Readercon

Thursday, July 7

8:00 PM BH Bees! . Erik Amundsen, Max Gladstone, Natalie Luhrs, Julia Rios (moderator), T.X. Watson. From the serious scientific question of colony collapse disorder, through the also-serious metaphoric House of Evil Bees of Captain Awkward, to Chuck Wendig’s ridiculous #facebees, bees seem to proliferate among the interests of our genre community. Why? Are we in it for the honey or the sting, or is it the combination that attracts us?

9:00 PM 6 Books That Spoil Themselves . John Crowley, Jim Freund (leader), Max Gladstone, Yves Meynard, Lauren Roy. “Little did she know that was the last time she would see him alive” and similar lines in books go beyond foreshadowing and into the realm of spoilers. The movie Stranger Than Fiction explores the use of the phrase “little did he know,” and Joe Hill’s The Fireman (among many other books) includes several examples. Why and how do authors use this often derided literary device, and how does it affect the reader’s experience of a story?

Friday July 08
3:00 PM 6 Steven Universe. Susan Jane Bigelow, Max Gladstone, Bart Leib, Kate Nepveu, Julia Rios (leader). How has a cartoon show meant for children so thoroughly captivated some of the most interesting adult SFF writers we know? Our panelists will dig deep into what makes Steven Universe work so well for the different ages of its audience and try to glean some tips from how it packs such huge amounts of story into very short episodes. Warning: There may be singing.

4:00 PM C Harry Potter Goes to Grad School and Gets a Job. Jim Freund (leader), Max Gladstone, Josh Jasper, Ellen Kushner, E.J. Stevens. Charlie Jane Anders’s All the Birds in the Sky and Lev Grossman’s The Magicians give us an unsentimental treatment of life after attending a magical school. As adults, many of us read and enjoyed Harry Potter, but its relevance to our day-to-day lives was not as great as for its target audience of school-age children. All the Birds in the Sky and The Magicians seem to fill that void, but with some interesting topical shifts. What further futures for magical students might we see?

Saturday July 09
3:30 PM B Reading: Max Gladstone. Max Gladstone. Max Gladstone reads either a selection from The Highway Kind, forthcoming in 2017, or from a Craft work in progress.

Sunday July 10
12:00 PM CL Kaffeeklatsch. Max Gladstone, Maria Dahvana Headley.

1:00 PM BH Power, Wealth, and Economics in Writing and Plotting Romance. Max Gladstone, Ada Palmer, Tom Purdom, Julia Rios, Terence Taylor. There are many modern romances with a wealthy man and a woman who isn’t, and many with both male and female partners with money, but few with a wealthy woman and a man who isn’t. Does the wealth disparity create a power dynamic similar to the one that was inherent between men and women in pre-modern society? Modern romances frequently imitate and reuse formulas and tropes from romances written in pre-modern society when an inherent power tension between empowered men and comparatively politically/economically dis-empowered women existed. Do these power differentials still exist or do modern romances artificially recreate the same kinds of tensions and stresses by writing about the very wealthy? Why wouldn’t reversed roles be as compelling in a modern romance? What happens when other genders are included or polyamorous lifestyles are considered? Is the wealth disparity the be-all and end-all of romantic settings? How do wealth and other types of modern power work in modern romance, and how does it relates to pre-modern ideas of romance?

2:00 PM AT Autographs. Mike Allen, Max Gladstone.