This morning I received my final programming schedule for Interaction, this year's WorldCon in Glasgow, reproduced below. As someone who's spent entire conventions not leaving the hotel bar, this seems like a pretty full boat. Between this and next year's World Horror Convention, for which I drunkenly volunteered to handle programming (but a drunken promise is still a promise, after all, so I'm committed), I think I'm paying off some kind of karmic programming debt. Still, there are few things I like better than getting up in front of folks and shooting off my mouth (which, to be honest, is primarily what I've been doing in the hotel bar all these years, anyway), so it should be a fun time.

Thursday 2:00pm
Autographing (1.5 hrs)
Juraj "Mad" Maxon
Janet McNaughton
Chris Roberson
Amy Thomson

Friday 11:00am
Kaffeeklatsch
James Barclay
Frank Borsch
Paul Cornell
Chris Roberson

Friday 3:30pm
Reading (0.5 hrs)
Chris Roberson

Saturday 11:00am
From Spider-man to Justice League: A Look at Recent Comic Dramatizations
Daniel Dern
Scott Edelman (M)
Tom Galloway
Simon R Green
Steve Nagy
Chris Roberson
Comic sales aren't what they were 20 years ago, but in other media,
comic characters are doing very well indeed. Recent superhero movies
such as X-Men, Spider-man, and Batman Begins, are the best such
films ever. Recent animated series, including the current Justice
League, are also excellent. Comics universes portrayed in film and
on TV.

Saturday 12:00 noon
New Writers & the Campbell
Jay Lake
David Moles
Chris Roberson
Stanley Schmidt (M)
Steph Swainston
What is the John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award and what has it
meant to these finalists and winners? Learn where these writers
started and where they've gone since.

Saturday 2:00pm
Who Do You Trust? Adama or Roslyn: Military vs. Civil Authority in the New Battlestar Galactica (1.5 hrs)
Melanie Fletcher
Christina Hansen
David D. Levine
Jim Mann (M)
Chris Roberson
The conflict between military and civilian authority can be seen in
the world around us, and sometimes it is portrayed in SF. The panel
examines this conflict, a key element in the new Battlestar
Galactica.

Saturday 3:30pm
The Middle Book Problem in the Trilogy (1.5 hrs)
James Barclay
Terry Brooks
Juliet E McKenna (M)
Katya Reimann
Chris Roberson
One person of our acquaintance actually read the third book of a
trilogy before the second and didnÆt notice; Dave Langford once
said that the middle volume advances the plot about as far as the
average glacier gets beteween breakfast and elevenses. Why and what
can we do about?

Sunday 11:00am
Have the Tolkienistas Misread Tolkien?
Esther Friesner
Robin Hobb
Chris Roberson
Justina Robson (M)
A lot of fantasy that is apparently derivative of Tolkien is
searching for an object of power to make everything right. Whereas
the entire point of Lord of the Rings is that if anyone has the
object of power then everything is wrong.

Sunday 1:00pm
Re-examining Lucas' Vision: Star Wars in Its Various Forms
Kevin J. Anderson
Craig Miller (M)
Chris Roberson
James Swallow
Eldon Thompson
The Star Wars saga is complete. Lucas tried to do something
different with this media franchise: the books, comics, Clone Wars
cartoons, and games were part of the cannon. Some provided valuable
background to the films, filled in key events, and were even
referenced in the films. How well did this work?