I’m in Montréal, a beautiful city (at least what I’ve seen of it) for Worldcon, the 67th World Science Fiction Convention.
I travelled up by train on Wednesday; a 12 hour trip through the beautiful Adirondacks, punctuated by a spectacular vista of Lake Champlain as we approached the Canadian border (where we waited for about an hour while the train was processed). I think I’m in love with travel by train.
I arrived in Montréal at night, and proceeded to check into my room. Hotel drama ensued, and I was fortunate enough to be in a position to help someone out. An upshot was waking up this morning and discovering the much celebrated Campbell Tiara sitting on the room table, awaiting its day at the con. Unexpected and cool.
I’ve spent much of the time here catching up on some work which absolutely could not wait, cavorting around with people I don’t get to see often enough in NYC (like John Joseph Adams and Eric Raab), connecting with friends I haven’t seen since a few cons ago (like Toby Buckell), and meeting some of my internet acquaintances for the first time in real life (like Mur Lafferty and Lou Anders), so I’ve yet to go to too many panels (one exception: the phenomenally fascinating conversation between Nobel Laureate economist and SF fan Paul Krugman and Charlie Stross, one of my favourite SF authors). As luck would have it, the bar in the lobby of my hotel has become the “official bar” of the con, so convenience is on my side.
Today I had a great breakfast with some Tor.com-related peeps: Cory Doctorow, Mur Lafferty, Jo Walton and her son Sasha, Toby Buckell and his wife Emily (along with their newly-born twins!), John Picacio, and Mary Robinette Kowal. We had a fine and leisurely breakfast; I’m glad they could all make it. The rest of the day will be full of prep. I’m on a panel on Graphic Design at 2PM, along with John Picacio, Lou Anders, and others. After that I need to go check into the hotel where we’ve taken out a room for tonight’s Tor.com party, for which I brought my Xbox and my Rock Band setup—tonight, we rock! Also, must buy booze.
Hopefully I’ll get to enjoy ore of the con once all this has died down, and I’m able to just go to panels and write about them for Tor.com and conreporter.com.