![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Worldcon, Day Three
Keeping in mind how tired I was the previous day, I decided to stay home and skip the first session of programming. I lazed around the house, ate sausage onna stick, and said hi to some friends on the internet.
Instead of taking the bus, this time I drove down to Alameda Station and took the light rail into downtown, dropping me off right at the Convention Center. The first panel was 'Looking Ahead - What to Read and Watch Before you Nominate for the 2009 Hugos' - which was interesting, although folks tended to talk too fast. I've got some sketchy notes I'll try to turn into a blog post later. The panel said that the SF pulps had published a lot of strong short stories over this year, but that there were also a great number of original anthologies that had come out that also had good stories in them.
After that I hit up one of the eateries in the convention center, getting a decent ham and cheese sandwich, and talked with a woman from LA, who said that her local Borders and B&N were so hopeless, she was actually ordering her books via a bookstore in Iowa that she'd chanced upon one day. Apparently this lady has a habit of wandering off the beaten trail, and often finds neat things... for instance, she described to me how she'd wandered here in Colorado, found Buffalo Bill's grave, and enjoyed the challenging switchbacks down from Lookout Mountain into Boulder. I suggested she try to see Red Rocks as well while she was here.
My next panel was 'Timeless Stars: H.P. Lovecraft', featuring Charles Stross and the moderator Stephen SEgal, who apparently is an editor at the new Wierd Tales magazine. The smaller room was packed, with every seat filled, people sitting and standing along the walls, and a few folks standing inside the corridor looking in. It was a really good panel too, discussing favorite stories ('Color out of Space' did well), the influence of humor on the mythos, and the question of why this guy was still so popular almost a hundred years later.
That done, I skittered off to look through the Dealer's Room a little, picking up some issues of Wierd Tales. Heading back, I hit the Trailer Park 'panel', which was basically just a bunch of movie trailers played back to back. The only things I remember that I hadn't already seen was a trailer for a new Librarian movie, which looked interesting, and a trailer for 'Cthulhu', which looked good, although I thought the title was going to be 'The Shadow over Innsmouth'. Even if the name is wonky, that's one to keep an eye out for. The Watchman trailer got a lot of applause.
They didn't have a lot of trailers, so I ended up returning to the dealer's room, where I looked over the books published by a publisher that I hadn't heard of before, 'McFarland' - apparently they do books on film criticism and the like, mostly for sale to universities and libraries. I picked up a couple on anime, and one on John Carpenter. Usually expensive books, but they were running a sale! Those picked up, I wandered the floor and checked out the Night Shade Books table, where I found a collection of stories starring one of the shorts that had been lauded at the Hugo panel, 'Pump Six'.
That all done, and my bag feeling heavy, I went forth to 'The Baen Travelling Slide Show', which was interesting - they were showing off the cover art of their books and talking about how cool their artists were, which I enjoyed.
That finished, it was time for my Anime Meetup! It's always the second Friday of the month, but I wasn't sure if I'd attend due to worldcon. However, there wasn't that much I was thinking of attending then, so instead I hopped back onto the train, stopped at my car to drop off books, and then continued along to the Colorado station, which is across the street from the Perkins we meet at. The meeting was lively, lots of folks showing up and chatting, and we got to watch through the windows as a torrential downpour hit Denver. After a lovely salad and conversation with my wife, we hopped into the car and she drove me downtown, avoiding traffic to drop me at the hotel.
I hit some of the parties again - there were some that weren't there the previous night, although there was still a lot of standing around in groups. Most amusing was running into 'Bill Willingham', creator of Fables, and chatting with him a little. I didn't quite recognize his name at first, but then told him how cool he was. He said he was surprised that DC actually paid him for a job as fun as writing the 'Jack of Fables' comic. Not that he wants them to stop, I suspect. :)
After hitting the parties I noticed it was 10, so I searched out the Match Game SF, a fun Science Fictional version of the original TV game show. I had been both dejected at initial news that the show wouldn't be at worldcon, and then happy to hear when it was slipped into the schedule. To my surprise and delight, I was picked as one of the first contestants! I and Laurie - the other contestant - were well matched, going tied into sudden death, where she managed to eke out a win, although she didn't win a grand prize.
Still, I got a book out of it. That done, I wandered off to the Wierd Tales party, where they were selling subscriptions for a year at $20 a pop. That sounded pretty good, so I got one. From there I wandered further - dropped in briefly at the Gaylaxicon party but didn't see anyone I knew, and then crashed the Tor party, which was nice looking but I didn't quite feel in place, so I slipped out again. Still, it was kinda neat.
Finally I decided it was time to return home. Arriving at the train station - my car still down at Alameda, I found it was really crowded. It turns out that they'd been waiting over an hour for a train, some sort of breakdown / electrical blackout problem preventing them from returning home after the baseball game. Luckily, I arrived just before some trains did, and I was able to get home without a problem, tumbling tiredly into bed.
Woo! Thursday wasn't so great, but I had a good time Friday!
Instead of taking the bus, this time I drove down to Alameda Station and took the light rail into downtown, dropping me off right at the Convention Center. The first panel was 'Looking Ahead - What to Read and Watch Before you Nominate for the 2009 Hugos' - which was interesting, although folks tended to talk too fast. I've got some sketchy notes I'll try to turn into a blog post later. The panel said that the SF pulps had published a lot of strong short stories over this year, but that there were also a great number of original anthologies that had come out that also had good stories in them.
After that I hit up one of the eateries in the convention center, getting a decent ham and cheese sandwich, and talked with a woman from LA, who said that her local Borders and B&N were so hopeless, she was actually ordering her books via a bookstore in Iowa that she'd chanced upon one day. Apparently this lady has a habit of wandering off the beaten trail, and often finds neat things... for instance, she described to me how she'd wandered here in Colorado, found Buffalo Bill's grave, and enjoyed the challenging switchbacks down from Lookout Mountain into Boulder. I suggested she try to see Red Rocks as well while she was here.
My next panel was 'Timeless Stars: H.P. Lovecraft', featuring Charles Stross and the moderator Stephen SEgal, who apparently is an editor at the new Wierd Tales magazine. The smaller room was packed, with every seat filled, people sitting and standing along the walls, and a few folks standing inside the corridor looking in. It was a really good panel too, discussing favorite stories ('Color out of Space' did well), the influence of humor on the mythos, and the question of why this guy was still so popular almost a hundred years later.
That done, I skittered off to look through the Dealer's Room a little, picking up some issues of Wierd Tales. Heading back, I hit the Trailer Park 'panel', which was basically just a bunch of movie trailers played back to back. The only things I remember that I hadn't already seen was a trailer for a new Librarian movie, which looked interesting, and a trailer for 'Cthulhu', which looked good, although I thought the title was going to be 'The Shadow over Innsmouth'. Even if the name is wonky, that's one to keep an eye out for. The Watchman trailer got a lot of applause.
They didn't have a lot of trailers, so I ended up returning to the dealer's room, where I looked over the books published by a publisher that I hadn't heard of before, 'McFarland' - apparently they do books on film criticism and the like, mostly for sale to universities and libraries. I picked up a couple on anime, and one on John Carpenter. Usually expensive books, but they were running a sale! Those picked up, I wandered the floor and checked out the Night Shade Books table, where I found a collection of stories starring one of the shorts that had been lauded at the Hugo panel, 'Pump Six'.
That all done, and my bag feeling heavy, I went forth to 'The Baen Travelling Slide Show', which was interesting - they were showing off the cover art of their books and talking about how cool their artists were, which I enjoyed.
That finished, it was time for my Anime Meetup! It's always the second Friday of the month, but I wasn't sure if I'd attend due to worldcon. However, there wasn't that much I was thinking of attending then, so instead I hopped back onto the train, stopped at my car to drop off books, and then continued along to the Colorado station, which is across the street from the Perkins we meet at. The meeting was lively, lots of folks showing up and chatting, and we got to watch through the windows as a torrential downpour hit Denver. After a lovely salad and conversation with my wife, we hopped into the car and she drove me downtown, avoiding traffic to drop me at the hotel.
I hit some of the parties again - there were some that weren't there the previous night, although there was still a lot of standing around in groups. Most amusing was running into 'Bill Willingham', creator of Fables, and chatting with him a little. I didn't quite recognize his name at first, but then told him how cool he was. He said he was surprised that DC actually paid him for a job as fun as writing the 'Jack of Fables' comic. Not that he wants them to stop, I suspect. :)
After hitting the parties I noticed it was 10, so I searched out the Match Game SF, a fun Science Fictional version of the original TV game show. I had been both dejected at initial news that the show wouldn't be at worldcon, and then happy to hear when it was slipped into the schedule. To my surprise and delight, I was picked as one of the first contestants! I and Laurie - the other contestant - were well matched, going tied into sudden death, where she managed to eke out a win, although she didn't win a grand prize.
Still, I got a book out of it. That done, I wandered off to the Wierd Tales party, where they were selling subscriptions for a year at $20 a pop. That sounded pretty good, so I got one. From there I wandered further - dropped in briefly at the Gaylaxicon party but didn't see anyone I knew, and then crashed the Tor party, which was nice looking but I didn't quite feel in place, so I slipped out again. Still, it was kinda neat.
Finally I decided it was time to return home. Arriving at the train station - my car still down at Alameda, I found it was really crowded. It turns out that they'd been waiting over an hour for a train, some sort of breakdown / electrical blackout problem preventing them from returning home after the baseball game. Luckily, I arrived just before some trains did, and I was able to get home without a problem, tumbling tiredly into bed.
Woo! Thursday wasn't so great, but I had a good time Friday!