My 4th Street Fantasy Schedule

This weekend I'll be at one of my favorite cons, 4th Street Fantasy in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I love the location, the conrunners, and most of all, yelling about books with smart people on the panels. I'll be moderating on Friday afternoon, and being a mild-mannered panelist on Saturday. Come say hi!

Friday

4:00 PM

All the Things We Do That Aren’t Smashing Things 

Mary Robinette Kowal, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Chelsea Polk, Abra Staffin Wiebe, John Wiswell (M)

A discussion of all the ways we tell stories about building lives, civilizations, and legacies using anything but the edge of the sword. Why do we so often truncate our experience/expectations of fiction to revolve so firmly around the linked concepts of heroism and violence when there are so many other crucial aspects to being human? How has the fantasy genre dealt with this conundrum, and how have specific fantasists tried to approach it? How do we keep the discussion from degenerating into a prudish or performative rejection of the abstract concept of “violence” altogether, while affirming that there are other common and crucial ways of getting things done?

Saturday

3:30 PM

Complicity and Consequence in Interactive Narrative: Press ‘D’ to Feel Guilty!

Max Gladstone (M), Scott Lynch, Cat Manning, John Wiswell

A panel discussing the challenges and implications of attempting to inspire feelings of guilt, responsibility, or complicity for fictional activities/decisions in players of games and interactive fiction, also touching on the concept of vicarious responsibility when experiencing a more traditional narrative (if one laughs along with Corwin of Amber being a total bastard, does that make one a bad person?). Why do this? When is this a useful frame-breaking learning tool? When is it a cheap trick? Can we truly use fictional spaces to make people interrogate the decisions they make and the circumstances they dwell in? What are the practical and ethical limits of this sort of exploration?