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Worldcon Panels
I got my schedule for Worldcon 2004, and I am on a gazillion panels and things. Yikes. At least I'm not moderating any of them -- I moderated every panel I was on at Wiscon, which was fun, but somewhat stressful.
Here is the schedule, with the descriptions I was mailed from the Worldcon programming people:
Aghgh! My plane is only getting in at 9pm Thursday!! I will miss my Thursday panel!
Thursday 6:00pm OWW gathering Liberty A
Thursday 6:00pm Riding the Slipstream
with F. Brett Cox, Theodora Goss, Delia Sherman, Andrew Wheeler, Mary Anne Mohanraj
In between the genres is a new non-genre called slipstream. Can it
really be defined? Should it be? How is it enlivenling long-standing
genres?
thereafter dinner w/ some folks
Friday 5:00pm Literary Beer
with Pat Cadigan, David Gerrold
Saturday 1:00pm Autographing
with Kage Baker, Tanya Huff, Don Maitz, Terry McGarry, Nick Sagan
Saturday 3:00pm a meeting
Saturday 5:00pm Postcapitalist Social Mechanisms
with M. M. Buckner, Cory Doctorow, David Friedman, Charles Stross
A look at the reality and potential of such things as
reputation/abundance/gift economies and the like -- as found in
Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom", Stross's Macx stories,
and a wealth of others.....such as fandom itself????
Sunday 2:00pm The Writer and Moral Responsibility
with Carol Berg, Joe Haldeman, Chris Moriarty, Deborah Ross, Bron Serson
So you write a book about a serial-killer-vampire and find out
that a disturbed 14-year-old kid has decided to play out that
fantasy.....Arrgh!!!? Talk about this and related issues. Where
does the buck stop?
Sunday 4:30pm-6pm Strange Horizons Tea Party
Monday 10:30am Reading
(just me!)
Monday 1:00pm Dealing with Job/Family/Life!
with F. Brett Cox, (fellow Web Rat) Melanie Fletcher, Paul Levinson, Michelle Sagara West
Many artists and writers hold a frull time job of one sort or
another; learn about methods for squeezing time out for SF work. And
how do you pursue "the loneliest profession" and have time for your
family too?
Monday 2:00pm What's Your Agenda?
with Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Don Sakers, Carrie Vaughn
How do you get your agendas in and keep the story going strong? Do
you really have to be a Mason to understand which character in the
Magic Flute is the Catholic Church? How obvious should it be (or,
does it matter?) before the story's believability is shot?
How can writers avoid taking their preconceptions with them? Their backgrounds shape the tale after all don't they?
(Note: some of the above links may yield weird results, as I am just automatically Google-I-Feel-Lucky-ing them.)
Ben, about that Postcapitalist Social Mechanisms panel: could you report back here whether people seem to understand that the whuffie economy as depicted in Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a nightmare, not a dream? I think D&O does a pretty good job of lefthandedly undermining its own utopia, myself, but it fascinates me that so many readers seem to react to it as an improvement on the current social contract, not getting the point that a merging of popularity and wealth would be a pox upon the social misfits of the world (a set with some significant overlap with the set of science fiction readers).
Posted by: Dan Percival at August 5, 2004 12:23 PM