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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: John Scalzi

Ytterbium Eastercon: Monday.

22 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Conventions, events, Musings

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Aging Societies, Bank Holiday Monday, Easter Monday, EasterCon, Frances Hardinge, groats, John Scalzi, Sidney Padua


Monday at Eastercon is always a weird thing. Very much about the take down and only a few items on.

My plan for this day was to attend two interesting items.

One was Aging Societies, a panel with John Scalzi and Caroline Mullen. In this, the three panelists discussed ideas about how society cold deal with the growing elderly population in the future. The solution in Scalzi’s Old Man’s War was obviously discussed as were a few other books that looked at concepts of immortality. I was surprised no one mentioned the Peter F Hamilton books (Mispent Youth  and the Commonwealth Saga) which explore this topic but otherwise it was a very interesting conversation. As a former gerontologist, I had opinions… but I may bother to put them into a blog post on aging later.

 

6C1A8520-Pano.jpgThen I went to a coffee date with Frances Hardinge. Like John Scalzi’s similar event on Sunday, this was a relatively informal chat with the author over coffee or tea and, in this specific case, biscuits.

Because, being a LRPer and it being something clearly built into the DNA of the average live action roleplayer, Frances had managed to overcater on biscuits. This many:

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For 12 people.

However, she had also been thoughtful enough to supply gluten free jammy dodgers which was a major plus in my mind and meant I could indulge in biscuits…

Discussion covered the range of her books and touched upon possible film adaptations (two of her books have been optioned – Cuckoo Song and The Lie Tree – but this is no guarantee of an actual TV series being produced), her tendency to be both weird and cruel to her characters (and how they went back to her early attempts at writing when she was 6) and the strange things young children ask authors. Overall, a very fun and interesting hour of conversation.

After that, I worked in the green room for a few hours and that was pretty much it for my time at the con other than drinking and socialising and spending the ‘groats’ I had acquired volunteering. These are special Eastercon fake money given to volunteers that can be spent on pretty much anything. The bar accepts them (as apparently does the hotel to pay for room bookings over the event etc.) and the traders at the convention will exchange books. jewellery or cat’s ears for them. I even heard a rumour that some of the surrounding restaurants were also accepting them… I spent mine on some food, some drinks and a book from one of the traders. This year, the groats had been designed by Sidney Padua – one of the guests of honour – and looked amazing. I kept one (despite it being worth £2!) for the cool value alone… I mean, look at this artwork…

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Ytterbium Eastercon: Sunday

22 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Conventions, events, Musings

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Doctor Who, EasterCon, John Scalzi, Medicine in SF, Representation in Dr Who


Sunday is, as we all know, a day of rest. Easter Sunday doubly so. Especially when Easter Sunday just happens to be the Sunday after a Saturday at Eastercon.6C1A8489.jpg

I’d originally planned a lie in and a late arrival at the con. However, fate and a chance encounter with one of the Green room staff on Saturday that led to a promise to help out on Sunday morning meant that I was now honour bound, by ancient compact and powerful dark con magic, to an earlier start than I’d had the entire con so far.

Which was fine, only I did one of my usual errors and turned up for my shift a whole hour earlier than I thought it was.

But it was fine and I had an enjoyable morning ticking people off lists and organising drinks for participants in panels and talks.

My next call was a post lunch coffee date with John Scalzi. This was 12 people  in a room talking with John Scalzi with tea and coffee available (though John Seemed happy with Coke Zero). Three minutes before the official start of this event, he told us the story that had to be left off the record about a con a few years ago (and I will hold to that unofficial gagging order but I am totes teasing you with the fact I know something you don’t know… unless you were involved or at this event…) before launching into the event proper. What followed was an hour of questions and discussion with John holding forth on many topics ranging from his work as a consultant for Stargate Universe to his work as a film reviewer, his writing career, his love of fan art on stuff from ‘Sex, Death and Robots’ and his reflections on his post about straight white male being ‘easy mode’ in the game of life. As always, the coffee events are a weird sort of mix of informal ‘hanging out with the author’ combined with a more formal interview event. This one was so popular, they had to organise a second one later in the day.

After this and a short break where I did some more volunteering, I headed to a talk called ‘The Genius of Rosa’ by our old blog buddy, Russel A Smith. This looked at the episide of series 11 of Doctor Who that was set at the time of the (in)famous Rosa Parks bus protest. Russ went into detail on the episode and talked about the history and social context of the episode. The talk was mainly focussed on tackling the opposition to the episode, the negative comments that came (it seemed) simply because it was an episode about a black woman protesting.  Each objection (like ‘the message was too heavy handed’) was answered in the talk.

 

Then there was a panel on Medicine in SF in which a bunch of medical doctors and biomedical scientists looked at concepts of medicine in science fiction and discussed the viablity of the methods. A lot of time was spent on the possibility of ‘AI Doctors’ similar to the Doctor from Voyager and what this may mean in terms of patient care and the risk of litigation (who is to blame if a medical AI makes a mistake?) but there was also time for a bit of discussion aboutpersonalised medicine,  homeopathy and the sort of medical scams that exist now and how these may be worse in the future.

 

The final panel of the day was called ‘History of Representation in Doctor Who’. This panel looked at how well Doctor Who covered issues like race, sexuality, sexism and disablism. The panel looked at examples of this and considered their own first experiences of Doctor Who and how that affected them. Highlights included Fiona Moore discussing how some showrunners were really bad at feminism if they tried to be feminist but actually really good if they didn’t try and Guest of Honour DC pointing out how Barbara (first Doctor Who female companion) was actually a really strong character for her time with a lot of agency. There was also an almost universal fanship for Captain Jack Harkness.

After this, it was time for dinner and the bar… and spending all the hard earned groats from volunteering…

Ytterbium Eastercon: Saturday

21 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Conventions, events, Musings

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

EasterCon, fantasy biology, Frances Hardinge, John Scalzi, Romance, Russell Smith, Ytterbium


Saturday for me was when Eastercon got… busy… there was so much I wanted to see and do today and so much I missed, plus I was busy with a lot of volunteer work too. However, as this mostly involved holding up a card to say when a panel was overunning, it was no great effort and I got to watch the panels too.

First panel of the day was “What is #Ownvoices and why is it important?” This panel 6C1A8357.jpgfeatured the wonderful Russell Smith, a regular on this blog, and a selection of other diverse voices who were there to discuss their own experiences of being seen as ‘other’ in publishing. For example, the tired old excuse of “We already have a book about [insert minoroty issue here], we don’t need another one.” An argument easily countered by “but you have half a dozen books about the experiences of cis het white males…” The panel made it clear why these were issues, whey they shouldn’t need to be an issue and discussed what is now a growing and more vocal group of #Ownvoices. In all, an entertaining panel.

6C1A8382.jpgThis was followed by an interview with Frances Hardinge, another old regular on this blog. As a guest of honour, she had certain obligations, including being interviewed. The interview ably covered the spread of her work and discussed such topics as her thoughts on over researching and the personalities of her main characters. For example, the wonderful quote as tweeted by Farah Mendledesohn on twitter: “My heroines tend to have other things on their mind: like surviving, or revolutions, or not eating people.”

Then we had John Scalzi’s interview, where Emma Newman went into detail about his 6C1A8420.jpgcareer as a writer, the popularity of his blog (Whatever) and why he is the only writer in history who does not seem to have imposter syndrome (diagnosis: he is a Mage…). This interview also covered why he is destined to be eaten by a polar bear (because, as a Mage, if he wishes it, it will happen and he did say if he were to get eaten hy any sort of bear it should be a polar bear as that is the most environmentally friendly option).

There then followed the Hay lecture where Hamied Haroon, of the University of Manchester, talked about medical imaging. My one take home message from that lecture was “Any chance of any jobs in your research group?” because it looked like awesome work I would really liked to have got involved with as a biomedical scientist with an especial interest in the technical aspects of research…

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After this, things got a little dark and sinister… with a panel about conspiracy theories called ‘Paranoid Politics and Fantasy’. This one also featured John Scalzi, who did coin the phrase ‘Trump’s Razor’ to describe the situation where the stupidest possibility is most likely true. Much discussion about various theories and the reasons they exist as well as looking at differences in past and present in terms of conspiracy.

Next we had ‘Romance in Fantasy and SF’ which did explore differences in current romance vs older romance tropes, mostly examining the change in the ethnicity and sexuality of those involved in it.

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Finally, there was ‘Creating Fantasy Biologies’ which ranged through a lot of evolutionary and paleontological theories and tried to work out how these will apply to alien or fantasy species. This was an entertaining panel that was, unfortunately, over crowded due to being in the smallest room.

In all an excellent day if somewhat tiring…

 

 

 

Ytterbium – Eastercon 2019 Friday

20 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Conventions, events

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Anxeity for Writers, Eastercon 2019, Emma Newman, F.D Lee, Frances Hardinge, John Scalzi, London Heathrow, Newcon Press


Yesterday was just the fringe event, a small taster. Today, Eastercon started properly.

Also worth noting that this is the first time I have managed to actually post about the event on the day. I always promise to do day by day accounts but always end up sidetracked (usually by the bar) and don’t make it back to my hotel in a state in which I can coherently write. This time I cleverly made no promises so here is the report on time and (vaguely) coherent…6C1A8313

Day one at Eastercon is always quiet and this was no exception. As usual, members of the con were arriving all through the day in dribs and drabs. Most of the morning sessions are actually staff briefings to make sure everyone is up tp speed with conference policies and what jobs need doing. However, by 3pm, when the opening ceremony runs, a good majority of people are in place and ready to go.

6C1A8335Said opening ceremony introduced us to the co-chairs (both dressed fabulously in evening wear), discussed some of the upcoming highlights and introduced us to three Guests of Honour – Frances Hardinge, John Scalzi and DC- while explaining that the fourth (Sydney Padua) would be be arriving tomorrow. The ceremony was basic but also quick and efficient – allowing members to head off to whatever they wanted to get on with for the rest of the day.

I decided to head to the Newcon Press launch because there was free wine. There were also books discussed and some interesting new releases from Newcon are promised, including the ones on this page. The atmosphere was very friendly and open and everyone looked like they were  having a great deal of fun.

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The Newcon Press Launch… well, the wine from it…

Then I attended a wonderfully useful workshop on Anxiety as a writer by Emma Newman. This was very useful for me as it helped me to pinpoint some of the causes of my own anxiety and link these to reasons why procrastination might happen. Emma knows her stuff on this topic, mostly through having lived through it herself and, she says, having to go through the same anxieties every time she starts a new book. If you ever happen to be at a Con where Emma is running this workshop, it is definitely worth checking out if you can get a place (this event was oversubscribed).

Much of the rest of the day was spent socialising and discussing, well, books. Including a very scary conversation with F.D Lee who admitted to having read (and promising to, one day, maybe review it) Transitions. I, of course, had to retaliate by telling her I was currently reading hers (The Fairy’s Tale – read it, it is good) and enjoying it…

And that is it for Friday… Saturday currently has many more things planned including guest of honour interviews and some interesting panels…

Get a free copy of Transitions for review

14 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Publicity

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Tags

Amazon, books, Give away, Goodreads, John Scalzi, Making Connections, mundania press, paranormal romance, reviews, Transition, writing


I’ve joined the Making Connections group in Goodreads. It is a community which Transitions-AuthorCopyprovides authors with a way to get in touch with readers who might want to write a review of one of their books.

With this in mind, I have set up a giveaway on that group:

Click here for a link to the Giveaway thread

There are ten free copies of Transitions (any ebook format) up for grabs in this giveaway. All you need do is express an interest on the thread above, leaving your email address and what format you want, and a copy will be sent to you.

In exchange for this, you agree to write a review of the book within 4-6 weeks of receiving it which can be posted anywhere you like (Goodreads is a good start but you can also post on the Amazon page or your own blog) and send me a link to tell me you have done it.

The first ten to post in the thread with the correct details get the free copies. Two of them have already gone out, leaving 8 to go… The group owners moderate everything to make sure it is all fair and above board.

The Making Connections group also has a lot of other cool books up for similar giveaways listed. They are always keen to get more reviewers on board so if you are a Goodreads member, pop along there and sign up.

In a related issue, this is also a reminder that you can now see me on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Those of you who use Facebook may want to go to this page and click like…

Wow, three posts in two days. At this rate I’ll be posting more than John Scalzi…

An update

18 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

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Tags

John Scalzi, PIPA, SOPA, Wikipedia


An update:

Just wanted to link to John Scalzi’s view on SOPA/PIPA which I am finding a lot of agreement with…

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/01/18/on-sopapipa-for-the-people-who-arent-blacked-out/

Especially his comments about it being like carpet bombing a street to take out one burglar.

This is an example of someone who knows more than me about US law and therefore has a valid opinion as opposed to my complete lack of knowledge of even UK law. What I know is teaching and so I shall stick to commenting on that and leave complex political issues to those with the skills to understand them.

Amazon wierdness

01 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Wierdness

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Tags

Amazon, John Scalzi, Pirates and Swashbucklers, Publication


This is just a short post to share my confusion with the rest of the world and to make sure I don’t get beaten up by another author who happens to have the same name as me (it’s already bad enough that I share a name with a Viscount! I mean, you’d think a surname like mine would be relatively rare, wouldn’t you?)

Yesterday I took steps to set up my author page on Amazon. Mainly because I was feeling left out because all the other authors on Pirates and Swashbucklers had cool linky things on their names and I didn’t and I wanted to be in with the cool kids. This involved contacting Amazon and telling then that I was a contributor to said book which therefore, apparently, gave me the right to set up an author page. I think they have to establish that this is indeed the case (and I am sure the fine folks at Metahuman Press who are no doubt getting an e-mail about this will back me up on this claim 🙂 ) but they’ve let me set it up anyway on spec until such time as they can confirm or deny my claim. You can find said page here – D.A Lascelles Author Page

Now, here we have the issue. Said page now seems to count me as not only a contributor to one book but also the author of two other books:

The Road to Quality

Self-assessment for Business Excellence (Quality in Action)

Ok, it is possible that I had some strange fit a number of years ago during which I not only wrote but apparently published two manuals on Quality and Business Excellence, despite having no qualifications nor experience in such areas, and then had the memory completely wiped from my mind. It’s a very slim possibility (up there with Albert Einstein being the love child I conceived with Elizabeth I) but I suppose it is possible. However, the more likely explanation is that Amazon made some form of mistake and linked another writer’s work to mine by accident. I assume it is because the author of these two books shares some thing in common with my name (though in both cases no one is listed as the author…).
Anyway, hopefully very soon Amazon will sort this out and assign those books to their correct author and this will no longer be an issue. In the meantime, if said mystery author is out there I would like to say ‘Sorry! It was not my fault! Please don’t beat me up!’
At least this is not so big a mix up as the one John Scalzi encountered recently… 
Edited to add: Got an e-mail this morning from Amazon. In 3-5 days the books will be removed from my site and thus will I be safe from being beaten up. For the time being…

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