October - Online Octocon!

While this year’s Octocon was hybrid and I helped to staff the Croke Park, Dublin, venue, in keeping with my yearly habit, I am providing my notes from covering the previous year’s Con, which was held on line. All praise to the organisers for a fantastic event. As I was at times going between panels, I noted down more content from some than others.

1st October 2021
Optimism panel
Fábio Fernandes, Francisco Verso, Paul Carroll, Kalin Nenov, S L Dove Cooper.
Solarpunk is focused on environmental solutions. Hopepunk is about building a community. Dystopian contains a hero – we currently have no hero. ‘Punk’ implies fighting the establishment.
“Right now sucks so I want to read about something better, and maybe if enough people get together we can improve our world.”
Out of time, climate change is a climate emergency. Cyberpunk and steampunk – the punk denotes doing your own thinking. Cons today are organised with methods and strategies which brought in people who would never have been able to attend otherwise.
Big industry is stuck on the dystopian and cyberpunk; hard to change. Novels of hopepunk in small press or not in English. Phases of transition of society shown.

2nd October
Early TV fantasy
Juliet E. McKenna, Paul Anthony Shortt, Romeo van Straten, Karina Steffens, Edmond Barrett.
People who grew up looking at the early content decided what they liked, and are now making and remaking those shows. Chat discussed our own favourites and I liked Fantastic Voyage. I asked about the Fianna being filmed, reply, no great knowledge of stories so no market. I said, and no dragons in the Fianna.

J McK asked for Pern. I said there had been several attempts to film it but publishers had a lot of control over licensed property. A fan said, from an earlier Octocon, Anne said film producers wanted to give dragons combable hair like My Little Pony so they would be playable toys, and it broke down.

Illustration
Oisin McGann, James Brophy, Leeann Hamilton, Sarah Bevan.
Panellist said she was creating a logo for an energy company, and the man on the email left and his replacement said, “I didn’t engage you so I’m not paying you.” She replied, “Your company’s email engaged me and not your predecessor individually.” He said, “no need to get so snappy.” She: “your first mail said, ‘I’m not paying you for your work.’ And I see a manager ccd earlier in the mail string so let’s ask him what’s happening.” The manager asked for all work done to be delivered and she was paid for her time. Just a logo so she had not invested in it.
OMG – I know artists who never made it to a day job because they didn’t put themselves out there. Unless you are in animation where there is some employment, you have to have a degree of entrepreneurship.
SB– money in designing logos.
OMG – photos needed now on web, most just use stock photos not original images. On his third Mac since 2001. Last two lasted nearly ten years each. But with software upgrades they no longer work. Once you start subscribing to a software, the publishers start dragging you after the tech, deciding what you can use. He has left Photoshop.
JB - Uses PS rented but his PC with 16mg RAM had marginally too small a graphics card for the painting app.
SB - spotted Peter Donnelly graphics on a Dublin Bus, he also does Keoghs crisp packets, and book illustrations. Pat McIntyre did bus artwork in the 1990s. Most illustrators want to be in comics or books but have to go into design because that is where the money is. This steers your career. He wanted to draw dragons and spaceships but has drawn more toilets than dragons.
JB - An illustrator got hired to draw motorparts for boxes. That pays.

Defending the villain

Dan Abnett, Nik Vincent-Abnett, Joseph Elliott-Coleman, Peadar Ó Guilín, Ruth Frances Long.


DA - Warhammer universe – grimdark was coined to describe it. Gothically dark, grew from the 1980s deeply satirical place, everything is on fire all the time, even heroes are morally dubious. Dan has worked there for 40 years now, it is exhausting. Few out-and-out villains. Have to be interesting to sustain a narrative. Once the character is out, it’s out, the reader can see new aspects in it.
Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter is a worse villain than Voldemort as readers could imagine her as a real person not a fantasy character.
NVA -Villains are sometimes more fun to write but you can take great pleasure in killing off a villain.
Fantasy prior to LOTR – Gulliver’s Travels. Discoveries, other continents, travellers’ tales, dog-headed people etc. By the 1840s people had photos.

Horror

Kim Newman, Maura McHugh, Anthea West, Gareth Hourahan, Gabriela Houston.




Primal fears of creatures, the dark, ghosts, being trapped. Globally there are many rituals with the purpose of settling the dead and keeping lingering spirits away from people. Ghosts being around people is generally recognised as a bad thing.
Anthea – horror is emotional, grief, lingering spirits not moving on means you can’t move on.



African SF

Tobi Ogundiran, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, Dilman Diva, Joseph Elliot-Coleman (a bookseller).


Pre colonialism, all stories were just stories – no horror, literature etc.
People under 20 are very interested in other cultures.
Yvette told of great Zimbabwe ruins which are the second largest buildings after the Pyramids of Egypt. She writes trying to raise awareness of this. Black people can feel pushed to represent a group rather than write the story they want to write. Brought up in England – or in Africa – or in one tribe from Zimbabwe – you can’t represent everyone.

AI and consciousness
Ann Cory, Julian West, James Brophy, Pete Mullineaux.

Ann – at one time children were not considered to have a consciousness until they were older.


Coding nonhumans

Angeline Adams, Kat Dodd, S L Dove Cooper, Cherly Morgan, Faranae.
Murderbot says it has no interest in sex or gender. A cyborg. Neurodiversity and gender diverse – one character can’t represent all dimensions. Easier to make people stereotypes.

CM - it’s bad representation, when the whole point of a character is to tick a box and represent a stereotype.
Farane – metaphor. The people of that world were all the same but ambassadors are different.
SL - The Machineries of Empire - she has dyscalculia and someone told her that was in the book – she didn’t believe them, had read it. She had to get the Kindle to find the word.
CM - Some very subtle hints are about trans people who have transitioned in books. Just a mention of hormones etc. You can hire sensitivity readers.
Paul - agreed. Make more diverse characters fill your story and then add aliens. Don’t have the alien just to represent the ‘other’.
AA - if you have several characters that means no one person has to be the be all and end all of representation.
KD - Assume good faith by the author. Well-intentioned. We don’t know where an author is coming from, new author with no track record, they might be queer or autistic and have a different experience than the reader who has that characteristic too. Autism presents differently in men and women.

Orbital Tidy Towns

James Brophy, Declan Meenagh, Vanessa MacLaren-Wray, Mary Brigid Turner, James Shields, Dav Waldron, Russell A. Smith.
Turning old satellites into greenhouses for tomatoes. Not a success, mercury issues.



As with last year, I will leave it at the end of Saturday’s talks and post the Sunday content next month. This includes panels discussing their experience of creativity during Covid lockdowns.

This month, I am making The Prisoner In The Tower free. Grab it 10 – 14 November.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00NMWRM54
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NMWRM54

Follow my published articles on Medium or my JournoPortfolio page.
https://clareobeara.journoportfolio.com/

Watch my book trailers for my science fiction series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GadPp...
Visit my website:
www.clareobeara.ie
for news, puzzles, books, reviews and events. We have created a page for Young Adult readers. This contains plenty of horses and dogs! You can find my podcasts on the News and Events page. I provide a Writers’ Page giving tips about how to be an independent publisher. I am also adding book covers to Pinterest boards after I review the books, so feel free to find me on Pinterest.