Hi folks! Readercon’s coming up in just two weeks! I’ve got a handful of items, including panels and readings, and I’ll be interviewing one of the Guests of Honor, Ken Liu!
If you want to say hi, here’s where I’ll be and what I’ll be droning on about:
| How Science Informs Fantasy | Salon 5 | Writing | Panel | Fri 6:00 PM | Duration: 01:00 | ||
| Many fantasy writers have real science in their stories, including biology, economics, and physics. Sometimes science informs magical or fantastical elements; other times it exists alongside them, as in works by GOH Ken Liu and Fran Wilde that deal with complicated engineering. Our panel of writers and technical experts will discuss fantasy that uses science to its advantage and share some scientific breakthroughs that fantasy writers should be aware of. | |||||||
| Reading: John P. Murphy | Salon A | Writing | Reading | Fri 7:30 PM | Duration: 00:30 | ||
| I’ll probably be reading from my work in progress, a science fiction novel tentatively entitled RED NOISE. Kinda… Yojimbo meets Borderlands? | |||||||
| Alternatives to Romance | Salon 6 | Writing | Panel | Sat 2:00 PM | Duration: 01:00 | ||
| A love interest or romantic subplot can add depth to a character or complexity to an otherwise straightforward story, but it doesn’t always make sense to have one. When a story doesn’t focus on romance to start with, what problems do writers try to solve by introducing romantic elements, and what are other ways of solving those problems? | |||||||
| Ken Liu Interviewed by John P. Murphy | Salon 5 | Writing | Event | Sat 4:00 PM | Duration: 01:00 | ||
| John P. Murphy interviews Guest of Honor Ken Liu. | |||||||
| Interactive Fiction for Reluctant Readers | Blue Hills | Writing | Panel | Sat 7:00 PM | Duration: 01:00 | ||
| Interactive fiction is one way to engage new and reluctant readers of a digital generation. This panel will discuss the benefits of reader participation and how authors and game developers use the concept of participation to make reading more appealing. | |||||||
In other news, my term as a SFWA Director-at-Large is ending June 30th. That has been part of the reason I haven’t been blogging here much — both because I’ve been busy (with many things), and because I felt that I should keep certain opinions to myself, lest they be mistaken as SFWA’s (and let’s be honest, a lot of people are very keen to mistake opinions they don’t like as SFWA’s…). I’ll be continuing to volunteer with SFWA, and in fact have a really exciting project lined up, but I’ll feel a bit more comfortable being a jackass expressing my opinion here in the future.
I have had some good news lately, too, including three of my stories (The Liar, The Body and the Bomb, and Death in a Tin Can) being published in Hungarian in Galaktika Magazin. I’ve got some semi-secret good news coming up. And I’m nearly finished with the first draft of RED NOISE, the novel I’ll be reading from at Readercon.
John P. Murphy 