And whos going to be at Worldcon? And any UK pals/fans, please note: I am free Saturday, so it may be possible to do a meet-up off-site, as several of you suggested/enquired. If youre coming, sing out below in the comments! My schedule is as follows: Governing the Future Thursday 16:30 - 18:00, Capital Suite 16 (ExCeL) Science fiction once took government for granted. Writers like Asimov and Clarke often assumed that advances in technology and knowledge would naturally spawn rational world governments. Speculative societies, like Star Treks Federation, could be utopian or, like those of Huxley, Zamyatin, LeGuin, dystopian, but government was central. However, increasingly, authors like MacLeod, Doctorow and Vinge write governments out of our future. Why has so much SF lost faith in government? Has government failed, or has familiarity bred contempt? Does modern science fiction value personal freedom, and resent government intrusion into our lives, more now than it did in the past? Or does it undervalue the benefits of government, and take its safety net for granted? Hard Right Thursday 20:00 - 21:00, Capital Suite 13 (ExCeL) Hard science fiction is at its core dependent not on science, but on a world with inviolate rules. These rules can manifest as scientific realities or social constructs, but either way, these kinds of stories are often predicated on solving problems, or not, in the face of tradition. Science fiction critic Paul Kincaid has argued this idea is very similar to the worldview of conservative ideologies. While hard sf is not the domain of right wing authors, is there a link between the two? Is that link historical or fundamental? Autographing 3 - Charles E. Gannon Friday 11:00 - 12:00, Autographing Space (ExCeL) Signing/Appearance at Forbidden Planet London Megastore Friday 17:30-19:30 Kaffeeklatsch Sunday, 11:00-12:00, London Suite 4 (ExCeL)
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 19:24:32 +0000
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