Eastercon etc.

[altariel]

I am back from Eastercon, where I had a smashing time catching up with folks, spinning in bewilderment around curious corridors, talking so much that I crashed far too early each night, and blathering madly on panels. In what's becoming a tradition, I arrived just in time for my first panel, "Is the new Trek a Trekker's Trek?" Quite a big panel (6 of us), but with a good mix of opinions, from those of us who had thoroughly enjoyed the film for what it was, to those who felt it had destroyed too much of canon. I had a lot of a fun; I thought it was a jolly and good-natured affair, and I hope the audience enjoyed themselves too.

My final commitment was that evening, when the Conflicts anthology (in which I have a story) was launched (see the NewCon Press website for more information). After that I was free to come and go as I pleased, which means sitting around and yakking with friends, particularly katlinel, jellynewt, games_player, kalypso_v and communicator. And of course catching up with many other friends as I wandered about the hotel in high-octane con-dazed fashion.

A panel on reviewing critically boiled my blood in exactly the right way by sparking off ideas and response; a later panel on "feminist heroes" unfortunately boiled the blood in the wrong way. On Sunday night I was a last minute replacement on a panel about rogues and anti-heroes; I managed about twenty minutes of coherent thought, but suspect I wasn't much use during the last half of the panel. Never mind, there were other sharper-minded people around me and in the audience. I loved communicator's session on translating Chinese poetry, and enjoyed a session on "the mutable body", which wandered around the topic but always interestingly. Another panel about non-SF for SF readers touched a little upon multiple reading practices: I would gladly have heard more.

And of course, there was Doctor Who. What can I say? I loved it madly. The only disappointment is the title music, which turns out to sound a LOT better in 5.1 surround - you can hear the dumdy-dums much more clearly. (Yes OF COURSE re-watching was the first thing we did when we got back home.) Is Matt Smith going to turn out to be the Best Doctor Ever? It's a distinct possibility.

Also, when I got back home, I was at last able to open my COLOSSAL Easter egg, which turns out to be made up of five eggs nested inside each other like a Russian doll, each flavoured differently. So much chocolate, so little time! I'm going to try to make it last the whole of this season of Doctor Who, but scoffing is going to be a real temptation...

Comments

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I was terribly disappointed by that panel. I think the ineptitude was embarrassment and lack of preparedness.

A pet peeve of mine, I think this was said after you left, but made me purse my lips in middle aged disapproval: 'Remember that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley published the Vindication of the Rights of Women when she was only 17!' And everyone nodded sagely.

I mean, I don't need to say this to you but Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman when she was 33 and her daughter Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 18. Obviously the precise ages are insignificant (and I had to look 'em up on wikipedia) but these are two quite distinct people, and it's a shame to hear this kind of thing from feminists.

As for the rape discussion, if you are going to go into these sort of things you have to be better grounded than they were.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

That was after I left, but I heard about it later and got even crankier.

Perhaps I might write up a post about the idea of a feminist hero, it would be an interesting discussion to have here.

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

I too was dissapointed by the panel - I found it suprising, as most of the women/SF panels I've been to have been pannelled by people who are aware of women's history (if not feminists).

The point about A Vindication .... was not that it was written by a chld progidy but that it was written in 1792 (and thus contempoary-ish with Jane Austen). I think the muddle was that in 1792, JA was 17.
Actually, I wanted to be shouty about this, as JA is _not_ the author they were making her out to be.

I think there was much bumbling around poor definitions (although I think Pink Doormouse, I think, was getting somewhere with distinguising the hero and heroine of swashbuckle from male and female protagonists).

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Yes, I don't want to tarnish pinkdormouse, who wasn't part of the disappointing discussion.

I was trying to remember the context in which they spoke about Vindication, and of course it was in contrast to Jane Austen. Thanks for remining me. As you say, Austen was not really the anti-Wollstonecraft they made her out to be.