Day 4 has been a little more interesting panel-wise than day 3. I stayed clear of scientific panels (mostly) and focused on writers panels instead. Good choice!
Panel on maps and fantasy this was the panel that got Brandon excited, as he loves maps. Sadly, the other people on the panel didn’t use them, and everyone was basically saying to the others “whatever works for you”. I would have liked a little more debate to spark up something more than this. Besides that, Brandon showed some fantastic unpublished art from Way of Kings! A good way to start up my day.
Panel on creating universes in video games Like the previous panel on video games, this one was filled with passion. One really believes that we’re at a point where everyone tries to find out new methods for game play and storytelling. These are going to be great times.
Panel can we live without frontiers nice philosophical debate, but nothing earth shattering
Panel on unclassable writers some writers discussing why they write unclassable fiction, and what’s useful and not
Panel on zombies and vampires strangely, the empty room filled up quickly with teenagers… This presented some vampire stories authors and their take on the genre. Not everyone liked Stephenie Meyer?
Meet Arleston this guy is the scenarist of the Lanfeust comics series. This made me think of Howard Tayler in the way they both see storytelling.
I then took a break to go chat a little with Brandon. I had no more questions about writing, so we discussed the con instead. Great moment!
Meet Claro this guy makes me understand why I hate so much mainstream fiction (especially the french one). Amazing to see someone actually defending that complicated fiction was of course better than usual, or people fiction. Calling people fiction “bourgeois” is not an excuse to look down on people reading this type of fiction : different people seek different things while reading.
Imagination and Reality I could have laughed at that one if I hadn’t beel gritting my teeth all the way. To hear Igor Bogdanof being referred to as a scientific reference and hearing him say true things using completely false arguments definitely set me on edge. Nobody in the panel understood him, even if Gerard Klein did agree with him a lot. At one point, Larry Niven made a face at the audience while Igor was speaking. Definitely a strange hour for me.
The ten years of Au Diable Vauvert I must confess that I went to that one because the other sessiob was about comics and that I had had enough comics for one day. I was surorised to find out that the Diable-thingy was a new publisher. The creator and editor of this imprint talked for an hour about her vision of publishing. A very interesting hour!
Tomorrow will be the last day. Getting back to Paris will be difficult, but Paris = new writing and monday = writing excuses, so the future is not so bad. See you tomorrow for the last report!
