mindstalk: (Nanoha)
I attended a Boskone panel on women in SF. It was mentioned that mother main characters were scarce, then that even scarcer were women for whom motherhood was not the impetus for action. Naturally I tried to make a list.

Maternal main characters:
* _Saga_. I forget their names, but the narrator's parents are the focus of action, as is keeping the infant narrator alive.
* _Paladin of Souls_: Ista. She is a mother, but it's not what she's doing.
* _Barrayar_: Cordelia's motherhood is critical.
* _Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen_: Cordelia's son is well into independent adulthood; OTOH, the story is driven by Cordelia's desire to be a mother again.
* _My Enemy, My Ally_: Ael is deuteragonist (along with Kirk) of this Star Trek novel. Her motherhood is incidental to her actions.

Maternal side (but important) or ensemble characters:
* _Children of the Lens_: Clarissa MacDougall had been active as the Red Lensman; I think she sees action again in this book, with her children grown.
* Star Trek TNG: Dr. Crusher. I think her being a doctor is important more often than her being Wesley's mom, but I've barely seen TNG, so I don't know.
* Star Trek III: Carol Marcus, Genesis scientist and mother of David Marcus.
* Nanoha (TOS and A's): Admiral/Commodroe Lindy Harlaown commands a dimensional starship; her teen son serves under her; she also adopts a girl in or after A's.
* Nanoha StrikerS: sort-of main character Nanoha adopts a child during the series, and the "best friend" whom she shares a bed with becomes "Fate-mama" as well.
mindstalk: (glee)
I haven't abandoned the parking book, I've been busy going to Boskone, and that book masses at least 1150 grams (the max my food scale can measure) so T reading has been _Empires of the Indus_ instead.

Personal highlight: I sang four times in open filk: "Bridal Shower", "Galadriel's Lament", "Gimli's Lament", and the One Ring poem, and got praise for all, especially from Heather Dale, professional singer. She's also professionally encouraging, so my self-critical xNTP side is quite capable of discounting her praise, but I'd like to think it adds up to something positive. Especially a spontaneous "your performance tonight was really good, particularly the first one" (Gimli). Tonight I was standing up, which did help volume and delivery, and also trying to act/gesture along with Gimli's words, inspired by Heather's Friday open filk of "Maiden and the Selkie", which in ways was even better than her stage performances. No Ben on guitar, but also no drums in her hand, instead her in the middle of the room miming out parts of the song. So, yeah, this morning I was imagining how to 'annotate' Gimli. Hope it worked.

Other personal highlight: I ran into akashiver, whom I haven't seen in a few years.'

Read more... )
mindstalk: (lizqueen)
Feb 17-19 I went to Boskone

Friday: Panels on how to read aloud (good), aristocrats in SF (good); filk
Saturday: Joan Slonczewski "hell in high school", creationism, meh for me, then short story writing, meh; hung out; character in hard SF, with a panelist who denies he writes it, meh, went to Song Sequitur instead, fun. Underpinnings (assumptions) of SF panel which was fun, with Jane Yolen, and an entertaining military guy, though he gushed about the Windup Girl. YA panel "why so dystopian?" Optimism and pessimism in SF, which I left early for food.

AWESOME FILK CONCERTS by S. J. Tucker and Heather Dale. Actually the proportion of songs which were outright filk wasn't that high. Still good songs, good singing, and good performances. Individually, then con highlight, then encore, and also a close-up one Sunday.

Boskone's warming up to costumes again.


Song circle Saturday, which was fun. Met an old cousin yesterday at the MFA, also fun, then went to the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). Holy art Batman, it's huge! Also expensive, $22 to get in, though you get a second visit free. I spent the afternoon just trying to eyeball everything there, actually really using the place would take days.
mindstalk: (atheist)
Like half the size of Arisia, older, and no cosplay. Apparently it used to be big, over 4000, "the Winter Worldcon". Too big for them, so they shut down the Masquerade and banned costuming panels. So everyone who wanted that formed Arisia, and Boskone's this quiet literary thing.

Fun panels though, and filk is filk. First panel was about Stross, second had Stross and was about Lovecraft. Fantasy was declasse before Tolkien, so you had lots of fantasy in SF drag. "Our hero leaves the spaceport and loses his blaster so must use his fists and sword against Martians too proud to use guns," Now fantasy sells twice as well as SF and Stross wrote Merchant Princes as SF in fantasy drag, though partly to avoid an option on his next SF novel. I find myself wondering if we'll see more SF in fantasy drag, like Scrapped Princess? (Reminds me that I have yet to see a Rosemary Kirstein book in person or in a library system.)

Nice thing about smaller con: much more compact. Con Suite with its free food is far more accessible, in a big room on the bottom floor, rather than on the 16th floor behind a long alley of vendors.

Could have more notes but I want sleep.

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