Imagining Fantasy Lands: The Status Quo Does Not Need Worldbuilding

Friday 16:30 – 18:00, Capital Suite 11 (ExCeL)

Mary Anne Mohanraj (M), Tobias Buckell, Kate Elliott, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz

Fantasy world-building sometimes comes under fire for its pedantic attention to detail at the expense of pacing or prose style. Do descriptive passages clog up the narrative needlessly, when reader imagination should be filling in the gaps? Where does that leave the landscapes and cultures that are less well represented in the Western genre: can world-building be a tool in subverting reader expectations that would otherwise default to pseudo-medieval Euro-esque? If fantasy is about defamiliarising the familiar, how important is material culture – buildings, furnishings, tools, the organisation of social and commercial space – in creating a fantasy world?

Beyond Bechdel

Friday 20:00 – 21:00, Capital Suite 7+12 (ExCeL)

Kate Heartfield (M), Kate Elliott, Jed Hartman, Julia Rios, JY Yang

The “Bechdel test” for female representation in films is now widely known. To pass it a film should contain two named female characters who have a conversation about something other than a man. In recent years, similar tests have been proposed for other under-represented groups, including the Mako Mori test for characters of colour, and the Russo test for queer characters. What are the strengths and weaknesses of such tests? How do they affect our viewing choices? And what does the popularity of such tests say about how popular media are being received and discussed?

“Your ‘realistic’ fantasy is a washed out colourless emptiness compared to the Rabelaisian reality.” Discuss.

Saturday 13:30 – 15:00, Capital Suite 6 (ExCeL)

Kate Elliott (M), Nic Clarke, Edward James, Kari Sperring, Jenny Blackford

‘Realism’ has become a buzzword for contemporary genre fantasy, but most medievalesque world-building still barely scratches the surface of the reality. One in three marriages in 14th-century Cairo ended in divorce; English towns were brimming with migrants, including people of colour; women fought on the battlefields of the Crusades; and cities across the world were awash with lurid pageantry that would make modern audiences blush. The panel will discuss aspects of medieval and early-modern life that were more complex than our fiction imagines, and ways of making our invented worlds as diverse and exciting as our history.

The Big Playthrough

Saturday 15:00 – 16:30, Capital Suite 7+12 (ExCeL)

Patrick Rothfuss, Kate Elliott, Michelle Sagara, Gail Carriger

Gail Carriger, Kate Elliott, Pat Rothfuss and Michelle Sagara West play Gloom for your delight and delectation! Gloom is a deeply inauspicious card game in which players strive to kill their horrid, horrid families in as gristly and grotty ways possible, whilst trying to keep the families of the other player alive. Will they be devoured by weasels or simply perturbed by pudding? Come along and find out…

Diversity Within Young Adult Science Fiction

Sunday 12:00 – 13:30, Capital Suite 2 (ExCeL)

Marieke Nijkamp (M), Kate Elliott, John Hornor Jacobs, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Mahvesh Murad

From Earthsea to Noughts and Crosses, The Summer Prince to Akata Witch, children and teens need to see books with characters that represent the diverse world they live in, whether they are dystopian romance or fantasy adventure. Organisations like We Need Diverse Books are helping to promote diversity in children’s literature, but what actions can we take – as readers, writers, publishers, and book-buyers – to help them in their goals? And who are the great authors of the past few years we should be catching up on?

Kaffeeklatsch

Sunday 14:00 – 15:00, London Suite 5 (ExCeL)

Wesley Chu, Kate Elliott

(This is a small group meeting. You sign up in advance and the number of places are limited.)

Reading: Kate Elliott

Monday 11:00 – 11:30, London Suite 1 (ExCeL)

Kate Elliott (I will have a few special postcards (see above) signed by Julie Dillon to give away at this event.

Robin Hobb: When Assassins Didn’t Need to Be Hooded

Monday 13:30 – 15:00, Capital Suite 8 (ExCeL)

Tim Kershaw (M), Kate Elliott, Robin Hobb, Patrick Rothfuss, Kari Sperring

Robin Hobb has influenced a generation of epic fantasists with her unique voice, and a willingness to avoid easy solutions even if that sometimes means letting bad things happen to good characters. While Hobb’s work is dark at times, her famous assassin, FitzChivalry, is almost a kitten compared to the hooded cold blooded killers today’s audience seems to crave. Has the fantasy market fundamentally changed in tone and content, or just diversified? How did the field get from there to here? And, finally, where is it headed?