Wiscon 2004 Con Report

--< Part 3 >--

In case you've just stumbled upon this entry, I'm talking about our weekend at the Wiscon science fiction convention in Madison, Wisconsin. I covered the first three days in my previous entries, so if you haven't read them yet, you might want to take a look :)

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Day Four - Monday, May 31

We got up bright and early on Monday, had a quick breakfast using supplies gathered from the Con Suite, and checked out of the hotel. The checkout time was 11am, but we would've been in the middle of a panel then, hence the early checkout. I think the hotel may have made an exception for Wiscon guests, however.

We went to the first panel after dropping off our luggage in the car. The first panel was a set of readings, entitled Bright City, Dark City, No City. Readers on this panel were Tim Pratt, Rob Gates, Jay Lake, and Catherine Lundoff. I'm not sure of the order of the readings, but I think I can recall most of what was read. If you were there, correct me if I'm wrong :)

Tim Pratt read three stories or poems from his short story collection, Little Gods. These were The God of the Crossroads (this got a few laughs), My Night with Aphrodite (as did this), and The Heart, a Chambered Nautilus. I'll be reviewing this collection as soon as I'm done reading it!

Jay Lake read The Angel's Daughter (which is forthcoming in Realms of Fantasy), and a story from his new chapbook Green Grow the Rushes-Oh, entitled Eleven Went to Heaven. Both stories were highly entertaining and up to Jay's usual standard.

Catherine Lundoff read from a novel excerpt where various forms of death were personified, and one person in the story was taken away by an unexpected death. I'm not sure if this was meant as metaphor, or whether the metaphor was another layer of meaning in addition to the personification of death. I suspect the latter. Again, an entertaining reading.

Rob Gates read an excerpt from his story It *Is* Whether You Win Or Lose, which appears in the humourous anthology Bubbas of the Apocalypse. This was quite an amusing story, although we didn't get to find out the ending.

After the reading, I raced over to the Dealers room to pick up a signed copy of Matt Ruff's Tiptree Award winning novel, Set this House in Order, but found every copy had been cleared out! Apparently plenty of other people were keen on it after the award ceremony, and I missed my opportunity when I saw it on the tables the day before. I'll have to grab a copy from Amazon next week, at the same time I order the new Charlie Stross and Stephen King novels :)

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We headed upstairs for more breakfast snacks, then went back to the 2nd floor for the next reading. This one was appropriately titled The Link Between Bourbon and Scotch, and included readings by Christopher Rowe, Kelly D. Link, and Jim Munroe. Gavin Grant was supposed to read, but he was off sick, so Jim took his place. Christopher said he had a cold too, but he'd troop on regardless. Bravo :)

Jim read an intriguing novel excerpt, but I can't recall much about it now (anyone know what it was?). Christopher read two things (I think) : one of his UnCommonwealth stories (each one inspired by one of the counties that make up the Commonwealth of Kentucky), and a new one he'd just started a week or so ago (I think this is to be a new novel!). The new story had some obvious inspiration from his love of bike riding and I was eager for more! Hearing him read is quite an experience, too. Christopher has a great deal of expression in both voice and gestures, and it really makes you feel as if you are inside his stories.

Kelly had a funny new story about a guy named Soap and his "zombie contingency plan." I think it was an early draft because she skipped a few parts. When she got near the end and asked if she should read the final few pages, the audience was keen to hear the rest. I'm looking forward to seeing this one in print!

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Once the reading was over, I went back to the Dealers room and picked up the latest New York Review of Science Fiction (along with a discount subscription form) and Age of Wonders from David Hartwell's table, before heading off to the book signings.

We hung around outside the door to the SignOut event until most of the writers doing signings had gone inside. I got a couple of books signed, including the hardcover of Tim Pratt's Little Gods, and two of Jay Lake's books: Greetings from Lake Wu and Green Grow the Rushes-Oh. I have a feeling these two guys are going to be doing a lot more signings from now on :)

We said a few goodbyes, then sadly tromped off to the parking lot to head home. Unlike many interstate travellers, we didn't have much problem with weather on the way home (aside from some rain), but we were stuck on I90 in a traffic jam for about 45 minutes. A couple of cop cars screamed past along the shoulder, and sure enough, there had been a car accident up ahead.

When we got back home, we felt exhausted and ended up taking an afternoon nap. From the other journals I've read, it sounds like a lot of other people were very tired after the con, too :)

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No con report would be complete without a list of books obtained during the con. I picked up the following during Wiscon 2004:

Age of Wonders by David Hartwell
The New York Review of Science Fiction, June 2004
Meet me in the Moon Room by Ray Vukcevich
Dark Matter : A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (this one was a freebie!)
Polyphony 2
Polyphony 3
Leviathan 2
Leviathan 3
Flytrap issue#2
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet issue#14
Say... Why Aren't We Crying?
Electric Velocipede issue#6.

Hopefully I can finish reading all this before the next Wiscon...

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I may post some Wiscon photos if I can figure out a way through Shutterfly. I'll probably end up having to post a link to them, but if I can I'd like to incorporate them into an entry. Watch this space :)