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I’ll Be At Dublin WorldCon 2019

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I’m going to Dublin!

I’m at Worldcon Dublin August 15-18th. I’m doing panels on fighting and armour, on religions, and on RPGs, and I have at least two signings. please don’t leave me alone out there! Also it’s my birthday…

I’ll be in the following panels:

Armour and Armour-making

When: 16:30, 15 August
Where: Point Square, Alhambra
What: You no longer have to be a blacksmith to make your own armour (unless you want to be). Join our panellists to learn about armour basics and different techniques and materials, from metal to modern, that you can use to make your own.
Who: Christian (Miles) Cameron (M), Dr Kevin Hewett, Mr Ingvar Mattsson, Iain Cupples

Angels and demons: Christian mysticism in fantasy

When: 15:00, 16 August
Where: CCD, Wicklow Room-4
What: How have Christian symbols, myths, and ideas been used in fantasy literature? C. S. Lewis was very open about his use of Christian symbols in the Narnia series; what other authors have done the same? Angels, demons, crucifixes, relics, heroes being sacrificed to save others, and even more subtle uses of numerology and abstract symbolism: the panel will explore these, and discuss their favourite examples of Christian mysticism in fantasy.
Who: Brother Guy Consolmagno (M), Meg MacDonald, Christian (Miles) Cameron, Anne Corlett

Autographs

When: 12:00, 17 August
Where: CCD: Level 4 Foyer
What: Book signings and autographs
Who: Dave Rudden, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Christian (Miles) Cameron, Gillian Polack, Simon R Green, Jared Shurin

Tabletop RPG as inspiration for creative writing

When: 16:00, 17 August
Where: CCD, Wicklow Room-3
What: Tabletop roleplaying games (RPGs) take us to fantastical new worlds and allow us to explore these places with others; it’s no wonder that they inspire us far beyond the table. In this panel, authors will discuss how games they
have run or played in provided inspiration or source material for future creative endeavours.
Who: Gareth Hanrahan (M), Steven Erikson, Christian (Miles) Cameron, Mur Lafferty, Kieron Gillen

Writing weapons workshop

When: 12:00, 18 August
Where: CCD, Wicklow Room-5
What: Writing combat scenes can be tricky when you’re unfamiliar with the ins and outs of medieval weaponry. So come and consult the experts: a fighter and a writer working together to teach you how to write – and handle – weapons.
Who: Aidan Barron, Christian (Miles) Cameron

What makes a uniform?

When: 16:30, 18 August
Where: Point Square, Odeon 4
What: When you hear the word ‘uniform’, does your mind automatically imagine the military? Uniforms encompass so much more than that. A discussion of what makes a uniform and what it can signify.
Who: Dr Wanda Kurtçu (M), Christian (Miles) Cameron, Rebecca Hewett

Writing Fantasy: Baskets and Broadswords

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When people ask me about the impact of reenacting on my books, they almost inevitably follow up with a question about swords and armour. They’re often great questions, and I’m always happy to answer them; I’ve taken a pretty deep dive into a couple of periods and I think I have developed some interesting ‘general usage’ theories of martial arts and warfare. At the end, there’s a nice picture of a fantastic original sword that helped inspire the book Cold Iron.

But the thing is that weapons and armour are actually the least important aspects of reenacting. Even the most keen and hardened warrior (if such people actually ever existed; modern psychology suggests that warriors are either keen or veterans, never both, but that’s another story) only engaged in combat a few days a year, whereas cooking and sleeping and keeping clean happened every day.

The remarkable thing about cooking and cleaning and sleeping and living is not the items you need to do them. You can, with a little online research, reach out and buy a 14th century fry pan and a fourteenth century kettle, and some other very useful kitchen tools. A little more research, and you can come up with recipes and even whole cook books of Medieval food, whether Norse or English, French or Italian.

Even with swords and knives, you can buy an excellent blade; cook’s knives, eating knives, daggers, broadswords.

Ultimately, recreating the past, or understanding a fantasy world, is more about containers than it is about weapons.

Try and find a decent, correct scabbard.

Or a net bag to carry all the vegetables you plan to eat.

Net bags? Did they have those?

What did meat come from, at the butcher’s? What was it wrapped in in 1380? How did split peas come, or dried fish? Flour? How the heck do you keep flour dry when you travel?

Let’s cut to the chase. In the past, most people had to supply their own packaging. Women went to market with baskets and jars and linen bags and probably leaves and scraps of bark too. Men who traveled (often the wealthy) had elaborate sets of equipment not entirely unlike picnic sets to carry food and drink and pots and pans. But even those sets usually came inside a container, and the container was a basket.