Cometary Tales Blog Saturday at BayCon 2013

Saturday at BayCon 2013

In this exploration of theory and practice of bayconning, the divergence between plans and reality appeared to be diverging after only two days.  Will this trend continue?  Or will it stabilize?

Well, what can you expect?

Time Frame What the Plan was What really happened
Saturday morning Attend either the panel on how cultural norms affect people with autism or the one on how masquerade works.  Then go to the panel on Fans of Color.  About time.

QueenOfHunger by LEHLight

Queen Of Hunger by L. E. H. Light

 

Tankborn, by Karen Sandler

Tankborn, by Karen Sandler

 

Griffin's Daughter by Leslie Ann Moore

Griffin’s Daughter by Leslie Ann Moore

 

 

 

Remembered I have my first 5k run in exactly one week.  Did a training run, helped with horse chores for the morning, made sure my goldfish got fed and cat got his meds.  Got to con about 11:30, squirreled around to find the room for the Fans of Color panel.

Last door on the hall.  What a great panel, wish I’d been there the whole time.  Highest concentration of folks-of-color ever–on panel and in the room.  Great discussions.Especially interesting to hear real people—not canned advice-mongers–talking about how to deal with multi-ethnicity and whether or not any individual should be expected to represent their ‘race’ (or really, culture, since race is technically meaningless) to others.  There seemed general agreement that if one is uncertain about another’s background, it’s much preferred to be asked than pigeonholed in the wrong category.  As well as some shared amusement at turning people’s expectations upside-down.

All of the published writers in the group complained about the difficulty of marketing their work when the standards in cover art lean strongly to picturing characters as white, regardless of how they are described in text.  At the same time, they were each somewhat philosophical about bending a bit in that regard if it could get someone to pick up the book in the first place.

 

Self-published authors have more control over cover art but need to make their own choices to draw readers;  Leslie Ann Moore chose cover art in which her lead character is pictured from the back, but directed the artist to be sure the character’s hair was like her own natural African-American hair, so the observant reader looking for books with “people like me” in them would be quickly clued-in while the casual browser would be first attracted to the scenery the character is contemplating and by then have the book in hand, ready to purchase.

 

Afterwards, chatted briefly with Heidi Stauffer, a Ph.D. candidate at the UCSC Earth Sciences department who happens to be Singaporean-American as well as female.  She also sees a dearth of women in her field and is politely exasperated by people assuming she’s Mexican-American.     I got her card to share with my Berkeley Earth&Planetary Sciences son.  It’s a relief to talk to someone who isn’t characterizing climate change as something that is “controversial”.

Saturday afternoon Eat lunch, then go build something in the Arduino workshop, then stop in to the Bujold autograph session and, if time, go to a panel on self-promotion for writers.

Donate!

Donate!

 

 

 

 

 

Arduino Labs Workshop--Organ

Arduino Labs Workshop–Organ

 

 

 

 

 

Sandra SanTara is also Windwolf Studios

Sandra SanTara is also Windwolf Studios

Daniel Cortopassi does more than Cat Art

Daniel Cortopassi does more than Cat Art

 

 

On the way to the parking lot (where my lunch is hiding), spotted sign for the blood drive.  Well, why not?  The Stanford Hospital van was parked in front of the hotel, cookies and juice prominently on display.  “Is this where the free cookies are?” I kidded.  And up into the van, for filling out electronic forms which repeatedly want to know if I might have BCE or HIV.Fortunately, the blood transfusions I had for surgeries in the 1960’s don’t count, so I was declared qualified to enjoy having a needle in my arm for fifteen minutes.  Felt dizzy partway through, but helpful nurse-in-charge had practical suggestions to get rid of that feeling.  Got more than cookies, too.  As a first-timer, was awarded a cool key-chain and a brag sticker, plus they had badge ribbons, pretzels, juice, and…wait for it…ice cream!  Ice cream was so solidly frozen, I ended up eating a snickerdoodle and a bunch of pretzels and taking the ice-cream to go.And just in time, too…barely made it to the Arduino workshop.  This was totally great, but we only had time to get most of the way through building and decorating our boxes, collect our electronic parts, and pay, before time is up.  Have to come back in the morning to finish during the second workshop.I’d forgotten to bring any Bujold books with me today, so no point going to the autograph session.  And sign-ups for tomorrow’s Kaffeeklatsch with Bujold  had been at 9 a.m., so, oh, well, at least I got to listen to her reading.  Stopped at info desk to pick up a newsletter.  And there was the sign-up sheet, with only 5 people signed up so far.  Weird.  I put my name down, fast.  Then read the form.  Oh, ah, they moved the session from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and so the sign-ups had only just started.  Woo-hoo.

 

Feeling lucky for the moment, I turned back and sought out the Art Show, signed up as a bidder, and took a serious look at the offerings.  Found two small pieces with “direct sale” prices I could afford and paid for them.  And placed a minimum-bid on one of the butterfly-dragon prints, positive I’d be outbid, but enjoying the feeling of taking part.

 

Finally, decided it was time to retire for a delicious “lunch” of a peanut-butter-or-jelly sandwich and some chips, in the quiet of my personal car.  Plus, it being late afternoon, I was able to move the car close in.

 

Back into the venue, for a stroll through the Dealer’s Room.  Not too overwhelming.  Maybe worth coming back later.  One of the people from the Fans of Color session was reading upstairs, so I ducked into that session.  Dang.  Her name was last in the list, but she had read first, instead.  I listened to two readings and started to feel faint in the hot, stuffy room.  Out again.  Time to sit a bit and review the program for the evening.

Saturday evening Play Through the Looking Glass Croquet, then go watch the Masquerade and go next door to give my sword a try-out in the Boffers room.  Take in some music.  Maya and Jeff Bohnhoff are playing.

BayCon 2013, Triskaidekaphobicon

The Two Alices setting up croquet

BayCon 2013, Triskaidekaphobicon

Wonderland croquet team in action

 

 

 

 

 

BayCon 2013, Triskaidekaphobicon

Tops! Amazon Warrior, Katniss, Knit Klingon

 

 

BayCon 2013, Triskaidekaphobicon

Strange Synergy–My Favorite

 

 

BayCon 2013, Triskaidekaphobicon

Songs of Chalion

 

 

Keepers of the Gongs--Klingon Auction

Keepers of the Gongs–Klingon Auction

 

BayCon 2013, Triskaidekaphobicon

Top-Earning Merchandise

The first step was to wonder (pun intended) where the croquet would be happening.  The Pocket Program says,  “Other 4.”  What???I continued my Dealer’s Room stroll out the back door of that room, and there encountered Alice.  Actually, Double-Alice.   Two of them, that is, one a traditional blue-dress Alice, one a scarier white-pinafore-with-blood-on-it Alice.  There were no Flamingoes.  But they did have handmade (yes, made by Scary Alice) PVC wickets, proper mallets, and rather bouncy croquet balls.The hallway turned out to be problematic for croquet, as it was also the hallway for the dealers and shoppers exiting the Dealers’ Room, as the stores close down for the day, AND it was also the hallway in which participants and audience were queuing for the Masquerade.    There was an issue with Scary Alice having left her petticoat in her hotel room. One does NOT play croquet with no petticoat on.  But, in due time, we were set up, we had seven players and a patient Gofer guarding the end wicket, and the game was conducted.Traditional Alice forged swiftly into the lead, I had a lucky break and overtook her, coming to a turn-end at the entrance to the final wicket, but Green came up behind, knocked me clear, and won the game!  Naturally, we had agreed to continue until all completed the pass.  It took a couple of turns, but, yes, I came in second, so have time to take some pictures while the rest finish.  Yay!

And am starved.  And it is still some time before the masquerade, so I stop at the little store and buy a sandwich.

 

I got myself back at the Masquerade hall a few minutes after 7:30, but, uh, it was over bar the judging.  Wow.  Fast.  Probably they started at 7 instead.  Oh, well, I could sit and watch the robots from RoboGames dance about while the judges finished and watch the awards and take some pictures afterwards.  My personal fav–the group of women dressed as Dr. Who villains, plus K-9.  Today was my day to wear my Tom Baker Dr. Who scarf.  In fact, during the croquet game, a passer-by awarded me a “Jelly Baby?”  ribbon for my Whovian-ness.

 

I peeked into the boffers room briefly, but the Stanford nurse had been very firm about “no strenuous activity for 24 hours”, so instead I hiked to the music room.  There was a Bujold-themed performance coming up.  When I arrived, a harpist and a guitarist were in the middle of their last piece.  Then Diana Paxson and friends arrived in Chalion costumes, explained the concept–she wrote songs using the themes from Bujold’s book, and with the help of the previous pair, Margaret and Christoph, they performed five songs to the “Chalion” gods.  Then they forced Bujold to stand and be applauded, too.

 

Enough music for now…there was supposed to be a panel discussion on science fiction down the hall.  I’m kind of dozy in the small room, but Altoids help and the discussion is relatively lively.  I’m annoyed to be embarrassed when the response to my question about fiction related to games (one panelist had said he works in gaming) was “it’s sh***”.  Great place to find a closed mind.  Good questions from the one young teen in the audience did get some reasoned responses.  Still, kind of relieved to head back to the music room.

 

However, on the way, I heard gongs and laughter from another room and stopped in to watch the Klingon Slave Auction in progress.  It’s fun for a bit and nice to see people bidding each other up to donate to the Make-A-Wish foundation.  But there was a concert I wanted to see!  And I just barely caught the last few songs from the Bohnhoffs and feel sorry I didn’t get to hear more.  Maya K.B. has always been one of my favorite Analog short-story writers, but I’ve only just learned what a good singer she is.  Darn, should have skipped the panel talk.

 

 

You might also like to read:

Avoiding HyperboleAvoiding Hyperbole

OK, right, it’s been so long since the last post that even my backup program is writing me off as too far gone. Too bad, Updraft, back to work, you lazy batch of code.

True, some comets hare off to interstellar space on hyperbolic orbits. However, two or three things:
1) There’s much to be said for the sweet homey stability of an elliptical orbit.
2) On a hyperbola, there are two arms, and who’s to say if you’re on the right one?
3) My top speed is less than 2 m/sec whereas an escape trajectory on Earth demands moving at about 11,500 m/sec.
4) I’m not actually a comet, I’m a human being who is interested in comets both as astronomical objects and as metaphorical images.
5) That’s four or five things.

Aiee Hyperbola Wiki

Redlining on a hyperbola. Aieeee!

Stuff happens, and it’s not exactly a huge crime to neglect a blog that no-one is reading. Last year, I whined about the inconveniences of having a broken arm. Well, there’s worse stuff than a broken arm. Besides, I needed time to read other people’s websites. Like catching up on the doings at Gunnerkrig Court. Like reading anything about robots that turns up on IEEE Spectrum. Or reliving grad school days on Jorge Chan’s Ph.D. comic. Or vacillating between reading Allie Brosh’s hardcopy book or her online stories at Hyperbole-and-a-Half.

In the meantime, I’ve managed to keep up a little better on the easier-to-maintain Facebook & twitter side of things, under the Pixel Gravity moniker.

But it’s time to dump more stuff out on the world and see if anyone who isn’t a spammer notices.

Here’s the deal:  I’ve got a year’s worth of science projects for kids that I want to share.  Maybe they’ll be a book too, some day.  (Insert self-knowing laugh here.)  I’m a year behind on delivering my Grand Canyon stories & pictures, which I promised my fellow-travellers would be “up” by the end of last summer.   But there’s other stuff I want to address as well.  So there will be a little discipline applied, in a way that would help any of my imaginary readers look ahead for the next entry in a category of interest.

First week of the month:  One “Messy Monday” project

Second week:  One “Grand Canyon” entry–either a half-day of storytelling or a photo album.

Third week:  Science & fiction stuff–the science fairly topical, the fiction

Fourth week:  An extra week to play catch up, first on the Grand Canyon, and later on Messy Monday, but also a piece of flexible time for interesting stuff of the moment.  For instance, Memorial Day Weekend will yield four days of BayCon 2014.

Next up:  Comets in orbit…

 

 

 

A cylindrical spacecraft with long solar panels spreading out on both sides.

The names in “All That Was Asked”The names in “All That Was Asked”

In my previous post, I tried to explain how all those odd names ended up in my recently-published book and why I think it’s fun to play around with languages in the middle of a story.

So, what if you don’t really care about all that linquistic nonsense, but just want a guide to pronouncing stuff in this particular story?  In what follows, I’m going to share what I’ve prepared for the person doing our audio book.  On the surface, it may look daunting, but, really, it all hangs together with a few key elements:

Sensei, in Kanji
Source: japanesewithanime.com 
(CC BY-SA 4.0)
  • Lots of the names end in a shortened “ay” sound I’ve tagged here as ei. It sounds almost like a long ay, but is cut short like you were going to pronounce a “y” on the end, but stopped yourself just in time, “say” without that teensy “eeya” sound that wraps up that word. Sort of like “sensei” as pronounced in Japan, or at least in anime and Japanese TV shows.
  • In names ending in e, the final e is always sounded–usually as that shortened “ay” sound.
  • The exception is “ere”, which is ayr-ee, wherever it happens to fall, so some names end with ayr-ee, while some have that in the middle or at the beginning.
  • Children (or adults being teased as if they are children) or intimate friends get their names shortened with a bit of a stop in the middle, so Ansegwe becomes An-s-wei, and Kantalare becomes K-a-la-rei
  • As an example of the “translated words” system: the “aunts” are “awnts”, Brit/Northeast/Southern style, rather than Midwestern style “ants”.

Digression: How come I like weird names?  Well, jeepers, I’ve got one of my own, one that often gets pronounced weird, though I don’t care, really, I’ve heard ’em all.  The “correct” way is va-‘ness-uh ma-‘cla-ren-‘ray.  There are other pronunciations in use . . . but those are other Vanessas and other MacLarens. 

OK, here we go.  I’m not using really formal linguistic notation, but sound-shorthand that I think we all can follow. I put a single quote at the front of the stressed syllable in each word. 

  1. Our Main Characters

Varayla Ansegwe, Eskenyan Jemenga, Ensense Kantalare, Varaylas Ansele and Adeleke, and Haillyen.  These all appear frequently, though it takes a while for Kantalare to show up.  See how what we call “last names” (family names) come first, and “first names” (personal names) come second.

Wary, indeed.
Photo of sketch on wall, by Quinn Dombrowski, Berkeley, CA (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Varayla: Va-‘ray-la This one’s pretty phonetic, the tricky thing, from listening to auditions for our audio book, is that some people seem to read the “yla” as “lya”.  This reminds me of how people read the second half of my last name as “Wary” instead of “Wray”.  Don’t let it worry you, but if you prefer mispronouncing Varayla, just don’t go to Korlo. In the bad old days, you could earn a set of cement overshoes for mispronouncing that name to the wrong person.

Ansegwe: ‘ahn-seg-wei Our hero’s name is most likely to be mispronounced as on-‘seg-way, which is hilarious, as it makes me picture this enormous klutz trying to ride a Segway.  The first syllable should be said relatively slowly, so the second two click together fast, so that you almost lose the sound of the “e” in the middle: ahns’gwei. It has a kind of Japanese flavor to it.

Eskenyan: ess-‘ken-yan It sounds sort of like “a person from Kenya” (at least the way Americans say it) plus “Ess” in front of it.

Jemenga: ja-‘meng-uh When Jemenga is particularly pleased with himself, he really hits that middle syllable, so it’s like Ja-MENG-ah!

The Varayla Syndicate’s above-board operations include space-based solar power satellites.
(Not quite like this. This is NASA’s Solar-b satellite)

Ansele: ‘ahn-se-lei Tycoon aunt #1.

Adeleke: a-‘del-e-kei Tycoon aunt #2.

Haillyen: ‘hay-ul-lee-yen This is a “foreign” word to Ansegwe, so he’s basically phonetically “translated” it, the ‘y’ in the last syllable is a  bridge sound you get when putting ee and en together between the ee and the en.  Do ya get it? Yeah?  The reader should get it about 100 pages before Ansegwe catches on.

Ensense: en-‘sens-ei  You know, like, “sensei” with an “en” at the front.

Kantalare: kahn-tah-‘lahr-ei There’s a secondary stress on the first syllable.  Just make it sound pretty in your head.  Ansegwe is totally in love with her, so, whatever, hear her as beautiful

2. The people on the expedition

Some of these folks are only mentioned or quoted during the “expedition” chapters.

Tkonle: t-‘kawn-lei

Kulandere: koo-lahn-‘dayr-ee

Tekere: ta-‘kayr-ee

Tereinse: ‘tayr-ee-in-sei

Alekwa: ah-‘leek-wah

Nara: ‘nah-rah

Ensargen: en-‘sahr-gen It’s a hard g, as in “gun”, not a soft one as in “generation”. They don’t really use hard “g”

Korton: ‘kor-tun

Alawere: ah-la-‘wayr-ee

Tasegion: tah-‘seg-ee-on

Turame: too-‘rah-mei

3. People at home

Kateseo: ka-‘tay-see-oh

Kinshada: kin-‘shah-dah

Tumbal: ‘toom-bal

Erekulu: ayr-ee-‘koo-loo OK, this one isn’t a person, he’s a domesticated animal, so his name is a little goofy, meant to sound cute.

Tokal: toh-‘kahl

Ans’we: ‘ahn-se-wei This is a nickname for Ansegwe, used mostly by Kantalare, but also used by his expedition “friends” when they want to get on his case.

K’alare-: kah-‘lahr-ei This is a nickname for Kantalare, used by Ansegwe.

Az-dyel: ahz-dee-‘ell Note that this is another “foreign” word that Ansegwe has transcribed this way, so it’s pretty phonetic, the three syllables have almost equal stress, I hear just a little more on the last one, but you can feel more free to mess around with this one–it’s the ONLY word in this language that appears at all.

Eskewere: ess-ke-wayr-ee

Ensense Halense: en-‘sen-sei hah-‘len-sei This is a member of Kantalare’s extended family that they happen to run into at some point. 

4. List of authors. 

About two-thirds of the way through, someone gives Ansegwe a reading list, and the authors of the books are a mix of people from his world, one from outside his culture, and one (the last) he’s going to spend a lot of time with. I wouldn’t worry about these too much, but have fun with them.  Yeah, uh-huh, that’s intentional.

Asvelan Kulumbu: ‘ahs-veh-lahn  koo-‘loom-boo

Palawan Vejr: ‘pah-lah-wahn  vee-‘yay-zher

Trjia Qwijlian: ‘trr-zhee-ah  ‘kwizh-lee-ahn

Tsulander Tkonle: ‘Tzoo-lahn-der  T’kawn-lei

5. People in quotes.

Yeah, this is one of those books where each chapter opens with a quote from someone.  I picture these as remarks that people who know Ansegwe have made when interviewed about the events in the story.  Picture them sitting across the desk on their version of The Daily Show, chatting with their Trevor Noah.  Most of the quoted individuals made it into the final.  A few only get mentioned in these quotes.  These ones are mostly government officials.  Make them sound stuffy, self-important, and less-than-competent.

Insake Hailaware: ‘in-sah-kei  hai-uh-la-‘wahr-ei (For fussiness, there’s a secondary stress on first syllable in Hailaware. He will get all huffy if you miss that and maybe will find some minor infraction to write you up for.)

Elesennen Haileski: el-es-‘sen-en  hai-uh-‘les-kee

Kinsala Tkerelon: kin-‘sah-lah  T-‘kayr-ee-lon

6. Other words and place names.

The story takes place in a fairly limited set of “alien” geographic locations.  But I do have some place names included and there are a few other “thing” words that appear more than once.

The Kalinidor is something like this.
Alexander Fleming’s Nobel Prize (1945)
(Jemenga would discover penicillin if someone else hadn’t already.) Source: Science and Society Picture Library, London Museum of Science (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Korlo: ‘kor-low It simply sounds like “core” “low”.  This is Ansegwe’s country. 

Kalinidor: ka-‘lin-ee-dor This is a person’s name that’s become an object name–sort of like the Nobel Prize, well, actually, exactly like the Nobel prize.  Jemenga really really wants one of these.

Quazwallade: kwaz-‘wall-ah-dei  This is a place name, just a foreign country, one with some technological and cultural differences from Korlo.

Cignali: sig-‘nah-lee Let’s say that probably this was originally a person’s name, but now it’s the name of a famous university, think “Stanford”.

Utumwe: oo-‘tum-wei I told you there were academics in this story.  This is another university, a medical school actually, one that Jemenga lectures at, when they can get him.

Terende: ta-‘ren-dei  Another place name.

Tule: ‘too-lei Yep, place name. Doesn’t get much play, but even minor places count, says the writer who lives in a town that isn’t a proper town, just a collection of farms, houses, shops, and a gas station, that gets its own post office.

Review: Memory and Metaphor, by Andrea MonticueReview: Memory and Metaphor, by Andrea Monticue

Sharon Manders is having a very bad day. She’s been drop-kicked into the distant future–a thousand years out of time–and has no memory whatsoever of making any plans to go anywhen. She’s an archaeologist with a thriving career in good old 21-century Earth. And here she is in the 31st century, where everyone’s calling her by some other name that she doesn’t recognize. And she’s accused of treason, sabotage, terrorist acts. She has a lot on her plate, and she’s going to have to move fast while trying to figure out just what happened.

And you’ll be reading along, trying to figure that out, too. When she finally solves the last layer of that puzzle, you’ll lean back and say, “Oh, yeah, why on Earth didn’t I think of that?” But you won’t have thought of it. Andrea Monticue leads you quite a merry chase. I really can’t roll in too much detail without spoiling the whole thing for you.

Let’s just say a woman from our time finds herself plunged into a high-tech future with AI, biological engineering, and dangerous politics. Just when you think you have everything figured out, Monticue rotates the horizon by 37 degrees and you’re floating in space again, looking for answers. The book has to end (which you will not want it to do) and she ties all those twists and tangles together in one stunner of a unique conceptual shift.

Engaging characters, complex political situations that nonetheless remind you of the mistakes humans make right here on Earth in the “distant past”, and a plot that moves ever faster–all that will keep you glued to the page/e-reader.

At the very least, if all you take from this story is the tech (and there’s way more to it than tech), you will not think about artificial intelligence the same way, not ever again.

I got my copy directly from the publisher, at last year’s Bay Area Science Fiction Convention (BayCon), and was lucky to meet the author, who has the experience and technical background to make this story come alive.

So . . . my copy is autographed. You can get a signed first edition, too, direct from the publisher, at Paper Angel Press. Or you can choose your favorite digital medium or snag the trade paperback from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Full disclosure: at this point, I’ve also had a book published by Paper Angel Press. I was impressed by Monticue’s book and her publisher, enough so that I submitted my own book, hoping to follow in her footsteps. Rest assured there are way, way more explosions (literal and metaphorical) in Memory and Metaphor!

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