SFL LAB Programme

Saturday 2nd May

Writing Young Adult Fantasy

11:00AM

What's the difference between writing for young adults and writing for everyone else? Is there a difference at all?

Is there really anybody out there?

11:30AM

This panel discusses the likelihood of meeting an alien species and the necessary etiquette for First Contact.

Making Movies for (SM)all Screens

12:15PM

What kind of content works best on broadband platforms? Web serials, television reruns, usergenerated, reality programming - why does so much of today's content seem... a bit juvenile?

The Rise Of Steampunk Subculture

12:30PM

Steampunk has been bubbling away for years, but now Steampunk theatre and cabaret scenes are slowly establishing themselves, traditional 'goths' are replacing their eyeliner for goggles, cogs and gentleman's jackets

Comics as Sci-Fi Literature

2:30PM

As the graphic novel is increasingly being accepted as a legitimate form of literature, what makes a great SF comic?

Robots: Rise of the Machines

3:45PM

The relationship between humans and machines and considers what may happen in the future when robots are capable of directing their own evolution

The Problem of Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film Making

4:15PM

Money, money and of course, money - this is often the main reason why many Directors tend to stay away from sci-fi and fantasy film projects.

Robots and Reality

5:15PM

We live in a world where robots replace real people all the time, yet fictional robots are everything from cleaners to companions, sex toys to sidekicks.

Sunday 3rd May

The New Heroic Fantasy

11:00AM

The days of by-the-numbers 'swords and sorcery' seem to be well behind us and modern fantasy writers have brought a new type heroic fantasy to the masses.

Comedy and Satire in Sci-Fi and Fantasy

12:30PM

What makes the sci-fi/fantasy genre different when it comes to writing comedy? What can you do in the genre that you cannot do in straightforward fiction?

Dystopia - Are We Doomed ?

12:30PM

Apocalyptic scenarios dominate science fiction cinema today. Is our fearful attitude to the future different to the cold-war terrors of the fifties?

Where's My Jetpack?

3:30PM

Science fiction has promised us interstellar travel, flying cars, hoverboards, teleportation, universal translators, colonies in space and so much more.

Contemporary Urban Fantasy

5:00PM

With the rise in popularity of contemporary urban fantasy what is it that we are looking for that's missing from our everyday lives?

Monday 4th May

Artifical Life - It's life, just not as we know it!

12:30PM

Cutting edge science based on experimental evidence and discusses the possibility of synthetic life-like forms being generated in the laboratory and in silicon and what this means for the human race.

Fantasy Fiction from All Sides NOTE NEW TIME

1:00PM

Mark Charan-Newton works for the publisher Solaris, in the book marketing dept, he has also been an editor and now he is a published author at TOR (Pan MacMillan)

Building a Sci-fi/Fantasy World

2:20PM

Science fiction writing can demand a lot from the reader, everything from floating cities to sentient materials, but what are the challenges of creating a convincing SF / fantasy world

A Woman In A Man's World?

3:45PM

Is hard sci-fi still the preserve of the male author? Do readers still expect male authors and male protagonists? How do publishers react to manuscripts from female SF authors?

Space Colonisation - Home Sweet Home?

5:00PM

The uniqueness of our planet and whether manned exploration of space is inevitable for the survival of the human race.