Tag: fencon

Categories
convention

[Convention] FenCon Schedule

A bit over a week until FenCon! Here’s where to find me:

Fandom after Dark (M): Friday 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM Live Oak

With the increasingly mainstream nature of genre entertainment and the internet savvy of children, gone are the days when graphic fanfics can only be seen in obscure zines. With adult fan content being produced for just about every series out there, does fandom have some responsibility to keep the overly dark or sexual fan works away from their canon counterparts?

You Got SF in my Mystery! (M): Saturday 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM Addison Lecture Hall

There is a long tradition of mysteries solved by science in hard science fiction. Our panelists discuss some of the best ones.

Reading: Saturday 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM Pecan

I read something out loud. You know how this works. There will be cookies.

Getting the Geos Right: Saturday 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Live Oak

Geology and geography and how they should shape your fictional society.

Climate Change: Now what?: Sunday 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM Red Oak

Assuming climate change is real, what do we do now? Can we stop it? Should we try? How bad can it get?

Why Worldcon?: Sunday 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Trinity I – IV

The World Science Fiction Convention was held in San Antonio last year. Our panelists discuss what you missed and if you attended, why you might want to go go another Worldcon.

Three Bladed Blaster Swords?!?: Sunday 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM Trinity I – IV

Some of the coolest weapons and fight scenes would never work in the real world. However, many stories wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without their crazy weapons. Let’s talk about some of our favorite bad weapons from movies, TV, games, and novels.

Categories
books history japan

#FenCon: A few places to get started on modern Japanese history/culture

Once again I want to apologize to everyone who attended the Tao and Again panel at FenCon. I had no idea I was going to be moderator and thus was woefully unprepared. (And it didn’t help there were only two of us on the panel, so I didn’t even have a big group of other panelists to cower behind!) As promised, here are some recommendations of places to get started on research for modern Japanese history/culture. This list is in no way definitive or exhaustive, particularly considering “modern Japan” is a giant subject in and of itself, but hopefully it’ll help bring up questions and ideas that will lead to both research and stories!

If I think of anything else, I’ll be sure to add it to the list! (And please, drop any recommendations you might have in the comments.) For the most part I tried to grab books that are fairly easy to find in libraries or bookstores.

Factual
Shinohata – Ronald P Dore
Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II – John Dower
A Modern History of Japan (second edition) – Andrew Gordon
The Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman – Kaneko Fumiko [Memoir]
Gendering Modern Japanese History – Barbara Molony (ed)
Office Ladies and Salaried Men – Ogasawara Yuko
A Man With No Talents – Oyama Shiro [This is a memoir]
The Weak Body of a Useless Woman: Matsuo Tasuko and the Meiji Restoration – Anne Walthall
Patriots and Redeemers in Japan: Motives in the Meiji Restoration – George M. Wilson

Fiction
Rashomon and Other Stories – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
Black Rain – Ibuse Masuji
The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa – Kawabata Yasunari
Barefoot Gen – Nakazawa Keiji
Kokoro – Souseki Natsume
I Am a Cat – Souseki Natsume

Categories
convention

The FenCon Schedule has arrived!

And boy is it a full one!

FenCon X – October 4-6

  • Friday  9:00-10:00 PM  Under Pressure: Conquering the Oceans of Earth and Beyond
  • Friday  10:00 -11:00 PM  The Geek Nation Goes Mainstream
  • Saturday  10:00 -11:00 AM   Antagonists: More Than Just Villains
  • Saturday  2:00-3:00 PM   Tao and Again
  • Saturday  6:00-7:00 PM   The Moon be Domed!
  • Sunday  10:00 -11:00 AM   Ask A Scientist
  • Sunday  11:00 -12:00 PM   Women in Science
  • Sunday  2:00-3:00 PM   How To Capture and Tame a Wild Asteroid
  • Sunday  3:00-4:00 PM   Cynicism vs Idealism in SF&F

That’s nine panels! Whew! No reading, which makes me a bit sad, but it looks like I’ll be plenty busy. And five of the panels are science track. Guess it’s time for me to show I earned my degree–and to work for any food I weasel out of the con suite (because I really don’t like eating out often any more). Thankfully I’ve got a week and a half until the con, so I can try to do a little research to brush up on the more space-oriented panels. (Oh my fellow science people, if you have any recommended reading for any of these, please let me know!)

This will be my first FenCon, so I’m even more excited because it’s a new con, and a whole new region of the country. Everyone I’ve interacted with on staff has been incredibly friendly and responsive, so I can’t wait to meet them in person!

And if you’ll be at FenCon, I hope to see you there. Drop me a line if you want to try to meet up. There are always the evenings.