FogCon 3
Ok, before I get too far from it, con report!
We got into town on Thursday, which was very nice, because we had all morning Friday to relax, and we also got to have a lovely conversation over dinner & drinks with Daniel and Wendy, who probably have LJ names but I don't know them.
The theme of the con this year was Law and Order, for reference.
Friday:
I wasn't super interested in the first panel, which was fine, because it meant that I got to hang out in child care and help make sure that it got off to a good start.
Then I went to a panel on dystopias - there was some good discussion of what kinds of fears we express in our dystopias, and how dystopias in literature can help to avert the dystopia. There was also some discussion of what we actually mean by 'dystopia' and 'utopia'. (Conclusion on my part: a dystopia is not just a world where things suck. It is a world that has been created specifically to make the point that things would suck if a given political idea or philosophy was given free reign. Ergo, Hunger Games is not a dystopia, but Feed by Mira Grant is. Feel free to argue with me.)
We built a very silly legal system in the next panel, and then I went off to ConTention, a FogCon tradition where you yell at each other about contentious topics. It was my first time there, and it was delightful. I defended Lois McMaster Bujolds Hugos, argued against the utility of a canon for casual readers, and generally enjoyed myself.
Then I went off to my favorite panel of the day: the 'Heroic Sadist' panel, discussing when heroes were allowed to be sadists (sexual or otherwise.) The conclusion people seemed to come to was that characters were allowed to be protagonists and also sadists as long as there was some reason - i.e. they were abused as a kid or it serves a purpose, like they need to interrogate people or something. Basically we're playing around with the idea as a society but we're not really comfortable with it yet. I asked whether anyone could come up with female heroic sadists and stumped the room pretty well, although I did end up with one solid recommendation.
There was some time in the bar after that, but I got to bed by 12:30. Being at con when you have a small kid is different.
Saturday:
The first panel was Historical Crime fighters, which was quite interesting and gave a nice overview of what a hellhole cities were before we figured out urban law enforcement. Then I went to The Science Fiction Singularity, which was basically, "hey! There are too many books to read now, so we haven't all read the same books! O Noes!" So more arguing about canons, and generally in a non-elitist way. Yay.
I went to lunch with some extremely awesome ladies. The FogCon ladies make me want to go to WisCon. (Yes, kalmn, I know.)
I took a child care shift after lunch and got to play zombies with 4 year olds. Good times.
Next up was a panel called 'Where do I Hold my Virtual Sit-In', which basically ended up being about activism with modern technology. Interesting but not my personal favorite topic.
Next was a reading, then the formal-optional unaward banquet, which even had food I could eat (thanks, Debbie and Daniel!)
Then the Liar's Panel, where the panelists just sat up front and lied hilariously for an hour and a half. Good times. And finally the panel 'Sex, SF, and the Law', which sadly suffered a bit from lax moderation and we ended up talking about cannibalism and whether children should be allowed to have sex the whole time. Great? We continued the panel more interestingly in the bar, and then I went up and put the baby & myself to sleep so that tiger_spot could spend time in the bar for the evening.
Sunday
I was supposed to take a child care shift, but our professional child care person said she didn't really need extra help for the number of kids we had, so I hied off to the morning panel, which was about what we assume about the author's body & life experience from their writing. Solid panel; could have done without the white guy talking over the women & people of color the whole time.
Then I went to 'Illegal Persons', which revolved largely around genetic modification, cloning, laws on having children, etc, and benefitted greatly from a terrific moderator and also having a biologist on the panel. Long story short: our current genetic patent laws are sooooo broken.
Over lunch we blitzed through the room & the child care suite to clean them out and get our (copious) baggage in the car; it turns out that providing supplies for child care turns into a lot of stuff very quickly. Once that was done we had very fast lunch and then headed down to the next panel.
'Extralegal' was basically about folks who live outside the law, and what we do with them in fiction. I love me some charismatic con men in fiction, so I really enjoyed this panel. There was a lot of discussion of the fact that we romanticize some criminals, when the fact is that most people who are really 'living outside the law' aren't doing so because the law is broken, but because they're not really functional members of legal society. There was also a really good discussion of the fact that when you get women living outside the law in fiction, they are almost universally sex objects and it's super problematic. Firefly & The Lies of Locke Lamora were discussed. Excellent panel all around.
Finally there was the feedback session, dead frog party, and the drive home. Or in my case, the nap home. And then the nap after we got home. I was pretty beat.
It really was a very delightful time. Thanks to everyone who made it possible!