64th Annual Worldcon

I just got back from Worldcon today and I'm incredibly glad I went. I had a great time as a collector and a fan. My fan report is posted in my LJ.

For my official con experience, I spent most of it in lines to get books signed. Over the course of Friday through Sunday I managed to get books signed by the following.

George R.R. Martin
Ray Bradbury
Anne McAffrey
Joe Halderman
Robert Charles Wilson
P.C. Hodgell
Larry Niven
Tim Powers
Barbara Hambly
Glen Cook
Vernor Vinge

I also neglected to bring A Shadow in Summer and River of Gods but Daniel Abraham and Ian MacDonald were gracious enough to sign bookplates for me.

Due to all the queuing, I missed all of GRRM's panels. The only other official events I went to were the BwB's Human Chess Match between Martin and Abraham, in which I was a participant, the Hugo Awards ceremony, and Ray Bradbury "Himself".

I picked up a few Books in the Dealers Room. I bought the first Black Company book from Glen Cook himself. I also picked up a trade edition of Dhalgren by Delany. Finally I hadn't gotten around to Reading Spin yet, and I was going to pick up a copy for Wilson to sign, but after it won Hugo, all the dealers seemed to sell out of that book. Instead I picked up a short story collection of his to have him sign.

I will write up a Hugo awards report later.

Fevre Dream

Imagine if Mark Twain had written a vampire novel, and you've got Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin. The novel follows the story of Captain Abner Marsh and his dream of having the grandest steamboat on the mighty Mississippi. Unfortunately his dream has been shatter thanks to a hard winter destroying his fleet. Captain Marsh is thrown a lifeline, however, when a mysterious and eccentric benefactor named Joshua York offers to build him the ship of his dreams.

Marsh of course accepts and they begin their maiden voyage. But once on the river York's eccentricities begin to rouse suspicions. Why does he only appear at night? What is up with his equally odd friends. Why does he leave the ship for days at a time, only to return with blood stains on his hands.

Martin deftly weaves a tale that grows more engrossing the further I read. Not all is as it appears to be, and the amalgam he has created, between Life on the Mississippi, and Dracula was certainly interesting. He leads you to what you think is the climax of the story several times, before finally wrapping the story very satisfactorily.

I liked the book, and Martin is my favorite author. I'm a huge fan of A Song of Ice and Fire, and I'm slowing getting around to reading his earlier works. While not up to the level of the other Martin novels I've read, Fevre Dream is definitely worth picking up.

7.5 out of 10

New Scott Lynch Message Board

The inesteemable OsRavan has started a message board dedicated to Author Scott Lynch.

Check it out HERE.

Books and Food

I read the following post on Steven Brust's LJ. I found it to be a pretty good metaphor.

"I spent a delightful morning hanging out with Niel Gaiman, and, as usual, we talked about Stuff. If the following makes you go, "Splendid! Brilliant! Insightful!" then Niel gets the credit, because it was his metaphor. On the other hand, if it makes you go, "Lame! Stupid! Strained!" then blame me, because I stretched it to the breaking point.

Books can be broken down into four classes: popcorn, steak, caviar, and celery.

Popcorn is pretty obvious. Anyone here enjoy The Destroyer novels by Sapir and Murphy as much as me? gobble gobble gobble Steak is the stuff you can bite into, chew, swallow, and gain sustenance from. Some of us use spices on our steak, or do interesting things with it by stir-frying it, adding ginger and various vegetables, and so on. In my case, paprika. But at the end of the day, it is steak. Niel writes particularly good steak--range fed, the spicing is different every time, always delectable, and some of it obviously comes from places where cattle are not indigenous, making you go, "Wow. How did they ever think of doing that?" as you go for the next bite.

Gene Wolfe and John M. "Mike" Ford write caviar. It is a lot of work to get to. You have to open the can, you have to make sure the refrigeration is exactly perfect. You have to have the right atmosphere, and you have to approach it with the proper reverence if you're going to get anything out of the experience. But if you do, my god, is it worth it!

Celery is that stuff you have to chew and chew and chew and, by the time you're done, you've gotten even less nutritional value from than the popcorn. I won't name any names.

Some turn up their noses at popcorn. Well, that's okay. Just don't bring 'em to a ball game. Most of us like steak, in one form or another. Some object to caviar because they have just never got into the glories of eating--into food that is worth the work. For them, the payoff just isn't there.

The interesting thing, to me, is that there really are people out there who like the celery because it is so hard to chew, and the fact that there's nothing of substance there doesn't bother them.

Okay, so, probably not as deep as I'm making it sound. But fun to think about."

Magic for Beginners

Short Fiction is something I've not read much of. For most of my life the majority of what I read was Epic fantasy, big heavy multi-volume works. As a result, I've missed out on a whole lot of great writing. While good epic fantasy is still my favorite, I've been trying to expand my horizons, and I thought a great place to start would be with Kelly Link. The fact that she will be appearing at Dreamhaven on Thursday probably lead me to pull her book of the shelf ahead of other worthy canidates, like Jeff Ford or Ted Chaing. I will get to them eventually though.

Magic for Beginners, is a collection of 9 stories. Having never read Link I went in not knowing what to expect. The first story, The Faery Handbag, was a winner for me. Odd and quirky are the first two words that spring to mind when I try and describe this story, and come to find out the rest of the stories make this one seem pretty normal. In this story a young woman searches for her grandmother's magical handbag, that contains a realm in which time runs at a fraction of the speed of our world.

The Hortlak, details the goings on of a 24 hour convenience store. Its sort of reminded me of Clerks meets Shawn of the Dead.

The Cannon, was the shortest story and I didn't care for it. Link has a very stream of consciousness style of writing. Sometimes its brilliant, other times, its just too disjointed and out there for my taste.

Stone Animals, had a very horror feel to me. While not a scary story really, I felt very disturbed at times while reading this.

Catskin, was like a Grim Brothers' fairy tail on acid. While reading many of the stories, I found myself baffled as to how someone thinks of stuff like this.

Some Zombie Contingency Plans, was my favorite story, not only does it have an awesome title, but it was the most realistic of the stories. I felt more connection to Soap than to anyone else in these stories.

The Great Divorce, is a story about a man and his dead wife. She was dead when they were married. People occasionally marry ghosts. This of course can be problematic.

Magic for Beginners, seems to be a favorite to take the Hugo for Novella this year. I can see why. This was a great story. How Link manages to craft a world within a world in such a short amount of space is amazing. The story centers around a group of teens and their love of the cult show The Library. The ideas she presents here are mesmerizing. I marvel at how her mind works.

Lull, was a bit anticlimactic after the wonderful title story. This story was again rather meta. Stories within stories.

As a whole I like the collection. Odd, weird, strange, and beautiful. I fully intend to read more by Link , and read more short fiction.

8 out of 10