I have a finalized schedule for Boskone:
Mind If We Pick Your Brraains? The Zombie Panel
Friday 8pm
Bob Eggleton, John Langan (M), Seanan McGuire, Michael Swanwick, Sonya Taaffe
Suddenly the undead are all around us. Last year a top-selling comic featured a zombie Spider-Man. Brad Pitt and J. Michael Straczynski are said to be bringing to life a movie of Max Brooks's zombie apocalypse novel World War Z. The spring Zombie Walk to Harvard Square gets bigger every year. If you know anything about this, please help us answer a few questions. Where did this zombie idea come from? Why such staggering popularity? What do zombies really want? Hey, why are you looking at us like that?
SF and Fantasy as the Modern Myth
Saturday 10am
Judith Berman (M), Debra Doyle, Greer Gilman, Sonya Taaffe
John Campbell, Joseph Campbell, Tolkien and George Lucas: What is the role of myth in F&SF and F&SF in myth? Does the ubiquity of SF's tropes in society support the thesis that SF is our modern myth? (And, if not, what is?)
Making Language Fit the Culture
Saturday 4pm
James Cambias, Elaine Isaak, Fred Lerner (M), Lawrence Schoen, Sonya Taaffe
Do languages constructed for SF and fantasy works too often become monolanguages for monocultures—where predator people mostly spit insults, while forest folk issue leafy murmurs? What well-known stories in our genres more realistically suit the way characters speak to the ways they live? How successful were the creators of kreegah bundolo, lembas, Dirac Angestun Gesept, Klaatu barada nikto, gom jabbar, sfik, shaych, and frell? What methods seem to work? Does building an actual alien grammar help? And can you ever use enough apostrophes?
I wonder if it's cheating to research zombies . . .
Mind If We Pick Your Brraains? The Zombie Panel
Friday 8pm
Bob Eggleton, John Langan (M), Seanan McGuire, Michael Swanwick, Sonya Taaffe
Suddenly the undead are all around us. Last year a top-selling comic featured a zombie Spider-Man. Brad Pitt and J. Michael Straczynski are said to be bringing to life a movie of Max Brooks's zombie apocalypse novel World War Z. The spring Zombie Walk to Harvard Square gets bigger every year. If you know anything about this, please help us answer a few questions. Where did this zombie idea come from? Why such staggering popularity? What do zombies really want? Hey, why are you looking at us like that?
SF and Fantasy as the Modern Myth
Saturday 10am
Judith Berman (M), Debra Doyle, Greer Gilman, Sonya Taaffe
John Campbell, Joseph Campbell, Tolkien and George Lucas: What is the role of myth in F&SF and F&SF in myth? Does the ubiquity of SF's tropes in society support the thesis that SF is our modern myth? (And, if not, what is?)
Making Language Fit the Culture
Saturday 4pm
James Cambias, Elaine Isaak, Fred Lerner (M), Lawrence Schoen, Sonya Taaffe
Do languages constructed for SF and fantasy works too often become monolanguages for monocultures—where predator people mostly spit insults, while forest folk issue leafy murmurs? What well-known stories in our genres more realistically suit the way characters speak to the ways they live? How successful were the creators of kreegah bundolo, lembas, Dirac Angestun Gesept, Klaatu barada nikto, gom jabbar, sfik, shaych, and frell? What methods seem to work? Does building an actual alien grammar help? And can you ever use enough apostrophes?
I wonder if it's cheating to research zombies . . .
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