Thus endeth another fantastic day at Aussiecon 4. Well, at least for me. Others will party late into the night, I’m sure.
Today I:
- bought a book: Singularity Sky by Charles Stross (which I will ask him to sign tomorrow)
- ordered three t-shirts: one for Nadia, two for me (including the official con t-shirt)
- attended a number great sessions
Sessions Attended on Day 2
These are the sessions I attended:
The Last Airbender: race and Hollywood cinema
- We talked about a lot of stuff, most of which is covered on Racebending.com
Making a living: Professional writing for speculative fiction authors
- Great session and I got to hear both John Scalzi (Wikipedia) and Cory Doctorow (Wikipedia) talk! :)
- Most writers of speculative fiction (or fiction of any kind, really) need to think, work, and act like freelancers, entrepreneurs, and sole traders
- Important things to do/remember:
- have multiple income streams (including fallback streams)
- day jobs can be very useful to have
- save all the money you can
- be good at scheduling your time
- write every day (this is important)
The future of privacy
- This was another great session and, in this, I got to hear Charles Stross (Wikipedia) talk! :)
- Privacy is complicated and our concepts of privacy are changing very quickly
- Technology is moving much faster than the cultural shifts needed to use it well
Eowyn and Sam: underappreciated heroes in The Lord of the Rings
- This is my favourite session of the con so far
- Everyone in the room loved Tolkien, knew a lot about him and his books, and spoke very intelligently about the books and the Peter Jackson movie trilogy
- We talked mostly about Eowyn, Sam, and Faramir
To the stars: the never-ending history of Star Trek
- This was an excellent session as well, especially since it included Melinda Snodgrass (Wikipedia) on the panel :)
- The new Star Trek film was shot using the script’s first draft because it was shot during the Hollywood writer’s strike
Academic Panel: These are not the people you are looking for: race in SFF
- This was a good panel with some brilliant panelists, including China Miéville
- I can’t write all the awesome stuff that was discussed so, instead, I suggest you read the article that this session was inspired by: ‘Racism and Science Fiction’ by Samuel R. Delany in the The New York Review of Science Fiction
Sessions for Day 3
Tomorrow I’m planning to attend these sessions:
- Copyright in the 21st Century
- The best SF novel you have never read or Capes and skirts: the plight of female superheroes or QF (the SF version of Stephen Fry’s quiz show QI) – I’m having a hard time making up my mind!
- The James Bond enigma
- Book signing with Gail Carriger followed by Did the future just arrive? The e-book and the publishing industry
- Cyberpunk and the city or Vote #1 The Thing for President: how cult films are born
- Thinking in trilogies or Micro-audience and the online critic
- Academic Panel: Fantastic females: reworking feminism in women’s fantasy
- The Masquerade Ball
It should be awesome :)