RavenCon 17 (April 2024)

Last weekend, my husband, our daughter, and I attended RavenCon near Richmond, Virginia. Here's the convention's website. Information about this year's con is still up.

RavenCon

Guests of honor were editor Ellen Datlow and author Ursula Vernon, aka T. Kingfisher. Since she's one of my favorite writers, I was thrilled when I learned she'd be there. Her reading consisted of excerpts from a new "Sworn Soldier" novel -- sequel to WHAT MOVES THE DEAD and WHAT FEASTS AT NIGHT, yay! -- and a novel about an angel and a demon teaming up to solve a mystery in a small village. (She mentioned her dismay when the GOOD OMENS series premiered, after she was well into the book.) I watched part of her interview later, fascinating background information about the origins of her writing career.

I appeared on panels about Writing Believable Characters and Geeks Parenting Geeks. The latter especially was a lot of fun, the whole session filled with memories and anecdotes about introducing our children to the worlds of fantasy, SF, and horror, plus the works our kids turned us on to. My husband took part in discussions on Writing with a Partner and Writing a Series. Together we appeared in "How Will Religion Change in Space?" Well attended, that was lively and thought-provoking but slightly chaotic. In our opinion, the moderator opened the floor to questions too soon. Eager audience participation is always desirable, but people kept prematurely derailing topics in progress. I never did get to say much about Mary Doria Russell's THE SPARROW, one book I especially wanted to delve into, but anyway it was a worthwhile and memorable panel.

The most heavily attended session I watched, surprisingly, was a lecture with slides proposing that the folktale of "The Smith and the Devil" is the "world's oldest fairy tale." The room was packed, with people sitting on the floor and leaning against walls -- at 9 p.m. on Friday. An interesting late-night presentation I watched only part of was called "Ask a Necromancer," by a licensed mortician answering questions about her profession. On Sunday morning, a slide show about angel lore in myth, fiction, and film mentioned some works new to me that I may watch on video streaming. I brought up C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, strangely (from my viewpoint) omitted from her book list even though she cited several other things that sounded rather peripheral to the topic.

At the Saturday evening masquerade contest, even though I recognized hardly any of the costumes, I marveled at how impressively elaborate most were. Even the "cosplay showcase" of people who didn't enter the official competition featured many dazzling outfits. One I did recognize immediately -- the Queen of Hearts, complete with flamingo, with the equally regally dressed King of Hearts hovering in the background.

Fortunately for getting to events on time, the hotel restaurant offered buffets at all three meals on Saturday and breakfast on Sunday. Not so fortunately, we had to fend for ourselves at Friday dinner in the only food venue open, the bar. With the resulting crowd, we didn't get fed until half an hour after ordering, when the opening ceremony had already started. Aside from not being present for the self-introduction of guests, though, we didn't miss anything vital.

We drove there and back uneventfully. We arrived home on Sunday afternoon to find the house and the cats in good condition.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

RavenCon

You can read about the 2023 RavenCon, held in the Richmond, VA, area this past weekend, here:

RavenCon

The guest of honor was Esther Friesner. I watched her "Ask Auntie Esther" presentation (consisting mostly of funny anecdotes about life in writing, publishing, and fandom) and part of an interview. She's as entertaining in person as her stories and anthologies are (e.g., the CHICKS IN CHAINMAIL series she edited). Another special guest, horror host "Count Gore De Vol," of course costumed in vampire regalia, acted as MC for the masquerade contest. Although I didn't recognize the sources of most of the costumes, I enjoyed seeing them anyway. The only child entrant played a role I did know, Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter series. The most unusual costume, I thought, was "Jor-El in the Fortress of Solitude." The contestant wore a cardboard diorama of the interior of the ice fortress on his head. His actual face, in white makeup, emerged through an opening in the back, with a tiny figure of Superman looking up at him. The intermission featured entertainment by a filk music group called Dimensional Riffs, whom I liked. (For one thing, most of the lyrics were clearly understandable, often not the case with instruments drowning out vocals in some groups' performances.) They sang Star Wars and "Firefly" material.

My husband and I appeared in a session on creating memorable character names, which I thought went well. Recommendations of resources for finding or generating names, plus lots of discussion about what not to do.

Some panel highlights: "Raising Children in Space," including both generation ships and extraterrestrial or extrasolar planets. "Should We Be Genetically Altering Humans?", ranging from correction of genes that cause severely disabling or life-threatening conditions to radical redesign of human embryos. Both of these had actual scientists on the panel with solid information and substantive issues discussed. Same with "Writing Believable Aliens." The panel on how not to think about women characters, focusing more on reader response than on strategies for writers, was interesting but not quite what I expected. The "Mary Sue" concept, since it figured prominently in the printed schedule's panel description, took up a lot of time, and in my opinion the panelists sometimes applied it too broadly and not quite accurately. Some interesting discussion anyway. An archaeologist gave a presentation on medicinal and magical plants found in "spell bags" (usually, in fact, pots rather than bags, which don't last very well) in burials of shamans. She showed slides of plants and the burial sites, with skeletal remains. The lecture explored two different sites, one in England and one Native American burial from the eastern U.S. She barely managed to fit all her material into the allotted time; I wish the talk could have gone on longer.

Same hotel as last year, spread over three different buildings on a beautiful, green campus. Buffets were available for breakfasts and dinners, fortunately. We heard from those who ate lunch in the "tavern" that service was painfully slow. Typical of a convention hotel, sigh. Luckily, there is also a "grab and go" food counter, although their selection is limited. The location is within less than half a day's drive from us. We had nice weather for the most part; the predicted Saturday rain didn't turn out to be much. On the whole, a satisfactory weekend at a not-too-big con.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

ICFA 2023

Last week the annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts was held in Orlando (as usual). This was the second in-person conference since the two-year pandemic hiatus (which include a virtual con in 2021). Weather stayed perfectly sunny from Wednesday through Sunday, aside from some rain, maybe, in the middle of the night on Friday. However, Sunday morning was oddly chilly for Orlando in March, first time I've ever seen daytime temperatures in the 50s.

Conference theme was Afrofuturism. The Guest of Honor was Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, a Nigerian author, editor, and publisher of speculative fiction, who couldn't be physically present. His luncheon GOH speech was prerecorded. One point he emphasized was that elements of indigenous belief systems are often treated as "fantasy" when transferred into Western fiction, although they are an integral part of the cultural background in their societies of origin. After the talk was played, he appeared "live" for a Zoom Q and A. The scholar guest of honor, Isiah Lavender III, is author of AFROFUTURISM RISING: THE LITERARY PREHISTORY OF A MOVEMENT and numerous other works. As someone else remarked at one point, I think I came away from the conference knowing less about Afrofuturism than when I arrived. Starting from a general idea of what the term means, I encountered so many different perspectives on analyzing it that summarizing it in one succinct definition seemed hopeless. Sort of like trying to define science fiction! A completely new word I encountered was "noirum," analogous to the SF "novum," the innovation in science or technology that forms the premise of a science-fiction story. A noirum is (if I understood correctly) the sociological equivalent, "noir" of course suggesting "black."

Food at the two luncheons and the banquet was abundant and delicious, as usual. Not that every menu item equally delighted me, but there were always several dishes to enjoy. As for dessert, the kitchen staff seemed to have caught on that a chocolate selection must always be included. :)

Some highlights of the program for me: "50 Shades of Nay," a panel about consent in speculative fiction. I expected a discussion of sexual consent, but the topic was much broader. In all areas, how freely can a person give consent to a certain course of action if alternatives are narrowly constrained? If one agrees to something, what trade-offs might one have to accept? Likewise, the panel on gender and sexuality in speculative fiction covered a very wide spectrum of topics. There was also a lively panel on the craft of writing. I especially enjoyed a trio of paper readings about "hybridity," mainly mermaids. A session on Afrofuturism in comics was led by a moderator who appeared to be a human encyclopedia on every aspect of the history of comics, and some other people in the room weren't far behind. The moderator looked almost as old as I am; almost everybody else looked significantly younger. One member of the audience who seemed deeply well-informed nevertheless referred to the 1980s as "the old days" of the comic industry. LOL.

At one of the "Words and Worlds" reading sessions, in which several creators share their work in time slots of ten minutes each, I read part of a scene from my contemporary fantasy story "Bunny Hunt," forthcoming on April 10. People seemed to like it. The other presentations consisted of a poetry cycle, "Old Mother Hubble," about the dying Hubble space telescope, with beautiful photos; a short video of a witty poetic tribute to "Saint Onion," with medieval-style illustrations; and a darkly funny tale of a medieval kitchen boy sent to the woods to search for the hunters who are supposed to be supplying a boar for the feast of Saint Stephen.

At the meeting of the Lord Ruthven Assembly, our vampire and revenant studies group, we viewed THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, starring Vincent Price. This earliest and most low-budget adaptation of Richard Matheson's I AM LEGEND is, oddly, the only movie that comes close to faithfully following the novel. Also, we had popcorn.

The flight home on Sunday had a delay in takeoff, but it arrived at the Baltimore airport safely and not too late.

You can read about the organization and the conference here:

International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

Most of this week, I'll be at the ICFA in Orlando, the second year we've had a live gathering since the pandemic started.

I'll report on the con next week.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

ChessieCon

Over Thanksgiving weekend this year, ChessieCon held its first live convention since 2019. The hiatus probably contributed to the low attendance compared to recent years. Nevertheless, it was great to be able to experience the event in person once again. You can read about it here:

ChessieCon

As a byproduct of the reduced number of attendees, I appeared on more panels than I ever have anywhere. Les and I participated in two together, about "bug-eyed monsters" and other alien threats and about writing series versus stand-alone books. My other session topics were cross-genre fiction, titled "The Collusion of Horror, Fantasy, SF and Speculative Fiction," which we thought might be a typo for "collision"; alien cultures versus human cultures, especially if the alien isn't humanoid; and nonhuman reproduction. The last two panels included a scientist, who gave us a broad perspective on earthly life forms with exotic and outright weird biology (weird from a human perspective, of course). Les also appeared in a session on writer's block. I attended a panel on dystopian fiction that happened to mention a Japanese novel I hadn't heard of before, NEVER LET ME GO, which sounded intriguing enough for me to order a copy when I got home.

Les and I joined in the customary group author signing, which turned out to comsist of three occupied tables in a vast, otherwise empty ballroom. Strikingly different from past years. We had some nice chats, and I bought several books. None of ours got purchased. (Sigh.) But, then, no more than three or four potential readers stopped in.

On Sunday, we watched part of the musical performance by Roberta Rogow, one of my favorite filkers. The musical guests of honor were the Blibbering Humdingers, a filk group comprising mostly members of one family. The woman mainly sang the vocals, while the men played the instruments. I didn't enjoy their Saturday night show as much as I'd hoped. It would have been more pleasurable if I could have understood all the words; I usually liked what I did catch. In most songs, though, they sang too fast for me, and the instrumental sound more often then not drowned out the lyrics. An exception was a lovely piece about Lily's sacrifice in the Harry Potter series. A patter song about changes in language over the years was entertaining, from what I could comprehend of it. I also liked a silly bit, easy to understand for the most part, about captains in popular culture -- Kirk, Picard, Janeway, Sparrow, Crunch (groan), et al.

The con moved to a new hotel this year, the same one used annually in the spring for Shore Leave and Balticon. Positive features: For us personally, the same general route and about the same driving time from home as for the old hotel. Noticeably more efficient elevators. A nice breakfast buffet. (But no grits, even though the dinner menu includes shrimp-and-grits, so the kitchen certainly cooks them.) Friendly staff. Pretty quick meal service. Negative aspects of the hotel: Food at the evening meal, served in the bar, was good in our opinion, but the menu seemed even more limited than the typical hotel restaurant menu. Our room had no guidebook to hotel facilities, so I had to query the front desk whenever in need of information. The clock-radio had all sorts of cutting-edge features we didn't use, with instructions printed on top of the device -- but no directions for setting the time, a not at all intuitive procedure. And somehow our clock had become unplugged. My husband struggled with trying to figure out how to set the time and finally gave up. Altering the thermostat temperature setting was impossible; the desk clerk apologized that they were having trouble with the climate control system and waiting for it to be repaired. Worst of all, the hotel has no food service of any kind at lunch! The coffee shop with basic "grab and go" cold breakfast items and snacks such as chips closes at noon. The bar doesn't open until 5 p.m. The one vending machine offers only drinks, chips, nuts, candy bars, and the like. With only half an hour between midday panels, leaving the premises to seek fast food wasn't feasible, and anyway once I get to a convention, I don't leave the hotel if avoidable. (For one thing, we'd have to park the car all over again.)

Still, aside from no meaningful lunch on Saturday, none of those glitches posed major problems. We had a fun weekend anyway.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

2022 International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

This year's ICFA, our first live conference since 2019, had lower attendance than usual (down from the 500s to around 300), but the difference didn't appear obvious at a glance in most of the gatherings. The opening panel on Wednesday afternoon did look more sparsely attended than in previous years. On the other hand, there were, surprisingly, a lot of people attending the con for the first time. It was encouraging to see so many newcomers, especially considering the current situation.

The theme was "Fantastic Communities." The phrase could refer either to communities of creators, fans, and critics involved with the fantastic in all its media and genres or to the imaginary communities writers and filmmakers create in their works. Panels and papers enthusiastically embraced both approaches. The author guest of honor, Nisi Shawl (who uses "they" pronouns), delivered an engaging speech at the Thursday luncheon, "The Bird in the Bush: Semipermeable Selfhood," structured around the phases of their own life with focus on their various identities and the communities they identify with. Why is a bird in the hand worth more than two in the bush? Aren't two birds better than one, especially with a bush thrown in? Or does an object have value only if possessed and controlled? And how do we define the boundaries of the self? For instance, implanted artificial lenses become part of the subject's body. Are glasses a part of the self, too? Shawl entertained us by singing a risque folk song called "The Bird in the Bush." They concluded their talk by leading the audience in the song "What the World Needs Now Is Love, Sweet Love."

Scholar Guest of Honor Farah Mendlesohn, author of the groundbreaking RHETORICS OF FANTASY as well as many other important works of criticism including a book on the career and works of Robert Heinlein, spoke at the Friday luncheon about "Science Fiction Communities in the Rainbow Age." She surveyed the changes in the demographics of the speculative fiction field over recent decades in areas such as awards, contents of anthologies, etc., supplying lots of substantive data that I found fascinating. Diversity of representation in gender and ethnicity has evolved, of course, but it's still nowhere near equitable.

I participated in two events, a panel on vampire communities in fiction and a "Words and Worlds" session in which several writers read short excerpts from our works. There was lots of time for discussion in the latter. I read from my dark paranormal romance AGAINST THE DARK DEVOURER, which I think went well, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the other panelists, two poets and a prose fiction author.

Afrofuturist fiction, BIPOC representation, and gender issues held a prominent place in this year's programming. I especially enjoyed a paper session on animation; shows discussed included one anime series, TERROR IN RESONANCE, with a focus on mental illness, and four Western cartoons, OWL HOUSE, STEVEN UNIVERSE, SHE-RA, and ADVENTURE TIME, analyzing nonbinary characters in those works. I attended several lively, informative discussion panels about the business of marketing fiction. At the Saturday banquet, the president of our vampire and revenant division, the Lord Ruthven Assembly, announced this year's awards: Fiction, THE NIGHT LIBRARY OF STERNENDACH: A VAMPIRE OPERA IN VERSE, by Jessica Levai. Nonfiction (tie), THE TRANSMEDIA VAMPIRE, by Simon Bacon, and THE VAMPIRE IN POPULAR CULTURE: LOVE AT FIRST BITE, by Violet Fenn. Other media, MIDNIGHT MASS (Netflix).

Food at the two lunches and the banquet was excellent, as usual, although the hotel (under new management) miscalculated and ran out of some items on Thursday. Meals in the hotel restaurant were good but astonishingly high-priced. Except that my return flight took off half an hour late, the plane trips went pretty smoothly. When I got home, daffodils had suddenly started blooming.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

ICFA 2022

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

The International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts is happening this week -- the first live con we've had since 2019! You can read about the organization here, with a link to the program schedule (scroll down a bit) in case you're curious about what goes on at this combination academic and author/fan gathering:

International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts

I'll report next week on how it goes.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

ChessieCon 2021

For the second year in a row, the Baltimore-area ChessieCon was held online instead of in person. (Not long before the scheduled date, we lost our hotel, which became a quarantine facility.) I was mildly anxious about the procedure for this con because it looked more complicated than last year's set-up, when members could just drop in to join a Zoom meeting anytime. This year, we had to register in advance for any session we wanted to "attend," and registration was locked when a panel began. To my relief, though, everything worked smoothly, easier than I'd expected. The system allowed me to sign up for my whole weekend's choices at once. Having registered, I received individual e-mails with the "room" link for each session, and it didn't matter if I started watching a few minutes into the time slot. It was only the registration itself that was "locked."

I always enjoy the musical events at ChessieCon. This year I watched two performances, Roberta Rogow (filk) and Bob and Sue Esty, formerly of the group Clam Chowder (mostly folk). I was especially glad Roberta Rogow sang one of my favorite of her standard pieces, "Schindler's List," which always brings me to tears.

Topics of panels I watched all or part of: Immortals in fiction; "A Century of Robots"; Native American mythology and lore in fantasy; pandemics in history and literature; creating gods for a fictional universe; portal stories. As one would expect from convention panels, many provocative questions were raised with no definitive answers reached. Fun! Panels also offer chances to learn about books one might not have read or even heard of.

Aside from the music, my favorite session was a lecture on mass extinctions—definition, types, consequences—delivered by Thomas Holtz, a paleontologist from the University of Maryland. He was an informative, lucid, and entertaining speaker, whose presentation included a lavish array of charts and colorful slides. I've bookmarked his name on YouTube to view some of his other videos in the future.

While I regret missing the live con weekend of yore, a virtual convention has advantages. No rushing around like decapitated chickens to get out of the house the day after Thanksgiving. (One year we unwisely left turkey soup simmering very low all weekend, asking one of our sons to drop by and check on it. We came home to a pot of charred bones. Never again.) No need to drive anywhere or spend money on hotel rooms, meals, and dog boarding. There's one odd negative consequence of watching a con on the computer, however. When I'm home, I can't avoid doing a lot of the chores and such I would do on an ordinary weekend, so I end up "attending" fewer panels and performances than I would in person. At the hotel, the weekend is all con, all the time.

Next year in person for sure, Lord willing!

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Virtual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

Last week, from Thursday through Sunday, the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts held its annual conference (normally in Orlando) virtually. Last year they skipped it completely. It was nice to get back "together," if only online. Unlike virtual ChessieCon in November 2020, with only live sessions (because, as usual, almost all were extemporaneous discussion panels) except for a slide show on costumes, the IAFA conference prerecorded or uploaded all the paper presentations. Only discussion panels, author readings, and events such as meetings weren't recorded.

You can check out the organization here:

IAFA

Disadvantages of the virtual con: Missing the hotel stay, the Florida weather, and the lavish meals. Not being able to watch all the "live" panels one might want to, because they weren't recorded for later viewing. No opportunity to see people face-to-face and talk at length. Also, one couldn't devote undivided attention to con events for the entire four days. Being physically at home, I could hardly pretend I wasn't there and ignore the pets, laundry, grocery shopping, etc.

Advantages: Much cheaper than the traditional conference. No need to leave home; I don't like traveling. The great pleasure of having flexibility on when to view most of the presentations. The complete program, with live links to prerecorded / uploaded papers and talks, was posted well before the actual weekend of the event and will remain on the website until the end of March. I think I got exposed to at least as many papers as I do when attending in person, maybe more. I also managed to fit in the few live sessions I felt a strong need to watch, e.g., the Lord Ruthven Assembly vampire panel, the LRA annual meeting, and the IAFA business meeting and awards presentation on Sunday evening. The best feature was being able to hear or read papers whenever convenient, without being forced to choose between them if they happened to be scheduled in the same nominal time slot—what a luxury!

I listened to Jean Lorrah reading from a forthcoming Sime-Gen novel, which of course I wanted to get right away. We have to wait, though, since it's not finished, much less published yet. The Lord Ruthven Assembly (our vampire, revenant, and Gothic division) had a lively panel on vampires called "The Dead Travel Fast," with a lot of discussion spinning off from the differences between the traditional folklore undead, usually bound to the vicinity of their mortal homes and families, and the wandering vampires of much fiction from Lord Ruthven (1819) on. Even though my computer doesn't have a microphone and camera, Zoom allowed me to watch sessions passively with computer audio, and the text chat sidebar enables written comments. I liked that method; it was nice and simple. A presentation on superheroes saving the world, referencing the widespread "Thanos Was Right" meme, brought up the concept of "fan labor"—how fan reception and response add value to commercially produced films and literature. Like many papers and discussions, this talk tied into the conference theme of the "Anthropocene," which inspired many presenters to discuss human impact on the environment as reflected in fantasy and science fiction. In other areas of interest to me, there were several papers each on Stephen King, Harry Potter, and Terry Pratchett. A talk focusing on Tolkien featured a slide show of maps. An advantage of viewing such material online is being able to see details better than one can from a seat in a meeting room. One of my favorite papers dealt with Delia Sherman's FREEDOM MAZE, exploring issues of identity and the "decentering" effect of the time-traveling teenage protagonist's landing in 1860 where she's mistaken for a slave, instead of a white Southern girl from a "good" family as she's been taught to think of herself in 1960. That presentation inspired me to reread the book, as a good piece of literary criticism ideally does.

The weekend concluded with the business meeting and awards on Sunday evening. IAFA's officers are considering the feasibility of offering some kind of virtual track every year, which would be useful to many members who can't travel to Florida for whatever reason. The plan faces potential problems and complications, however, not least the risk of seeming to establish a two-tier system of participation and the possible impairment of the deal with the hotel, in which perks such as meeting spaces depend on selling a certain minimum number of hotel rooms and meals. At any rate, this year's con seemed to rate as a brilliant success; it definitely was for me.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Privacy Con

Whether "Con" is short-speak for "convention" or "confidence (not)", tricks with regard to ones identity, privacy, copyrights, and biometric data abound. Privacy cons are this week's theme.

Sharing Key Takeaways from the FTC's PrivacyCon, legal bloggers Lauren Kitces,  Marisol Mork,  Kristin Bryan, and  Dylan J. Yepez for Squire Patton Boggs, report on the five important privacy topics discussed at the fifth such annual event.

The six topics were Artificial Intelligence, Health Apps, Internet-of-Things, Privacy and Security related to virtual assistants and digital cameras, International privacy, and miscellaneous privacy and security issues. The Key Takeaways are an excellent summary.

Original Link:
https://www.securityprivacybytes.com/2020/07/key-takeaways-from-the-ftcs-privacycon/#page=1

Lexology Link:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=776efd4d-2207-49dd-b38b-09ee817a1a12

As regards Health Apps, it is important to read up on recent news from FitBit, and to have confidence that FitBit promises that the acquiring advertisement company will respect users' medical privacy and will not use FitBit users' health and wellness data for one brand of advertising.

Chaim Gartenberg reports for The Verge:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/1/20943318/google-fitbit-acquisition-fitness-tracker-announcement

The Trichordist writes at length about the Internet-of-Things, wittily terming it the Internet of other people's Things, because of the massive amount of copyright infringement online.

This link is to Part 4 of a multi-series set of articles based on the amici curiae SCOTUS filing in what the authors claim might be the most important copyright case of the decade, because it might set fair use standards for years to come: 
https://thetrichordist.com/2020/07/30/there-are-untold-riches-in-running-the-internet-of-other-peoples-things-supreme-court-brief-of-davidclowery-helienne-theblakemorgan-and-sgawrites-in-google-v-oracle-part-4/

While on the topic of copyright, Chris Castle explains that copyright infringement lowers "the customary price", or what consumers would pay to read the book or dance to the music if not for its availability free on the copyright infringing sites.

If you use TIKTOK, do you know that they are allegedly a pirate site and allegedly don't pay for the music?

https://musictechpolicy.com/2020/08/01/when-pigs-fly-the-tiktok-fire-sale-belly-flop/

One wonders, does Apple know?  Tiktok icons pop up in the app store. It would be good to have the Supreme Court rule on what is fair use and what is not!

Returning to the legal blogs, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP takes a look at Facebook and its use and possible abuse of biometric identifiers.

Lexology link:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3b349823-41a3-4852-b115-8e8d8a7e0196

Original link:
https://www.huntonprivacyblog.com/2020/07/29/texas-ag-investigates-facebooks-use-of-biometric-identifiers/#page=1

One should be wary about giving consent when banks and brokerage houses try to bully one (usually via the artificially intelligent receptionist before one gets through to a real banker or broker) into agreeing to have ones voice recorded to use as identification for the future. It's becoming increasingly tricky to have confidence that ones voice isn't recorded and used for that purpose regardless of ones wishes.

What happens if one catches cold? Would ones voice pass muster? What if one of the places storing ones voice were to be hacked. If it is already unwise to say, "Yes" to any stranger on the telephone, how much more dangerous to ones privacy and ones property would it be if biometric data is widely used for identification and security?!

Finally, for Baker and Hostetler LLP, legal bloggers Linda A. Goldstein and Amy Ralph Mudge discuss a social media bot dossier. Allegedly, this is about a company called Devumi, that was accused of selling the appearance of thousands of fake social media fans to boost the reputations and egos of persons wishing to appear influential or popular, especially on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

Original link:
https://e.bakerlaw.com/rv/ff00664060d9cac92f4e13993c479c667c08f540/p=8416417

Lexology link:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=43f3ee0e-0148-49b2-a69e-f651527d6e2f

Back in 2018, Jesse M. Brody of Manatt Phelps and Phillips wrote about fake social media follower bots, apparently belonging to the same company, and presumably how these false friends con advertisers.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f2f48e9a-4ba4-4d13-852a-16e3020d80de

One can only imagine!

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

RavenCon

We spent this past weekend at RavenCon in Williamsburg, Virginia. The author guest of honor was Melinda Snodgrass. Because she worked with George R. R. Martin on his Wild Cards series, the con played with a Wild Cards theme at the opening ceremony Friday night. I haven't read any of the series, but the premise sounds intriguing. In case you haven't either, it goes like this: A plague has rewritten human DNA. Among the total population, 90% died. Most of the others survived with grotesque mutations, and a tiny percentage developed superpowers. At registration, each attendee received a tag to attach to the name badge. Black Queens were dead (I got that one). Jokers got amusing mutations. Aces got superpowers. Friday night, the Jokers and Aces were called up front to learn their mutations or powers. Fun!

I appeared on the program in the Broad Universe rapid-fire reading. This year, so many authors participated that we got a two-hour time slot. Each person was allotted a little over five minutes for intro and reading. I read from my new light paranormal romance novella, "Yokai Magic," and it seemed to go well.

The program included a STEM track of panels and presentations, held in a designated "science room." Among other topics, sessions covered life sciences and medicine in SF, what science fiction authors get right and wrong about science, effects of space flight on the human body, and "Space doesn't work like that." A significant number of people with military experience, as well as scientists, appeared on panels. A non-science session that particularly impressed me tackled morality and ethics in SF and fantasy. One panelist held a doctorate in philosophy and had worked on the alignment system for Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition. There were also writing craft sessions, genre-focused sessions, and all the usual features you'd expect at an SF con. Fandom for David Weber's Honor Harrington series has a prominent presence at RavenCon, and at least two panels focused on that universe.

The musical guests of honor were the Library Bards, a filk duo. I enjoyed their songs when I could comprehend the lyrics. In common with most of the musicians I checked out, however, the Library Bards sang to a recorded background track of very loud, hard-rock style instrumentals that tended to drown out the words. However, they performed some pieces I liked quite a bit, e.g., a tribute to one of the "Dr. Who" stars (although I'm not familiar with him, it was cute), a celebration of Stan Lee and the Marvel universe, and a song summarizing the entire plot of PRINCESS BRIDE. Two musical guests I especially liked were the Nefarious Ferrets (a duo) and Gray Rinehart; both of those acts sang and played in a calmer style, and I could understand the words. (When old age creeps up, being able to hear the words of songs and TV dialogue becomes a non-trivial concern!)

Some highlights of the Saturday evening masquerade included a mother-child pair in elaborate kitsune costumes, a fan-dancing "steampunk geisha," and a joint appearance by Spider-Man and Spider-Man Noir (all in black). Unfortunately, the event ran behind schedule, so I eventually left to attend a panel and therefore didn't find out who won.

We were pleased with the hotel this year. Unlike last year, when they didn't have a room for us until well after the designated check-in hour, this time we got settled right away. Also, the meal service in the cafe was noticeably faster than in the previous two years we've attended. This hotel offers one delightful perk upon check-in—a large chocolate chip cookie for each guest.

You can read about RavenCon here. The programming schedule and the rest of this year's information are still on the site:

RavenCon

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

Last Wednesday through Saturday, the 2019 ICFA met in Orlando. As usual, it was wonderful to spend four days in Florida in March. Days were pleasantly warm, and the predicted off-and-on rain never appeared. The organization is considering changes to the date and/or location of the conference. For the first time, I attended the annual business meeting, just to hear the discussion on this issue and the results of the membership survey about it. I'm happy with the present set-up except for one point, the risk of airline delays in March. March in Florida falls in the "high season," with expensive hotel rates, so a change could save money and avoid rises in cost for members who couldn't afford to pay more. The long-time conference chair (about to retire from that role after thirty-five years—we'll miss him!) and his assistant presented a detailed explanation of the factors that go into hotel convention prices and the process of negotiating with hotels. Two major alternatives suggested were Toronto or a different venue in Orlando, with other choices also discussed. Naturally, no decision has been reached yet. The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA) plans to send out another survey to get an updated sense of the membership's preferences now that more information has been supplied. Being naturally averse to change, I don't like the idea of leaving a pleasant location I'm used to, but I have faith that the IAFA officers will make the best decision for the majority. Like any change, of course, whatever happens will be good for some people and unfavorable to others, especially since U. S. residents, North Americans in general, and the smaller percentage of attendees from overseas all have different needs.

The Lord Ruthven Assembly—the vampire and revenant division of IAFA—presented its annual awards. The fiction winner was EUROPEAN TRAVEL FOR THE MONSTROUS GENTLEWOMAN, by Theodora Goss. The nonfiction award went to I AM LEGEND AS AMERICAN MYTH, by Amy Ransom. For the first time, as far as I know, both winners were present at the Saturday night banquet to receive their recognition, which was quite a thrill. Since 2019 marks the bicentennial of John Polidori's "The Vampyre"—the first known prose vampire fiction in English, the story with Lord Ruthven as the enigmatic villain—we had a panel about the influence of that work. The theme of the con was "Politics and Conflict," so the panel nominally dealt with the politics of the characters' social status and relationships but in practice ranged more widely. At the LRA evening meeting, after the business portion we screened an obscure horror film, THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST, based on or at least inspired by Polidori's tale. Only an hour long, the movie was co-written by classic SF author Leigh Brackett (who also worked on THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK). It was better than I expected, actually quite worth watching. It also contains more elements from "The Vampyre" than I'd expected from reading the Wikipedia summary; these include the vampire's "death" and revival by moonlight, the hero's inability to tell anyone about these events, and his being incapacitated with a fever while the vampire, who poses as a concerned friend, courts the heroine (in this case, the hero's fiancee instead of his sister as in the original story). In the most significant alteration, the movie takes place in equatorial Africa instead of Greece and England.

The author guest of honor, G. Willow Wilson, although also a novelist, is mainly known for her work in comics and graphic novels, especially MS. MARVEL. Her after-lunch speech on Thursday was lively and thought-provoking. She reminded us that comics have always had a "political" dimension, often invisible to both creators and audiences because of its mainstream nature. In the case of her work, though, because she isn't an Anglo male writer, her very existence in the field is regarded as "political" no matter how innocuous her content may be. She described a hate-mail electronic message she received, whose sender went to the trouble of printing every line in a different-colored font. She noted that the wildly successful MS. MARVEL was expected to last only about ten issues, because its heroine falls under the "trifecta of death"—a new, female, minority character. Wilson also raised the question of who "owns" a creative product—the fans, the writers, the publisher, the parent corporation?

Guest scholar Mark Bould, who has written extensively on science fiction, delivered the after-lunch talk on Friday. He remarked, "We need better stories," and highlighted the surge in zombie films in recent years. He characterized this trope as a "disastrous, dehumanizing, deadly story." Instead, he advocates for a narrative of "less work, more life." His theme was openly political, focusing on a "post-capitalist, post-scarcity" society that would produce luxury for all. I was especially struck by his statement about the role of speculative fiction in exposing what's thought to be "natural" and inevitable as contingent and making the supposedly "impossible" seem attainable.

One unique feature of this year's event: A display of memorabilia from the entire forty-year span of the conference. It was mildly mind-boggling to contemplate the modest programs of the earliest years contrasted with the book-sized directories of more recent conference programming.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

ChessieCon 2018

As we do every year at Thanksgiving, my husband, our youngest son, and I spent the weekend at ChessieCon (formerly Darkover), just north of Baltimore. Guest of Honor was Jo Walton, author of FARTHING, TOOTH AND CLAW, AMONG OTHERS, MY REAL CHILDREN, a trilogy in which Athena tries to create Plato's Just City as envisioned in the REPUBLIC, and other great books. Walton read a chapter involving the exorcism of demons from her forthcoming novel LENT. On the basis of that selection, I'm looking forward to the book.

At the Broad Universe rapid-fire reading, I read a short scene from my humorous ghost story "Haunted Book Nook," recently published in the new anthology SWORD AND SORCERESS 33. Les (my husband) appeared on two panels, on military SF versus the real-life military and on the advantages of writing a series versus stand-alone books (including how to handle a stand-alone piece in an ongoing series). I led a discussion session on STEVEN UNIVERSE. Although the group was small, the conversation was passionate, and someone brought doughnuts. If you're not familiar with this animated series about a half-human boy and his guardians, the Crystal Gems (alien life-forms who are literally sentient gemstones, their humanoid bodies being essentially solid holograms), do check it out. At first, it looks like a typical children's cartoon, but as the series progresses, layers upon layers of depth unfold. Next, I participated in a panel on "Good Art, Problematic Artist," a fraught topic with much potential for conflict. Fortunately, we had an excellent moderator, and everyone who spoke (both panel and audience) addressed the subject with intelligence and sensitivity. Whether a creator's abhorrent attitudes or evil actions can be separated from appreciation of his or her art depends on many situational factors and is a nuanced question each person must decide individually. Is the artist alive or dead, recent or classic? If alive, does he or she benefit from our consumption of the art? Do reprehensible attitudes or opinions make themselves visible in the work or not? How much should authors and other artists from previous eras get a pass on their prejudices for being "of their time"? Naturally, we mostly discussed writers, and, not surprisingly, H. P. Lovecraft came up. However, we did touch upon problematic performers, mainly Bill Cosby.

Les and I took part in the group signing on Saturday evening. We had some nice chats with people passing by and actually sold a few books. I like that system (as opposed to individual book signings) because we get to see what other writers have to offer, and with all of us in one place at the same time, we lesser-known folks have the advantage of being seen by readers who come to check out the higher-profile authors.

If we didn't know better, we might think the hotel was getting tired of us, judging by the conditions this year. One elevator remained out of order the whole time. More critically, because of renovations in progress the heat didn't work right. The main downstairs corridor, the restrooms, and most of the meeting spaces didn't have any. Fortunately, the chill didn't extend to the guest rooms. On the plus side, it did seem that the speed of service in the dining room had marginally improved. We noticed evidence of under-staffing, though. Con attendance seemed to be down, judging from the low numbers of people in many sessions. Nevertheless, discussions were lively. The former members of Clam Chowder sang highlights from their repertoire, as usual, and the Saturday evening concert featured a pagan-inspired group called Kiva. From what I watched of their performance, I especially liked their version of the Yuletide folk song "Soul Cake." The musical guest of honor was filk musician Mary Crowley.

Happily, the ChessieCon tradition will continue next year. The Guest of Honor will be Charlie Jane Anders. You can read about the con here:

ChessieCon

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

RavenCon

My husband, our youngest son, and I spent the past weekend at RavenCon in Williamsburg, Virginia.

RavenCon

This was our second year of attendance and the first year my husband (Leslie Roy Carter) and I have participated in panels there. The 2018 writer guest of honor was horror author and STAR WARS tie-in writer Chuck Wendig.

My husband and I appeared together on a panel about "Collaborating as a Couple." It wasn't quite what I expected, because the other couple weren't writers; they worked in film on special effects, makeup, and costuming. They provided lots of interesting anecdotes and information about their profession. I took part in a session on "The Evolution of Horror." Of course, we couldn't adequately cover such a wide topic in fifty minutes, but we had an engaging discussion with plenty of audience response. Les also participated in "Ask a Scientist," "Weapons Engineering," and "One If by Air, Two If by Sea" (mainly on military science in real life and fiction).

I especially liked the panel on SUPERNATURAL, one of my favorite long-running TV series. "Medicine in Fantasy" was full of intriguing information plus opinions on realistic and not-so-realistic depictions of healing in fantasy, and it could easily have gone much longer. Some writing-related sessions I viewed all or part of included "Life Hacks for Writers," "Ignore This Advice: Writing Tips That Aren't So Great," "Writing Outside the Box," and "Writer Without a Day Job" (featuring a group of full-time writers whose apparent productivity put me to shame). "Everybody Dies" discussed good and bad ways to handle character deaths. "Vampires, Monsters, and Ghosts—Oh, My" didn't particularly focus on vampires, as I'd expected; it was about using monsters in general in fiction. "Is That Blood on Your Dress?" dealt with the history and appeal of Gothic romance. "Morally Ambiguous Bad Guys" and "Longing for the Love of Monsters" were a couple of other highlights.

I enjoyed the filk group Misbehavin' Maidens, who performed lively, funny, mildly bawdy songs (mildly in the daytime show I attended, anyway). The set included "Dumb Ways to Con" (what not to do at conventions) and, as a sign of the times, a piece about consent. The Saturday night masquerade didn't have a huge number of entries, but they were all worth seeing. My favorite was a couple enchantingly costumed as Beauty and the Beast. Also, there was a woman in a green dress and matching green antlers whom I found very impressive, though I can't remember what the outfit represented. The con naturally had film and anime tracks, none of which I watched because of attending panels or going to bed in time to get a reasonable amount of sleep. In the snack and relaxation space labeled Ten-Forward, a fan group screened some original STAR TREK episodes they'd produced, of which we watched a few minutes. The films seemed to have quite a professional look.

The hotel has a confusing layout for the uninitiated, but this being our second year there, I began to get the hang of it. The spread-out nature of the space made the gathering feel uncrowded even though the total attendance (from what I heard) significantly exceeds that of our Thanksgiving weekend event, ChessieCon.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

ICFA

This week the annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts meets in Orlando, Florida, and I'm there as usual. This year's theme is the bicentennial of the publication of Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN. The weather forecast looks wonderful. I'll report on the con next Thursday.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

ChessieCon 2017

With my husband and youngest son, as usual, I spent the weekend after Thanksgiving at ChessieCon (formerly Darkover). Guest of Honor was Ada Palmer, author of the Terra Ignota series. Art Guest of Honor was Megan Willis, a storyboard artist on the MY LITTLE PONY series. She gave a talk with Q & A on the animation process and her own career. The principal musical guest was T. J. Burnside Clapp. I loved her songs and was disappointed to find she doesn't have an album currently available. (The two tapes from her former group, Technical Difficulties, didn't make it onto CD because of an accidental misfortune in the transition process.) However, you can hear her beautiful "Lullaby for a Weary World" on YouTube.

I participated in two panels, on Steven Universe and the appeal of horror, and took part in the Broad Universe rapid-fire reading. My husband was on panels about animals in fantasy fiction and the burning question, "Is it harder to teach science to English majors or English to science majors?" Two of the most thoughtful sessions I attended discussed Feminist SF and Feminist Manga. Neither conversation actually managed to define feminism. The manga session brought up the important point that while a work that grapples with gender issues may be feminist, it doesn't have to be. The two overlap but aren't identical. A high note (so to speak) of the weekend for me was the "Totally Not the Clams" performance, music by members of the disbanded folk group Clam Chowder, whose Saturday evening concert was formerly a major event at this con.

Unfortunately, staffing problems didn't allow a full-scale art show as in previous years; a display of the guest artist's work was all they had. Instead of a mass signing event for all the attending authors, the con decided to offer small-group "meet and greet" sessions of about five authors each. Les (my husband) and I had the 9:15 p.m. time slot. Since it occurred in the hotel atrium, plenty of people casually passed by even at that hour. We didn't sell any books, but we had some nice chats. Saturday night ended, as usual, with a show tune sing-along and the traditional singing of the Hallelujah Chorus at midnight. I made sure of getting a room overlooking the atrium so I could listen to those. I still wish the con would reinstate its Friday night costume contest, which faded away from lack of participation several years ago. It's fun to observe hall costumes but not quite the same. One very welcome improvement that has come about in the past year or two: The hotel now has lunch and dinner buffets in addition to the breakfast buffet, plus a concession stand in the lobby for several hours around lunchtime. No more wait, wait, wait to get served, missing convention activities just to eat.

This is a friendly, relaxing con with a strongly book-focused and writer-oriented program, as well as plenty of musical performances and a thriving dealer's room. Highly recommended for any fan who lives near enough to get there conveniently on Thanksgiving weekend.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Con Report - Westercon70 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Con Report
Westercon70
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Over the July 4th weekend in 2017, I went to Westercon in Tempe, Arizona.

I expected to have a good time. Instead, I had a GREAT time.

I hung out in the Star Trek party suit, the Sime~Gen Party, the Con Suite, and was on a number of panels, and an autographing.

It was a busy weekend, but I managed to grab some phone-photos for our historical archives.

You can see some of them below.

Freebie Table

Hall outside Dealer's Romm

Hosts of Star Trek Party with Bjo Trimble GoH

At ongoing Star Trek Party

 Bjo Trimble and me (in blue and black)

Bjo, her husband, and our Party Host

Con Suite

Before Sime~Gen Party

Sime~Gen Party Hostesses

Sime~Gen Party Begins

On a Panel

The panel audience

Another panel

I kept forgetting to take pictures because I was having such a good time!

Jacqueline (happy) Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

RavenCon

Last weekend I attended RavenCon in Williamsburg, Virginia, with my husband and youngest son. This was our first experience of that convention:

RavenCon

Weather was excellent. The location gave us special pleasure because we graduated from the College of William and Mary (as a married couple with small children, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth). On Friday night we had dinner at the historic King's Arms Tavern, one of our favorite places.

The guests of honor were Mercedes Lackey and her husband, author/artist Larry Dixon. Since Lackey is one of my favorite authors, and I'd never seen her in person before, this was a great thrill for me. Unfortunately, she had a bad cold. Friday night she introduced herself with, "I will be your disease vector for this weekend." However, she seemed to have recovered a bit by Saturday. I watched her appearance on a panel about using mythology in fantasy fiction, her author reading session, and an interview of her and her husband. The latter event included, among other topics, much discussion of wild bird rehab, which I found fascinating, and car racing, which I must admit left me rather cold.

I participated in the Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading—ten authors with a four-minute slot each—in which I read an action sequence from the recently re-published fantasy romance LEGACY OF MAGIC by my husband (Leslie Roy Carter) and me. It wasn't a very big gathering, but chocolate was provided. For an hour I sat at the Horror Writers Association Virginia chapter's table and sold one copy of my Lovecraft-themed paranormal romance, SEALING THE DARK PORTAL.

Among other panels, I listened to discussions of world-building, "writing about horrible things," female heroes in contemporary media, the TV series SUPERGIRL, and looking "beyond the binary gaze" to consider people who don't fall into the typical masculine-feminine dichotomy, whether straight or gay. I also saw the second hour of a very detailed presentation, with slides, on what happens to dead bodies. The part I attended covered embalming, funeral, and cremation procedures. Saturday night featured a lively costume contest hosted by a stand-up-comedy pair of men. The half-time show (while waiting for the judges' verdicts) starred a singer of romantic-Gothic style music. Around twenty entrants appeared in the masquerade, I think. The youngest was a toddler dressed as a baby kraken on a leash held by his mother, costumed as a pirate. The winning multi-person presentation showcased the "Food Group Fairies," consisting of such personae as the bacon group and the cheese snack group. Best in show, a zombie nurse (from a series I'm not familiar with) brandishing a knife and garbed all in white aside from a blood spot over one eye on her white-shrouded face, was truly creepy. She moved in a weirdly jerky undead manner that produced a deeply uncanny effect.

We'll probably go to this con again, especially since it's only an easy half-day's drive from home (my approximate cut-off time for willingness to drive anywhere).

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

ICFA 38 Report

As always, I had a great time at the annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando. This year's theme was "Fantastic Epics." The special guests were Steven Erikson, Edward James (Guest Scholar), and N. K. Jemison (who unfortunately couldn't attend because of a family emergency). The Wednesday opening session, a panel on Epic Fantasy, and a panel on Epic Fairy Tales (which at first sight struck me as an oxymoron) all spent considerable time trying to define "epic" and never reached a consensus. Most people did agree on some common elements: Wide scope, the illusion that we're seeing an entire world (even if the "world" is only a village); stakes (the consequences of failure must be catastrophic); and, usually, multiple viewpoint characters. Another panel suggested that epic fantasy typically explores the cultural values of a society and involves a clash between two or more cultures. Not that a unanimous definition of any term can be expected from either scholars or fans! Debating such things is part of the fun. The discussion tended to evolve into a "fuzzy set" approach; as someone put it, the most useful question isn't "Is it epic?" but "How epic is it?" (or "How is it epic?").

I presented a paper on the first few books of Brian Lumley's "Necroscope" vampire saga with a focus on the Cold War era setting. I chaired a session on Stephen King, which I enjoyed a lot because not only is King one of my favorite authors, the three papers dealt with some of my favorites among his works, CARRIE, REVIVAL, and the Dark Tower series. Some other sessions that stand out for me: A panel on the TV series PENNY DREADFUL. A group of three papers on werewolves and the HANNIBAL TV show. A "round table" discussion of the Star Wars film ROGUE ONE, with many references to the Disney movie machine and the prospect of "A Thousand Years of Star Wars." A panel on humor in fantasy and SF—one participant advanced the principle that the humor has to grow naturally from the characters, and it doesn't tend to work if it's obvious that the authorial voice is trying to be funny. There was much debate about when humor crosses the line from funny to offensive.

An exhibit of cover art by Don Maitz and Janny Wurts was on display. The book room, in the process of downsizing the thousands of used volumes that have been stored and placed on sale for many years, offered hundreds of free books for the taking. On Sunday morning, two long tables of paperbacks were packed for donation to a thrift shop. I momentarily conceived a mad wish that I had all the money in the world (for shipping costs) and owned a separate house just for books like Forrest Ackerman, so I could take the entire collection home.

We had a small adventure (in Bilbo's sense, "Adventures are nasty, uncomfortable things that make you late for dinner"). The hotel's electricity went off for a couple of hours in the predawn period one night. Fortunately, the power came back before daylight, so the inconvenience was minimal.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

ICFA 38

This week I'm attending the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando. Eighty-degree days! Nice change from the sudden resurgence of winter we suffered at home last week.

This year's theme is Fantastic Epics. I'm delivering a paper on Brian Lumley's Necroscope series. Next Thursday I'll report on the con.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt