Capclave 2007, Sunday October 14th
Sunday’s programming was as good, interesting, and informative as Friday. So even though we were exhausted from Saturday’s excitement, panels, discussions, socializing, and partying, we rose early in order to get to the 10AM panel, Where’s the new and recent YA science Fiction? (Panelist: John G. Hemry, Victoria McManus (m), Davey Beauchamp). John and Victoria are members of the Andre Norton Award committee that gives out an award for excellence in YA literature for the previous year. Needless to say, they’d been reading YA all year in preparation for the award and had a lot of books to discuss and recommend to the audience — not that that stopped the audience from giving their own recommendations. Here’s some of the books discussed/recommended/commended: The Invasion of the IQ Snatchers (Arther Slade’s Canadian Chills) by Arthur Slade, Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor, Dragon’s Keep by Janet Lee Carey, Iris, Messenger by Sarah Deming, Into the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst, Flora Segunda by by Ysabeau S. Wilce, Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer, The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex, Tempting Fate by Esther Friesner, Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, Voices by Ursula K. Le Guin, and last for this list but certainly not the last book Spacer and Rat by Margaret Bechard.
Next was a panel entitled Astronomy and Science Fiction (Panelists: Yoji Kondo (who writes as Eric Kotani) and Roger MacBride Allen) The topics of discussion ranged over many subject including: the Big Bang, dark matter, quantum effects on black holes, the classification of Vesta and Ceres and what they might be like (or what we’ll learn from the probe), how to figure gravity, stories from science and scientific possibilities, ways of achieving an EMP pulse and could one be caused by gamma rays, could Ben Franklin have actually done the kite experiment and lived, MythBusters, and many other topics as the audience asked and panel replied. My head got full so that’s about all I wrote down.
Yoji Kondo recommended his book: Interstellar Travel & Multi-Generational Space Ships published by Apogee Books Space Series 34.
Next was LibraryThing and other bibliophilic sites. (Panelists: Colleen Cahill (m), Lawrence M. Schoen, David Louis Edelman, Barbara Krasnoff). Check out Library Thing for yourself. It’s a great way to catalogue your personal library and since it’s on the internet you can access it from anywhere with a PDA (or download to a file and print) so you don’t end up re-buying books you already own. Then on to Online Books, a site that has ebooks available for free. Then a short look at Wowio another site for books that are free but only in PDF format at this time. Other sites were covered but I forgot to write them down in the dark (this was a demo panel and they had a laptop hooked up to show the sites on a screen).
Everything old is new again: Re-imaging and remaking the classics. (Panelists: George Scithers, Ernest Lilley (m), Paul Haggerty, Michael Zipser). The panel and audience covered remakes, remakes of remakes, remakes of a film based on a book that remade the film not the book and those that went back to the original source material. It was a very active and interesting panel. (But you can tell the long hours are getting me, I FORGOT to take notes!!!)
Last, we went to the Gripe Session or Dead Dog panel. Most SF conventions have a panel near the end of the last day of the convention with either this or a similar title. This is the time that convention attendees can air the gripes or give the praise for the convention. This year it seemed that all the gripes were things that the convention couldn’t control: the temperature of the meeting rooms (all on one thermometer so you pick a room to be comfortable in and the rest are either warmer or colder), the locking of the public restrooms after midnight (hotel policy), the lack of an large area to sit and talk to friends (the hotel expected all renovations to be done by the date of the convention but some things ran late and the central atrium area with restaurant and bar was not completed; however they set up two meeting rooms — for food and beverage). Then some things came up that should have been thought of but got over looked (signs by each meeting room door listing the panels within), a no scripts option for email addresses on the website, a handout listing the winner of the WSFA small press award after the ceremony, etc. These were all taken down and will be addressed by the Capclave 2008 and 2009 chairs.
During the meeting, Colleen Cahill received a copy of the Dodo Noir artwork used for this year’s theme of pulp noir, from
All in all it was a great convention. There were lots of interesting, worthwhile panels to sit in on. There were many opportunities to talk to authors, editors, publishers, and other fans. The workshops are a great idea and I enjoyed the one I sat in on. All in all a great weekend.