Programming and Panel Details

After Nanotech

Aside from biotech, what are the new technologies coming down the pipe that will make for interesting SF in the coming years?

After Scarcity

What will be the basis for conflict in the future, if everybody's material needs are satisfied and then some?

And the Oscar goes to...

SF/fantasy films rarely get Academy Awards outside of the technical categories. The panellists will choose their pick for best all-time performance in each of the four acting categories (Best Actor/Actress/Supporting Actor/Supporting Actress) plus one wild-card category, and explain/defend their choices.

Anime on North American TV

We're seeing a lot of translated anime on broadcast TV these days, from Yu Gi Oh to Inu-Yasha to Knights of the Zodiac, but how much of what was originally created are we seeing, and how much is (accidentally or otherwise) getting lost in the translation? Is the solution to make two versions available (as with Knights of the Zodiac), a "faithful" one for the hardcore fans and a "North American" one for the kiddies?

Are books getting shorter?

SF and fantasy novels have been growing longer and longer as the years went by, but is the trend, at least with SF, starting to reverse itself?

Are happy endings too American?

A Toronto author commented to a colleague about a story in draft, "A happy ending won't help this story," and then averred this was a CanLit perspective. Is Canadian SF depressing, and is it supposed to be? Do we mistrust the hero-myth? Are we awash in ambivalence, torn between good and best?

Big Two, The

If you read a history of science fiction, you'll learn that Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke were the Big Three writers of their time, with Heinlein the undisputed number one. It's been suggested that while this was true in the U.S., Asimov and Clarke were and are the Big Two for SF readers here in Canada, with Heinlein merely an important member of the pack. Is this true and if so, why?

Blogs, blogs, blogs

It's been suggested that Andy Warhol was wrong and that in the future, everyone will have a weblog with fifteen fanatically dedicated readers. Why does it seem that suddenly everyone's got a blog? Which ones are worth a look? If you want to do a blog, should you? How do you make it worth a repeat visit?

Brain Eater, The

A lot of writers just seem to lose it after a while. Sometimes this can be traced to an actual event such as a medical crisis, but more often the writer just seems to fall into a pattern of repeating himself, less and less effectively. Or sometimes their work just takes new and, well, funny turns (supply a name of your choosing here.) Why does this happen? Do writers just have a certain number of good stories in them and no more? You supplied Heinlein's name too, didn't you?

Buffy from a writer's perspective

Why did the series work so well? A panel of writers, who are also fans, analyze the series as a work of creative writing.

Building a better fanzine

What kinds of things do you look for in a fan publication? What's the best way to get these things done? How do you get people to write for a 'zine, and how do you get them to write interesting things? What's a good use of money for a 'zine, and what's tempting but a better idea to avoid?

But Aragorn's the good guy!

Why do we root for absolute monarchs in fantasy --- to the extent of booing anyone who wants to replace the system that creates them --- when most of us wouldn't want to live under one in real life?

Cogsci and AI

Cognitive science's studies of the brain show that it works very differently from the symbolic processing models used in classical AI theories as well as in so much conventional SF. Is the "mind as software" model obsolete? And what does this do to extropian notions of "downloading", or "braintaping"?

Collaborating on a Multi Book Series

How to keep track of characters, places, important and trivial events. How to keep communications open between (or among) multiple writers.

Con a Month, A

For some people, "fandom" means travelling across the continent (or across the ocean) to share old stories or make new ones. Why do people go to out-of-town cons? What are the best cons to go to? Who are the people who travel from convention to convention?

Dealing with Online Trolls

They're a fact of life on Usenet, on weblogs, and in email; how do you best deal with people who just want to provoke an angry response?

Does Whatever a Spider Can

Long before Tobey McGuire, there was a Spider Man TV cartoon. And it was Canadian. And it had a great theme song. And Paul Soles, the perfect Spidey voice. And some cheap animation that, at times, succeeded well beyond the limits of its budget. As we wait for Spider-Man 2 to swing to the big screen, join us for a look back at Spidey's first appearance onscreen.

Emergent democracy or smart mob rule?

Emergent democracy, moblogging, delphic polling and so on are among today's big trends. What is the future of agonistic politics in the digital age?

Enlightenment machines

What are the implications of recent experiments that purport to have isolated the part of the brain that is switched off during mystical experiences? What does repeatable artificially induced Nirvana do to conventional notions of religion?

Fan-fiction

Once, Sherlock Holmes was the only fictional character who was the subject of more stories by others than by his original creator. Kirk and Spock, Xena and Gabrielle, and of course Harry Potter now leave the great man from Baker Street in the dust; these days it's hard to find a character with a following who doesn't also star in a considerable body of fanfic. Is this phenomenon sad or enterprising?

Frankenstein's Monster

What's behind the ongoing appeal of the hapless Victor's creation? Is it mainly due to the strength of Mary Shelley's original story, or Boris Karloff's performance, or...?

Future of file-sharing

What's going to happen now that the Recording Industry of America is making good on its threats to sue users of file-sharing software? Is their tough-guy strategy going to accomplish anything or just drive the practice deeper underground?

Group dynamics in speculative fiction

How the hero's group (and there almost always is one) works.

Hal Clement: A tribute

One of our favourite program participants (1922-2003).

Hard fantasy

Should a fantasy world's magic system have definite rules spelling out what sorcerers can or can't do, or should the author just go with the gut? Does it go against the very essence of fantasy to systematize the supernatural as if it were the periodic table?

Herding the cats, or, how to get fans to do the work

What are some ways that have worked well in getting people to work on conventions, clubs, and other fan activities? What kinds of fans make good volunteers? How do you find volunteers? How do you motivate the people on your committee to get useful work done? How do you move good people out of their current jobs to move them to other roles and bring in new good volunteers? Why are we doing this "fandom" thing at all?

Heroes, not messiahs

Some best-selling fantasy novels and series are about young protagonists who possess unique, overarching powers that they gradually discover which allow them to challenge evil powers of global scale. Why are these popular? How can authors sell great epics with more humble, accessible heroes a la Frodo Baggins?

Honor Harrington

There are a lot of series of SF novels, but David Weber's update of Horatio Hornblower (which is rapidly mutating into an update of World War II) regularly makes the New York Times bestseller list. Why is it so well loved? Is it the treecats? The love affairs? The nasty villains? The chapter long descriptions of technology that will never actually exist?

Horror and fantasy

Where would horror be without the supernatural element? Where would fantasy be without the ever-lurking presence of the fearsome? To what extent do the genres depend on each other... or are they really separate genres at all?

Horror and the divine

Horror writers explore the relationship between spirituality and the tale of terror.

Horror, here?

The panel discusses books, stories and movies (genre and otherwise) that don't fall neatly into the "horror category," but that effectively and memorably horrify their audience

If I were a super-hero my power would be...

Lord of the Rings, the Movie

It's one long movie, of course, that had to be cut into three parts. Now that we've had the chance to see the whole thing, how good is it? What might have been done differently? And what happened to the Scouring of the Shire, anyway?

Magic on the streets

It's been twenty years since Charles de Lint released the realm of Faerie onto the streets of Ottawa with his breakthrough novel Moonheart. What is the state of urban fantasy, and Canadian urban fantasy, today? Is the Age of Aquarius the age of magic, or have the elves again withdrawn from mortal ken?

Make 'em laugh

The principles of timing, foreshadowing and characterisation in the writing of humour. Why is it so hard?

Making up the words

Part of the accomplishment of J.R.R. Tolkien was the languages for each race that he used through the texts. Many other writers have included words of alien or fantastic languages with varying degrees of success. How do invented languages contribute to a story? What's the best way to create a story language? How much is enough, or too much?

Martial Arts, the Far East, and Our Genre

How is the popular wave of mainstream martial arts movies affecting science fiction and fantasy?

Media coverage: do SF cons need it?

The Toronto papers published three major pieces about Torcon 3: one was friendly, one neutral, and one mocking. Does it make any difference to us whether media attention is accurate, or just the same old stereotyping?

Military Forces in SF: Social Workers in Spandex?

Why do military organizations in SF seem to resemble those of World War One or so? Why not create a futuristic military that resembles the way modern militaries are heading?

Monsters, real and otherwise

We live in a world populated by Osama bin Laden, Paul Bernardo, and the North Korean Politburo, among others. Why do fictive monsters like Dracula and the Mummy still scare us? Or have they come to be pleasant milk and water after the daily news' steady diet of strong meat?

Multi-level multiculturalism in fantasy

In our world we have France, Spain, Germany, but we also have Picardie and Provence, Catalonia and Castile, Bavaria and Prussia, with levels of cultural diversity within each culture. In too many fantasy epics, maps are drawn with nations with uniform cultures, where most of the action happens in a single capital city and where other places merely serve as backdrops for specific scenes, the literary equivalent of movie backlot facades. Are layers of complexity in culture and setting necessary to fantasy, and if so, is this really possible?

Navel Gazing in Xanadu

Science fiction staples, hard science and invention, have fallen prey to a number of muggers. Science has progressed so rapidly since the 30s that a great deal of science fiction has been superseded. Technology is now growing so rapidly that its implications take exceptional knowledge and skill to grasp and predict. In short, it's getting harder to keep up with the real thing. Inventions that have not been readily surpassed (FTL, positronic brains, antigrav)have been written about to exhaustion. Where does science fiction go from here? Can it stay scientific? Or do we play act the roles from old science fiction books now that the future has "arrived?" Have we stopped believing the world can be "radically" transformed? Does science fiction look increasingly to be absorbed by mainstream literature, but with a technology bent? Does the

work of Rob Sawyer point the way to a science fiction that focuses on the biosciences, sociology, politics, business, religion and philosophy? Melt into fantasy? Go to something else entirely? Be inspired by new cultural forces? Bring a navel. Let's gaze.

New Space Opera

"The new space opera of the past twenty years is arguably the literary cutting edge of SF now." ­ David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The panel will discuss this proposition.

Novel in one hour

The return of the event where a panel of writers outlines a novel from scratch in just one hour! Actually they do it in 55 minutes, but that would make for a far less catchy panel title...

Now that Buffy is gone what are we going to watch?

Part time writer

A panel of SF writers who have "real" full time jobs discuss their strategies for being a part time writer: finding the time, the head space, the motivation, etc.

Perfect speculative fiction magazine

A panel of writers discusses things they hate about short fiction markets today and define the perfect speculative fiction magazine, from the perfectly selfish perspective of the submitting writer. Genre? Themes? Web vs. print? Both? Email subs? Online subs? Email responses and no SASEs? Fast responses? A response, period?

Post-medieval fantasy

Why are so many fantasy novels set in worlds with kings and knights as the social order? How could magic affect democracy, industrialisation, urban development, mass culture, movements of intellectual enlightenment and change, finance and communication? Can a literary setting have room for both magic and science?

Real Future of Warfare

Panels on the future of warfare tend to focus on high-tech Western wars. What about those dirty "little" wars that drag on for years (think of Rwanda)? What's their future and what would happen if a modern military got into one?

Writing Qualification

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has raised the bar on qualification as a full member of the organisation. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

SF's Readership

What sets SF apart from other readerships? Has fandom played a central role in creating this readership or has it in fact "ghettoized" the genre to the point where SF writers can't hope to have the larger readerships of a Grisham or a Steele?

Show, Don't Tell

How can SF writers employ this technique in a genre that at times requires a lot of explaining and do it so the "showing" isn't just a disguised form of "telling"?

Singularity, Shmingularity!

Why Vinge's "technological singularity" won't come to pass and what will.

Song of Ice and Fire, A

There are a lot of "fat fantasy" series out there, but for overwhelming verisimilitude, depth of characterization, and unpredictability of plot, it's hard to beat George R.R. Martin's take on the Wars of the Roses. Find out why so many people are excited about these books by last year's Worldcon Guest of Honour

Space elevator

The technology's easy, it's the politics that's hard... particularly in our terrorism-conscious world. Will this piece of engineering ever become a reality?

Superminds and Non-Super Readers

Is it possible to write from the POV of a superhuman intelligence and remain both convincing and entertaining?

Top 10 things editors and publishers are tired of.

Trademark after copyright

We are entering a new age in the history of intellectual property in which some literary works may have copyrights expire while existing trademarks continue to be in place for related works, for example Peter Pan and Disney's Peter Pan movie. How will this affect the development of new or old shared worlds, and what new opportunities and problems will this create for authors and screenwriters? What technological innovations and media will stretch or break the conventional definitions of intellectual property?

UKSF

A lot of the most exciting, imaginative science fiction being written today is coming out of Great Britain. Why? And which authors should you look out for?

Usenet: dead?

The "death of Usenet" has been predicted about as often as the "death of science fiction", but nowadays some ISPs have stopped carrying newsgroups on the grounds they're no longer popular. Is Usenet still a place where reasonable people can exchange ideas, or should we throw up our hands and abandon it to the trolls and the flamers, the nuts and the spammers?

Vampire Citizen

The vampire as predator and as romantic protagonist is well established in literature. But Toronto-based vampires, from Nick Knight to Henry Fitzroy, show a new angle to the old myth, of the vampire as citizen, holding a job, paying taxes, using their powers for the good of their living friends and neighbours. What is it about us that we look for the good even in monsters?

Violence in fantasy

Whether it's a one-on-one duel between powerful mages or a battle of undead armies that will determine the fate of the world, fantasy is a violent genre, arguably more so than science fiction or horror. Is this an inevitable result of the kind of story fantasy writers tell? What works break this rule, and are they less readable as a result?

What does the world think of SF?

Outside of North America, Europe and Japan, what do people think of our genre? Do they watch it? Read it? Share any of the dreams of the future that SF writers and fans do? Do they think of it at all?

64. What follows modernism/postmodernism? Are we really entering into an "age of Aquarius" or "long boom", or, as some have suggested, is the present period an "interregnum" between cataclysmic political/social upheavals?

What is with the big boobs?

Is the portrayal of women in comics alienating or empowering?

What makes a good fantasy?

There are a lot of fantasy novels --- all right, fantasy trilogies --- out there, with their look-a-like covers and sound-a-like titles. Which ones are the good ones and which are the generic products? And what makes a book one or the other?

What makes a hero?

Authors discuss.

What scares horror writers?

What do writers who scare others for a living find frightening themselves? Maybe even more importantly, what scared them when they were kids? How do their fears, old and new, work their way into their art?

Ring FX

What will the effects of Lord of the Rings be on cinema and especially fantasy cinema?

What would you do with Middle-Earth?

The copyright on "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" expires within a generation and the world of Middle-Earth will enter the public domain and popular mythology. Assuming it does so on schedule --- not an entirely safe assumption in view of other current trends --- what sequels, prequels, or alternate takes would you like to see? A Platoon-style orc's-eye-view of the War of the Ring? An overtly gay interpretation of the Fellowship? A Mirvish musical version of "The Hobbit" with dancing dwarves and trolls? Come share what you think.

Where should horror creators draw the line?

Are there some places the writer, artist or director just shouldn't go in their work? Or --- once the audience has agreed it wants to be horrified --- does anything go?

Why would I want to read this?

Barry Malzberg recently said, "A run of the mill issue of Asimov's is an astonishment. . . . [it] has outreached the capacity of the audience to follow. It is so sophisticated, so difficult, I don't see how anyone without a good reading background in science fiction could read that magazine with any pleasure today." It isn't just Asimov's; James Alan Gardner has written about reading novel descriptions in Locus and asking himself why he'd want to look at the book itself. Is science fiction cutting itself off from new readers through sheer sophistication?

Why You Shouldn't Learn History From the Movies

People think it really happened: the Sheriff of Nottingham used a printing press to print "Wanted" posters for Robin Hood; Tom Cruise's character was the first American P.O.W. in Asia and Last Samurai in Japan; any part of Oliver Stone's JFK. Why are movies historically inaccurate? Are there different levels of historical inaccuracy? Can a movie be good despite its inaccuracies? And what about intentional inaccuracies, like Xena: Warrior Princess?

Writing $cams

There are legitimate agents and publishers out there, looking for good work. And there are scam agents and publishers out there, looking for any naïf with a fat wallet and a dream of being a writer. Here's how to avoid the latter group.

SUNBURST AUCTION

Come one, come all to the Fabulous, Renowned, annual Sunburst Auction at Ad Astra. Bid on One-of-a-Kind, Exciting & splendiferous items. Let's celebrate Literature of the "Funtastic" and support the Sunburst Award.

TEAM BANZAI

Is a panel of creative scientists tackling all subjects in a creative and entertaining way. The team will take any and all questions, specializing in those with no answer. If there's a real answer to the question, we'll do our best to provide it. If there is no answer, or we don't know it, we'll come up with some creative and entertaining soloutions. Debate, of course is welcome.

SF Pictionary

Lightening Round Costuming

A Practical Guide to Sword Buying

Join author and sword designer Robert Marks as he talks about how to buy and care for modern swords, from stainless steel wallhangers to high end combat blades.

Weapons Workshop

If you want to bring a fan weapon to Ad Astra, you must attend this workshop with the weapon or you won't be allowed to carry it

The Intergalactic Dating Game

The perennial favourite.

Geek Olympics

Back for a third great year!

Buffy Sing a long

New this year!

Jason Taniguchi's One Man Show

Keep your Friday schedule clear!

Saturday Night Variety Show

Heather Dale, Another 1000 Miles, Masquerade and the Dance!
Call it Conapalouza!