I’ve mentioned before that I’m new to science fiction conventions. ReaderCon 2006 was the first con I ever attended (if you don’t count an experience at Balticon in 1990 that’s better left unexplained). That makes this weekend’s PhilCon 2006 only my fourth con ever.
So don’t take my word for it when I say that PhilCon was a tad disorganized. Take the word of other veteran congoers I talked to who said they wouldn’t be coming back to PhilCon. The word “sucks” was tossed around more than once. The best opinion that could be heard came from an insider, who said that “there have been better PhilCons, and there have been worse.”
Keep in mind that my circle of friends is pretty much confined to the Literary track. You know, the people who were more excited about seeing Charles Stross than dressing up like their favorite Buffy character. To the gamers and the filkers and the people dressed up in chain mail and goth makeup, PhilCon might very well have been a blast. But to the Literary folks, the common wisdom was that PhilCon 2006 was a bust.
Some of the frustrations included:
- A rather lackluster keynote interview with Charles Stross. There was nothing lackluster about Stross himself, who appeared relaxed and humorous and fully engaged. But the MCing by Darrell Schweitzer was quite haphazard, as if someone either threw him a microphone at the last minute or he lost his prepared list of questions.
- None of the moderator assignments were given out ahead of time. I arrived at PhilCon on Friday only to discover from the program booklet that I was moderating two panels that weekend. Some moderators didn’t realize they had been assigned to moderate until they arrived at the panel.
- Room changes were rampant. Everything was constantly moving around at the last minute. And because the panels were spread liberally among at least five floors of confusingly labeled rooms, salons, parlours, ballrooms, and (in at least one instance) the middle of some random hallway, finding one’s way around was close to impossible. My understanding from various sources is that the Sheraton hotel was mostly to blame for this.
- The hotel closed the bar on Saturday night for a private function involving some very well-dressed people who had some involvement with Barbados. No bar to hang out at on Saturday night at an SF con? Lame.
- Parties died down early. The SFWA party was the place to be on Saturday night, but even that was on life support by midnight. When you hear lots of people say on Sunday that they retired to their rooms a little after 11 p.m., you know that something’s a little askew with the social vibe.
- The reading schedule bordered on the farcical. I had hoped to do a reading from Infoquake at PhilCon. But as late as Saturday noon — halfway through the con — we were being told that the reading schedule was “still being worked out.” Finally, mid-afternoon on Saturday, a sign-up board materialized at the top of the escalator with slots for each hour and a few names scribbled in (illegibly, in one case). How could one sign up to do a reading? Well, if you could decipher the (also pen-scrawled) message in the bottom corner of the sign, you would be directed to someone in room 1200-something who could get you on the list. Where were the actual readings held? Who knows? The room listed in the program booklet was wrong, and the sign didn’t say.
- Bizarre panel assignments. I’m not sure how I ended up moderating “Teleportation Is More Than a Way of Getting Somewhere” and “Navigating Amazon,” while I wasn’t even on panels for “Blogging and SF” and “Websites for Writers.” I suppose this could have just been me, however.
- Nobody in the dealer’s room was carrying Infoquake. I’ve just about given up on getting con dealers to carry my book. The only people on the programming they go out of their way to stock are the guests of honor. Hell, it doesn’t matter, I get a much better margin hand-selling them anyway.
But don’t let my list of gripes give you the impression that I didn’t enjoy myself despite the confusion. Some highlights:
- Meeting members of a Philadelphia book group that chose Infoquake for their discussion this week. One of them even had me sign his library book, in which I exhorted future borrowers of Infoquake to enjoy America. The book clubbers and I enjoyed some greasy fast food at the Anonymous Pizza Dive Down the Street, and then hightailed it over to Monk’s Pub for some seriously good beer. Luckily, Monk’s was only one block away.
- Hobnobbing with the inimitable John Scalzi about science fiction publishing, book promotion, life goals, SFWA, careers, and just general gossip. Yes, in case you were wondering, we did indeed talk about you.
- Sitting in the bar and coming up with a list of the Best Cities in the U.S. to Live That Are Culturally Relevant, Very Cheap, Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold, and Not in a Red State with Scalzi, Bud Sparhawk, and Ernest Lilley.
- Dining with Ellen Asher and Andrew Wheeler of Science Fiction Book Club. (Check out my fellow Pyr author Joel Shepherd’s Crossover, coming soon to SFBC.)
- Debating “Has Science Fiction Moved to the Right?” on a very heated panel with John Scalzi, Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, and Ernest Lilley. The Irony Police made an appearance after we were repeatedly drowned out by the thumping music of the Christian revival event going on in the next room.
- Moderating a panel on teleportation that might have gone nowhere fast if not for the presence of physics wiz John Ashmead and his very thick binder of printed reference material. Not only did John keep the panel focused and interesting, but he also confirmed that the method of teleportation I used in Infoquake is indeed scientifically valid. (Or, at least, as scientifically valid as it gets these days.)
- Getting rhetorically spanked on the panel for “Pointy Headed Intellectual Fiction For the Pretentious Elite” by James Morrow for being excited about the release of Thomas Pynchon’s new novel.
- Getting interviewed for SFWire by Slush God John Joseph Adams. The interview made up for the fact that John’s circle of folks (which also included Doug Cohen, Amy Tibbetts, Chris Cevasco and Jenny Rappaport) seemed to have made a conscious decision to schedule meal outings right when I was due to appear on a panel.
- Discussing science fiction webmastering with web dude and just generally nice guy Nathan Lilly.
- Chatting with game designer and horror novelist Richard E. Dansky about whether having a “pay the bills” writing career helps your “enrich the soul” writing career. (Richard’s opinion, in a nutshell: no.)
- Talking about first novels with Roger Zelazny biographer (and nascent novelist) Theodore Krulik. Ted’s been attending SF cons since the year I was born, and has not only dined with Isaac Asimov, but stood at a urinal next to John W. Campbell.
- Completely forgetting about my 3:00 Sunday panel on the tradition of the anti-hero and spending the hour chatting with the lovely and charming Danita Fries instead. Tip for would-be fans: tracking down an author and buying four (additional) copies of their book on the spot is a good way to get that author’s attention.
- Confusing everyone by appearing on a panel about “50 Ways to Leave Your Reader” alongside Scott Edelman. (For the last frickin’ time, people, no relation to Yr Humble Narrator.) PhilCon didn’t help matters by misprinting the program booklet to show Scott moderating the panel on teleportation instead of me.
- Picking up, absolutely free, a first edition hardcover of Robert Charles Wilson’s Hugo Award-winning novel Spin on the freebie table. (Read my review.) The guy who got there right before me picked up a first edition hardcover of Old Man’s War.
- Discussing the technology/creativity nexus and my upcoming appearance at Penguicon with Matthew Arnold.
- Finally getting to meet Hildy Silverman, an old friend of my sister’s from Brandeis, through whose intervention I was put on the programming at PhilCon. Thanks, Hildy!