girlofprey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
girlofprey) wrote2008-03-26 03:40 pm
girlofprey) wrote2008-03-26 03:40 pm
Entry tags:
- china mieville,
- cons,
- films,
- orbital,
- orbital 2008,
- tv,
- yay
Con Report - Orbital - Saturday
Wow, my con report turned out to be huge. Y'know, unlike most of my posts, natch. Anyway. Saturday.
Saturday
Saturday was an odd day. In some ways, it was a day of joy. But it was also the day the awfulness started. Saturday was the day Neil Gaiman started coming to panels. This was mostly almost unbearable.
We got up and had breakfast at 9:30-ish, then Alice and I went to the The Use of Mythology in Fantasy panel at 10, which I was quite interested in. We got there about five minutes late, and it really wasn't that good. Neil Gaiman was there, but it wasn't just him. They all seemed to mostly be talking about myth, and why they used myth, and why myth was so great - rather than how myth was used, or even how they used myth, and how it worked or didn't work with science fiction and fantasy, or why. One woman started talking about how actually, myths had been reworked since classical times, when they were probably still believed in, which is a fair point but seemed a bit defensive. Also, it wasn't actually what we were there to hear, I think. And Neil Gaiman kept saying wanky things like 'myths contain the most compelling stories', which I'm not sure is true, and various other things my Mythologies tutor at University could have demolished, so Alice and I left at about quarter past.
Which was nice actually, as I had thought I was booked up until 3:30 and wouldn't be able to get to the dealers' room until then. I bought three books for £3 each, and the man on the stall gave me them for £7.50, which was lovely of him. Then I went looking for the secondhand paperback copy of Un Lun Dun by China Mieville with the nice cover I'd seen the day before, but after much searching couldn't find it, so ended buying a new copy from the Forbidden Planet stall. Because of this I ended up being late for China Mieville's Guest of Honour talk at 11:00. Possibly I was sort of putting it off because I thought his books looked interesting, and was afraid he might be rubbish. I had absolutely nothing to fear. China Mieville is great. His talk was themed "For God's Sake It's Just A Story! A Reader's Guide to Ruining SF". I walked in ten minutes late to him being brilliant. It was one of the best talks I've ever heard. He had cards. I love that he had cards. Basically his feeling was that people who say 'It's just a story - stop reading so much into it. Stop ruining it!', rather than wanting to protect books, really were being defensive about, afraid of, and even hated books. And that people had a problem with the idea of a subconscious and a conflictual mind. There was a bit I was worried about were he seemed to be saying that racism and prejudice made books good, but he went on to say that really overt racism and racism that panders to a society's wishes and fears should be just out the door. I think he was saying that powerful fear like that which comes with extreme phobias and prejudices can act like a drug which can produce great art, but that we shouldn't therefore either okay the racism or entirely dismiss the book or work. Also we shouldn't burn or ban books. Really the state shouldn't be involved in that kind of thing.
Also he went to say that crazy defensiveness over books related to insane defensiveness over children, and the fact that, similarly, a lot of society actually hated children, which I think has a lot of truth to it. Oh, he was just great. He also thought that writers really shouldn't argue with their critics or reviewers, and that people who say they can tell more about you than they can about a book by what you've read into it think they've somehow how turned the conversation around in a judo-chop sort of move. Oh, he's just brilliant. And funny. And acknowledged that all of this applied to his work as well as everyone else's. And is a socialist. And oh, I loved him. And Jen and Alice seemed to too. About five or so extra panels on the weekend programme suddenly seemed a lot brighter and more attractive after his talk.
We went back to the room after that, talking about China I think, and as a result I missed the first part of the Fantastic London panel, which was the first panel I'd heard about, on the 'Programme changes' list, and thought had sounded great. Jen and I made our way down, and Neil Gaiman was on it, unsuprisingly. I think we missed the part where they actually described versions of and uses of London in sci-fi and fantasy books, but the rest was still pretty interesting. Neil Gaiman wasn't actually that annoying, he said some quite interesting things about London, and clearly loves the city and has a lot of knowledge about it. People did seem to talk about London as though it was somehow magically different from the rest of England, and you couldn't really write a magical novel that would be interesting set anywhere else in the country, and that the wonderful atmosphere of London was somehow a property all of it's own rather than the fact that it was a British city, but still. It was quite interesting, and they talked about the history of London - Neil Gaiman repeated some information he'd already pretty much given in Neverwhere. He also mentioned how someone had once challenged him to write a fantasy novel set in London, if he thought one needed to be written, which ended up being Neverwhere, without mentioning that it had started off as a TV series that BBC had wanted him to write, or Lenny Henry's input, but whatever. Maybe he talked about that earlier in the panel. Anyway, they talked about London and times when filmmakers or novelists just got London really wrong, and a few films that made use of London, and it was all pretty good.
Shorter paragraphs, I think. After that Jen and I went to Is British SF TV Being Buried under the US Onslaught?, which was a small panel and a bit strange. They did end up talking quite a lot about US sci-fi shows, including a few that Jen hates. They pointed out that we'd had quite a lot more British SF shows in past years than we have now, and that some of them, mostly Doctor Who, have become a bit Americanised and Buffy-like. There was a bit of debate about whether we didn't have the talent or the BBC just weren't investing in the British talent - I think the second - and the slightly odd suggestion that we don't have the money to do shows in the American style. I think some people agreed that we didn't really have to. Then I think there was quite a lot of discussion about the new Battlestar Galactica, as I recall, and BBC 2's buying up of Heroes. And probably shows like Doctor Who and Primeval and Torchwood.
I can't remember going to any of the next panels, so I think I went back to the room or to the dealer's room. There's every chance I went and bought a copy of Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, and then possibly went back to the room to drop my books off. We bought tickets for the buffet dinner that night at some point as well, given the fiasco we had the night before at getting food.
At 5 Alice and I and I think Jen went to the Religion in SF panel, which had apparently been good at Redemption last year, and which I thought might be interesting, but was prepared for it not being. They were actually saying some quite interesting things about how in sci-fi you often get races with just one religion, and everyone's a devout follower of it, or religions that are explained in the first few pages of a book but then don't really play into a character's or society's lifestyle, which isn't really the way people in real-life relate to religion. But people were also saying very weird things about how they were religious, and when you sit on a mountainside and watch the sunrise a feeling comes over you which is religion and faith and spirituality, when the atheists on the first part of the panel had pretty much said that they didn't. Or implied it by saying they were atheists. I think that was that panel. But mostly they'd done a funny thing with the room of chopping it into two, and the panel didn't have any microphones, and when the door opened at the back or one of them went quiet you just couldn't hear anything. So we left that panel early too.
We ran down to the restaurant to have a quick dinner before the 6 o'clock panels, and quite enjoyed the cake buffet. Then I went to The Past Year's SF Films upstairs, which was apparently a follow-on from the previous years 'SF films and the Oscars panel'. Mostly, as you can imagine, they talked about the year's sci-fi and fantasy films, which was nice as I had seen a lot of them, though they worked through them pretty fast. Day Watch got a mention, and they talked about Enchanted a lot, and people said that Sunshine was terrible, which was nice after hearing so many fantastic reviews for it. I haven't watched it myself, it just made a nice change. I'm been less than impressed with Danny Boyle's work in the past. People also discussed non-SFF films, strangely, including Sweeney Todd. They did say how the main parts should probably have been cast with people who could properly sing or been dubbed, but people also said how Helena Bonham Carter was great at singing and matching up movements and emotion, and that a dub might not have worked because of that, which was lovely. They also talked about some sci-fi and fantasy films coming out this year, including a few russian films which sound good. Which was nice.
At 7 - at 7 I was going to go to the Gothic Fiction panel, as it was similar to a Gothic fiction module I did in my degree, but when I got there I had obviously missed something. There was only one woman sitting at the panel table, and she was sitting off to the side, and she was saying something about how someone had mentioned Steampunk earlier in the day and she was interested in discussing it, so could we think of any examples of steampunk we liked, and what we thought worked about them. There was a bit of discussion for a while about different books, and the elements of steampunk, and the use of the 'good bits' of Victorian society, and the possible underlying sense of imperialism. But it sort of petered out after twenty minutes or so, and the woman said she was really hoping to see what came up in discussion, and didn't really have anything planned for a whole panel. People brought up a few more points - this might have been the panel where people talked about how Victorian sexual politics/ideals would work in a modern setting, but it could have been a different one. But anyway, the panel sort of wound itself up by half past.
So I went to the other panel that had looked interesting, Out of Space and Time: Perils and Pitfalls of Book Collecting. Again, I missed the first part of it, but it seemed to mostly be one man, a book dealer, talking about the trade of book dealing. There were some interesting stories about examples he'd come across of people trying to 'improve' the condition of their books, and of people trying to cheat book dealers to improve their own collection, and who to try if you like an edition of a book with a particular cover. There was also some talk about the different considerations of "fine" or "good" condition, which was quite interesting. Not many stories from or about actual book collectors though.
At 8 I went along to the Orbital Masquerade and Cabaret, which was quite good. There was a debut performance from a young (very young) Masquerade star, and a rendition of a battle between trees and flowers (trees won). I didn't know the background of who a lot of the characters were though, and spent a lot of time trying to work out who Kaywinnet Lee Frye was. But there were some lovely costumes. Miss Solar System was a particular standout, and her hat was beautiful. People seemed most taken with the fifteen year-old (?) boy dressed as a generic elf though. And the hostess woman was good, and had lots of stories about her cats. Then there was the cabaret, in which a girl sang, there was some filk, and a comedy sketch.
I hung around until 10, and then went off to go to the A Sensation of Vertigo panel, which was about Vertigo label comics, which I love. There were a lot of Actual comic book writers and artists there, and we got some of the backstory about British comic book writers working on 2000 A.D. and not feeling appreciated so going off to America, and how America had a Good Comics Authority censorship board, which Britain didn't. Basically the British comic book writers blew people in America away, a bit. Vertigo started suprisingly late on though - I assumed it had been established for a few decades, and Sandman had started there, but it turns out their first comic book or title was one of the Sandman Death spin-offs. People did talk about Sandman a lot, as sort of expected, and apparently Vertigo earned more from their sales of Sandman than from all the other comic book titles they've published put together. Which is one reason to like it, as it probably funded a lot of their other titles and made them possible. I don't hate Sandman, I just wasn't that taken with it, and didn't like the way Neil Gaiman messed around with the Little Red Riding Hood story in Book 2, in what I thought was a slightly misogynistic way. Anyway. They also talked about Hellblazer quite a bit, and how John Constantine is just great. I assume that was their meaning, anyway. We also learned about a woman called Karen, who apparently runs Vertigo and mostly either okays and turns down the comics they're offered. Apparently she might be a bit awful and crazy, but she sounds a bit great.
At 11 in the same room was Fact or Fiction: A Comedy Quiz, which was a QI style quiz, which Jen, Alice and I think Liz joined me for. The panel nominated their Alan Davies, somewhat out of the blue I think, and we had to practise how we would clap for him if he won or lost at the end. Most of the questions weren't very sci-fi or fantasy-ish though. I totally got one about James Bond, and I got the urge to read some of the Bond books or at least Casino Royale, but most of the questions were sort of general literary questions, or questions about the world in general, and some of it was a bit dull, so again we left early and went back to the room. We watched an episode of the A-Team, and OH GOD THE A-TEAM, OH GOD MURDOCK, he had accents, it was beautiful. And he argued with BA, that was quite win. I think Joyride was on the TV briefly, but it wasn't as hugely interesting as it could have been. So, A-Team, and then we went to bed, to be ready for Sunday.
Saturday
Saturday was an odd day. In some ways, it was a day of joy. But it was also the day the awfulness started. Saturday was the day Neil Gaiman started coming to panels. This was mostly almost unbearable.
We got up and had breakfast at 9:30-ish, then Alice and I went to the The Use of Mythology in Fantasy panel at 10, which I was quite interested in. We got there about five minutes late, and it really wasn't that good. Neil Gaiman was there, but it wasn't just him. They all seemed to mostly be talking about myth, and why they used myth, and why myth was so great - rather than how myth was used, or even how they used myth, and how it worked or didn't work with science fiction and fantasy, or why. One woman started talking about how actually, myths had been reworked since classical times, when they were probably still believed in, which is a fair point but seemed a bit defensive. Also, it wasn't actually what we were there to hear, I think. And Neil Gaiman kept saying wanky things like 'myths contain the most compelling stories', which I'm not sure is true, and various other things my Mythologies tutor at University could have demolished, so Alice and I left at about quarter past.
Which was nice actually, as I had thought I was booked up until 3:30 and wouldn't be able to get to the dealers' room until then. I bought three books for £3 each, and the man on the stall gave me them for £7.50, which was lovely of him. Then I went looking for the secondhand paperback copy of Un Lun Dun by China Mieville with the nice cover I'd seen the day before, but after much searching couldn't find it, so ended buying a new copy from the Forbidden Planet stall. Because of this I ended up being late for China Mieville's Guest of Honour talk at 11:00. Possibly I was sort of putting it off because I thought his books looked interesting, and was afraid he might be rubbish. I had absolutely nothing to fear. China Mieville is great. His talk was themed "For God's Sake It's Just A Story! A Reader's Guide to Ruining SF". I walked in ten minutes late to him being brilliant. It was one of the best talks I've ever heard. He had cards. I love that he had cards. Basically his feeling was that people who say 'It's just a story - stop reading so much into it. Stop ruining it!', rather than wanting to protect books, really were being defensive about, afraid of, and even hated books. And that people had a problem with the idea of a subconscious and a conflictual mind. There was a bit I was worried about were he seemed to be saying that racism and prejudice made books good, but he went on to say that really overt racism and racism that panders to a society's wishes and fears should be just out the door. I think he was saying that powerful fear like that which comes with extreme phobias and prejudices can act like a drug which can produce great art, but that we shouldn't therefore either okay the racism or entirely dismiss the book or work. Also we shouldn't burn or ban books. Really the state shouldn't be involved in that kind of thing.
Also he went to say that crazy defensiveness over books related to insane defensiveness over children, and the fact that, similarly, a lot of society actually hated children, which I think has a lot of truth to it. Oh, he was just great. He also thought that writers really shouldn't argue with their critics or reviewers, and that people who say they can tell more about you than they can about a book by what you've read into it think they've somehow how turned the conversation around in a judo-chop sort of move. Oh, he's just brilliant. And funny. And acknowledged that all of this applied to his work as well as everyone else's. And is a socialist. And oh, I loved him. And Jen and Alice seemed to too. About five or so extra panels on the weekend programme suddenly seemed a lot brighter and more attractive after his talk.
We went back to the room after that, talking about China I think, and as a result I missed the first part of the Fantastic London panel, which was the first panel I'd heard about, on the 'Programme changes' list, and thought had sounded great. Jen and I made our way down, and Neil Gaiman was on it, unsuprisingly. I think we missed the part where they actually described versions of and uses of London in sci-fi and fantasy books, but the rest was still pretty interesting. Neil Gaiman wasn't actually that annoying, he said some quite interesting things about London, and clearly loves the city and has a lot of knowledge about it. People did seem to talk about London as though it was somehow magically different from the rest of England, and you couldn't really write a magical novel that would be interesting set anywhere else in the country, and that the wonderful atmosphere of London was somehow a property all of it's own rather than the fact that it was a British city, but still. It was quite interesting, and they talked about the history of London - Neil Gaiman repeated some information he'd already pretty much given in Neverwhere. He also mentioned how someone had once challenged him to write a fantasy novel set in London, if he thought one needed to be written, which ended up being Neverwhere, without mentioning that it had started off as a TV series that BBC had wanted him to write, or Lenny Henry's input, but whatever. Maybe he talked about that earlier in the panel. Anyway, they talked about London and times when filmmakers or novelists just got London really wrong, and a few films that made use of London, and it was all pretty good.
Shorter paragraphs, I think. After that Jen and I went to Is British SF TV Being Buried under the US Onslaught?, which was a small panel and a bit strange. They did end up talking quite a lot about US sci-fi shows, including a few that Jen hates. They pointed out that we'd had quite a lot more British SF shows in past years than we have now, and that some of them, mostly Doctor Who, have become a bit Americanised and Buffy-like. There was a bit of debate about whether we didn't have the talent or the BBC just weren't investing in the British talent - I think the second - and the slightly odd suggestion that we don't have the money to do shows in the American style. I think some people agreed that we didn't really have to. Then I think there was quite a lot of discussion about the new Battlestar Galactica, as I recall, and BBC 2's buying up of Heroes. And probably shows like Doctor Who and Primeval and Torchwood.
I can't remember going to any of the next panels, so I think I went back to the room or to the dealer's room. There's every chance I went and bought a copy of Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, and then possibly went back to the room to drop my books off. We bought tickets for the buffet dinner that night at some point as well, given the fiasco we had the night before at getting food.
At 5 Alice and I and I think Jen went to the Religion in SF panel, which had apparently been good at Redemption last year, and which I thought might be interesting, but was prepared for it not being. They were actually saying some quite interesting things about how in sci-fi you often get races with just one religion, and everyone's a devout follower of it, or religions that are explained in the first few pages of a book but then don't really play into a character's or society's lifestyle, which isn't really the way people in real-life relate to religion. But people were also saying very weird things about how they were religious, and when you sit on a mountainside and watch the sunrise a feeling comes over you which is religion and faith and spirituality, when the atheists on the first part of the panel had pretty much said that they didn't. Or implied it by saying they were atheists. I think that was that panel. But mostly they'd done a funny thing with the room of chopping it into two, and the panel didn't have any microphones, and when the door opened at the back or one of them went quiet you just couldn't hear anything. So we left that panel early too.
We ran down to the restaurant to have a quick dinner before the 6 o'clock panels, and quite enjoyed the cake buffet. Then I went to The Past Year's SF Films upstairs, which was apparently a follow-on from the previous years 'SF films and the Oscars panel'. Mostly, as you can imagine, they talked about the year's sci-fi and fantasy films, which was nice as I had seen a lot of them, though they worked through them pretty fast. Day Watch got a mention, and they talked about Enchanted a lot, and people said that Sunshine was terrible, which was nice after hearing so many fantastic reviews for it. I haven't watched it myself, it just made a nice change. I'm been less than impressed with Danny Boyle's work in the past. People also discussed non-SFF films, strangely, including Sweeney Todd. They did say how the main parts should probably have been cast with people who could properly sing or been dubbed, but people also said how Helena Bonham Carter was great at singing and matching up movements and emotion, and that a dub might not have worked because of that, which was lovely. They also talked about some sci-fi and fantasy films coming out this year, including a few russian films which sound good. Which was nice.
At 7 - at 7 I was going to go to the Gothic Fiction panel, as it was similar to a Gothic fiction module I did in my degree, but when I got there I had obviously missed something. There was only one woman sitting at the panel table, and she was sitting off to the side, and she was saying something about how someone had mentioned Steampunk earlier in the day and she was interested in discussing it, so could we think of any examples of steampunk we liked, and what we thought worked about them. There was a bit of discussion for a while about different books, and the elements of steampunk, and the use of the 'good bits' of Victorian society, and the possible underlying sense of imperialism. But it sort of petered out after twenty minutes or so, and the woman said she was really hoping to see what came up in discussion, and didn't really have anything planned for a whole panel. People brought up a few more points - this might have been the panel where people talked about how Victorian sexual politics/ideals would work in a modern setting, but it could have been a different one. But anyway, the panel sort of wound itself up by half past.
So I went to the other panel that had looked interesting, Out of Space and Time: Perils and Pitfalls of Book Collecting. Again, I missed the first part of it, but it seemed to mostly be one man, a book dealer, talking about the trade of book dealing. There were some interesting stories about examples he'd come across of people trying to 'improve' the condition of their books, and of people trying to cheat book dealers to improve their own collection, and who to try if you like an edition of a book with a particular cover. There was also some talk about the different considerations of "fine" or "good" condition, which was quite interesting. Not many stories from or about actual book collectors though.
At 8 I went along to the Orbital Masquerade and Cabaret, which was quite good. There was a debut performance from a young (very young) Masquerade star, and a rendition of a battle between trees and flowers (trees won). I didn't know the background of who a lot of the characters were though, and spent a lot of time trying to work out who Kaywinnet Lee Frye was. But there were some lovely costumes. Miss Solar System was a particular standout, and her hat was beautiful. People seemed most taken with the fifteen year-old (?) boy dressed as a generic elf though. And the hostess woman was good, and had lots of stories about her cats. Then there was the cabaret, in which a girl sang, there was some filk, and a comedy sketch.
I hung around until 10, and then went off to go to the A Sensation of Vertigo panel, which was about Vertigo label comics, which I love. There were a lot of Actual comic book writers and artists there, and we got some of the backstory about British comic book writers working on 2000 A.D. and not feeling appreciated so going off to America, and how America had a Good Comics Authority censorship board, which Britain didn't. Basically the British comic book writers blew people in America away, a bit. Vertigo started suprisingly late on though - I assumed it had been established for a few decades, and Sandman had started there, but it turns out their first comic book or title was one of the Sandman Death spin-offs. People did talk about Sandman a lot, as sort of expected, and apparently Vertigo earned more from their sales of Sandman than from all the other comic book titles they've published put together. Which is one reason to like it, as it probably funded a lot of their other titles and made them possible. I don't hate Sandman, I just wasn't that taken with it, and didn't like the way Neil Gaiman messed around with the Little Red Riding Hood story in Book 2, in what I thought was a slightly misogynistic way. Anyway. They also talked about Hellblazer quite a bit, and how John Constantine is just great. I assume that was their meaning, anyway. We also learned about a woman called Karen, who apparently runs Vertigo and mostly either okays and turns down the comics they're offered. Apparently she might be a bit awful and crazy, but she sounds a bit great.
At 11 in the same room was Fact or Fiction: A Comedy Quiz, which was a QI style quiz, which Jen, Alice and I think Liz joined me for. The panel nominated their Alan Davies, somewhat out of the blue I think, and we had to practise how we would clap for him if he won or lost at the end. Most of the questions weren't very sci-fi or fantasy-ish though. I totally got one about James Bond, and I got the urge to read some of the Bond books or at least Casino Royale, but most of the questions were sort of general literary questions, or questions about the world in general, and some of it was a bit dull, so again we left early and went back to the room. We watched an episode of the A-Team, and OH GOD THE A-TEAM, OH GOD MURDOCK, he had accents, it was beautiful. And he argued with BA, that was quite win. I think Joyride was on the TV briefly, but it wasn't as hugely interesting as it could have been. So, A-Team, and then we went to bed, to be ready for Sunday.
no subject
OMG I LOVE PANELS. I hate that the days are organised into hour long panels any more. It is rubbish of them. I love Murdock, I love the A-Team, I love them I love them I love them. I cannot believe that Alice and Liz would rather sleep when the a-team is on the telly, it's like they don't have SOULS.
no subject
I love the panels. I love that they talked in front of us, and had themes, and were in huge rooms. I'm not quite sure what you mean about hour-long panels though - how did they use to do it? I have NO IDEA how Liz and Alice slept through the A-Team. It's like Murdock and Hannibal didn't have Irish accents, and BA didn't judge Murdock's eulogy for Hannibal from the pews.
no subject
They made Murdock pretend that Hannibal was Dead. DON'T DO THAT A-TEAM JUST DON'T. He graced our lives like an avocado salad. I LOVE THEM AND THEIR DYSFUNCTIONAL LOVE SO MUCH.