Conflux 8 Report – Part 5: Day 2 After-Lunch Panels

1415-1515: Mashpunk—Does steampunk play well with others? with Louise Curtis, Conor Bendle, Marilyn Pride and Rik Lagarto Panelists (from left to right): Louise Curtis, Marilyn Pride, Rik LagartoThe panel started out by giving a couple of broad definitions for steampunk, and then went on to discuss some other kinds of ‘punk’ I hadn’t heard of: trenchpunk and dieselpunk. Examples of steampunk novels included Mortal Engines and Lark Light by Philip Reeve, World Shaker by Richard Harland, Blaze of Glory by Michael Pryor and Leviathan by Scott Westerfield. The panel also went on to discuss favoured steampunk tropes and moved into the main focus of what genres would best get along with the steampunk genre.1515-1615: Other entities—Fantasy beyond dragons, fairies, kings and queens with Katie J. Taylor, Lily Mulholland and Tor Roxburgh
The discussion opened with what creatures they had chosen to write about and why. All had chosen creatures that were ‘off the beaten track’ of most mainstream fantasy, being creatures based on ideas in Aboriginal folklore, griffons (as opposed to dragons), and the folklore of Asia and the subcontinent. One of the interesting things was that this panel echoed that of another panel, in that characters had to arouse emotion in the reader, while another point raised was that fantasy could be used as a tool for helping us to explore and understand the bad things that happen in the world, but from a much safer emotional distance. Panelists (from left to right): Tor Roxburgh, Lily Mulholland, Katie J. Taylor