![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Belated Con Report
Jun. 9th, 2016 11:40 amOver the Memorial Day weekend, I attended ConQuest 47 in lovely downtown KCMO (local-ese for "Kansas City, Missouri"). Due to a crush of work and book editing, I haven't had much of a chance to talk about The Con That Was.
Although not exactly the same organization, MidAmericacon 2, the 74th annual World Science Fiction Convention, will be held in KCMO in August. Many of the same people are involved in both events, which meant that ConQuest got a lesser focus and somewhat lower attendance. However, since I was invited to ConQuest I went.
I first went to ConQuest in 2012, and this year's iteration was in the same place as that con, the Hotel Of Death. (For those not clicking through, two walkways in the lobby collapsed, killing over 100 people.) Only one of the walkways was replaced, resulting in an awkward layout.
In 2012, the main lobby was being renovated, creating a dust bowl, but this year no construction was happening, resulting in a much more peaceful venue. I had a reading and several panels. Three panels of note were:
Lost in Translation: Language Barriers in SFF - Way too many SF stories gloss over the real barriers in communicating with aliens. On the other hand, spending too much time on the learning of the language means your book is about nothing but language. And no, Virginia, aliens aren't going to learn English by watching TV.
No Aliens Needed: Human-Centered Sci-Fi and Fantasy - This was an interesting juxtaposition with the panel above. The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica was cited. In many ways, this was the opposite of the first panel, in which we deplored Shakespeare-quoting "aliens" who were humans with a plastic forehead ridge.
Hard Science vs. Science Fiction - in which we discussed the idea of whether there could be too much science in a story. Prior to the book and movie The Martian, I would have said yes. Now, not sure.
Although not exactly the same organization, MidAmericacon 2, the 74th annual World Science Fiction Convention, will be held in KCMO in August. Many of the same people are involved in both events, which meant that ConQuest got a lesser focus and somewhat lower attendance. However, since I was invited to ConQuest I went.
I first went to ConQuest in 2012, and this year's iteration was in the same place as that con, the Hotel Of Death. (For those not clicking through, two walkways in the lobby collapsed, killing over 100 people.) Only one of the walkways was replaced, resulting in an awkward layout.
In 2012, the main lobby was being renovated, creating a dust bowl, but this year no construction was happening, resulting in a much more peaceful venue. I had a reading and several panels. Three panels of note were:
Lost in Translation: Language Barriers in SFF - Way too many SF stories gloss over the real barriers in communicating with aliens. On the other hand, spending too much time on the learning of the language means your book is about nothing but language. And no, Virginia, aliens aren't going to learn English by watching TV.
No Aliens Needed: Human-Centered Sci-Fi and Fantasy - This was an interesting juxtaposition with the panel above. The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica was cited. In many ways, this was the opposite of the first panel, in which we deplored Shakespeare-quoting "aliens" who were humans with a plastic forehead ridge.
Hard Science vs. Science Fiction - in which we discussed the idea of whether there could be too much science in a story. Prior to the book and movie The Martian, I would have said yes. Now, not sure.
