Thread by @kevmcveigh

Great intro to #sindbadscifi #mfestuk by @FaisalAlYafai full of humour.

#sindbadscifi The Butlerian Jihad element of Dune has enormous contemporary relevance @FaisalAlYafai

Dune world building influenced @NouraNoman in her work, but she describes it as more McCaffery like.

#sindbadscifi @NafeezAhmed the politics in Dune are more relevant to his work than the sf ideas. His work is a political thriller about use of power

Technology won't necessarily save us #sindbadscifi

#sindbadscifi @naomifoyle I'm not sure why I'm here. Asks what gives her confidence to write about middle east.

#sindbadscifi @naomifoyle Dune does some things well if problematic but it's about learning

#sindbadscifi Soren Lind talks about working on an eco disaster film set in Bethlehem

#sindbadscifi @NouraNoman couldn't find any YA in Arabic for her children to compete with Harry Potter/Hunger Games so shevwrote Ajwan

#sindbadscifi @NouraNoman my protagonist had to be a girl, why the heck not. She's a refugee.
Noura jokes she predicted ISIS but really those ideas are longstanding

#sindbadscifi @NafeezAhmed as a muslim i was expected only to write about muslims, about terrorism. But he likes SF so he wanted to write that.

#sindbadscifi @NafeezAhmed wanted to subvert the traditional Tom Clancy type thriller, look at the dark threads in our politics

#sindbadscifi @naomifoyle responds to notion that sf is a kind of early warning system

#sindbadscifi @naomifoyle broadest possible of technology, about discourse around it as well. A lot of SFF is still rooted in medieval feudalism

#sindbadscifi @naomifoyle quotes Towfik on the middle class

#sindbadscifi @naomifoyle says the UN equivalent in her books includes identity representatives not just national

#sindbadscifi Soren Lind SF has a nostalgic component suspended between past & future which ideally suits Palestinian situation

#sindbadscifi should note Soren Lind works in collaboration with Larissa Sansour

#sindbadscifi Palestine is an accelerated micro environment

#sindbadscifi Sansour & Lind latest is In Vitro an eco disaster but an excuse to explore issue of exile

#sindbadscifi Soren Lind archaeology as ideological warfare

#sindbadscifi panel

#sindbadscifi good audience question about colonialism in Dune and Arab writers. @NouraNoman is publishing Dune in Arabic for first time ever!

#sindbadscifi @AlisonBaker01 asks about Islam or its absence in Arabic SF. @naomifoyle references her quaker background to show interest in spiritual wisdom

#sindbadscifi @naomifoyle recommended Iraq +100 book

#sindbadscifi audience q asks about SF as cover for looking at fraught issues. Soren Lind talks about ways to avoid preexisting dialogues to create new points.

#sindbadscifi sf can depoliticise the current political concepts to reconstruct them differently @NafeezAhmed

#sindbadscifi @NafeezAhmed the security networks have expanded beyond the possibility of accountability. SF can bypass some of this.

#sindbadscifi @NafeezAhmed there's always a political edge to sf to Tom Clancy thrillers

#sindbadscifi @naomifoyle there is the white saviour narrative in Dune but Paul is changed and becomes partially assimilated unlike many works.

#sindbadscifi @naomifoyle looks at mythological similarities to try to avoid appropriation

#sindbadscifi after the opening Lind says he's isolated from responses.
Palestinian response seems positive

#sindbadscifi long off topic ramble might be a question eventually

#sindbadscifi @NouraNoman took 18 months to negotiate agreement to translate Dune.
So issue immediately about managing words Herbert used like jihad etc. Herbert estate said changing words was censorship

#sindbadscifi @NouraNoman 'I'm doomed' there's no way to not get into problems with Dune appendices

#sindbadscifi @naomifoyle SF moves off planet when we trashed earth, she's beholden to Earthbound SF

#sindbadscifi panel started with joke about timing... then overruns hugely. Too big a topic. Wonderful stuff.