(urth) WindyCon 35

[brunians at brunians.org]

Nigel writes:

> The WindyCon organisers have now published a detailed programme for the
> weekend of 14-16 November.

Damn.

> The panel with Gene Wolfe, Michael Andre-Driussi and I in which we will be
> discussing "Post-Historic Warfare" in the Urth cycle is at 12 noon on
> Saturday.

Blast.

> Wolfe is also appearing on the following panel on Friday evening at 4 pm:

> Child Soldiers — The award-winning Ender's Game, originally published in
> 1977, changed SF warfare forever. The story of an unwitting child soldier,
> it takes place in the far future where children make the best soldiers.
> There are children serving as soldiers today, but is the future really
> different?

Or the past.

Children have made excellent soldiers at least since the devlopment of
lightweight repeating firearms (say a hundred - hundred fifty years).
Sailors too: David Farragut had his first command at age 12.

The Amazons were twelve year old girls on ponies with bows and arrows,
sabers and spears. The practical alternative to female infanticide.

>            How did Ender's world develop and could ours develop that way
> too?
>      R. Karp, R. Neumeier, J. Ringo, F. Ruiz, G. Wolfe

No Scott Card? God, I'd love to be a fly on the wall at a Card/Wolfe
conversation.

> As an aside, and for what it's worth, I'm also on a panel at 10 o'clock on
> Sunday morning in which we'll be discussing the Miles Vorkosigan stories
> of Lois McMaster Bujold.

> Really looking forward to all this!

Really looking forward to practicing Stoic indifference that whole weekend.

I might as well get something out of it....

Say Nigel, just out of curiousity, not totally off the very current
subject and since things are a bit boring around here lately, I had a
go-round with two locals (one a Welshman) here about Article 9 of the US
Constitution (aka the Second Amendment). Mr Jones (not his real name) is
unashamedly against people having weapons, which is somewhat bizarre when
you consider that he lives in a town where literally everyone except him
is armed and has had one murder in the past twenty years. My compatriot
was performing the proctoproboscid (proboscoproctexploratory?) exercises
that Americans tend to when confronted by someone speaking RP, which was a
minor annoyance. I'll chastise him later.

Anyway, you're from the Motherland, and so almost certainly
well-programmed to fear and loath arms and the armed though you may (as
exceptional Englishmen and Welshman and even the occasional Scotsman do
occasionally) have deprogrammed yourself to a greater or lesser extent.
You're also a Gene Wolfe fan and so at least familiar with the opposing
(and correct) viewpoint. What's your take on all that whole matter?



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