I was up before 8am and had a quick breakfast before dashing over to the lobby to get a little online tasks taken care of. While so doing, I awaited the arrival of Barry and Joyce Malzberg, along with Paul Di Filippo and Deborah Newton, and also Scott Edelman. We all trudged out to the parking lot to accompany Barry on his morning walk. I can begin to describe who wonderful and accepting all these folks are and if you know then, you already know that, but I felt like one of the gang, walking around that parking lot and it was an utter delight.
But there were also some panels to attend, although not as many as Friday, at least for me. I had intended to start the day with a reading by Paul Levinson, but for some reason, I had the time in my head as 10:30 when in fact he read at 10am, while I was out wandering the parking lot with Barry, Scott, Paul and the others, so I missed that. I did, however, managed to catch up with Paul and finally got to meet him in person. What a great guy!
So my first official panel of the day was “The Year in Nonfiction.” I was interested in this one for a number of reason, not the list of which is that I feel that Barry Malzberg’s and Mike Resnick’s wonderful book The Business of Science Fiction is most deserving of the Hugo Award for Best Related Biook, despite some tough competition.
The panel was moderated by Jim Freund and there were a number of interesting books mentions, including Barry and Mike’s, which Michael Swanwick mentioned during the course of the discussion. Other important nonfiction workes included:
- The Heinlein biography
- An Eric Frank Russell biography by the title of In Your Tent (I think)
- The upcoming Murray Leinster: His Life and Works put together by his daughters, which sounds fascinating.
- The Tiptree bio by Julie Phillips
- Into the Media Web: Selected Nonfiction by Michael Moorcock
- Pardon This Intrusion by John Clute
I looked for the Julie Phillips book in the dealer’s room and could not find it. (Perhaps I didn’t look hard enough.) I did, however, managed to get a signed copy of the Clute book, which I look forward to reading at some point.
After that panel I spent time networking, and catching up with blog posts. Surprisingly, by 1:30, I was feeling drowsy and I knew it was going to be a long day so I headed back to the room, read a little but of Delany’s The Jewel-Hindged Jaw and napped for about an hour. I felt substatially better when I woke up, just before 3pm.
The next thing I attended was the Guest of Honor interview. Michael Swanwick was interviewing Gardner Dozois and that had to be one fo the funniest interviews I’d ever seen. Hopefully Scott Edleman managed to catch that one on video because it was terrific. In fact, this morning (a day later) I went to the dealer’s room and bought the book Being Gardner Dozois: An interview by Michael Swanwick because I simply had to have more.
From there, I headed to the bar. I was supposed to meet a bunch of SF Signal folks later on the in the evening and I just wanted to relax for a while. I eventually ended up with a group that included Liz Hand, Paul Witcover, and Victor LaValle. After the others left, Victor and I spent time talking about our kids, just two dads, drinking beers and chatting. It was great. And I still owe him a beer the next time I see him.
Around 7pm, my SF Signal companions showed up: John Ginsberg-Stevens, Andrew Liptak, and Jeff Patterson. It was great to meet these guys in person and have dinner with them. After dinner, we all headed over to the famous Kirk Poland contest, which, for the first time since it’s inception, more than 20 years ago, the audience finally managed to win. It was a hilarious time, great fun, and by the time it was all over, I was utterly wiped out.
But at least there was one more morning to enjoy before it was all over…
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