Boskone in Short

[rolanni]

The weekend was a lot of fun in spots and not so much fun in others. Sort of like life.

Details

On Thursday, we were met at Boston North Station by the patient and resourceful Phil Capernaros, who whisked us effortlessly through mid-day Boston traffic to the Sheraton Back Bay, where kinzel and I checked in and then we all three repaired to Legal Seafood for lunch and catch-up. After, we parted briefly, we to take on provisions and grab a quick nap.

Phil picked us up at the hotel around six, and we fled to Harvard Square and pandemonium_bks, where we we found sokmunky, victorthecook, farwing, Tyler Stewart, D'Kap, Dee, and lotsa other folks, who were kind enough to hang out while we were doing the signing thing. After the signing, seven of us repaired to the Reef Cafe for Lebanese. The food was wonderful (the young man on the counter assured us that his mom was a Good Cook, and he did not lead us astray), the company delightful and it was with regret that we cut the evening short and returned to the hotel in order to grab a couple hours sleep before the Epic Television Interview.

For this event, we arose from our rented bed, pink and rumpled, at ohghodearly, and motored on out to station NECN in Newton, Mass, where we were briefly
interviewed. sokmunky heroically drove us there and back again, stopping for breakfast at IHOP on the way back and also at Pandemonium, to retrieve SRM Publisher's boxes for the dealers room.

Back at the hotel, we wandered the halls, waved at familiar faces, chatted a bit, then returned to the room for a much-deserved nap. Upon arising, we wandered, chatted and waved some more, found dunch at Applegeeks and returned to the hotel in time to catch "Five things not to say to your favorite writer."

Panelist were Mike Resnick, tnh, and Jess Hartley. It seems that writers have pretty much the same list of things they'd rather not hear. For instance, "Will you introduce me to your agent?" "Have I read anything you've written?" "If you take my idea and write a book, we can split the earnings." tnh made the point that most of these things were simply common courtesy. There was an attempt from the audience to have the panelists address what things would be good to say, but I don't think that was ever specifically addressed.

At six, I went off to do my duty as a panelist on the topic of how to make SF more inviting to teens. Panelists were Ellen Asher, Bruce Coville, Sharon Lee, Clayton L. McNally (m), and Mary A. Turzillo. The room was packed, the audience interested and the dialog lively. The two major hypothesis that arose from the discussion were (1) SF is less accessible than fantasy, (1a) SF is less "family friendly," i.e. has more sex in it, than fantasy; (2) We're living in an science fictional world, and since people read genre to escape, it's therefore inevitable that they will read fantasy.

Personally, I have more sympathy for (2) than (1)/(1a), simply because the folks espousing these viewpoints don't seem to have taken into account the fact that there are many different flavors of SF, or that Jacqueline Carey and Ann Bishop (for instance) are writing fantasy.

Onward then to the next panel, which discussed reading/viewing order of series. Panelists were Ellen Asher, Sharon Lee (m), Steven Sawicki, tnh. Once again the audience was interested and involved in the discussion. Consternation was expressed over the decision to reissue the Narnia books in chronological order; the feeling being that chronology should not trump story.

Panel done, I chatted for a few minutes with beth_bernobich, then caught up with kinzel, who had just finished discussing trends in SF publishing with Cory Doctorow, James Patrick Kelly, and Clayton L. McNally. We wandered off to do a reading from Crystal Dragon, to an appreciative audience, then repaired to the art show reception, where we saw bunches of people -- among them jennifer_dunne, gregoryfeeley, Fred Lerner, Suford Lewis, Myles O'Reilly -- but were hardly able to talk, given the enthusiasm of the band (they were really good, the band, but not conducive to conversation) -- then to the Tor party, and so to bed.

Saturday dawned 'way too early, as far as I was concerned. We breakfasted in the hotel (mistake), chatted with pbray, met with arcaedia and hosted a modest literary beer, after which I admitted that I was feeling less than really well and repaired to our room. A nap put things right, and I was able to join kinzel for our autograph session, and then dinner at VinnyT's.

Sunday began with the quilt in our room trying to assassinate me, after which I did my last duty as a panelist on preserving culture in small systems. Panelists were F. Brett Cox, Michael F. Flynn, Sharon Lee (m), Ken MacLeod. Conversation was lively, the conclusion that culture drift was inevitable, and not necessarily undesirable, with a side order of feeling that generation ships are just a really bad, immoral and wicked idea.

The rest of the con was a whirl of frenzied activity as we participated in the dealers room break down, talk to Donato about ideas for our next book cover, and then fled to North Station to catch the last train to Portland, arriving at the Fortress of Solitude midnightish. The cats pretended not to recognize us, which lasted all of four minutes.