In other news: water wet. Plus: panel report, such as it is.

[mrissa]

(Here's the post-flight vertigo: wheee! What fun.)

Personal revelations that were really, really obvious to everyone else seem to be sort of a standard thing on livejournal. I don't know why I should expect to be exempt.

But really, did you know that I'm a very political novel writer?

Why didn't you tell me?

Did you think that the bit where I got the glowing praise up and down and sideways in my last novel rejection with the only negative bit being that it was "too political" was going to clue me in? Anyway, this was my major bit of self-revelation last weekend: at the "Fantasy of Manners" panel, at the "A Different Magic" panel, at the "Writing for all ages" panel...most of the panels, really. Of course at the "Kings, Seventh Sons, and the lamentable absence of miller's daughters" panel. I ended up thinking, "Um. Sounds like I'm very political. Comparatively speaking."

From the way ksumnersmith laughed at me when I shared this thought with her, I suspect I am the only one to whom it is news.

Still and all: political. Apparently.

At the "Fantasy of Manners" panel, I managed not to leap up and cheer when adrian_turtle said that fantasy of manners was about non-binary distinctions, and I managed again not to leap up and cheer when Debra Doyle said, "Manners are how you manage division of power." But it was a near thing in both cases. People going around being smart about these things; it's very heartening.

I don't know how to do reports on the panels I was on, really. I can come the closest on the Joy of Reading panel, where papersky asked a bunch of us to read from a bunch of things. People were requesting a list of who read what, and I've almost got it: papersky did Keats's "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," tnh did a bit of The Last Hot Time, elisem did part of The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, rysmiel read from a Peter Fleming travel book, I did the bit with sleep and ducks in Gaudy Night, Jim Macdonald read a short story by an M. Clark in its entirety (but I have forgotten what the M stands for), David Goldfarb read the bit with Eowyn and the Witch-King, and rushthatspeaks did some Calvino. But I don't remember what pnh read at all, although I will say, "Of course!" and feel stupid when someone reminds me.

I'm afraid I'm a dreadful failure at reporting on panels. Hmm. I liked "Making Real Things and Making Things Real," because it was full of such fascinating tidbits, like the Quaker handwriting and the false hills of Acre and the Japanese books down the wells. Good panels make me want to go out and do things, or do the things I've been doing better, and these did. So.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that snip of the panels!

[keilexandra]

If you feel up to it, I would adore a report of the "Fantasy of Manners" panel. And welcome to the political-writer club! :D

On a completely unrelated note: yay for ksumnersmith (and Alpha)! 'Tis a small LJ-world.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Or at least one that's folded in complex ways!

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Why didn't you tell me?

Because I thought you knew? You wrote Dwarf's Blood Mead, after all, and the Fortress of Thorns books are chock full of politics in the "people engaging established power structures to attempt to exert influence" sense. And when you were working on Copper Mountain et al., you kept talking about spies.

[david-de-beer.livejournal.com]

I've seen people remarking about "fantasy of manners"; I still don't know what it means?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

pnh read the "Tragedy of Leonid Brezhnev, Prince of Muskovy" bit from Ken MacLeod's Newton's Wake.

The Peter Fleming book is Brazilian Adventure, though I also commend for your attention Travels in Tartary. They're not as hard to find as they used to be.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, it looks a great deal more obvious in retrospect than it was at the time.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Of course he did! *forehead smack* And it was funny, too!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Like many sub-genres, this one's hard to give a compact definition that's not in part wrong. The most compact definition I've seen is "fantasy crossed with Jane Austen," but that, of course, doesn't cover a great many relevant fantasy of manners texts. One of the other defining features discussed on the panel is that people in a fantasy of manners can be socially ruined, not merely run through with a sword or zapped with a lightning bolt -- and being socially ruined means something in their context.

[snickelish.livejournal.com]

And what would be some major works in the subgenre? When I think "Austen + fantasy" I think of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but I'm not sure that's quite what you're talking about. Or perhaps Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel duology? Or maybe Bujold's Knife duology? Maybe I've read in the subgenre and just didn't know what to call what I was reading...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, Swordspoint and Sorcery and Cecelia seem to be the two most agreed-upon texts, although I may be wrong about that. I thought Tooth and Claw was (Trollope rather than Austen), but papersky didn't think so at the time.

[snickelish.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :) I've meaning to try Kushner, and this is another good reason for me to finally do so - I think this is a subgenre I'd enjoy.

In case you've forgotten:

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

You're kind of intense.

Re: In case you've forgotten:

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, I thought of telling that story again here, but I think I've told it enough times that most people remember it. Giggling to themselves.