Preliminary Program Items

With a very few exceptions, individual program participants aren't listed yet, and neither are times. Those two factors are being juggled even now. We hope to have updates to this list as things get scheduled and confirmed.

Art Auction (9 p.m. Saturday)

If it was in the Art Show and had enough written bids, now's the time to defend your bid and buy the artwork of your dreams.

Artists's Jam

Artists get together and have fun jamming up collaborative works.

Ask Dr. Mike (90 minutes, late Friday evening)

The renowned Dr. Mike answers your questions about Science.

Baseball in Science Fiction

Is there any earthly reason so much SF and fantasy has been written about baseball? And what would really happen if the World Series came down to a race between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs? Serious works of speculative baseball will be discussed, along with peanuts and crackerjack.

Batman: Who's Wearing that Cowl?

Batman is a rock-solid icon -- and changes with the wind. From the 1930s "guy who punches everything" to the cheesy trivializations of the 1950s and the pop caricatures of the 1960s, to Miller's epochal Dark Knight and the later movies, this supposedly consistent character has undergone major metamorphoses. What happened, why, and what's cool about it?

Booksellers: What Touches SF around the Edges?

If you really want to know which non-SF books appeal to SF readers' tastes, ask a specialty bookseller. Four of the savviest in the business discuss the practical literary theory involved in knowing what SF readers are interested in when they aren't reading SF.

The Bookstore as Community-Builder

As the big chains discovered in this decade (and good booksellers have known all along), bookstores can be community centers in a number of ways. Listen as some of the best SF booksellers talk about the pitfalls and advantages therein.

Breaking the Law in Comics

Can your superhero team be sued for collateral damage if you take out half of downtown in a fight with a supervillain? How much legal protection does a secret identity give you? Do heroes who use energy-based superpowers contribute to global warming, and are such powers in violation of the Law of Conservation of Energy? And what's behind the ever-increasing number of superheroes, supervillains, and gaudy mutations in the population? A group of mild-mannered citizens just like yourself discusses these and other issues confronting the modern costumed hero.

Buffy: Fantasy, Soap Opera, or Both?

Is Buffy a specimen of supernatural fiction, or a soap opera in which the witches, werewolves, vampires, and other assorted monsters happen to be real? And is it or is it not the best-written show on television?

Children Get the Best Fantasy

Genre fantasy written for adults can get into a rut. In books written for children, you get worlds where the threat of a road-widening scheme can only be overcome by the choice of spoon to use in opening one's soft-boiled egg, where it's vitally important to do up one's shoe laces correctly, and where goddesses can only be appeased by an offering of a complete set of Chalet School novels. Is this because children have fuzzier boundaries between the trivial and the important? Are they simply a tougher audience who won't accept the kind of fluff that grownups are prepared to swallow? Or are we comparing the top end of one genre with the bottom end of the other?

Closing Ceremonies (4 p.m. Sunday)

Come see the wrap-up, hear about next year's guests, and see the Minn-stf president assassinated.

The Cold Equations: Let's Settle This Once and For All

You know -- that short story everybody's always arguing about, where the guy has to throw the cute stowaway girl out the airlock so he can deliver the serum to a plague-stricken planet? Is the story a classic or a cheat? Did the author stack the deck? Was another answer possible within the story's own terms? And why would the author do a thing like that if he didn't have to?

Comedy of Manners in Fantasy and SF

Mannered fiction has played an increasing role in modern fantasy and SF. Why? Who? How did they get in? And whose honor is at stake?

Costume Reception

[not in programming space, but part of overall schedule]

Dave Nee, interviewed by Greg Ketter

Stories told, mysteries revealed, odd bits explained, by our Bookseller Guest of Honor, a seriously interesting guy. Come and listen.

A Deepness in the Sky

The most-discussed new hard-SF novel of 1999 so far, responsible for gigabytes of Internet traffic already: Vernor Vinge's new novel set in the universe of A Fire Upon the Deep. Plunge, with our guides, into what John Clute once called "the frenzy of interpretation."

Doc Smith: Which Is Better, the Science or the Style?

The works of E. E. "Doc" Smith are widely regarded as the wellspring from which galaxy-slamming space opera descends -- and they've recently all been republished. David Dyer-Bennet thinks the science is the best thing about them; Mark Olson thinks it's the literary style. Mike Ward will be acting as referee.

Exposition: How Much Is Enough?

One of the surest ways to kill a good story is to explain everything: an over-elaborate backstory, the nuts and bolts behind the magic, or how the Riverworld works. On the other hand, sometimes the best way to convey a complicated future, fantasy world, or alternate continuum to your readers is to just tell them about it. Do all questions have to be answered? Are there ever good reasons to leave the readers hanging, or is it just fun? And what's the place of an elegant infodump?

The Fannish Impulse Over the Wires

Once we did it with hectographs and mimeo ink. Now we do it with email and HTML. But is it the same thing when it travels at the speed of light? And what does it mean when half the mainstream culture seems to be doing the same thing? Fans hailing from before and after the change grapple with these and other questions. This is not your father's "fandom on the Internet" panel.

The Fiction of Octavia Butler

Our Writer Guest of Honor's distinguished and compelling body of work, discussed by some of our most thoughtful readers (i.e., you). Come and participate. Tell which of her works you found particularly memorable, and why. Ask her the questions you've been wanting to ask.

Filking and Folking

Back before "filk" was practically a separate fandom, it was just something fans did -- contiguous with a widespread interest in folk music and other informal music-making in a fannish context. Journey with us through the Wayback Machine as we discuss the roots of filk and the history of music in fandom, and maybe even find some common ground between the widely separated descendants of that original fannish impulse.

Filking for Kids

Learn a couple of songs, then make up one of your own on a subject you choose.

From Here to the Federation: Extrapolating the Star Trek and Babylon 5 Backstory

Does the Trek universe only make sense if you assume the Soviet Union won the Cold War? Given the settings presented by the two shows, what's implied about the intervening historical background? Is it even possible to get from here to there?

Garden and Architectural Design as it Applies to Conventions

How can the principles of good garden design be used to create convention spaces and flow patterns that people will use and enjoy? Why do sofas arranged around three sides of a square work better than three sofas in a line, and why does putting it on a square of carpet work even better? If you've ever wondered what smofs talk about late at night, come and listen.

Gender Play/Gender Roles in Hong Kong Fantasy Theme Films (Presidential Suite, probably early Saturday afternoon)

A talk, with media, by Catherine Lundoff As a general rule, women have stronger and more interesting roles in Hong Kong action films, both fantasy-themed and otherwise, than American actors have had in the same types of films. There is also a long-standing tradition, dating back to Cantonese opera films of the early 1930s and 1940s, of gender and sexuality play, women playing male roles, drag (male and female), etc. Examples and discussion.

Getting More from Your Reading

Presenting a handful of tricks and techniques your teachers may have forgotten to mention -- the readerly equivalent of ResEdit or Norton Tools, for those moments when a much-praised book strikes you as totally opaque. They're fun, they're dead simple, and they can magically increase the number of really good books in your universe.

Gordon R. Dickson: 50 Years of Authors, Agents, and Publishers

Gordon R. Dickson (author of the Dorsai books and The Dragon and the George) speaks ad libitum, answers some questions, signs some autographs, rattles a few skeletons in their closets, and generally holds forth. Come hear one of SF's great storytellers.

History: the real "hard science" in SF

Resolved: that history is as much a core science in our genre as astronomy, biology, or physics, and that our concept of what comes next in the human story is determined by our idea of what's happened up to now.

How Do You Recommend Books?

A panel for booksellers, teachers, librarians, and fellow-travellers. What questions do you ask would-be readers who aren't sure what they're looking for, and how do you make recommendations based on their answers? Should you try to teach them techniques for finding their own books, or is it more help to them to just diagnose their reading history and make your best guesses as to what they'd like?

How to Enjoy a Science Fiction Convention

Useful tips, from a cadre of veteran hedonists and conrunners. If this is your first con, you'll likely find it useful. If it's your hundredth, come kibitz.

The Industry Fen Don't See

Believe it or not, there's more to publishing than the mighty editor rejecting (or occasionally accepting) a manuscript. Come hear tales of agents, production departments, packaging, marketing, and the other invisible lodges of the craft.

Intellectual Property: Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, et al.

What's the difference? What do they do? How can you best protect your work? Some likely digressions: Are software patents a valid protection for innovators, or a tool that allows the giants of the industry to squash their competition? Is copyright a natural right or a social convention? How long is it reasonable for copyright protection to extend after a creator's death? And: how do you move from idea to invention in the real world?

Is There a Fannish Accent?

Karyn Ashburn, a professional speech pathologist with a preternaturally good ear, says there are distinctive and anomalous speech patterns that are common to fans -- and she doesn't mean fanspeak. If you've spent a lot of your life around SF people (as many of us have), prepare to have your mind blown as she demonstrates and explains this.

Lady Poetesses from Hell

Local poets get togged out in their most ladylike gear to read their most unladylike poems.

The Legion of Superheroes

Come and celebrate the weirdest and most endearing team in the history of comics. Long live the Legion!

Mark Time Radio Hour (90 minutes, starting at 7 p.m. Saturday)

Mask-Making (to be held in the back of the Grand Ballroom, because there

are tables there) Mardi Gras is over, but you can still make a fantastical mask. We'll provide materials. For adults and children.

A Neo's Guide to the Freebie Table

A passel of fans who go to a lot of conventions pick up one each of all the flyers on the freebie table, and interpret them for your edification and amusement. Audience participation will occur.

Occult Fiction in Fantasy

From Aleister Crowley's Moonchild to the bestselling novels of Laurel J. Hamilton, the occult has fascinated writers and readers, and yet fantasy based on these themes is often treated as a poor relation. Why? And should we take a second look?

Octavia Butler, interviewed by Janice Bogstad

An hour with our distinguished Writer Guest of Honor. This should be self-explanatory. If it isn't, drop by for the explanation.

Opening Ceremonies (Friday, 7;30 pm)

Here's where it all starts. Notables will be introduced. Silliness will transpire. Moose will be taught to speak Swedish and process insurance forms. Welcome to Minicon!

Pre-Raphaelite Art

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were an nineteenth-century art movement who strove to recapture the emotional and narrative intensity they saw in medieval arts and crafts. In the modern world, their work has influenced writers, artists, and musicians of all sorts. We'll discuss how their treatment of mythological subjects has influenced current fantasy art.

Patrick O'Brian, Dorothy Dunnett, Bernard Cornwell, Georgette Heyer: A

Politely Uncivil Thrash (90 minutes) They're historical novelists -- so why do so many SF readers like them so much? What's the affinity? And when you get right down to it, which series is objectively better? (No throwing food.)

The Place Between Art and the Way Real People Use Art

How does the best SF art frame and contour our skiffy "sense of wonder," or does it in fact constrain and limit it? Why does so much fantasy art try for the romantic sublime, but wind up -- even when it's very skillfully executed -- serving only as decoration? When does SF and fantasy art overcomes these problems, and how?

Really Big Engineering in SF

SF is full of grandiose engineering projects; one critic has claimed that "giant object" SF is an identifiable subgenre. Is the stfnal impulse to Big Engineering a characteristic aberration of our field, or a long-term human impulse? Are really big projects economically feasible, or are they simply too much fun to leave alone? Are any of them genuinely plausible?

Regency Dance Workshop (90 minutes)

Beginners and non-dancers are entirely welcome, as are experts. Big fun.

Rich Science

Some writers (Simak, Schmitz, Brin) write their stories in universes where the laws of science are very rich and there are numerous ways to do things: Brin has six different kinds of hyperdrive in operation; Simak's aliens invent things we can't understand because they look at the world differently. Others write worlds where there is at most one way of going FTL, and where the laws of science are plain and universal. Is extravagance just plain more fun? Is parsimony actually more realistic?

Round Robin Poetry Reading

Terry Garey hosts an hour of poetry, the original genre and still alive and well.

SF and the Political Slipstream

Science fiction and political radicalism have been dancing partners since the 1930s. From technocrats to libertarians, SF writers and readers have entertained the best and worst ideas of the political fringe. Sometimes, as with feminism, those ideas have gone on to become mainstream; sometimes not. Is this the true utopian impulse, or just another case SF's appetite for outre ideas? And what role does the SF subculture -fandom play in influencing the SF that gets written?

SFWA Charity Auction

Charity auction for the SFWA Emergency Medical Fund. All sorts of autographed items and memorabilia will be available. Come early, bid high.

SFWA Regional Meeting (2 hrs.)

SFWA members only.

Slash in the SF Mainstream

There's been gay fiction as long as there's been literature. Slash has been around since the early 1970s. Now both are showing their influences on mainstream fiction. Is this actually a new phenomenon, or is it just now being noticed?

Spy vs. Spy in the Computer Age

Bruce Schneier Dead drops, semaphores, cut outs, telltales...the tools of spying. In a world of continuous communications and ubiquitous eavesdropping, is there any hope for covert communications? Learn about some old tricks of the trade, and some new ones.

Milk and Cookies Storytelling (Vice-Presidential Suite, Saturday 9 to 10 p.m.)

Jane Yolen tells stories. We listen, eat our cookies and drink our milk. A Minicon tradition.

Tour of the Art Show (9 pm - 10 pm Friday)

Guided tours of the Minicon Art Show, conducted by our friendly and artistic guides.

Trivia Contest (90 minutes)

A panel of experts will throws questions at the audience, and award candies for the correct answers. The one with the most uneaten candies wins. Organized by Fan Guests of Honor Mark and Priscilla Olson, masters of all they survey.

Weren't We Waiting for the End of the World?

Social histories of the 1960s have tended to heavily downplay the extent to which many people, mundanes included, assumed that a catastrophic social collapse was right around the corner. Though it never happened, the expectation that it would shaped a great deal of the science fiction and fantasy of that period. What was going on? How much can we tell about it from those books and stories? And what changed?

What's Depressing, What's Cautionary, What's Uplifting

Brian Aldiss once described the British SF of the 1960s as being full of "bracing gloom," thus demonstrating that you can't necessarily predict what some people will find uplifting or downbeat. Skiffy speculation that horrifies one reader may strike another as wildly optimistic -- and the worlds that some readers long to live in may strike others as dystopias. Editor and bookseller Debbie Notkin prods some of our best minds to hold forth on these and related subjects.

Xena and Hercules: The Gods in Our Own Image

Pause for a moment. Forget about Xena/Gabrielle and Hercules/Aeolus, and look at the secondary characters. If gods are humans writ large, with corresponding virtues and vices, what does the portrayal of the gods in those shows suggest about our current view of ourselves? (Aphrodite as a California beach bunny? Okayyyyy...)

The Year in Science

Just in case you needed reminding what the S in SF stands for: our crew of lively professionals and laypersons will take a gallop across the fields of What's New.

[Minn-StF] [Minicon] [Minicon 34]

Revised:   12 March 1999
  by David Dyer-Bennet / webmaster@minicon34.mnstf.org