Imagicon 2 – a report

Imagicon 2 was the Swedish national con for 2009 (Swecon), and it took place 16-18 october. Since I was on the committee for the con I was not able to listen to as many panels as I could have wished. This is not a problem for me since I really enjoy also making a con, not just visiting. The venue was the same as for Stocon 08, i e ”Skarpnäck’s kulturhus”, which is well suited for a medium-sized con. However, this time the bar was managed professionally by Linda Ekenberger and her staff. They did an excellent job!

Anders Reuterswärd, Johan Anglemark, Patrik Centerwall, Gunnar Nilsson, Linnéa Anglemark

I listened to the panel From a Foreign Perspective consisting of Kristina Hård, who writes sf and is a computer scientist with a background in AI, and also teaches creative writing in Lund, the GoH Liz Williams, who also has a master in AI but went back into philosophy, and Lotta Olivecrona who is a radiologist who has written a series of three sf books. The panel was moderated by the British fan Chris Bell. Lotta Olivecrona thought she wrote sf but her characters have telepathy so it might rather be fantasy. Liz Williams commented that women are considered to write from experience, which makes their writing closer to fantasy than to sf. In the discussion it was concluded that names are important and may have to be changed when books are translated. At least Liz and Lotta writes to know the world, in a way like explorers. Thus it is more like being tourists than to be God, which is perhaps more a boy thing.

Present ideas and prejudices are projected onto the future or past, in historical novels. That the stories mirror the present society is easily seen when reading older books.

Ylva Spångberg intervjuar Jörgen Forsberg

De första minuterna när fanhedersgästen Jörgen Forsberg intervjuades av Ylva Spångberg missade jag, men förstod att Jules Verne-magasinet spelat en avgörande roll för hans kontakt med fandom. Liksom jag gick han på SFSFs möten i Observatoriekällaren. Han var på Sam J. Lundwalls kongress på Amaranten 1973, där Donald A. Wollheim var hedersgäst. Kongressen hotades att bli övertagen av Stockholms Tolkiensällskap som lagt beslag på programmet. Detta vaccinerade Jörgen effektivt mot Tolkienismen. SFSF hade planer på att erövra världen, ge ut böcker, sälja, och göra Forum till en stor kulturtidskrift. Lokalerna på Pontonjärgatan användes som bokhandel där Bo K. Eriksson stod och snart blev en inventarie. Det behövdes extra personal så Jörgen hoppade in någon halvdag här och där. Det kom ut ett antal böcker. Några fans kom att tillbringa mycket tid i källaren där, det var Ylva, Bellis, Ahrvid och Roger Sjölander. Om jag förstått rätt gjorde det att det var knepigt att bedriva bokhandeln, och verksamheten packades ner och flyttade till en källare på Tyskbagargatan (jag var själv med och körde en VW-pickup). Kaj Harju började sälja på postorder från källaren. Bokhandeln flyttade snart till Roslagsgatan där man fick dela lokal med Horst Schröder i ”Metropolis”. Det fungerade inte så bra och efter ett halvår, 1985, flyttade SF-delen till Atlasgatan. Där sålde fansen böcker mot att få för 25 kr böcker i timmen. Lokalen var delvis bokhandel och delvis möteslokal för SFSF, men en stor del fylldes efter en tid av en gigantisk tryckpress som aldrig kom i bruk. Bolaget SF-bokhandeln startades 1990, och flyttade 1991 till Gamla Stan.

Åsa Schwarz, Gunilla Olivecrona, Liz Williams, Graham Joyce, Stefan Högberg

Using a well-known setting for your fantasy was discussed in the panel Goblins in the backyard, led by Stefan Högberg. Liz Williams was happy to have a receptive readership which wants to believe and wants to be in a “vampire universe”. She lives in Glastonbury which is a center for New Age activities. Graham Joyce told us that there have always been goblins in his family. He has been sceptical towards them but has also spent half his life accepting them. His grandmother plays a major role in the book The Facts of Life. Thus the episode where a soldier who was fighting in WWII in the African desert but suddenly knocks on the door, is based on a legend in the family. Åsa Schwarz tells us that her parents are a physicist and a mathematician. She studies the area, the backyard, and its history before using it in a book. She likes horror stories, which scare more if they take place in your backyard. Lotta Olivecrona tells about her two sides, the book writer contrasting with the objective radiologist. For her the middle of Sweden is magical since that is where she grew up.

 For Graham Joyce psychology is not only science, but also lots of intuition, and he does not believe in a rational basis for emotional life. Ghosts may be generated by human beings. Liz Williams agreed; spirits may be created by many believing in them. Joyce used Jerusalem for a ghost story and found the city so full of references. He is an atheist, and considers the resurrection of Jesus to be a major ghost story. He criticizes most fantasy stories, except Tolkien’s, for describing hermetic universes which do not intrude on your own reality. The intrusion of supernatural elements usually increases in his own stories.

 I panelen Kräver fantasy ett eget språkbruk? satt Anders Björkelid som skrivit Ondvinter som ska följas av ytterligare tre delar. Han kallade sig amatörtyckare, medan Nicklas Andersson definierade sig som språkvetare. Stefan Ekman angav sig som proffstyckare som forskar på fantasy. Han försöker livnära sig på fantasy och önskar förlänga tonåren utöver alla gränser. Moderatorn Linnéa Anglemark berättade att hon som språkvetare tänker på språket när hon läser.

Diskussionen inleddes med att Stefan Ekman hänvisade till Encyclopedia of Fantasy för att definiera episk fantasy. I denna räddas något på ett storslaget plan. Begreppet har också diskuterats av C S Lewis i ett Preface to Paradise Lost. I t ex Beowulf räddar en stark hjälte ett land från ett hot, och i Odyséen är det en grupp som genom sina handlingar påverkar hela världen. Panelen ansåg knappast att språket är speciellt i episk fantasy, däremot kan berättartekniken vara viktig. Anders Björkelid ansåg att språket varken ska vara arkaiserande eller modernt, utan så neutralt som möjligt. Kulturella referenser som hänvisar till vår tid måste tas bort. Stefan Ekman gav några exempel på hur enstaka ord kan påverka intrycket: I amerikanske filmer säger tyskar ja och nein, i Harry Potter finns skotska ord instoppade, och Tolkien slänger in enstaka alviska ord för att få hela texten att kännas främmande. Vapen som inte finns hos oss kan få föregivet främmande namn. Han berömmer Christina Brönnestam för att ha hittat ett bra fantasyspråk.

Historiska romaner har alltid en känd verklighet att grunda sig på. Skriver man London skapar läsaren själv en bild, medan i ren fantasy måste författaren skapa allt. Begrepp kan läcka in från annan fantasy, som t ex alver.

Svenskt modernt fantasyspråk kommer till stor del från översättningar, t ex det blommiga språket i Ohlmarks Tolkienöversättning. Plockas engelska ord direkt blir klangen mer exotisk än ursprunget. Fantasysvenskan har blivit engelskklingande. Ett närmast komiskt exempel är ”odöd”, vilket i Norrland betyder ”livfull”. Ett bättre ord är ”vandöd”, och felet kommer sannolikt från översatta äventyrsspel.

Johan Anglemark interviewed Liz Williams, who was born in Gloucester where she now lives. It is an uninteresting, rural place. Her father was a hobby stage magician and her mother a gothic novelist. She still writes although she is in her 80s, and she likes Liz’ books. She got Liz when she was 37, and was glad to get married, not resentful as many today. Liz herself started reading early and wrote fanfiction. She was a lonely, constrained child. Later she studied AI and philosophy of science. She tells that she has not a standard conformist religion, rather a pagan with supernatural beliefs. She taught English after her degree and went to Kazakhstan, and in 1996 she also visited Kurdistan and Uzbekistan for an ongoing education program. Her experiences went into Nine Layers of Sky.

Liz enjoys writing, and she does it mainly in her magic shop. The sense of place and character are important, and literature that preaches irritates her. She has contracts for a series of books, and she tells that the Chen books are most natural to her. The Poison Master is a gothic caballistic romance. She is especially satisfied with Nine Layers of Sky whereas the Inspector Chen books sell best. She markets her books mainly herself. She reads for example Bradley, LeGuin and Vance. She thinks that Mary Gentle’s Rats and Gargoyles started the New Weird, but the guys get all the credit.

Mats Linder, Bellis, John-Henri Holmberg

John-Henri Holmberg, Ylva Spångberg, Roger Sjölander

Med Mats Linder som moderator samtalade Bellis, John-Henri Holmberg, Roger Sjölander och Ylva Spångberg om Nova Science Fiction, en slags fortsättning på den panel som behandlade magasinet på Kontext 2008. Ylva översatte både i den första och den nuvarande inkarnationen, och hamnade i i redaktionen i den nya. För Bellis var jobbet på Nova hans första fasta, och i den nya inkarnationen ingår han dessutom i redaktionen. Han uppskattade den tidigare redaktionslokalen som var idealisk för efterfester. John-Henri berättar att han ger ut Nova så länge han har tid. På 80-talet var utgivningen hyfsat OK, mest p g a att den kunde säljas i kiosker. Då, med distribution via Sesam, gick det att bestämma hur många försäljningsställen som skulle ha Nova, och med Nova på ett av fyra ställen kunde 8000 ex levereras varav 4000 såldes. Presam kräver att minst 20000 ex levereras, vilket ger en alldeles för stor förlust i osålda ex. Nu säljs Nova på 13 ställen, Presstoppbutiker och SF-bokhandelns butiker. Dessutom prenumererar ett 25-tal bibliotek.

Mats står för recensionsavdelningen, och har glidit in på översättandet. Han undrar varför det går så dåligt, och John-Henri svarar att sf inte finns i Sverige längre. Förlagens intresse har flyttats till fantasy, och speciellt till vampyrer.

Samtalet gled över på de böcker som också gavs ut av förlaget Laissez Faire Produktion AB. Bellis berättade hur han ändrade namn på en person i Gallaghers glaciär, och Ylva om hur sättarna la till en karaktär i hennes översättning av Nortons Pestskeppet, en slutna rummet-berättelse i rymden. Paret Kuttner-Moores Mutant var för lång för bookomaticmaskinen, så den förminskades intill oläslighet, medan motsvarande problem med Dénis Lindbohms Domedagens skymning löstes av Roger som tog bort elva sidor i följd. För att effektivisera inköptes en fotosättmaskin för 320.000, men att ge ut mer gick inte eftersom det inte fanns köpare. Tyvärr köptes den strax innan datasättningen kom något år senare.

Johan Anglemark interviewed Graham Joyce. For Liz her mother was a model, but for Graham it was his father, the coal miner. The idea of being a writer was utterly remote. Words of more than two syllables gave rise to suspicions of homosexuality. Graham was expected to go down in the mine like his two brothers. However, he managed to wriggle through the net. Alan Garner, who he calls a sort of J K Rowling type, turned him on, and the seed was introduced. Alan Garner started with conventional fantasy and turned into writing very complicated fantasy stories, and he finally had a nervous breakdown.

Graham Joyce comes from Keresley in the Midlands, close to Coventry, which had been the target of the first terror bombing during world war two. It had been rebuilt when he grew up, but it was ugly since it had to be rebuilt rapidly. This is described in Facts of Life. He went to college, wrote a dissertation on Thomas Pynchon for his MA, and has been working as a teacher and for youth clubs. He has felt it to be presumptuous and arrogant to even breathe that you are an author until you have published something. In order to start writing he quit his job and went to Greece with his girlfriend who also quit her job and in two weeks they were married. They went to Lesbos, the island of wild orgiastic women drunk on alcoholic beverages. He wrote lots, and went on to Crete. From there he also sold his first book in 1992.

There is always something that is supernatural in Joyce’s books. He uses the tension between credulity and doubt, and the shuttle between the two positions. Also in his YA fiction there are supernatural elements, and a strong streak of morality. Finally, he mentions that he works on graphic computer games trying to improve the narratives.

Brita Planck, Graham Joyce, Johanna Vainikainen-Uusitalo, Vesa Sisättö, Mats Linder

In the panel The Noble Art of Critique, with Mats Linder as moderator, Graham Joyce pointed out the difference between critique and review: A review is slightly more accessible or palatable, it comments on the value of a new book or film, and should have less than 900 words. It tells the reader if the book is worth the time and money. A critique, written by a critic, should be about 3000-5000 words, and its job is to find something worth examination. More room is used on antecedent books and background, and it puts the work in a context. Vesa Sisättö writes reviews of YA books for newspapers, and they want descriptions of the story and only few words on if the book is good or bad. Johanna Vainikainen-Uusitalo finds reviews helpful since you cannot read everything, and Brita Planck agrees that the judgment of the reviewer is important. She wants more critique, and Graham comments that there is not enough criticism in our genre, more analysis is needed. Critique is something you read after reading a book, whereas reviews are read before. As a writer he has no use for reviews whereas critique, even when short, can help him. His work is often reviewed by mainstream reviewers, who according to Johanna, often don’t know about the genre. It is also often reviewed by fossilized sf reviewers, so “we” are also guilty.

Vesa finds it amusing to write reviews of very bad books, and Graham comments that you feel frustration and rage when you read a bad book, and a negative review is your only way to hit back at the publishing department. There is (or was; I cannot find it) a “crap writers dot com” site where the self promotion of authors is attacked, and it is vicious and funny according to Graham. However, he thinks it is best to ignore bad books. He also doesn’t like grading systems as e g stars, and thinks that the reviewer should give the information.

Regarding fans as critics, Johanna loves them, especially when the name of the translator is mentioned. Graham admits that fans have been tremendously important for his career. There is an ongoing conversation in the community, over many years. Brita recommends the site “Vetsaga” that has good essays on sf and fantasy, and Graham mentions John Clute, Paul Kincaid and Farah Mendlesohn as important critics in the field.

Graham Joyce, Hans Persson, Liz Williams, Marianna Leikomaa

The panel The author and her obligations was intended to deal with blogs, and thus the moderator Marianna Leikomaa started by asking what the panelists blog. Liz Williams blogs about her dog. She is fairly selective about what she puts on her blog, and she enjoys the interaction. Graham Joyce also has a blog, but does not write every day. He sometimes comments on the government, and he uses a different voice from that in his stories. The Brits consider it un-British to write about ones writing; the British way is to be self-deprecating. Hans Persson has a review site and has written about the process of writing a book. He has more interaction via Facebook than at work.

What obligations does an author feel? Graham wants to give entertainment and a good narrative. It should celebrate or give rise to thoughts about this life. He feels no obligation to write the same book as before. His books change, and he does not do series. The books are on the edge of genre.

Liz feels an obligation to be professional to the publisher. She also thinks she has an obligation to readers to finish a series, with a rational conclusion. She gets enraged by publishers who stop series, they also have obligations. Graham might write sequels to his YA books, but he has “other fish to fry”. Liz thinks it is unhealthy to be so interested in characters in books that you demand sequels, and she thinks that readers have an obligation not be complete assholes – buy the book if you like it. Graham wants the readers to accept that authors change with time.

Imagicon 2

Nu är det dags för årets Swecon, den stora sf-kongressen i Sverige! Skarpnäcks kulturhus öppnar portarna för kongressen fredag 16 oktober kl 16.00, och vi håller på till söndag kväll. Se Imagicons hemsida!

Här finns bilder från Imagicon 2.

Hur andra ser oss

Jag har nyss gjort en rundresa i Stockholms biblioteksvärld för att affischera för Imagicon 2. Många bibliotek var positiva, men i Alvik skulle man tala med barnboksbibliotekarien och på Medborgarplatsen hänvisades jag till ungdomsavdelningen. Det här stämmer illa med åldersfördelningen i fandom! (Tack till David Langford)

Fantasticon 2009

Air-goddess

For Fantasticon 2009 I arrived in Copenhagen already on the Friday, August 28th. Since I was free for a couple of hours I strolled around in the old university quarter of Copenhagen, the latin quarter, which I got to from Nørreport. I had planned to check out some antiquarian book shops in order to extend my collection of Niels E. Nielsen, and was lucky to find that there was a clearance sale so I bought a copy of Lilleputternes oprør. I also visited Fantask but the sf book shop in Stockholm is definitely bigger. After a smørrebrød and beer I went to the museum Glyptoteket, and walked from there to my hotel, Fy og Bi in Valby. It was a very cosy hotel and the name probably referred to the film studio close by. In the evening I went to the restaurant Riz Raz in the center of Copenhagen to eat together with the organizers and the guests of honour.

My hotel in Valby: Fy og Bi

 

Gwyneth Jones and Lea Thume at Riz Raz

 

Olav Christiansen at Riz Raz

On the Saturday I walked to Vanløse, and had time to print flyers and posters for Eurocon 2011 and Imagicon 2 at the library in the same house. The congress localities were nice and suitable, and I spent quite some time at the big book table where the fan Morten Søndergaard sold his collection of sf books. The program was surprisingly rich for a two-day con and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

Flemming Rasch opening the con

There was no program in English directly after the opening, but already at 13.00 Charles Stross was interviewed by Niels Dalgaard. Stross’ story collection Wireless has been translated into Danish, Antistof. Stross remembers that he wanted to become an astronaut after the moon landing. He then wrote instead, but sent out his stories much too early. His first 10-15 years of selling were not successful. He studied pharmacy but felt that he was not cut out for that job. He “did not have a good 1980s”. He wrote on an Amstrad PCW but it lacked a word counter. [Oh, the Amstrad! I had one at home and one at my job, and I still think it was a lovely machine, with its Locoscript word-processing program and acceptable printer. Sadly, it was not compatible with later PCs.] He got a masters degree in computer science and went into that industry for a decade. Around 2000 the dotcom bubble burst when he was between jobs. He spent 2 months free-lance writing for computer magazines.

Charles Stross, Niels Dalgaard

He sent his first novel, that he called A Festival of Fools, to Patrick Nielsen Hayden who let it lie for quite some time, but actually had considered buying it. This space opera, targeted at the US market, was published after some years titled Singularity Sky, referring to a paper by Vernor Vinge on singularity. Stross’ real singularity novel is Accelerando, first published as a series of short stories in Asimov’s. He considers the sequel Iron Sunrise to be a better book than Singularity Sky.

He considers that scarcity of food is not necessary; it is due to bad distribution. He is not a big fan of capitalism, but not of communism either.

Stross does not want to write the same novel again and again. Readers tell the publishers that they want the same, but what they really want is the same experience.

In his novel Glasshouse there are references to the film The Village and the tv series The Prisoner. He wrote it because he was annoyed waiting for John Varley’s novel Red Thunder. Glasshouse is Stross’ own John Varley novel, the one he felt that Varley should have written. One basis for the book is the Stanford prison study in psychology, where half of the students were assigned to act as “prisoners” and half as “guards”. The experiment had to be cancelled after three days due to gross abuse and dehumanisation. “Glasshouse” is British military slang for a military prison.

His “Laundry novels” are written just for fun. He likes British spy thrillers and H P Lovecraft. Here magic is a branch of mathematics. The Jennifer Morgue is a “James Bond novel”.

He is infatuated in Woodehouse, but the parody Scream for Jeeves has already been done. Stross’ short story “Trunk and Disorderly” could be Woodehouse for the 21^st century?

For Saturn’s Children he picked Heinlein, but the late Heinlein instead of the juveniles. The plot is one of Heinlein’s three plots, “The Man Who Learned Better”. Nipples go “spung” in the story and apparently it is not about a human but instead a sex robot.

Halting State is a serious novel. The computers are faster and the bandwidth increased. Cyberspace will be draped over the reality. In a sequel there will be vat-grown meat and the transplant industry will produce human meat that might also be used as food, i e in cannibalism.

Dalgaard mentions the name Stroctorow for the collaborations with Doctorow, and Stross admits to some similarities. Traditionally sf was defined by travel and speed, but the speed revolution has ended. Instead there is a revolution in information processing. The sf of the 50s and 60s was written for engineers, but traditional sf does not talk to the engineers of today.

Stig W Jørgensen, Klaus Æ Mogensen, Charles Stross, Niels Dalgaard

The science of near-future science fiction was discussed by Stig W Jørgensen, Klaus Æ Mogensen, Niels Dalgaard and Charles Stross, who actually dominated the discussion. Brunner’s “black tetralogy” and Christopher Priest are examples of near-future sf, but today there is very little. Vampire stories may be near-future but are hardly sf. Real near-future sf is very hard to write. An example is that when the financial crisis hit it stole his plot. Sf about near future has dealt with surveillance systems which know where all mobile phones and cars are. Rather, probably genomics will change the near future. It is getting cheaper, and by portable gene scanners the entire human genome may be analysed. Then proteomics and artificial organisms will have an immense impact. 3 D printers may be used for illicit handguns or for making copies of the anatomy of your neighbour’s daughter…

“Property” will change. “Intellectual property” is not transferable, since you do not lose it when you keep your copy. The scarce limits that are constructed are just fakes. However, artists should be paid for their work but a better way has to be found. According to economic theory infinite supply leads to zero cost. The real problem is how to cope with the excess of information. Karl Schröder writes far-future sf with the opposite of singularity, where all subjects of research have been researched, or are to difficult to pursue further.

Stross is angry with Bush. The money spent in Iraq could have been used for five Mars programs.

The worst horror scenario might be the grey goo, with self-replicating nanomachines. However, this is what bacteria are.

Ellen Miriam Pedersen, Gwyneth Jones, Ralan Conley

 

Jesper Rudgård Jensen, Knud Larn

The panel Men travel to Mars, women live on Venus was manned (sic) by the moderator Jesper Rudgård Jensen, Knud Larn, Ellen Miriam Pedersen, Gwyneth Jones and Ralan Conley. Knud Larn doesn’t distinguish between male and female writers, but thinks that feminists opened up a portal to other kinds if writing. Although he is not gay himself he finds stories involving homosexuality interesting. Gwyneth Jones finds gender important from a historical point of view, when women started to emerge as readers and practitioners. Also, feminism in the real world had an impact in the 70’s. She also interprets the early sf stories: They are basic adventure stories and the reward is access to females. The symbolism of male rockets penetrating the female void indicates the deeply sexual content of sf in the 50’s and 60’s. Ralan Conley thinks that there is more versatility in female roles in sf than in fantasy, where the roles are either a damsel in distress or an amazone. There are few horrific women in horror stories. Interestingly, the term android is used for sexless, but gynoids for sex machines.

Gwyneth Jones indicated that female writers are subjected to disqualification. As an sf writer she wants to write about science but encounters that “women should write about womanly things”. She thought that things had changed when she started writing, but found that it is very difficult for a woman to be accepted as an sf writer. It is hard to get the readers to accept the science. Interestingly, after the unmasking of James Tiptree, Jr., she was no longer in the top of sf.

Klaus Æ Mogensen gave a Science talk: Anarchonomy, where he talked about his work at the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies. “Anarchonomy” is formed from anarchy plus economics, and follows Peter Kropotkin’s definition of anarchism as a network society, explaining the workings of the internet. He gave several examples of value for free on the internet, like Wikipedia, technorati, delicious, Myspace.com. These are examples of the process described in Eric von Hippel’s Democratizing Innovation (www.tinyurl.dk/2435). Another example is Ohmynews, an amateur journal on the net that is the most read in South Korea. The information overload necessitates someone who finds out what is worth reading.

Copyleft with a mirrored © sign is a symbol for free utilities like Mozilla and BitTorrent. There has also emerged social lending, without banks. The idea to give one laptop to each child (www.laptop.org) would lead to a decentralised internet that is impossible to police. Fab@Home is an open source project to make 3 D printers that can make Lego pieces etc., and in the “reprap” project self-replicating printers are made. These processes are good for the environment since there is less transportation and garbage can be used for the processes. Drawbacks are that there is no liability for the manufacturer, and that it is hard to streamline.

The idea to give information away for free is nothing new. Universities have given knowledge away (but there are signs today that this might change).

H H Løyche, Flemming Rasch

The Danish sf author H H Løyche was interviewed by the congress coordinator Flemming Rasch, but unfortunately in Danish so I missed quite a lot. Løyche first wrote a short story with time travel. He read both Perry Rhodan and Ballard. He has written short stories for a weekly supplement to the journal Jyllandsbladet, and he thinks his writing corresponds to about four novels a year. In the anthology Dystre Danmark he has an authentic story, but he writes mainly sf and detective stories. Two novels that he mentions are Støj, which is a detective story containing a climate catastrophe, and Mission to Schamajim. He has also made a threesided chess and a lot of posters, and his latest project concerns H C Andersen’s sf. In order to find that he read everything that H C Andersen had written, and he thinks that his novels are much better than the short stories. He found 27 texts that could be used for a collection of Andersen’s sf, e g about a civilisation on the bottom of the sea. He also made illustrations for these stories and for the front of the book. This has a comet over Copenhagen, since there were many comets during H C Andersen’s life which might have influenced him.

Gwyneth Jones

Gwyneth Jones gave a Kierkegaardish talk called Either/Or. In her North Wind there is a riddle from the bible, where Isak has to kill his son in order to have a future, but thereby also makes him lose his future. There is an opposition between an esthetic and an ethic way of living. In sf there is often progress or utopia. It can be a road to heaven or hell – but which is which? And how to build a good state, a utopia? Tom Paine wrote The Rights of Man in 1791 and the ideas have developed to the UN declaration of human rights in 1948. But there has also been a development of technology that took us to the moon. Where are the bodies of the space race buried? 

In early sf there was no conflict between progress and utopia, and many sf authors were happy to be invited as experts in the star wars initiative. Just as for Stalin “art serves the cause”; the perfect future is the reason.

Utopia itself brings on the violence, and Jones cites from Che Guevara’s diaries. Also in U K LeGuin’s The Word for World is Forest gentle people had to go to war to protect themselves. Jones referred to a statement by an anonymous sf fan, “if 95% of the human race doesn’t make it and 5% does, it is still worthwhile (e g to go to space)” that she found reprehensible, and she went on to cite U K LeGuin again. In “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” it is common knowledge that the good fortune of Omelas requires that an unfortunate child be kept in filth, darkness and misery. Those who cannot accept this walk away to an unknown fate. This is a devil’s bargain, and there is no guidance in the story. Who are subject to the worst tragedy, those who stay or those who leave?

However, Jones suggests that by small increments, small improvements in living it might be possible to achieve a utopia. “Small is beautiful”.

Jones also mentions her own story “Identifying the Object”, Karin Boye’s Kallocain and the film Bladerunner. Someone in the audience translated Sören Kierkegaard fittingly into “Grim Graveyard”.

Jesper Rudgård Jensen, Ralan Conley

Ralan Conley  was interviewed by Jesper Rudgård Jensen. Conley is an american who has lived in Denmark for the last 20 years. In the early 90’s he had free time that he spent on writing a novel, 700 pages on paper. He got a no from every publisher and instead wrote short stories to get some practice. He then wondered what market there could be and what he learnt he now spreads via his website. The idea is that authors could help each other via the web or email.

Conley writes epic fantasies which are really sf. He has done variations on the Jack the Ripper theme where he goes west. He likes the stories to unfold since he then entertains himself. Having an outline makes him bored. He types with two fingers and if he tries to use all he loses his creativity. He enjoys editing his stories afterwards. He likes to put people in extreme situations, like mining on other planets. In Tales of Weupp there is a planet where magic works.

Much sf is now being marketed as mass market stories, e g Michael Crichton’s. There are markets for short stories and about 700 such markets are listed on his website www.ralan.com. This page is funded by donations.

Michael Kamp, Gwyneth Jones, Lea Thume

In the panel Writing for children and young adults, Gwyneth Jones told that she started writing for children and thought that as she grew herself also her intended readers would be older. She worked as a script writer for the sf cartoon Tellybugs, where she made 3’55” stories for Chip, Sam and Bug. After that she wrote ghost stories for teenagers under the name “Ann Halam”. She likes writing for young adults, and mentions as inspirations Arthur Ransom, H C Andersen, Tolkien, C S Lewis and Diana Wynne Jones.

Michael Kamp tells us that he has published six books, which the libraries classify as 13+. He does not aim at teenagers and believes that you shouldn’t. However, the language should be understandable for teens.

Lea Thume thinks that children need books they have to grow into; they should have to “stand on tiptoe”. Jones responds that you should be as straight as possible. Simplicity should be an ideal. A successful example is Alan Garner’s Red Shift, which most children won’t understand although it is simply written. It has strong and strange sf ideas.

Kamp comments that you have to downplay the sex parts; the teens can take all the other stuff. Jones agrees and thinks that there is too much graphic description in Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now, about a 16 year old girl who falls in love with a 14 year old boy. You should have pity on your readers: they might be embarrassed since they might read the book in class. These books would stand behind the librarian. Thume comments that this is not the case in Denmark where sex is treated in a very open-minded way. Still, Kamp thinks that sex should be avoided since it detracts the attention from the story you want to tell. As Jones says, pornography kills character.

Jones also adds that it is unethical to mention underage sex. [Personally, I think it is strange that you can describe an act of murder but not an act of love.]

Asked about recommendations Jones says that she can only answer what she liked. Among films her favourite is Kurosawa’s Tokyo Story that describes Tokyo before the war, and among books she prefers juvenile books written by U K LeGuin and Diana Wynne Jones. A favourite is Archer’s Goon. Kamp mentions Pratchett.

According to Jones, horror and ghost stories should be short. A puzzle detective story by Agatha Christie is about 30 000 words. M R James inspired Jones to write ghost stories, and she also mentions influence from H P Lovecraft and Sheridan Le Fanu.

Johan Anglemark asked the panel about the possible influence of role-playing games on the plotting in young adult books, and Jones considers that Sheri Tepper’s early books were heavily influenced by role playing.

Charles Stross, Gwyneth Jones, Niels Dalgaard

The last panel I listened to was about British science fiction, with the two GoHs, Stig W Jørgensen and Niels Dalgaard. Jones pointed out that the differences between individuals are much greater than the differences between US and UK authors, in the same way as they are greater than the differences between men and women. Still, Stross thought that there might be differences between US and UK sf. John Christopher, Wyndham and Christopher Priest wrote about an England where the best was over and the empire dead. There was a feeling that the British were let down – “hey, you were on the winning side, you don’t need any support”. Jones answered that British sf had stronger links with US than with the rest of Europe. She was born in a socialist utopia. US was worried, due to other socialist utopias.

Stross read Interzone in his teens and wanted new stuff, radical in an undefined way. Interzone was published by a “collective” that found out that they were actually slaves of David Pringle. Many new British sf authors were first published in Interzone in the 80’s. Britain did not get cyberpunk but instead a second “new wave”.

Damgaard mentions that Denmark had “cosy catastrophes” like in UK.

Jones sees herself more as a European author, and Stross as an american one. He answers that you have to sell to US to get a proper career.

Jones and Stross had different views on the early “new” space opera Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks, whether it was influenced by the Falklands war or the Vietnam war. Banks is a very British author who does not sell in the US. Peter Hamilton is right-wing and best-selling. Stross is surprised that Ken McLeod has won a libertarian award, and that he himself was nominated. McLeod is the son of a preacher and picked up Trotskyism at the university. Stross says that McLeod’s tetralogy describes different types of socialism in the four volumes [I missed that…].

British sf authors cheat since they can sell in the US and still have the healthcare of UK. In a space opera future the disadvantage of being British vanishes making it easy to sell in the US.

Jones comments on the “mundane manifesto” of Geoff Ryman. She finds it quite restricted, but when she sent in an invited short story to an anthology she could include FTL and aliens and still get it accepted as “mundane sf”. Stross read the manifesto differently: Go back to the basis of sf and skip the tropes. It is possible to write mundane space opera, and an example is Saturn’s Children. [True, actually].

Jones resisted writing space opera but her latest is definitely that. It features a capital similar to Brussels, and she feels that space opera gives you a good possibility to write about the present.

Michael Pargman and others at the book sale

I left the congress by the new driverless metro, strolled around in the center of Copenhagen for a while looking at the new theatre and opera buildings and generally had a wonderful time, to finally continue with the metro to the airport. A fantastic weekend!