(no subject)
Went on a reading week in Tuscany, and then to Eastercon.
Reading week was awesome. It consisted of good weather, beautiful houses, lots of books, too much (really, far too much) wine, good company, amazing food (mostly cooked by Mattia), and a pair of endearingly enthusiastic dogs. How holidays should be, basically.
My first time at Eastercon, and for the most part had a really good time.
The GOOD:
There were lots of interesting panels, and plenty to think about. Particular mentions to:
The BAD:
A good account of certain less positive aspects of the con by Alex Macfarlane here. FWIW I agree with most of that post but the ensuing Twitter stuff is unfortunate. Full apology by the BSFA for the awards ceremony (which I walked out of along with a bunch of other people) here.
The video games programming was all over the place, 'The SF video game canon' being the least satisfying panel I went to all weekend. It started ok with discussion of Hitchhiker's Guide and Elite (which I think most people would agree is the canonical SF game), then someone said "I'd like to mention Deus Ex", and it was all downhill from there as the panelists just talked about whatever games they felt like however tenuous their connection to the topic at hand. The Metagame was lots of fun, but then it was a gameshow rather than a panel discussion. 'Can video games tell a good story?' had its moments but maybe that's too big a topic for a one hour discussion.
Mostly I've come away from all this feeling that I'd like to read more and engage more, so that's got to be a good thing right? Now I just need to make it happen.
Reading week was awesome. It consisted of good weather, beautiful houses, lots of books, too much (really, far too much) wine, good company, amazing food (mostly cooked by Mattia), and a pair of endearingly enthusiastic dogs. How holidays should be, basically.
My first time at Eastercon, and for the most part had a really good time.
The GOOD:
There were lots of interesting panels, and plenty to think about. Particular mentions to:
- 'How pseudo do you like your medieval?', which had lots of interesting stuff about writing fantasy and historical fiction.
- 'Just a Minute', for the unforgettable image of China Mieville's head on a stamp.
- 'The New 52', I'm not much of a comics reader but I do take an interest, and this was a really good discussion of the many issues around the DC reboot.
- 'You got your robot elf sex in my SF'. Very entertaining discussion of romance as it relates to SF. It belatedly occurred to me that it was romance (in Buffy S2) that got me into this fandom business in the first place. But then I am a big sap.
The BAD:
A good account of certain less positive aspects of the con by Alex Macfarlane here. FWIW I agree with most of that post but the ensuing Twitter stuff is unfortunate. Full apology by the BSFA for the awards ceremony (which I walked out of along with a bunch of other people) here.
The video games programming was all over the place, 'The SF video game canon' being the least satisfying panel I went to all weekend. It started ok with discussion of Hitchhiker's Guide and Elite (which I think most people would agree is the canonical SF game), then someone said "I'd like to mention Deus Ex", and it was all downhill from there as the panelists just talked about whatever games they felt like however tenuous their connection to the topic at hand. The Metagame was lots of fun, but then it was a gameshow rather than a panel discussion. 'Can video games tell a good story?' had its moments but maybe that's too big a topic for a one hour discussion.
Mostly I've come away from all this feeling that I'd like to read more and engage more, so that's got to be a good thing right? Now I just need to make it happen.