Date: 2008-03-25 16:54 Subject: Home again, home again, jiggety jig... Security: Public Location: Chigwell Mood: drained Tags: eastercon

The last day of Eastercon 08 had some of the most interesting panels - some of which I missed due to finally catching up with a few of the people I'd missed earlier.

I did find my way through the maze of twisty passages^TM[1] , to find the fan programme (Lil had despaired of ever finding the right room and decided on a panel in the main hall instead) and catch the current crop of fan fund delegates explaining why their trip reports were late (so nice to have the traditional rituals in place at an Eastercon). Ang Rosin's rep on her GUFF experience coupled with smofbabe's simultaneous report from the Oz national con suggests that some serious thought needs to be given to producing a rounded multi-stream con if they win the 2010 Worldcon bid (I know I've morphed into a mediafan over the past 20 years, but really one can have too much reverence for Doctor Who).

Having appropriated some Real Ale (Spitfire) from a bar which at any normal Eastercon would have run out hours before (the biggest Eastercon for years, and we just weren't trying were we?) I settled into the main hall for a trio of panels, starting with the Hitch-Hiker's one. Has it really been 30 years since I set my cassette recorder and alarm clock for close to midnight? (People do tend to think of HHGTTG as a 6.30 slot series, but it was originally broadcast/repeated at 11pm, which makes its popularity all the more astonishing). One thing that came out was the fact that it must hold some sort of record for the number and variety of interpretations. Personally I prefer the radio original, followed by the text game and TV show. Though even the film has its moment (Slartibartfast's workshop).

The 'You're Reading it Wrong' panel had a good premise, and a potentially good panel which tended to get a bit sidetracked. Though the comments about interpretation of C S Lewis's Christian allegory argued for a separate discussion at some stage on the changing views of the Narnia books. A reader reads from their experience and of their time - though whether this is 'wrong' in any meaningful sense is territory worth exploring (sometimes I wish I didn't have a butterfly mind and could put together cogent academic arguments on such subjects - thank goodness I have friends who can).

Final panel of the con was the only mention of Potter - a look at the darker side of children's fiction with Holly Black, Neil Gaiman (really giving vfm as GoH), Ruth O'Reilly, Sarah Singleton and Steve Vander Ark, all of whom know rather more about what kids want than the publishers who worry about giving them dark fic (with the exception, presumably, of the publishers of 'Horrible Histories' - maybe 'dark non-fic' is ok?)


¹ It was a bit of an Infocom day - the general consensus of the Hitch-Hiker's panel was that the game came second to the radio series in terms of ideal interpretation - translation: it made your brain go funny - which casts another new light on Neil Gaiman's work.

And then we drove home, and found that the cats had managed to tip over the dvd cabinet, which had accordingly split and dumped its content over the floor.

Life? Don't talk to me about life...