Just got my Worldcon schedule. It's going to be an interesting and busy con.
Thursday 4:00pm Fantasy Motifs in SF Literature
Laura Frankos
Rosemary Kirstein
Josepha Sherman
Sarah Zettel
Fantasy is about elves, and SF is about spaceships, and ne'er the
twain shall meet, right? Or is it? It has even been noted that an
"enchanted forest" exists in "Against the Fall of Night"...but....but...that's sf....not fantasy! So what happens when SF uses fantasy motifs? Is it no longer SF, or at least not "real" SF? Is Yoda Merlin? AKKA the One Ring? How does a writer take a classic fantasy motif and make it SF - or it more than just dressing it in hardware? Are there any fantasy motifs which have not been used....or cannot be used? Why do hard sf writers bother to play with folkloric
images: What do they get out of this miscegenation, (and why?)
Friday 2:00pm The Long and Short of It: Short Stories vs. Novels
Jay Caselberg
Nicholas A. DiChario
David Marusek
Robert Reed
William Tenn
Sarah Zettel
Friday 5:00pm Where Did That Story Come From?
David B. Coe
Alex Irvine
Mark L. Olson
Harry Turtledove
Sarah Zettel
History hidden in well-known SF, for the historical illiterati,
Saturday 3:00pm Kaffeeklatsch
Brian W. Aldiss
Jack L. Chalker
Stanley Schmidt
Sarah Zettel
Saturday 5:00pm How Does SF Portray Islam?
Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Shariann Lewitt
Harry Turtledove
Sarah Zettel
What portrayal of Islam? The religion and culture of the Muslim
world are infrequently the subjects of SF stories, which says
something about the parochial nature of much of the genre; and when
they do come up, it is in stereotypical ways. Yet Islam has evolved
and diversified in as many ways as Christianity; there is no reason
to think it won't continue to do so, on this world or others.
Sunday 1:00pm More About Merlin
Christopher Cevasco
Josepha Sherman
William Tenn
Sarah Zettel
Merlin had his own existence in legend before his association with
Arthur; he was a wilder pagan figure. Look at the independent
treatments of Merlin, and those who followed after in his image.
I'd be interested in how the "How Does SF Portray Islam" panel goes. Grimwood's Arabesk sequence is amazing. There was a story in one of the Year's Best SF collections which IIRC involved using DNA bases to inscribe the Koran in one's cells. This became a problem when it became obvious that this could be used to target Muslims for biowarfare.
Posted by: Steven Kaye | July 26, 2004 at 12:01 PM
Sarah - LOVE ALL OF THESE!! Thanks so much Valerie, we enjoyed woiknrg with you and can't wait until our wedding day! See you soon!
Posted by: Edwin | July 29, 2012 at 06:11 PM