So, as I indicated in my previous teaser post, Readercon was awesome.  Gordon rented a big minivan and drove a bunch of locals up there.  In the van were me, Gordon, Doug Cohen, Chris Barzak, Rick Bowes, and Konrad (a Polish translator and scholar; not actually a local, but he’s temporarily local).  On the drive up, it was like we had our own mini-con going on, as we chatted pretty much nonstop about the genre.  The only thing dampening our enthusiasm was the fact that the gas gauge on the rental was malfunctioning, and so we never really knew how much gas we had.  In transit, Doug delighted us all with the first verse of his rap, “Spittin’.”  I’m not much of a rap fan, but I dug it; his wordplay is undeniably clever.  Konrad seemed rather astounded by the whole thing, and treated us to a few lines of Polish rap.

[Since this post is crazy long, I’ll post the rest in the extended entry.]

 

On the way to Burlington, we stopped in Connecticut at Kit Reed’s house and had lunch with her and her husband Joe.  Stuffed full of turkey and bread, we hit the road again, eventually rolling into the parking lot around quarter after four. 

Upon arrival, we dispersed after check-in; Gordon and I were sharing a room, and Konrad ended up crashing with us, so we all headed up to our room to deposit our bags, while the others went to do the same.  After freeing myself of luggage, I right away ran into Laird Barron and John Langan chatting in the hallway with Gordon, who had preceded me downstairs.  Laird and John promised to arrange a guerilla reading; they weren’t on the program, but planned to hold an impromptu event to showcase their storytelling prowess.  I know John well, so it was good to see him again; Laird I hadn’t met before, but I recently interviewed him for SCI FI Wire, so it was nice to meet him in person. 

After chatting with those two for a bit, I wandered toward the dealer’s room, where I reunited with Doug and began making a circuit around the room.  Before long, we ran into Jeffrey Ford, and then copyeditor extraordinaire Deanna Hoak who had Infoquake author David Louis Edelman in tow.  Deanna, I’ve known for years now, but Dave was a new acquaintance, and one whose novel I’ve been eagerly anticipating (and it was waiting for me on my porch when I came home from the con: sweet!).  I kept running into these two all con long, so we had plenty of time to chat.  Tempest Bradford also stopped by for a bit, long enough to be photographed with Deanna, and threatened to hand deliver a submission.

At this point, Doug and I decided we should go try and find our pal David Barr Kirtley, and so made our way out of the dealer’s room.  But at a con like Readercon, you can’t get far without running into someone else cool to chat with.  After about fifteen feet or so, we ran into Catherine “Chance” Morrison, Catherynne M. Valente, Jim Freund, and others.  While we were standing there talking, Dave Kirtley rushed up to me to give me a man-hug; he’s been off in La-La land for a while now, and just got back from the Netherlands, so it was a bit of a reunion (therefore man-hugs were warranted).  But the conversation group didn’t stop growing there, for soon we were joined by the redoubtable John Scalzi, who, though small in stature, seemed to fill the room with his large personality.  Scalzi was another first time meeting, though I’d gotten to know him electronically, having interviewed him (several times), reviewed him, and worked for him (speaking of which, the Scalzi-edited special cliché issue of Subterranean is on sale now!). 

Emerging from the dealer’s room at last, I spied Yoon Ha Lee, frequent contributor to the pages of F&SF, and so went over to say hello (another first time meeting).  With her was her friend Jane Acheson, who seemed to be ready to take copious notes (as seen in my photo).  Next, we headed off to a panel, the first of many featuring China Mieville.  China said a lot of brilliant stuff, so brilliant, in fact, I’m not entirely sure I understood what he was talking about–he’s on a different level than normal humans. 

Doug, Dave Kirtley, Deanna Hoak, and I went to the restaurant for dinner after the panel.  After we’d mostly gotten through eating, friend and previous con-companion Amy Tibbetts called Dave to find out where we were, then came and joined us.  With the arrival of Amy, the con posse was now complete, which was basically a reuniting of the Lunacon posse, sans Chris Cevasco (who’s at Clarion, and Andrea Kail, who has no good excuse for not going as far as I’m concerned); there was the core group of me, Dave Kirtley, Doug, and Amy, and then we had part-time members such as Deanna, Dave Edelman, and others.

After dinner is a bit hazy; eventually we ended up at the Meet the Pros(e) party, but my photos indicate some wandering around before that.  We, or at least I, ran into Amy’s Odyssey friend Julia Liberman, the manager of Pandemonium Books in Boston. 

Okay, well, I’m starting to get bored with this play by play.  It’s not going to be as detailed from here on out, I think.  Got it?  (Incidentally, I’ve pretty much run out of steam with the whole linking thing.  I read other posts that link like every person’s name.  How in hell to you all find the energy for that?)

Anyway, the Meet the Pros(e) party was fun.  Before actually getting into the party hall, I ran into Michael Libling, who I didn’t recognize at first, and had a good conversation with him.  Inside, people were drinking and having a good time, getting to know new people.  There I ran into Matt Kressel, editor/publisher of Sybil’s Garage (who also posted a [much better] con report).  Met two local young ladies who are fans of the genre and chatted with them for a while; I do not remember their names, alas, and I neglected to take a picture.  Also met writers Will McIntosh, Joy Marchand, and Lancer Kind, all names familiar from the slush pile; Will joked that you have to run your conversation by me first before Gordon will talk to you.  Ran into David Louis Edelman again, and remembered to take his picture this time, then saw Mary Robinette Kowal, Icelandic puppeteer, writer, and art director for Shimmer (and I expect the person largely responsible for me being selected to guest-edit the pirate issue).  Also saw more of the Balticon posse: Mercurio Rivera and Devin Poore (and I’d already seen Matt).  As the evening started to wind down, we gravitated toward a vacant table and chairs, whereupon Mercurio (I think) convinced Doug to rap.  I tried to record it with my digital camera, which has a video recorder function (with microphone), but I wasn’t sneaky enough and Doug caught me and demanded I put the thing away.  So he proceeded to bust his rhyme, again impressing everyone with his mad skillz.  Tor editor Liz Gorinsky joined the party at some point, though I believe she missed the rap, sadly.  Eventually, the hotel staff had to come confiscate the liquor for some reason, much to the despair of Doug and Mercurio who hadn’t finished their beers.  Shortly after, the drinkers bailed, their last reasons for wakefulness having been taken away from them.  In fact, pretty much everyone bailed, leaving me and Liz there chatting alone for a while, until the hotel staff came by again, this time to throw everyone out of the room.  So the party spilled out into the main hall area for a while longer.  Liz and I chatted for a while longer before trudging off to our own rooms at around 1:30. 

I have very little photographic evidence of Saturday; looks like I only took two pictures, but that doesn’t mean it was any less awesome.  Got up early and had breakfast with Dave Kirtley, Amy, and Konrad, then headed to the “From Within Us It Devours” panel, which was an interesting examination of what horror is.  After that, I believe there was more dealer’s room wandering, to kill time before my noon panel.  I bought five used paperbacks for 50 cents each, and discovered a fairly nice hardcover edition of The Stars My Destination that I tried to get pretty much everyone to buy (but no one did, as far as I know).  Spent some time talking with Sean Wallace of Prime Books but walked away with no review copies, much to my dismay. 

Headed off to my one and only panel: Everybody Dies, which was about post-apocalyptic fiction and its more grim cousin in which, as the panel title suggests, everybody dies (not just nearly everbody).  It started off well enough, but by the end it had gone completely off the rails and I basically couldn’t think of anything to say.  Let me explain.  It was going along nicely, but at some point one of the panelists, Tom Disch, complained that he couldn’t hear the two women panelists (Tor editor Beth Meecham and moderator Nancy Hanger).  It was a rather long rant that perturbed our moderator who wondered aloud if maybe she should just leave.  So that wasn’t good.  But then the panel continued, and Disch started talking about Hamlet, and about how pretty much all of the characters die, and was talking about how each death matters.  Well, he started listing some of them…and inexplicably burst into sobs.  At first I thought maybe he was doing some kind of performance art, to be so moved by talk of Shakespeare, but he seemed to be genuinely upset.  I later learned that he had recently lost a loved one, and so thought it rather stupid (and perhaps a little callous) that he was placed on a panel called “Everybody Dies.”  In any case, Disch continued to participate in the discussion and was several times more moved to tears. 

So after surviving that, I was ready to avoid panels for the rest of the day, which I did successfully.  I believe we headed to lunch at this point, to the bar this time around, and ate with Mary Kowal. I ordered the beef stew, which wasn’t what I expected; it seemed to consist entirely of one whole potato, half a carrot, and like a pound of beef.  It was seriously a pile of meat.  During lunch, Mary related an absolutely enthralling tale of stolen puppets and her Nancy Drewish catching of the criminal. 

After lunch, there was more aimless wandering around the dealer’s room, where I went to chat with Gavin Grant of Small Beer Press, who gave me a review copy of Alan DeNiro’s short fiction collection, Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead, which is longlisted for an international award I hadn’t heard of, but has a cash prize of like $50,000; considering the book wasn’t even out when it was nominated, I wondered how that happened, and so Gavin explained (basically, he found out about the award and submitted the book to the award committee in manuscript form).  We also talked about the forthcoming James Tiptree biography by Julie Phillips: me looking forward to it, Gavin assuring me it’s terrific. 

Met up with Dave and Amy again, and we decided to go have our oft-discussed pool party.  Alas, it was not a well planned thing, so we weren’t able to get everyone we’d previously talked about it with.  So Dave, Amy, Deanna, and I changed into swimsuits, while Hannah Wolf Bowen, Nick Mamatas, and a few others came down poolside to join us.  Alas, the Jacuzzi wasn’t working properly; it was hot, but the bubble jets were not functioning.  Still, we alternated with that and the pool itself.  It was fun.  But let this be a lesson to you con goers out there; bring swimsuits!  You never know when there might be a pool party.

Post-pool, I spent some time poolside with Matt Kressel, Helen Pilinovsky, Ezrebet Yellowboy, and Marie Brennan.  Matt was telling me about his recently finished novel, which sounds really interesting, and I wish I had time to read it. 

Changed, ran into Doug, and wandered up to the con suite in search of liquid refreshment.  Ran into Deanna again there who was preparing for her birthday party later that night.  She was unsure about the birthday outfit she planned to wear, so she asked if she could go change into it and then get feedback on it from Doug and I.  She was concerned it was too…”sleazy” I think was the word she used.  Upon her return, I mumbled something positive in an attempt to convince her that it was not, and that indeed she looked fabulous, but Doug had the perfect response: “I feel like it’s my birthday.”  You can see photos of her outfit and her Readercon report here.  You’ll also see a picture of me there with her.  If you’re wondering why I’m grinning like that, it’s because the photographer, Tempest, just as she took the picture said something like “Get over there.  And smile like you like it.”  In between the con suite and the party, I had lunch with the usual crew, plus Michael Libling, Bill Shunn, and Catherine Morrison. 

After the party, the posse and I headed to the Kirk Poland Bad Prose Competition, which would really be the highlight of the Readercon programming if it weren’t so long.  If you don’t know what it is, here’s how it works: there’s a panel of participants and a moderator.  The moderator reads an excerpt of real published but bad prose, and stops in the middle of a sentence; the panelists then each read a selection that continues the excerpt.  One of the continuations is from the real story; the others are fabricated by the panelists.  It’s a lot of fun; there’s audience voting for which they think is the real one, etc.  The only problem with it is that there’s too many panelists, and there are too many rounds.  If there were only three or four alternate endings and maybe only three rounds, it would be a lot more fun.  It’s great for a lot of laughs, but just goes on too long.  In fact, Dave had to bail out and go catch a nap halfway through (though he was jetlagged, so it was understandable). 

Post-Poland, I was going to head to the 20 Epics reading, which sounded like it was a lot of fun, but was diverted to the Laird Barron/John Langan reading.  Sadly, it was not on the program, and they didn’t do enough promotion for it; a shame, because they read some great excerpts of stories I’m now really looking forward to reading.  Amy and Doug weren’t up for more reading, so I went it alone; however, Amy returned about halfway through with Dave in tow, and then after the reading, as the room turned into a Mafia playroom, Dave, Amy, and I went back to Amy’s room to play a German card game called something like Hornoxen.  It was quite fun, and though initially seemed complete was actually easy to learn.  After that, Dave showed us a bunch of silly pictures he had on his laptop, then we watched a few two-minute long episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series before calling it a night. 

Sunday morning, the posse and I had breakfast with John Langan.  Afterward, we loitered in the lobby area of the hotel chatting with some folks including Dave Edelman and John Scalzi, Scalzi’s presence drawing a crowd.  Eventually, he even snared China Mieville into the conversation, albeit briefly as China had to get to a panel.  However, I did get a chance to meet him, so that was cool, though I’m sure I didn’t make much of an impression as I mostly just laughed at the Scalzi/Mieville banter.  Mary Kowal stopped by at some point to give me some Icelandic gifts: some kind of bath product which seems to be like a giant Alka Seltzer, and a gigantic piece of licorice covered in chocolate. 

Not being much interested in more panels, the posse and I headed outside to play some Frisbee. Initially, all four of us were playing; Amy and Dave actually seemed to know what they were doing, while Doug and I kept throwing the Frisbee into the woods.  Eventually we got the hang of it.  Kind of.  Amy eventually retired to the sidelines, where she took the pictures of the event seen here.  So I am in no way responsible for the pictures of shirtless Dave. 

After Frisbee, it was back inside for some lunch before departure, though as it turns out was not as necessary as I’d thought.  We were planning to stop at Traveler Food and Books, a nice little restaurant on the CT/MA border which gives you three free books with your meal.  You get to wander around the dining area, browsing titles until you find three that you like.  There’s also an actual bookstore downstairs that sells used books, but we stuck with the freebies.  I got one of the Zone diet books, Radiant by James Alan Gardner, Tai-Pei by James Clavell, and Doug donated one of his freebies to me, this being Fire by George Stewart (author of Earth Abides, one of my favorite novels). 

Of most interest was an oddly out of place carved wooden moose just outside the window by which we were sitting.  Doug commented on it, and I said: “I’ll give you ten bucks if you climb on its back and let me take a picture of you sitting on it.”  He was all for it, but, alas, that back area of the restaurant was all fenced in (probably to keep people from molesting the wooden moose), so our plans were foiled.  I really don’t think he could have gotten on top of it anyway; the thing was too fucking big.  But we had acknowledged this possibility in the restaurant, and so had planned to take a picture beside the thing in that case, but as I said, that plan was foiled as well. So instead, I photographed him sitting on a little bench.

Otherwise, our ride back was fine; we actually made pretty good time.  At a rest stop, we had a guy claiming to be stuck there with no money and no gas in his car, who was wandering around accosting people for money.  I couldn’t tell if he was just begging, or if his story was true, but he needs to work on his sales pitch; he was a bit menacing in his delivery, not enough to cause fear or anything, but enough to think: This guy sounds like an asshole.  Still, Gordon and I both gave him some cash. 

On return trip home, Konrad got Doug to rap for him again, and this time recorded it with his digital recorder.  Now that everyone’s blogging about it, he should really just get that digital file from Konrad and post it online so everyone can hear it.  Right?  Am I right?  Go tell him I’m right.  If you all deluge him with requests, it’s only a matter of time before he breaks. 

I pretty much collapsed when I got home, and was useless most of the day Monday.  None of the infamous “con-crud,” I was just tired as hell.  Still, it was totally worth it.  What a fun weekend.

Only one thing I regret: missing a particular conversation that took place, which Matt Kressel described thusly: “a fascinating conversation on who was eminently f*ckable and un-f*ckable at the con.”  I’m sure the reason I wasn’t part of it was so that people could talk about me in that conversation, though of course whether I’m eminently f*ckable or eminently un-f*ckable is debatable.  If anyone was there for that, I’d love to hear some of the other names being bandied about.  Fill me in, someone!