ad astra highlights
I went to Ad Astra today. Why? Why not?
After talking to xio for a bit and finding my way around, I caught the tail end of a reading by somebody called David Nickle. It was some sort of fantasy Cold War spy thriller or something. With dragons. I guess. Interesting. After that, I stuck around for Waterloo author James Alan Gardner. I've been thinking of reading some of his stuff, just 'cuz he's local. He chose to read a passage from his upcoming Lara Croft novel.
I sat in on the "But Aragorn's a good guy!" panel, wherein they discussed the going theory that fantasy fiction, being based on Joseph Campbellish Hero myth (nobody mentioned Joseph Campbell, but the bases were pretty much covered), serves to perpetuate what is essentially a justification of the King's divine right to rule. That the continued popularity of this sort of fiction possibly points out some sort of basic anthropological yearning for a simpler system of governement--where the true leader (ie., dictator) rules, and everybody else falls in line. David Brin (who was mentioned a couple times) points this out in his Star Wars rant.
The basic counter-argument to all of this is "Yeah, but the Hero is cool!"
I was kind of hoping someone would suggest an alternative. That didn't really happen. This was one of the two panels I went to that Tanya Huff was on. But really, it was Scott Bakker who stole the show here. I might have to pick up his book (even if it is Heroic fantasy...).
I stopped in for a little bit of the C J Cherryh guest of honour address. The bit I heard was a long, rambly, science fiction purist speil lamenting (I'm guessing) the current down-swing in the SF market. It basically amounted to "Kids today just sit around playing video games!" I dunno 'bout you, but if this intelligent analysis is indicative of the thought processes that actually go into issues highlighted in "real" speculative fiction work, the death of the genre might not be such a bad thing. I left early.
In the dealer's room, I picked up one of the soon-to-be-out-of-print Doctor Who novellas and the novelization of The Scream of the Shalka. I also picked up a set of FASA Sea Devils miniatures from the old Doctor Who RPG from the 80s. The guy was trying to get rid of a whole box of the things, but they were mostly the generic "everybody can't be the Doctor" miniatures for PCs. Handy for generic sci-fi role-playing, but I didn't really want to carry them around. The Sea Devils were one of the few canonical sets he had.
Oh, and just so all my purchases weren't Doctor Who-related, I also picked up a signed copy of Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow. Mostly because I like his website.
Last was an utterly breathtaking reading by Rick Wilber (okay, the website's scary). Really, it was very good. It was a mystery/suspense thing that was heart-wrenchingly well-written. And it even had a monkey in it. I think I might pick up the book. I'm not sure, since I can only take that sort of thing in small doses (I've become a bit of a wuss when it comes to reading material, unfortunately).
I've decided that Ad Astra is best enjoyed via the panels and readings. They were very nice. Everything else was pretty pointless.
I left shortly after that because I was just wandering aimlessly and was getting agitated by the crowd. I missed the exit to the DVP. I figured that wasn't a problem, and that I would just keep going and take Yonge instead. But somehow I got turned around and was going south instead of west. When I hit Dundas and then Queen I figured out my mistake and decided to just keep going to Lakeshore. And since I was down there, I decided I might as well go to Holly's coffee gathering. Of course, the gathering ended up being just me and Holly, but we had a nice chat for a bit.
Getting home, I decided to prove C J Cherryh right and spent the evening playing Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life. And so it was.