Ten Things Wot I Learned at Readercon
1. The con seemed more diverse than I was expecting, although it was still very white.
2. James MacDonald is apparently "Uncle Jim," at least to VPers.
3. Debra Doyle told me she quite liked the first chapter of Gods and Fathers, and said it had a "killer first line."
4. It is impossible to walk into the Book Shop and leave without buying something.
4a. Corollary: I am apparently really susceptible to pitches from small press tables. This is how I ended up with two books from a small press whose name I don't even remember, but which I recall had some dreadful cover art. I would have thrown a lot of money at the Lethe Press table, but they had sold out of the first book of the series I was most interested in.
5. Michael Swanwick is fabulously dressed, in a Miami Vice-sorta way. He has pink monogrammed shirts! He was super nice to me, even though I knew nothing about his books and was just getting them signed for skyknyt. He asked if I more read fantasy or SF, and when I told him fantasy, he pointed to the book he was signing (Iron Dragon's Daughter) and said, "You should read this."
6. Sonya Taaffe was also very kind, and chuffed to hear that I enjoyed the panel she led. I asked her about the Wittgenstein ghost poem she mentioned, and she told me it was published in an obscure journal, but offered to email me a copy.
7. There is no party scene to speak of at ReaderCon--or it's more composed of private parties. sprrwhwk and I wandered around for a while trying to find one; all we found was the PhilCon/Boskone dessert party in the consuite, which was packed.
8. The Lemon Tree in Burlington, a Thai restaurant, has surprisingly good ok dol bi bim bap.
9. I met my fellow VP17ers John Wisell, CD Covington, Lawrence B., and.... um.... some guy with a cool t-shirt whose name I forget. I pronounce them "unlikely to shiv me in the dead of night."
10. Scott Lynch is hot. Seriously, he's got the body of a firefighter (which I'm told he is) and has long reddish hair. I saw him walk into the panel room and it was lust at first sight. He's also really funny. I should, like, read his books or something.
In less irreverent bullet points, panels I attended Saturday included:
Making Love Less Strange: Romance for SF/F Writers. I showed up late for this panel, and it was a packed room! One of the panelists--I couldn't see her name from the back, where I was stuck--really loved Kage Baker, and spent a while talking about the romance in the Company novels. Well... a special kind of romance, at least.
The Art of Critique. Very useful. Ken Liu seems like a really smart guy. I guess he has to be, to sweep the Hugos like he has done.
Architects and Gardeners. Fun, but I had a hard time sitting still in the cold, cold room it was in. I should really look up Cecilia Tan and Peter Dubé. They were very entertaining. Also, whoa, the number of metaphors we came up with for the architect/gardener distinction ;)
Caught the end of The Relationship of Reality and Fantasy, enough to hear a discussion of how believable the "urban" in most urban fantasy is.
I didn't really know what to go to at 3, so I went to Making ReaderCon Safer, always a laudable goal. I actually spent much of the panel looking up the previous ReaderCon harassment issues on my phone, since I wasn't up to date on them. One thing I took away from the panel: folks want an "introvert space" at the con. Problem: it would probably get really crowded.
The Xanatos Gambit. A very disorganized panel. It took a long time to figure out what the hell we were talking about--was it schemers in fiction in general, or specifically the titular TV trope?--and it wasn't helped by the fact that halfway through the panel the room was disassembled to expand it. Of course, I can't complain too much--the panelists were entertaining, and I got to look at Scott Lynch.
2. James MacDonald is apparently "Uncle Jim," at least to VPers.
3. Debra Doyle told me she quite liked the first chapter of Gods and Fathers, and said it had a "killer first line."
4. It is impossible to walk into the Book Shop and leave without buying something.
4a. Corollary: I am apparently really susceptible to pitches from small press tables. This is how I ended up with two books from a small press whose name I don't even remember, but which I recall had some dreadful cover art. I would have thrown a lot of money at the Lethe Press table, but they had sold out of the first book of the series I was most interested in.
5. Michael Swanwick is fabulously dressed, in a Miami Vice-sorta way. He has pink monogrammed shirts! He was super nice to me, even though I knew nothing about his books and was just getting them signed for skyknyt. He asked if I more read fantasy or SF, and when I told him fantasy, he pointed to the book he was signing (Iron Dragon's Daughter) and said, "You should read this."
6. Sonya Taaffe was also very kind, and chuffed to hear that I enjoyed the panel she led. I asked her about the Wittgenstein ghost poem she mentioned, and she told me it was published in an obscure journal, but offered to email me a copy.
7. There is no party scene to speak of at ReaderCon--or it's more composed of private parties. sprrwhwk and I wandered around for a while trying to find one; all we found was the PhilCon/Boskone dessert party in the consuite, which was packed.
8. The Lemon Tree in Burlington, a Thai restaurant, has surprisingly good ok dol bi bim bap.
9. I met my fellow VP17ers John Wisell, CD Covington, Lawrence B., and.... um.... some guy with a cool t-shirt whose name I forget. I pronounce them "unlikely to shiv me in the dead of night."
10. Scott Lynch is hot. Seriously, he's got the body of a firefighter (which I'm told he is) and has long reddish hair. I saw him walk into the panel room and it was lust at first sight. He's also really funny. I should, like, read his books or something.
In less irreverent bullet points, panels I attended Saturday included:
Making Love Less Strange: Romance for SF/F Writers. I showed up late for this panel, and it was a packed room! One of the panelists--I couldn't see her name from the back, where I was stuck--really loved Kage Baker, and spent a while talking about the romance in the Company novels. Well... a special kind of romance, at least.
The Art of Critique. Very useful. Ken Liu seems like a really smart guy. I guess he has to be, to sweep the Hugos like he has done.
Architects and Gardeners. Fun, but I had a hard time sitting still in the cold, cold room it was in. I should really look up Cecilia Tan and Peter Dubé. They were very entertaining. Also, whoa, the number of metaphors we came up with for the architect/gardener distinction ;)
Caught the end of The Relationship of Reality and Fantasy, enough to hear a discussion of how believable the "urban" in most urban fantasy is.
I didn't really know what to go to at 3, so I went to Making ReaderCon Safer, always a laudable goal. I actually spent much of the panel looking up the previous ReaderCon harassment issues on my phone, since I wasn't up to date on them. One thing I took away from the panel: folks want an "introvert space" at the con. Problem: it would probably get really crowded.
The Xanatos Gambit. A very disorganized panel. It took a long time to figure out what the hell we were talking about--was it schemers in fiction in general, or specifically the titular TV trope?--and it wasn't helped by the fact that halfway through the panel the room was disassembled to expand it. Of course, I can't complain too much--the panelists were entertaining, and I got to look at Scott Lynch.