Eagles Over the Kennebec

Yes, I'm still sick. Let us speak now of pleasanter things.

Many thanks to the Alert Reader who sent along the link to the hot-off-the-press Library Journal review of Duainfey, and a lovely surprise it was.

Despite, yanno, the Aftermath, I had a wonderful time at Denvention. It was personally quite the best WorldCon I've attended in years. Mind you, I've missed the last three WorldCons, so perhaps absence has made the heart &c, but still -- I had a blast, in a mostly non-frenzied, and relaxed sort of way.

Part of this absolutely had to do with the fact that I was not over-programmed. Some pros certainly were -- Wil McCarthy flashed me the back of his badge and I've gotta tell you, I felt faint -- but personally, I thought that the level of programming in which I was enlisted could not have been better.

Denvention was also the first WorldCon out of the last six I've attended in which I wasn't expected to be behind the Meisha Merlin table during those hours when I was not wanted elsewhere -- which was a huge lightening of the load.

Another thing that made Denvention pleasant was the simple greeting, heard over and over: "I'm glad to see you." I like this tradition and hope we can make it a staple of all future cons, World or Regional. It's a gentle reminder that we gather together in this peculiar manner because we are a community and without each other we're only Odd.

Being pleasantly programmed meant I could explore the neighborhood surrounding the convention, which is something I can't recall ever having had time to do at a WorldCon. I took several pleasant strolls down the Sixteenth Street Mall and got quite used to having a variety of restaurants and delis within a few blocks' walk. Cook's Fresh Market was a particular favorite, as were our old friends the Corner Bakery, and Johnny Rocket's.

The Sixteenth Street Mall is also home to a number of stores, of which one is the Tall Girl Shop. I raced in one afternoon in a panic, having miscalculated the number of party clothes I would need at the con. To say that they fixed me up with something is to do less than justice to the experience. The whole store got into the project, putting together a series of outfits until the perfect one emerged. I've never had so much fun shopping in my life.

Victoria's Secret, my next stop, was not such a pleasant experience, alas. I explained to the (young, lithe, golden) sales clerk which garment I wished to obtain. She stared at me and asked my size. I confessed. She shook her head. "I'm sure we don't have anything here that will fit you," she said. I nodded and walked over to the rack where the desired items were hung, flicked through and found my size in the color I wanted, filed correctly. I handed it to her on my way out. Not that I do much business there in the usual way of things, but VS has lost even that slender custom.

Veering back to pleasant things and the con...my first panel was The Storyteller's Bowl, with Steve Miller moderating, and fellow panelists Phil Foglio, Lawrence Watt Evans, and Don Sakers. This was a great panel; the panelists swapped around experiences and ideas, shared what worked and what didn't, came up with ways to adapt useful techniques to their particular genre -- it was more like a brainstorming session than a panel and it was great for us. I hope it was great for the audience, too.

In the audience of that panel, in fact, right there in the front row, was a young man we'd met at Penquicon -- Howard Tayler -- assiduously taking notes. Wow, I thought, Howard's really serious about this.

Well, it turns out that, far from taking notes, Howard was drawing. Figures, eh? And one of the things he was drawing was...me. I've never had a portrait done, so I forgive him. In fact, I'm delighted. He gave me permission to show y'all the picture, so ( here it is )

Everybody have a nice day. I'll check back in, after breakfast and a nap.