jon_chaisson | Worldcon Review I

For starters...

The flatness of SoCal from our hotel room. This is the only real view we had, becuase the Hilton was directly across the street! The convention center was up the street to the left, and Disney was about two blocks past the Hilton.

"Got any peanuts???" About the best picture I could get of Harlan Ellison. The man is insane, I tell you. And he cannot sit still.

Pix from the Dealer's Room/Arena
The dealer's room was QUITE BIG this year, though I was quite surprised in the small amount of money I'd spent there. The back half was the dealer's room itself, and the front half of the arena was devoted to props and artwork, and the collection was quite impressive. There were a lot of Star Trek items there (partly because this year marks the 40th anniversary, and a few of the Trek actors/actresses were there for talks and autographs).

I don't quite know why I was coveting this $5500 item so much. I haven't even read The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold. I don't even own it. But the idea behind having a box that contained:
--original handwritten synopsis notes
--complete handwriten first draft
--complete typewritten first draft
--typewritten draft, with editor's notes separate from draft
--complete typewritten final draft, with editor's notes on draft
--complete clean, non-edited draft
...just made me want to covet it all that much more. What's funny is this is exactly how I've been trying to keep all my works in progress as well as completed works...

Seeing it up close made me realized just how ugly a DeLorean really is...

There was a great robot lineup, including these two guys...

...and this dude...

...and this one, who's MUCH taller than I'd expected...

...and of course, Robbie!

Pix From the Hugo Awards Ceremony:
I do apologize that some of them might come out blurry. This is what I get for buying one of those cheapo cameras at WalMart with a low pixel count. We were a little too far to take pictures from our seats so I took pictures of the jumbotron screen. Came out good, actually. :)

A quick sneak shot of Harlan Ellison (standing) telling Anne McCaffrey (in wheelchair) a joke. Apparently she didn't find it all that funny... :p AM sat one row up and across the aisle from us.

A very blurry Robert Silverberg, most likely making fun of Connie Willis at this point...

A crowned John Scalzi winning the John Campbell award for Best New Writer...

Onstage shenanigans: Connie Willis, Harlan Ellison, duct tape, and a hammer. You figure it out. :p

(Harlan, or "Mr. Destructo" as the jumbotron title said, was up there to present Best Short Story. Quite possibly my favorite picture I took this weekend.)

Another Harlan Ellison shot. He's just been given a special award for all his years of work in the SF short story field. You can kind of tell he wasn't really expecting it and it may have taken the wind out of his sails a bit...

Robert Charles Wilson, winner of Best Novel for his book Spin.

Last but DEFINITELY not least...Ray Bradbury
I didn't get too many pictures of him, but I was honored by his presence, sat in on a bit of his talk (he'd come in late so I didn't get to hear most of it, as I had to zip back to my place in line for an autograph).

They wanted us to only ask for one autograph and keep the chat to a minimum, since he's in his late 80s and isn't in the best of health. I handed him a copy of Zen in the Art of Writing (an excellent book), and said one thing to him:
"Sir, I just want to say thank you for inspiring me to write when I was thirteen."
He looked up and gave me a big smile and said "Good luck."
That's all I needed to say to him, and I'm glad I was finally able to meet him, even for a fleeting moment.