Denvention: Thursday
Aug. 16th, 2008 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowMy first full day at the convention was Thursday the 7th.
Whenever I stay at a hotel, I'll give them one chance at breakfast. Usually, though, it's not worth it. Breakfast at the Westin-Tabor was less than satisfactory, and over-priced. Two eggs, two slices of fried tomato, two slices of toast, and coffee, with tip coming to more than $20 - not worth it.
My early-bird habits always confront me with a bit of a problem at cons, since interesting events don't tend to start until 10:00 or later. However, by this time I was already reading the Ostrogoths book, so I did have something to do while waiting. The first panel I attended was on anachronism in time travel/alternate history stories, specifically the problem of inappropriately modern attitudes. This isn't as clear-cut as it might seem. One of the panelists described a story she had read, set in the American frontier in the early nineteenth century; in her opinion, the central character was presented note-perfect, with exactly the attitudes such a man, in that time and place, would have had. The story fell flat, though, because he was utterly unappealing; there was nothing for a modern reader to latch onto. Having a character whose POV is modern helps immensely in making the story accessible. In time travel stories, modern characters can be used, but the problem remains of making the non-modern characters actually be non-modern. (This is one of the weaknesses of the 1632 series, in my mind; too many of the seventeenth-century people adopt twenty-first century mores a little too easily. There are exceptions, but not enough of them.)
Next up was a panel on alternate history and the amount of research needed to make it believable. I remember next to nothing about this one, except for one unexpected eruption. Harry Turtledove was one of the panelists. One audience member raised the question of Turtledove's voluminous production and the idea that there was actually more than one person involved. The questioner was, to my eyes clearly, aiming a joke about Turtledoves from alternate timelines, as in the story "The Amazing Dr. Amizof", but Turtledove just blew up. Apparently this sort of thing (without the implied joke) has been appearing on the 'Net, and has gotten under his skin; he ranted for several minutes about the fact that everything that appears under his name is actually his work. I can understand Turtledove's ire, but I couldn't help pitying the questioner (assuming I'm right about his intent).
At 1:00 I attended a panel on "The Limits of Empire"; the panelists were Mary Kay Kare, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, and Mike Resnick. The ostensible topic was how big a "galactic empire" could be, even postulating FTL travel, but it went off into such questions as "Why an empire?", "Is there such a thing as a good empire?", and so on. On the latter question, one of the audience eventually pointed out that as recently as a couple of centuries ago "empire" and "emperor" were powerful and positive concepts in Western Europe, and there's no obvious reason why that couldn't recur. Reasons suggested for having an empire included the supervision of commerce and defence against an external threat (some novel variants on that last were brought up); no one, however, mentioned internal peace - ending war between rival human governments. (Cf. Ariane Emory's thoughts on the future in Cyteen - the passage ending "And predation. Don't forget predation.", or something like that.)
The next panel I attended was a tribute to Olaf Stapledon; John Hertz and Robert Silverberg were the main panelists, and there was an interesting discussion of exactly what's good about Stapledon's work, and which of his works might be most accessible to a non-fan of SF. (Consensus: probably Sirius.) I've never read Sirius or Odd John, and probably should one of these days.
4:00 brought Lois Bujold's reading of the beginning of The Sharing Knife: Horizon. It sounds promising. One thing that stood out for me: in Passage, I hadn't gotten a clear picture of the two Lakewalkers who joined Dag and Fawn on their river journey, but Lois delineated - and, importantly, separated - them quite well.
James Bryant's curry party was that evening. Irene/sekhmet had been busily locating drivers for those of us who needed rides, and my party had agreed to meet at the Horizon reading. There was some last-minute reallocation; I wound up riding with Stellan and Susan-from-Seattle, who en route had an interesting discussion of GPS software and hardware. (I just sat back and listened. Always ready to learn, me.) Once there, I was drafted into chopping duty, rather clumsily dicing a large onion. (Other people got through two onions, a potato or two, or a clump of broccoli in the same time-span. Deft I am not.) Once James got there and the curry began cooking, most of us - there were a couple of dozen attendees - scattered into clumps of conversation, which continued after the food was distributed. (Delicious food, by the way; I had one helping of the meatball curry and two of the chicken, and have copied James' recipes for later reference.) Topics of conversation included puzzles, copy-editing, and the history of mathematics. (I waxed rhapsodic on the story of the adoption of decimal notation in Europe. We all have our hobby-horses.... At the end of the dinner, one of my tablemates said that, from then on, whenever she thought about the history of mathematics, she'd remember me. I felt snarkily compelled to ask how often she thought about that subject, and she admitted it was pretty rare.)
I discovered something interesting when I returned to my hotel. I don't like sleeping under blankets except in the dead of winter, and hotel beds always seem to have heavy quilts or bedspreads, which I inevitably kick off. Most hotel maids simply put them back; at the Westin-Tabor, apparently they pay attention. The bedspread was not there that night, nor did it reappear during my stay.
Anyway, that was Thursday.
Whenever I stay at a hotel, I'll give them one chance at breakfast. Usually, though, it's not worth it. Breakfast at the Westin-Tabor was less than satisfactory, and over-priced. Two eggs, two slices of fried tomato, two slices of toast, and coffee, with tip coming to more than $20 - not worth it.
My early-bird habits always confront me with a bit of a problem at cons, since interesting events don't tend to start until 10:00 or later. However, by this time I was already reading the Ostrogoths book, so I did have something to do while waiting. The first panel I attended was on anachronism in time travel/alternate history stories, specifically the problem of inappropriately modern attitudes. This isn't as clear-cut as it might seem. One of the panelists described a story she had read, set in the American frontier in the early nineteenth century; in her opinion, the central character was presented note-perfect, with exactly the attitudes such a man, in that time and place, would have had. The story fell flat, though, because he was utterly unappealing; there was nothing for a modern reader to latch onto. Having a character whose POV is modern helps immensely in making the story accessible. In time travel stories, modern characters can be used, but the problem remains of making the non-modern characters actually be non-modern. (This is one of the weaknesses of the 1632 series, in my mind; too many of the seventeenth-century people adopt twenty-first century mores a little too easily. There are exceptions, but not enough of them.)
Next up was a panel on alternate history and the amount of research needed to make it believable. I remember next to nothing about this one, except for one unexpected eruption. Harry Turtledove was one of the panelists. One audience member raised the question of Turtledove's voluminous production and the idea that there was actually more than one person involved. The questioner was, to my eyes clearly, aiming a joke about Turtledoves from alternate timelines, as in the story "The Amazing Dr. Amizof", but Turtledove just blew up. Apparently this sort of thing (without the implied joke) has been appearing on the 'Net, and has gotten under his skin; he ranted for several minutes about the fact that everything that appears under his name is actually his work. I can understand Turtledove's ire, but I couldn't help pitying the questioner (assuming I'm right about his intent).
At 1:00 I attended a panel on "The Limits of Empire"; the panelists were Mary Kay Kare, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, and Mike Resnick. The ostensible topic was how big a "galactic empire" could be, even postulating FTL travel, but it went off into such questions as "Why an empire?", "Is there such a thing as a good empire?", and so on. On the latter question, one of the audience eventually pointed out that as recently as a couple of centuries ago "empire" and "emperor" were powerful and positive concepts in Western Europe, and there's no obvious reason why that couldn't recur. Reasons suggested for having an empire included the supervision of commerce and defence against an external threat (some novel variants on that last were brought up); no one, however, mentioned internal peace - ending war between rival human governments. (Cf. Ariane Emory's thoughts on the future in Cyteen - the passage ending "And predation. Don't forget predation.", or something like that.)
The next panel I attended was a tribute to Olaf Stapledon; John Hertz and Robert Silverberg were the main panelists, and there was an interesting discussion of exactly what's good about Stapledon's work, and which of his works might be most accessible to a non-fan of SF. (Consensus: probably Sirius.) I've never read Sirius or Odd John, and probably should one of these days.
4:00 brought Lois Bujold's reading of the beginning of The Sharing Knife: Horizon. It sounds promising. One thing that stood out for me: in Passage, I hadn't gotten a clear picture of the two Lakewalkers who joined Dag and Fawn on their river journey, but Lois delineated - and, importantly, separated - them quite well.
James Bryant's curry party was that evening. Irene/sekhmet had been busily locating drivers for those of us who needed rides, and my party had agreed to meet at the Horizon reading. There was some last-minute reallocation; I wound up riding with Stellan and Susan-from-Seattle, who en route had an interesting discussion of GPS software and hardware. (I just sat back and listened. Always ready to learn, me.) Once there, I was drafted into chopping duty, rather clumsily dicing a large onion. (Other people got through two onions, a potato or two, or a clump of broccoli in the same time-span. Deft I am not.) Once James got there and the curry began cooking, most of us - there were a couple of dozen attendees - scattered into clumps of conversation, which continued after the food was distributed. (Delicious food, by the way; I had one helping of the meatball curry and two of the chicken, and have copied James' recipes for later reference.) Topics of conversation included puzzles, copy-editing, and the history of mathematics. (I waxed rhapsodic on the story of the adoption of decimal notation in Europe. We all have our hobby-horses.... At the end of the dinner, one of my tablemates said that, from then on, whenever she thought about the history of mathematics, she'd remember me. I felt snarkily compelled to ask how often she thought about that subject, and she admitted it was pretty rare.)
I discovered something interesting when I returned to my hotel. I don't like sleeping under blankets except in the dead of winter, and hotel beds always seem to have heavy quilts or bedspreads, which I inevitably kick off. Most hotel maids simply put them back; at the Westin-Tabor, apparently they pay attention. The bedspread was not there that night, nor did it reappear during my stay.
Anyway, that was Thursday.
