I'm still in Denver.
You thought I was kidding about the Blue Bear. It was still banging at the door wanting in this morning.
I missed most of "Chronological Dissonance: Modern Archetypes & Morals in a Historical Setting". The take home lesson seemed to be that if you don't want your historical or foreign characters to sound like your drinking buddies or coffee group, then read primary sources to get a feel of what it was like to live in that time or culture. There was some discussion on whether the difference between them and us you see there (in e.g. the Odyssey) was due to the literary conventions of the writer or an actual difference in the way the people saw things. Interesting stuff, but I won't dilate on it here.
A not so interesting panel of "Trends in New SF- Where are we going and why?" (which the panel decided was actually "New Trends in SF"). Panel members were Charles Brown, Jim Minz, Ken Scholes, Sheila Williams and Gary something. The picture of them below is the panel reacting to a survey one of them had done on LJ which said, among other things, that a new trend in SF was multiculturalism. One of the others replied that multiculturalism in SF was actually very old.
[Photobucket has eaten picture]
I know appearances can be deceptive, but have a look the photo and estimate an answer the following question:
Q: Given that multiculturalism in SF is "old", what effect has it had on the faces we see on convention panels?
A:
Other points: Small Press – printing is now cheap enough to make it viable; games and movies, rather than pointing in new directions are perennially 30 years behind print; Young Adult is big big big; cellphone novels are big in Japan; movies now have a small press – it's called YouTube.
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