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Finland, Finland, Finland.....
Oct. 13th, 2013 04:30 pmI always plan to write impressive journal entries about my holiday experiences and what happens is they whirl around in my head a few times and are then banished by Real Life.
Things have been happening in Real Life also, so the brain has been busy.
So. San Antonio at the beginning of September. Very hot, very humid, though a surprisingly green city. The buildings are hidden by many trees. Due to the heat, movement outside the hotels was minimal except by tourists who didn't know any better. LonestarCon's first full day was Friday. Possibly a Worldcon is wasted on somebody such as myself, who isn't really a fan of late nights, partying or crowds. Just being around huge mobs of strangers will tire me out fairly fast. My first circled program item on Friday is around The History of Science and the Experience of Science Fiction. Kim Stanley Robinson was on it and it was very good value.
So, though, was accidentally having a chat with KSR in the hotel lobby. I'd been parked outside the Cactus Rose restaurant talking with Tanya Huff, who turned out to be a friend of his and so I had a really interesting, no-pressure chat with both and was able to express my appreciation to Mr Robinson for the destruction of Europe [Years of Rice and Salt]. These accidental chat encounters with folk were the best thing about the Worldcon; the way people would just talk to you about all sorts of stuff.
Another panel was called Starship Century, featuring discussions of interstellar flight and how it could realistically be achieved. That one had Gregory Benford, Karen Burnham, Joe Haldeman and Nancy Kress. Listening to them, you could believe this could be achieved, if not soon, then at some foreseeable point. The panel were mostly vehemently against defeatism. Joe Haldeman did comment that he knew writers with "such a case of black ass that they don't believe they'll live to finish their next book." Nancy Kress capped, "Well, some of them won't."
My third panel for the day was LoneStarCon for introverts, but even though I qualify, I left that pretty fast as it became evident that the speaker was focusing on people for whom this was their first con, or their first Worldcon. I think rather than a panel, it would have helped to have people willing to be "dinner guides," to gather us lone folk together and take us out to dinner somewhere. I did rather feel the lack of that. In any case, by this time evening had arrived and I was quite fatigued, so had dinner in the hotel, which revitalised me enough to check out the room parties, which were conveniently on the same few floors in one hotel.
Chief of these were the three bid parties for 2015; Orlando, Spokane and Helsinki, Finland. I was very taken by Helsinki's bid and the huge effort they made with their party and their promotions, and did in the end vote for them. Unfortunately it was not to be and the bid was won by Spokane, Washington State. It was always unlikely that Finland could win, since the Worldcon for the year before, 2014, will be in London and no one could see it being outside the USA for two years running.
I love the idea of visiting a place where folk are so law-abiding that they will wait for the lights to change before crossing a road...at 3am with nothing in sight. At least, that's what was claimed by a book the bidders had about the Finns. I hope some day the Finns will bid again for a Worldcon at a more opportune time, because I would definitely go if I could.
Things have been happening in Real Life also, so the brain has been busy.
So. San Antonio at the beginning of September. Very hot, very humid, though a surprisingly green city. The buildings are hidden by many trees. Due to the heat, movement outside the hotels was minimal except by tourists who didn't know any better. LonestarCon's first full day was Friday. Possibly a Worldcon is wasted on somebody such as myself, who isn't really a fan of late nights, partying or crowds. Just being around huge mobs of strangers will tire me out fairly fast. My first circled program item on Friday is around The History of Science and the Experience of Science Fiction. Kim Stanley Robinson was on it and it was very good value.
So, though, was accidentally having a chat with KSR in the hotel lobby. I'd been parked outside the Cactus Rose restaurant talking with Tanya Huff, who turned out to be a friend of his and so I had a really interesting, no-pressure chat with both and was able to express my appreciation to Mr Robinson for the destruction of Europe [Years of Rice and Salt]. These accidental chat encounters with folk were the best thing about the Worldcon; the way people would just talk to you about all sorts of stuff.
Another panel was called Starship Century, featuring discussions of interstellar flight and how it could realistically be achieved. That one had Gregory Benford, Karen Burnham, Joe Haldeman and Nancy Kress. Listening to them, you could believe this could be achieved, if not soon, then at some foreseeable point. The panel were mostly vehemently against defeatism. Joe Haldeman did comment that he knew writers with "such a case of black ass that they don't believe they'll live to finish their next book." Nancy Kress capped, "Well, some of them won't."
My third panel for the day was LoneStarCon for introverts, but even though I qualify, I left that pretty fast as it became evident that the speaker was focusing on people for whom this was their first con, or their first Worldcon. I think rather than a panel, it would have helped to have people willing to be "dinner guides," to gather us lone folk together and take us out to dinner somewhere. I did rather feel the lack of that. In any case, by this time evening had arrived and I was quite fatigued, so had dinner in the hotel, which revitalised me enough to check out the room parties, which were conveniently on the same few floors in one hotel.
Chief of these were the three bid parties for 2015; Orlando, Spokane and Helsinki, Finland. I was very taken by Helsinki's bid and the huge effort they made with their party and their promotions, and did in the end vote for them. Unfortunately it was not to be and the bid was won by Spokane, Washington State. It was always unlikely that Finland could win, since the Worldcon for the year before, 2014, will be in London and no one could see it being outside the USA for two years running.
I love the idea of visiting a place where folk are so law-abiding that they will wait for the lights to change before crossing a road...at 3am with nothing in sight. At least, that's what was claimed by a book the bidders had about the Finns. I hope some day the Finns will bid again for a Worldcon at a more opportune time, because I would definitely go if I could.