A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Well, today is the first day of Capclave. Capclave is run by the Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA) and is held each year in October. For the past several years it’s been in Rockville, MD and before that in Silver Springs, MD. As DC got more and more expensive the convention has had to mover further out to contain costs. We’re in the Hilton on Rockville Pike and within walking distance of lots of eateries — which is a big plus. The metro stop is behind the hotel adding convenience to those who don’t have or don’t want to use a car.

We hustled in order to arrive in time for a 5 p.m. panel on Library Thing. Hyperion was supplying the laptop and internet connection so we had to get here on time.

Capclave Registration

When we arrived we checked in and got our room — it smelled strongly of perfume. When we first opened the door I thought someone had spilled a full bottle of perfume on the rug it was so bad. We checked with the desk and they were going to have housekeeping come and spray some neutralizer. We went to a panel. We came back — it still hit me strongly enough to cause shortness of breath. So, we walked over the the container store and bought some odor neutralizer spray. We’ve now sprayed heavily twice and it’s at least a bit better — I can breathe. Well, do it again in a minute because while I can breathe it triggered a headache. (Not a very happy camper about this. At least two other couples have complained about the perfume smell in their room. Others say they can’t smell anything. I haven’t talked to the guys in the next room but since they’ve been propping their door open when they’re in there, I believe they have the same problem. I’m suspecting a cleaning product of some sort.)

Dealers Room

We peeked into the ConSuite and the Dealers’ Room (which was still being set up). I took some pictures. We were in this hotel last year but they were still doing some construction then. They’re finished and it’s really a nice venue for a convention.

Library Thing Panel

5 p.m. Library Thing
Panelists: C. Alan Loewen, Danny Birt, David Edelman, Lawrence M. Schoen, and Colleen Cahill (moderator).
Basically, Colleen fired up Library Thing and took us on a tour of her favorite features. The authors called up their personal Library Thing pages. There was some discussion about the different use patterns between the authors who are using it to network with readers and get their works noticed and with readers who are just cataloging/reviewing/tagging books that they own and looking for the writers that they read. For authors, Library Thing allows them to list events they will be attending, speaking at, or signing. If you haven’t visited Library Thing, take a look because it’s a very nice resource.

We also checked out Shelfari and GoodReads and some other online resources for cataloging and managing your library, finding things to read or listen to. For a page of useful links on this subject, check out this Capclave page on Electronic Lib/Book Links.

Capclave Consuite

Next we visited the consuite had a short sit-down to check the schedule and speak with friends. And wait for the 7 p.m. panel. The Consuite is fairly large this year and set up with tables that seat about six each and then can be moved so you can have some nice seating groups. We checked back in after we ate at 9:30 and people had broken out the games (Parcheesi, Mahjongg). Others were just talking and having a good time catching up on what’s been happening to friends they only see at Capclave each year.

Manga and Graphic Novel Panel

7 p.m. Manga & Graphic Novel. What can these combinations of visual and print do differently from traditional films and print? What are some of the best examples and what makes them good? What SF works are being adapted and which ones should be?
Panelists: Lawrence M. Schoen, Steve Stiles, Drew Bittner (moderator), and Lawrence Watt-Evans.
This panel was extremely interesting, lively, and informative. All of the panelists were knowledgeable about comics, manga, and graphic novels.

Steve Stiles read some excerpts from an article he wrote about manga called “Manga-mania”. (I’m now trying to remember what he said so if any of this is wrong it’s me not him). Comics tradition began in Japan in 1862 when they used woodcuts to do their own version of Japan Punch. In 1947, the Might Atom was born and later became/transformed/turned into Astro Boy. Currently there are about 1 billion manga a year.

Manga are made for reading on commutes. For picking up and putting down and find your place easily. The chapters are short, usually about eight pages.

The panel agreed that the people who create the comics are usually science fiction and fantasy fans but unfortunately those who buy them are usually only interested in superhero beating people up or being beaten up. So, there’s not much science fiction and fantasy in American comics.

Comics usually come out monthly. While comics can tell a story over several issues and complete it they usually never end. At the end of the story the hero is still alive and ready to go on another adventure. Graphic novels on the other hand do come to an end — they’re a closed story.

They also talked about how now-a-days, the cutting edge comics are online, and usually free. The comic artists make their money in various ways by advertisements on their sites, by publishing collections of their comics, or from donations. Some artists actually support themselves this way.  The entry cost for doing comics online is very low and the problem is that the entry cost is very low.

Some of the online comics recommended by the panel were: Girl Genius, Schlock Mercenary, A Miracle of Science, and xkcd. Surprisingly I was at least familiar with the names of all of these even if I don’t regularly read them all.

Lawrence Watt-Evans said that he has links to the web comics that he enjoys on his LiveJournal. (Sorry, I couldn’t find the link).

By now it’s 8 p.m. and I haven’t eaten since breakfast, so we go in search of food and odor neutralizer. I’ve pretty much covered the convention so far and am ready to sleep. Tomorrow is day two and the programming doesn’t start until 10 a.m.

A bit late as usual but here’s the October coffee cup. This month I chose a sunflower cup. Somehow, even though I found this cup on sale around June or July, it just seems to shout FALL to me. The leaves around here are starting to turn (well some of them are). The temps are going down into the 50s at night and not higher than 70s during the warm days. The garden is still putting out green tomatoes and some lettuce. But, I know it’s the beginning of the end of summer here.

We brought our Meyer Lemon Tree in off the deck for the winter. He was already not particularly liking the cooler night time temps. He dropped a bunch of leaves in protest. So, now he sits on the rug in front of the sliding glass doors and seems to be all perky and happy. (Okay, so I anthropomorphise my plants — scientific studies have shown that plants like to be talked to and giving them gender and names — this one is Meyer, variety and name, I never said I was original — makes it easier to talk to them.)

This month is going to be very busy. Next weekend, Hyperion and I will be at Bouchercon which is a mystery convention. I’ve never been before so it should be lots of fun. We’re going to be covering the convention for Gumshoe Review. Our usual method is to blog about the convention daily with some photos. Then we do a major upload of photographs to the Gumshoe Review Flickr account, and a general overview of the convention for Gumshoe with a pointer to the daily, more detail blog reports.

We’ll also be attending Capclave. Capclave is the science fiction convention sponsored by WSFA (Washington Science Fiction Association) — tagline is: where reading is not extinct (hence the dodo mascot). Hyperion and I are members of WSFA and have been attending for a few years now. We’ll be covering this convention for SFRevu — with the same method of daily blog articles and the full blown report in SFRevu. Check out the convention website and if you’re in the area please come to the convention. The guests of honor this year are James Morrow and Michael Dirda. It’s small about 300-400 people. The ratio of writers, publishers, reviews, and SF professionals to fans is fairly high. There’s some really interesting program items. There are also some workshops that, if you are an aspiring or beginning writer, you’ll find very helpful. There’s no extra charge over the membership fee for the workshops. So, if you’re in the area drop in and check it out.

Last night was the 1st Friday WSFA meeting in Virginia. It was the usual business meeting followed by some socializing. Charles Stross was in DC and came to the meeting. His book, Halting State, is a 2008 Hugo Nominee. If you enjoy hard science, science fiction take a minute to read the review on the link and get the book and read it.

Today, it was back to Virginia for a meeting of the Capclave 2008 committee. This year’s guests of honor are James Morrow and Michael Dirda. Last year’s convention was a lot of fun as well as informative. This year’s convention is shaping up to be just as good. We’re working on putting together a great schedule of program items as well as some workshops (check last years program, we’ll probably have similar ones this year — but keep an eye on the official website). If you have never been to a local science fiction convention and you live in the Washington, DC area consider joining us for Capclave 2008.

Then it was time to run all our weekend errands in what was left of the day. Why is it that during the week, you think well we can do x, y, z, a, b, …. w this weekend. Then the weekend comes and all the stuff you can’t do because of work has to be done as well as any other plans that require two people to do and before you know it, it’s midnight on Saturday and you only have one more day of the weekend left and 40 billion things to do.

I seem to remember that when I was young there was talk of having a 4 or even a 3 day work week by the year 2000. Here we are in 2008 and most Americans are working 50 hour weeks with less vacation time than ever before as employers cut back on benefits. And to top it all off, weekends become the time to do all the things that should have been done during the week, but work wouldn’t allow time to do — food shopping, housework, laundry, household chores. I work at home and I still can’t keep up — maybe it’s a leak in my hours. I’m sure time is slipping away when I don’t look. Just last week it was January and today it’s April… I think Einstein and I need to have a talk about this relativity thing.

Sunday’s programming was as good, interesting, and informative as Friday. So even though we were exhausted from Saturday’s excitement, panels, discussions, socializing, and partying, we rose early in order to get to the 10AM panel, Where’s the new and recent YA science Fiction? (Panelist: John G. Hemry, Victoria McManus (m), Davey Beauchamp). John and Victoria are members of the Andre Norton Award committee that gives out an award for excellence in YA literature for the previous year. Needless to say, they’d been reading YA all year in preparation for the award and had a lot of books to discuss and recommend to the audience — not that that stopped the audience from giving their own recommendations. Here’s some of the books discussed/recommended/commended: The Invasion of the IQ Snatchers (Arther Slade’s Canadian Chills) by Arthur Slade, Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor, Dragon’s Keep by Janet Lee Carey, Iris, Messenger by Sarah Deming, Into the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst, Flora Segunda by by Ysabeau S. Wilce, Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer, The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex, Tempting Fate by Esther Friesner, Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, Voices by Ursula K. Le Guin, and last for this list but certainly not the last book Spacer and Rat by Margaret Bechard.

Next was a panel entitled Astronomy and Science Fiction (Panelists: Yoji Kondo (who writes as Eric Kotani) and Roger MacBride Allen) The topics of discussion ranged over many subject including: the Big Bang, dark matter, quantum effects on black holes, the classification of Vesta and Ceres and what they might be like (or what we’ll learn from the probe), how to figure gravity, stories from science and scientific possibilities, ways of achieving an EMP pulse and could one be caused by gamma rays, could Ben Franklin have actually done the kite experiment and lived, MythBusters, and many other topics as the audience asked and panel replied. My head got full so that’s about all I wrote down.

Yoji Kondo recommended his book: Interstellar Travel & Multi-Generational Space Ships published by Apogee Books Space Series 34.

Next was LibraryThing and other bibliophilic sites. (Panelists: Colleen Cahill (m), Lawrence M. Schoen, David Louis Edelman, Barbara Krasnoff). Check out Library Thing for yourself. It’s a great way to catalogue your personal library and since it’s on the internet you can access it from anywhere with a PDA (or download to a file and print) so you don’t end up re-buying books you already own. Then on to Online Books, a site that has ebooks available for free. Then a short look at Wowio another site for books that are free but only in PDF format at this time. Other sites were covered but I forgot to write them down in the dark (this was a demo panel and they had a laptop hooked up to show the sites on a screen).

Everything old is new again: Re-imaging and remaking the classics. (Panelists: George Scithers, Ernest Lilley (m), Paul Haggerty, Michael Zipser). The panel and audience covered remakes, remakes of remakes, remakes of a film based on a book that remade the film not the book and those that went back to the original source material. It was a very active and interesting panel. (But you can tell the long hours are getting me, I FORGOT to take notes!!!)

Last, we went to the Gripe Session or Dead Dog panel. Most SF conventions have a panel near the end of the last day of the convention with either this or a similar title. This is the time that convention attendees can air the gripes or give the praise for the convention. This year it seemed that all the gripes were things that the convention couldn’t control: the temperature of the meeting rooms (all on one thermometer so you pick a room to be comfortable in and the rest are either warmer or colder), the locking of the public restrooms after midnight (hotel policy), the lack of an large area to sit and talk to friends (the hotel expected all renovations to be done by the date of the convention but some things ran late and the central atrium area with restaurant and bar was not completed; however they set up two meeting rooms — for food and beverage). Then some things came up that should have been thought of but got over looked (signs by each meeting room door listing the panels within), a no scripts option for email addresses on the website, a handout listing the winner of the WSFA small press award after the ceremony, etc. These were all taken down and will be addressed by the Capclave 2008 and 2009 chairs.

During the meeting, Colleen Cahill received a copy of the Dodo Noir artwork used for this year’s theme of pulp noir, from E. Kovar.

All in all it was a great convention. There were lots of interesting, worthwhile panels to sit in on. There were many opportunities to talk to authors, editors, publishers, and other fans. The workshops are a great idea and I enjoyed the one I sat in on. All in all a great weekend.

Early to rise but stymied by the search for breakfast which was eventually found and consumed, we missed the panel on P.O.V. Then it seemed greeting friends and checking out the dealer’s room which, with all the books displayed, seemed a dangerous place for me and my checkbook/debit card.

Finally got a photo of the Guests of Honor Jeffrey Ford, the Editor Guest of Honor Ellen Datlow and Capclave Chair for 2007 Colleen Cahill.

I want to add a note or a disclaimer — I’m giving my impressions of the panels and workshops and my impressions may or may not accurately present what actually happened.

Luckily there were a few openings in the Reviewers Workshop so Paul and I joined in. The workshop, taught by Peter Heck, was very informative and allowed us to discuss reviewing, the differences between criticism and reviewing, the problems of dealing with series that build on prior knowledge, and how much plot to give away. The discussion among participants was illuminating, informative, and well worth the time.

I sat in on the Harry Potter Autopsy (Panelists: Ann Crispin, David Louis Edelman, Davey Beauchamp, Andy Duncan, Maria Snyder, and Doug Fratz (moderator)). This one was a fairly rowdy panel and audience. A good time was had by all in discussing the series as a whole and whether the payoff in the 7^th book was satisfying. Opinions of course varied considerably.

Next up was Best Books of 2007 (Panelists: Jim Freund (m), David Hartwell, Ernest Lilley, Scott Edelman, Doug Fratz. Photo above is of the panel in name order.). Essentially the panelists listed the books that they thought were the best of the year. I’m not going to list them all but some that were mentioned were: Blindsight by Peter Watts, New Space Opera edited by Gardner Dozois, Coyote Road edited by Ellen Datlow, Halting State and Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross, Pirate Freedom by Gene Wolfe, Cauldron by Jack McDevitt, Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder (and the other books of the Virga series), Harm by Brian Aldiss… There was also a lot of talk about what a best of year book should be — with no definitive definition as you’d expect from such a diverse group.

Next was Why is “Genre” a Dirty Word? (Panelists: Ian Randal Strock, Dennis Danvers (m), Scott Edelman, Mary Jo Putney. Photo of panel below in name order.) I missed part of this panel but one of the interesting topics discussed was how it seemed like film legitimizes fiction. If you have a movie made from your book then the book is okay — as if the novel somehow transcends the genre stigma by being filmed. It was also mentioned that the best length for films is a short story or novella but that it was usually novels that had to be cut to pieces in order to fit the time limits for a movie that got made and that was probably why movies of long novels sometimes (mostly) don’t work well. Discussion then moved on to how maybe the internet will save the short fiction as print markets shrink and ezines increase. There was some talk about the difficulties of cross genre writing since it had to hit the expectations of two genres rather than one.

What’s on your Netflix Queue? (Panelist: Mike Zipser, Ernest Lilley, Jim Freund, Barbara Krasnoff, David J. Williams. Photo above is in name order.). The panelists listed some of the movies that they thought should be seen by more people the list included: Enemy Mine, Sunshine, Running Man, Serenity, Metropolis, Evergreen, Solaris (both the Russian version and remake), The Quiet Earth (one of my favorites), The Haunting, The Wickerman (British version), Buckaroo Bonsai, Big Trouble in Little China, Into the Night, …. The audience joined in listing their favorites.

One of the major pluses for panel was the great opportunity that was available for audience participation not just with a Q&A at the end but throughout the time slot.

Later in the evening, Capclave celebrated with a 60^th birthday party for the Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA) and also awarded the 1^st WSFA Small Press Award in a short ceremony. The award is for the best short story published in a small press during the previous year. This year’s award went to Peter S. Beagle for “El Regalo”. Unfortunately, the nominees and winner could not attend this tag. Michael Swanwick accepted for Peter S. Beagle and Lawrence Wat-Evans accepted for two of the nominees. See <A TARGET=”_blank” href=”http://www.wsfasmallpressaward.org”>WSFA Small Press Award Website</A> for more detail on the award.

The celebration was a chance for everyone to have some birthday cake and get to talk to other members, participants, and guests of Capclave. While formal attire was not required many attendees did dress up for the occasion and this made it even more special. Attendee seemed to have a fun time relaxing and chatting about the convention so far.

The last panel of the evening (11PM to Midnight) was Current and Changing Gender Roles in SF/F (Panelists: Nancy Jane Moore (m), Barbara Krasnoff, Ernest Lilley) Since the panel was so late in the evening and after a party is quickly became more of a round table discussion with included the audience. The discussion was far ranging covering the handling of gender in fiction; the factors that effect gender roles; recent neurological and biological research, religion, societal effects, among many other tangents. The discussion was far ranging and filled with many possible areas to explore further.

Well a 1 1/2 hour drive took about 3 hours because of traffic but getting to the new hotel (Rockville Hilton) was fairly easy. Unfortunately, the free parking garage was barricaded and we ended up parking in the hotel lot for $10/day. Then we learned we forgot the powercord to the wireless network router — okay we can deal; just use the card in the laptop, although that means only one of us can use the network at a time, right? Wrong again — it seems the software on the primary laptop is out of date and you must connect to the corporate website in order to download the new version. But, of course, without the software you can’t connect. Luckily the backup laptop is sufficiently up-to-date that we can get a connection, download the newest software, install it on both laptops (but first, you have to uninstall the older software, and hope the new one works), and then cross your fingers. Luck finally smiles on us and network connectivity is restored. Internet joy commences.

At the hotel, registration went swiftly and without a hitch, both for our hotel rooms and for the convention. Since traffic held us up we only got to sit in on the last half of the Guest of Honor Interview. This year the Guests of Honor decided they wanted to interview each other so Ellen Datlow and Jeffrey Ford sat and essentially talked, asking each other questions about life, writing, books, stories, and the universe. It was a totally entertaining event. It was funny and serious in turn as they bantered back and forth. Really, this would be worth coming to Capclave if that was all they had but they also have some great panels.

Next, up (for us) was “Is that a Maltese Falcon in your pocket or are you just happy to read me?” Moderator was Davey Beauchamp. Panelists were David J. Williams, Matt Jarpe, and Lon Prater. The tagline for the panels was: Neo-pulp: What is it; Who’s writing it; and where do you find it?

It was pretty much agreed that pulp focuses on plot and has a feel to it of excitement, optimism — and harkens back to the Shadow, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (comic not movie) and and that neo-pulp has a bit of noir feel to it. Early pulp was more black and white in morality but with noir it’s now lots of shades of grey. This panel turned into a real audience participation as the convention members in attendance joined enthusiastically into the discussion — I love it when this happens because it expands the boundary from panel/audience to a truly inclusive discussion of the topic by those who find the subject interesting.

Since it’s now late, we skipping the 11PM panel in order to take an early night and be bright eyed for tomorrow’s day long schedule of panels and events. Did I mention we had to go up three floors to find an actual ice machine in the ice machine room. The hotel is new and renovations didn’t actually finish in time for the convention, but it’s a great venue with all programming items on one floor and by next year it will be fully operational.