Other panels at WFC 2006
Nov. 8th, 2006 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clarentineMost of the rest of my notes on panels are pretty haphazard, as many of them did not excite me. I'll jot the highlights here.
In the panel Vampire Powerhouse, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro said that "whatever you can imagine is better than what I can describe."
In that same panel, PN Elrod noted herself as squeamish in real life, and shuddered when someone mentioned the meathook episode in her Jack Fleming series. A definite example of an author exploring her limits!
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In the panel Horror, Dark Fantasy, and Other Fictions that Go Bump in the Night, Anne Kennedy said that the two things that motivate us most strongly are sex and death.
In the same panel, it was agreed that the label used on the subgenre is a matter of acceptability - you don't want to have people seeing you holding a book dripping blood etc. or with "horror" or "terror" on the cover. *Especially* "terror," given that word's current connotation with terrorism. I found this interesting, in that I was disappointed in large part with the panel because my definition of "dark fantasy" does not necessarily equal "horror". Later days may separate the two terms again, but for the moment I may reconsider my categorization of my work as dark fantasy. It's definitely not horror.
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In the panel Forgotten Masters: Readings from the Deep Dark Past, David Hartwell suggested that, to understand a period of history, you had to read its second and third rate fiction, that those books offered more characteristics of the period, and that they were more influential than the masterpieces.
Jess Nevins championed Varney the Vampire as the opening salvo in the treatment of the vampire as the tortured soul, rather than as the monster.
It was noted that each period twisted archetypes in response to current anxieties. (This dovetails nicely with the comments in the Alt History panel about fiction being created to discuss events, and I note that Paul Park was on both panels. He talks a lot. *g*)
Hartwell noted that some material you can't think about directly, especially if it includes concepts that are verboten in current society, but you can look at those concepts sideways, or around corners, and through fiction.
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In the panel Natural Progressions and Unnatural Spawn: Fantasy Crossovers, Gordon Van Gelder said that you should cross over genre boundaries for a meaningful reason, not just "they fight crime!"
In the panel Vampire Powerhouse, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro said that "whatever you can imagine is better than what I can describe."
In that same panel, PN Elrod noted herself as squeamish in real life, and shuddered when someone mentioned the meathook episode in her Jack Fleming series. A definite example of an author exploring her limits!
~~~~~
In the panel Horror, Dark Fantasy, and Other Fictions that Go Bump in the Night, Anne Kennedy said that the two things that motivate us most strongly are sex and death.
In the same panel, it was agreed that the label used on the subgenre is a matter of acceptability - you don't want to have people seeing you holding a book dripping blood etc. or with "horror" or "terror" on the cover. *Especially* "terror," given that word's current connotation with terrorism. I found this interesting, in that I was disappointed in large part with the panel because my definition of "dark fantasy" does not necessarily equal "horror". Later days may separate the two terms again, but for the moment I may reconsider my categorization of my work as dark fantasy. It's definitely not horror.
~~~~~
In the panel Forgotten Masters: Readings from the Deep Dark Past, David Hartwell suggested that, to understand a period of history, you had to read its second and third rate fiction, that those books offered more characteristics of the period, and that they were more influential than the masterpieces.
Jess Nevins championed Varney the Vampire as the opening salvo in the treatment of the vampire as the tortured soul, rather than as the monster.
It was noted that each period twisted archetypes in response to current anxieties. (This dovetails nicely with the comments in the Alt History panel about fiction being created to discuss events, and I note that Paul Park was on both panels. He talks a lot. *g*)
Hartwell noted that some material you can't think about directly, especially if it includes concepts that are verboten in current society, but you can look at those concepts sideways, or around corners, and through fiction.
~~~~
In the panel Natural Progressions and Unnatural Spawn: Fantasy Crossovers, Gordon Van Gelder said that you should cross over genre boundaries for a meaningful reason, not just "they fight crime!"
