A Curious Statistical Anomaly

This is the first full day of the convention.  Registration opened at 10 in the morning so, we went off in search of caffeine and our registration packets.  Caffeine was fairly easy to find as during the morning hours the hotel has a Starbucks coffee bar n the lobby with some breakfast type baked goods.

I picked up my tags and the program materials.  My panel isn’t until Saturday at 10 and the dealers couldn’t move into their space until about 3 PM.  This left time to go to some panels and stretch our imaginations and our intellect.

"SF as the Literature of Things" Panel

11: 00 SF as the Literature of Things. Panelists: Paul Di Filippo, Lawrence Person, John Clute, Leah Bobet (Leader), Chris Nakashima-Brown. It’s commonly agreed that stories set in the future can “really” be about the future or about the present.  But in novels like William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, and Bruce Sterling’s Zeitgeist and Zenith Angle, we are for the first time seeing stories set in the present which seem to be about the future. These fictions seem to argue that the future will be built bottom-up rather than top-down; that progress does not derive from the implementation of ideas but rather from the accumulation of quotidian technological change. Character in these works is not so much a matter of nature or nurture, but a product of our interaction with things, things produced as fast as we can (because we can) and without any deep consideration for their consequences. Is this “SF as a Literature of Things” ultimately just an interesting sub-genre, or might (or should) the field itself be morphing in its direction? There are more and more slipstream stories that start with an architectural setting or an object or some arcane text; do these reflect the same movement?

Some random notes:

Cyberpunk — things are symbolic indicators, they tell you about the world and background without having to do an “as you know Bob” informational dump for the reader.

Characters are defined by their interaction with the environment and their things/possessions.  In Pattern Recognition a character doesn’t even show up until the middle of the book but by then we know all about the character and what to expect because of the description of the character’s apartment and things.

There was a lot of discussion about whether you could tell what a person was like from the things owned because we all have public and private personae.  If all you see is the public face then are you that public face or are you still the private person you envision yourself to be?

We often seem, now-a-days, to experience the world through things.  We film events and see it through our cameras, iphones, or recorders.  We don’t see the actual events because we’re annotating and filming it.  How does that effect our view of the world and things?

An audience member asked if we were to believe that things were reliable narrators and the panel generally agreed that while the things are narrators they are not necessarily reliable.

Noon: How to Write for a Living When You Can’t Live Off Your Fiction (Special Kaffeeklatsch). Barbara Krasnoff. You’ve just been laid off from your staff job, you can’t live on the royalties form your fiction writing, and your Significant Other has taken a cut in pay.  How do you pay the rent? Well, you can find freelancework writing articles, white papers, reviews, blogs, and other non-sfnal stuff. Despite today’s lean journalistic market, it’s still possible to make a living writing, editing, and/or publishing. Let’s talk about where and how you can sell yourself as a professional writer, whether blogging can be done for a living, and how else you can use your talent to keep the wolf from the door.  Bring whatever ideas, sources, and contacts you have.

The room was packed.  We networked and pickup up some useful ideas and URLs of resources. Rather than go over all the tips and idea presented, I suggest that you go to Barbara’s website of “Useful sites for Earning a Living” at:
http://bkrasnoff.googlepages.com/resourcesforfreelancewriters

Also check out the websites for:
American society of Journalists and Authors: http://www.asja.org
The Authors Guild: https://www.authorsguild.org
National Writers Union: http://www.nwu.org
Freelancers Union: http://www.freelancersunion.org
mediabistro.com: http://mediabistro.com
Editorial Freelancers Association: http://www.the-efa.org
National Association of Science Writers: http://www.nasw.org
American Medical Writers Association: http://www.amwa.org
National Book Critics Circle: http://www.bookcritics.org

1:00 Narrative Psychology and Science Fiction. Robin Abrahams with discussion by Ellen Asher, Eric M. Van, David Swanger. Talk/Discussion (60 min.).  If a character gets shot, it’s a mystery story.  If a character gets shot with a phaser, it’s science fiction. But are there elements to science fiction that go deeper than the surface tropes? Psychologist and writer Robin Abrahams discusses what cognitive psychology and her own research about mental models of literary genres–including science fiction, fantasy, and horror–and what personality factors correlate with a liking of different kinds of stories.

What is personality if not your interpreted style? Perhaps people like stories that fit their interpretive style.  Abraham’s research asked undergraduates to rate various types of genre on several different opposition scales (predicable/unpredictable; emotional/unemotional, etc.). There were some surprises and some “Duh” results.

most predicable — romance
most unpredictable — mystery
most unemotional — science fiction
most bound to time and place — science fiction
most optimistic — self-help
most morally complex characters — biography
most considered to have clear good and bad guys — science fiction
most read to be entertained — humor
most read to learn — self-help
most often written for money — horror
most realistic — self-help
fantasy found high on escapism
science fiction was neutral on escapism

There was a lot of other results but I couldn’t keep up with the talk and take notes too.

There was an interesting thought thrown out that with education and specialization that people raise sub-ordinate categories up to become base categories.  For example most people consider dogs a base category.  But, to people who breed dogs or are very interested in them knowing that it is a dog doesn’t tell them anything.  The sub-ordinate category of breed raises to the base category level.

I then took over getting our table in the dealers’ room setup while Hyperion attended a panel at 2 PM.

2:00 Where the Turtles Stop: Preons as the Most Funadamental Particle.  Eric M. Van. Talk (60 min.). The discovery (invention?) of the quark simplified the “particle zoo” immensely, but the Standard Model of Physics still contains an embarrassing plethora of “fundamental” particles: six quarks and six leptons (both of which fit into neat and cognate 2×3 grids) and a variety of bosons (the photon, gluon, etc.). That all of these particles might be composed of various combinations of two or three truly fundamental “preons” seems obvious. Van will explain why the preon concept was unfairly rejected in the ’70s and ’80s and talk about its recent resurrection by t he Australian physicist Sundance Bilson-Thompson. He will then (of course) present his own preon model, which he argues is simpler and has much more (way cool, in fact) explanatory power. Note: this talk is designed to be intelligible even to those who believe “leptons” manufacture iced tea and Cup of Soup.

While the talk was interesting, it was wholly theoretical.  There is no evidence to support the existence of preons, and there may never be any.  What makes the preon theory attractive is both its simplicity, and the ability to explain much (if not all) of the Standard Model and Quantum Mechanics as an emergent behavior of these simple entities.  Van’s model is based on what’s gone before, but is modified to fit his own understandings.  Given that, the preon model is basically that there is only one basic entity in the universe, the preon and it’s anti-particle, which is just the preon with a negative spin.  Things get a little strange at this point as preons live their lives in p-space, a structure which contains two spacial dimensions, one time dimension, and a special non-time, non-space dimension called “qwa”.  And it’s in this Qwa dimension the the preons do their spinning.  According to the theory, preons are only happy in even number pairs, although the pair may contain any combination of preons and anti-preons.  Since each preon has a charge of either +1/6 or -1/6, combining six preons (or anti-preons) gives you all the standard particles in the Hadron family.  Other combinations of two or four preons gives you other “normal” particles.   The rest of the zoo is, presumably, made up of other combinations.  What makes the preon theory predictably nice is that there are multiple ways that two groups of three preons and be bound together.  And those methods then determine the masses of the resulting particles, such as the Electron, Muon, and Tauon particles.   There was a good deal more, but I think that pretty much gives the flavor of the theory.  One last bit, Van assumes that gravity is an emergent property of p-space, and therefore predicts that when the LHC is finally brought on line, they will NOT find the Higgs Boson.  Well, we shall see.

"How to Review" Panel

3:00 How to Review. Panelists: Rose Fox, Gary K. Wolfe, Charles N. Brown (Leader), Michael Dirda, Lev Grossman.  A roundtable on reviewing: what to do and what not to do. How do different audiences need different sorts of reviews?

I was late to the panel because I need to work more in the dealers’ room but managed to get there for the last half hour.

One thing to remember is that writing that isn’t fun to read won’t be read, and that includes reviews.

Review space in most places is shrinking.  Reviews should be essays and part of the essay is to give the feelings and thoughts that you had upon reading the work.

Trashing a book doesn’t make a review.  You can write a negative review but you must explain why it isn’t good — where does it fail and how.

A review needs to be an accurate account of the book.

The audience for genre review (since this is a genre convention) need not be written for the fan but for the general intelligent reader who likes a wide variety of reading material.  Hopefully to entice them to try something different or something similar to another author that they enjoy.

Dirda says he believes that people should read more and beyond the Best Seller List.

5:00 Memorial Guest of Honor Interview. Michael Swanwick. Talk (60 min.) Swanwick will interview the late Hope Mirrlees, author of “Paris, a Poem” and Lud-in-the-Mist, in person.

This was very interesting and especially well done.  I’d downloaded Lud-in-the-Mist for my Kindle and had read Swanwick’s short essay about Hope Mirrlees before the convention.   For this presentation there was a woman who looked much as you’d expect Hope Mirralees to look like.  Swanwick stated that he would be asking questions and then turn it over to the audience but there had been a great deal of negotiation for Mirrlees special appearance and that only questions which had well documented answers available publicly could be asked.  The humor and British air were refreshing and endearing.

"How Do We Choose What We Read" panel

8:00 How Do We Choose What We Read? Panelists: Michael Bishop, Chuck Rothman, Victoria Janssen, Rosemary Kirstein (Leader), Rick Wilber, Michael Dirda. Those of us with broad tastes in literature are constantly choosing among many different types of story. What determines these choices? Do our story preferences vary with psychological state? What’s behind the phenomenon of concentrating on one subgenre or even one author, or acquiring a transient aversion to same?

First off, Kirstein asked what each panelist’s first genre books was or how they decided to read genre.  Books mentioned were the ones with a rocket ship or atom on the spine.  Danny Dunn.  Tom Swift. Tom Swift, Jr.  The Magician’s Nephew. Lucky Star. Podkayne of Mars. Have Spacesuit will Travel.  Mostly they just stumbled across a book or it was recommended to them and they liked it.  Bishop said his first genre was baseball stories then SF/F.

As adults:
Dirda said he enjoys history and will pick a book because it’s an interesting historical, an author he likes, or a topic he wants to learn about.  He tries to keep an even mix of fiction and nonfiction.  Since he reviews, he reads all the time but seldom just for pleasure because he reviews what he reads.

Wilber said that he travels a lot and tends to stick with an author.  As a child if he liked a book, he then read all the books by that author or in the series.  As an adult he still does that.  He’s a completist. If he’s traveling he’ll sometimes pick up a book at the airport because of the size — picking one he thinks will last the trip.  He also reads books he thinks he should have read to fill in the gaps in his reading mostly picking up the classics he hasn’t read before.

Rothman also tends read authors he’s liked in the past.  If it’s a new book, he’ll pick it up if it is very different from other books of the type that he’s read before.  Usually, the choice is because of the blurb and seldom from the cover art.

Janssen said that she chooses books for two reasons 1) for herself and for pleasure reading and 2) for work or the author part of herself.  The second is to be read as an author looking at the structure, style, and tropes and conventions of a genre.  She’s been writing for Harlequin Spice and is filling in the gap in her romance reading education.

Dirda said when he is starting to read a new author or in a new genre he looks for the best representation of the work by the person or in the field.  That gives him some point of comparison and a starting point for finding more books in the area.

Bishop said he’s drawn to books by reviews.  Reviews got him reading some mystery writers that he hadn’t come across before and he really enjoyed the work and then read more of them.  He’d brought Newsweek with the cover story, “What to read now”.  It was a list of fifty books that everyone should read.  Number one was by Anthony Trollope and there were only two fantasy/science fiction books: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Philip K. Dick)
and The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper)

Wilber said he reads about three books a week: 1 for business/work, 1 for fun, and 1 book that he feel he should have read (usually a classic).

All agreed that if a book doesn’t give you pleasure and you don’t have to read it for a class or for work — give it up.  Sometimes you can return at a later time and find that it now fits your needs and other times it will just be a bad book that doesn’t work for you or at all.

Grand Ceremony

10:00 Readercon 20 Grand Ceremony.  Listed all the past Guests of Honor and of those past guests all those who are attending this year’s convention.

Cordwainer Smith Award Ceremony

10:30 The 2009 Cordwainer Smith Rediscover Award Ceremony. Barry N. Malzberg and Robert J. Sawyer.
This year’s winner was A. Merritt.

Meet the Prose Party, Crowd

10:45 Meet the Pros(e) Party.

There was cake and it was good.  At this event the Pros all have a sheet of peel off labels with a phrase or sentence that they sent in to the convention people.  Attendees talk to the Pros to try to collect a label from each one.  It’s a nice bit to get people to talk and mix a bit.  Most authors use something from their books or story stories.  Since I’m not a writer but a reviewer, each year I try to come up with a sentence that is very weird while making sense in context of SF/F.  This year I wrote:
It’s as if Elizabeth Bennet and The Tick try to explain the meaning of life to a race that has no numbers.

Now it’s late and we’re off to relax and sleep, perhaps to dream.  Tomorrow is another full day.

I feel like Chicken Little with the end of the month approaching. The zines go live on May 1st so I’m up to my eyeballs in proofing and writing. Have to get everything done by Thursday because on Friday, I’ll be a Malice Domestic (if you’re there track me down and say howdy!).

I took some photos of what blooming in the garden but haven’t had the time to post them.

Today was work, work, work — getting books entered, reading for reviews, taking notes and getting set for a WSFA (Washington Science Fiction Association) Meeting in DC. For the next six month or so the club is meeting in DC … usually we meet in Virginia for the first Friday of the month, and Maryland for the third Friday.

If you live in the DC, northern VA, Maryland area and love science fiction and fantasy you should check out WSFA. You can view their website at www.wsfa.org. There’s some great people, lots of nice geeky (SF, fantasy, science, technology, and social) discussions after the short business meeting.

WSFA puts on a yearly convention called Capclave. Capclave is usually held in October. This year it will 16-18 October 2009.
Guests of Honor will be Harry Turtledove as Author Guest of Honor and Sheila Williams as Editor Guest of Honor. The convention will be held at the Hilton Washington DC/Rockville, Executive Meeting Center, 1750 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852.

WSFA also presents the WSFA Small Press Award at a short ceremony during the convention. This is the club’s third year giving out this award and the number of nominations are growing each year. The award honors the work of small presses and the short story (under 17,500 words).

Check out the websites to learn more about WSFA and their activities. I enjoy the people, the discussions, and the chance to get involved in the community of fans.

[Besides I needed to do a post tonight and thought I’d talk about a group that I give a lot of my time to. I’m Capclave chairperson for 2010, one of the two webmasters, and the current WSFA Small Press Award Administrator.]
So if you live in the area, come to a meeting and check us out.

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.

Greetings from Salina, Kansas.  Yes, we are on the road again, foot loose and fancy free, with the hum of our tires as background music!

Getting up wasn’t easy after a late late night … I think I’m getting older at a rate somewhat faster than can be explained by orbital mechanics.  But we finally managed to pull ourselves together (coffee helped) and get all our various belongings packed back where they belong.   Three trips to the car and a half-hour wait in the registration line later, we were off to Dinosaur Ridge in Morrison, CO.  It was only about a half hour west of Denver, so we figured it would be a good side visit.  I’ve always been fascinated by Dinosaurs; although I always preferred Triceratops to Tyrannosaurus Rex, perhaps due to early exposure to The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth.  We had to go around in a circle twice due to this, that, and the other thing, but we managed to find the site without an excessive amount of trouble.  The problem is that once you’re there, all the really cool stuff is out on the ridge, about two miles from  the visitor center.  And, of course, the road is closed to vehicles.  You can either walk, or you can take a shuttle bus up, and walk back.  At 90 degrees in the shade (which there wasn’t any), and our still not exactly being completely at one with the rarified Denver air, Gayle and I decided that we’d have to cut the expedition short.   I bought a couple of really cool books and saw a couple of fossils they’d brought down to the visitor’s center, but I’m still really bummed out that I couldn’t get to there really good parts.  <sigh>

Anyway, then we were ready for the long trip home.  As you’ll probably expect, there were a couple of wrong turns, and a map that wasn’t quite accurate but, again, it was only a minor inconvenience.  Not much to report though.  We drove through a major thunderstorm at the Colorado/Kansas border and we saw a really cool windmill farm just outside Salina.  Most of the windmills were spinning, but maybe a quarter weren’t.  We still haven’t figured that out yet.  Now we’re in our hotel room, hoping to get some rest before we pick up the pace tomorrow.  Our scheduled highlight will be the St. Louis Arch.

Now it’s time for:  The Great American Experience!

We were getting a bit low on gas, still had over a quarter tank, so no reason for panic, but we figure there’s no reason to delay until the last minute.  So we saw an exit coming up with food and fuel.  We pulled off, filled the car up and then, instead of just getting right back on the highway, decided on the spur of the moment to stop in at the “I-70 Diner”.  Man I wish these people would relocate to Maryland.  The food was fantastic, and the service was fast and friendly.  The part I enjoyed the least was the french fries … they were merely “really good”.  If you’re familiar with the “Silver Diner” chain, this is just like that, only much more authentic, and much less expensive.  Very 1950’s decor with a southwest twist, and 1950’s rock and roll over the diner’s sound system.  So if you ever find yourself cruising along I-70 near Flagler, Colorado, do yourself a favor and get a bite to eat.  You will NOT regret it.

That’s it for now.  There are pictures, but all the camera equipment is packed away, and I’m too tired (and lazy) to dig it all out.  I’ll see what I can do tomorrow.

We actually set the alarm today so we’d get up in time. The package we’d been expecting managed to find us last night and we’re to deliver it today after 3 pm to its finally resting place. We got up and finished the blog post from last night, though the pictures still need some work. Got the photos all set to go up on Flickr but haven’t actually had time to upload them yet.

Then it was off to the convention center. We hadn’t finished the Dealers’ Room yet so we decided to check it out. You’d think with all the books that I get for review I’d never have to buy any. Wrong! Damage to the budget was quite steep. I did managed to meet some of the people that I deal with for review copies and such. It is just so nice to be able to fit a face to a name after all this time. Hyperion found that Phil and Kaja Foglio were there and bought the entire collection of Girl Genius and had them autographed.

Hyperion then went to a panel and I checked out the art show. Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to take pictures in the art show and it’s very difficult to expound on the variety of styles, materials, ability, and just plain weirdness that makes up a Worldcon Art Show. Just about all the major artists that you’ve seen on book and magazine covers are represented as well as a lot of lesser known but no less talented artists are also there. There are also a number of 3-D artists (pottery, jewelry, sculpture, wood carvings, whatever….) . It’s breath-taking in a good way.

After the art show experience, I just needed to sit quietly for a while. Got coffee and sat in one of the couches just outside the Dealers’ Room and Art Show to wait for Hyperion. Timing was perfect. I finished a book that I’d been reading for review so now I get to take another one off my stack (course now I’ve got to write it up).

Then lunch. We still needed to deliver the box. We decided to change for the Hugo Ceremony a bit early since we wanted to go to a panel at 5:30 and the Hugo Award Ceremony started at 7:30 pm. There wasn’t really enough time between the end of the panel and the start of the ceremony to get to the hotel and back, let alone do anything while at the hotel. And it took a while to deliver the box.  Hyperion went over three times.  Fortunately, it was just across the street.   It turns out that everybody was at the back of the suite, and couldn’t hear anyone knocking on the door.  He finally had to call on his cell phone from the hallway to tell them to come open the door.  Took showers. Walked back to the convention center and got there in time for Hyperion to go to a panel he wanted to see on dirigibles.

I decided to get a coffee and sit and read for awhile. I just realized this is the first time I’ve just sat in a while (at least since earlier after the walk through the Art Show. It was a nice experience to just sit for a while. Then it was on to the Hugo’s.

The auditorium is the same one that the Masquerade was held in the night before. It’s huge and even with this big crowd it wasn’t full. We managed to get very good seats in the row behind the nominees and their guests. Still it was very difficult to take pictures from where we were, especially since we couldn’t use a flash. Luckily, my camera has a 12x zoom and the big screens of the view were nearby. I ended up mostly taking photos of the screens rather than the stage.

The ceremony was its usual mix of professionalism, wit, humor, joy, and laughter. The Master of Ceremonies was Wil McCarthy who wished to be known as the People’s Hugo MC — he told us how he could feel our pain in having to clap over 2000 times for the ceremony and gave us instructions to make our lives easier.

First came the First Fandom Awards presented by Keith Stokes.  The First Fandom Hall of Fame Award was a tie to Mike Cashley (or Ashley, I don’t have the spelling) and Ray Harryhausen. There was also a Posthumous Hall of Fame Award for Issac Asimov. The Sam Moskowitz Archive Award was also a tie and went to Frank Robinson and Bob Peterson. The Big Heart Award was presented by John Hert to Suford Lewis.

Denvention 3 exercised their option to give Special Committee Awards. Presenter Kent Bloom, Denvention 3 Chair, gave an award to NASA for 50 years of science and to NESFA Press for keeping great SF in print.

Stanley Schmidt, Editor of Analog, presented the John W. Campbell Award for Best new Science Fiction Writer to Mary Robinette Kowal. Then Jay Lake presented the Campbell Tiara.

The Hugo Administrator Mary Kay Kare introduced the designer of the this year’s Hugo base, Lee Kuruganti who then described the base and the reason each of the elements were chosen to represent this convention.

The Hugo Awards went to:

• Best Fanzine: File 770, edited by Mike Glyer
• Best Fan Writer: John Scalzi
• Best Fan Artist: Brad Foster
• Best Professional Artist: Stephan Martiniere
• Best Semiprozine: Locus
• Best Related Book: Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher
• Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Doctor Who “Blink”
• Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Stardust
• Best Professional Editor, Short Form: Gordon Van Gelder
• Best Professional Editor, Long Form: David G. Harwell
• Best Short Story: “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear
• Best Novelette: “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chaing
• Best Novella: “All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis
• Best Novel: The Yiddish policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon

We took lots of photos and stayed to take ones of the winners with all the lights on and using flash. Then it was off to the Hugo Loser’s Party which we managed to get in to because we were helping out. It ended up not being that much work since the area I was assigned to said they didn’t need me so I made sure the door guards had enough water or drink to stay hydrated (the room got incredibly hot) and helped pick up trash as it occurred (picking abandoned napkins, glasses, cups, plates, and such). Otherwise, not that taxing and I got to move around and talk to people also. As the crowd thinned it was easier to talk to people and it got a bit cooler.  (Hyperion here: I was assigned to door guard duty, and, like Gayle, was told my services were not needed.  So mostly I roamed around the room taking pictures of anything that would stay in focus in my viewfinder.)

Now, hopefully, it’s to bed.  Tomorrow is the last day of the convention.  We check out and start home.

We nearly overslept this morning but with a lot of chaos and running around (think panic-mode), we managed to get to the WSFS Business meeting without being too late. The highlight of the meeting is that the Hugo for Semiprozine was killed (this needs to be ratified next year) and the Graphic Story Hugo was created (again to be ratified next year). Montreal’s Chairman was present and will test the Graphic Story Hugo for next year’s convention. There was also lots of changes to the wording of the constitution to include web-based material. I’m sure this will all be up in the meeting minutes sometimes over the next several months.Noon came fast as there was a lot to be done and soon it was time to go to a panel or two.

1:00 pm. Guest of Honor Speech by Lois McMaster Bujold. Bujold has a sore throat but managed to make it through the entire session. She talked about her writing, how she writes, the way she approaches the material, her characters, how ideas get sparked and turned into stories, and her life.

2:30 pm. What’s New in Science Fiction and Fantasy for Children and Young Adults. Panelists: Farah Mendlesohn, Valerie Frankel, Diana Herald, Susan Fichtelberg, Bonnie Kunzel, and Sharon Rowlens. The group had put together a list of books that they thought were exception and were either just out or coming out soon. Their favorites were: Kristin Cashore’s Graceling, Cinda Williams Chima’s The Dragon Heir (book 3 of a series), Michael Daley’s Rat Trap (Hyperion has read this one and highly recommends it too), Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother (this is sitting on my to be read pile at the moment), Juliet Marillier’s Wildwood Dancing, and Frances Hardin’s Wellwish. The full list is available at http://www.genrefluent.com/denvention.htm (note as of today — Saturday, 8/9–  this link doesn’t work). They also recommended checking out the Golden Duck Awards site.

4:00 pm. The ages of a writer’s life: writing to get published, writing for fans, writing for posterity. Panelists: Robert Silverberg, Connie Willis, Suford Lewis (moderator), Lois McMaster Bujold, and Larry Niven. The authors each talked about how their careers got started and whether they thought they matched these literary phrases of a writer’s life. They was a lot of banter and jokes as well as some great information on just what the writing life is really like when it’s your life.

There was a panel that I really wanted to attend at 5:30 on what to do when your convention needs/has to change venues but I’d committed to having supper with friends before I saw the panel was at that time. So, off to dinner at a Mongolian BBQ place. The food was good. The company excellent. And the conversation information, entertaining, and relaxing.

Masquerade. 7:30 PM. We just managed to rush from supper to the Masquerade without missing anything. Up first was the children’s category. There were some cute entries and of course all were winners. Next was the presentation of the Masters, Journeymen, and Novice categories. As usual, the quality of the costumes was excellent with some in the lower categories showing that, in a year or so, the Masters are going to really be getting some strong(er) competition (as if that category doesn’t already have some excellent costumes and costumers in it). There didn’t seem to be a program for this event this year so we don’t have the names of the entrants, hopefully the winners will be in the newsletter tomorrow and we’ll get them up soon.

After the judges adjourned, we went to the fan photography area and took some photos of the entrants. In the main hall during the Masquerade no flash photography is allowed. I did my best with my telephoto lens and the museum setting. I got a few good shots and more okay ones but the best ones are from the fan photography area because there I could use my flash.

Went up for the Capclave, WSFA, and SFRevu party for a while. Met a lot of people, talked to many, many, people and had a good time but it was necessary to get back to our room and sleep. Tomorrow — or rather today — is another day.

We’re up and seeking breakfast, or something to tied us over for a while. (Hyperion: I went over to Starbucks for Coffee. Place was absolutely packed. I was number 32 in line.) First up this morning is the WSFS Business Meeting. We started going to these quite a few conventions ago. We’d been volunteering at all the conventions that we attended and wanted to learn more about running them. This year a couple of proposal will be submitted: One to give a Hugo to the Best SF Website, one for Best Graphic Novel, and one to set the upper limit on supporting memberships, and then whatever else comes up that I don’t yet know about from reading the SMOFs list. Most people can go their whole lives and never attend a Worldcon Business Meeting. Us, we like to get involved. The meetings can be frustrating but they’re also a lot of fun in their own way — personally, I like to think of them as performance art. All the meeting are run by Robert’s Rules of Order. I don’t understand them very well, even now, but the person in charge of the meeting (this year Donald Eastlake) usually makes a great effort to explain the arcana of the various motions so that the members understand and can vote appropriately. The meetings occur each morning from 10am to noon until all the business is concluded for this convention. Rules made here are then voted on one more time at the next worldcon and (if approved there) then go into the constitution.

The business meeting managed to eat up a chunk of our day. We finished up about 1:00 PM. So, food was now on the agenda and we walked down to the 16th street mall for lunch. We decided on Rock Bottom Brewery. Good food. Fast service. Within walking distance.

Back at the convention center, we check out part of the dealers’ room. Managed to see about 1/3 of it before the first set of panels came up. I decided to go to Lois McMasters Bujold’s reading of Sharing Knife: Harmony. It should be out in February 2009 and will finish the Sharing Knife sequence. Bujold read from the first three chapters and it begins just after the end of Sharing Knife: Passages. The audience chuckled, laughed, sighed, and made all the appropriate noises at the appropriate parts. Bujold also answered some questions about the writing process, world building, and what she’s up to next.

My next panel to sit in on was “Writer’s and Taxes”. The panelists were an ex-IRS Auditor (now author), a lawyer, and a UK tax person (I’m really sorry on this as she said her title several times but I just couldn’t seem to get it — obviously my caffeine levels are low). Basically, the bottom line is that you need to keep good records and treat your writing as a business. The audience was concerned about what records to keep track of and the panelists said that Schedule C has a list of the records to keep on the back. They also said be reasonable in what you deduct or do. There was a lot of discussion and suggestions about start-up costs, business cost, and the terms usual and necessary. You can claim a lot of things but not everything that people have probably told you that you could claim as a deduction and that it would be worth an authors time to ask other authors who they use to do their taxes and then have someone check them out for them (to save money — do your own and then have the CPA check it over before filing). This was a workshop that was extremely useful and fairly well attended by authors who are starting out and don’t make a lot of money and want to learn how to avoid problems on their taxes.

For our last item, we attended the 2008 Chesley Awards Presentation. The Chesley’s are for excellence in art given by ASFA. Actually, this year, because of a number of issues, the ceremony was to list the nominees in each category. The presenters listed the nominees as a slide show displayed art work by the nominated artists. It was a nice ceremony even without the awards being given. You must be an ASFA member in order to vote but you don’t need to be an artist to be a member (check their website for details). The winner will be announced in late September. The announcement of the nominees was followed by a reception in the Art Show but we weren’t able to get to it.

We walked back to our hotel, dropped our bags and accoutrements and made our way to the 22nd floor to check out the parties. Last night we just headed for bed, but tonight was the Peggy Rae’s House in 2010 party. The party floor was alive with people moving about checking out the various parties. It really looked like people were having a great time. The only drawback to the parties is that whenever you get a lot of bodies into small spaces it gets really, really, hot even with the air conditioning up high. So, even suites get stifling very quickly. Even so, there were many people to talk to and get reacquainted with. The North American Disc World Party seemed as popular as Peggy Rae’s House in 2010, they had food themed for Disc World and some of it was very clever (no pictures — sorry). Peggy Rae’s House had chocolate cake and ice cream. Hmmmm, seems there’s a food factor to a good party.

Finally, we just had to call it a night and turn it. Tomorrow starts with another WSFS Business Meeting, to hopefully work thorough the rest of the agenda. Then we hope to attend even more panels. Also, Friday night is the Masquerade.