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.
Had a nice dinner with Daniel Dern and his gal Bobby, at a little stir fry place we walked to and caught a few panels after we got back…but they mostly seemed like rehashes of the same old stuff. How mainstream gets all the credit, when SF and Fantasy do all the work of coming up with new ideas. How an SF Award sticker is the kiss of death for book sales. How blurry the lines are between fantasy, sf, horror, and basically any genre.
Bailed after a while and got myself a draft Bass at the bar and an order of Buffalo Wings. They’re low carb? Right? Well, except that they’re battered up before they’re deep fried.
At ten thirty there was the traditional “Meet the Prose” reception, which I planned to shoot pretty thoroughly…except that when I got down there I wasn’t feeling in the mood. To make things more challenging, they left the rows of chairs in place in the ballroom where the reception was held, which made getting around nearly impossible. I said hello to a few folks, took a few shots…and called it quits long before the event was over, heading back to my room with a fresh cup of coffee and a Dove ice cream bar from the gift shop.
Which is where this post finds me, listening to K.D. Lang on Pandora and drinking coffee. I will say that this is the first Hotel room I’ve seen that had an actual office chair at the desk, so you sit at the right height to type. In fact, it’s got lots of computer friendly features, including a port built into the desk for hooking up the flat screen tv as an external monitor, something I often do by hacking the set’s connection.
Readercon isn’t noted for room parties, but I may take a tour of the 8th floor (reserved for parties) before crashing.
I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s panels, with a rehash of the best of the year’s novels and short stories.
Links / Sources
- Readercon: http://readercon.org/