Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 17

My 2020 Arisia Schedule

I will be attending Arisia 2020 January 17-20, 2019, in Boston, Massachusetts.

My schedule is as follows:

Saturday, 5:30 pm, Marina 3
“Diversity in History”
A.J. Odasso [moderator], Sol Eidan Houser, Diana Hsu, Victoria Janssen, Sioban Krzywicki
The perennial refrain: “but having gay people/women/people of color in this fantasy story would be historically inaccurate!” Panelists will challenge whitewashed assumptions about American and European history, and what kinds of people did and did not...

My November Reading Log

Fiction:
Connections in Death by J.D. Robb is 48th in the Eve Dallas series of futuristic mysteries, and yet I bought it and read it and enjoyed it. Formulaic books are great for when I only have tiny bits of time over the course of a few days in which I can read, so I don’t lose track of the story. Familiar plot progression, familiar characters, and a certain outcome are satisfying. This one had gang violence as one of the crimes that needed to be addressed, and great progress has been made...

My October Reading Log

Fiction:
The Forbidden Stars by Tim Pratt is third in the Axiom space opera series. Like the previous books, it is banter-tastic, and has a lot of clever solutions to life-threatening problems as Our Heroes try to rescue colonists who’ve been lost for a hundred years without dooming the rest of humanity in the process. I didn’t like it as much as the first book, when everything was delightfully new, but I did think it was a satisfying end to the trilogy. CW: major character death.

The Lady’s Guide...

My 2019 Philcon Schedule

I’ll be attending Philcon this weekend, November 8-10, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Here’s my program schedule.

Saturday, November 9, 11:00 AM, Plaza 4
“AUs You Didn’t Know You Needed”
Chris Bell, Aaron Feldman, Victoria Janssen, Robert C. Roman [moderator]
Obi-Wan as a serial killer? A roundtable discussion of fandom’s best—or at least, most entertaining–fusions, crossovers, and world remixes.

Saturday, November 9, 12:00 PM, Crystal Ballroom Three
“Ending Literary Snobbery”
Ellen Asher, Marilyn ‘Mattie’ Brahen, Victoria J...

My 2019 Capclave Schedule

I’ll be at CapClave in Rockville, Maryland this weekend, October 18-20, 2019. You can find me on the following panels.

Friday, 6:00 pm, Monroe
Economics of SF/Fantasy Worlds
A world is made up of many entwined parts. People need basic things to flourish. Where do they come from? How can you have a thriving city in the middle of a desert? If you can make gold, does it have value? How do you put a price tag on magic? Which books get it right and wrong?
Scott H. Andres, Victoria Janssen, L. Pene...

My September Reading Log

I read a lengthy anonymous review book this month, so my other reading was a bit sparse!

Fiction:
A Dream Defiant by Susanna Fraser is a short historical romance that I’ve been meaning to read for literally years. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, it features a black British soldier, Elijah, and a white cook, Rose, whose husband is killed unexpectedly. Of course Elijah has long harbored a crush on Rose, and of course Rose admires Elijah, because there is not a lot of wordcount in this story. I...

My August Reading Log

Nonfiction:
The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I by Larry Zuckerman was a slog, but not because it’s a bad book. It was a slog because it’s difficult to read about so much pure, unadulterated fuckery being done to people. Worse is the postwar mess of trying to get reparations or at least acknowledgment. For those who don’t have a lot of knowledge about World War One, Germany decided to invade neutral Belgium for a quick route to France. They then proceeded to occupy Belgium (a...

Keystone Comic Con 2019

I’ll be attending Keystone Comic Con in Philadelphia, PA this weekend.

You can find me to chat and sign autographs at the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society’s table on Sunday the 25th, from 10:00 am – 11:00 am and from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm.

My July Reading Log

Fiction:
For a Readercon panel, I re-read The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein and its three sequels.
It did not matter to her that she walked in danger; it only mattered that she could speak and act freely again, and that the power given to her by her training and nature need not be hidden like some secret sin…The change, she knew, was only in herself; she was relieved of deception, and her mind was free to work on its familiar paths. She recognized for the first time that lies worked damage...

My June Reading Log

Fiction:
I re-read the entire The Comfortable Courtesan: Being Memoirs by Clorinda Cathcart (that has been a Lady of the Town these several years) series by L.A. Hall, which is very soothing to my nerves. I highly recommend this series if you would like to see the Ultimate Hufflepuff (with some Slytherin methods) going about her business with great success. On a second read, it is striking me how tiny mentions of things build throughout the text until they become Events, and change the status...