It turns out yesterday I was actually sitting outside the
Mended Drum. They had a screen up behind me while they were still finishing it up. I will stick my head in at some point to see what they did inside the facade.
I went to
Karin Lowachee's reading which was good. She has written 2 books so far set in the same universe, though with different characters (though there is some overlap and cameos)
1. Warchild, 2. Burndive. Very good.
She read from her 3rd book coming out in May of next year. It is called (for now anyway)
Caged Bird and is focusing on a character called Yuri, who was introduced in the last book. It sounded interesting and I wanted her to keep going when time ran out.
I went to a panel on
British SF which talked about books and short fiction and magazines in the UK. The only panelists whom I knew were
Charles Stross, Liz Williams (others were: Jay Caselberg, Michael Rennie, Graham Sleight). I had heard/read most of the authors they were talking about but did get a new name:
John Meaney who supposedly does Hard SF ala
Greg Egan , but more readable if you aren't a PHD in Physics. Also sounded like they think he writes better.
The other thing that came out of the panel is that
Charles Stross is full of sour grapes. He was whining about making a career out of being nominated and not winning awards ( I am sure someone must have told him he will probably do no better than maybe 3rd in the Hugo voting). He was also bashing
Neal Stevenson's book
Quicksilver for winning some UK award. He spoke well about others, but when he was letting his own feelings show he didn't come off well.
Then I did
Fantasy Forensics a panel about some of the sci/tech details in fantasy: does a vampire get rigor mortis, does Cthulu have fingerprints. It was ok, but not really well prepared. The panelists were:
Jim Butcher, Tamara Jones, Lisa J. Steele, and
Stephen Dedman.
Dedman was late because his plane was delayed. Steele is a defense lawyer and has experience reading forensic reports, and she writes games. Once they dealt with the two questions in the panel descriptiton they threw it open to the audience for questions. Usually you don't do that 'til the end. They were funny but unprepared to talk about the topic.
Dedman when he arrived (he is either Australian, or just living there) talked about teaching creative writing to forensic students. They talked about some titles for reference works, if as a writer, you wanted something to follow when making up your sci/tech in a fantasy world. Sorry if anybody is interested in them I didn't write them down.
Then I went back down to the hotel lobby to register. That took over an hour. Once I got in my room and could drop the stuff I was carrying (my laptop) I felt I could go to the Dealer's room. I didn't want to start buying books until I had a place to stash them. So I browsed the room for about an hour before it closed. I hit two dealers. One who sells used books and another who sells new. The used ones were for oop books. I still have a few new books that hadn't been published yet so I picked them up. Not real happy to have to pay sales tax, but I got 3 new books.
Then I opted out of the evening program, including First Night, because the New England Patriots, (football) my local team, and Super Bowl Champs, had their final pre-season game last night. Watched the 2nd and 3rd string players lose 23 to nothing. Didn't get to see the starters at all. The coach was using the game to make his decisions about the final roster custs, and preventing the Colt's from getting any idea of what they will have to face for the season opener, next Thursday - I hope. Either that or they are just gonna suck this year. Hard to say until next Thursday.
This morning I am going to a Panel which is
A Group Reading from the Thackery T. Lambshead Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases
Paul DiFillippo (whom I try to avoid like the plague - he expands to fill all available space),
Cory Doctorow , Jay Lake,
Liz Williams , and
Jeff VanderMeer will read and there are supposed to be props and giant microbes.
Then there are 4 panels that I am interested in, not sure which one I will go to.
Then there is a presentation by DAW about what is coming next, which I will pop into because they often give out books
, but probably only for the last half hour. The first half hour I am going to a reading by
Jon Courtenay Grimwood.
Not sure of what I will do after, I need to spend quality time in the dealer's room.
Terry Pratchett is doing a panel on his character
Death this afternoon which I will go to.
In terms of readings, I usually only go to those for writers that I am already reading. I don't use them to find new authors, which I probably should.
The con puts out a news sheet about 2-4 times day, so I will have to check it to see if there have been any schedule changes.
Most of the con is in the Hynes Auditorium, some panels in thhe hotel. It is the same hotel that we have had
Boskone in for the last 3 years. The crew who does
Boskone is putting on the con, with help from some of the
Readercon people. They have done 4 Worldcons and also did the World Fantasy in RI in 1999 - so they have experience with both cons and the scale of a 'world' event. So far things seem to be going very smoothly. But the Hynes is huge. I have never been in it before. They should have given out scooters or roller skates when you registered. It has 3 floors about 8 huge halls, lots of huge open spaces, and many smaller rooms for panels. If you look into the distance you can see people who are like half a mile away. Lots of walking between events. The con hotel and the Hynes are all connected with an internal mall at the Prudential Center. There is a food court and several restaurants in the mall.
Note: I have only used bold for the names of authors I have heard of
Swag=Loot= Stuff. You know, souvineers(sp?).
