Views from Medina Road

Busy day today in Boston, beginning with the annual Locus Foundation meeting, required by the details of Locus' legal status as an entity that would survive any 'calamitous circumstance' that might befall Charles N. Brown; board members include CNB, Connie Willis, Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Strahan, and me, to name only those who were in attendance in CNB's suite this morning. (Others are Gary Wolfe, Peter Straub, Kirsten Gong-Wong, and Jennifer Hall.) As usual, various issues about Locus' financial straits and potential mechanisms for expanding its 'brand', issues that have not really changed over the past 2 or 3 years, were discussed without actually resolving to do anything about them; the business world concept of assigning action items with specific due dates is not one that comes readily to this group.

The Locus Awards were presented officially to the winners and publishers in a ceremony officiated by the hard-working and ever-entertaining Connie Willis, who updated her 'history of Locus' routine, with mock-ups of archaeologically unearthed Locus issue cover images, covering everything from recent topic "Editors -- Are They Aliens?" to the ancient "Adam and Eve" earliest issue. Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, and Cory Doctorow gave the most elaborate and interesting acceptance speeches; see Cheryl Morgan's blog for description.

The awards presentation was followed by a champagne reception, again in CNB's suite, for winners and associated hangers-on, where I chatted with the intimidatingly technologically up-to-date Cory Doctorow (who suffered the misfortune of having his name accidentally mispronounced by Ms Willis during the awards presentation), Connie herself on recent movies and the way they screw up the classical concept of tragedy; and met the Chinese delegation from Science Fiction World, said to be the largest circulation SF magazine in the world.

Later, I taxied out to the New England Aquarium at the Wharf with Marina Fitch to attend the party thrown by Eos, who always manages to host events at interesting off-convention-site locations, where I noshed on cheese and crackers and sushi rolls, chatting with Jeffrey Ford and Karen Haber and David Marusek and many others, while watching squids undulate in their tanks.

Then, back to the Sheraton hotel, the party hotel, for a tour of the evening parties, including Tor's top-floor suite bash, opening early to the 'professional' crowd before the later public crowd, where there were additional cold cuts and raw vegetables to nibble, not to mention sodas and wine, while chatting with Rob and Paul and David and Kevin. Today I achieved what must be a special goal for the fuzzy semi-professional crowd of which I seem to be a part: I nibbled my way through the entire day, from meeting to reception to party after party, without ever paying for a meal (or having anyone explicitly paying for me). That's how conventions work sometimes. I have to save money to pay for this new laptop somehow...