Worldcon: Monday August 19

On this last day of Worldcon the sessions I attended were

• Bigotry is not allegorical: strategies for writing and reading
  
• Well-meaning vs ‘plain dealing’ villains
  
• Keeping the show on the road: low Earth orbit and beyond
  
• Martian landers
  

Unfortunately I have no notes on the Martian landers talk, because the lights were down for the presentation and it was so fascinating I didn’t want to risk missing anything while note-taking.

Worldcon: Sunday August 18

On Sunday, as on Saturday, there were often several sessions I wanted to attend scheduled at the same time; this hadn't happened as much on Thursday and Friday. The ones I chose were

• The lack of technological progress in fantasy
  
• What writers need to know: physics and space travel
  
• Gods, religion and atheism in the genre
  
• Using science in fantasy writing
  
• Ensembles in YA
  
• Invented mythologies in SF
  

With even further distance from the convention (I am writing this on September 2-7) I am increasingly finding that some of my notes no longer remind me of what was said, so these notes are less complete than they might have been had I written them up earlier.

Worldcon: Saturday August 17

By this point I had decided that the best way to get into the panels I cared about most was to stay in the conference centre, and skip the sessions right before the ones I most cared about so I could queue early. Today’s panels were

• How astronomy might break physics
• Invisible work: mothers and caregivers in SFF
• Young adults versus… the world!
• Urban fantasy from the margins
• Send in the crones: older women in SFF