The collection of Worldcon books

I finally got around to unpacking the 38 lb duffle and decided to take this picture. This is the collection of books I had signed at Worldcon (or otherwise was collected around that period). Technically, I got my copy of Plague War before Worldcon, but my original plans were to get it and have Jeff Carlson sign it at Worldcon — luckily, Jeff was doing a signing at the Roseville Barnes and Noble the Saturday before Worldcon. Also, the Feghoot book was a lovely parting gift for attempting to compete at Win Tom Whitmore’s Books, and is not signed, although it comes from this worldcon. There are also two unpictured books as they were not in the bag in question, but I’ve listed them below.

No, I did not have an ounce of fun in Denver. I resent the implication that I might have had fun. ;)

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

From a rift in the space-time continuum somewhere near the Hyatt Santa Clara, katster emerges from the pocket dimension she has been inhabiting for the last three days.

Tim Powers, our Writer Guest of Honor, was the one that coined the “pocket dimension” idea as he summed up his thoughts on the weekends at closing ceremonies. It’s wonderful, I love it, and I’m going to steal it.

The short of it: Baycon was a blast. I ended up with 64 ribbons, a gopher/gofer ribbon, a Reno Worldcon sticker, a Seattle Worldcon button, and a copy of Orange Soda, the 2008 Baycon fanzine in an hour, which I hope will appear on efanzines.com real soon now. I also have some swag from the dealer’s room, and a silver dollar from 1978 that was given to me in change, and an entire run of the whole official newsletter along with one of the two fake newsletters distributed during con.

I managed to hit all four guests of honor with my “Press Button. Receive Baycon.” ribbon, a feat I was particularly proud of. The gofers went on strike, sorta. (Okay, not really, but I got to make a protest sign that read “Doors Don’t Just Watch Themselves” and I think I’m going to print “Gofer Local #42″ ribbons next year.) I went through all five hundred of the ribbons I printed and ran out at about 2 PM on Sunday. (Okay, I still had some of the Top Sekret Ribbon I printed with gridlore and kevin_standlee in mind, but I wasn’t giving that one to just anybody.)

The hotel staff had a competition to see which employee could collect the most ribbons.

I managed to lose something during con, too. This year’s particular case of the concrud seems to have found its way directly to my vocal cords, which means, I have next to no voice. Good thing I don’t talk much at work.

I’d say more, but I promised Chris Garcia I’d write up my thoughts (or the crimes of Belgium) for his fanzine, and I have to produce AuGH #8 before Sunday, and I have to work.

But I’ve already bought my membership to Baycon 2009, and am counting the days until we’re at it again.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

From a review of the new Indy movie, Annalee Newitz of io9.com has the following observation:

The only edge to the film is a clumsy, knee-jerk liberal subplot about how the evil U.S. government suspects everyone of being part of the Red Menace — even Indy! Sounds just like the evil, suspicious U.S. government today! Wow, thanks for the commentary, but honestly if there had just been cooler aliens or a weirder plot I would have been a lot happier.

The movie is set in the 1950s. Now you can see why I just sighed to myself and muttered, “History is dead…”

Look, McCarthyism and the whole paranoia over the Red Menace was real, and it destroyed lives. If you’re seeing parallels to today’s US government in it, then maybe y’ought to be more scared, y’know?

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

I finally decided on a ribbon.

It will say:

Met katster.
(still not king)

I’m amused, anyway. :)

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

Baycon’s coming in less than two weeks! I’m pretty stoked. Baycon was fun last year, and this year I’m actually staying at the hotel instead of commuting from far away. I’m also showing a friend around her first science fiction convention.

(It was pretty easy to convince her to go. All I had to say was, “Hey, guess what? People run around in costume there and nobody thinks they’re weird!”)

Anyway, this year, I’m going to be handing out badge ribbons. (For the confused, that’s why I posted my Baycon badge from last year. The trail of ribbons extending off of it is an example of what I’m talking about.) I haven’t exactly totally decided what they’re all going to say, but besides the already done top sekret ribbon for gridlore, I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to get one that says “Help! I’m trapped in a ribbon factory!”

I’m still trying to figure out some way of saying ‘I said hi to katster’ in a cool fashion, though.

Also, unrelated, the muttering you may have heard coming from Sacramento was katster studying the preliminary Baycon schedules and wondering *why* Iron Poet and Fanzine in an Hour got put in the same timeslot. ;)

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

So, last Friday night I went out to an event hosted by the Roseville Library called “A Night of Science Fiction”. Three SF authors were showing up to talk about their books and the genre. I admit, the thing that had me raring to go was that one of the three authors was Kim Stanley Robinson, who most of you know as the guy that wrote the Mars Trilogy (Red/Green/Blue Mars).

Neither of the other two names rung a bell at first, until I found myself in the Roseville Library looking at the in-library ad. They had helpfully reprinted cover photos, and I recognized one of the covers from John Scalzi’s blog series “The Big Idea”. The book in question would be Jeff Carlson’s Plague Year .

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

This made me fall over laughing.

Hat tip to Jay Lake (jaylake)

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.