The Last Of NASFIC!

 My second night of watching NASFIC 2020 was as enjoyable as the first. Again, I had to set the alarm so I could watch from my bed, but no matter. 

There had, unfortunately, been some technical problems, so my first choice, a discussion of filk music between Juanita Coulson and Tom Smith, both big names in filk music, didn’t happen. Juanita is also a fantasy novelist who wrote her first book in 1967, when I was in Year 8 at school. You can find some of their work, both of them, on YouTube.

Filk music, in case you aren’t familiar with the term, is basically science fiction themed songs, usually sung to existing tunes so that anyone can sing them as long as they get the words. Traditionally they are sung late at night at room parties. Some of the big names in SF writing have been filk singers and composers. I’ve even written a few filk songs myself, many years ago. Here is a link to a post I wrote about this on this blog. https://suebursztynski.blogspot.com/2006/06/filk-music-remember-when.html

Although I missed out on the Coulson/Smith panel, I did get to hear some filking later. 

Meanwhile, after a lit of fiddling around, I arrived in the middle of a discussion of “Worldbuilding: Rituals And Symbols”. This was not quite what I had expected as it was less about the subject of Worldbuilding than about “my favourite rituals in books and rituals that happen in my books”. That would have been good, and some of it still was, but we were not really told why these rituals were interesting and, in one case, not even what the rituals were!

That was 1.00 am and I hovered between wake and sleep for ten minutes till the next panel, which featured my friend Gillian Polack and two others, discussing the matter of older women in SF and fantasy. I should say that Gillian’s heroines are mostly older women and she waved around her recent book Year Of The Fruitcake, in which an alien observer is part of a group of older women in Canberra, where she lives, who are likely to be discussing chocolate. (This book is available on Amazon if you are interested, including on Kindle)

There was a fair amount of discussion of “What is old?” for women. As I recall, Lois McMaster Bujold’s heroine Cordelia Naismith, mother of Miles Vorkosigan, said in one of the books that middle age was about ten years older than whatever age you were. There was some discussion of Cordelia, in fact, but what I found particularly interesting was the panellist whose day job is in the theatre. She said bluntly that in acting a woman is considered old at thirty! The roles tend to fall off after that. Not for men - for women. 

“Researching The Golden Age” was a chat between two Hugo shortlisted non fiction authors who have written about the Golden Age of SF, Alec Nevala-Lee and Farah Mendlesohn. Farah was on this year’s Related Work shortlist for her book The Pleasant Profession Of Robert A Heinlein. I have a copy of that from the Hugo packet we got before the convention. I was also lucky enough to hear her speak to my SF club, the Nova Mob, just after the con. The book was more or less academic, a study of the author’s work rather than a biography. Although it has only sold about 1500 copies, it was published by an academic publisher and she said that was about three times more than the average academic text! She urged us to read Heinlein’s final book, the one everybody hates, because his portrayal of women is at its best. 

I don’t have anything by Alec, but a look at some titles onApple Books made my mouth water...

The hours were strange on this side of the world, so the midnight open filk session on Sunday was at lunchtime here. I turned off my video and just listened. The first several songs were not to my taste, being just bawdy stuff left over from the previous session, without recognisable tunes or SF themes. I was considering leaving the Zoom session when the songs began to improve, with SF themes related to stories by Anne McCaffrey and even Lois McMaster Bujold, though not her space opera, which I prefer, but to her fantasy. Still, these were sung passionately and, in some cases, beautifully. I hung around till it was clear this session was going far longer than I could give to it. I did consider joining in, but I’ve forgotten most of the lyrics of my favourite songs. Instead, I burned a CD of a file on my laptop, filk songs sung by my pen pal the late Linda Short, a British fan who died far too early. Linda recorded it especially for me on audiotape for a Christmas gift because “I didn’t know what you had”! Hah! Much more precious to me than bath oil or a knick knack!  I saved it to my computer, because audiotape wears out, and then burned a few copies for friends of mine and of Linda, to remember her by. 

My final panel was Sunday night my time, on the theme of  Jewish fantasy, and may be my favourite of the con. A group of Jewish writers, including Gillian, talked about their own work and the work of others, including some classics from the Golden Age. There was a discussion of “What is Jewish fantasy?” and everyone had a different idea of what it is. For some, it’s not enough for the author to be Jewish, but one panellist mentioned Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are. It’s not Jewish-themed, but it is based on his relatives pinching his cheeks when he was small and saying “I could just eat you up!” (As someone with an Eastern  European Jewish background I winced in sympathy). 

It was also pointed out that being Jewish is not monocultural. It’s diverse, with Jews all over the world, with their own cultures. Jews are often automatically considered white, but aren’t necessarily - and the word Gillian used for Australian Jews was “off white.” She said there are very few Jewish fantasy writers here, writing on Jewish themes, anyway. 

Gillian’s fantasy novel The Wizardry Of Jewish Women was about  being a Jewish woman in Australia. Here is an interview I did with Gillian about this novel a while back. https://suebursztynski.blogspot.com/2016/12/gillian-polack-speaks-about-wizardry-of.html I liked it very much. 

Her novel The Time Of Ghosts featured three older women in Canberra, one of whom was Melusine, the mediaeval French water fay, who long ago converted to Judaism! I liked this one possibly even better than Wizardry Of Jewish Women, but I loved both of them.  You should be able to find them in ebook, either on Apple Books or Bookview Cafe.

I suddenly realised that another panellist, Valerie Estelle Franklin, was the author of many entertaining books on Dr Who, Harry Potter, Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars and others. You can get most of them cheap or free on Apple Books and on Kindle if interested.

This was my final panel. I couldn’t stay awake for others and by the time I got up this morning, the con was over. 

But it was an enjoyable event. Next on my schedule is the World Fantasy Convention in October - I can’t wait!