onyxhawke

For those of you who have never had the joyous experience of being in a smoky room with contacts, I applaud your good sense. I on the other hand got to spend half of last night with my contacts going through a Navy Seal workout in my eyes.

But that's not nearly as important as who I've gotten to talk too. My fan friends are here in full force, the con com has put together another excellent event and my first panel with Wombat, David Coe, Michael Ventrella, and two others whose names escape me.

Today I have a 2pm panel in the Potomac room. a 6pm in Dogwood and various schmooze sessions throughout the day and night.

One of the more important early sites is:


























More throughout the Con

Well Con goers it is nearly that time again! Lunacon is almost here with a Guest of Honor who not only hasn't been in the USA in five years, is looking forward to his first stint as Guest of Honor. Dave Freer who has over a dozen books on the shelf ranging from epic fantasy to space opera to urban fantasy will be touching down in time to meet the people he writes for. Larry Dixon will be Artist Guest of Honor, the Special Guest will be Mercedes Lackey and Eric Flint will be Toastmaster.


Don't forget: Lunacon March 20-22, the greatest con this side of the moon.
davefreer 

It is your last chance to vote in the P&E polls.
Dave Freer & Eric Flint are ahead in the Best SF/F Novel and Dave is currently near the top of the best Author ranks. Go vote!

In the other categories, friends of mine that I'm told were nominated included Sarah Hoyt, James Enge (for a short), Toni Weiskopf, Eric Flint,  and a few others who's names escape my feeble mind.


And I got my Arisia schedule:

272

Making Tropes Interesting

Paul Revere B

Literature

Sat 5:00 PM

Duration: 01:00

4

Bioethics in Theory and Practice

BU Suite (Regency Club)

Science

Sun 1:00 PM

Duration: 01:00

506

Grok, Hobbit!

Paul Revere A

Literature

Mon 12:00 PM

Duration: 01:00

The rest of the time i'll probably wander through the dealers areas, the bar, the con suite, the bar, the green room, the bar, the lobby, the bar, the room parites, and i may remember to sleep...




P.S.
Reading a good submission by someone I'm not familiar with take waaaay more time than reading a published novel by someone I'm not familiar with.

In addition to Ravencon and Lunacon, I've been invited back to Arisia for next year. I've also been invited to Balticon.


These will probably be the only cons I do next year. I may do either Worldcon or World Fantasy as well. I'm possibly doing Book Expo too.

Howdy ho!

I'm here, you should be too. Today i have two early panels, one at 10am "Science and the Art of Logistics" followed immediately by a panel on writers groups at 11:30.

David Drake i believe has three back to back panels this morning. He is braver than I.

Jason Cordova has brought his lovely girlfriend, and he and i will be on a panel with David Drake on Sunday.

Sherwood Smith aka Sartorias is do to arrive sometime this morning.

My pitch session last night was fun, and the Zombie-Ninja-Monkey-Pirate-Robots panel turned out to be very interactive.

I actually attended filking for the fist time, and the performers were good. I'll have to get the links to the videos they say are up on the web at some point when I've got two braincells firing in the same half hour.

Travel-fu coming in was just short of perfect, I got to the shuttle and airport later than i wanted to. My flight from Boston to JFK was good and managed to take off and arrive on time despite the light rain in both cities. The flight from JFK to San Diego was as pleasant as six hour flight can be. I watched the History Channel and got three and half or so of my non hockey ten hours of tv for the year. And my flight got in early.

Despite not getting more than four hours sleep between the end of day three and when realized I needed to move to make it to my 10am panel, I did make it.

I have no idea if we made any sense, i have no idea if i made any sense. The panel to me spent a lot of time on music theory, buy some on all sorts of stuff.

Sitting in the green room with Kate Paulk, David B, Jeff, and a rotating cast of others we probably came close to getting tossed out for a rather raucous and ribald conversation that occasionally soared its way into the gutter.

The Appeal of Urban Fantasy panel was hilarious. As much as I wish Anton Strout was able to attend, having Sarah Hoyt on the panel with myself, David Boop and Ann Aguirre was a ton of fun. Sarah and I have a sense of humor that is much a like, David I'd met earlier in the con. We discussed the trends and various major series in urban fantasy. This was also the last panel of the night in that room, and while I'm sure the audience was entertained as they were frequently laughing as hard as the panelists, the phrase "Are any of us going to get out of here with our careers intact?" was uttered more than once. I hope to run into Ann and David again some time.

Later, more parties. The nice folks at Baen had a party in which after four days in the same town as Lois Bujold i managed to do more than say "Hi" to her. From what she said the forthcoming Miles Vorkosigan book has about four chapters done and Miles is now 39.

Back in the SFWA suite I ran across the news that Mary Robinette Kowal had won the Campbell Award. Mary is one of my fave people in the business and is sharp as hell.

I sat around int he SWFA suite for much of the night talking to Carol Berg, The Hoyt Collective Peter Heck, Jeremy Lassen, Becky and Alan Lickess, Ginjer and one or two others who's names escape me.


Dan Hoyt had a panel at 11 on writing vampires, none of the panelists had ever written a vampire story. One of the participants got lost and they roped me into it, I had the fun of plugging T.R.'s books, pretending to be T.R., plugging Ravencon, causing trouble and winding up Sarah about some some of her vampires. :-)

edited to add mention of the AoUF panel.

Yesterday was fun, and all the set work was done by two so I relaxed a bit more the rest of the day. The morning panel The Agent Behind the Curtain was a bit more general than I expected, but probably what the audience needed. Joshua Bilmes did a fantastic job moderating, Eleanor Wood contributed in that cool reasoned way she does. Lucienne Diver was her usual strong business woman self. And Kristen Nelson was the only one i hadn't met before, she was sharp and well focused.

Next I had the signing turned pitch session. This was in the dealers room, thankfully far enough away from most things that I could here the people who were talking to me. The dealers room is large and I spent half an hour talking to Howard and Sandra Taylor. I ran into Jeremy from Night Shade and talked to him for a while.

So aside from Schlock Mercenary I also noticed the folks from Girl Genius, and a demo station for the various versions of Soul Caliber 4, featuring Star Wars characters like Darth Vader and Yoda.

Today the only real plans are a brunch with the conchair of Lunacon to beat him into persuade him of a few things I'd like and give him a bit more background on some of the folks who I know want to be there or are going to be there.

After that is a late lunch with canarynoir and then visiting folks at one or two of the parties.

For those keeping track; I talked to Steve Stirling, Jay Lake, Peter Heck, Ken Shoels, and a half dozen others i should remember but don't.

Depending on mood and energy, i may send out a few more submissions later this afternoon.

So which of my readers will in Denver?

Assuming my luck with travel holds out, I'll be arriving late Tuesday in Denver. While I can't promise to be interesting, or even fully awake I'm up for a casual breakfast in the Sheraton eatery around 9/930 if there's any interest on Wednesday morning.

Well, I've got my preliminary schedule for Worldcon. It looks like I'll be on three panels. Wednesday, and Friday look to be fairly clear for meetings. Anyone wishing to pitch to me, or just pick my brain quietly should probably pick a time from mid day on on Wednesday, or anytime from mid morning on Friday. If you want to schedule a time you can:
Message me through LJ with your contact info.
Send me an email through the webform on my website.
Instant message me via one of the options in my profile.
Or go all old fashioned and call me.

If you're going with two or three writer friends I'm willing to talk to a couple people at once.

You can also just try and wander into me at one of the room parties at the main hotel where I'll be staying.