Friday Norwescon report
I spent the day yesterday at the SeaTac Doubletree wandering around Norwescon, sometimes with
mystrymonotreme while he wasn't on panels, and overall had a pretty good day. Here's a random list of the highlights (and a lowlight or two)...
*SeaTac at 11 am on Easter Friday was a parking nightmare. We circled and hovered for nearly an hour until I finally dropped off Vladimir at the hotel and he called me with alternate parking lots he had gotten from a concierge. Sheesh! Hopefully getting there a bit earlier will help, or we can just go straight to the Wally World (or whatever) parking lot instead of circling.
*After checking in, I managed to catch most of a Q&A session with Kim Stanley Robinson, this year's author guest of honor. He is one of my favorite authors and somehow have never attended a reading of his before. He was well spoken, intelligent and quite funny as well! Yay!
*Hung out with and/or said hello and chatted with some of the fellow SFF book pro's from the Seattle area. In no particular order: Duane from UBooks; Kat Richardson, author of "Greywalker"; Richelle Mead, author of "Succubus Blues" (and fellow Ann Arbor ex-pat); Leslie Howle, education director of the Science Fiction Museum; Gordon Van Gelder, publisher of The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy (and the Publisher Guest of Honor); other local authors Greg Bear (and family), Kay Kenyon, David Herter, and Bruce Taylor; Scott, Lance Kind and Briget Coila, friends from our old Elliott Bay SF Bookclub. Also, had the bravery to introduce myself and chat with Kim Stanley Robinson himself!
*Checked out the dealer's room and looked at books--it's impossible to shop for hidden gems at the con because these dealers know what they have and you're not going to find any hidden treasures for a good price. But it's still nice to look (and buy) and chat with the fellow book pirates!
*Attended the Philip K Dick Award ceremony where SPIN CONTROL by Chris Moriarty was announced as the winner and CARNIVAL by Elizabeth Bear received the Special Citation (basically runner-up).
*Hung out, chatted with folks and people watched in the main hallway by the bar before finally leaving at 10 pm. It's very interesting and worth of its own post later about the change over from the day people to the night people at the con. Let's just say it gets quite a bit more goth and freak-ish. Quite the fun spectacle and sometimes distracting (in a good way!0
Well, off to bring
msandromeda to work, pick up Vlad, and back to the con we go! Look for another update sometime tomorrow...
mystrymonotreme while he wasn't on panels, and overall had a pretty good day. Here's a random list of the highlights (and a lowlight or two)...
*SeaTac at 11 am on Easter Friday was a parking nightmare. We circled and hovered for nearly an hour until I finally dropped off Vladimir at the hotel and he called me with alternate parking lots he had gotten from a concierge. Sheesh! Hopefully getting there a bit earlier will help, or we can just go straight to the Wally World (or whatever) parking lot instead of circling.
*After checking in, I managed to catch most of a Q&A session with Kim Stanley Robinson, this year's author guest of honor. He is one of my favorite authors and somehow have never attended a reading of his before. He was well spoken, intelligent and quite funny as well! Yay!
*Hung out with and/or said hello and chatted with some of the fellow SFF book pro's from the Seattle area. In no particular order: Duane from UBooks; Kat Richardson, author of "Greywalker"; Richelle Mead, author of "Succubus Blues" (and fellow Ann Arbor ex-pat); Leslie Howle, education director of the Science Fiction Museum; Gordon Van Gelder, publisher of The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy (and the Publisher Guest of Honor); other local authors Greg Bear (and family), Kay Kenyon, David Herter, and Bruce Taylor; Scott, Lance Kind and Briget Coila, friends from our old Elliott Bay SF Bookclub. Also, had the bravery to introduce myself and chat with Kim Stanley Robinson himself!
*Checked out the dealer's room and looked at books--it's impossible to shop for hidden gems at the con because these dealers know what they have and you're not going to find any hidden treasures for a good price. But it's still nice to look (and buy) and chat with the fellow book pirates!
*Attended the Philip K Dick Award ceremony where SPIN CONTROL by Chris Moriarty was announced as the winner and CARNIVAL by Elizabeth Bear received the Special Citation (basically runner-up).
*Hung out, chatted with folks and people watched in the main hallway by the bar before finally leaving at 10 pm. It's very interesting and worth of its own post later about the change over from the day people to the night people at the con. Let's just say it gets quite a bit more goth and freak-ish. Quite the fun spectacle and sometimes distracting (in a good way!0
Well, off to bring
msandromeda to work, pick up Vlad, and back to the con we go! Look for another update sometime tomorrow...