Readercon Thoughts

I was going to post a "what I did at Readercon" round-up, but Readercon depressed the hell out of me, so I didn't feel up to it. So here, far too late and several dollars short, are some random short thoughts so I can get rid of this draft post.

I wasn't on program, which was understandable but annoying.

I had a couple of too-brief conversations with Michael Burstein about this blog; he wanted to take issue with some of my opinions and at first was worried that I'd be very argumentative. In case anyone else thinks that, let me say that I see the role of a blog of opinion -- a good one, at least -- as the equivalent of a polemic pamphlet. Opinions should be strongly argued, but not necessarily as strongly held. Blogging is as much entertainment as it is anything else, so arguments should be interesting as well as substantive. So I'm probably not as dogmatic in person as I am in print.

I also spent the con in something of a funk; there were fewer publishing people than last year (my first time at Readercon), and that was one major reason I went. I can't make it to Worldcon or World Fantasy this year, and I wanted to catch up with the people I know in the business. If that's what Readercon is usually like, I think I'll drop it next year -- Kirk Polland alone isn't worth a weekend.

I spent far more time at a mall than I expected on a convention weekend. I also managed not to find anyone to eat dinner with two days in a row, which contributed to the feeling that I didn't belong at Readercon in the first place. (Bad time management had something to do with this, I'm sure.)

I did enjoy talking shop with a couple of people, notably Sean Wallace, and chatting about BookScan (the Nielsen book-sales meter, not my former employer of a similar name) with several people. And Sarah Monette's talk on her schema for different kind of reality was a really fascinating bit of critical category-making. But I don't remember much else from programming, or the rest of the con.

So it was a five hour drive, each way, to eat fast food alone and do maybe two hours of talking. Not a good use of my time, in the end.