Getting here wasn’t hard at all for once. Instead of driving up from DC I hopped on the metro to the airport, took the US Airways shuttle to Logan, and got a ride from the airport by Daniel Dern. Very civilized.

While waiting  in the airport I downloaded two books from Amazon to my iPad: Charles Stross’ new book,”Rule 34,” and James Gould’s “7th Sigma,” the latter of which I just finished kicking back in a comfy chair in the lobby with a fresh cup of Starbucks at my elbow. Excellent book, btw.

The first panel I caught was the SF as Tragedy Mash-up with Clute, Malzberg, Sleight, Delany and Dozois. Talk about your heavy hitters. Early American SF escaped the tragedy meme because editors were specifically looking for thrilling adventure stories with upbeat resolutions. The Brits have never been hobbled in that fashion, and we seem to have gotten over it. One gets teh feeling that if a story is to have literary merit it needs to have a tragic ending, or at least an ending where triumph comes at a tragic cost. Continue reading →