Swancon notes

[zebra363]

Swancon is the annual Western Australian science fiction (with a side order of slash) convention.  Way too much SF and too little slash for my taste, but it's the best thing on offer for a slasher here.  I attended for the one day with the most slash on the program.

Comments

[cupidsbow]

I did so much less preparation for this year's con than in years past, which partly accounts for the Wonder Women panel and the slashcon being less organised than they could have been. I don't take full responsibility, however, as there were many other people involved in both, and I was not up for doing much--I'm still on a mental post-phd vacation :)

I have actually spent a lot of time thinking about the proto-feminist aspects of McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang (which is a space opera), and I find the protagonist, Helva, very interesting, as 'she' is a cyborg rather than a traditionally gendered person, although she's still written as female and heterosexual. There are some strong feminist aspects though--her competance, mental toughness, and wide range of interests to name but three. Not your standard representation of womanhood by any means. I could happily have talked about this aspect more. And, as it happens, I haven't read the Menolly books, but I too enjoyed some of the early Pern books and the first Crystal Singer book. I've found them almost impossible to re-read though, unlike The Ship Who Sang.

[zebra363]

I've only read the Dragonrider series - no, wait, and the Freedom's Landing series. The appeal for me was so much in the dragons that I never got around to most of her other books. I guess it is kind of annoying that it's only men who ride the strongest fighting dragons. I've re-read the early Dragon books *many* times, though.