onyxhawke

There was an interview with Dave Freer about two weeks ago. Enjoy.

                                                Con Report — Lunacon 2009

Hilton Rye Town

 

( the report )

Chris McMahon

One of the more important early sites is:


























More throughout the Con

My beloved clients davefreer & jamesenge  have both had fan pages started for them. Dave and James await your arrival.

As with most things Facebook you'll need to be signed in before you join.

This is what he said about it in his conference on Baen's Bar;

Tasmarin is a place of dragons. a plane cut off from all others worlds where dragons can be dragons, and humans can be dinner. It's a place of islands, forests, mountains and wild oceans, filled with magical denizens. Fionn -- the black dragon -- calmly tells anyone who will listen that he's going to destroy the place. Of course he's a joker, a troublemaker and a dragon of no fixed abode. No one ever believes him.

He's dead serious.

Others strive to refresh the magics that built this place. To do so they need the combined magics of all the intelligent species, to renew the ancient balance and compact. There is just one problem. They need a human mage, and dragons systematically eliminated those centuries ago. Their augury has revealed that there is one, and they seek her desperately. Unfortunately, she's fallen in with Fionn, who really doesn't want them to succeed. He has his own reasons and designs.

The part he hadn't worked out is that she will affect his plans too.  Chaos, roguery, theft, heroism, kidnapping, love, trouble and war follow. And chaos. Did I mention chaos?

If one were wanting to know when it will be available... Toni's Table in Baen's Bar would be the place to ask since I haven't been told yet. Dave can be found on his LJ davefreer on facebook, and of course on the
Bar in "Dr Monkey".

I'm merrily slushing again now that i have a working computer to do it with.
Rumor has it that James Enge is closing in on the end of sequel to Blood of Ambrose. Dave Freer has said that he has finished the construction of Dragons Ring and will be turning it in soon.

He also at my piteous begging for something I could pass off as content passed me this section cut from the WIP:


Here is a bit I have cut and replaced from:
Original
Meb's morning began with a thunderous knocking. She had barely sat up in bed when the scowling innkeeper burst in... with the daughter who had waited on them and run Meb's bath. He appeared to holding her by the ear. She was in tears.

Meb hadn't actually had enough experience of waking up in inns to be absolutely sure that this wasn't the normal way you were roused, if Finn hadn't woken you and had you slip out in the darness. But it did seem odd.

Díleas -- whose experience of beds, let alone inns, had to be less than hers, let her know he thought so too. He growled, sounding, for a half-grown pup, quite alarming.

It wasn't enough to make an impression on the Innkeeper. "Boy, where is your master?" he demanded.

She blinked. "In his bed, I should think."

"Ha! It's not been slept in!" said the Innkeeper damningly.

Meb gaped at him, and piled out of bed herself, pushed past him and ran to see, Díleas at her heels, bouncing in delight.

The bed had plainly not even been sat on. And the window was open. It was bitterly cold in there. The larger bag he carried was still there, leaning against the wall. Looking at it Meb found the only relief to scavenged from the neatly made and turned down bed.

"Where is he?" she demanded fiercely of the Innkeeper. "What have you done with my master? Tell me!"

"Me?" The innkeeper was plainly rocked in his tracks by the savagery of her demand. "I've done nothing with him. It's what you've done my innocent young daughter, you serpent!"

"Your daughter! I've done nothing to your daughter." Behind her father's back the pretty apple-cheeked young woman looked at her imploringly.

"Oh yes you have, you vile deciever. She's admitted the whole of it to me. Her mother and I found her bed with a bolster in it and we were waiting for her when she came sneaking in. She tried to put the blame on your master first to protect you! That's when we discovered he was missing and the whole truth came out. You seduced her with lies and promises when she took you up to your bath."

"What!?"

"This wicked girl admits she spent the night with you, and that you satisfied your carnal lusts on her, having beguiled her with your promises," said the Innkeeper triumphantly. "You'll have to marry her and make an honest women of her now. You offered her that! I'll see you make it good, you young limb."

_______

Meb's morning began with a thunderous knocking. She had barely sat up in bed when the scowling innkeeper burst in... with the daughter who had waited on them and run Meb's bath. He appeared to holding her by the ear. She was in tears.

Meb hadn't actually had enough experience of waking up in inns to be absolutely sure that this wasn't the normal way you were roused, if Finn hadn't woken you and had you slip out in the darness. But it did seem odd.

Díleas -- whose experience of beds, let alone inns, had to be less than hers, let her know he thought so too. He growled, sounding, for a half-grown pup, quite alarming.

It wasn't enough to make an impression on the Innkeeper. "Boy, where is your master?" he demanded.

She blinked. "In his bed, I should think."

"Ha! It's not been slept in!" said the Innkeeper damningly.

Meb gaped at him, and piled out of bed herself, pushed past him and ran to see, Díleas at her heels, bouncing in delight.

The bed had plainly not even been sat on. And the window was open. It was bitterly cold in there. The larger of the bags he carried was still there, leaning against the wall. Looking at it Meb found the only relief to be scavenged from the room with its neatly made and turned down bed.

"Where is he?" she demanded fiercely of the Innkeeper. "What have you done with my master? Tell me!"

"Me?" The innkeeper was plainly rocked in his tracks by the savagery of her demand. "I've not seen him since last night. It's what you've done my innocent young daughter, you serpent!"

"Your daughter! But... I've done nothing to your daughter." Behind her father's back the pretty apple-cheeked young woman looked at her imploringly.

The innkeeper sneered at her scornfully. "Oh yes you have, you vile deciever. She's admitted the whole of it to me. Her mother and I found her bed with a bolster in it and we were waiting for her when she came sneaking in, just before dawn. She tried to put the blame on your master first to protect you! That's when we discovered he was missing and the whole wicked truth came out. You seduced her with lies and promises when she took you up to your bath."

"What!?" Meb could scarely believe that this was not just another strange dragon-dream.

"This wicked girl admits she spent the night with you, and that you satisfied your carnal lusts on her, having beguiled her with your promises," said the Innkeeper triumphantly. "You'll have to marry her and make an honest women of her now. You offered her that! I'll see you make it good, you young limb."

I now have my hotel rooms booked for Arisia and Lunacon. Y'all recall that Lunacon will have the redoubtable Dave Freer in town for his first appearance in the U.S. in almost five years? And that James Enge will be in the building to tantilize you with the book y'all have just preordered having seen the cover.

I asked a couple of the writers in the Better off Undead anthology about their stories,  

Dave Freer says: "If you are writer who has ever wondered just how some works of 'literary genius' escaped the toilet, and adore the taxman, read this."

Jay Lake says of his story:  Zombie chef searching for an out of this world taste

Kate Paulk says of hers:  It's a vampire who works the graveyard shift in a convenience store and has to deal with a wannabe vampire slayer.
and: Just an ordinary guy trying to get along who happens to be a vampire.

Sarah Hoyt: It's a story about a murder, a goddess and (Chinese) hell(s) to pay.

Dave Freer, along with a few other fantastic folks have decided to form a group blog. Dave got the intro post and he has since been followed by Rowena Cory Daniels. Go look http://madgeniusclub.blogspot.com/

Conjecture has wrapped and i met some fun people. Getting to meet sartorias , shweta_narayan ,gregvaneekhout and half a dozen others was fun. I got to catch up with old friends, and was saved the wrath of a con chair when someone else brought up a topic i was told not to mention. Conjecture was a smallish fairly laid back con. The hotel wasn't bad, in fact for the cost of the rooms you got a real nice place to leave your things while you wandered around to parties, panels and other events.

The Darkcon party was a blast and had some interesting mixed drinks. I may some day be forgiven for assisting my friends and other party goers in trying some of them.


It's sorta funny how all cons have their own vibe and how much or little the vibe changes year year. I've been lucky enough to get to Ravencon is a quietly intense literary con that is moving strongly towards being more of a general SF con. Right now it has a feel that is remarkably similar to Boskone despite the lack of cross over.

Arisia, which is only a month and half a city away from Boskone is very different. Arisia is very much a general con, and a great place to make friends across the sf/f fandom spectrum. Costumes are probably as high as 1 in 10 people, where as i don't recall seeing anyone at Ravencon or Boskone in costume.

Pi-Con is higher-than-most-energy con, with a much younger base than the others I've mentioned and is heavily into gaming, with strong filk, fannish, and literary elements.

Conjecture, which was about the same size as Raven had a good mix of interesting people, but I think it needs more people from outside the immediate area to get it from a fun con to a great con. Myself, Jason Cordova, and David Drake seemed like the only real "outsiders" at the con. Everyone else seemed to know each other. This can be fun, and it was but there was a lack of spark that you get when new elements are mixed in at the right proportion. I do intend to go back some day because I did enjoy it, and i'll probably decide to make a real vacation out of the trip.

One thing I won't be doing if I go back is visiting Hunter's Steakhouse. We had reservations, got their at 8:45 Saturday night, and it wasn't too busy. We got sat pretty much right away. It took 15 minutes before our drink order was taken. The two tables that were sat after us, one by fifteen minutes, one by thirty both got their food before we did. In fact when the first of them was sat, the waitress had our drinks in her hands, put them down on an empty table, took their drink order, walked back by the drinks and our table like none of it was there. She then came back with something for the new table, and again walked by our drinks three times.

This is when one of the people i was with got up and got our drinks. The waitress came back as we are all drinking and apologized, saying that she was coming back to give them too us. Ten minutes had elapsed while our drinks sat there. Were now almost forty minutes into our window to eat and get back for one of the party of six to get back to a panel.

Time goes by...

Our orders come, I looked at the steak of the person who had ordered medium well. Generously speaking it was medium, honestly speaking it was too red for a lot of people who like medium rare. Not surprisingly she sent it back. About three minutes later the steak is brought back, it's still medium. Again it goes back. On the third try it was close enough to medium well for this person to eat. I've eaten with this person before, and never seen her send anything back. I've cooked and waited tables, and getting it wrong once is sad, but forgivable getting it wrong twice is about the time you should start worrying if the pooch is on birth control. It took us almost two and half hours to get in and out at a half full restaurant.

Conjecture was the last con of the year for me, and much as I wish i could go to WFC, Calgary is just too far to when I've been to Denver and San Diego already this year. I should be at WFC next year, and in Montreal. Ravencon and Lunacon are the only definite dates at this point. I'd like to go to Arisia, Balticon, and Boskone this year but other events might push them down the scale.

Don't forget davefreer's Slowtrain is available in hard cover on 10/1, and the paperback of Pyramid Power is now available. It should be noted that the Slowtrain review up does contain spoilers.