Open to suggestion

[james_davis_nicoll]

What panel topics would induce you to watch if I was one of the panelists?

I've suggested one on space colonization with me, Charles Stross and a couple of Space Colony True Believers, as well as something related to my f/m posts.

Comments

[bibliofile]

An option that might prove more entertaining for the audience than for you: a James blog live sort of experience. Tell cat stories! Poll the audience! Someone on the side to hold up signs as appropriate (e.g., "memetic prophylactic recommended")!

Or maybe an Iron Blog competition with you & Stross and a few other likely suspects....

[thejeopardymaze]

Cats.

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

The prevalence of DOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

Greg Bear -- threat, menace, or distraction?

Cats.

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

Forgive my ignorance, but in what context? I mean, probably an SF convention, but which one? That one in Chicago?

Topics:

Are we getting girl cooties on our science fiction? (For your fm stuff)

Doom: Threat or Menace?

Let's Bash the Popular: Why My Minority Viewpoint is Righter Than Yours
(Solicit a list of popular items and authors one day before the panel. Ready. Set. Go!)

Helium-3 Mining and Captain Scarlet: How we can combine almost every SF show into one baroque fandom

Yngvi Was A Louse: cross-book and cross-series games authors play

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Orson Scott Card: How We Should Live.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Growing Your Con Through Ever More Demanding Standards of Purity

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Ideology -- threat or menace?

[julesjones]

I'm thinking lunar He3 as a fuel source for space colonisation, with the panel composition you describe in your original post.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

"Because I Care"

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

"How I learned to stop worrying and love the bicycle."

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Memetic Prophylaxis Recommendations I Have Made

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

Paul Ehrlich Can Rot in Hell: How Pop-Sci Books Damage the Sci-Fi Genre.

[(Anonymous)]

Eternally Screwed Africa and other Stereotypes! In! Space!

The Grim Dead Hand of John W Campbell

James Howard Kunstler: Threat or Menace

On a more serious note, given your creative imagination, a look at SF Deep Futures of the non-Singularity variety might be fascinating.

Bruce

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

"Bronies" or "How I stopped hating and learned to love the clomp."

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Population predictions and SF

"How Saturn's Childre stole my Freedom Shock idea" :p

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Whatever it is, it should be called The Nicoll Event.

[gareth-wilson.livejournal.com]

Advocacy in SF: Are SF stories effective ways of promoting political or ideological messages? If they do, can they still be good stories? Do you have to agree with a story's message to enjoy it?

[jeffr23.livejournal.com]

The Aliens Next Door: A Guide to Understanding Canada for Yanks.

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

Should Women's Opinions Regarding the People Escaping the Grim Meathook Future of DOOM that is Earth to the Lunar He3 Mining Colonies be Considered?

[zxhrue.livejournal.com]

the panels you've already suggested are perhaps the best choices. I would certainly go to see either of them, and in point of fact would hope that videos or at least transcripts of any such events were made available online eventually.

I think there is a panel topic based on this comment:

In fact, that's one of the great tragedies of SF from my personal point of view: the process by which SF authors transform my relationship to their fiction from one of keen interest to total indifference. With people like Paolo Bacigalupi while I loathe every aspect of their fiction, at least I feel something more than complete and utter detachment.

something along the lines of when does the progression of brain eater's disease cause an author's oeuvre to become unpalatable? how and when does authorial inconsistency, implausibility, or just plain anti-ismness lead to either a reflexive book against the wall response, or the aforementioned slide into indifference? how vitriolic does an author's non-oeuvre spew have to be to irrevocably taint _all_ their writing forever? names would perhaps have to be elided to avoid needlessly insulting the dead, or a tort for defamation.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

How about a broad overview of SF cliches and tropes, both past and present, and some thoughts of how SF falls into the trap of propagating such things, especially when they are Obviously Wrong?