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aseBecause of work* and midterm studying, I missed most of the day programming, but I had a good time at the evening/night parties. Friday was dominated by the Brave New World party, Saturday I got sucked into the Erfworld crowd (Wiki article) - mostly college-age and 20somethings - and Sunday was dominated by a pass through the dealer's room, and heading home with norabombay for a hard drive dataswap and pancakes. We learned that a shot of amaretto is an excellent addition to pancake batter. I saw lots of WSFAns, and hung out with many new people whose online handles I neglected to get.
*So far I am two for two on the Friday after Columbus Day coinciding with work wackiness. But this year I didn't have bronchitis! A vast improvement. Next year I will pre-plan and 1.) take October 15th as my optional holiday, 2.) schedule Friday overtime, or 3.) be in grad school.
Ultimately, I made it to only two programmed events at Capclave: the "Fandom: Losing by Winning?" panel, and the Small Press Award presentation.
The Losing by Winning panel may be summed up for biased and comedic purposes as:
PANEL: Why are none of the young people reading the SF classics? Dune, Asimov?
NORABOMBAY: Because they suck.
ASE: Have you read Foundation recently? Interesting idea, bad plot, bad prose. No girls. The cool parts have been mined by other authors.
PANEL: Space isn't romantic anymore. No one reads hard SF. Why are all the younger fans into unskiffy anime and stuff?
NORABOMBAY: Seriously? You have answered your own question.
ASE: Can I invoke the neocolonialist attitudes of steampunk now? Please?
More seriously, the panel complained about the loss of rigor in science fiction translated to TV and movies (because a key point of 30s pulp series were their realism, uh-huh), and about the death of the romantic notion of meeting alien life-forms as we explored our solar system and discovered that Mars has no canals, Venus has no rainforests, life not on Earth is going to be "viruses" ("bacteria!", I hissed, but now I think something from archaea is more likely), and gave me lots of time to tag-messagenorabombay on her Palm Trio.
If I were going to take any part of the panel seriously and make some guesses about what the current big fannish culture is, I'd go with remix culture: music mashups, song vids, fan fiction, etc. I'm making some broad assumptions when I say that - changes in the value of novelty vs conformity, hi-fi reproduction and the communications revolution making genuine novelty a lot harder to achieve - but I think we're way past the model that the ghetto has fallen and the kids of science fiction fans have assimilated and moved to the 'burbs.
I was surprised that non-English S.F. was, IIRC, completely not discussed. India and China represent a third of the world's population, but the self-appointed centers of fandom have little or no representation in those markets. So briefly, I think fandom has won by winning, and spread some of its cultural memes, which is really all you can ask for from your social movement. Battlestar Galactica version two lasted four seasons; everyone knows spaceships are cool; Lost and Heroes are network anchors. We won. Enjoy the Heinlein by way of Japan.
The award presentation ceremony was brief, and featured cake. I wish I could say nice things about the winning story, Greg Siewert's "The Absence of Stars: Part One", but I didn't make it past the first paragraph. It begins: A hand gripped commander Trevor Kimberly's shoulder and shook him violently awake. "Pluto is gone." I went to the "Nine Billion Names of God" place, with bonus WIP dread, and unfortunately couldn't bring myself to finish it. After the announcement, I read the end of the story, and I think part 2 would be more interesting than part 1, but I may be projecting my starry visions of Humans Later Vs Humans of the 20th Century culture clash onto a blank canvas.
In conclusion, a weekend made awesome by people. Go people.
norabombay for a hard drive dataswap and pancakes. We learned that a shot of amaretto is an excellent addition to pancake batter. I saw lots of WSFAns, and hung out with many new people whose online handles I neglected to get. *So far I am two for two on the Friday after Columbus Day coinciding with work wackiness. But this year I didn't have bronchitis! A vast improvement. Next year I will pre-plan and 1.) take October 15th as my optional holiday, 2.) schedule Friday overtime, or 3.) be in grad school.
Ultimately, I made it to only two programmed events at Capclave: the "Fandom: Losing by Winning?" panel, and the Small Press Award presentation.
The Losing by Winning panel may be summed up for biased and comedic purposes as:
PANEL: Why are none of the young people reading the SF classics? Dune, Asimov?
NORABOMBAY: Because they suck.
ASE: Have you read Foundation recently? Interesting idea, bad plot, bad prose. No girls. The cool parts have been mined by other authors.
PANEL: Space isn't romantic anymore. No one reads hard SF. Why are all the younger fans into unskiffy anime and stuff?
NORABOMBAY: Seriously? You have answered your own question.
ASE: Can I invoke the neocolonialist attitudes of steampunk now? Please?
More seriously, the panel complained about the loss of rigor in science fiction translated to TV and movies (because a key point of 30s pulp series were their realism, uh-huh), and about the death of the romantic notion of meeting alien life-forms as we explored our solar system and discovered that Mars has no canals, Venus has no rainforests, life not on Earth is going to be "viruses" ("bacteria!", I hissed, but now I think something from archaea is more likely), and gave me lots of time to tag-message
norabombay on her Palm Trio. If I were going to take any part of the panel seriously and make some guesses about what the current big fannish culture is, I'd go with remix culture: music mashups, song vids, fan fiction, etc. I'm making some broad assumptions when I say that - changes in the value of novelty vs conformity, hi-fi reproduction and the communications revolution making genuine novelty a lot harder to achieve - but I think we're way past the model that the ghetto has fallen and the kids of science fiction fans have assimilated and moved to the 'burbs.
I was surprised that non-English S.F. was, IIRC, completely not discussed. India and China represent a third of the world's population, but the self-appointed centers of fandom have little or no representation in those markets. So briefly, I think fandom has won by winning, and spread some of its cultural memes, which is really all you can ask for from your social movement. Battlestar Galactica version two lasted four seasons; everyone knows spaceships are cool; Lost and Heroes are network anchors. We won. Enjoy the Heinlein by way of Japan.
The award presentation ceremony was brief, and featured cake. I wish I could say nice things about the winning story, Greg Siewert's "The Absence of Stars: Part One", but I didn't make it past the first paragraph. It begins: A hand gripped commander Trevor Kimberly's shoulder and shook him violently awake. "Pluto is gone." I went to the "Nine Billion Names of God" place, with bonus WIP dread, and unfortunately couldn't bring myself to finish it. After the announcement, I read the end of the story, and I think part 2 would be more interesting than part 1, but I may be projecting my starry visions of Humans Later Vs Humans of the 20th Century culture clash onto a blank canvas.
In conclusion, a weekend made awesome by people. Go people.
