Lands of Ice and Mice: An Alternate History of the Thule
- Thread starter DirtyCommie
- Start date
Hello again.
Sorry everyone. I know posting here gets your hopes up. I'm sorry to say, it's not an update. For what it's worth, I really do plan on coming back to this thread, and to Green Antarctica. I have ideas for both, and it would be very satisfying to re-engage. But having said that, it's a little too busy right now.
It's just shameless self promotion. But this place was my home as a writer through some dark years after my life fell apart, and I think I did some good work here in this and other timelines, and I have considerable fondness for the place and people. So really, it's not so much self promotion as the desire to share a small semi-achievement with folk that I see as kindred spirits.
The World Fantasy Convention is the great ‘Business Convention’ of the SF/F/H Literary World. It’s not a Comic-Con, it’s not a fan con. There’s dealers, but they’re just one room. Mostly, it’s Writers, Agents, Editors, Publishers and Artists, people in the trade, and people trying to get in the trade, hanging out, hobnobbing, socializing, enjoying each other’s company, and sometimes wheeling and dealing.
Go there, and odds are you’ll meet all your favourite writers. You can walk down a hallway, and see the writers you grew up with, the writers that helped form your identity, the people you passed time with, the writers who were guilty pleasures, and the ones you’re reading now. You can just go up and talk to them. It’s a business Con, the panels are about writing, serious writing, genres, where the industry is going, insider views.
It’s the place to be if you’re dedicated to the craft. This year, it’s in Salt Lake City, and due to Covid-19, it’s online.
I’m doing two panels and a reading! Wow! It’s almost like I’m a real writer! In particular....
Alternate History, Thursday, October 29th 6:00 pm – 6:50 pm
Alternate history has long been the domain of science-fiction writers, but it is now being enthusiastically colonized by writers of fantasy, who are bringing in magic, dragons, and the full panoply of the uncanny into what used to be an orderly and rational sub-genre. Who’s doing this and what’s going on?
Moderator: Gillian Pollack. Panel: Charlaine Harris, Den Valdron, Madeline Robbins
Wow, alternate history! This is right up my ally. For those of you who follow my non-career, I’m pseudo-known for Green Antarctica, a disturbing history of terrifying civilizations that evolve in a non-glaciated south pole. It got a TV tropes page. I was also given a TV Tropes page for Land of Ice and Mice, about agriculture north of the arctic circle, and the resulting Inuit civlization. Bear Cavalry, available as an ebook, about the Viking domesticating bears, and their use as mounts in medieval wars. Axis of Andes, on this site, about WWII overtaking South America. Two of my short story collections, Dawn of Cthulhu and Fall of Atlantis heavily explore alternate histories.
As to the other panelists… Charlaine Harris… yes THAT Charlaine Harris, the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries, True Blood TV series, she’s definitely the big name on the panel. Gillian Pollack, our moderator, is a PhD in history, and an award winning Australian fantasy writer. Madeleine Robins, generally known as Mad, has worked in publishing (magazine, trade pub, comic books, and kid’s activity books) doing a diverse set of things, has written a series of Regency Noir, featuring a heroine who is a Fallen Woman of good family who supports herself by… being a private eye. As you can see, everyone’s pretty awesome, but I have hopes of keeping up.
***
Sorry everyone. I know posting here gets your hopes up. I'm sorry to say, it's not an update. For what it's worth, I really do plan on coming back to this thread, and to Green Antarctica. I have ideas for both, and it would be very satisfying to re-engage. But having said that, it's a little too busy right now.
It's just shameless self promotion. But this place was my home as a writer through some dark years after my life fell apart, and I think I did some good work here in this and other timelines, and I have considerable fondness for the place and people. So really, it's not so much self promotion as the desire to share a small semi-achievement with folk that I see as kindred spirits.
The World Fantasy Convention is the great ‘Business Convention’ of the SF/F/H Literary World. It’s not a Comic-Con, it’s not a fan con. There’s dealers, but they’re just one room. Mostly, it’s Writers, Agents, Editors, Publishers and Artists, people in the trade, and people trying to get in the trade, hanging out, hobnobbing, socializing, enjoying each other’s company, and sometimes wheeling and dealing.
Go there, and odds are you’ll meet all your favourite writers. You can walk down a hallway, and see the writers you grew up with, the writers that helped form your identity, the people you passed time with, the writers who were guilty pleasures, and the ones you’re reading now. You can just go up and talk to them. It’s a business Con, the panels are about writing, serious writing, genres, where the industry is going, insider views.
It’s the place to be if you’re dedicated to the craft. This year, it’s in Salt Lake City, and due to Covid-19, it’s online.
I’m doing two panels and a reading! Wow! It’s almost like I’m a real writer! In particular....
Alternate History, Thursday, October 29th 6:00 pm – 6:50 pm
Alternate history has long been the domain of science-fiction writers, but it is now being enthusiastically colonized by writers of fantasy, who are bringing in magic, dragons, and the full panoply of the uncanny into what used to be an orderly and rational sub-genre. Who’s doing this and what’s going on?
Moderator: Gillian Pollack. Panel: Charlaine Harris, Den Valdron, Madeline Robbins
Wow, alternate history! This is right up my ally. For those of you who follow my non-career, I’m pseudo-known for Green Antarctica, a disturbing history of terrifying civilizations that evolve in a non-glaciated south pole. It got a TV tropes page. I was also given a TV Tropes page for Land of Ice and Mice, about agriculture north of the arctic circle, and the resulting Inuit civlization. Bear Cavalry, available as an ebook, about the Viking domesticating bears, and their use as mounts in medieval wars. Axis of Andes, on this site, about WWII overtaking South America. Two of my short story collections, Dawn of Cthulhu and Fall of Atlantis heavily explore alternate histories.
As to the other panelists… Charlaine Harris… yes THAT Charlaine Harris, the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries, True Blood TV series, she’s definitely the big name on the panel. Gillian Pollack, our moderator, is a PhD in history, and an award winning Australian fantasy writer. Madeleine Robins, generally known as Mad, has worked in publishing (magazine, trade pub, comic books, and kid’s activity books) doing a diverse set of things, has written a series of Regency Noir, featuring a heroine who is a Fallen Woman of good family who supports herself by… being a private eye. As you can see, everyone’s pretty awesome, but I have hopes of keeping up.
***
are you the guy from monty python trying to sell a dead parrot
Nope. I'm a fairly prolific writer with a lot of irons in the fire.
Listen, while you're waiting, you could read some of my other stuff. I got novels, ebooks, tons of stuff.
I'm doing a reading, probably for an unpublished novel I'm pitching called 'The Luck.'
And finally 'Laws of Fairyland' "Every society, real and imaginary, has at its basis a legal system, a method of evaluating right versus wrong. What influences have modern legal systems had on fantasy fiction? What fictional worlds demonstrate a finely-tuned legal system, and what impact do those laws have on the development of the stories? "
Moderator: Den Valdron (!), Panelists: David Drake, J.R.H. Lawless, Mary Thompson.
It turns out we're all lawyers. It might be esoteric, I dunno. We'll see how it goes.
One and the same. I was a huge fan of his work back in the day. He did a novel with Karl Edward Wagner, Killer, that I still cherish to this day. And he did terrific stories. Then one day, I read another collaboration with one of these military SF writers about Byzantine General, Belisarius, and ouch! We all have missteps. Still a terrific writer and a terrific thoughtful guy.
