Matt Jarpe Archives » David Louis Edelman

Alas, all the late night boozin’ and schmoozin’ has caught up with me. I’m sick. As a dog is sick, so I, too, am sick. So I will complete my report here of the goings-on at World Fantasy by summarizing the last two days of the con. Even through my illness I do this for you, the people that read my blog, because I care about you all so much.

The highlights:

Scott Edelman and I bumped into each other several times and shared a plane flight home. As you can see by the photo on the right, the meeting didn’t go so well. (You can see more of Scott’s photos from WFC 2007 on his Flickr photo set.)
I had a long, rambling conversation with the inimitable Hal Duncan, beginning as a summary of his next work, continuing on to a discussion about the subtext of the Epic of Gilgamesh, moving on to Joseph Campbell and primitive mythology, and concluding with the psychology of the animal kingdom. Fookin’ great guy, that Hal Duncan.
Matt Jarpe and I came up with the brilliant idea of Photoshopping authentic photos so they look like they’ve been badly Photoshopped. He’s going to try to track down a photo of him and George R.R. Martin taken the other night, and make it look like he’s Photoshopped himself into it. Personally, I think we may have started a whole new art form, and I can’t wait to get started myself. (Who knows — perhaps Robert Stanek got there ahead of us?)
I finally met Patrick Nielsen Hayden, one of the editors at Tor! Patrick said that he didn’t recognize me without my hat, and that he reads my LiveJournal, and that he’s amused about how I boldface the important phrases in my blog posts, just like a Spider-Man comic book. (Eat yer heart out, PNH. ‘Nuff said!)
My reading of chapter 2 from MultiReal went off swimmingly, despite my horribly sore throat and need to sip water every four seconds. Nick Sagan praised my “excellent word choices,” and Paul Cornell continued to call me his “favorite current SF writer” (which hopefully he also repeats when I’m not in the room).
At the very classy party put on by UK publishers Orbit, I got a chance to meet the fabulous Scott Lynch (he of The Lies of Locke Lamora). I also had plenty of opportunity to act like a big shot and pretend like I know how to promote books online in conversations with Jon Armstrong (whose Grey came out from Night Shade this year), soon-to-be-published author Daryl Gregory, and also soon-to-be-published author David J. Williams.
Guest of Honor Kim Newman, Paul Cornell, and I had a great time poring over the SFWriter.com newsletter and catching up on all the Robert Sawyer news fit for Robert Sawyer to print.

As many of you know, this is my first go-round on the SF con circuit. So I’m finding it interesting how cons seem to have their own personalities based on some mash-up of the surrounding environment, the personalities of the organizers, and the guest list.

Capclave 2006 Flyer By this standard, Capclave 2006 might be your kooky uncle who’s continually rushing around in a frenzy of activity. He’s a blast to hang out with, he’s smart as hell, and he can teach you a thing or two about Standing Up to The Man. But when he drops you back home at the end of the day, you can’t help thinking to yourself, “How can anyone live like that?”

It’s now evening on Sunday October 22, Capclave has officially come to a close, and any minute now I expect them to finally lock down a schedule for the weekend. Because there certainly wasn’t a definitive one available on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Events were constantly changing rooms, panels were added and subtracted, new people were appearing left and right, and the hallways were full of quickly taped-up signs of schedule changes. Programming manager Elaine Brennan could be seen rushing to and fro throughout the whole weekend, bravely and nobly jousting against the confusion.

Add to that the fact that the Hilton Silver Spring is not a well designed hotel, to put it charitably. There are two separate banks of elevators that go to different floors. The lobby is minuscule, and the bar is almost impossible to find. The hallways are narrow, the meeting spaces are strangely configured, and when you open some doors they block off the little gold plates with the room names on them. I got the impression from various overheard comments that the hotel kept fucking around with the Capclave people and altering the particulars of their agreement. (The Hilton in ominous, James Earl Jones basso profundo: “Perhaps you think you’re being treated… unfairly?”)

One could easily imagine taking this chaos in stride at a con where everyone was wearing Spock ears or gladiator costumes. But the Capclave programming was fairly high-minded, with panels on The Evolution of Artificial Intelligence, Global Warming, and Sling-Shot Endings in Fiction.

But for me, the programming side of things turned out to be a bit of a wash.

I received my panel assignments via e-mail on Thursday. I wasn’t listed in the program booklet for any of the three panels I’d been assigned to, and one of the panels I was supposed to appear on wasn’t listed in the booklet either. My reading (like everyone’s) was in a small room on the 12th floor that wasn’t listed in the program booklet. I had no idea I was scheduled to do a signing until I happened to wander past a table in the dealer’s room and see my name on it. When I arrived at one of my panels, my co-panelist apparently had no idea I was supposed to be there and had already begun a prepared 40-minute Powerpoint presentation, with handouts. Another of my panels was canceled because the hotel yanked away a block of rooms at the last minute.

Other than that? I had a great time. Programming is nice and all, but really I go to these conventions to shake hands, pass out Infoquake-related freebies, and attend the parties. The Saturday night formal, in particular, was a schmoozefest of the highest order.

So here are some of the people-related highlights of my Capclave experience:

World Fantasy Convention 2007, Days 3-4

Capclave 2006 Wrapup