There are only three weeks and change to go now and of course the SciFi Track is prepping for the final few weeks. Time for some details on what we will be doing at JordanCon 2019! Plus, I want to talk about getting out of our comfort zones.
Is this how your crew rolls?
Friday Panels
As always we have four panels on Friday and they set the tone for our weekend. I will give a brief overview of each one. Here is the link to the schedule as a whole.
What’s New In Science?
Every year we start off with this panel, a discussion of science and the discoveries that provide ideas for the fiction. Our panelists are knowledgeable in their fields as well as general science. If you have some expertise, please feel free to join in the discussion and offer up topics. As always, questions are welcome.
SF Feminist Literature
Women have been creating SF for as long as there has been SF. As we move into our modern era, ‘feminist’ is an ever-changing label and aims to be very inclusive. With that in mind, come discuss with our panelists some of your own feminist literature in SF and perhaps discover new ideas and authors to follow.
Flashback Friday: Farscape & Science Fiction Fantasy
Fridays are going to be for flashbacks from now on! This is a new concept that let’s us specifically tap into beloved old shows that shaped our love of SF. This year it is Farscape, a show much beloved by me and by others. Farscape broke some ground in its day and like other shows, died too young. Never seen Farscape? Well you are in for a treat then. Come on in and see what it was about.
Friday Fandom Smackdown
Are you ready for the Smackdown this year! Do you have your team ready and your spot chosen? We have six categories of fandom this year and space for six teams. Ribbons for everyone and Medals for the winners! Folks are welcome to come and cheer on the teams as well!
To the everlasting glory of the infantry…
“…I’ve never been a racehorse…”
It may be no secret that Starship Troopers is one of my favorite books. Part of the reason for this is the through processes of the protagonist on the first page, where he describes the anxiety he feels even though he has been trained and conditioned to not feel fear. Jumping out of a space ship into combat I imagine would make one nervous, but most of us can understand how uncomfortable even familiar situations can be. Let alone something new and different.
Science Fiction can be new and different. The best works take us out of familiar places and ask us hard questions. It is not always comfortable and the line between hero and villain be thin. SF can questions our reality and our dearly held beliefs and this is not always a fun read or watch.
But there is joy to be discovered in SF. Yes it asks hard questions but it gives us permission to ask hard questions right back. Sometimes there is no answer, but often times there is an answer or the beginning of one. I promise you there is great joy in JordanCon’s SF Track; joy in the asking and in the answering with worlds to be discovered where more joy may be found. It won’t always be comfortable, but it will always be wonderful.
February is Black History Month, offering us a chance to examine the contributions and struggles of African-Americans to the American and indeed world historical record. “Struggle” and “Contribution” are accurate if badly understated descriptions of the journey the black author has had to navigate towards success and recognition. One blog cannot capture all of that, but at least we can shine a light, however briefly, on that momentous journey and some of its participants.
One of the Classics that many people don’t know about
One month cannot hope to bring justice to the contribution of an entire continent and its descendants, however well meaning the intentions of those involved. These words won’t even scratch the surface of what we as SF readers do not know about Black Science Fiction and those writing it. What we can do however, is turn you onto some crumbs laid by those better qualified to speak on the subject and entice you to allow your imagination to be caught up in these fantastic tales written by talented writers. At JordanCon we will have a panel on this very subject that I encourage you to attend.
Neo-Victorian alternate history
If you were looking for a place to start, then might I suggest Nisi Shawl’s excellent series on TOR.com, aptly titled The History of Black Science Fiction. Begun (I believe) in December of 2016, the monthly installments, it talks about books that Ms. Shawl outlined in her article “A Crash Course in the History of Science Fiction“. You will find a grand collection of speculative fiction pieces that outline the long history of Black Science Fiction, but does so with a great deal of heart and soul. There are many names there you will not recognize, giving you the opportunity to discover new authors, both living and passed. I personally have added Nisi Shawl’s Everfair to my own Wish List and will be picking it up soon.
A powerful collection of stories
I only came upon the works of Octavia E. Butler a few years ago, for which one of our author GoH rightly admonished me. I realized I had not been looking hard enough or thorough enough in my own journey through Science Fiction and had been neglecting many writers who could have filled my shelves. That is changing, but Octavia Butler holds a special place for me in that she is the only author to make me cry while reading one of her stories. Both Butler and Samuel R. Delany are Masters of SF and no matter how much we praise them, it is not nearly enough given their level of talent as story tellers.
A novella with the power of a novel
But the problem is that Butler and Delany are (relatively speaking) know names in SF. Their works combined do not even touch the surface of the volumes of Science Fiction by and for black authors. N.K. Jemisin’sHow Long Until Black Future Month? asks a provocative question with its title as it suggests that our current visions of the future or worlds far, far away do not always include people of color and the powerful cultures that birthed them. The Binti trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor certainly provides one answer to the question, but there is so much more to do and so many voices waiting to be discovered.
A friend on Facebook challenged his friends to shout out the names of black authors this month. That post inspired this blog, but I do not know personally any of the authors I have talked about so far. To correct that let me point you to another book on my list that does include two authors I know through JordanCon as they have been guests in the past and I hope will continue to grace our convention in the future. Gerald L. Coleman and Milton J. Davis are great authors who along with eight others bring stories of the Dark Universe: Bright Empire to life. When you see them at JordanCon be sure to say hello!
It might seem logical that readers who enjoy fantasy would enjoy science fiction as well, since they are put together in most books stores for a reason. One is just a mirror of the other, with magic or technology being the primary difference in the two genres. They even mix together in space fantasy and steampunk, so what all the headache?
Truth is, the fantasy reader and science fiction reader are not necessarily the same person. While many folks enjoy both genres in other ways, films for instance, somewhat rarer is the reader who enjoys both. There are significant differences between the two genres and writing style may also play a part.
I enjoy both myself, though I prefer science fiction by a small margin because I find the questions SF asks to be more relevant in our modern world. I also think there is an inherent hope in SF, especially today: that we will be around in a thousand years to answer the questions we have asked today.
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (graphic novel cover)
Bouncing off a Book
If someone who was not familiar with The Wheel of Time, but was a SF fan asked me to describe the series, I would say something like “Well, Paul Atreides goes on a quest to lock away the evil planet thing from Fifth Element.” It is not entirely accurate of course, but I would be speaking a language they understood. Conversely, I might use examples from TWoT to entice a fantasy reader to give DUNE a try.
Ironically, I hear the same thing about both Dune and The Eye of World when someone says they couldn’t finish the book, often followed by someone responding “you have to push through it.” I imagine this is true of a large number of books and genres one might want to try and get into but be afraid to try. As readers we enjoy our comfort zones and our reading budgets are not unlimited, though we wish they were.
Here is a place to start
Science Fiction Has a Place for Everyone
It may seem intimidating to try and dive into SF, but I assure you there are so many great stories out there that you can try. Everything from short to stories to epic series is available, to suit whatever your taste is. It is not all robots or spaceships or social SF. It is not all space opera or military SF.
This is one reason that this year, we will have our Dune for the Wheel of Time Fan, panel. Our guest panelists are going to be a great resource to explain why diving into this series might be the place to start. I hope you join us Saturday afternoon for what I guarantee will be a great and informative time.
After a few weeks away charging our proton guns and psionic powers, the Weirdsday Blog is back. We hope the holidays, however you celebrate them, were good ones. Now it is time to dive into our preview of the the Science Fiction track for 2019. First of course, our Quick Hits
Cast of Farscape (1999)
The Name
I cannot remember if this has been official yet, but I guess I am making it official. We are now the Science Fiction track. Unofficially you can use Rivets & Robots (or Robots & Rivets) if you wish, but officially we are just Sci Fi.
Ancillary Read Along
There will be another Ancillary Justice Read Along blog this Friday. It will just be there to catch folks up and get them ready for the next week’s Ancillary Read Along. So catch up and be ready!
From the Basic D&D Set, 1981. cover by Erol Otus
The Friday Fandom Smackdown
This will be our fourth year of the Fandom Smackdown and after some discussion, we have decided to make a few changes. Instead of listing those changes, let’s just talk about the basic rules.
There will be six categories, covering six different Fandoms.
There will be six teams of five players.
All players will get a ribbon saying “Laid the Smack!”
First & Second Place teams get medals
General Trivia worth a set number of points.
Each team gets the right to choose a question. If they cannot answer or get it wrong, other teams can get points for answering it.
The Fandoms
These are the fandoms that will be battling it out this year. Anything is game from their canon or canon-adjacent sources.
Farscape
Star Trek
Star Wars
Firefly
X-Files
The Dungeons & The Dragons – And before someone points out that D&D is “fantasy”, S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks establishes that D&D exists in a SF universe (spoilers: there is a space ship). In addition the space fantasy boxed set for 2nd Edition AD&D, Spelljammer, is well, space fantasy. So it fits perfectly in our track.
Next week, we take a deeper look into some of our panels.
Welcome to the Weirdsday Blog! Officially November is our Military SF month and we’re talking a little about the history of Military SF and its influence on our culture and the genre. Some of you may already be fans and some of you are not, but I hope you find yourself seeking out some Military SF to give it a try.
Military SF has been around almost as long as the sub-genre itself. A familiar name wrote some of the earliest works that hold some aspects of Military SF. H.G. Wells wrote two stories of note, one of them The Land Ironclads you may not have heard of, but the second, The War of the The Worlds, I suspect that you have. At least if you have been reading the blog!
These are not jingoistic pro-war works, but thoughtful stories about war and society and the people living through them. In particular these are themes that often arise in Military SF, including in works of today.
One of the most (some say the most) important and certainly highly controversial pre-Vietnam era Military SF novel is Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. I suspect many people misunderstand the novel, but those who have read it either love it or think poorly of Heinlein’s politics. Regardless, Starship Troopers sets a tone that will transcend many years and generations of writers, with more than a few taking a stab at writing spiritual successors. For example, Old Man’s War by John Sclazi would be considered one of these as would John Steakley’s Armor.
Post Vietnam
After Vietnam the sub-genre changed. Authors who had been through the horrors of the Vietnam War were writing stories that looked at war in general a little differently. Some great examples of this are Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War and David Drake’s Hammer’s Slammer series. Of course Vietnam influenced more than just Military SF and more than a few veterans (including Robert Jordan) wrote fantasy literature as well.
Military Space Opera
Military SF touches all the various sub-genres of mainstream SF, including Space Opera. Several of these series are very popular with readers. David Weber’s Honor Harrington tells the tale of a Royal Manticore captain, Honor Harrington, as she navigates battles both physical and political. This has spawned a huge fandom dedicated to the series. Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga is also very popular and follows the exploits of Mile Vorkosigan and his relations. Of course there are many other series that appeal to those who enjoy a good Space Opera.
We encourage you to seek out some Military SF that suits your taste and share it with others. There is something out there for everyone.
Quick Notes
No Ancillary Read Along this week, but we have a surprise in store for the next installment.
With guests chosen, we will begin to talk about the panels we have planned for JordanCon 11. Stay tuned!
