ConClave Con Report
10 October 2010 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dime_novel_heroI hadn't been planning on going to ConClave but Euphorbia was going and had been unsuccessful in finding anyone to go with her. Sue, she was perfectly capable of traveling on her own but I had the time I could take off and I know that she doesn't particularly like driving.
When the dealer's room opened on Friday, it wasn't long before I had a stack of books from Larry Smith. The Osiris Ritual by George Mann (the sequel to The Affinity Bridge), Dreadnought by Cheria Priest (the follow-on to Boneshaker) and Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld (the sequel to Leviathan). Damn you all for writing sequels! I had purchased the three first books from Larry last year, why not give him another $60 for the sequals. I was able to restrain myself somewhat and not purchase the two most recent Marcus Didius Falco novels that I haven't read yet. I've got plenty of steampunk on my shelf waiting to be read, I don't need to add mysteries in Imperial Rome to the stack just now.
There was a single steampunk panel on Saturday afternoon and, while the authors had some steampunk writing cred, none of them were in on the cultural explosion that has been the steampunk movement in the past decade. Sure, they know what steampunk is in a literary sense, and they see what is going on from the outside, but it became clear to me that they haven't studied it and didn't really have any interaction with any of the people who call themselves steampunks.
Not that this is a bad thing. I don't particularly want authors of science fiction to cater to the the expectations of their fans, driving the genra towards the lowest common denominator in the same way that vampires and zombies seem to have evolved. It will happen, no doubt, but I want the authors to remain as independent as possible before they completely sell out.
Stephen Stirling knows his history. I'll have to pick up a copy of The Peshawar Lancers (Larry Smith had many of his other books, just not that one.)
I liked Stewart Sternberg on panels. Many witty retorts and interesting ideas.
The Saturday night masquerade was pretty haphazard. It was late getting set up, there were 10 contestants and not much more than 30 spectators. The MC was giving away boxes of cookies as door prizes but really had more cookies than it was worth trying to give them out one at a time so he just started throwing boxes of cookies across the stage for people who wanted them to rush up and scuffle over them. After the costume catwalk, judging was done by the audience wherein the costumers walked through the audience and the attendees gave them their raffle tickets as a vote. The people with the most tickets won. An unseemly way of doing things, I thought.
The Mimmoth Hunters won hands down.
I got a chance to see Bill Wardrop's Nautilus and a Winans torpedo boat (the name of which I do not recall) in the art show. Seeing him in the dealer's room carrying the torpedo boat model on Sunday I mentioned to him that I had seen a windup toy of what appeared to be George Garrett's Submarine Torpedo Boat Resurgam at a gun show and had made a mistake in not buying it then and there for $200. He agreed that it was a mistake because he knew it's vintage and said that it could be worth thousands. I've been cruising the gun shows for months hoping to run into the dealer again but with no luck.
On the drive back, as I drove onto a ramp, a car in the left most lane slowed down dramatically and cut across four lanes of traffic, bunching up traffic behind him, to get right on my tail on the ramp. All the way up this long ramp, he was right behind me, drifting to one side, making it clear that he wanted to pass me. I could see his frustration in my rear view mirror and he talked to himself about it. Furiously flicking his cigarette ash out the window. I was on a ramp. I had nowhere to go. At the merge-point he blew by me and glared while he passed.
His license plate: DR50B.
Translation: Doctor 5on 0f a Bitch.
Yea. . . That. . .
When the dealer's room opened on Friday, it wasn't long before I had a stack of books from Larry Smith. The Osiris Ritual by George Mann (the sequel to The Affinity Bridge), Dreadnought by Cheria Priest (the follow-on to Boneshaker) and Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld (the sequel to Leviathan). Damn you all for writing sequels! I had purchased the three first books from Larry last year, why not give him another $60 for the sequals. I was able to restrain myself somewhat and not purchase the two most recent Marcus Didius Falco novels that I haven't read yet. I've got plenty of steampunk on my shelf waiting to be read, I don't need to add mysteries in Imperial Rome to the stack just now.
There was a single steampunk panel on Saturday afternoon and, while the authors had some steampunk writing cred, none of them were in on the cultural explosion that has been the steampunk movement in the past decade. Sure, they know what steampunk is in a literary sense, and they see what is going on from the outside, but it became clear to me that they haven't studied it and didn't really have any interaction with any of the people who call themselves steampunks.
Not that this is a bad thing. I don't particularly want authors of science fiction to cater to the the expectations of their fans, driving the genra towards the lowest common denominator in the same way that vampires and zombies seem to have evolved. It will happen, no doubt, but I want the authors to remain as independent as possible before they completely sell out.
Stephen Stirling knows his history. I'll have to pick up a copy of The Peshawar Lancers (Larry Smith had many of his other books, just not that one.)
I liked Stewart Sternberg on panels. Many witty retorts and interesting ideas.
The Saturday night masquerade was pretty haphazard. It was late getting set up, there were 10 contestants and not much more than 30 spectators. The MC was giving away boxes of cookies as door prizes but really had more cookies than it was worth trying to give them out one at a time so he just started throwing boxes of cookies across the stage for people who wanted them to rush up and scuffle over them. After the costume catwalk, judging was done by the audience wherein the costumers walked through the audience and the attendees gave them their raffle tickets as a vote. The people with the most tickets won. An unseemly way of doing things, I thought.
The Mimmoth Hunters won hands down.
I got a chance to see Bill Wardrop's Nautilus and a Winans torpedo boat (the name of which I do not recall) in the art show. Seeing him in the dealer's room carrying the torpedo boat model on Sunday I mentioned to him that I had seen a windup toy of what appeared to be George Garrett's Submarine Torpedo Boat Resurgam at a gun show and had made a mistake in not buying it then and there for $200. He agreed that it was a mistake because he knew it's vintage and said that it could be worth thousands. I've been cruising the gun shows for months hoping to run into the dealer again but with no luck.
On the drive back, as I drove onto a ramp, a car in the left most lane slowed down dramatically and cut across four lanes of traffic, bunching up traffic behind him, to get right on my tail on the ramp. All the way up this long ramp, he was right behind me, drifting to one side, making it clear that he wanted to pass me. I could see his frustration in my rear view mirror and he talked to himself about it. Furiously flicking his cigarette ash out the window. I was on a ramp. I had nowhere to go. At the merge-point he blew by me and glared while he passed.
His license plate: DR50B.
Translation: Doctor 5on 0f a Bitch.
Yea. . . That. . .
