I must say that the blog coverage of Worldcon was lame. It was mostly kvetching about standing in line or blogs filled with the awful letters OMG. (Anyone who uses omg in a blog entry should be shot.)
The link above and below is the only journalistic coverage that I found and even that is long on fluff and short on the actual cool stuff that I think might happen at a worldcon.
I saw the Hugo list and the only name that won for fiction that I recognized was Elizabeth Bear. I read one of her stories a while ago, but I can’t remember if I liked it or not.
The reactions to the Hugos were mostly people commenting on which Doctor Who won the TV show category. It goes without saying that no one actually read any of the nominated stories and novels, but everyone saw Dr. Who. Ah, the state of SF!. I was unhappy to learn that Stardust won the hugo for movie. After reading the book, I can’t believe that anyone could make that movie out what was written on the paper. The movie would have been much better if it had followed the book – but then I always say that.
When you go to the link and watch the video coverage, please watch the people wandering around in the background. I thought that I recognized people, but I can’t be sure. Was that J. Erwine?
Another thing about Worldcon was the sound quality at the main auditorium. I searched YouTube for video clips from Worldcon and they uniformly bad. Working with bands, I know that it is a pain to make the music and words audible, but it can be done if you try. The people on stage were nearly inaudible due to echo and poor placement of loudspeakers on all of the video clips that I saw. Next time, get a pro to set up the sound equipment.
Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction: “Denvention 3, the 2008 Worldcon.”
3 Comments
Michael Chabon’s novel won almost every award this year. And Connie Willis won for best novella. I’m sure you’ve heard of her…she’s won more hugos and nebulas than any other SF writer in history.
I looked on YouTube for videos, but I haven’t found any yet. I’m sure that a lot of writers who attended will be blogging over the next couple of days…once they recover. Walking around the Con today was like watching a zombie movie. I would imagine that John Scalzi and Jay Lake will have some great comments in the days to come…
I have not read either Chabon or Willis. I have read Sawyer, but that was a while ago – it was Terminal Experiment and it was terribly dated when I read it. Very imaginative, but it seemed more of a mainstream novel than SF.
I read Lake’s blog, but he seemed overwhelmed.
Scalzi must know everyone because he was mentioned on at least half of the blogs that I read.
I used to subscribe to Locus and they always had lots of pictures from the cons. I was surprised that there were hardly any pictures on the couple of dozen blogs that I read.
I was interested in Worldcon because I am still trying to figure if I would like to try Montreal. I am not an outgoing person and shy in social situations. I like to sit in the corner and watch. I don’t want to go all the way to Montreal and then regret the expense. The panels and klatches sound great. I am not sure I would totally enjoy the bacchanalian aspects, though.
If you want pictures, try this…http://www.flickr.com/photos/arwensouth/collections/72157606586226770/
A lot of them are kind of blurry, but there are well over 1000 pics there, so it might give you some idea. I’ll be posting the ones from my panel with Larry Niven as soon as I have a chance…