Madness?! This! Is! Worldcon! [part 1 of 2]

Aug 12, 2009 23:36

This is the first half of my Worldcon wrap-up post where I inevitably forget to mention some person or event that I really intended to write about. The fact that I'm pretty wiped out from not getting nearly enough sleep isn't going to help any with that.

The short summary (in no particular order): Talked to a lot of great people; ate a lot of great food (usually with some of the aforementioned great people); drank a modest amount of excellent alcohol; attended a really moving wake for the late Charlie Brown; attended the Hugos for the first time, got to see matociquala's expression when they said she'd won, got to carry her Hugo for a bit (it was both ridiculously gorgeous and ridiculously heavy); attended some good panels, many of which involved Neil Gaiman; was introduced to Neil Gaiman by jaylake; bought nothing at all in the really pathetic dealers' room

The longer summary:

Wednesday: Hours of driving, including a stop in Vermont for a very tasty elk burger, followed by much construction in Quebec and arrival at the outskirts of Montreal just in time for rush hour. Doh.

Thursday: I got my badge and attended "Question Time with Neil Gaiman," which was both entertaining and interesting. It ended up being my only panel of the day, since "In Conversation: Paul Krugman and Charles Stross" got moved to the evening, when I was scheduled to meet up with arcaedia and the delightful maryrobinette for drinks. Later that night, I realized that the InterContinental bar seemed to have become "the" bar, which saved me some walks down to the Delta.

Friday: The day with the most panels, as I managed to make it to "The New Media," "From SF Reader to Economist" (Paul Krugman), and "The Campbell Awards (Not a Hugo, Honest!)." They were all well worth going to, but the Campbell Awards panel was the most entertaining, as jaylake, matociquala, maryrobinette and Wen Spencer were joined by surprise guests John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow for an in-depth discussion of the history and importance of the Campbell. I don't understand why the room wasn't packed. That evening I got together with jaylake, calendula_witch and arcaedia for a fabulous dinner at Aszu, followed by my one Delta party crawl of the weekend and a stop at the IC bar.

Saturday: I started the day eating excellent dim sum with matociquala, stillsostrange and arcaedia, then went to Neil Gaiman's reading, and then there was maryrobinette's puppetry panel. After that I had the privilege of attending a small wake for Charles Brown, which was filled with lots of moving and/or funny stories from his friends and plenty of toasts to his memory. Then it was dinner and catching the very end of "Gaiman Reads Doctorow" before attempting to get to sleep early, since that seemed unlikely to happen on Sunday night.

To be continued in part 2.....

worldcon 2009

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