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I got roped into the programme for Satellite 1 last weekend. It's my own fault, I volunteered. What I actually volunteered was to do a science spot about small spacecraft since Sputnik, which is somewhat of a specialist subject since it was the topic of my (first, ha! still smug) masters thesis. That didn't happen.
Turns out that my presentation didn't fit the programme, but I had indelibly marked myself as 'willing victim/mug'. I got put on a programme item about SF in the next 50 years. Now I knew that the initial idea was totally wrong and missed the point of SF, because it was all about media, and will we be watching SF in the future on holodecks and the like. No, if in 50 years we have holodecks, we will be watching Corrie and Eastenders on them, sitting in our bar stools in the Old Vic or the Rovers'.
What SF will be doing in the next 50 years in terms of stories and themes and who will be writing it, no matter what the medium is, is a much more interesting question, and one that, I'm happy to say, got added to the panel definition. And muggins got put on the panel along with Ken MacLeod and
autopope. That's what I get for being mouthy.
It was an interesting panel, though. Ken started by waving over at Charlie and saying, "there's the future of SF," but then going on to put out an idea that SF is the literature of an industrialised society. Charlie livened things up by pointing out that the biggest SF audience is in China at the moment, and I weighed in with my ideas that SF didn't just have to be about technology but also about how people react in different circumstances, including ones that have never applied or are brought on by new technology. It went around in discussion of new sources of SF, new ideas, the place and future of genre books and tie-ins, why China is producing SF and India isn't yet, new media and guerrilla SF filmmaking, and the role of SF in inspiring people to build the ideas that writers find and popularise.
I'd be interested to see if the con tech recorded the panel, and to see a transcript of it. I'm told by
tanngrisnr that I added to the panel, which is all I could ask for, sitting between two such SF luminaries. I have to say it was one of the most fraught hours that I have gone through recently.
Turns out that my presentation didn't fit the programme, but I had indelibly marked myself as 'willing victim/mug'. I got put on a programme item about SF in the next 50 years. Now I knew that the initial idea was totally wrong and missed the point of SF, because it was all about media, and will we be watching SF in the future on holodecks and the like. No, if in 50 years we have holodecks, we will be watching Corrie and Eastenders on them, sitting in our bar stools in the Old Vic or the Rovers'.
What SF will be doing in the next 50 years in terms of stories and themes and who will be writing it, no matter what the medium is, is a much more interesting question, and one that, I'm happy to say, got added to the panel definition. And muggins got put on the panel along with Ken MacLeod and
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It was an interesting panel, though. Ken started by waving over at Charlie and saying, "there's the future of SF," but then going on to put out an idea that SF is the literature of an industrialised society. Charlie livened things up by pointing out that the biggest SF audience is in China at the moment, and I weighed in with my ideas that SF didn't just have to be about technology but also about how people react in different circumstances, including ones that have never applied or are brought on by new technology. It went around in discussion of new sources of SF, new ideas, the place and future of genre books and tie-ins, why China is producing SF and India isn't yet, new media and guerrilla SF filmmaking, and the role of SF in inspiring people to build the ideas that writers find and popularise.
I'd be interested to see if the con tech recorded the panel, and to see a transcript of it. I'm told by
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-12 10:35 pm (UTC)What was said?
no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 01:01 am (UTC)The gist of the discussion was that the 'progressive' mode that SF sits in is politically very acceptable to the Chinese government and therefore SF does not get suppressed. The reason why India has not really picked up on the mode, we really didn't get into except to remark that it hadn't happened, even though India has a healthy space industry.
The comments from the audience went into the differences between mythologies in different countries but were shot down by Ken commenting that India had its own share of Von Danikens and the legends of ancient visitors in the Vedas were really not relevant.
As to why more Chinese than Indian SF? My opinion as someone on the panel but who has no further expertise: SF is a mode, as Ken said, of the literature of industrialised cultures. China is busy industrialising while India is not, so much.
We didn't conclude much on the panel except that while the Chinese were ahead for now, watch out for Indian SF coming down the pipe as Indians get industrialised and start thinking in the terms that generate SF stories.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 11:22 pm (UTC)Didn't know you're on LJ. Friends list now corrected.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 10:26 am (UTC)I was inclined to see about recording programme items, but the view of the programme bod was that the extra work in getting releases would be too much, and she already was doing a great deal so I thought, fair enough.
I imagined you would find it... a little tense. That did not show, and you did add to to the panel.
BTW, spelling mistake in my LJ user name there.