For my first non-introductory post, a few comments about the 61st World Science Fiction Convention, held in Toronto over the Labour Day weekend.
This was my fourth WorldCon; my first was ConAdian in Winnipeg in 1994, and I’ve since been to ChiCon in Chicago in 2000 and ConJose last year in San Jose. Although I’ve certainly heard/read about disorganization and disasters at TorCon, from my point of view, everything went swimmingly.
I was on two panels, “Day Jobs for Writers” and “Writing For Children,” both of which happened when and where they were supposed to and with the people they were supposed to involve. The only disruption I experienced was caused by the arrival of a Discworld troll in the room where the “Writing For Children” panel had just gotten underway (Terry Pratchett was one of the other panelists), and nobody minded–it was a very good troll.
The writing workshop session for which I was one of the pros went very well, too, and while my reading wasn’t exactly crowded–there were only three people there–at least I wasn’t reading to myself! Nobody signed up for my Kaffeeklatsche, but that was hardly unexpected–I ain’t exactly a “big name.”
The major events I attended seemed to go well enough. The Aurora Awards went smoothly and were well-attended. The Hugo Awards ceremony was particularly well-run, it seemed to me, and Canadian writer Robert J. Sawyer won the Best Novel Award (a.k.a., “The Big One”) for Hominids, a novel I liked very much. This was a great relief to me because I had let slip to Rob at ConVersion XX in Calgary that I had failed to get my Hugo ballot in in time, and he was threatening to kill me if he lost by one vote.
(In an aside, Rob’s win seems to have upset some people, who have been denigrating his win as due to “hometown advantage” rather than any quality in the work itself. Sorry, won’t wash. There were approximately 4,500 people who could vote for the Hugos this year. Of those, I believe only about 700 were Canadian. And Canadians would make up an even smaller proportion of those eligible to nominate books for the Hugos, since that included members of ConJose last year. Canadians would have had to vote en masse and as a bloc to influence the results. It didn’t happen that way, and to think it did is to indulge in conspiracy theory.
(As to why some people disliked Hominids so much…I suspect for many it’s because Rob’s writing style is very much in the traditional “transparent” mode of much SF. It’s clear, it’s effective, it’s descriptive, it’s apt–but it’s not prose for prose’s sake. The focus is on the story, not the writing, and some people really hate that.)
The Masquerade was late getting started, but I’ve yet to see one start on time at any WorldCon. I thought the Canadian fashion show in the middle went on too long, too. Nevertheless, the costumes were as astonishing as always, and the Best in Show, “Trumps of Amber,” was clearly a deserving winner.
Personal highlights of the weekend for me included the aformentioned “Writing for Children” panel–Terry Pratchett is one of my favorite authors and this is the second WorldCon in a row I’ve gotten to be on a panel with him–and singing “Old Man River” at the Tor party, at the behest of Rob Sawyer.
Online, you can see the photos I took of TorCon and read the column I wrote about it.
Don’t know if I’ll make it to Noreascon in Boston next year…we’ll see. I do hope to make NASFiC in Seattle the year after (won’t be going to Glasgow).
As for L.A. the year after that…I doubt it. I was rooting for Kansas City. Jazz concerts every night at an SF convention–now that would have been cool.
