A few more WorldCon notes

Taking a break between the Escape Pod party and the SFWA party, figured I'd post a couple quick notes on the day.

Best panel I've attended so far: the World Government panel. The first world-politics panel I've stayed all the way through in a long time. Lots of interesting comments and discussion, though I think a lot was left out. I'm not up for summarizing it right now, though.

The magazine panel was largely uneventful.

Spent most of the rest of the day panel-hopping. A few minutes here, a few there.

Hoping to interview Ellen K. tomorrow, but dependent on my finding a tape recorder; I didn't think to bring one. I'll try asking Ops, and the Locus people, if there's one I could borrow. Or maybe the filkers. I guess I could use my iPod microphone, but I'm dubious about how well that's likely to work. Anyway, if any of you reading this are here at the con and have a recording device I could borrow, lemme know.

Rudy Rucker has a new webzine: Flurb. Invitation-only, at least for now.

Second-favorite panel so far: the Battlestar Galactica one. I stopped in briefly, expecting it to be a panel of fans reminiscing about the show, only to find that it was the show's science advisor plus a couple of members of the show's staff. (Plus a few others unaffiliated with the show who presumably introduced themselves at the start, but I came in too late to find out what led them to be on the panel. One of those was Greg ("Robot Stories") Pak; I was pleased to see him here. I think there's a showing of Robot Stories late tonight.) One of the panelists was visual effects animator Adam "Mojo" Lebowitz, who, as it turns out, is a big fan of the original series, and has been putting in references to the original wherever he can. Science advisor Dr. Kevin R. Grazier appeared to have solid technical answers to almost all of the technical questions. Much fun. Apparently Six's name is a reference to The Prisoner.

Dinner with various folks, then party-wandering, and now a quick blogging-and-email break. Later, more party-wandering and possibly even filking; we'll see.

As I remarked to Heather, my con keeps getting better as more friends I didn't know were coming turn up. Next time I've really got to pay more attention ahead of time to who's coming.

Several people have been sad about the lack of an SH tea party. I miss them at WorldCons too, but not enough to go through the stress of organizing them by myself, and I don't seem to be capable of enlisting friends to help out far enough in advance. I'd say "next year," except I'm pretty unlikely to attend next year (in Japan).

What else? Oh, the Sidewise Awards for alternate history were announced this morning. Winner for long form was Ian R. MacLeod's The Summer Isles, which I've got on my shelf in the gorgeous hardcover edition and am very much looking forward to reading; I loved MacLeod's 1998 novella with the same title (which also won the Sidewise), which turns out to have been an excerpt from this novel. Winner for short form was Lois Tilton's "Pericles the Tyrant." I'm a little sad not to see Newman and McAuley's 2005 Hugo Award Ceremony script win, but I liked Lois's story too.

I think there was something else I was going to mention, but I forget what. I've been meeting a bunch of people in person whom I'd only previously encountered online; always nice. I keep being startled by how much of the Bay Area sf community is here, and then reminding myself that it's silly to be startled by this, given how nearby LA is. I have the usual general grogginess attendant upon attending a convention. I'm a little sad that after almost six years of operation (our anniversary is next weekend), SH still barely impinges on the consciousness of a fair number of people here; but then other people tell me how much they like the magazine, or seem pleased to meet me without having to be told who I am, so that's been nice.

One more thing: The con's daily newsletter recommends donating spare rocks to General Technics for them to send to Pluto, in order to make it big enough to re-qualify as a planet: "Send your pet rocks to colonise Pluto!"

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4 Responses to “A few more WorldCon notes”

  1. Zak

    You might be able to use your laptop for recording. Barring that, I’d be happy to loan you mine which I’m %95 certain will work well enough.

    (I’m between panels at the moment — going to the Ellen Datlow Kaffeklatch at 2, perhaps the John Skipp reading. My next definite panel is the 4 o’clock ‘Hard Fantasy’ panel.

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  2. Zak

    D’oh! now I see that you posted that yesterday morning. Probably not much good for you now. Still, the offer stands!

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  3. Jed

    Thanks, Zak! As it turned out, the kind folks at Locus loaned me a nifty little micro-cassette recorder (thank you again, Locus folks!), and then at the last minute I figured out that my iPod recording unit would work. So I used both–I was really paranoid about something going wrong and the whole thing failing to record. The interview went well; I’ll be writing it up sometime soon.

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  4. Zak

    Ah, good deal! I’m looking forward to seeing the interview. I’d never seen her talk before. Her wit and charisma really impressed me and I need to get off my butt and read her books!

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