A Curious Statistical Anomaly

The Guardian has a short photo slideshow of the 10 best characters in Jane Austen’s novels chosen by Paula Byrne, who wrote The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things (HarperCollins, January 2013).

It’s an interesting mix of characters. I don’t really have a problem with the characters they chose but some was a bit sidetracked by the actors they chose or didn’t show who had portrayed those characters. For example, Mansfield Park has been made it to the screen (TV and movie) several times yet they showed the bookcover rather than Mrs. Norris — wonder why.

What your take on this. The link to the slideshow is:
10 Best Characters in Jane Austen’s Novels.

Opinions?

I can’t believe how long it has been since I last posted here. Time continues to get away from me. I’ve got the drafts of at least three book reviews and hope to get them up the first of the year.

Also, have been working on a sock pattern — my own design so I’m pretty psyched up about it. It’s a toe up and I’m to the point of starting the heel and have been dithering for months over which type of heel would work best for this sock. I think I’ve finally made up my mind and now I just have to get knitting again.

An observation on getting older:
Finger snapping:
Why does getting older mean you have pain when you try to snap your fingers? I used to do that all the time when I was younger. You know. SNAP. I got it — the shouting Eureka in the streets thing with a finger snap. Now — even though I don’t have arthritis in my fingers — it hurts to snap. But, since I noticed I try to do it a few times a day and it’s getting better.

My guess is that as you get older you don’t do it as often and the muscles you haven’t used then just have problems working in that way. So, practice keeps the skill going.

If you’ve got another explanation I’d love to hear it (well read it).

So, book reviews and sock photos are on the horizon.

Woman in Black ( Directed by James Watkins. Starring: Daniel Radcliffe and Ciarán Hinds. Watched the DVD (no special features on the rental disk).

First off, I really like movies and books that are a bit ambiguous as to what is going on especially at the end. Also, I really don’t mind having to work a bit to figure out what’s happened and what’s happening in a film provided I feel entertained by the end of the movie.

I really didn’t have much of a clue about what the Woman in Black was about before seeing it. All I’d heard is that it was similar to Turn of the Screw (book by Henry James) or a type of psychological thriller. After seeing the movie, I’ll agree that it is very much a psychological thriller horror but it is much closer to The Grudge (2005) an American remake of the Japanese film, Ju-on (2004).

Check out this trailer for Woman in Black:

In the movie, Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is a lawyer who is sent to deal with all the papers at Eel Marsh House outside the village of Cryphin Gifford. The house is located away from the village on a jutting piece of land that is cut off during high tide. The owners are dead and Kipps firm is settling the estate. On the train he meets Mr. Daily (Ciarán Hinds) who lives near the village and offers to drive him to the village in when they arrive at the station.

In the village, Kipps leans that he doesn’t have a room at the inn. The local lawyer is acting strangely and the villagers seem to want him to leave as soon as possible –preferably without going out to the house. Of course, Kipps must do the job he was sent there to do before his son and the nanny arrive in a few days for what he’d hoped would be a holiday. (Kipps is a widower and a single father still mourning the loss of his wife who died giving birth to a son, Joseph.)

With that setup, most viewers would expect that with rich landowners dead and the house empty and a cagey local lawyer, that the entire village is up to something. However, from the first scene of the film, you know that something more sinister is going on. The problem is that no one is talking and since Kipps is the person that the camera is following, viewers can only wonder at what he sees and doesn’t see and try to piece together the backstory from the clues as Kipps discovers them.

There’s also a great deal of little things that happen subtly in the background and if you blink you miss them — such as the eye looking back at Kipps from a moving picture viewer that he finds in the house — only no one is there in the room with him. He comes across documents that hint that the house holds many more secrets than just strange noises and shapes seen in windows or out of the corner of his eye as he works.

There’s not much more I can say without spoiling the movie for you. The house and the surroundings are perfect for such a movie — dark and mysterious with times when it is cut off from the rest of the world. Sullen villagers who don’t want anyone to upset the fragile balance they have achieve with the evil that walks among them.

The setting and direction manage to keep you glued to your seat, hoping against hope that what you fear is going on is wrong and fearful that you’re right. Then there’s the hope that everything will turn out okay at the end after all. Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t make any difference at all. That’s where the ambiguity comes in — in the end you make your own decision about what kind of ending the movie has and whether it is optimistic or pessimistic.

As always, I’m interested in the views of others. So if you’ve seen the movie, what did you think about it?

Jane Austen Made Me Do It: Original Stories Inspired by Literature’s Most Astute Observer of the Human Heart edited by Laurel Ann Natress. Trade Paperback. ISBN: 978-0345524966. 464 pages. Ballantine Books (October 11, 2011) (Amazon: $10.20 / Kindle: $9.99)

Jane Austen Made Me Do It is an anthology of original stories Inspired by, who else, Jane Austen. Some of the stories are follow-on to one of the original Austen novels, a few are variations on a scenes, and some are modern interpretations of her works. There are 18 stories in this collection and each story has a quote from one of Austen’s novels or letters to pair with the story. Some of the quotes are difficult to connect with the stories while others are obvious inspiration for the story that follows.

Jane Austen’s Nightmare by Syrie James: Jane Austen dreams that her characters are alive in the world and not happy with the way they were treated in her works — with a few exceptions who love their role in their book. The dissatisfied characters are up in arms (think Dr. Frankenstein and the unhappy townspeople). What really makes it are the characters reasons for their dissatisfaction.

Waiting Persuasion by Jane Odiwe. This was a overview of Anne Elliot’s meetings and dealings with Captain Wentworth as she waits for him to speak to her father and ask for her hand. It fills in for the reader their earlier courtship that took place prior to the opening of Persuasion. I really like these type of stories as the fill in some possible background for fans of the book.

A Night at Northanger by Lauren Willig. This is a modern tale. Cate, a journalist, has a job working with a reality TV type show called Ghost Trekkers. She’s fed up with the job and the fake ‘reality’ of the show. She gets has a very interesting talk when the power goes out on a shot at Northanger Abbey where they were to interview Mr. Morland Tilney-Tilney. This was a very tongue in cheek, or not.

Jane and the Gentleman Rougue: Being a fragment of a Jane Austen Mystery by Stephanie Barron. A tale of star-crossed or at least society-crossed lovers, espionage, a duel, and clever misdirection. Can’t do much detail on this one or it will be spoiled for you.

Faux Jane by F.J. Meier. This was a delightful play on the old Nick and Nora Charles (and their dog, Asta) mysteries. However, it’s much more modern and involves some Jane Austen memorabilia.

Nothing Less than Fairyland by Monica Fairview. Emma and Mr. Knightley have returned from their honeymoon. The move of Mr. Knightley into the Woodhouse home is not going well. When Emma has an idea — a wonderfully, brilliant idea, or so she hopes. However, she must work quickly while fending off Mrs. Elton. It was a good idea and showed a definite growth and maturity in Emma.

Love and Best Wishes, Aunt Jane by Adriana Trigiani. A modern Jane Austen writes a letter to her newly engaged niece, Anna. This I found interesting because of the need to update letter writing to more modern times and fits well because Austen was an avid letter writer. The sentiments are at times insightful, poignant, and humorous.

When Only A Darcy Will Do by Beth Pattillo. Another modern story. Elizabeth is a poor American student in London. To earn money, she’s set up a website and is offering walking tours of Jane Austen’s London. Things get complicated when one of her customers show up dressed in Regency garb.

Heard of You by Margaret C. Sullivan. Returned from their wedding trip, Anne and Captain Wentworth visit the Crofts at Kellynch. Captain Wentworth tells the story of how the Crofts originally met and courted. This was another story that fills in the backstory of two of Austen’s characters for readers.

The Ghostwriter by Elizabeth Aston. Yes, there is a ghost. Sara is having a problem with her latest book and her boyfriend has sent a goodbye letter. She needs help and surprise a ghost shows up with some excellent advice and witty advice and asides. This was fun and homorous and more than likely not at all what you’d think it would be like.

Mr. Bennet Meets His Match by Amanda Grange. A fill in the background story of how Mr. Bennet met and courted Mrs. Bennet — because readers have always wondered how that happened.

Jane Austen, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! by Janet Mullany. A modern story only barely touching on Jane Austen but very moving in its own way. A young teacher is chafing under the rules of the older, longtime teachers. She is saddled with supervising the detention of three young girls. This was very well done even though a bit stuck in the 60s.

Letters to Lydia by Maya Slater. Maria Lucas and Lydia correspond during Maria visit to Rosings and beyond. Readers get a peek into Maria’s view of events at Rosings when she visits with Elizabeth. We also get some interesting insight into Lydia — and Maria’s impressions of her.

The Mysterious Closet by Myretta Robens. Cathy Fullerton is on holiday at a converted abbey but it may be a bit too much of a Gothic atmosphere. She’s in the dungeon section of the abbey. This was a bit weird. While the story was fun, I kept wondering why Cathy was so calm and accepting — I’d have been freaking out. But nevertheless a fun story to read.

Jane Austen’s Cat by Diana Birchall. Jane Austen is visited by two of her nieces, and their cat, after having written Mansfield Park. It’s not so much a story as a discussion of writing and characters though a story is told on the spot to the younger niece which in which all the major characters are cats fit into the story of one of Austen’s novels.

Again … Mr. Darcy by ALexandra Potter. After a fight with her boyfriend, Emily invites her girlfriend to come to London with her. While her friend shops till she drops. Emily gets another interlude with Mr. Darcy, this time he’s been happily married to Elizabeth. This one was better than I expected thought these helpful time-traveling characters stories are wearing a bit thin for me.

What Would Jane Austen Do? by Jane Ruino and Caitlen Rabino Bradway. This was my favorite story in the book. The point of view character is Jamie Austen. His mom is a Jane Austen fanatic and family belief is she married Jamie’s father to get the name ‘Austen’. Jamie is in high school and he’s a bit of the problem for the Principal and the Guidance Councilor. It’s not what you think — really. I loved this one for it’s originality and freshness and because it was so in tune with today’s high school scene.

The Riding Habit by Pamela Aidan. Darcy and Elizabeth are at their London home. A quiet ride to teach Elizabeth how to ride gets very exciting indeed.

The Chase by Carrie Bebris. This story was also very different. It’s supposedly the story of an event that happened to one of Jane Austen’s navy brothers involving a naval battle with French ships. Quite a nice piece of historical fiction based on fact.

Intolerable Stupidity by Laurie Viera Rigler. This was a hilarious story that got me laughing out loud. Fitz Williams is defending the authors of retitling, follow-ons, adaptations, etc. in court. Tawny Wolfson is the prosecuting attorney for Mr. and Mrs. Darcy. Of course, the judge is Lady Catherine. Imagine such a story in a book of stories that are retellings, follow-ons, and adaptations, etc.

All in all this was a volume well worth reading. I like some stories more than others which is generally true of any anthology, however, there wasn’t a clinker in the lot.

The book has been out since October of 2011 so should be readily available if you haven’t read it already. If you have read the book, as always, I’d love to hear your opinion.

Yesterday after a long day at work, I stopped by the post office to mail out the latest batch of books. Shortly after getting into line, a woman came in and asked if anybody liked cats, because there as a kitten outside that looked like it was in some distress. What she got was a lot of folks ignoring her, or telling her that they were dog folks, or allergic, or one of a dozen other excuses. I too was reluctant to speak up, because while Gayle’s allergies are being kept under control as long as we use the Allerpet on Emnot, there’s no guarantee that it would be effective on a different cat. Nor was there any guarantee that Emnot would tolerate another cat in the house. He has a tendency to go all territorial warlord whenever another cat dares to come up on the porch. Of course, that display is limited to when the door is closed, or when one of his human’s goes out to back him up.

In any event, one of the other customers told the lady there was an animal shelter nearby and that she should just call them and they’d come and pick the cat up. I offered to get her the phone number, but she said she’d just drive over and report him in person, and have them come get him. And for a while I though that was the end of it.

I stood in line for nearly 20 minutes until I was finally able to pass off the packages to the mail clerk and get back on my way. But I couldn’t just leave without checking to make sure the kitten had been picked up. I walked around to where the woman had indicated … and there he still was. Maybe eight inches long from nose to rump. Certainly less then a year old. He was a shorthair, mostly yellow-orange, mixed liberally with white fur. And he was lying on the brick patio near the rear door to the lobby. He was motionless except for the distressed panting as he tried desperately to breath. I knew in that second that the kitten wasn’t going to survive until nightfall. And I’d already discounted any hope that the animal shelter was going to arrive, or that the woman had even gone to them.

I called our vet and described the situation. They agreed that I should bring him to them. If animal control was called, they’d just put him down immediately. So I scooped him into the basket that I’d been using to carry the packages. I didn’t know if he was at all used to humans, and I didn’t want to terrify the poor thing any more than I had to. When I slid my fingers under him, he managed to twitch a little and pull his head back, but he couldn’t move his legs or body. I hurried back to the car, cooing stupid things to him, like you do, and tried to get him to the vet as quickly as I could. Maybe it’s just me, but I think I hit every red light on the way. I ran the air conditioner up and he seemed to relax a little as the temperature in the car dropped. He even managed a few meows.

I took him into the waiting room and three nurses swooped down on me and bore him off to the back where the doctor was waiting for him. I waited in one of the exam rooms and when they came to find me, the prognosis was not good. He was in shock, dehydrated, there was blood in his urinary tract, and there was something wrong with his bladder. They couldn’t tell for sure without a lot more tests.

They wanted to know if I was planning on keeping him and, to my embarrassment, I had to confess that it would depend on how much it would cost to nurse him back to health, assuming that it was even possible. It’s a sad, but unfortunate truth, that finances can not be ignored. The doctor said that they would keep him overnight and see how he was in the morning, and that I should call them and we’d discuss it more then.

I called Gayle on they way back and told her the story. We talked about the situation last night and this morning, and we went over the finances to see just how much we could afford.

I called back this morning, ready to negotiate if need be … and was told that he’d passed away last night. They’d found evidence of internal bleeding, and one of the nurses had taken him home with her so that she could care for him, and he’d passed away in her car on the way.

So at least he went peacefully, with someone that cared for him. Not alone and baking to death on the pavement while dozens of people walked by and ignored him.

Unfortunately, I never though to take a picture of him.

So, for the kitten that was only part of my life for a couple of hours, I’m sorry that the world is such a cruel place. That so many humans, that wield such awesome powers, just don’t give a damn. I’m sorry that you didn’t get to meet Gayle or Emnot. That you won’t be able to join our clowder.

But I’m glad that you were able to spend the last few hours of your far too short life, surrounded by the best representatives that humanity has to offer. The people that do care, sometimes far too much.

Goodbye little one.

We got a late start and by the time we had breakfast and got ready to hit the panels, we’d missed the 10 am panel we wanted to see. Then in the lobby, we got into a conversation and missed the 11 am panel. But we did make it to the noon panel.

NOTE: The photos of the panelists were taken with available light from two or three rows back so are a bit grainy. I did some Photoshop work to get the panelists to stand out from the darkness. But hope you’ll get the idea of who was there. Panelist are always listed left to right from the audience point of view or as you look at the photo.

Noon: Unexamined Assumptions in SF.
Panel: Mikki Kendall, James L. Cambias (leader), Kenneth Schneyer, Darrell Schweitzer, Anil Menon.
Description: In a 2011 blog post, James Cambias complained of “[convention] attendees and panelists dusting off old, unexamined assumptions” in SF. For much of its history, SF developed a set of unexamined assumptions that became default conventions of the genre—that space exploration will move systematically outward from the moon to the planets, that the explorers will be cisgender heterosexual American or European males, that aliens will fight us in (peculiarly two-dimensional) space battles, and so on. 21st-century SF has made some notable efforts to roast these chestnuts, but it has its own set of assumptions, which this panel will mercilessly dissect and offer alternatives to.

Some questions were raised and dealt with such as: Why would you have clone slaves when born people are certainly cheaper. Why would any alien want to come all the way to Earth when whatever the book/movie/whatever gives as a reason could certainly be found in their own solar system? Schweitzer suggest the only reason would be if people of Earth tasted good making us alien sushi.

There was also a lot of talk about the economics of SF and fantasy and how they seldom, if ever, seem to apply. Why is a post apocalyptic society uniform? Shouldn’t they all be varied by which small group survived with their culture attached but changed for the harsher environment?

The thought was raised that in many SF stories they could just as easily take place without space. Why doesn’t any SF story show how we got from here to, say, the Star Trek universe where everything is peacefully one Earth government and a kind and benevolent Federation? Does the expectations of the audience fashion the story?

1:00 PM. The Autopsy, Postmortem Changes, and Decomposition: A Primer for Writers.
Speaker: Laura Knight.
Description: What happens after we die? Despite the incredible surge in popularity of forensic science in popular media, many myths and misunderstandings continue to surround the autopsy, and postmortem changes like rigor mortis and subsequent decomposition are often misrepresented. Further, medical examiners and coroners have often been depicted as insensitive and crude, eating a sandwich in one hand while wielding a bloody scalpel in the other. Dr. Laura Knight, a forensic pathologist and medical examiner, will present actual autopsy photographs, along with a non-sensational narrative description of the autopsy process and a detailed explanation of the changes to the body after death.

Dr. Knight gave an enlightening and tight presentation that actually fit in the time allotted and allowed for a short Q&A. She had a slide show to accompany her talk. She began with the difference between Coroners and Medical Examiners (M.E.), the training required for an M.E., then she went over how an actual autopsy is performed (the sequence, the standard items that are looked for, and some of the problems that arise).

The room was very warm and the pictures rather graphic. A couple of people had to leave during the talk. If any author is writing a crime story and needs to have a forensic autopsy as part of the discover of the cause of death, they would find this topic extremely helpful — It’s not like seen on CSI Anywhere.

2:00 PM. The City and the Strange.
Panel: Howard Waldrop. Ellen Kushner, Stacy Hill, Leah Bobet, Amanda Downum, Lila Garrott (leader).
Description: In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs writes, “By its nature, the metropolis provides what otherwise could be given only by traveling; namely, the strange.” N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance trilogy demonstrates that epic-feeling fantasy can still take place entirely within the confines of a single city. Fictional metropolises such as Jeff VanderMeer’s Ambergris, China Miéville’s New Crobuzon, and Catherynne M. Valente’s Palimpsest are entire worlds in themselves, and the fantasy cities of Lankmar and Ankh-Morkpork shine as centers of intrigue and adventure. In what other works, and other ways, can cities be stand-ins for the lengthy traveling quest of Tolkienesque fantasy?

The panelists talked about some of the differences between real cities and made up cities. Made up cities must have a feeling to the reading of a history of culture and they need to work. Real cities are not homogenous they have small pockets or neighborhoods that vary from those neighborhoods that surround them. It was agreed that some of this information could be supplied via impressions rather than specific information.

Someone on the panel said they remembered a quote that, I paraphrase from my notes, “the city is where you go to meet people you don’t know and aren’t related to.”

Further discussion centered on hidden world cities or 2nd world cities in fantasy and the city as a wilderness or unknown territory as much as the country setting could be unknown territory.

3:00 PM. Theories of Reading and Their Potential Insights into Fantastika.
Panel: Shira Daemon, Eric M. Van, Gayle Surrette, John H. Stevens (leader/speaker), Suzy McKee Charnas, Rick Wilber, Kate Nepveu.
Description: We talk about reading at Readercon every year, but we rarely talk about our understanding of reading as a mental process of cultural practice. John H. Stevens will summarize some recent theories of reading from neurological, psychological, anthropological, and literary perspectives, followed by a discussion about what these ideas might be able to tell us about how we engage, interpret, and codify fantastic literature. In what ways is fantastika read like any other sort of text, and in what ways might we read (and write?) it differently?

I was on this panel but as with the other panelist, just got to listen to John’s presentation from a front row seat. The top photo above were the three of us to the left of John Stevens from the audience point of view and the smaller photo are the panelists to the right of Stevens. Unfortunately, Suzy McKee Charnas was directly behind Stevens from where my husband was sitting so doesn’t show in the photo.

John’s talk took up the entire time for the panel since there were several questions from the audience. His material is fascinating and he’s writing a book on the topic covering theories of reading from several different disciplines — anthropology, sociology, and neurology. He’s also been blogging about his research and musing on SF Signal in his column The Bellowing Ogre.

Visit to the Book Dealers Room:
One of the wonderful things about Readercon is that they have only book sellers in their Dealers’ Room. Unfortunately, even though I review books, I also buy a goodly number of books. I also love looking at the covers of books that I’ve only see the advanced reader copy of — and most of the time with no cover art.

Then we met friends for dinner and catching up on what panels they went to while at Readercon.

8:00 PM. Critical Fictions & Other Fabulous Beasts; or, Learning to Read and Write All Over Again.
Speaker: Henry Wessells.
Description: You think you know how to read? This look at critical fictions and other modes of reading/writing will suggest that it might be time to learn it all over again. The critical fiction is a piece of fiction or poetry where form (story) and content (critical function) are inseparable, a work of art that explicitly declares itself as a critique of another work of literature and explicitly makes use of that earlier source text. Henry Wessells will cover the precursors, techniques, and current practitioners of the critical fiction, and tell you why. Is it literary mash-up for people who shudder at Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? Come find out. See the suggested reading list at http://criticalfiction.net/readinglist.html.

I was excited by the topic description but rather disappointed in the actual lecture. The room was warm and Mr. Wessells read several poems and a short story, as well as an introduction to a book. The introduction he read might have been more interesting if it had been pared down to the part essential to forming a definition of ‘critical fiction’ rather than so centered on the one author and book. I totally fail to see the difference between critical fiction, homages, and pastiches. When asked about this he said it depended on the author’s intent, guess that’s a great reason to read the introductions and forwards to books and stories — to get a heads up from the author.

I plan to check out the link to the suggested reading list, since I’m sure that my failure to grasp what Wessells was more on my side than his due to the hour and the temperature of the room. Any one interested in the topic based on the description should check out the site listed in the description.

We then called it a night but on the way to our room got folded into a conversation in the lobby — thus another late night for us.

Slept in a bit late on Friday. Well didn’t sleep well — never do the first night in a new place. Got up and ready to go. Registration opened at 10:00 AM. There was a program item we wanted to see at 11 so we made sure to get down to registration on time. The line was already quite lengthy. I got my registration material in the green room but my husband had to go through the pre-reg line. That’s when we hit the first snag. His registration wasn’t there so back in line for the at-the-door and filling out the forms. Finally completed the process at ll:32 AM.

If you’ve been here before you know that registration is down a side hallway. It was crowded and hot, very hot. Many of the people leaving were joking about forming a registration survivors support group. It was truly amazing that people didn’t spontaneously combust from either heat or bad tempers, especially those working at registrations who didn’t get to leave that heat for much longer than those getting registrations. That doesn’t even take into considerations the problems with some of the technical equipment. GOOD JOB in a bad environment, people.

The first panel we managed to get to was at noon.

Noon: Muzzling the Horse’s Mouth.
Panelists: Graham Sleight, Veronica Schanoes (leader), David G. Hartwell, Michael Dirda, Ruth Sternglantz.

Description: Conventions, zines, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook provide many venues for writers to shape the dialogue around their works. When it’s hard to avoid information about what a writer intended, how does that affect the critical reading experience? As readers and as critics, can we feel confident that we would have seen on our own what the writer has revealed to us? How do we differentiate and prioritize between our own insights and those shared by the author? Does the writer’s emphasis on some aspects of a work make it harder to see other aspects? And what happens when the critic’s desire to convey information about a work—such as an author’s stated intentions—comes into conflict with the critic’s desire to demonstrate a viable personal reading of the text?

What that description all boils down to is: does an author’s published intent about his work effect the critical reader? Many felt that the text should speak for itself and if the author’s intent doesn’t get borne out by the text than the readers interpretation is just as valid as the author’s.

The topic did move onto the difference between reviews and criticisms. Reviews are for people who haven’t read the book and criticisms are for those who have read the book. It was felt that all reviews are subjective views for the reviewer. Panel members felt that the best reviewers present a sincere response to the work. Readers get to know a reviewer’s taste and can then learn to trust the reviewer to either be close to their own taste or opposite to their taste. (Personally, I had one reviewer that I knew if that person hated the work then there was a good chance I’d enjoy it.)

Panel talked about how many times what you get out of the text is sufficient to enjoy the work. However, with some books a second reading can add richness and texture to your experience. (This was mostly said in relationship to the works of Gene Wolfe.)

Another interesting side issue was on audio books. There was the feeling that audio books add a paratext as the narrator (not author) reads the book using pacing, inflections, and other performance tricks that may change the experience for the listener to be different from that of a reader. [In a panel on Saturday, a blind woman talking about text-to-speech readers said she preferred the mechanical reader rather than a person because it allowed her to get an experience more like reading — when she was sighted.) Ruth Sternglantz said (and I’m paraphrasing) that audio books are not reading text but a reading of the text.

1:00 PM: Theological Debate in Fantasy and SF.
Panel: John Benson, Ellen Asher, James Morrow, Sonya Taafte, Harold Tonger Vedeler.

Description: From Spenser and Bunyan to Michael Chabon and Stephenie Meyer, writers of speculative fiction have engaged in fine-grained, subtextual theological positioning and debate. Leaving aside instances of more obvious religious maneuvering, what happens when implicit or encoded theological dialogues become invisible to readers, either because the passage of time has stripped away their contexts (as with, say, High Church vs. Low Church Anglicanism in Victorian fiction), or because they are only available to the initiated (as with Meyer’s LDS-inflected fantasy)? Are these vanishings a loss? Is there something insidious about books whose surface narratives conceal debates to which we lack access, or do these dimensions enrich the texts? Are we ‘better’ readers if we try to suss them out?

Religion for the purposes of this panel was defined as “God is in the details.”

Reader may get the moral message from a work but not the actual religious underpinnings. Panel and audience talked about specific books such as reading The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe as a young person and understanding the right/wrong, good/evil, strength of family unit, etc. but totally missed the Christian message. One person said they actually thought it was a Mithras tale.

The writer doesn’t necessarily add religious underpinning but the religion is so much a part of the writer’s world view and core beliefs that it is intrinsic to how he or she see and interacts with the world and thus it shows in the text.

There was also a lively discussion of whether it even mattered if you didn’t recognize the religious underpinnings. Was the reader’s enjoyment any less valid if they didn’t get it? Most thought that it didn’t really matter if they recognized which religion if they got the basic moral message being conveyed.

One comment that I found interesting was that mysticism is flexible and theology is not. I hadn’t really thought of it in this way before but did see it as being more or less a valid way of looking at things.

2:00 PM: Serendipity in the Digital Age.
Panel: David G. Shaw (L), John Benson, John Clute, Michael J. DeLuca, Kathryn Morrow, Michael Dirda.

Description: Libraries are closing off their stacks from patrons and sending robots to retrieve requested books; brick-and-mortar bookstores are being supplanted by Amazon’s massive warehouses and recommendation engines. While these arrangements increase efficiency on the business end, they destroy serendipity on the reader’s end. Yet sites like Wikipedia and TV Tropes give us what Randall Munroe called “hours of fascinated clicking,” trails of discovery that strongly resemble the old-fashioned bookstore or library experience. Can those sites teach us how to recreate browsing in our browsers? Should Amazon look more like the new online edition of the Science Fiction Encyclopedia?

We all love to browse in bookstores and library stacks. However, more and more libraries have closed stacks and many bookstores are closing or there are none near you and you end up with online sites that have recommendation engines which are often not really your taste or not finding things by chance.

On the other hand the panel agreed in principle that we’ve never really had true serendipity since bookstores and libraries don’t have everything but only what the buyers believe the patrons will want. There’s always been a limiting factor on what we can browse and that hasn’t changed. So, we need to try harder to find that gem that wouldn’t normally be the kind of thing you read but that you stumble across anyway.

3:00 PM: Anthropology for Writers.
Panel: James L. Cambias, John H. Stevens (L), Christopher M. Cevasco, Francesca Forrest, Harold Torger Vedeler.

Description: In a 2011 blog post, Farah Mendlesohn wrote, “‘Worldbuilding’ as we understand it, has its roots in traditions that described the world in monolithic ways: folklore studies, anthropology, archeology, all began with an interest in describing discrete groups of people and for that they needed people to be discrete.” This panel will discuss the historical and present-day merging and mingling of real-world cultures, and advise writers on building less monolithic and more plausible fictional ones.

The conversation among the panelists was interesting and wide ranging but the key to this panel was summed up at the very beginning by Harold Torger Vedeler in three points:

1. Worlds must change over time allowing the characters to act in a historical context.
2. No world is homogenous. Story may look at only one group but the other societies will have an impact on that one.
3. People often say one thing and do another. They may idealize their culture but then what they actually do doesn’t agree with that idealized culture.

4:00 PM: Sherlock Holmes, Now and Forever.
Panel: Veronica Schanoes, Ellen Asher, Michael Dirda, Victoria Janssen, Fred Lerner.

Description: Sherlock Holmes is everywhere right now: in TV series like House, BBC’s Sherlock, and the upcoming Elementary; in the Robert Downey Jr. movies; and in books and stories being written about Holmes and his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. What accounts for the endless appeal of this character? Are we ever going to get tired of brilliant and slightly mad detectives? Or is it all really about Watson, as suggested by our collective urge to keep telling and retelling Holmes’s stories?

Lively and interesting points were made by the panelist and the audience. The key element, it was agreed, to remember is that there is a distinction between the stories by Conan Doyle and the interpretation of the stories in movies and in other media and the continuation or addition of new material by others writing about Holmes and Watson.

Key reasons why the stories are still popular was thought to be the atmosphere of the stories and the friendship of the two main characters.

Evening: We decided to call it a day. Went out for dinner and found Brave was showing so went to see it more on that later.

That’s it for Friday. I hope to have my Saturday of Readercon report up soon.

We got out of the house just about on time — meaning we were an hour late (11:00 AM) and we arrived at the hotel at 9:30 PM.

After the drive and several slow downs along the way, we arrived just as the ambulance and fire department were finishing up. The next morning we had a note under the door saying that the alarm in the lobby had been pulled accidentally. [We heard later that someone got distracted when talking and tried to open a door but instead grabbed the alarm. I don’t know if this is what actually happened but it is plausible.] We thought that explained the ambulance but today (June 14th), we learned that while setting up his booth in the Bookstore, one of our book-dealer friends suffered a heart attack. We were of course shocked to hear this and are hoping he’s doing well and recovers quickly.

Anyway, the hotel, as always, is comfortable and since we’ve been coming to Readercon for several years now it’s a known facility. The programming is all on the same floor at ground level. The lobby is available for sitting and talking and there’s an in-hotel pub for talk and a drink. The con suite is again on the 6th floor and the Kaffeeklatches are on the 8th floor.

We checked in and essentially called it a night. Guess we’re not as young as we used to be, but then who is.