Wiscon panel report
May. 29th, 2009 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magentaThe Treatment of Aging in Science Fiction and Fantasy
There's Granny Weatherwax and Odo*, but who else? How are aging and the old treated in SF & F? This is an attempt to make a list, if we can find enough characters and stories, and to discuss what roles the old play in SF & F. Are they heroes? Mentors? Comic relief? What roles should they play?
M: Eleanor A. Arnason. Gerri Balter, Richard J. Chwedyk, Magenta Griffith, Diana Sherman
(*Odo is the founder of the revolutionary society in LeGuin's The Dispossessed, the story about her specifically is "Day Before the Revolution". Not the character on Deep Space 9)
Questions that came up, according to my notes. Are aging characters viewpoint or non-viewpoint characters? Non-aging societies - what does that tell us about aging? Is age seen as the enemy, to be scientifically or magically defeated, is aging is a disease to be cured? Is the popularity of vampire fiction related to the fear of aging as well as death?
Also, I think we agreed that the default hero is still the young white male. This trope comes from comes from old pulp fiction, which is action oriented, and aimed at young audience. There are so many coming-of-age stories, and then nothing, very few about the passage into middle or old age. Many older characters are "helpers" that the protaganist goes to for advice, info, lost magical items.
Our culture is so tilted towards the young; I can buy Advil but can't open the (child-proof) bottle.
Characters and Books
Cordelia Vorkosigan in A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold is a secondary character, the mother of the adult main character, who is nevertheless a force in her own right.
Ista in Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold, is a rare older hero, a middle-aged woman who goes on a quest.
Kij Johnson's Fudoki, a woman at the end of her life looking back, the story is told in retrospect.
Vevay, the queen’s old sorceress, in Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia McKillip,
Ofelia in Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon is a grandmother who survives alone on a colony world.
Old Man's War by John Scalzi has many “old” characters, but there is a catch.
Suzette Hadin Elgin wrote Native Tongue as a deliberate exercise in language and feminism. The female characters range in age, and there are good examples of old and young interacting.
Ursula LeGuin shows older versions of her characters, Ged in Farthest Shore and Tehanu for example.
Also mentioned:
Adam-Troy Castro, “Gunfight at Farside” in a recent issue of Analog, http://www.analogsf.com/0904/gunfight.shtml is the first half of the story.
Gate to Women’s Country by Sherri Tepper
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy
David Eddings has immortals, characters who are non-aging in the Belgariad series
Vao by Geoff Ryman, about old people vs. the administration of an old age home.
Movies mentioned:
M, portrayed by Judi Dench in latest Bond movie
“Bubba Ho-Tep”, set in a nursing home. Joe Lansdale wrote the novella.
“Curious Case of Benjamin Button” recent movie, which I am told is not much like the novella by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Conclusion: We need more positive older women characters in SF/F. Writers could make a conscious effort to write more realistic older characters, and fans should pay attention to our older people, older fans.
I know I didn't get everything mentioned. If you were at the panel, and remember something I didn't, please add it in the comments.
There's Granny Weatherwax and Odo*, but who else? How are aging and the old treated in SF & F? This is an attempt to make a list, if we can find enough characters and stories, and to discuss what roles the old play in SF & F. Are they heroes? Mentors? Comic relief? What roles should they play?
M: Eleanor A. Arnason. Gerri Balter, Richard J. Chwedyk, Magenta Griffith, Diana Sherman
(*Odo is the founder of the revolutionary society in LeGuin's The Dispossessed, the story about her specifically is "Day Before the Revolution". Not the character on Deep Space 9)
Questions that came up, according to my notes. Are aging characters viewpoint or non-viewpoint characters? Non-aging societies - what does that tell us about aging? Is age seen as the enemy, to be scientifically or magically defeated, is aging is a disease to be cured? Is the popularity of vampire fiction related to the fear of aging as well as death?
Also, I think we agreed that the default hero is still the young white male. This trope comes from comes from old pulp fiction, which is action oriented, and aimed at young audience. There are so many coming-of-age stories, and then nothing, very few about the passage into middle or old age. Many older characters are "helpers" that the protaganist goes to for advice, info, lost magical items.
Our culture is so tilted towards the young; I can buy Advil but can't open the (child-proof) bottle.
Characters and Books
Cordelia Vorkosigan in A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold is a secondary character, the mother of the adult main character, who is nevertheless a force in her own right.
Ista in Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold, is a rare older hero, a middle-aged woman who goes on a quest.
Kij Johnson's Fudoki, a woman at the end of her life looking back, the story is told in retrospect.
Vevay, the queen’s old sorceress, in Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia McKillip,
Ofelia in Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon is a grandmother who survives alone on a colony world.
Old Man's War by John Scalzi has many “old” characters, but there is a catch.
Suzette Hadin Elgin wrote Native Tongue as a deliberate exercise in language and feminism. The female characters range in age, and there are good examples of old and young interacting.
Ursula LeGuin shows older versions of her characters, Ged in Farthest Shore and Tehanu for example.
Also mentioned:
Adam-Troy Castro, “Gunfight at Farside” in a recent issue of Analog, http://www.analogsf.com/0904/gunfight.shtml is the first half of the story.
Gate to Women’s Country by Sherri Tepper
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy
David Eddings has immortals, characters who are non-aging in the Belgariad series
Vao by Geoff Ryman, about old people vs. the administration of an old age home.
Movies mentioned:
M, portrayed by Judi Dench in latest Bond movie
“Bubba Ho-Tep”, set in a nursing home. Joe Lansdale wrote the novella.
“Curious Case of Benjamin Button” recent movie, which I am told is not much like the novella by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Conclusion: We need more positive older women characters in SF/F. Writers could make a conscious effort to write more realistic older characters, and fans should pay attention to our older people, older fans.
I know I didn't get everything mentioned. If you were at the panel, and remember something I didn't, please add it in the comments.
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Poul Anderson
Date: 2009-05-29 08:24 pm (UTC)N.
Re: Poul Anderson
Date: 2009-05-29 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 09:20 pm (UTC)I haven't read all of them, but I'll mention Hyperion in here.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-29 11:53 pm (UTC)Hi! I just ran across your report on the Treatment of Aging panel at Wiscon and really liked it, but of course since I'm not on your Friends list I'm unable to comment there, and I imagine you don't want strangers attempting to friend you just so they can pipe up in a particular conversation. :-) So I hope you'll excuse me for sending you a private message instead.
Because, I did want to point to C.J. Cherryh's important secondary character throughout the _Foreigner_ series, the elderly (alien) ateva Ilisidi, the powerful aiji-dowager -- if FOREIGNER had been a "Media" series instead of a "book" one, Ilisidi/her actress would definitely be one of the co-stars.
Feel free to ignore this unsolicited input; I'll continue to watch this discussion from the sidelines, with great interest.
I am really grateful for this comment because I had Cherryh and some random letters I couldn't read, and I couldn't figure out what it meant. I haven't read this, but from another person's comments, it's now on my to-read list.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-30 07:33 pm (UTC)But just now I remembered a magazine story (Analog?) where a (senior, male) Japanese corporate honcho has just arrived somewhere where his personality was radioed in and put into a body — except they didn't use a copy of his own body, but dumped him into the cancer-ridden (life on a space station) body of a young (female) prostitute. (Unraveling the skulduggery ensues.)
His primary outrage is at having been deprived of his honorable old age.