conventions
Mar 21, 2008
24 hours in the air... Perth... Swancon day 1
After having kids, 30 hours without sleep doesn't faze you
The first time we went to Perth, seven years ago, we took a packed 747 and the flight was hellish. By the end the toilets were backed up, I was crawling under the seats to try to sleep, we'd run out of food and there was nothing to do. This time, the plane was a brand-new 777 with little movie screens in the seat-backs, we were fed at perfectly strategic times, the toilets were clean, and Paige was very well behaved. I wasn't even sore when we finally arrived in Perth.
This was good, because I was supposed to be in front of people, doing panels with Ken MacLeod and others, less than 24 hours after we'd arrived. Despite the 13-hour time difference between Toronto and Perth, this has turned out not to be a problem.
Swancon's being held at the All Seasons Hotel, not the one we're staying at, but about a mile distant. I sauntered over from our hotel about an hour before my first panel, through neighbourhoods that seem to have been utterly transformed since 2001. Downtown Perth's quite familiar to us, but last time parts of it had a rough look to them. These parts seem to have been bulldozed and replaced by new and upscale establishments; downtown is being gentrified.
The Good Friday morning was bright and warm (19 C overnight, warming up to 33 by the afternoon), with just a few people about; I passed through a gorgeous little park with gigantic, sprawling tropical trees and a dance troupe warming up on the lawn; past late-night clubs with their doors open to air out in the morning light; past 100-year-old stone buildings with wrap-around balconies, reminiscent of New Orleans.
Then it was time to talk about the Singularity with Ken MacLeod and Dirk Flintheart, and then the obsolescence of the "brain is computer" paradigm with Ken and David Cake. I sort of breezed through these despite being addled from lack of sleep; the real challenge was talking, without notes, for an hour by myself on the subject of foresight studies vs. traditional futurism. This talk was scheduled for 4:00 p.m., which is 3:00 a.m. Toronto time. I had a really great time and chatting with the attentive and interested audience for an hour was easy.
Tomorrow should be interesting. Either it all catches up to me and I collapse into a drooling mass of inappropriately cold-weather-oriented clothing; or I'll be fully adjusted to the time change and raring to go. I'll let you know.
Mar 17, 2008
Off to Australia
We'll be there for a month. Yes, the pets have a house-sitter
I'll be attending Swancon later this week. You can find a programme here (although, it doesn't have names on it and I'm not entirely clear on which panels I'll be on).
Our itinerary takes us first to Perth for the convention, then up to Kalbarri for a week and then outside Geraldton. If you'd like, you can check out some of these locations in Google Earth. I will be posting pix as I can, though for some of the time I will be off the grid entirely.
This is an important point: you may not be able to get in touch with me. Use email, certainly, but don't be surprised if even that doesn't work, or is delayed. The people who're staying at our house will be monitoring the phone, and we'll be giving our Aussie contact info to close friends and family; so if it's urgent you can find me. If even email doesn't work, try posting a reply to this message. I'll be checking the site whenever I can.
And yes, I'm taking the laptop, and working on The Sunless Countries while we're there.
Feb 19, 2008
Boskone: a great time
My schedule at Boskone was packed this year, but luckily the Westin Boston Waterfront has a great lobby, which doubles as a bar; this meant that any time I wasn't on a panel or giving a talk or signing books or reading, I was lounging in a high-traffic area. As a result I was able to connect with a lot of people--really, truly too many to list here--and because there was such a large contingent of Tor Books employees there, also get in a good deal of business. Huge thanks to the organizers, in particular Mark Olson, for inviting me down this year.
There's a bunch of photos online showing the mayhem--just hop on over to Irene Gallo's website and check out her Friday and Sunday posts. Here's one I borrowed with her permission, showing Rick Berry (left) and I in approximately the state we were in all weekend:
I'd decided to stick around until Monday for a change, so I was able to head out with a small group to Rick's studio on Sunday evening. Hanging out with the artists was one of the high points of the weekend for me--it's something I rarely get to do, but they're such a literate and interesting group of people--so I had a great time. When we got back to the convention we found a dead dog party in progress, and were given some fine Ardbeg scotch (which brought tears to my eyes in more ways than one). Dave Seeley was gracious enough to show up late that night for a further round of joviality before the scotch took hold and I drifted off.
Pleasant company, good food and drink, nice surroundings, and successful business transacted--who could ask for more?
Feb 14, 2008
Boskone changes/additions
Kaffeeklatsch, reading, signing, and more
Head on over to the Events page of my site for details about my final itinerary at Boskone.
Feb 03, 2008
My Boskone Schedule
What I'll be up to in Boston next weekend
These are preliminary items; I'm likely to have some stuff added for Sunday as well. Also, readings, signings, and Kaffeeklatsches are not yet scheduled so you can expect some action there too.
- Frida 6pm
Applied SF: Using SF in the Real World
Karl Schroeder
When he's not writing science fiction, Karl Schroeder is a consulting futurist for government and industry. Sounds like a perfect job? Hear all about it!
- Satur 10am
Building a Great Battle
James D. Macdonald, Tamora Pierce, Karl Schroeder
Whether it takes place in the expanse of space, an open field, or a dark street, what brings a great battle to life on the page? How must a writer manage pace and description so the reader gets a sense of the action? - Satur 12 noon The Appeal of the Lawless Elite
Alexander Jablokov
Beth Meacham
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Paul Park
Karl Schroeder
Editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden has said, "Much of the genre works by appealing to our wish that the world s extra-legal violence be under the control of the kind of smart people we admire. The Second Foundation and the X-Men -- and, for that matter, the Scooby Gang and the Laundry -- are all, to some extent, basically the Ku Klux Klan, except that the extrajudicial violence they carry out is (we re assured) merited and just." Discuss. - Satur 2pm
Who'd'a Thunk It? Unexpected Uses of Technology Tobias
Buckell
Chad Orzel
Karl Schroeder
Charles Stross Numerous technologies wind up getting used for quite different purposes than their originators expected. Consider dynamite, bubble wrap, speed trap radar, screensavers, the Internet's massive if not main use as a conduit for pornography, and laser pointer cat toys. What other example suggest themselves? Does this phenomenon make basic research more desirable, or less? Is it ever discussed in SF? Consider some of the great SFnal inventions (the hyperdrive, AIs, cyperspace, anti-gravity, boosterspice, positronic robots, personal force fields). Can you extrapolate some unexpected uses for them? - Sunday sometime (not fixed yet): Space War: How Would It Really Be Waged -- and
Why?
(Pretty much what it says: Say we have a Galactic Empire or a hostile Mars or whatever. Take a realistic look at space warfare.) - Also Sunday Global Warming: The Realities
(The idea is not to debate whether or not it's real - of course it is -- but to take a scientific look at some of the more inflated claims and at some of the possible solutions.)