Readercon 18 went off without an apparent hitch last weekend in Burlington, Massachusettts. For the first time, the convention was extended to four days, starting with two major panels Thursday night followed by a full day of programming on Friday. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get there until Friday afternoon (I arrived just as my 4 o’clock panel was starting).
Readercon, for those who haven’t attended before, is a convention focused exclusively on written science fiction, fantasy, and horror. There are no panels on tv shows or movies, no hall costumes, no gaming, and the dealers’ room (called the Bookshop) is 98% books and magazines. For those into written stuff, this is a great convention. The panels also tend to be a bit more scholarly, the panelists a bit more prepared, and the topics more in-depth.
My first panel, “Smooth and Lumpy Expanded Universes,” was with James Alan Gardner, Anil Menon, Yves Meynard, and Rick Wilber. (The program book precis is here.) The discussion covered the joys and horrors of adding to a written world (or series): can new features be easily integrated into the books that the readers already know and love, or will they look like glaring author mistakes, and will it even matter? The panel came to no definite conclusion, but we did cover the issue from many sides and examples.
[Edited on 11 July 2007 to note that “ckd,” who was in the audience, has a very in-depth report of the panel on this page.]
I don’t usually attend many panels when I’m at a convention, for several reasons. First, there’s the difficulty (for a regular panelist) of sitting in the audience and trying to not participate. And then there’s the fact that I’ve been going to conventions for many years and have heard most of the panel topics discussed. This Readercon was an exception. I found myself in the audience of at least four panels, and they kept my attention the whole time. For the record, they were:
* “F&SF Reviewing in the Blogosphere” (with panelists John Clute, Kathryn Cramer, Jim Freund, Ernest Lilley, Tom Purdom, and Gordon Van Gelder), a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of writing (and reading) book reviews online (blogs or web sites) versus in print.
* “Short Fiction Outlets You’ve Never Heard Of” (panelists: Ellen Datlow, Matthew Kressel, Jennifer Pelland, and Paul Tremblay), wherein the panelists presented a remarkable long list of smaller publications for writers and readers alike.
* “The Megaverse, the Landscape, and the Anthropic and Holographic Principles,” a solo presentation by Carl Frederick, which is part 3 of his ongoing Readercon presentation on really deep, heavy physics: fascinating and accessible, if not always obvious.
* “The Rhysling Award Poetry Slan.” I’ve never been to a poetry reading before, and only attended because I knew they’d be announcing the winners of the Rhysling Awards, which I wanted to report on here, at the end. It was an interesting new experience.
* “I Have a Truly Marvelous Proof of This Proposition Which This Story is Too Commercial To Contain” (panelists: Michael A. Burstein, Jeff Hecht, Donald Kingsbury, Louise Marley, and Peter Watts). A very good discussion on what hard (and not so hard) science fiction writers can do with all that data and research they accumulate to write stories, but then can’t actually put into the story.
There was also Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award Ceremony (which was a presentation, reported on in this article, which was followed immediately by the “Meet the Pros(e) Party.” Readercon does this a bit differently than most: in addition to the usual cash bar and meet everyone atmosphere, all the guest authors (and editors) have labels with single sentences from their works. Attendees collect the sentences; some try to arrange them into stories, others simply grab them for the fun of discovery.
My second panel of the weekend, “Sense of Wonder, or Sense of Cool?” was with John Joseph Adams, Thomas A. Easton, Laura Anne Gilman, and Ernest Lilley (program book precis reprinted here). This was a wonderful discussion, which I really enjoyed, about how science fiction used to give a sense of “Oh, wow!” but now seems more inclined to elicit a “Hmm, that’s cool.” Is the change good or bad, or is it even there? My point of view is that you can, and frequently do, have both in a novel, but that the wondrous comes from big things (new planets, new galaxies, interstellar travel), while the coolness comes from small things (nifty gadgets and such).
One common hang-out at most conventions is the bar: it’s the place authors and editors sit and chat when not on panels or out meeting fans. Readercon is no exception. But this year, for the first time, I didn’t manage to make it into the bar at all. When I wasn’t on panels or attending panels, I was talking with people in the halls (I didn’t even get to look in the dealers’ room until Saturday afternoon), telling them about SFScope (and frequently, hearing that they already read it: that was truly an ego boost!), and talking about everything else. I met some wonderful people, reconnected with others I haven’t seen in too long, and had a wonderful time.
Readercon is a convention I highly recommend, if you can handle the “literature only” focus. Next year’s will be 17-20 July 2008. See www.Readercon.org for more information.