Another partial Worldcon report...
Aug. 9th, 2005 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_schrapnellMany things going on since we got back, and people visiting, and others soon leaving, and a TV for my mother (joint birthday present) to be acquired, brought home and set up, still unsuccessfully, so this may be short as well. ETA that it was anything but...
Two entries ago I talked about the coincidence of finding I had Conor Kostick's book when asked about him, and then seeing the great review on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sartorias' page, (there was another odd one when I googled him and the first non-Epic hit was for a review he'd written of a piece of music written by a close friend's brother). I had started reading the book, and it was in my bag as we headed off to the plane - many books for signing packed in the check-in case (and much worry about the measly 15 Kg Ryanair allowance!). The funny thing was that I had a real feeling I'd bump into Conor there, though as anyone who's been through Dublin Airport any time recently will know, it's huge, and packed, and there are many options for getting to Glasgow, as well as many different possible times for arriving at the con. Anyway, we found the Glasgow queue, and I looked at the person directly in front of me, and thought he looked very much like the admittedly small picture of Conor in the front of Epic. He was facing forward (as you do) so I took out my book, nudged daughter beside me and showed her the picture - as she was making one of those silent 'hey, you could well be right' faces, he turned around and saw us. Guess being recognised as the author of a book might not be quite such an everyday occurrence for him yet, as he looked rather pleased to see someone holding it and offered to sign it for me. I like coincidences (or at least the things which many others would consider coincidence!), so this was a good start.
Trip uneventful, except even more annoyance at stupid Ryanair for misleading us into thinking we were flying into Glasgow, when booking a ticket for Glasgow. It was a bit of a shock to discover that Glasgow Prestwick Airport was actually in Prestwick, 45 miles from Glasgow, but once we got up and over to the station (short, covered walkway and escalators) there was a train right there, and it was a nice 45 minute trip into Central Station. Which is in Glasgow!
Registration again went fine, and we wandered out while half beginning the search through all the bits and pieces, to see Connie Willis. Another good start. After a quick look through a bit of the Dealer's Room (where we happily spent much more time over the few days !), we got a cup of tea and sat down with it. I wanted to textgeneralblossom and see when we could meet up, so set about doing that, though having a strong feeling that the person sitting with a large group of friends at the next table looked like her... Sure enough - 'message delivered' came onto my phone and had her picking up hers. Not bad for a con with some 5,000 people attending! She's as great as I'd imagined she would be too, and both girls agreed.
Briefly, on the first event attended: Room 101, with Greg Pickersgill, Christopher Priest and Connie Willis. The guys were both funny (meals out during cons, with 47 people trying to find a place that suits everyone, Filk, fandom of the wrong sort, and a guy who took Christopher Priest's name and does comics, just because he thought it was cool), but Connie Willis was hilarious. Her first one was The Panel from Hell. She'd done some thinking about this panel, which was on Death in SF, and had come up with books, and ideas about how death was handled in SF, etc, and then the first person said he'd recently had a heart attack, and started telling them All About his heart attack, in much detail. The next person said his cat had just died, told them how he hadn't cried at all when either of his parents had died, but had released all that pent-up feeling when the cat died, and cried for days, and started crying then and there. Connie Willis said she valiantly tried to be the 'Good Fairy' and talk about books, and death in SF, only to be told by the moderator that she was off-topic and needed to share something personal about death!
After the others had had their second goes, she talked about her second thing for Room 101 - The Panel from Hell Part 2. This was a panel about gender issues in SF, and she'd again prepared interesting ideas (about books!), only to find herself being attacked when she let out a 'What?!?' when the other women talked about how women would all love having their periods if only they hadn't been so adversely affected by the patriarchy. She then found herself attacked for not writing about women's issues and feminist ideas by all these women and being told what she should write. So on escaping, she saw a man in the hall and unloaded this (saying that she'd thought feminism was supposed to be about freedom of choice and she was tired of being told what to do), only to have him briefly sympathize and then say 'Well, you know, you have a very unsympathetic psychiatrist in Lincoln's Dreams, and I'm a psychiatrist, and you should really...' A couple of us had immediately spotted that the joy of menstruation idea had been dealt with in 'Even the Queen', but I'd love to know if the psychiatrist inspired another story!
To be continued...
Two entries ago I talked about the coincidence of finding I had Conor Kostick's book when asked about him, and then seeing the great review on
sartorias' page, (there was another odd one when I googled him and the first non-Epic hit was for a review he'd written of a piece of music written by a close friend's brother). I had started reading the book, and it was in my bag as we headed off to the plane - many books for signing packed in the check-in case (and much worry about the measly 15 Kg Ryanair allowance!). The funny thing was that I had a real feeling I'd bump into Conor there, though as anyone who's been through Dublin Airport any time recently will know, it's huge, and packed, and there are many options for getting to Glasgow, as well as many different possible times for arriving at the con. Anyway, we found the Glasgow queue, and I looked at the person directly in front of me, and thought he looked very much like the admittedly small picture of Conor in the front of Epic. He was facing forward (as you do) so I took out my book, nudged daughter beside me and showed her the picture - as she was making one of those silent 'hey, you could well be right' faces, he turned around and saw us. Guess being recognised as the author of a book might not be quite such an everyday occurrence for him yet, as he looked rather pleased to see someone holding it and offered to sign it for me. I like coincidences (or at least the things which many others would consider coincidence!), so this was a good start.Trip uneventful, except even more annoyance at stupid Ryanair for misleading us into thinking we were flying into Glasgow, when booking a ticket for Glasgow. It was a bit of a shock to discover that Glasgow Prestwick Airport was actually in Prestwick, 45 miles from Glasgow, but once we got up and over to the station (short, covered walkway and escalators) there was a train right there, and it was a nice 45 minute trip into Central Station. Which is in Glasgow!
Registration again went fine, and we wandered out while half beginning the search through all the bits and pieces, to see Connie Willis. Another good start. After a quick look through a bit of the Dealer's Room (where we happily spent much more time over the few days !), we got a cup of tea and sat down with it. I wanted to text
generalblossom and see when we could meet up, so set about doing that, though having a strong feeling that the person sitting with a large group of friends at the next table looked like her... Sure enough - 'message delivered' came onto my phone and had her picking up hers. Not bad for a con with some 5,000 people attending! She's as great as I'd imagined she would be too, and both girls agreed.Briefly, on the first event attended: Room 101, with Greg Pickersgill, Christopher Priest and Connie Willis. The guys were both funny (meals out during cons, with 47 people trying to find a place that suits everyone, Filk, fandom of the wrong sort, and a guy who took Christopher Priest's name and does comics, just because he thought it was cool), but Connie Willis was hilarious. Her first one was The Panel from Hell. She'd done some thinking about this panel, which was on Death in SF, and had come up with books, and ideas about how death was handled in SF, etc, and then the first person said he'd recently had a heart attack, and started telling them All About his heart attack, in much detail. The next person said his cat had just died, told them how he hadn't cried at all when either of his parents had died, but had released all that pent-up feeling when the cat died, and cried for days, and started crying then and there. Connie Willis said she valiantly tried to be the 'Good Fairy' and talk about books, and death in SF, only to be told by the moderator that she was off-topic and needed to share something personal about death!
After the others had had their second goes, she talked about her second thing for Room 101 - The Panel from Hell Part 2. This was a panel about gender issues in SF, and she'd again prepared interesting ideas (about books!), only to find herself being attacked when she let out a 'What?!?' when the other women talked about how women would all love having their periods if only they hadn't been so adversely affected by the patriarchy. She then found herself attacked for not writing about women's issues and feminist ideas by all these women and being told what she should write. So on escaping, she saw a man in the hall and unloaded this (saying that she'd thought feminism was supposed to be about freedom of choice and she was tired of being told what to do), only to have him briefly sympathize and then say 'Well, you know, you have a very unsympathetic psychiatrist in Lincoln's Dreams, and I'm a psychiatrist, and you should really...' A couple of us had immediately spotted that the joy of menstruation idea had been dealt with in 'Even the Queen', but I'd love to know if the psychiatrist inspired another story!
To be continued...
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-09 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-11 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-11 01:46 pm (UTC)Just for the record, I didn't do the book autographing myself. ;)
no subject
Date: 2005-08-12 02:06 pm (UTC)That and Bimbos of the Death Sun had me really be wary during the con!
And thanks so much for the book autographing even if you did not do it yourself ;)