C.S.E. Cooney Rhysling Award Winner 2011 (long form) w David Lunde, former winner and editor of the SFPA anthology. Ms. Conney won for her poem: "The Sea King's Second Bride" . Congrats, also kudos for a terrific dramatic presentation.

I won’t say I slept in Saturday morning at Readercon, but I didn’t stir myself from the room until 10am when the panels started.

Before that I enjoyed some quiet writing time working on a review of 7th Sigma by Steven Gould, which is really good sf without being tech heavy at all. Stay tuned for more on that soon.

The panels I’m keenest on are often the year in review ones, What novels and short stories people though were worth reading. I’m always amazed that despite the fairly high volume of books I read, there’s often little overlap between what other reviewers read and what I read. In the year in novels panel, which was entirely manned by Locus contribs, I accused them of only reading books that weren’t fun, which isn’t quite true…but it’s not all that far off either.

The Year in Novels: Gary Wolfe , Liza Trombi (l), Paul Witcover, Graham Sleight

[amazon_link id=”0312261217″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]I’d also been looking forward to the GOH retrospective panel, because I’d only read a few things by Geoff Ryman, but have really enjoyed them. His novel Air was of special interest to me, because I’d read the advance reader copy and then eagerly awaited its release…which never seemed to happen. So I wondered what that was all about.

Evidently it became a tough sell at one point, then the publisher decided to like it again, and now you can get it fairly cheap. It’s about the impact of internet access on a remote Asian village, which turns out to be based closely on a Turkish village the author spent a fair amount of time in. Of course, the access is essentially internet based telepathy, not just getting broadband to the village, but the story is about what happens to the community. For my money, it’s fab writing. To say nothing of the dog, because, yes, there’s a dog in the story.

[amazon_link id=”0441020348″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]In between panels I read Charles Stross’ new book, Rule 34, which, much as I love Stross, was a bit of tough sledding at the start. He’s jumping around from character to character and it takes a while to develop enough cues to know who’s POV you’re suddenly seeing things from. It does settle down after a few chapters as the inter-webs between characters start to reveal, and I’m enjoying it fairly well.

Geoff Ryman (GOH)

After catching the Ryman interview at 5pm, I dropped into the posh restaurant off the lobby and had a gin and tonic and a “petite bouche,” or little bite, this one being some tofu slices with a olive oil and peppercorn vinaigrette over it and a few twigs of scallion and cilantro. It was light and fancy and quite good. I’ll have to try my hand at it when I get home, as I know my gal likes tofu, and I’d like it to be more interesting.

I was going to treat myself to a fancy dinner, but realized I just wasn’t hungry, so I drifted up to the con suite where I grabbed some coffee and kicked back with my book until the panel I’d been waiting for, “I’ve fallen (behind) and can’t catch up” with Dirda and D’amassa and others.

Partly I wanted to see the panel, and partly I wanted to talk to Don D’amassa.

It turned out that he was in the con suite when I got there, so we had a chance to talk about various stuff, like New Jersey myths, which we both have a passing interest in, and the name of the next publication that I’ve been thinking of launching.

Since before I handed SFRevu over to Gayle Surrette begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting  I’d been thinking of starting a publication that only did criticism. SFRevu does a really good job with reviews, but as time passes I find I’m more and more interested in the subtext of the story rather than just its context.

The name for this publication that I’d been mulling over for some was Critical Mass, which channels both the nature of the content and the sources I’m looking to use, a mix of authors and non-pros interested in digging deeper into books than the blurb allows. Of course, on the web all the good names are taken, and a number of Critical Masses are out there…including Don D’amssa’s blog.

Hence my desire to talk to him about it.

Titles can’t be copyrighted, but I didn’t want to feel I was poaching his bit. Don cheerfully told me that he didn’t mind, and after all, it wasn’t like his was the only one out there. Thanks Don…I’ll put in a good word for you if I do the project.

Then I headed off to follow him down to a very nice discussion at the catching up panel in which not much was resolved, but a lot of good sources for more to read were brought out.

Which brings us up to about now, when I wandered up to my room to do some camera unloading and a little blogging. I may, or may not stop out to see if there’s anything happening at the con suite or partywise, but really, this has never been a party con…which is ok by me.

Links/Sources:

• Rhysling Award Nominees: http://www.sfpoetry.com/ra/pages/11rhysling.html