Archive for the ‘SF & Fandom’ Category

Since it’s not an official term anywhere, it’s never had any kind of official control of the definition.  So people probably don’t all agree.  And it may be evolving over time; language does that, especially English.

The Wikipedia article (at least as of today) seems to capture this idea, and has more details about the history and evolution.

It was a solidly pejorative term originally, when Wilson Tucker invented it. However, by the time I encountered it, it was at worst ambiguous.

As many of you probably know, I’m a big Doc Smith fan. He’s often considered the defining example of space opera, in the good senses. So I’m not willing to go with a solidly negative definition for the term.

I’ve found a lot of people using the term to just mean “science fiction action-adventure”, and I don’t find that a satisfactory definition. It’s too big a field, and there’s already a good term for it, so I don’t want to let them have mine.

To me, space opera has several characteristics:

• Very large scope. Size is measured from the protagonist’s point of view, so if they’re restricted to one solar system, saving that whole solar system counts; on the other hand, Doc Smith has his Lensmen fighting an extra-universal threat, and operating across two galaxies.  The scope probably grows a lot in the course of the story.
• Science Fiction.  And space travel.
• Discovery-driven. The action is required or made possible or both by new discoveries, either scientific or exploratory. New fields of science or the universe (or both) are constantly being opened up.
• Protagonist is dominant player in the discovery.

I don’t know if it’s a defining characteristic, or a common outcome of the other defining characteristics; but space opera tends towards moral clarity (or being simplistic; your choice).

So.  Doc Smith is clearly space opera (Skylark and Lensman series in particular).  George O. Smith’s Venus Equilateral is clearly space opera. But what about more modern works?

Well, Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep seems to qualify. It’s not quite focused on one protagonist, but the main characters play a really big role in saving everything. Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan stories don’t, though; they’re not discovery-driven, and they take place in something of a backwater of even the human universe, yet with knowledge that the rest exists. (I love them to death anyway; my taste is not limited to space opera.)  David Weber’s Honor Harrington series is borderline; the action takes place mostly in a small peripheral star kingdom, with the Solarian League visible but not involved in the background. Also, Honor isn’t the driver of much of the discovery, though she’s certainly terribly important in the action overall. They also tend a bit more than I prefer towards simplistic black-and-white views of events. Mike Shepherd’s Kris Longknife books fall in almost exactly the same place as Weber, I think; borderline.

I’m ashamed of my country again. I’m posting about the Peter Watts thing, of course.

I stole the title from Jo Walton, because it is perfect.

The story started popping up on my friends list after it appeared on Boing Boing this morning.

If you don’t know at least the bare outlines by now, you’re living under a rock; but you can find out at the links above, so I’m not going to repeat any of it.

Here’s what’s terrifying about this: there are quite a number of people commenting on the basic theme of “that’s the way things are.”  That’s terrifying—apparently police (in the broad sense; I believe these were border guards) have been jack-booted thugs above the law for long enough that people have learned to take it for granted.  That’s really, truly, deeply, terrifying.

The concept that the Constitution protects our rights is…incomplete. Nothing static can really defend against hundreds of years of political maneuvering. What it can do is give some basis for fighting back. Rights always need protecting. Ours in the USA have been fairly badly ignored over the last couple of decades, so we need to work extra hard for a while to recover from that.

There are the usual claims that Watts “must have” done something to bring this on himself.  It’s entirely possible he did some things that I would describe as “inadvisable” in his situation.  Nobody who knows him thinks he started  hitting the policemen, though,  so I don’t either. At worst, from what I’ve read, he asked questions, perhaps more than once, and he got out of his car. Those are not actions that could justify a police beating! As Jo put it, “he should have cringed more”.

We’ve given money to Watts, and to the ACLU, and I have written to one elected official already.

We’re hosting the Minn-StF meeting (which means “party”) at our house this Saturday.  Nominally 2pm until late, though in practice few people arrive before 4pm most times.

I’m making split pea soup (non-vegetarian and vegan versions), and Pamela is making bread.

We have cats, confined to the back of the house so the front area is less catty, enough to help allergic people somewhat.  They don’t get to shed on the furniture up there. No smoking in the house. Not especially child-proof (delicate / dangerous things somewhat exposed), children welcome under parental supervision.

Note: This started life as a post on a mailing list, but it was suggested that I should archive it here for future reference, and it does seem to be fairly extensive and maybe worth keeping around.

Obviously what one “likes” is significantly a matter of taste, and people will simply disagree to some extent. There are usually tendencies and trends in taste among large enough groups of people which can still be useful guides to design—if you want this group, don’t do that, if you want the other group over there, do some of this, and so forth.

What there isn’t is a large enough group of GOOD designers. I’d rate myself in the upper half of fannish web designers (I’m talking design, not implementation mechanics), perhaps optimistically; but that doesn’t put me on the scale at all in comparison to real professional designers. I worked for 4 years doing web work with some GOOD designers, and I can tell the difference. My attempts at elegant simplicity (which admittedly is hard) never quite come together, and I end up with things like this site and dragaera.info. My tastes and skills don’t lend themselves to the busier kind of designs at all.

With a GOOD designer, a site can be graphically rich and complex without creating a problem finding things on it, and it can still load decently for people with broadband (real graphic richness doesn’t work so well with dial-in; just too much data). Multiple media can be used to draw in people who like that, without hiding information from people who just want to read it.

This requires some extra work, some duplication of information, and suitable design. And it requires committing to some things and carrying them through in the course of the year. But it’s not terribly expensive, if you have the design talent available (hiring it commercially is expensive, by local con standards).

To add the media, maybe find people into that and appoint them your “web media team”, and tell them to go around and interview a department head each month or something.

Some potential members will feel more of a connection to the con having “face-to-face” informal time with the staff that way. Others will ignore it.

Got some good writers? Maybe they should blog about planning the convention and getting it ready. Again, it will make some people feel a connection they wouldn’t have otherwise. It’s also a great way to get across some of the important things about the convention—like that it’s all-volunteer. For the kind of convention I like, writing is better than streaming media to convey what it’s like, because showing people sitting around having a fascinating conversation makes for boring film (but don’t overlook the personal essay delivered as streaming video by somebody with some presence). Get new members and long-time members to write about their experience of the convention, either some specific year, or in general. Search other web sites and mailing lists for such articles, and ask permission to republish them (and you can generally link them in place even if they won’t let you republish).

In addition to making the content on the web site deeper and richer, you need to drive traffic to it. Obvious things include using your URL consistently in con materials. You need to do outreach. A minimum suggestion is to put stuff (flyers, bookmarks, business cards, postcards, as appropriate) at libraries, bookstores (especially specialty stores and those with a good SF selection!), teachers and schools, SF clubs, other conventions. Try for news coverage on public radio. Can you do something with public access television?

Remember that the site has to convince people who don’t know about SF conventions to give your event a try. You’ve been marketing for years to the ones who know about cons, and they’re already coming or have decided your con isn’t for them.  The growth potential is in people who haven’t found classic SF fandom yet.

And you need a multi-year commitment to this stuff; it takes time for the effects to build up, and you really only get to sample the results once a year (when you hold your convention).

(This is based on the assumption that your convention is basically fine, and that there are a significant number of people who would be interested but don’t know about it in your area. As you get in new members you may start to find ways you should extend your convention itself some as well, perhaps.)

For a well-established convention that feels it’s not getting its share of new members lately, I don’t think anything much smaller than this effort is likely to make much difference. A new convention is different, but a long-established one already has about all the word of mouth it’s going to get, and probably has some mis-perceptions floating around out in the population by now.

Very very roughly, what I’ve outlined above is a few hundred person-hours of EXTRA pre-con work in the first year, and perhaps half that (not nearly so much brainstorming and figuring things out, the web site structure will be in place and the design set) in the second and later years. Which no doubt explains why so few conventions have ever taken such an aggressive promotional stance. The monetary cost is low, though; mostly printing the new flyers, bookmarks, business cards, and such (I’m assuming you already have a web site, so no new cost for that). Unfortunately, those people points are probably your scarcest resource.

It’s possible (despite what I say above) that this is subject to the 80:20 rule (since the rest of the universe appears to be). I would venture to guess that the key components are regular new content on the web site, a more personal and less monolithic view into the convention, and considerable outside action to point new people to the web site.

Happy 80th birthday, Ursula K. Le Guin!

You’ve done valuable things in SF and Fantasy for a long time now.