Okay, Catch-Up Post #1: Ode to the Domestic Shorthair Cat<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Just kidding.<\/p>\n
Readercon, the Good: <\/b> met cool people. David Edelman, author of Infoquake <\/i>, and shared commiseratory we-didn’t-win-the-Campbell beers. Jenny Rappaport, agent to a friend of mine who started out merely as a talented wannabe in search of advice — and whom I should have destroyed when I had the chance, because this Rappaport woman has now turned him into a serious rival with a lucrative three-book deal under his belt. (Dave Williams. <\/span>Remember that name.) Ted Chiang, whom I only managed to talk to briefly at checkout, my copy of Stories of Your Life and Others <\/i> locked away in a car whose keys were in the possession of someone who was avoiding me. (I was probably too effusive for coolness even so. In fact, I know I was. Stupid fucking Inner Fanboy.) George Mann, of Solaris (whom I also didn’t get as much time with as I would have liked.) Laura-Ann Gellman.<\/p>\n Reignited old friendships, even though the Heinlein Ceremony bled off many of the usual suspects: Ursabelle (that’s Ms <\/i>. Elizabeth Bear to you, Mister), The Montreal Mafia (oh, all right: Glenn Grant, Yves Meynard, Christian Sauve, maybe Jean-Louis Trudel if my brain isn’t fudging with memories of the previous year), Judy Klein-Dial (think a shorter Joni Mitchell, in a bookstore). David Hartwell’s wife. (Actually, that doesn’t sound quite right; would have been David Hartwell too, except there was a miscommunication over dinner plans so I only got to see him for a few minutes outside the bar. Kathryn spent time planted in <\/i> the bar, which was much more conducive to quality time.) To name but a few.<\/p>\n Got interviewed by Locus for a couple of hours. Spent far too much on seafood in Boston. Gave a talk which, while it went over time, also went over well. Signed many books (I’m told the dealer’s room sold out of Blindsight <\/i>, but without knowing how many they’d stocked I don’t know how good to feel about that). Had some really nice chats with some really nice fans, about everything from Jethro Tull to “Hard-Character sf” (whatever that is, although I’m told I’m a prime exemplar). Met some of the regulars here in fact, and none of ’em — not a one <\/i> — bought me a beer. And I was proud of them, one and all, because haven’t I told you time and again how maladaptive altruism is?<\/p>\n I met Charles aka Chang, who is I swear to God even taller than me. I met AsYouKnowBob, and we strangled each other on film. I would have met this Tim character, and he would perhaps have bought me a beer, but I got hustled away. To name but a few. <\/p>\n Readercon, the Bad: <\/b> The fucking Marriot, and the naked avarice they display in charging $10US per day, per laptop <\/i>, for internet access that every Motel-6 on the planet gives away for free. (I did, however, find an unsecured network with leaky access over at one corner of the building, and I announced it to all and sundry at an early panel so that as many as possible might cadge free bandwidth and deny those bastards their pound of flesh.) <\/span>Marriot Security shutting down a room party consisting of twenty people eating carrot cake and quietly conversing — I mean, there wasn’t even any music <\/i> — because of “noise complaints”. <\/span>Panel topics not quite as edgy this year as they’ve been others (and while we’re at it, Readercon’s wussiness in not pushing the whole wireless issue with the Marriot— I mean, at the very least they could have set up a temporary wireless network outside the salons for the duration, even if they didn’t want to tell the Marriot to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut and move to some other more reasonable venue). And sadly, I didn’t get a chance to meet as many folks as I would have liked to, and who were evidently there. Wasn’t able to stay an extra night, which would have mitigated that somewhat. <\/p>\n Readercon, the Ambiguous: <\/b> “Cuddlier”? “Canadianer”? “Reach of an orangutan”? “Swearier”? “Energy of a mongoose”? Do these terms really apply to me? I don’t even think they’re all even real words <\/i>.<\/p>\n And how do you sign someone’s uvula anyway?<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Okay, Catch-Up Post #1: Ode to the Domestic Shorthair Cat. Just kidding. Readercon, the Good: met cool people. David Edelman, author of Infoquake , and shared commiseratory we-didn’t-win-the-Campbell beers. Jenny Rappaport, agent to a friend of mine who started out merely as a talented wannabe in search of advice — and whom I should have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fellow-liars","category-writing-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}