Theodora Goss

Originally uploaded by slushgod.

KGB was a blast this month. Theodora Goss and Tobias S. Buckell read. Dora read two stories, one about an author of fairy tales (and her daughter), the other about a woman who marries a bear (which was quite amusing). There she is in the photo, proudly displaying her short story collection, In the Forest of Forgetting.

Toby read his short-short, “Toy Planes,” which appeared in the science journal Nature and was reprinted in Year’s Best SF 11. Since that was quite short, the audience demanded more, and so Toby read an extract from chapter 12 of his most excellent novel Crystal Rain, which if you haven’t read already, you should go to the bookstore immediately and pick up a copy.

It’s always great to see Toby, so that was cool, and this time at KGB it seems like I got to chat with lots of different people, or more than usual at any rate.  I met a few new writers, saw Balticon companions Devin Poore and Mercurio Rivera, chatted with Tempest about the F&SF gender-bias kerfluffle.  After the readings were over, I spent some time chatting with Liz Gorinsky, and she introduced me to her editorial compatriot Anna-Louise Genoese whose blog I’d read but hadn’t met.  So absorbed were we in our conversation that we were among the last to leave KGB as we all departed en masse for the Chinese food after-dinner.  En route, we discussed, among other things, heavy metal, and Anna-Louise admitted to a deep and abiding love for the band Bon Jovi (it remains unknown whether her love extends to the man himself).  Liz mentioned a rather cool-sounding documentary called Paradise Lost, which is about some metalhead kids who were arrested for murder (but it sounds like they were persecuted–or prosecuted, as it were–for their love of metal, not because of evidence). 

At dinner, Doug Cohen and I did some editorial brainstorming, with interesting results.  My posse and I also presented Chris Cevasco with a going-away-to-Clarion gift.  What it is shall remain a secret until he unveils it at Clarion, at which point all will be revealed (and I think most of my readers will appreciate it).  Also, we ate, and it was good.

After dinner, we all wandered outside and chatted for a while, before several of us began peeling away from the group to head for home.  But a few remaining stalwarts, me included, adjourned to a bar across the street for more socialization.  This group included me, Liz, Tempest, Helen Pilinovsky, Eugene Myers, James Trimarco, and another young lady whose name I don’t remember (whose age I guessed to be 25, after being instructed to always guess 25 when guessing a woman’s age).  Not a lot of drinking went on, but scholarly debate ensued as we debated, among other things, racism in Stargate and other shows on the SCI FI Channel. 

Around midnight we called it a night, and wandered off together toward our trains.  Along the way, the ladies started listing hot geeks, starting with names such as Cory Doctorow and China Mieville.  I commented on this to Eugene, who mollified my crushed ego by assuring me that they’d get to me eventually.  It took some time, but as our paths diverged (me toward the PATH, they toward the subway), I received my hot geek props, and hugs all around to boot.  Not a bad way to end an evening.