Having a fine time at Archon! Yesterday started out with a reading – at one point I had as many as six people! Granted, one was an old friend and two were very young young ladies, a daughter of a friend of his and her friend, whom he had dragooned into coming along. Still.
I read the stuff I did at Bubonicon, feeling confident I wouldn’t have much audience overlap – confidence is good – meaning the sequence where our fugitive princess and her maidservant have to run the gamut of meat-eating dinosaurs dining on the carcass of a dead Brontosaurus, and a later, connected one starring another POV character, Shiraa, who’s an Allosaurus.
After the reading the young women told me they actually found Shiraa much more compelling than my human women – they identified with her, and I presume her deep devotion to her mother and longing to be reunited with her. (Her “mother” being the main character in my book, a dude named Karyl. It’s a long story. Very, very long.) I admitted Shiraa was all about girl power. About forty feet of girl power.
Still, valuable though that market research is, I have no plans to promote Shiraa to a leading role. Sorry.
Anyway, also did a small but rousing panel on Science Fiction becoming Fact with Archon 33 Toast Master Brad Denton and Jim Bakke, one of my oldest Archon acquaintances and an ex-Archon chair, who’s actually trained scientifically. That was fun.
Then off to Opening Ceremonies, where Brad, his wife Barb, and artist David Lee Anderson (another old Archon pal) (although he’d probably prefer “long-time”) gave us a wonderful multi-media experience, including live music by Brad and David and a slide show run by Barb.
Gotta mention, since Brad made sure to remind us all: couple weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised to read that Brad’s novel Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede is being made into a movie, starring Jon Heder of
Napoleon Dynamite fame. Fingers crossed that it really happens!
Plus I totally got to sit onstage with Peter Mayhew, and actually shook his hand. Chewwie! You can take a pro from fandom, but you can’t take the fanboy from the pro.
Mayhew had a light-saber walking stick, which I greatly admired. I mean, of course he would. Still.
Then it was off to an hour and a half dress rehearsing for the Masquerade tonight. There’s a lot of downtime for me, and I was able to get some rewriting done on the action/adventure novel. Which was good.
Without room parties being allowed (hiss! boo!) there wasn’t much to keep me out and about. Dropped by the VIP Suite Archon thoughtfully maintains for guests and panel participants to check in and eat a sandwich or two. Then I headed back to the room to rewrite more and sleep.
I slept fitfully, why I’m not sure. I feel reasonably rested. Had the overpriced breakfast buffet in the hotel over free but catch-as-catch can fare in VIP, which fulfilled the purpose of providing me protein. And coffee, yes. Both of which I deemed vital to a busy day.
Which is devoted to Masquerade activities entirely. Dress rehearsals all afternoon, then a break, and showtime!
Seeing a lot of old friends. They’d probably like “long time” better too. That’s one of the great joys of a con.
I’ll do more next year. I’ll make sure I have the means.
Anyway, I miss my crew and critters back in Burque, but it’s not detracting from a wonderful time! More later.
Popularity: 9% [?]
So close and yet so far. Oh well.
FMC (I think) aired “Die Hard” last night (Friday night, or really early Saturday morning, however you want to look at it), while “The Flesh Eaters” was on AMC; “Die Hard” won here, but it ended in time that I could switch to AMC and catch the last 15 of TFE. I’m torn between hoping you saw it too, and hoping you had something better to do…
Did a (one upon a time, weekly – now… not so much) yard sale hike today and came back with a blue ankylosaurid – probably a Tarchia (though cheap toys aren’t noted for their specific species accuracy).
Given the problems y’all are having with the hotels, I hope Archon is still around by the time I’ll be able to come to one again.
- M. \”/
The hotel buffet isn’t included in the room price anymore???
Nope. Another service-cutting move in a recession. When people are more reluctant and less able to spend on things like travel. Smart!
In the glory days of the inflation-fueled bubble screwing the customer was easy to get away with: money flowed so freely that there was no competitive pressure to serve the schmucks who actually bought what you sold. As long as you could inflate your stock prices, in part by cutting expenses related to actually providing value for the mark’s money, who cared? The customers could scarcely go elsewhere, since your “competitors” were probably doing the same thing.
So now it’s funny watching the moves the corporate types are making in a deflationary regime. Do people have less discretionary income, plus less willingness to spend what they have? Screw ‘em harder by cutting what you provide for those tightly-held dollars.
What the market provides for such wisdom is called bankruptcy. Unfortunately what the government tends to provide is Trillions-for-Failed-Billionaires in the name of “stimulus.” In the event real economics are allowed to function, it will be hugely amusing to watch the Doubletree execs who made decisions like removing the buffet from the room price (which I bet sure didn’t come down any!), not to mention kicking Archon with its many, many guaranteed room nights to the curb, face the music.
Sorry for straying into the political/economic realm. I usually try to avoid that kind of dirty talk in the blog. But I felt the above needed said. Especially since it runs directly contrary to what we’re being told by the Government-Corporate Complex faces who sold us the inflationary bubble economy in the first place.