WorldCon report, part 2

Continuing from the previous post…

By mid-day Friday I had my bearings a lot better. We managed to locate some decent casino food–if your only experience with casinos is looking at the advertisements on billboards and the decadent meals there pictured, trust me, this is not as easy as it sounds–and set about hitting panels and trolling the dealer rooms in search of fun and enlightenment.
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WorldCon Report, part 1

Well, I’ve just returned from my first Worldcon–this one was in Reno, called “Renovation” by its pun-hungry organizers (and who can blame them, really?).

What a different experience from other cons, on many levels.
Continue reading ‘WorldCon Report, part 1′

The Balticon Adventure pt 5: Pontification, Panels, and Parties

Well, I suppose I’ve put it off long enough. The summer since Balticon has been packed to the gills with activity. Lots of writing, lots of strategizing. I don’t think I’ve read as much in one summer in at least a decade, and I’ve written 150k words and still going—might even hit 350-400k for the year by year’s end, if I budget my time right.

But I can’t put it of any longer—needs must, and I have to move on from Balticon to the next grand adventure, so I endeavor to finish this story.

Saturday began with an argument. The clock wanted to convince me that it was almost time for my first panel. I told it that it was full of shit and really needed to get a life. It countered by telling me I now had one minute less than I used to, so I’d better get my ass moving.
Continue reading ‘The Balticon Adventure pt 5: Pontification, Panels, and Parties’

The Balticon Adventure pt 4

The Saga Of The Hat

At this point in the narrative, I’m forced to chose between one of two roads. I could go along the chronology, skipping the boring and blackmail-worthy parts along the way, or I could chose a theme and tell its story…or I could jump back and forth between each as my fancy strikes me.

Guess which one I’ve picked?

It wasn’t until my appearance on Litopia last December that I began to realize the Power of the Hat ™. First, there was the encounter I recounted last time with Kim the Comic Book Goddess (who insists she’d have recognized me without the hat, but I have my doubts). Then there was the fact that Scott Roche and Sidfawu accosted me based solely upon the Power of the Hat, and we wound up sitting in the bar for several hours on Friday night talking Down From Ten, writing, and what passes for politics in my demented corner of the universe.

But before all that boring stuff, you’ll want to hear The Good Parts.
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The Balticon Adventure pt 3

Scuba Gear

I normally travel with carry-on baggage only, but it’s not because by the end of a plane ride there’s nothing that gives me greater relief from coach seat-cramp syndrome and DVT than sitting down in another small seat in a moving vehicle. Nor is it that the prospect of walking around an unfamiliar building filled with carousels from deSade’s worst dreams fills me with nauseating dread.
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The Balticon Adventure pt 2

Air Trek

I’ve often suspected that “JetBlue” is so named because of the color your legs turn in coach. Turns out that, like so many other things in the universe, I was completely wrong. They had more leg room than I’ve experienced on any flight in years – so much that I didn’t even get bruises on my knees from the seat in front. All this for the cheapest available tickets? Luxury, I say!

They also had personal televisions mounted in the back of each seat, ostensibly piping in Sat TV for our viewing pleasure. It was a special kind of SatTV, though, one designed to be suitable for children. Attempting to watch the G-rated cut of Fight Club was probably the most surreal experience of the entire weekend (which, in any weekend that contains people like Tee Morris, is saying a lot).
Continue reading ‘The Balticon Adventure pt 2′

Triple Threat Live Launchcast!

Philippa Ballantine’s DIGITAL MAGIC, J. Daniel Sawyer’s FREE WILL AND OTHER COMPULSIONS, and Chris Lester’s METAMOR CITY SEASON 2 have been unleashed upon the world. You’ve heard the first episodes, now talk to the authors. We will all be live on Talkshoe this evening, 6pm PST, taking your calls and chewing the scenery. Contests will be had — prizes will be given — insanity will rule the day.
Here’s the timeline for the rest of the Triple Threat (so far):

Thursday, 11/12/09:

6 PM Pacific Time: Dan Sawyer & Pip Ballantine begin the LIVE Triple Threat Launchcast event at TalkShoe <–link leads to the show.
8 PM Pacific Time (est.): Chris Lester joins the Launchcast.

The Launchcast will include…
* Live call-ins from fans
* Trivia contests
* Prize giveaways
* Sneak peeks at the upcoming podcast seasons

Sunday, 11/22/09:

7 PM Pacific Time: Chris Lester, Dan Sawyer, Kitty Nic’Iaian and Gail Carriger record the first feedback show of the new season of Metamor City! Send in your responses to the new episodes and we’ll include them in the show.

It’s all on- so hope you can join us!

(some text pilfered from Philippa Ballantine)

Parsec Nominees Pub Crawl

It’s that time again — the time when we all meet up at a bar and act in a publicly embarrassing manner for no other reason than it’s fun! This time, Rick Stringer of Variant Frequencies is in town. He will be joining Scott Sigler, Seth Harwood, Chris Lester and myself at Schroeder’s on Front Street tomorrow night, August 12, at 7pm for dinner, drinks, and miscellaneous tomfoolery. Come out, join us! Eventful listing and directions here.

Predestination Wrap Party pub crawl!

Check out the details here. Come out with me and celebrate the successful completion of the Predestination podcast, and also the launch of Seth Harwood’s Jack Wakes Up!

Interview at Podsyndicate.com

I’ve been interviewed in some depth over at PodSyndicate.com. Please head on over and comment! Here’s an excerpt:

The first book in the series, Predestination, deals with rigged poker games. Do you play? What did you learn from personal experiences that played a key role in creating scenarios in your book?

I’m actually pretty rusty, but at the time I wrote the first draft I played a lot, and had been playing for years. I got started when I was about ten, when an uncle of mine who was a low-level diplomat explained the nature of his job to me by saying “If you know how to play poker, and you know how to play chess, then you have the basic skills it takes to do diplomacy.” I was the kind of kid that viewed that sort of statement as a challenge, so within about two months I had a regular poker game going in my garage with my siblings and other neighborhood kids – we played for M&Ms or other types of kid-gold because we weren’t allowed to play for money. I kept on playing right through college on a daily-to-monthly basis, but since college it’s been hard to find people willing to play for stakes I can afford.

Read the rest here!

The Year that Almost Wouldn’t Die

Some highlights and lowlights of 2008

This year, particularly the second half, has seen a lot of people turn very pessimistic about, well, everything. Yeah, the economy’s slowing down. Yeah, people like me are scrambling just to make ends meet – when money goes slow everywhere, it hits the arts hard. And yeah, some things just sucked. But you know what? Today’s “awful” is a hell of a lot better than “great” was when my grandparents were growing up. Despite environmental problems, terrorists, crooked investment bankers, and crookeder politicians (yes, in all parties), I’m living in a time when “five-percent unemployment” is really bad. When I was a kid in the early 80s, that would have been music to everyone’s ears. Ditto for crime, poverty, war casualty, plague death, and violence figures almost everywhere on Earth (though some of us are a lot luckier than others, through no merit of our own).

So, yeah, 2008 might have been a scary year. But as I look back at the global “Big Picture” there aren’t a lot of things that are truly scary in the long run – not like there were twenty, fifty, or eighty years ago – not to mention longer ago than that.

On a personal level, it’s been a mixed year, but as I was drawing up this list I can’t help but be staggered by how far the scales tip towards the wonderful. Click on the link to read my self-indulgent recap.
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Can’t Get an Election? Try a Candle!

This year’s Beyond Belief conference is up, and it looks like it’s gonna be a doozy. This year, in honor of another very bitter election season in the midst of a number of medium-sized crises, the cadre of scientists and philosophers have trained their sights on public policy.

For those of you who haven’t stumbled upon this conference yet, here’ s a brief history: Continue reading ‘Can’t Get an Election? Try a Candle!’

Steampunk Education, part 2

Continuing my prep for Steamcon, It’s time for round two in the furthering my steampunk education. I’m still blogging on the Indamixx – going to try recording an Antithesis episode later today to really put it through its paces — once I figure out how to get NFS working on it, that is.

As for the steampunky goodness. Today, I’m watching The Brother’s Grimm . Continue reading ‘Steampunk Education, part 2′

Steampunk Education, part 1

So, with Steamcon coming soon, and me sitting on a couple panels, I’ve got to bone up on a genre that I’ve hereto only been passingly familiar with. This involves an extensive reading list, which I’m honestly not going to have time for. Fortunately, I’m not giving a talk on writing in the genre, I’m merely sitting on a couple of panel discussions. One of them is about Victorian science and tech, which I’ve loved for years. The other is about Steampunk film and multimedia production. The “Multimedia Production” part of this I’m well versed in. The “Steampunk” part, not quite as much.

So, this week, in between evaluating the Trinity Indamixx (initial impressions – favorable but with caveats), which I’m blogging on right now using an external keyboard (I could seriously get addicted to this thing), I learn all about Steampunk Films!
Continue reading ‘Steampunk Education, part 1′

SteamCon, Here I Come

For those of you who haven’t heard of it, SteamCon is the first anual Bay Area Steampunk Convention. It happens Halloween Weekend at the Domain Hotel in Sunnyvale CA.

I will be on the following panels:

Engines of Empire: Real Science and Gadgets of Victorian Times – Saturday 1:30-2:30

and

Steampunk Multi-Media: Steamy film, photo, audio and more – Saturday 3-4

Come along, join the party – it promises to be a hell of a debut con!