August 18, 2008: The Abbreviated And Slightly Delayed Worldcon Report

It's been a week since I got back from Worldcon in Denver. I enjoyed myself, though I made it to only two (2) programming items the whole time. One of the two was Lois McMaster Bujold's reading of the first two chapters of her upcoming, unfinished, untitled Vorkosigan novel. Cheers! Miles rides again! (And yes, work continues here on GURPS Vorkosigan. I am officially "off" for the next months, but I'll be shepherding the revised-for-4e manuscript through the final stages before it's ready for approval.)

I spent most of my convention time catching up with old friends. Monica and I had dinner with Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary, and I finally got to meet his wife Sandra, who is every bit as smart, neat, and generally fun as Howard. We got to hang out a bit, though not enough, with Phil and Kaja Foglio, and tell them again how well they are doing with Girl Genius. Phil was up for a Best Professional Artist Hugo to go with his Best Fan Artist ones. Sigh . . . not this year . . . but it will happen. I had a quiet lunch with John Barnes, who lives in Denver and knows how to get away from the crowds. I got to hear about his next novel, but all I can tell you is "Woooo, cool ideas." Envy me.

Hmm. Isn't it interesting that two out of four of my most memorable experiences were with webcomic creators? Right now, SFWA doesn't even recognize science fiction webcomics as the kind of professional work that will qualify one for membership. Rumor has it that that might change. I hope so!

The convention itself was very physically tiring. The convention center was several blocks from the hotel that housed gaming, filking, the con suite, and so on. A city shuttle covered most of that distance, when it was running, which was reliable in the daytime and less reliable as it got later. I missed some things because it just wasn't feasible to get from A to B and back. Better to stay at A and grumble. I'm going to do my best never again to support a convention that tries to sell us the line about "Yes, we're spread out, but it's easy to get around, really."

And, of course, I spent a bit of time in Gaming (not as much as I would have liked, due to the distance issues). So some of the gamers there got to see and play Munchkin Booty a few days before it was officially launched at GenCon.

-- Steve Jackson