yendi

In the past, I've done huge wrap-ups of Readercon panels, and I burn out after two or three write-ups. So I'm trying something different. Here's a wrap-up of all the panels I attended, with only a few sentences about each. Got questions (or comments if you were at some of these)? Ask away, and I'll answer.

Friday:

The Nature of Evil in Horror Fiction: Great panel featuring a number of theories by folks like Clute and Schweitzer. Clute noted the idea of evil as a "vacancy," of morality, as well as in physical spaces (he noted that we were in a hotel, near a mall, on a ring road, all of which symbolize vacancies. Laird Barron noted that evil can't be witnessed without outside context, and that evil usually forms from conflicts of intent (both indicating that those who commit evil rarely recognize themselves as evil). Works cited were numerous, and included Peter Straub, Cormac McCarthy, Faust, Lovecraft, Woody Allen, and more. Chip Delaney, from the audience, suggested that people "do nice things in the world for the same reason that you masturbate," which may be the best rephrasing of Ayn Rand I've ever heard.

The Year in Novels. Featuring Paul Witcover, Graham Sleight, Ernest Lilley, Charles Brown, and Shira Lipkin (woohoo!). Lots and lots of talk about great (and not-so-great) works from 2008, with a little bit about 2009. I didn't take extensive notes here, but Brown had a handout that some folks got (I came in late, though).

Interfictions 2 Reading. Yet another panel with

shadesong! Yay! More importantly, every single piece read (and there were excerpts from ten pieces, I think) was awesome. Some were from Interfictions 1, as well. Reminder: You can pre-order the book now!

How I Wrote The Orphan’s Tales, by Catherynne Valente. I knew much (but not nearly all) of the backstory here, and

yuki_onna is as good a storyteller when telling her own story (or the story behind her books, as it were) as when she writes her novels.

How Do We Choose What We Read? This was an ill-defined, but interesting panel featuring Michael Bishop, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda, and a number of other interesting panelists. Wish I'd had my computer with me to take notes, but there was good discussion of early influences, perception of genre, and other fun stuff.

Meet the Pros(e) party. A giant crowded clusterfuck. If you're as introverted as me, you'll hate this with a screaming vengeance. If the room had been twice as big, the idea itself was great, though, giving each pro a sticker sheet with a sentence they've chosen from their own work on it, and the pros giving them out to folks (or trading with each other). And there was cake.

Saturday:

Notes on the Superhero. The first part of John Clute's paper on the Count of Monte Cristo as a proto-superhero, focusing mainly on the ties to Superman, but with some good Q&A about Batman (with the focus on both of them in their '30s incarnations, not the present day, of course).

How I wrote Enclave, by Kit Reed. In this case, it was, essentially, "the life of Kit Reed," as there wasn't quite as much backstory directly relevant to this book. But it was a great panel, and Reed is a nifty speaker and person (and graciously signed my copy of the book).

The Killers Inside Us: In many ways a sequel to the Nature of Evil panel. This focused explicitly on psychosis in literature (and in film/tv, by extension). There was some discussion, of course, of whether evil existed, but most of the focus was on the fact that psycopaths are made, bit by bit, and that they offer many, many warning signs, both items overlooked in slashers in general. I also learned that Barry Longyear went to school with Gary Heidnik. Also, at some point, I wrote down the phrase, "the truth of coherence as opposed to the truth of correspondence," on a notecard, quoting someone either in the room or on the panel. I really should have brought a laptop to capture context.

Novels of Advocacy vs Novels of Recognition. Another ill-defined panel, but also fun. Lots of discussion of Canadian and US differences in approaching novels, as well as of writers like Heinlein (I was so glad to hear a panelist -- I want to say it was Ken Houghton -- call the end of The Roads Must Roll "Bullshit"). The question of a negative advocacy (did I mention that Paolo Bacigalupi was on the panel) was mentioned, as was the idea that the line between recognition/advocacy doesn't exist.

Liz Hand Reading: Liz read from the upcoming novella, "The Maiden Flight of McCauley‘s Bellerophon." It was, not surprisingly, wonderful

Kirk Poland Bad Prose Tournament of Champions. I'm not used to seeing Yves not finish in the top two. Some awful, awful stuff. Loved it. At one point, I snarked audibly in reaction to a passage in which the "author" claimed that no one, not even the editor, was reading the book, but only

emilytheslayer, I think, heard the name of the publisher at whom I snarked.

Sunday:

Future of magazines 1: Print
Future of magazines 2: Online: These panels were back-to-back, and placed in way too small a room (why the hell they weren't in one of the Salon rooms is beyond me). I know that

ckd took good notes, so expect actual quotes and stuff from him. As for me, I enjoyed the discussion, got some useful information, found some snarkworthy moments, and had fun.

Broad Universe Reading: The second reading I attended featuring

shadesong! It was another huge group, but the stuff read was all wonderful, and I want to track much of it down.

Children's F&SF Coffeeklatch: This was a coffeeklatch organized by Tui and Kari Sutherland. The former writes YA books, used to edit them, and is one of the four people writing the Warriors series (and lives in Watertown!), and the latter is an editor at Harpercollins. The group consisted of fans and pros, but we all snarked equally at Twilight. Lots of discussions of book packaging groups, cutting-edge stuff, and, of course, Hunger Games :-)

I'll post a second post with discussion of the people and social elements of the con later, but I wanted to get this stuff down before I got caught up in work this week.