The EvoStar conference concluded with a very appropriate visit to the museum dedicated to Gregor Mendel, famous hereditary biologist and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brno.
 |
| amazing plasterwork in the chapel ceiling |
 |
| the library |
 |
| Not just biology, but astronomy, too. Wow! |
 |
| Mendel's desk, instruments, and writings |
I have been enjoying the various EvoStar sessions, but I don't have a publication this year. The reason I am here is for the Julian Francis Miller Award.
Julian was a renowned evolutionary computation scientist, the inventor of Cartesian Genetic Programming, evolution in materio, many clever acronyms, and a regular presence at EvoStar. He was also a colleague and friend. Sadly, he died last year. My co-editor and I wrote an obituary for the Artificial Life journal, and many of his colleagues contributed moving anecdotes and tributes to the SIGEVO newsletter.
 |
| Julian Miller, 1955-2022 |
SPECIES (the Society for the Promotion of Evolutionary Computation in Europe and its Surroundings) inaugurated an annual award in honour of Julian. This year, it was my honour to receive it. I have travelled to Brno to be presented with the award, and to give a talk.
The talk I gave this morning was titled Beyond Reservoir Computing: metamaterials and meta-dynamics, about ideas that I am currently working on that have grown out of work Julian and I did together. I like to think that Julian would have found these ideas interesting.
I arrived home from Eastercon mid afternoon yesterday. Today, I left home at 9:30am to drive to Stansted and catch a plane to Brno, for the EvoStar conference (which starts tomorrow). After a smooth journey, I arrived at the conference hotel late afternoon.
Final (short) day of the convention.
We started the day with a fascinating discussion of Joanna Russ' The Female Man by Farah Mendlesohn. As ever, Farah pulled out many links and observations that had passed me by when I read the book.
Next, a panel on Forbidden Hues: Sumptuary Law in History and Fiction. That is, on controlling people through laws governing what they can and can't wear.
Then we went to the panel Where Did You Get That Potato?, on anachronisms. Potatoes are a classic opportunity for anachronism: they weren't introduced into Europe until the late 16th century, so no having Arthur eating chips, please!
And last, but not least, a panel on Dr Who at 60. This year is the 60th anniversary; it only feels like yesterday we were celebrating the 50th!
And so to drive home.
This morning I remembered to take the traditional "picture from a hotel window".
 |
| not a great view; not great weather |
The first panel today was on Overshoots and Other Anthropocene Narratives. This was a discussion of a literary style proposed to cope with novels set in the Anthropocene: that they should start in the past, move into the present, then move into a future where its differences are a necessary consequence of the present.
Next was an interview with Guest of Honour Adrian Tchaikovsky. He had written about 10 novels before his first publication success. He started in fantasy, with his Apt series, but the SF novel Children of Time is SF, and he's not sure why it was so successful. [Um, that's because it's brilliant!] He world builds first, and plots rigorously, except for the finale, which emerges as a consequence of the rest of the plot (so he didn't know how Children of Time would end up). Gaming skills help world building, and SFF is all about world building
The BSFA lecture this year was about Classical References in Dracula. I learned a lot of fascinating things about classical references in Dracula!
Then we went to a panel on Non-European Middle Ages. Not only is there no agreed definition of when the Middle Ages were (roughly the fall of the Western Roman Empire [376-476CE-ish] to Columbus [1451-1506CE] / Copernicus [1473-1543CE] / Gutenberg [c1400-1468CE] ), the rest of the world does not have any such cognate period. In particular, during this period, the Near East thought that Europe was stupid, rude, and didn't wash.
The panel on Alien Ecology started off by reviewing their favourite terrestrial ecologies: sulphur based deep sea vents, trees communicating via fungi, the interior of ant nests that provide niches for multiple species, and the importance of elephants. There was also discussion of whether we would even recognise alien life, and if we would ever know enough to know if we were damaging an alien ecology.
Next we went to a panel discussing Adaptable Arthur, why the Arthur legends are such a rich resource. There is zero historical evidence for Arthur: everyone has made up stories, added characters, and changed the plots, so there is no canon, and therefore no appropriation. One important distinction: one can write Arthur, or one can write Arthurian (with no Arthur present).
And so to bed.
Today started with a panel on Why Did You Build it That Way? or questionable engineering choices in fiction. The chat devolved into a lot of non-fictional issues the panel had experienced in their day jobs. I liked the definitions: safety is about random breaking, security is about targetted attacks. Also, safety is never the number one priority, after all, "a stationary train is perfectly safe" (I assume they mean, provided it's not sharing a track with a moving train!)
Next was the panel Wanted Undead or Alive, about necromancers, ghosts and the undead. There was some interesting categorisation. Undead were once alive, have dies, then have come back, but not "fully". There is also the issue of whether they have come back willingly, or by force. There is a story (I didn't catch the title) with two halves of an undead: the zombie body and the ghost "spirit" asking a necromancer to kill that body.
Next, GoH Kari Sperring was interviewed by Juliet McKenna. We discovered that she learned to write through Trek fanfic, and that she writes technical works under her academic name, Kari Maunde.
Danna Staaf then gave a talk about her new book The Lady And The Octopus, about the amazing life of Jeanne Villepreux-Power, who lived in the 18th century, started in relative poverty, and became a marine biologist and invented the modern aquarium. (I ordered the book.)
The annual Hay Lecture this year was delivered by Colin Carlson, on the effect of climate change on our health. This is all interlinked with foodwebs, parasites, food production, and more: "it's complicated". There were lots of little bits woven together to make an overall story of how feedbacks interact in non-obvious ways. For example, reducing beef production to reduce greenhouse gases would increase the number of pigs and chickens raised, which would increase the probability of more pandemics...
Imagining Reproductive Futures was delivered by the team working on a research project about human reproduction in space, both in reality and in fiction. Badly Written Disease had a panel discussing terrible descriptions of medical issues in fiction. To end the day, the Multiverse Magic panel discussed Many Worlds in fiction, including the recent brilliant film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.
And so to bed.
We drove to the Birmingham Metropole for this year's Eastercon, arriving around lunchtime, and dove straight in to going to panels. (Hotel checkin wasn't open until later.)
First was Where does history end and fantasy begin? The discussion was mainly about history, and how things happen, then history is a narrative we use to explain what happened. We get to pick and choose events to narrate, and different people at different times pick different things, while still telling a valid history. Although things can get exaggerated or omitted for political reasons. A few snippets: Wolf Hall is interesting, because it flips who was originally the good guy (More) and the bad guy (Cromwell). Early accounts of Dick Turpin had him as a thug, but the stories gradually softened over time. There are three separate iterations of the story of St Patrick, told at different times for different political purposes.
Next up, The Adaptable Gaiman, on how Neil Gaiman stories adapt to film or TV. Apparently American Gods season 1 is great, then goes downhill. Season one of the Sandman is also great, and the panellists are waiting to see if this continues.
We went to a couple of panels on Beyond Human Intelligence and Conlangs and You (constructed languages), and finished the day with Fearlessly Spineless: Invertebrates in SFFH, where we learned that Western cultures are more afraid of insects and invertebrates than other cultures despite having the fewest poisonous ones, and that there is a type of chordate where members can combine into a group organism (I didn't catch the name of it, unfortunately).
And so to bed.
The latest batch:
