change, for expectation-setting purposes.)

With that background, we got into the discussion proper.

Marianna: ways in which book is about camera and editing reminded of Dziga Vertov, 1920s Russian cinema, had a manifesto about how in the future we would become cameras. Maya is a camera, constantly making decisions that are directing and editing her broadcasts: pan here, add background information there.

Marianna cont'd: anticipating current social media, when livecasting everything: are we actually seeing what they are? not only that, but the asymmetry in the screener-camera relationship predicted parasociality. as does Maya's relationship with her audience: she needs them, she's uneasy about their demands, they think they know her and they don't—they don't even know what she looks like, she uses a false userpic because she's older and scarred with old-fashioned sockets drilled into her head—and there's literal emotional feedback between them. (also, the camera is preemptive censorship like using euphemisms on TikTok.)

audience member: thought about "veil of Maya" in Hinduism, which is a false reality. me: oh, so that's what Keishi was referencing!

me: going back to Vertov, that reminded me of the book's terrible monomaniacal old man, Voskresenye, who had idea that true teleprescence, that is, what cameras broadcast, can save humanity: overcome the "sins of locality" that arise from being trapped in our own skulls and unable to achieve empathy.

Marianna: Vertov was propagandist documentary maker, believed that if people just saw what was really happening, would get on board with the Russian Revolution. not only that but "Cine-Eye" technique would help improve/evolve humanity.

Marianna cont'd: thinks there are three themes that underpin SF in general: memory, identity, trauma. they all come together in this book so powerfully. but doesn't argue for universality in sense of uniformity, Voskresenye is also very angry about enforced homogeneity and exclusions.

(later on, we talked about the book's pondering of whether love results from, or is stifled by, intense mental intimacy.)

Marianna cont'd: all that and we haven't even mentioned the dead psychic whale yet!

so this may have been where I talked about Moby-Dick, which I re-read specifically so I could talk about how it relates to this book! it's name-checked by the text, given to Maya as a memory:

The novel seeped into my mind, like milk into a sponge. A man tattooed with frogs and labyrinths; a leg of polished whalebone; duodecimo, octavo, folio whales; a coffin bobbing among the waves; and in the blue distance a white mass rising, unknotting its suckered limbs, and sinking: unearthly, formless, chance-like mockery of life.

But it's a lot more in conversation with it than that quote may indicate.

• They both have a central queer relationship. For those who haven't read Moby-Dick but have heard vaguely of Queequeg (the tattooed man), you may not know that Ishmael meets him because there is literally only one bed at the inn. The next day, Queequeg says that they are "married," and they go up to bed and talk, "in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—a cozy, loving pair." This is text.

• They both have terrible monomaniacal old men, as previously noted.

• They are both narrated after the fact by narrators with specific agendas. Ishmael is desperately trying to understand what happened and to make us understand what happened. Maya is also trying to understand what happened, revisiting Keishi's actions and her own decisions; and she says she's trying to reduce our understanding, but I'm not so sure about that. Also, so much foreshadowing.

• There is a whale, who is intelligent and filled with hate of humans, but only because humans keep bothering him or her.

• They both are surprisingly funny. (I liked when Maya needs to insert a really gross public plug into her head—this is the very embodied kind of cyberpunk—but doesn't have anything to clean it: "I settled for wiping the plug on my shirt, to replace some of the unknown dirt with dirt I was on intimate terms with.")

My notes get a little sketchy here. I see that Marianna said that the novel is still frighteningly relevant, and there were times during this reread where she had to put it down. I'd previously noted on Bluesky that the Wizards vs. Lesbians podcast thought that the homophobia in the book seemed exaggerated, even though the book was set in Russia, because we'd come so far in overcoming that ... which was not an unreasonable thing to say, all the way back in 2021. Ouch. And as for the McGulags, well.

I mentioned that asexuality doesn't seem to be a concept that the characters have (again, published in 1996), so at least one of them treats the ability to feel love and desire as the same thing; this is extremely relevant and in-character but the conflation was noticeable to me and would be a good thing to note in recommending the book to people. (Significant trans themes, though.)

Someone mentioned the Richard Matheson short story "The Box," about whether you really know the person you married (originally "Button, Button").

(Also, I just realized that this Tumblr short story might be a riff off that.)

I think at this point, all that's left of the panel discussion is talking about the ending.

I was going to do a really thorough dive into my many, many ebook bookmarks, but I must sleep. So here's just three things I already had prepared.

First: you start looking up one chapter title, you end up with a zillion links. My suggestions for your consideration:

1. Ashes, Ashes: we all fall down.

2. The Platypus: Oliver Herford?

3. A Faster Cable: impossible to search; suggestions?

4. To Make Much of Time: Robert Herrick.

5. As a Wife Has a Cow: Gertrude Stein.

6. The Word: was God.

7. Khristos Voskrese: as the text says, "Christ is risen."

8. A Man Who Had Fallen Among Thieves: E.E. Cummings.

9. All the King's Horses: couldn't put Humpty together again.

10. My Man Sunday: impossible to search; suggestions?

11. A Property of Easiness: Hamlet, act 5, scene 1, lines 67-68.

12. Immediate Touch: as quoted at the start of the section, Paradise Lost.

13. Icarus: too close to the sun, etc.

14. Tea and Sympathy: the Classical movie?

15. Phaeton: as Wikipedia puts it: "See also: ... Icarus; Lucifer"

16. Very Like a Whale: Hamlet, act 3, scene 2, line 382; possibly also Ogden Nash, though that would feel more appropriate for a later chapter to me?

17. Fallen Like Lightning: Luke 10:18?

18. You Must Remember This: Casablanca, of course.

19. Orpheus: now you see why explaining the reference in the prior panel would have been impossible.

20. Penelope: faithfully waiting, or not, for a spouse who came home twenty-odd years later. (edited because I got this totally backwards at first)

21. Sorrow's Springs: Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Second: as I said on Bluesky, the contrast between Maya and Ishmael's last reported words is just brutal.

Ishmael:

"Queequeg," said I, "come along, you shall be my lawyer, executor, and legatee."

Maya:

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

Both the last things they said to the loves of their lives, but one is wholehearted affirmance that he means everything, and the other is equivocation and denial.

Third: a text to a friend after I finished rereading:

The Fortunate Fall shitpost:
one of the things it foresaw, in addition to going viral, McGulags, and the death of print,
is the meme about the mortifying ordeal of being known.

Ken, who writes short fiction, amended the title of the panel to "Take Your Story to Work." And asked the panelists to talk about their work in their introductions.

Melissa: children's librarian

Sarah: writing professor, have been many other things including camp counselor, working with horses, nonprofit administrator, SAT tutor, singer/songwriter

Marianna: currently academic. formerly development executive for film and TV production, administrative assistant, film projectionist, IT, bartending training but not experience

Sarah: bartending experience but no training!

Ken: currently professor of humanities. previously IT project manager, ad hoc computer programmer, clerk typist, judicial clerk, lawyer in corporate law firm, dishwasher at deli, actor, director. several of those have found way into stories. asks: particularly good examples you've read, yours and/or not?

Marianne: caveat did not read novel Discovery of Witches, but TV really got minutia of academia right. Stross, Laundry Files, vibe of working in IT. le Carré, sounds very plausible!

(anyone interested in academia and/or Discovery of Witches must, must read this fic in which the author's note reads, "i'm not so much taking this fandom to work as i am meeting it next to the dumpster behind my workplace and engaging it in hand-to-hand combat for the honor of the field of human genetics"

pachytene phase (9096 words) by magneticwave
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Diana Bishop/Matthew Clairmont
Characters: Christopher "Chris" Roberts, Matthew Clairmont
Additional Tags: Epistolary

Summary: The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics is pleased to invite you to the annual Clarence Berrigan Lecture. This year’s speaker is Matthew Clairmont, DPhil, who is giving a talk entitled: “Interspecies compatibility, meiotic flexibility, and the end of the infertility myth: insights from the southern red muntjac.” Please join us after Dr. Clairmont’s talk for a reception in the McNeil Family atrium at 5pm. Refreshments will be provided!

you don't need to know the fandom and it is hilarious)

Sarah: office vibes: Jeff Vandermeer, Authority (second one in trilogy that began with Annihilation); Several People Are Typing, Calvin Kasulke, someone gets uploaded into work Slack

Sarah cont'd: music: Randee Dawn's new one, The Only Song Worth Singing; really picky about those, good details about gritty. Elizabeth Hand, Wylding Hall

Melissa: read T. Kingfisher, A House with Good Bones, obsessed with research and entomology. own profession: Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, Bruce Coville (alas no dragons at their library), probably led to becoming librarian

Ken: moments where certain details ticked off

Sarah: curse of being immersed something, is when encountering books where author learned by research. some do well: Dick Francis, glassblowers and meteorologists, seems like got it, at least from outside those professions. it's things that don't think to research that grate. music, people can only picture what rock star is like, not what slugging through every day. also categories where if write thing, prepare to get letters: guns, horses (I'm the one writing the letters), sailing, U.S. Civil War (and if you've done primary source research, often letters you get are wrong)

Melissa: authors try to get librarians right because know we'll buy the book

Melissa cont'd: remembered work meant to mention: The Public, movie, Emilio Estevez, made after watching interactions at LA public library. only thing not believable: entire staff but one person were all men (so much laughter)

Marianna: try to condense rant of many years. authors are like: I went to school, I know what faculty do, I don't need to look that up. get overly focused on research (academic conduct thereof). nothing about hiring, tenure, career track, which is what academics mostly care about: I don't care how in love you are, you are not leaving MIT to follow your lover and teach at an Arizona community college.

Ken: bias toward academia in mainstream novels, so think lot is accurate there. re: law: people view procedure through mainstream TV, movies, think understand. part is that day to day of law work is exceptionally boring. sitting for 12 hours a day in a library (me, to myself: Ken is showing his age: I sit for 12 hours a day in front of Lexis => ). almost threw book across room: passage in Orson Scott Card novel, character obtains divorce AND the arrangement of bifurcated child custody WITHOUT spouse's knowledge (caveat, not set in US and in future, suppose could imagine, but)

Ken cont'd: flip around other way: examples of juicy details re: something otherwise unfamiliar, what did that do for you as a reader?

Marianna: le Carré, spoiler alert I'm definitely not a spy, not just telling you that to throw you off scent. made me want to write spy novels, so good at lot of details but not overwhelming with. particularly love when get book like Perfect Spy: how does this person spend their time on an average day? what is the macro running in the back of their head? everyday stuff that you might not think about.

(le Carré came up so much at the con and every time I have to google his name to remind myself of the capitalization and also copy the accented e)

Ken: and we know that he had experience in British intelligence. can you remember particular detail?

Marianna: how much time he spent with radio when holed up in safehouse, had code keys, sitting around waiting to hear message

Melissa: because in hotel, thinking about Kate Stayman-London's Fang Fiction—

—at this point, I very rudely interrupted to ask for a repeat of the title, which caused her to completely lose her train of thought. I apologized then and also after. wait until people are done talking to ask for repeats of titles, self!

anyway the publisher's page on Fang Fiction indicates that the main character is a hotel manager, and also it sounds fun.

Sarah: talking about a lot of jobs that do exist, but made think of jobs that don't but believe that do: Peter Beagle, I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons, about dragon exterminator, like mice in the walls. hates his job because loves dragons, makes reader believe in this guy who knows he has to do, emotions resonant. mild spoiler for early part: protagonist tries to save some, sneaks away as pets.

Ken: The Martian, the book. main character has master's in botany and engineering conveniently. remember being struck by the thought process. no idea what experience author has, not point: I do know enough about electrical circuits to know that you need to know what gauge of wire, so completely sold that character knew what talking about, and did make me feel like I was there.

Melissa: A Magical Girl Retires, Park Seolyeon, very short, characters are all working as magical girls of X or Y, get sent on jobs, very much feels like 9-5 in hilarious way

Ken: more completely imaginary jobs?

Marianna: Stross' Laundry Files. wonderful balance between grounding familiar IT work but for government agency dealing with paranormal stuff

Sarah: all those little jobs in Terry Pratchett novels, e.g., candle snuffer. looks at Melissa: the Librarian though

Melissa: look, we take all representation

Ken: even the witches, does mundane detail so well, yeah, a real witch has to do that, more of a human interaction than anything else

(me, to myself: also, research witches.)

Ken: 15 years ago, talking with Elizabeth Hand, who said how in Glimmering, included nitty-gritty details of boat building which made real effort to research, surprised by great number of positive responses to that part specifically, not necessarily by boat builders, people who just really enjoyed. readers in general, American in particular, love to know how stuff is done, procedural details

(me, to myself: which is the joke in the Field and Stream review of Lady's Chatterley's Lover)

Ken cont'd: is detail good in and of itself, or does it have to advance plot/character/theme to be worthwhile?

Sarah: love granular detail and think is a danger of too much, either "I've suffered for my research and so must you", or because genuinely love the subject—haven't written horse novel because of risk get too in weeds. new novella Haunt Sweet Home, protagonist is working at reality show as production assistant (PA), very bottom of ladder. got lots of feedback from ex-PAs, used to live from someone who was a set dresser got some flavor from her. the things sometimes skip between big plot moments, are what make the job and character pop, so that when get to plot, believe in fully rounded character and ability/inability to do thing

Ken: remember in your A Song for a New Day, early on, step by step to get into venue and set up, played really real to me, felt like there and put me on her side

Sarah: makes it really hard to read those in public readings, not most dynamic

Marianna: just crystallized, what really sells me on details being necessary, is when feels like answering question already had, or didn't know needed until got. joy of discovery for reader, not only having fun but just learned something. can get away with a lot

Melissa: always comes back to how well written. joke never want to represent someone going to toilet, but that's first story in Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, really works. as writer, always worry that losing audience when writing library

Ken: been moments where you as reader has been lost?

Melissa: hard to lose me, find a lot of things interesting

Sarah: if I do one good thing this con, it's getting people to go read Molly Gloss, in particular The Hearts of Horses, horse trainer novel; sequel of sorts, Falling from Horses, Hollywood stuntman. details ARE the story. not SFF, basically Westerns. nobody does it better than her.

Ken: granular details about occupations as tool of worldbuilding. thinking about economy of language, classic example "the door dilated"

(me, to myself, once again: can I tell you about The Fortunate Fall????)

Melissa: Evil, CBS series, investigating Catholic Church, which everyone gets wrong (never heard priests complain, think happy to have people talking about). does get details wrong of church, but climbing and motherhood details were really interesting and well done (in the same character)

Sarah: from writer's perspective, stuff make sure to show to beta reader, especially someone who knows field really well if not your area, or if your area, to someone who doesn't know

Marianna: one of best pieces of advice ever seen, if in situation where danger of infodump but exposition needs to happen: get two characters having intense emotions, maybe even conflict, about information. can get away with so much more and also tell readers about stakes

Ken: decades ago, reading SFF story about lawyer, remember character bemoaning that his pleading-generating software was so outdated and running so slowly; opened up entire world of, what does law practice look like when there's genuinely good AI that can generate pleadings. no big commentary on that in the story, just one little detail

Sarah: going back to annoys: music related: describing music in way that music critic would. stories that do music right, talk about emotions of playing, hearing. Lewis Shiner always gets right, also LaShawn M. Wanak

Ken: reminds of TV show M*A*S*H. there are lots of doctors shows, almost always have consultant on set to ask questions of. one for M*A*S*H said, usually actors ask how to hold this instrument, they always asked how would it feel. showed in series

Ken: asks Marianna about mundane occupations in fantastical setting

Marianna: always fascinated by genre as magnifier, makes things bigger. only way to do that is to ground in mundane in one way or another. PhD dissertation about Whedon in Buffy would have outrageous situations but mundane jobs like bartending at demon bar, or inverse, to really push contrast

Ken: reminded of very short story, 15 years ago, "Accounting for Dragons" by Eric James Stone, very tongue in cheek, also satire. when look at fantastical through lens of mundane, casts light both ways

Melissa: ongoing manga, Kowloon Generic Romance, about realtors: feels very grounded but in a fictional city where things shift and disappear

(me, to myself: is manga particularly good at this? or do I just happen to hear about examples there?)

audience: reality is stranger than fiction. experience is that weird shit happens more often in real life than is written out. sparks some of my best ideas. any of that that forms heart of why you write?

Sarah: hard thing is that because so much stranger, sometimes don't read as true; wife works for liquor board, her stories are so weird (snakes falling out of ceiling onto fire marshal who was trying to figure out what rustling noise was), haven't found way to make fiction

audience: Snow Crash opening: the Deliverator was speculation, but sheer terror and anxiety is all of our delivery services now

Marianna: genre wonderful tool for laundering these things

intros: say if bureaucrats and what kind

J.M. (Julia): born and raised in then-USSR, example of autocratic bureaucracy. immigrated over 30 years ago, USian bureaucracy in immigration. is opposite of bureaucrat, day job as academic scientist, pride self on being unruly

Laurence: R&D background, joined US Patent and Trademark Office as patent examiner last year, in feat of amazing timing

Victoria: day job, bureaucrat for 28 years at major research university. currently helping with grant applications, require great deal of finicky attention to detail. before that, a lot of university policies about purchasing and reimbursement

Shiv: first novel was cyberpunk bureaucracy (Domechild). bureaucracy experience in two separate countries. government of India in professional capacity, used to make ads for them; then immigration to US

Steve: career working with what people call bureaucracy, big government agencies. never really had to deal with Kafkaesque ever. really like the bureaucrats that has worked with, far-thinking and well-intentioned, hobbled by bad legislation and insufficient finances

Victoria: bureaucracy can be used for good or bad, don't really want to argue about its existence. organizing principle for any large human endeavor is basically bureaucracy. panel: have you read anything with fresh approaches, or suggest ways that bureaucracies can make good fiction

Laurence: bureaucracy implies stability in a way, even if malicious or oppressive, can hopefully find way to adapt to it.

Steve: bureaucracies have to handle issue of scale. organizations helping thousands of people, then bureaucratic structure starts to appear. Star Wars, "fear will keep the local stations in line," doesn't really work

Shiv: bureaucracy is model that is designed to only work at scale, which is unusual, can't scale down. useful to remember that was original meritocracy as envisioned, China created exams to select (and then ignored results for centuries). really cool moment in human history, did not previously have concept of best person for job gets job.

J.M.: bureaucracies are based on rules and order. range of perceptions about how fair rules are (also transparent). ideal cozy bureaucracy is heaven, also hell: rules are fixed, no arbitrariness. so many TV examples. Korean shows or Chinese, have a structure that's bureaucratic in essence, but at top is a deity: great turtle or ox that holds the world. innate sense of fairness comes from that non-human entity. reflects distrust of human, ideal of fairness. Nobody's Looking, Brazil: character figures out that little hamster in wheel powers the whole fair structure

Laurence: Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are chaotic opposites

Victoria: comfort of predictability: in fiction, can make case for subverting that.

Shiv: challenge that predictability is one of core functions for bureaucracy. what about bureaucrats working within or against. Winston Smith in 1984 is one way

Steven: Miracle Workers: god decides to flush whole universe down toilet, two bureaucrats trying to save it

J.M.: absolutely, love it; god is not malevolent but absentee landlord, played by Steve Buscemi

Victoria: can be benevolent, non-benevolent, indifferent

Shiv: another reason challenging for story, bureaucrats are quintessential middle management.

Victoria: idea that bureaucrats go mad with power, even over really small stakes

Shiv: post-independence, India had bureaucratic system that was called License Raj, called that because was so fiendish like British still there. wanted car? go through government, takes years to be assigned one. takes years more to be assigned color ... even though there are only white cars

Laurence: bureaucrat has flexibility in interpreting the rules. once he has rejected application, can write examiner's note with advice, or suggest to attorney that have an interview so can explain conditions. some examiners like that, some don't. some green card interviewers like being kind, some get out of bed on wrong side. gives room to portray individual characters: what is their experience

J.M.: therein lies narrative tension, long for ideal bureaucracy that would be helpful and just, but only human. two problems: middle management is human, don't apply rules uniformly or at all; other side: cannot write the rules that are good enough. trying to cover all contingencies, becomes barriers

Shiv: private sector bureaucracy: try to file insurance claim. interesting, public bureaucracy designed to prevent worst-case scenario, private to prevent best-case

Steve: all worst experiences have been with private sector. (admits maybe sample is biased.)

Victoria: in private sector, people aren't rewarded for staying for long time in same job: leads to people doing things their way because institutional knowledge isn't there

V: fantasies of bureaucracy, affect how people think about government (treating government and bureaucracy as interchangeable for these purposes). how use them for positive effects?

Laurence: 20th century stories almost exclusively negative, lead to cynical and negative responses (which is not to say that not deserved). chicken and egg, Catch-22 or Kafka as responses to experiences maybe, but still cycle

V: showing bureaucrat going through daily lives and trying to do things well, goes along with seeing self in fiction. felt connection to people in Arkady Martine duology, also Murderbot experiencing different types of bureaucracy

J.M.: Star Trek itself, huge organization that works

Laurence: Iain Banks' Culture, see in interfacing with non-Culture

Shiv: Star Trek really good example, what matters is not that good, but least worse option available to you.

Steve: also Known Space, Niven, when successful, invisible. no narrative tension until fails. could do positive bureaucracy in untenable situation, e.g. natural disaster.

Shiv: how set baseline opinion of bureaucracy is during moments of non-crisis, which is difficult because stories are about overcoming obstacles. in a non-crisis, the obvious obstacle to overcome is bureaucracy itself, which is not message want to send

Victoria: trying to write post-conflict fiction, would be one way of doing it. Goblin Emperor, Hands of Emperor, consider both aspirational fantasies of bureaucracy: none of us have power of emperor, but what would I do with the power, especially since Maia (in Goblin) is so shy, downtrodden

Laurence: love Goblin Emperor, not sure best example since he is at top, many problems are because hasn't had chance to find feet. Witness for the Dead trilogy is maybe better example, very conventional church bureaucracy, protagonist working within that system; aspirational in that way too, because things do work out

Victoria: bureaucracy is background to and part of mystery plots in that trilogy

Shiv: Goblin Emperor: about to ruin, cover ears. at some point if don't draw line between politics and bureaucracy, going to have argue that Game of Thrones is bureaucracy novel. really about courtly politics

J.M.: Memory Called Empire also mostly court politics

Steve: respectfully disagree: Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings are failed systems because don't have bureaucracy, whole purpose of which to prevent what happened. "Sauron should never have gotten a building permit." medieval delegation in Europe is start of bureaucracy there, limits power of kings/emperors

Victoria: Hands of Emperor, another imperial novel but POV character is career bureaucrat. same issue of having imperial power, but mostly looking at what things this single bureaucrat puts into motion, because emperor gives instructions but bureaucrat must implement. we see that change takes time. has been working on what's effectively universal basic income, see played out in different people's lives. odd novel, massive, kind of circles back on self, but very much about civil service

audience: friend who writes legislation read it, was furious: person who writes legislation shouldn't also be implementing! can you have fantasies of bureaucracy where protagonist is not limited or collective in some way? is that necessary feature? or can we indulge in fantasy of purely good bureaucrat

Laurence: fantasy of bureaucracy, to my mind, should be much more egalitarian, focused on middle management

J.M.: the classical Western narrative with a lot of agency, is kind of at odds with this

(me, to myself: Saiyuki Gaiden features very corrupt heavenly bureaucracy and is about failing to prevail over it)

Shiv: lot of pushback about personal anonymity for specific bureaucrats. as species we really don't like not knowing who said so

Laurence: in US Patent and Trademark Office, my name is on all the rejections and allowances

Victoria: federal grant agencies: applicants know reviewers, can request not-that-one

audience: short story about alien bureaucracy gone wrong, title of which I didn't get; what would look like for alien bureaucracy to go right?

Laurence: aliens often stand for mysterious unknown powers, so bureaucracy can be monster

Shiv: weirdly, really functional bureaucracy is in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, appoint President for everyone to yell at while others do work; works at so many levels. also, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged is one-person bureaucracy, developed immortality and is very mad about it, has list to personally insult every person in universe

Victoria: probably somewhere in C.J. Cherryh

audience: comment on Laundry novels, Charlie Stross?

Laurence: fun, mockery of system that deserves to be mocked

Victoria: Going Postal is a good example of good bureaucracy. obligated to mention Andor, examples of bad bureaucracy

Laurence: Too Like the Lightning, only decent people are UN functionaries

audience: Alastair Reynolds Prefect series, whole system based on voting

(me, to myself: Kagan, Hellspark; whole apparatus to determine if species is sapient)

Victoria: Rivers of London, regular cop trying to get magic police bureau and other bureaus to work together

Steve: Jasper Fforde

Charlie: characters with this approach?

Caitlin: apologizes for inherent spoilers, because involves taking plot inherently different direction. Joffrey in Game of Thrones is legendary one (presumably this is Ned being executed)

Robert: choosing example is a little hard, because from writer's side of fence, want to create surprise yet inevitability. ones that stay with me don't feel like someone just said, we gotta shake this up, more organic

Shariann: once was given advice, when get stuck, blow something up: really very effective. but then have to put in a little foreshadowing (or might find that it was actually there all along and hadn't noticed). thinks shouldn't be as much a surprise on reader's side because not doing job

Sophia: back to initial question: as plotting and as character choice, very differently. character who realistically does that, can result in interesting plots. fascinating ones are who build up to that explosion: Stephen Graham Jones has done several times very effectively. Indian Lake series, series building to one direction, character that reader knew was going to break, does, though surprise to other characters. still, character just blowing things up can be fun, terrifying, both

Caitlin: Jason Mendoza is hot sauce, not main course

Sophia: yes, love him, but would be very different genre if he were the main character

Robert: The Scar by Sergey Dyachenko and Marina Dyachenko. lovely book. seductively awful self-absorbed rake kills boyfriend of next seduction target, target looks at him with completely indifference, which is perfect reader Molotov cocktail because all expectations upended

Charlie: is writing Jason Mendozas unique?

Sophia: had a manuscript that was very long, lot of stuff happening, each new development through new character being introduced. also had ghost character who definitionally had no sense of consequences, pure impulse. every time my agent said, this character feels a bit extraneous, decided, just going to throw ghost at it, figure out how she can get to the same end result. made it feel much less chaotic and tighter, also much funnier. that said, this was revision not plotting. if have this kind of character initially, helps have some sense of where story going, what is about, or accept that going to be messy first draft.

Caitlin: what percentage of process is plotter versus pantser (writing by the seat of your pants), since seems like would be pretty relevant?

Shariann: every writer has a unique process and can change over time, plotter and pantser is continuum. am far on pantser end, have to write to find out where it's going. so that's where blowing up comes in useful: things started to literally jam up, did not know where in plot to move next. looked to character who it would make sense to blow things up: said to character, sure, go ahead. took whole story in different direction and worked wonderfully well.

Robert: plans a lot at start, then departs; metaphorically working toward mountain seen in distance, but no satellite maps, have to find way

Sophia: generally need to have sense for arcs and themes, but doesn't frequently know plot.

Caitlin: very similar. has hideously wasteful process, can't tell whether detailed outline is right until written substantial chunk of it. example: realized climax needed to be at 1/3 point of book

Robert: Sophia re: Molotov cocktail as character versus approach to plotting, both have equally caught me by surprise as a writer

Caitlin: suddenly struck by metaphor that Molotov cocktail is literally fuel.

someone: use pitch to make stick to tanks

Caitlin: yes otherwise could just brush them away (as author)

Charlie: initially thought this was a trickster panel. can you have a stolid character who throws

Sophia: character who is very stolid isn't going to be throwing Molotov cocktail, but from plot POV can throw a lot of stuff at them

(me, to myself: Jason isn't stolid but he is very predictable, in that he always wants to throw Molotov cocktails!)

someone: character who starts showing crack in their stolidity

Sophia: love that

Caitlin: believe that can have character who's very stolid/solid and knows their mind, wants, limits: see them make actual decision to explode because intolerable line crossed. don't need to be inherently chaotic or unstable. throwing part of who they are

general agreement

Caitlin cont'd: setting up situation with unattainable goal, do reasonable things in the moment to reach, results in cascading consequences. example: Iron Widow: joins military to avenge sister, which accomplishes pretty early, but that shifts goals. at 2/3 mark, pushed to decide between survival and massively reshaping society, not goal but things escalated so fast. changes what problem of book is and what series is about.

Charlie: moving goalposts one entire field at time

Caitlin: and on reader too

Robert: as much as in love with surprise (don't think would be able to finish anything if not wondering what going to happen in next chapter [I think that this was, finish writing, rather than reading, but I'm not sure]), satisfying rug-pull on reader expectations needs balancing own indulgence with a lot of planning. just a set of encounters is not satisfying

Caitlin: Jason Mendoza not very intelligent, but definitely changes substantially over course of series. perpetual chaos muppet will eventually become tiring to reader

Sophia: keep in mind that stories are always about something. Jason is fundamentally important to theme of show, is kind caring person who does a lot of dumb and destructive things. he breaks not just plot but ideas of what goodness means. chaos so meaningful in broader sweep of story

Caitlin: writers are not being chaotic

Sophia: single most "and then THINGS HAPPEN" is Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera, which is also most intentional book ever read. need to build trust and rapport with reader. easy way to do that is tropes, much harder to say, don't know where going with this but trust me.

audience: Sophia mentioned teaching Molotov cocktail method, is that more than Chandler's "and then someone burst in shooting"

Sophia: working with burnout or writer's block people, one of goals is to make writing feel as fun and low-stakes as possible, especially since lots are writing about trauma. method: first know driving force of scene. what is the weirdest, funniest, most frustrating, etc. etc.—pick superlative, actually has a checklist—way could possibly achieve. then do that. not necessarily what final draft will be, but goal is enjoying process. which is something that Jason really has!

audience: example of Molotov cocktail compounding is Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. main character treated like walking time bomb for 12 books, 13th goes off in way he didn't expect, readers either. permanently changed dialogue between readers, author. do you consider that?

(me to myself: this is tangential but I will always remember "The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault." as a first book line (to Blood Rites))

Robert: any time telling story, it's about raising of expectations and then what do with them. can't pretend that haven't been raised. to subvert, have to have planted seeds that really wanted other thing all along

Shariann: relationship between author, reader, character, and the arc of character. reader buy-in mostly through identification with character. if arc is compelling, well, people are changing all the time, which is what makes story interesting. psychologist once said that change in belief happens quickly but was building all along.

Caitlin: as author, have duty to not pretend to naive about impact on reader.

Barbara asked for the panelists' deep read with their intros.

Rebecca: Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones podcast.

Barbara: tend to deep read a lot of 19th century lit repeatedly, or SF dense enough that resembles

(me, in my notes: have you heard about The Fortunate Fall??? (I will come back and link when I make the post about that panel, but it was in the last slot of the con, so it'll be a little bit.)

Gregory: podcast began with deep dives. current: Murderbot; repeated: Lord of the Rings (and now teaches) and everything surrounding, taught importance of seeing layers even decades later

Lark: how exactly do you deep read?

Rebecca: hard to do on first read, can't see shape of whole book, so has to be on second read. have page of notes or Google Docs with quotes, end up with kind of red string theory about book as whole

Barbara: Dickens fan. when first read as young, for plot, skipped over boring parts. now every time read very prose-heavy books, find something new. naturally quick reader, will force self to sound out each word to slow down. Aubrey-Maturin, do need secondary sources for ship terms etc. but usually just rereading

Gregory: very similar. in academic work, obviously, eye toward teaching. when doing deep reading "on my own," not doing that: like waves passing over at beach, absorb something new every time. recently starting teaching [one of this year's Readercon Guests of Honor] P. Djèlí Clark: initially read because interested, before started teaching started picking up inter-book connections, which are either intentional or designed to make it appear so: valuable for own writing

Rebecca: yes, valuable to deep read into not just book or author's work, but broader context; really helpful for themes and ideas within the work itself

Lark: so downsides?

Barbara: two offhand: not spending time finding new authors; hit book 5 or 6 and suddenly realize that you don't like it.

Gregory: that's the bargaining stage. risk of tunnel vision. if after Murderbot, go to another series where voice is not as prominent, "this would be awesome if it were Murderbot!" though sometimes breath of fresh air; example of Dune and then the Witcher series, much different prose speeds. wants to downplay slightly risks of this, because value: get one of greatest joys, understanding of how sausage is made, which can be not just valuable but moving

Rebecca: doing Eight Days means has to put a "nickel in the Diana Wynne Jones jar" every time refers to. but another peril, become glutted with it: read bunch of Guy Gavriel Kay in row, started feeling like could finish sentences for him. haven't tried to push through that feeling, probably possible but ...

Lark: disagree slightly with Gregory: John Wiswell's talk on "How I Wrote Someone You Can Build a Nest In," mentioned that had very minimal edits: would like to have not know that, remain furious that book love so much just came out that way (Lark later made super-extra clear that this was a joke)

Rebecca: things wish I didn't know about favorite books: reading deeply can lead to realizing that don't like as much. Witch Week: DWJ essay explaining it as metaphor for racial bullying, reaction: oh this doesn't work. think a different way about book and now have more complicated enjoyment

Barbara: had that with Dickens, Oliver Twist: Fagin, okay going to pass by problems with character because love book so much. then reading more, learned that friend of Dickens' pointed out problems, wrote Our Mutual Friend with "good" Jewish character (Rebecca: he was doing his best)

Gregory: this is why biographical criticism is dangerous. authors are not accurate always about impact of work on wide audience. Tolkien was wrong about Lord of the Rings not being about WWI. also sometimes write beyond what they as people are like (Shakespeare being able to write more nuanced characters than his personal prejudices likely would have indicated)

Rebecca: sometimes have to read as deeply what authors are saying about own work, as read the work itself

Lark: what's difference between being a deep reader and being a Trekkie or Swiftie for whatever you're reading? just being a huge fan?

Gregory: very dangerous question to answer. couple of responses. being a huge fan is extraordinarily valuable because reflects passion and identification. not minor, important. largely come to reading for emotional impact first. that said, can be uncritical acceptance, thinking everything from artist is equally good. deep reading is trying to really engage on own terms, not just author's, which often means critical in analytic sense. nuance: doesn't invalidate deep love of the work. and can be both at different times.

(me: life is a rich tapestry, my brain is always being analytical, cannot make it stop even when I want to)

Rebecca: part of deep reading is looking at it past your own emotional response, maybe that's the difference.

Barbara: somewhat disagree with Gregory, Trek fans can wildly disagree, not uncritical. may disagree with self in half hour, but not sure that so much different

Gregory: does this happen even within an individual book? my father always thought that Twain suffered failure of nerve in Huck Finn when Tom Sawyer reentered narrative. engaged with it as a fan because so good until that point: hit speedbump, thrown off; deep reader asks, why did he do that.

Rebecca: hard to become a deep reader if not already a fan!

Gregory: no hate deep reads?

Rebecca: not done hate deep reads, but "I didn't quite get this" deep reads, come back a year-ish later, other people liked and I don't see it

Gregory: Fargo, watched 4 times, can't stand it

Barbara: next year's panel, things everyone likes but you

(it's now in my list of things to send in!)

Rebecca: brainwashed self into liking Frankenstein by reading 4 times, now very protective of (the monster, I think)

Gregory: book that rewards deep reading

Rebecca: a book that you can have an interesting fight with will always reward deep reading

Lark: would you want someone to deep read you??

Gregory: yes please! if was intending layers, nice that noticed; if not, emotionally invested that want to engage in process, amazing. what authors don't want is apathy

Barbara: what he said. one of favorite memories is someone saying, you meant to do x, y, z; no, didn't, but great that brought own experiences

Rebecca: huge compliment to be thought worth fighting with. would love it as authors if our attitude were, yes come fight with me

Lark: but not fistfight! we at Readercon do not condone physical violence on-site!

Rebecca: once dreamed that Madeleine L'Engle was coming to punch me in face

Gregory: of all authors, least surprised

audience: professional deep reading versus that might do as "ordinary" "fan", "just a reader" (quotation marks are mine)

Gregory: "professional" involves going through for targeted reasons, particular elements to bring up in class and so forth. when fully invested in work and rereading—example of his father's books, where he annotated emotional reactions (meet Gollum in The Hobbit, "don't trust him," answering riddles ahead of time). but also making connections to other works etc.

Barbara: only kind of deep reading I do is personal

Rebecca: if just for myself, not podcast or book review, tend to hyperfocus on what interests me: running list of all best insults in Iliad just to share with friends

audience (me): risk that will have opinions about author as person? I have Diana Wynne Jones opinions just from listening to the podcast

Rebecca: high. risk that hearing the ghost of author standing next to you saying things, not just work itself. not sure that mastered that challenge

Barbara: depends on author. it's my problem. Dickens: then found out how treated wife, relatively recently, but couldn't stop enjoying, so invested in literature: will use to reinterpret but not stop reading. other authors, would not enjoy works if found that were problematic. some Heinlein books "make me absolutely insane." not very consistent

Gregory: probably true for me too. okay to understand that going to form opinions, as long as doesn't substitute for work you're reading. can struggle to get back into work for author because still around. doesn't teach Gaiman any more. but important for students to understand that can write beyond self, that individual circumstances are not predictive of work can produce.

Rebecca: death of author is so much easier when author is literally dead.

audience: just done 4th reread of Terry Pratchett, love spending time with him. have discovered that certain books don't wear as well as others. when done deep read of favorite writers, ever say "I loved, past tense, this"

Rebecca: that's called the Suck Fairy (see A Visit from the Suck Fairy and A Visit from the Context Fairy). every book is created between reader and text

Barbara: find most often re: children's literature that read as child, especially 19th century. sometimes think should not go back and reread

Gregory: conversely, delight when things hold up. but: Dragonlance, don't hold up. however, when read, mattered to you in the way that they did, spoke to you: don't cringe, did best could at time

Rebecca: even if book itself doesn't hold up, understand what about yourself at that age that spoke to you

audience: apply this to poetry?

Gregory: don't know why this has become a my father panel, but he ran a small poetry press. most moving poems are ones that revisit, and engage with in similar way

Barbara: don't tend to deep read poetry, totally emotionally thing

Rebecca: feel intimidated by prospect, think doesn't understand way constructed in same way as fiction, but having conversations with poet who has same feelings has been very useful.