incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

I went to a lot of panels on Sunday at Arisia, and live-blogged most of them; I will not be transferring the Twitter threads over here because time, but feel free to ask for clarifications/expansions and I will do my best.

The Ethics of Writing Speculative Fiction

In an online article for Bustle, writer JR Thorpe describes speculative fiction as helping thinking people be more ethical. How can writers grapple with challenging dilemma and real-world problems through fiction? This panel will examine the use and misuse of speculative fiction to confront thorny ethical problems.

Sam Schreiber (m), Gillian Daniels, Andrea Hairston, Liz Salazar, Sarah Smith

No live-blogging of this, just a comic called Future Vision, about climate change, that I remembered while listening.

Death and Funerary Practices in Science Fiction

Funerary rituals and attitudes towards death vary greatly across distance and time, yet the way a society views, treats, and memorializes its dead gives insight into its beliefs, philosophy, and priorities. What are examples of death rituals in SF? What are examples of alien, space-based and other genre cultures handling their dead? What does it tell us about those societies? How have these themes been handled well...and not so well?

H. M. White (m), E. C. Ambrose, MJ Cunniff

Twitter thread.

Libraries of the Future

SF predicted ebooks and electronic media many decades ago. Along with the vision of a paperless future came the occasional view of a futuristic library with no books, and often only AI or holographic librarians. In 2020, libraries still have books (and librarians), but they’re circulating increasing numbers of ebooks, audiobooks, DVDs and other media. What is the greatest value libraries have to offer, and what will they look like fifty or a hundred years from now?

Cate Schneiderman (m), Michael A. Burstein, Greer Gilman, Danny Miller, Meredith Schwartz

Twitter thread.

Talking Cats and Political Rabbits

There are several kinds of anthropomorphic fiction, from fantasy in which animals talk and interact with humans, to allegories, to stories in which humans don’t appear at all. They can be played for humor or for intense drama (Watership Down). We’ll talk about our favorite anthropomorphic fiction, how it’s done well…and how it sometimes falls short.

Julia Gilstein (m), Elizabeth Birdsall, Rebecca Maxfield, Sonya Taaffe

Twitter thread.

Time to Bring Back Some Tropes?

Like any other art form, techniques that were once popular fall out of favor, tropes that were all but a requirement for a story are discarded, and some narrative forms become rare. What styles in older speculative fiction are due for reconsideration? Which ones deserve their obscurity? Panelists will describe alternate ways to write that deserve consideration in contemporary fiction.

Genevieve Iseult Eldredge (m), Liz Salazar, W. B.J. Williams, Keith Yatsuhashi

Twitter thread.

Tabletop Gaming as a Spectator Sport

Over the last few years, the trend toward video game streaming has carried over to the tabletop RPG world. Shows such as Critical Role, Relics and Rarities, and Sirens of the Realm, many of which spotlight actors and experts engaging in long-form improv storytelling, can garner dozens of millions of views per episode. What factors draw such a large audience to view Dungeons and Dragons as entertainment to be watched, rather than played?

Melissa Honig (m), Aran P. Ink, Lisa Padol, Tori Queeno

Twitter thread.

These were all great except I thought the tropes panel was a bit too broad in conception?

I also bought, err, … some … jewelry from the dealers' room and the art show; there's a picture and artist credits also over on Twitter.

I'm at Arisia (no programming for me, I didn't make sure I was on their list in time after skipping last year, which is fine, very relaxing!). Just now I was part of a conversation in which I asked for recommendations of works that actually show how world-changing events would have widespread, structural consequences that affect people at the individual level. You know, the stuff the MCU conspicuously avoided doing in Endgame and that Steven Universe: The Movie skipped past in, what, two sentences?

Someone said that, despite everything else that could be said about them, the Pern series actually does this, going forward and back in time to show how the planet went from space colony to feudal society to back again. (My favorite of those was always the one where they discover the A.I. that walks them through becoming a spacefaring culture again.) Mercedes Lackey, too, is really into logistics as Valdemar's relationship to magic changes, again, despite everything else.

(I later remembered Becky Chambers' Record of a Spaceborn Few, which is about a particular community, which is in some ways a utopia, during a period of change (but not any especially dramatic one, because communities are always changing). It's told through the viewpoints of a handful of people, who cross paths but not in any major-plot-crescendo kind of way, just living their lives within a society and in relation to it. Somewhat to my surprise, I absolutely loved it.)

This conversation prompted someone else to say that I should write a list of stories that should be revisited, with less fail. And I am very tired and have other things I want to do tonight, so I'm not going to go beyond this, but I'm putting this up so others can chime in if they like. Is there some story you like that isn't as common these days, where the most prominent past examples have other stuff that you would like not to be there, so that it's ripe for revisiting with less fail? I'm not interested, for these purposes, in the core of a story being subverted or reclaimed; more like, gee, what about a Big Dumb Object story but with actual characters? Or The Grand Sophy without the moneylender? Or, as above, Pern without everything having to do with sex and romance?

Anyway, have at it. I'm going to see if I can catch up on Steven Universe Future because there's a panel tomorrow morning. Granted, it's at 8:45 a.m., so I may not make it regardless . . .