Convention schedule update: LonCon 3

This bit of news managed to get lost in my inbox, but I’m happy to announce that I’m on two panels at LonCon 3 (aka WorldCon) in London next month:

Fantasy vs. SF: Is the Universe Looking Out for You?

Friday 20:00 – 21:00

Stephen Hunt, Rosemary Kirstein, Anne Lyle, Ian R MacLeod, Robert Reed

“If you posit some impossibility in a story, like turning lead into gold,” Ted Chiang has written, “I think it makes sense to ask how many people in the world of the story are able to do this. In a story where only a handful of characters are able to turn lead into gold, there’s the implication that there’s something special about those individuals. By contrast, if you have a story in which turning lead into gold is an industrial process, something that can be done on a mass scale and can be done cheaply, then you’re implying that the laws of the universe apply equally to everybody. Forget rocket ships v dragons, this is the real heart of the genre distinction.” Are sf and fantasy shaped by diametrically opposed worldviews? Does a knowable universe whose laws anyone can learn, and everyone has to work within, offer a more egalitarian vision than a land of special destinies? Or is it difficult to imagine even an sfnal world in which the future is evenly distributed?

Imagining London: History and Fantasy

Sunday 15:00 – 16:30

Laura E Goodin, Clifford Beal, John Clute, Elizabeth Hand, Anne Lyle

London has long been a rich venue for fantastical storytelling. But how has the image of fantastic London changed over time? How was fantastic London created in the work of writers like Dickens, Stoker and Doyle, and how does that vision differ from the historical-fantasy Londons writers are creating today? Which aspects of London have consistently attracted writers, and which aspects have been unjustly neglected?

Both of these look like great topics with some exciting speakers, so I hope to see you there!