The organizers of WFC 2007 are rat bastards who deserve to be strung up by their own intestines. Why? Because they handed out free boxes of concentrated Seduction to everyone attending the con, in the form of Freihofer’s chocolate chip cookies. You’ve heard it said that human beings are merely an efficient transportation system for water? Freihofer’s chocolate chip cookies are merely an efficient transportation system for butter. These things are so chewy, sweet, and addictive that I’ve already overshot my daily RDA for saturated fat, and it’s not even 9 am.
They also handed out large blue duffel bags full of free books at sign-in. Which is a terrific freebie in theory, but none of the books in my bag looked all that fabulous to me on first glance, and it’s going to cause me some headaches lugging this thing to the airport.
Yesterday at WFC, I did actually manage to attend one panel. That panel was “How a Book Cover Is Chosen,” featuring my editor Lou Anders, my buddy John Picacio, the sagacious Irene Gallo, the venerable Tom Kidd, and the seemingly-nice-but-too-soft-spoken-to-actually-hear Jacob Weisman. Lou chose to single me out by asking me to stand up, calling me an “absolute genius,” and proceeding to tell the story behind the recovering of Infoquake to an audience of about 100. (In case you missed them, go check out the new Stephan Martiniere covers for Infoquake and MultiReal.) It was a little embarrassing, but hey, good publicity is good publicity.
I continue to be approached by strangers who loved Infoquake and are eagerly awaiting MultiReal. Someone else knew of me as “the super blogger” and another thanked me for my posts on DeepGenre. Made me feel not quite so sheepish as I felt sitting in the autographing party between my fellow SFNovelist Garth Nix and YA superstar Scott Westerfeld, both of whom had gobs of adoring fans hauling bags full of books for them to sign.
I also saw one of my favorite people on Earth, Nick Sagan, at the signing party, and will hopefully get a chance to hang out with him more. One of my other favorite people on Earth, Mary Robinette Kowal, finally showed up at the party for the Shimmer Pirate Issue (edited by pal John Joseph Adams). Going for the trifecta, yet another of my FPOE Matthew Jarpe was around to hang out with at the parties.
Meanwhile, I continue to enjoy any of the precious minutes I get to hang out with Interzone editor Jetse de Vries. My adoring fans Geri Diorio and Mark Edwards, who hold the distinction of being the first strangers I ever sold a signed copy of Infoquake to, were on hand to say They Knew Me When. And I finally got a chance to meet the legendary Hal Duncan, who was in his element (drunk, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, describing everything in sight with the adjective “fookin'”). Gordon van Gelder, Jeffrey Ford, and Richard Bowes were also on hand for that conversation. Also, John Adams introduced me to Fictionado writer Diana Sherman, and I would be obliged if someone would go shoot her dead before I fall head over heels for her. Just shoot her dead painlessly, please, and don’t tell her I sent you.
And now I head off for another day of schmoozin’ and boozin’ at WFC before I keel over from butter overload.