WorldCon 2010 Day 2
Sep. 4th, 2010 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenWrote this last night on laptop; posting this from the convention centre wireless, which is not free, so I may or may not check in later.
This is supposed to be a holiday, so I took my time, and arrived via taxi just before eleven. I checked in and left my bag there (the room wasn't ready, but at least I could check in).
Went over to the convention centre, left a note for AH on the Voodoo Board (no, I don't know why it's called that).
Went to the panel about blogging ("We're all connected, all the time: blogs and social networking in the world of YA spec fic") which was mildly interesting, and jived with my experience of fandom: reading as a social activity, the desire to "own" the work by making creative responses to it, and the fact that girls are more vocal in social networking than boys.
Unexpectedly encountered AL either after this panel or the next one, I can't remember which. But it was a lovely serendipity whenever it was.
The next panel I went to was much more fun, probably because the panellists kept on playing off each other. "Keeping pace: maintaining momentum in fiction". I'm not sure that I really learned anything about pacing, but it was very entertaining. Jay Lake kept on making funny remarks, Carrie Vaughn was the sensible one, Peter Brett kept feeding Jay Lake straight lines, and Howard Tayler was simply interesting, because he was the only one of the four who worked in graphical narrative rather than prose. The other thing that I was impressed about him was that he is adamant about keeping promises to the reader, insofar as, if there's some plot thread that looks like he's made a promise to the reader (that is, something that looks as if it will be followed up, expanded on, a question to be answered) then he will keep that promise, even if he'd thought, originally, that it was just a throwaway line. It's almost enough to make me want to buy his work, but with a title like "Schlock Mercenary" I don't think it's quite my thing.
Then AL and SS and I dashed slowly down to go to the "Baen Travelling Slide Show" which was fun; we got freebies (a CD with e-books on it, and sample covers) and some people got additional "prizes" for asking interesting questions etc. The slides were book covers, with and without the title lettering on them, and some of them were awesome. And there was of course, talk about the books in question, and the artists, etc. It was fun. Oh, and there was the bourbon on the table.
After that, I skipped the guest of honour speech, and went back over to the hotel, to see if my room was ready, and it was. So I went up to it, and unpacked etc. And flopped a bit.
At 3pm I went to the Eowyn & Sam panel "Eowyn and Sam: underappreciated heroes in The Lord of the Rings" rather than the talk on Gath because I'd received a reply to my note, which said that AH would be at "Room 210 @ 3pm". I didn't see her when I went in, but that was okay, because people were still coming in. It was an agreeable panel, well, of course I agreed that Eowyn, Sam (and Faramir) were underappreciated; various things were touched on, such as whether Sam was Frodo's "Batman" in the English tradition, or whether they were more equals and true friends - with an interesting remark that the hobbits were like comrades-in-arms, such as Tolkien might have experienced in WWI. A tidbit I hadn't known: Eowyn was the result of Tolkien's granddaughter complaining that there weren't enough girls. Cool.
When the panel ended, I was looking around for AH, but I couldn't see her. But she saw me, and surprised me from behind with a "I'm here!". Hugs and talk ensued. There was a bit of a run-around as AH tried to find someone she said she'd meet, but they weren't there. We were a little late for the next item, but as we both wanted to go to the "Mapmaking for Fantasy Authors" workshop - me, because it sounded interesting, and she because she hates maps in fantasy novels (and deliberately wrote one so that it would be impossible to map). However, it was fascinating, partly because Russell Kirkpatrick (who is a professional cartographer) spent quite a bit of time challenging our assumptions about maps - what they do, what they're for, how conventional modern maps disconnect us from the human-eye view of the world, how maps can deceive, how they always filter information because they can't show everything; also about the history of maps and different kinds of maps, such as medieval maps which were symbolic and spiritual as well as informative and physical. He also touched on the reason AH hates maps in fantasy novels - that going back and looking at the map pulls you out of the story; it's distracting, rather than enhancing the story. So he was basically challenging us all not to take the conventional route with map-making, but to think outside the borders, to connect the map to the humanity of the story (a human's-eye view, not a bird's-eye view). There were also a lot of interesting questions which sparked more talk (and some of which digressed quite a bit, but that was fine).
This was another case of looking twice at an author, wondering if I will get his works, but he appears to write doorstops, which I've learned from experience usually have too slow a pace to keep me interested.
It just goes to show, one can't necessarily tell from the description of a talk/panel/workshop which ones will be the most interesting.
AH and I parted ways after arranging to meet for lunch tomorrow, and I had a terrible moment when I thought I'd lost my room key, but it turned out to be in my bag; I must have put it there after I put my programme book back. I discovered that there was another entrance to the hotel, on level 1, direct from the convention centre, which means that one doesn't necessarily have to go outside to get from one to the other.
I then walked to the Crown food court to get dinner, had a steak sandwich which dripped on my clothes, and then an ice-cream cone to eat on the way back, which also dripped on my clothes. Ah well. I wasn't planning on wearing that top again at this con anyway.
This is supposed to be a holiday, so I took my time, and arrived via taxi just before eleven. I checked in and left my bag there (the room wasn't ready, but at least I could check in).
Went over to the convention centre, left a note for AH on the Voodoo Board (no, I don't know why it's called that).
Went to the panel about blogging ("We're all connected, all the time: blogs and social networking in the world of YA spec fic") which was mildly interesting, and jived with my experience of fandom: reading as a social activity, the desire to "own" the work by making creative responses to it, and the fact that girls are more vocal in social networking than boys.
Unexpectedly encountered AL either after this panel or the next one, I can't remember which. But it was a lovely serendipity whenever it was.
The next panel I went to was much more fun, probably because the panellists kept on playing off each other. "Keeping pace: maintaining momentum in fiction". I'm not sure that I really learned anything about pacing, but it was very entertaining. Jay Lake kept on making funny remarks, Carrie Vaughn was the sensible one, Peter Brett kept feeding Jay Lake straight lines, and Howard Tayler was simply interesting, because he was the only one of the four who worked in graphical narrative rather than prose. The other thing that I was impressed about him was that he is adamant about keeping promises to the reader, insofar as, if there's some plot thread that looks like he's made a promise to the reader (that is, something that looks as if it will be followed up, expanded on, a question to be answered) then he will keep that promise, even if he'd thought, originally, that it was just a throwaway line. It's almost enough to make me want to buy his work, but with a title like "Schlock Mercenary" I don't think it's quite my thing.
Then AL and SS and I dashed slowly down to go to the "Baen Travelling Slide Show" which was fun; we got freebies (a CD with e-books on it, and sample covers) and some people got additional "prizes" for asking interesting questions etc. The slides were book covers, with and without the title lettering on them, and some of them were awesome. And there was of course, talk about the books in question, and the artists, etc. It was fun. Oh, and there was the bourbon on the table.
After that, I skipped the guest of honour speech, and went back over to the hotel, to see if my room was ready, and it was. So I went up to it, and unpacked etc. And flopped a bit.
At 3pm I went to the Eowyn & Sam panel "Eowyn and Sam: underappreciated heroes in The Lord of the Rings" rather than the talk on Gath because I'd received a reply to my note, which said that AH would be at "Room 210 @ 3pm". I didn't see her when I went in, but that was okay, because people were still coming in. It was an agreeable panel, well, of course I agreed that Eowyn, Sam (and Faramir) were underappreciated; various things were touched on, such as whether Sam was Frodo's "Batman" in the English tradition, or whether they were more equals and true friends - with an interesting remark that the hobbits were like comrades-in-arms, such as Tolkien might have experienced in WWI. A tidbit I hadn't known: Eowyn was the result of Tolkien's granddaughter complaining that there weren't enough girls. Cool.
When the panel ended, I was looking around for AH, but I couldn't see her. But she saw me, and surprised me from behind with a "I'm here!". Hugs and talk ensued. There was a bit of a run-around as AH tried to find someone she said she'd meet, but they weren't there. We were a little late for the next item, but as we both wanted to go to the "Mapmaking for Fantasy Authors" workshop - me, because it sounded interesting, and she because she hates maps in fantasy novels (and deliberately wrote one so that it would be impossible to map). However, it was fascinating, partly because Russell Kirkpatrick (who is a professional cartographer) spent quite a bit of time challenging our assumptions about maps - what they do, what they're for, how conventional modern maps disconnect us from the human-eye view of the world, how maps can deceive, how they always filter information because they can't show everything; also about the history of maps and different kinds of maps, such as medieval maps which were symbolic and spiritual as well as informative and physical. He also touched on the reason AH hates maps in fantasy novels - that going back and looking at the map pulls you out of the story; it's distracting, rather than enhancing the story. So he was basically challenging us all not to take the conventional route with map-making, but to think outside the borders, to connect the map to the humanity of the story (a human's-eye view, not a bird's-eye view). There were also a lot of interesting questions which sparked more talk (and some of which digressed quite a bit, but that was fine).
This was another case of looking twice at an author, wondering if I will get his works, but he appears to write doorstops, which I've learned from experience usually have too slow a pace to keep me interested.
It just goes to show, one can't necessarily tell from the description of a talk/panel/workshop which ones will be the most interesting.
AH and I parted ways after arranging to meet for lunch tomorrow, and I had a terrible moment when I thought I'd lost my room key, but it turned out to be in my bag; I must have put it there after I put my programme book back. I discovered that there was another entrance to the hotel, on level 1, direct from the convention centre, which means that one doesn't necessarily have to go outside to get from one to the other.
I then walked to the Crown food court to get dinner, had a steak sandwich which dripped on my clothes, and then an ice-cream cone to eat on the way back, which also dripped on my clothes. Ah well. I wasn't planning on wearing that top again at this con anyway.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 01:25 am (UTC)Eowyn was always one of my favourite LOTR characters. Go, Tolkien's granddaughter! And him for actually listening.
The map-making talk sounds absolutely fascinating! I'm not keen on maps myself because they often tell me too much and I feel I have to study them. I prefer something fairly simple that will just tell me if one place is north of another, say. Not a complicated city map that I'm just going to ignore. I quite liked the one in "The Red Wolf Conspiracy" that had fish drawn in the sea like old medieval maps. OTOH some readers of the Queen's Thief series bemoan the lack of maps and are trying to work out where countries are in relation to each other. I'm very visual about people and landscape, but I don't mind not knowing. :-)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 01:43 am (UTC)I didn't realize you would be at worldcon. Have a great time!
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 05:25 am (UTC)What, you consider yourself not a "true" fantasy fan because you're mainly familiar with Harry Potter?
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 05:30 am (UTC)The downside of my cold last week is that I still don't have my energy back, which means that right now, at half-three, I'm feeling quite tired, and the day is by no means over yet. Ah well.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 07:57 am (UTC)The maps for fantasy authors talk sounds really interesting.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 09:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 10:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 09:57 am (UTC)I think that Sam started with Tolkien viewing him as Frodo's batman and with his main role being to provide some comic relief. But I think that Tolkien's view of him changed as the work progressed, so that he finished up being much more of a friend and equal and a much more important and heroic figure than originally envisaged.
Whether Tokkien did it deliberately or unconsciously, The Shire seems to have a class system very much modelled on the English one, with Sam being lower class and Frodo probab;y upper-middle class (much like Tolkien himself, I suppose). The Shire seems to have been something of an idealised England. (That's Tolkien's ideal rather than mine. I'm not sure that I should have been comfortable in such a class-based society, where the lower orders "knew their place".)
A tidbit I hadn't known: Eowyn was the result of Tolkien's granddaughter complaining that there weren't enough girls. Cool.
Very cool. Even so, women are still very under-represented. I have the impression that Tolkien rather saw them as an alien species that he admired, but which he didn't know nearly so much about as he did hobbits or dwarves. :) The only other one who really features to any extent is Galadriel, Even Arwen makes only a fleeting appearance. (I did once see someone mischievously mention that Shelob is another important female character!)
I don't think that Tolkien is guilty of under-appreciating Sam, Eowyn or Faramir, and than any under-appreciation has to be laid at the door of some readers. Incidentally, my own favourite characters are Eowyn, Faramir, Merry and Gimli.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 10:28 am (UTC)(hey, I can use my Frodo icon!)