incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

This was the only panel I was on at Worldcon--and indeed my first ever. The description was exactly the same as the Bittercon panel:

"Stories about stories. When can the teller of a story successfully interact with the story, and when is it a cheat?"

This may have been a mistake--it may have attracted more people if it had been more detailed.

( Read more... )

Anyway, I had a really great time, for which I am *abjectly* grateful to the audience, who contributed so much and kept the conversation flowing in a way that just two panelists could never hope to do. The audience really made this panel work and I hope they enjoyed it half as much as I did.

As I said then, if anyone there has more to add, or wants to tell me what I've forgotten, please do. And I welcome further discussion from everyone else, as always. I'm temporarily turning off screening of anonymous comments to faciliatate the discussion--though from Wednesday through Friday, Japan time, I'll be offline.

Oh, and if it's a spoiler, either ROT13 it or put it between <span style="color: #999999; background-color: #999999"> </span>. Thanks.

Really last one:

Wish Fulfillment

A wish-granting entity shows up and tells you that you can have, be, do, etc., any one thing in science fiction or fantasy. What do you pick?

Me, this is a no-brainer: I join the Culture.

This post brought to you by another half-hour of my life wasted doing stretches for the bursitis in both hips, not to mention all other minor medical stuff, and the ever-present knowledge that I will never have enough time to read all the books I want to.

Bittercon panel number three. And dual-purpose of getting something off my to-write list!

Levels and Limits of Metafictionality

Stories about stories. When can the teller of a story successfully interact with the story, and when is it a cheat?

Examples that I think work (how they do is spoiler-protected and cut for length): Pamela Dean's Secret Country trilogy, in which kids cross into another world and it looks like their "let's pretend" game is real; the musical The Drowsy Chaperone, where a fan of a musical plays a record, imagines the production, and talks to the audience about the songs, staging, artists, and story; Katherine Blake's (Dorothy Heydt) novel The Interior Life, in which a housewife has detailed daydreams about a secondary fantasy world. What else? And is Dream of the Endless automatically disqualified?

(Don't spoil people, please: ROT13 spoilers or put them between <span style="color: #999999; background-color: #999999"> </span>.)

( spoilers )

Seen various places: panels for Bittercon, the virtual con for those of us who'd like to be at any of the cons this weekend. I'm going to toss out several in a row, starting with:

The Napoleonic Wars in SF/F: What's the Appeal?

Space opera's been using the naval parts of the Napoleonic Wars as models for a while. Susanna Clarke and Naomi Novik have recently set fantasies in slightly alternate versions of the Napoleonic Wars. What's the appeal? Is this just the influence of Patrick O'Brian and Georgette Heyer showing through? Why are the tactics so fascinating to space opera writers? And what's so interesting about society of the time that both Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and the Temeraire series make an effort to fix it?

References: prior LJ post asking for suggestions to propose a Readercon panel that never went anywhere; Crooked Timber's seminar on JS&MN; my booklog posts on the Temeraire series (bonus: an old LJ post on platonic romance as the second book's structure).