kate_nepveu | Readercon attendance

Due to crushing quantities of work, I won't be at Readercon much this weekend. My current plan is to attend one thing a day, and browse the dealer's room / hang out with anyone I bump into for a bit before or after.

Right now I'm leaning towards these two things as what I most want to see, even though the Saturday one is a bit inconveniently timed in terms of getting work done.

Sat 02:00 F
Traumatized Authors: Encounters with Evil and the Speculative Response. Debra Doyle, Joe Haldeman, Elizabeth Hand, James D. Macdonald, Graham Sleight (+M). "It is possible to see Tolkien as one of a group of `traumatized authors,' all of them extremely influential . . . all of them tending to write fantasy or fable. The group includes . . . Tolkien, Orwell, Golding, Vonnegut . . . C.S. Lewis, T.H. White, and Joseph Heller . . . Most of these authors had close or even direct first-hand experience of some of the worst horrors of the twentieth century, horrors which did not and could not exist before it . . . All of them responded with highly individualized images, and theories of evil." -- Tom Shippey, foreword to J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. Hence the dominance of speculative rather than mimetic fiction in works that address the horrors of the modern age.

Because it sounds interesting.

Sun 10:00 RI
Stephen King's The Dark Tower Completed. John Langan. Discussion (60 min). The ending of Stephen King's Dark Tower series has been a matter of much controversy and discussion. Join in! (Spoilers, obviously.)

Because I suggested it, and if no-one else showed up I'd feel really bad.

Various LJ people who are going to be around: let me know if you want specifically to meet up around those times. Or, perhaps we'll bump into each other. Whichever.

(No, this is not how I'd like to spend my weekend, but I'm reasonably resigned at the moment.)