{"id":25236,"date":"2021-03-03T15:44:45","date_gmt":"2021-03-03T23:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=25236"},"modified":"2021-03-03T15:44:45","modified_gmt":"2021-03-03T23:44:45","slug":"reading-in-pandemicland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2021\/03\/03\/reading-in-pandemicland\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading in Pandemicland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago, I spoke to a student reporter from UW about Norwescon, reading habits, and how my own reading habits have changed as I aged and as the pandemic hit. While the conversation was a lot longer than the one quote that made it in, at least I wasn&#8217;t cut completely, and got a mention of Norwescon in front of UW students \u2014 so mission accomplished, I say!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyuw.com\/pacific_wave\/article_396b67e4-789f-11eb-826d-d3d206419a39.html\" title=\"Escaping through the pages | Pacific Wave | dailyuw.com\">Escaping through the pages<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Science fiction, dystopia\u2019s similar but more optimistic counterpart, is also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/entertainment\/books\/2020-book-trends\/2020\/09\/02\/6a835caa-e863-11ea-bc79-834454439a44_story.html\">seeing an increase in popularity<\/a> during the pandemic, much to the excitement of seasoned fans everywhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>  Every year, Seattle hosts the Pacific Northwest\u2019s regional science fiction and fantasy convention <a href=\"https:\/\/www.norwescon.org\/about\/#mission\">Norwescon<\/a>. Michael Hanscom, longtime convention attendee, volunteer, and secretary of this year\u2019s virtual event, has been turning to the familiar, curiosity-driven world of \u201cStar Trek\u201d since the beginning of quarantine in order to cope with reality.<\/p>\n<p>  \u201cThis is not always quality sci-fi; this is absolutely escapism,\u201d Hanscom said, gesturing to his bookshelves filled with \u201cStar Trek\u201d paraphernalia during our Zoom interview. \u201cI think 80% of my reading last year was \u2018Star Trek\u2019 novels because I couldn\u2019t concentrate on anything more weighty than that. With everything going on and being locked down at home, I needed that escapism. I needed to get away.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Science fiction, dystopia\u2019s similar but more optimistic counterpart, is also seeing an increase in popularity during the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2036,2747,2043,2047],"tags":[61,1425,4097],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}