shark bytes

As my last few posts have indicated, I had a bit of an adventure getting home from Worldcon this year. Funny, it wasn't so hard to get home from my last Worldcon in 2004! (I just took the T, since it was in town and I was actually commuting.)

This was my third Worldcon, but only the first one I actually went to instead of merely attending when it was being held within an easy commute of where I lived (Noreascon 3 [1989] and Noreascon 4 [2004]).
( the saga begins... )
Then there was the "adventure" of getting back (previously described here and on FB), which worked out with meeting Scott Edelman at dinner in the hotel restaurant at the Holiday Inn, because his flight had also been cancelled. I wound up accidentally encountering two industry pros, one on each end of the trip, both of whom were also very nice people and great to talk to. That's the sort of thing that I love about this field.

I'm at the Holiday Inn Aeroport in Montreal after Air Canada cancelled my flight. I have an 0630 flight tomorrow and will at least try to get to work after I arrive.

The good news is that this has become an extension of the con; I'm sitting in the restaurant with Scott Edelman and a couple other stranded congoers. Apparently the NW flight to Detroit was cancelled due to crew rest issues, so several of the non-Boston contingent are also still in Montreal.

Given this post, you already know what's coming up, don't you?
[Poll #1434226]

Remember how I said I was wary about next year's Readercon? You may have seen some rather...spirited...discussions of the issue elsewhere on LJ, also.

I'm feeling much more reassured after sovay's post about Readercon:

Let us all agree that "This is your father's Readercon" is a really bad slogan. It has a deskful of negative associations and nothing to do with the current plan for Readercon 21, which is a temporary simplification of the program to something whose creation and coordination will not cause nervous breakdowns among members of the committee. Note that I do not mean simplified intellectually. The only issue is the density of program items. The dealer's room will contain its usual stacks of books. The traditional events—Meet the Pros(e), the presentation of the Rhysling, Shirley Jackson, and Cordwainer Smith Awards, and the Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition—will all take place. And please, if there aren't parties all over the place in 2010, something has gone terribly wrong with the whole de-stressing idea. Further information will be forthcoming as soon as I have it, i.e., after the committee has a chance to check its e-mail, breathe for the first time since mid-April, and perhaps water some of its plants or pets. For now, please repost and link as you see fit. And if you have any concerns about Readercon, ask.

Don't Panic.

This says to me that the concom knows there's been a screw-up, that they want to address it by fixing the communications channels, and that they're listening. This is a huge improvement over how things looked earlier. I'm still concerned, but even at the nadir I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt as much as I could, and this...this helps a whole lot.

I'm looking forward to the promised FAQ, which (while I don't expect it to answer everything or solve all the problems) should be another important step toward the better communication/better transparency side of things.

Only a few days until Readercon!
[Poll #1425552]

Back from Boskone, which I enjoyed despite the effects of the Viral Colonization Bureau's expedition to planet ckd over the past few days. (It's down to coughs and a bit of scratchy throat at this point.)

With that, my impressions:

Space

This year, the con was in completely new space (last year at con time, that wing was still being built out). The upper level had panels, registration, and bid tables; the middle level was for lobby access and also had the (now legally required in Boston) Chain Irish Pub Location; and the lower level had the Galleria area which had the hucksters' room, gaming, con suite, art show, and pretty much everything else that wasn't either "audience looking at a speaker/panel/dramatic presentation" or filking.

I really like how this use of space worked. The Galleria setup reminded me of the ConCourse from Noreascons 3 and 4 in a good way. (There weren't anywhere near as many couches, alas, but still.) There were the usual handful of issues with the first live run of what was effectively a new facility (in terms of space layout) that were brought up at the gripe session; I'm sure they'll be fewer in number next year. (If we're really lucky, the hotel will figure out how to make the escalators go in usefully coordinated directions.)

Program

As always at Boskone, a strong program; as always at Boskone, I went to fewer program items than I wanted to because I was doing something else (which includes "attending another program item"[1]) at the time. Particularly enjoyable items included the Alternate Alternate History panel and the dramatic reading of Shakespeare's play (known of only on Barrayar) Tam Lin.

Program suffered a bit from the Viral Colonization Bureau's other expeditions; a few other folks were also coming in under the weather, and so had to drop off some program items to conserve energy.

Misc

Dominion was this year's winner of the Race for the Galaxy award for the game being played the most. I think it's a good game; I'm still not convinced it's as good as most people think it is. I'd still rather play RFTG with the expansion (which also goes to 5 players, unlike Dominion).

Commuting is still annoying, but every year I do it anyway because I forget how annoying it is until I go to the con again. (It was easier when the con was still at the Sheraton, since I could just walk home if the T had stopped running.)

There's never enough time for me to see all the people who are there that I want to see, but that doesn't stop me from wishing a bunch of other people could have been there as well. Too much is never enough.

The Chain Irish Pub wasn't bad. I still didn't get out to Legal Test Kitchen; in fact, despite the weather being better than last year's, I didn't get outside of the hotel for a single meal. Next year I want to try ordering delivery from someplace and eating in the con suite.

[1] If I go to a con where I never have a "hey, I want to go to both of these" moment, there are two likely causes: the programming is not packed densely enough with topics that engage my interests (in which case I may be treating the con primarily as a gaming venue), or it's a single-track convention. Neither apply here.

Even though a portion of my flist was also there (and not posting as much because of it), it's still time to bankrupt my pants.

No travel troubles either way; I knew I was off to a good start when my shuttle to the hotel pulled up just as a group of familiar-looking folks were entering. That let me get in on the Biodome expedition, followed by dinner at a Hungarian restaurant with mrissa and timprov, particularly appropriate since I'd been reading Dzur on the flight up. (No Great Weapons were in evidence at this dinner, however.)

Of the event itself: I thought the Good Reads panel went pretty well (it's always a bit unnerving to wind up the moderator of the first panel on the program); from there on to Sunday's * Panel (and the not-really-a-Dead-Dog-Party party that followed) it was all good. As always, it's never long enough, though each year I've managed to be able to stay longer than the one before. (By Worldcon, I should have some actual vacation time available....)

And, being Montréal, all the meals were at least good, and usually better than that. It's a mild shame that almost all the places I know are up on St. Denis rather than near the Palais des congrès; that'll make things a bit less convenient for Worldcon. I guess I'll just wind up having to go find more good restaurants. Heh.

Some culinary highlights: Hungarian sauerbraten; Suite 88[1]'s raspberry sorbet, strawberry and pepper sorbet, and that melted white chocolate[2] in a dark chocolate cup they brought out as a free sample for our group; the Asian fusion place's crispy spinach (even if they never did bring out the salmon tartare); Une Crêpe's "Germaine"; and Le Triskell's wonderfully tasty shrimp and scallops crêpe.

Next cons on the schedule horizon, with vague probabilities: Arisia (Jan. 16-19, ~100%); [ETA: Vericon (Jan. 23-25, ~100%);] Boskone (Feb. 13-15, GoH papersky, ~100%); possibly one (as yet undetermined) out-of-town con (March-May sometime, ~75%); Fourth Street Fantasy (Jun. 19-21, ~75%); Readercon (Jul. 9-12, ~100%); Anticipation (Aug. 6-10, ~90%).

[1] After the Sunday night dinner expeditions had split off, ours had speculated on whether we'd see another group walk by en route to Suite 88 as we were eating. We didn't, but when we walked in they were already there.

[2] White chocolate is normally an abomination. This stuff almost made up for the existence of every other piece in the universe. No, I don't know how they did it.

For whatever reason, it felt like Friday was the most programming-heavy day of the con; this made me very happy I'd taken the day off so I could get to more of it, but threw off my general feeling of the pace of a three[1]-day convention. (It also made me sad that folks who couldn't take Friday off were missing such a significant chunk of the con. The programming during Arisia's extension into Monday didn't seem like nearly as big a loss for those who couldn't be there.) The upshot of all of this is that Saturday, normally the day with the most going on programming-wise at a three-day con, got me to one panel and one event. (OTOH, lots of good hallway/lobby conversations ensued.)

Saturday started with a serendipitous breakfast meeting with enegim, D. (WINOLJ), Bob Devney, Michael Devney, and SFRevu's Ernest Lilley. That got the day off to a nice start with the informal Buffet Panel. (Among the topics: this discussion of McCain's citizenship status; there's an argument, that will probably never see a court, that he was caught in a corner case of citizenship law at the time of his birth and retroactively naturalized by a 1937 statute.)

1100: "Why Don’t We Do it in the Reformation?: Underutilized Historical Eras in Spec Fic"

I didn't take nearly as many notes for this one as I did for Friday's If Free Electronic Texts Are Good Promotion, What’s Piracy?, but did take some. Having finally had time to read through (most of) the comments on sartorias's Bittercon post on the topic (176 at last count[2]), I have to agree that the online discussion was more generally fruitful than the panel. (The topic may just lend itself better to a medium that encourages multiple discussion threads and more time available to think about responses.)

The high visibility of alt-hist in the genre as a whole seemed to weight the discussion somewhat toward that are. The general consensus seemed to be that there was too much WW II and too much American Civil War, with everything else underused to a greater or lesser extent.

Farah Mendlesohn (fjm) asked why the Spanish Civil War gets no love, especially since changing that would be one way to get a very different, or nonexistent, WW II.

Carolyn Ives Gilman (see? I'm not confusing Glenn Grant, Gavin Grant, Greer Gilman, and Carolyn Ives Gilman this year!) said that she thought wars were overused because war results in a much more stripped-down view of society (as depicted in fiction). James Cambias said that he didn't think that was as true for historical fiction as for AH.

Mendlesohn suggested (Readercon 20 Guest of Honor) Elizabeth Hand's Mortal Love as a "travelogue with a tourist of 19th Century England". Walter H. Hunt asked her if it was "like de Tocqueville"; her response: "at times, very much like that."

John Crowley mentioned Paul Parks's (?) four book "Roumania" series, but wondered if you had to know the real European background to appreciate them. Hunt said "if you don't, then what? Is that why nobody writes in these settings?" [ckd: see also Cambias's comment, later]

Gilman noted that there are fads and fashions among professional historians, also. Some eras and/or areas become more popular than others.

Mendlesohn recommended James Morrow's The Last Witchfinder, then suggested that the problem with many eras in Britain was "boring kings" and that there wasn't enough historical fiction set in Birmingham [ckd: or possibly even anywhere but London, really].

She then mentioned the earlier US civil rights era (running from the 1890s through the 1920s and 1940s) as being underused [ckd: I'd say it's also very very underappreciated in general]. I think there was some discussion at that point of some reasons it's less well known, mostly that those pushing for it tended to be socialists (or at least seen as such/associating with such) and therefore significantly de-emphasized in history class. Hunt said that John Dos Passos's USA covers this era. [ckd: also probably worth reading as a stylistic influence on writers from Brunner to Haldeman. I should read it....]

Hunt then made some comment about the naval portions of the French and Indian War being "all different" (from something), which I didn't note down any details of, but obviously thought interesting enough to note at the time. Anyone who does remember and could refresh my memory would be appreciated.

James Cambias noted that fiction set in a particular setting tends to attract more fiction in the same setting. [ckd: This of course leads to the problem of an author doing "research" by reading fiction and therefore getting it wrong.]

There was some audience discussion/questions, including such various bits as a mention of the blast furnace being invented in monasteries, but lost when Henry VIII destroyed them; Slavic history (Mendlesohn asked how many people know when the US invaded Russia, and was happy to see so many hands go up); and a question about "why not more English Civil War fiction?" Mendlesohn's reply to the last was that there was plenty of it in the UK, much of which still takes sides.

Ekaterina Sedia made a point that's similar to one made in the Bittercon discussion: "There are no unused eras, just overused time/place/people combinations."

Cambias closed out with a possibly telling point: using an obscure period means that you have to do a lot of research work for the few people who do know/care, but that for the majority of readers it's likely to be just as new to them as a completely fictional background.

My congoing day then wandered off into various trips through the Book Shop, hallway conversations, a dinner run, James Cambias's card game Bone Wars, the Kirk Poland Bad Prose competition, more Bone Wars, and then some sleep.

[1] As already mentioned, I didn't go to the con Thursday evening, so my experience was of a three-day con with an early Friday start.

[2] The second sentence of sartorias's post starts with "I don't know how much interest this one will raise--"; I think we have the answer, and the answer is "a whole heck of a lot".

I'm at Penguicon, finally. (Traffic, bletch.)

If you're also here and want to leave contact info, comments are screened.

These are taking long enough that, by the time I'm finished with them, I'll be a year older than when I started.

(Oh, wait, that already happened.)

They're taking long enough that both They Might Be Giants and Suzanne Vega will have new albums out.

(That's already happened, too.)

Hmm. Well, anyway, they're taking a while.

So, a quick poll:
[Poll #1023389]

Second panel of the con. These reports are coming along, slowly, as I'm finishing one every two or three days...I hope they're useful and/or interesting.

"The Singularity Needs Women!"
Elizabeth Bear, Kathryn Cramer, Louise Marley, Victoria McManus (L), James Morrow
At Readercon 14 (2002), GoH Octavia Butler said "As the only woman up here, this may be a strange question, but I can't help wondering how much of this speculation about a post-human future has to do with men's desire to control reproduction." We sadly can't ask Octavia exactly what she meant, but we want to pursue this striking statement. Does the post-humanist ideal of freedom from bodily constraints clash fundamentally with the ideal of freedom for the more than half of the population with female bodies? Or might the Singularity actually be a means to the freedoms sought by feminism? Has anyone written fiction about how these ideals interact, and if not, is this an opportunity?

Great set of panelists for this one, with James Morrow as the token male.

[These are reconstructions by memory based on notes. I apologize in advance for any mistakes, and nothing here (even if in quotes) should be assumed to be an exact or even inexact version of what someone said without checking it with them. Comments of the form [ckd: bracketed text] are my own glosses, comments, or snarky bits.]

( my notes on the panel )

Interesting topic, and an interesting panel, though I think Kathryn Cramer was actually on a panel about online society and anonymity rather than the Singularity discussion that the other panelists were on.

This is not a full writeup by any means, and is not organized in any particularly useful manner. Think of it as an Impressionist painting, or something, I don't know. I'm tired. There are also no panel writeups in here.

Those will be coming; I have my notes from the various panels, and they're somewhat more complete than last year's. With luck, this means I won't confuse Glenn Grant and Greer Gilman again. (Look, I was taking notes on a PDA with a thumb keyboard. You try being verbose while trying to keep up with five fast-talking and very erudite panelists.)

( warning: alliteration inside )

kate_nepveu is collecting other Readercon reports over at readercon.

And so we reach the third and final day of Readercon.

( Sunday )

This is substantially the same report posted to dirac_angestun, with minimal additional content because I'm too tired to add much at this point. If you read this, you don't need to read that one.

Summary: a good start to the convention.

( Friday panels: libraries, worldviews, Readercon 101 )
From there, the rest of the evening was a mix of mostly-social activities, including hanging out and socializing (including a not-too-bad ham sandwich in the hotel bar) with various folks many of whom are on LJ, but since I didn't take notes I don't remember who was around when (or which evening) and I hate doing namechecks when I feel like I'm going to leave people out. If you were there you were fun to talk to.

The evening also had me catching part of a reading, going to the Meet the Pros(e) party (I didn't try collecting the quotes, but had fun anyway; more people who were fun to talk to), and then returning home to sleep.

...of Minicon.

Packing mostly together. Reading materials to bring include naominovik's His Majesty's Dragon which helpfully arrived at the library in time for me to pick it up today, Freedom and Necessity because it's time for a re-read, and a stack of backlogged issues of the Economist to catch up on while waiting at the airport. Plus I'm sure I'll find more to pack.

iPod charged, Palm charger is around here somewhere, and I do know where my LJ badge from last year is.

Flight leaves in under 13 hours.

Pre-calculated locations:
42.370007,-71.019187 [BOS, Terminal E]
44.883485,-93.211527 [MSP, central terminal area]
44.861557,-93.353223 [Sheraton Bloomington]

We interrupt this Boskone report to bring you breaking news. Rumors of an impending shark attack on Minneapolis/St. Paul have been confirmed. I repeat, the shark attack has been confirmed. Sightings of airline tickets and hotel reservations have been reported by reliable sources in the Boston area, and it is believed that some kind of "convention membership registration" is about to be mailed.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Well, that was fun. Alas, that's the end of the local convention glut high-density time of the year. Arisia, Vericon, Boskone... ... ... ... ... ... Readercon. Bit of a delay there. Ah well, life is like that and if it's not like that, it will be. (I am so trying to avoid getting hit by post-con blahs.)

This report will be semi-chronological, semi-themed, and mostly-rambling. My posts are like that, and if they aren't, they will be.
( they will also be long, but lj-cut )
Speaking of sleep, this seems like a good stopping point; additional reports to follow.

Go to con, see panels, buy not too much stuff in dealer's room, see more panels, see people, go home. Repeat on Sat, but arrive earlier. Repeat on Sun, but leave earlier.

More specifically? I'm not on program (again) so I can do the "whee, that looks fun" thing as far as programming choices. (Except of course for the time slots where I'd need bilocation or trilocation, because there's so much good stuff that there are overlaps. Ah well.)

I do not, at present, have specific plans for lunch or dinner any of Fri/Sat/Sun, but will be doing my best to keep up with the "2" part of 5-2-1 while including social opportunities. This means that if anyone would like to make plans, I'm open to suggestions. (Otherwise, my at-con meals will just be quick fuel runs to the Urban Pain in the Pru or something. Bah.)

I have inchoate plans for a run to Bluefin (Porter Exchange) for dinner on Sunday after the con. (It's too far to justify the time away from the con Fri or Sat, IMO.) Anyone interested in a sushi/Japanese food run?

Comments are not screened, but if you want to leave contact info (cell #, email address, whatnot) without blasting it to the world at large, use the poll:

[Poll #674362]

A quick look back at the good and bad (and neutral) of the con (and some surrounding events).

[+ good, - bad, 0 neutral]

( The ups, the downs.... )

Got up, ate a vague breakfasty type collection of food from the con suite (which was very well stocked, kudos to the folks responsible), and got packed for the return trip.

( planes, trains, automobiles, moving sidewalks, and feets don't fail me now )