"Fantasy Author as Show Guest?" Topic

Which fantasy author would you most like to see as a special guest at a wargaming convention or show?

(Living authors, of course.)

Michael Moorcock

George RR Martin, so everyone could gang up on him to get off his fat butt and finish the Game of Thrones books. Winds of Winter, anyone??? 🙄

Everyone knows that Benioff and Wise dropped the ball big time on the last two seasons, and "we" all need to know how the story really ends. Until he does, we're stuck with that garbage ending.
Harrumph.

What are the odds that hired guns finish Game of Thrones after his death, ala Wheel of Time series?

+1 Gear Pilot

None. I only attend historical miniatures shows. Also the temptation to be rude to Martin might get the better of me. He was good, once.

(Yes, of course Game of Thrones will be finished after his death unless he pulls a Sue Grafton. Not sure I care any more. Good pastiche is lightning-strike rare, and the muse appears to have left Martin.)

If I did attend a fantasy show, Lois McMaster Bujold.

It is now alleged that he is hopping mad over House of the Dragon because "they" keep changing the story different from the book. Since "the book" was deliberately written with the cute literary trick of "unreliable narrator", maybe we can beat him up over that too.

He needs people shouting at him to do one thing at a time, and prioritize. As a madcap too many projects painter, perhaps I'm not the proper person to do that. 🙄
But an angry mob at a con might be.

Hearing authors speak is less of an appeal when you've heard some authors speak. A couple of decades ago I went to a writing convention keynote address from a celebrated writer whose work I have admired in the past. All she did was slam the then sitting US president and his party for an hour. I walked out.

Some authors I've heard are good speakers. Some are best expressing themselves on a page, and should never approach a microphone. Unfortunately, many times the only way to find this out is to hand one to ‘em.

If they can stay on the topic of writing and/or fantasy, some names I'd consider:
Megan Whalen Turner
Neil Gaiman
Maggie Stiefvater
Michael Chabon
Jim Butcher

Naomi Novik

Gear pilot 👍

Glen Cook or Joe Abercrombie

Novelists whose characters i) actually have jobs ii) need money to buy things like food iii) can get sick and die iv) freeze to death when they get trapped in a snowstorm

Time to take a look at the dark side of fantasy!

Michelle Sagara.

Another Moorcock vote.

R. A. Salvatore – writes fantasy and plays wargames (since it's a wargaming convention).

I would like to hear Jim Butcher talk about writing, independent of wargaming.

I have heard Neil Gaiman read from a book and talk about writing it. Would do again, but no wargaming connection. I have also heard him run off the mouth in the news. I don't really care what others' opinions are, but if people are going to advocate for social change, the basis of their motiviation and opinions should not be based in "facts" that are factually incorrect.

Etotheipi +1

I prefer most writer's thoughts after they've been carefully crafted and revised, re-revised, and edited and revised further. Off the top of their heads, not so much.

Concur. I frequently people off when I ask them for more informaiton and time to consider an issue they sandbag me with. I'm okay with that since it kind of pisses me off when someone expects you to opine immediately on a complex social, political, or ethical issue based on three vague sentences of context.

My guess is that by asking for more information than they wanted to make a decision, they feel like I am insulting their decision, process, and base rationality. I don't think I have any right to judge how people make their own decisions. The same right that allows them to set their own criteria for making a judgement, allows me to do the same.

In this case, the argument itself was well-crafted, but the factual basis for it was flawed. If I know that to be the case, I feel obligated to point it out. The same with a failure of rhetoric.

I also mitigate that with whether I feel the juice will be worth the squeeze. People have a hard time separating "that is a flawed argument" from "you don't have the right to draw that type of conclusion". I hesitate to speculate why.

Back to the OP, to me fantasy writer at a wargaming convention means requesting them to focus their discussion on the intersection of their writing process and wargaming. Amd regulating them if they don't do that.