On the road again: Boston, day 6; Arisia, day 4

I had the very first autographing session of the convention, so it seemed somehow fitting that I would be part of the last joint reading panel today. As you might expect from an event starting after noon on the day when most fans were checking out, no one showed up to hear me or Michael Ventrella read from our works. Staring at an empty reading room is always a bit rough on the ego, but it's happened to me before, and it'll happen again, so I'm reasonably used to it. In this case, it was nice to get to meet and chat with Michael, who as it turns out plans to interview me at some point for his blog.

The daylight hours before and after the reading largely went to work, as you might expect.

The evening brought a fine dinner at the always wonderful No. 9 Park. Most of the meal was excellent, as always. The two foie dishes were amazing, and the cheese course was the best of this trip. The dessert, however, was weak and not up to the rest of the meal. Still, No. 9 Park remains, for me, a must-eat place when in Boston.

More work awaits, then packing, and tomorrow morning is work, then travel home.

On the road again: Boston, day 5; Arisia, day 3

I passed most of the daytime in useless indulgence: more sleep by far than normal, reading, a bit of TV movie watching, and of course some work. Okay, the work part wasn't an indulgence, but I needed to do it.

Dinner again took us to Cambridge, this time for a meal at East by Northeast, whose chef, Phillip Tang, won Boston Magazine's 2010 Best Up-and-Coming Chef award. The menu accurately refers to the dishes as locally sourced and Chinese inspired. We sampled quite a few of the small plates--the whole menu is tapas-style--and enjoyed them all. None, however, blew us away. I wouldn't recommend a special trip just for this place, but if you're in town, it's worth a try.

Because the restaurant doesn't offer desserts and because we've wanted to try the place for some time, after dinner we walked the couple of short blocks to Christina's Homemade Ice Cream. With great ingredients, over fifty flavors available, and a growing national rep, this place was tailor-made for an ice cream lover like me. Sadly, though I enjoyed the flavors I tasted, none had that magic that so many of Jeni's ice creams provide. If I lived here, I'd eat Christina's sometimes, but more often, I'd mail-order Jeni's.

We rushed back from dinner for my 9:30 panel on the singularity and how SF writers should deal with it. This panel sat right in the middle of the other two I've done here, with the audience frequently trying to take over and the moderator gamely trying to wrest back control. We unfortunately had one audience member who knew everything and wanted to lecture on all of it, at one point talking for over ten straight minutes until the moderator finally was able to get him to surrender the floor. The discussion also wandered all over the place and never seemed to muster a clear focus, but most of the audience stayed and seemed to have a decent time.

More than any other convention I have attended, Arisia has many panels that end up blurring the line between audience and panel. Sometimes I think that is a horrible idea, and other times, it seems wisely democratic. Regardless of what I feel, however, if I'm going to keep being on programming at this con, I better get used to it.

On the road again: Boston, day 4; Arisia, day 2

My con activities today included two panels. The first, for which I was the moderator, was about truth being stranger than fiction. The audience, which grew to over three dozen folks, was into the topic, my fellow panelists were entertaining, and all involved seemed to have a good time.

The second panel focused on the uneven distribution of technologies, now and in the future, with a particular emphasis on the digital divide. The rather small room filled to SRO levels and beyond (some people were sitting on the floors at either end of the panelist table), everyone seemed very engaged in the topic, and I know quite a bit about the topic. Despite all the that, the panel very much did not work for me. I ended up shutting down and saying almost nothing, partly from frustration and partly because I was afraid of what I might say about some of the proceedings had I opened my mouth. I'm never sure whether it's better in such circumstances to go deadly quiet, which people do notice, or to turn into a complete asshole, but I almost inevitably choose as I did today and simply shut up.

Because I wanted to catch at least part of the con's masquerade, we headed to a rather late dinner at Hungry Mother in Cambridge. HM specializes in upscale, mostly locally sourced southern food, which is an odd combination to find around here. We sampled only smaller dishes, but all were at least good, and a few, notably the grits (from North Carolina's own Anson's Mill) with cheese and a bit of bacon were a perfect comfort food for a cold night.

I'm still puzzled about my reaction to that panel, and I probably will be for some time. I hope I do better on tomorrow's group discussion.

On the road again: Boston, day 3; Arisia, day 1

The Arisia convention began during the afternoon, but my daylight hours belonged to work. The work was interesting and important, but as usual, I can't discuss it. Some other time, I'll write an entry explaining why--but not now.

The late afternoon/early evening brought my autograph session, which officially started just as the dealers' room space, where I was to sign, opened for business. I don't expect many people to ask me to autograph books in the best of circumstances, and these were about as bad a set of arrangements as a con could have assigned me. I thus was not at all surprised to sign only one book; in fact, I was happy for that chance.

From there, we scooted to dinner at Menton, a fine new restaurant from the folks behind the wonderful No. 9 Park. I'd read good things about Menton and hoped it would live up to its hype.

It did. The service was very good, the dining room lovely and elegant, and, most importantly, every single dish was extremely tasty. A pleasant surprise was the bread, all three types of which were excellent.

Menton is now on my must-eat list for Boston.

After dinner, I worked, wandered the con a bit, and then took part in an eleven o'clock panel on balancing writing with your day job. We were opposite a huge panel on BDSM, so our audience was rather small. Still, its members outnumbered the panelists, so we pressed on. By the end, the audience seemed happy, we panelists had enjoyed ourselves, and all was well.

To end and for no particular reason, here are Shibori and Holden pining for the fjords some days ago.

A cool Arisia moment

I ducked into the con suite one afternoon to get a snack prior to settling down to eat. Sitting on the opposite side of the room, unaware I was there, a person was reading Slanted Jack. I had long wished to have the experience of seeing someone in a random public setting read one of my books, and in that moment, I got that wish.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I must note that the person who was reading was a friend, the lovely and talented costumer and dancer, Susan de Guardiola. (For her site with book and related info, go here.) To the best of my knowledge, however, she was simply reading the book.

So, did I handle this with a calm, quiet, authorial demeanor? Of course...not. I ran to my room, grabbed a spare copy of the Overthrowing Heaven hardback (which I had for use in the later Baen party; don't worry, I did have others), and signed it to her and presented it to her. I explained why I'd done that, and she noted that now if she reviewed any of my books, she'd have to disclose that I'd given her a free volume; I think that's only reasonable.

By the way, please don't think this trick will work again. I'd hate to go to a con and have everyone carrying copies of my books and reading them in public places, all in the hopes that I would reward them with free books, because I'd go broke doing so. Hmmm...if a whole con of people wanted to do it just once, however, and without any expectations, that would be okay. Nah, that would be past okay, even past peachy, all the way to awesome. Just a thought.

On the road again: Boston, day 6 - Arisia, day 4

Today was a work day in con clothing. I did at least get a moderate amount of sleep, which was a lovely treat. Some work followed, then a quick lunch at Trident, a little bookstore and cafe that I quite like.

From there I scurried back to the con and was a member of a panel on businesses and business ethics in the future. I'd hoped we would focus primarily on alternative ways to create businesses in the future, but instead we stayed nearer to the topic of ethics. The audience was small, 15 or so, but hardy and quite involved, so the discussion stayed lively throughout the hour.

After much more work came a delight: dinner at one of my favorite Boston restaurants, No. 9 Park. The meal was, as always there, excellent and is so far the best I've eaten this trip.

The con is winding down; only one dead dog party and the con suite remain open. I'm going to walk to clear my head, then turn my attention to writing. At this stage of a novel, I can never get enough writing time, because improving what's there is so much easier than throwing down the words the first time. Plus, it's cool to be reading the book, even though it's in rough shape and my edits are numerous and necessary. To it I go!

On the road again: Boston, day 5 - Arisia, day 3

Why does noon seem so early to me? Yes, that's a rhetorical question.

In any case, it came rather sooner today than I would have liked and found me on a panel on the mechanics of anthology construction. Gardner Dozois, the writer/editor guest of honor of the con, has edited dozens of anthologies. Another panelist, Cecelia Tan, has also created many, many of these volumes. My own experience in this area--all of co-editing two books and working on another now--rather pales by comparison, so I tried to limit my contributions and largely let the experts talk. The small audience of 14, which included multiple friends of the panelists, stayed interested and attentive, and they seemed happy at the end. Good enough by me.

Because I had so much to do today, we ate at the hotel restaurant. I ordered something I was sure would be safe: the appetizer beef nachos.

Alas, I was wrong.

First, what arrived was a platter piled with so many chips that I could have fed a dozen friends. Then, in a move that still puzzles me, all the cheese was melted on the bottom of the plate. The bottom. I imagine the kitchen conversation:

"Hey, how do you make nachos?"

"I dunno. Chips and cheese and meat and stuff."

"What goes where?"

"I dunno."

"How about I melt the cheese on the plate, then put the chips on top?"

"Sounds good to me."

They then added a small jar of sour cream and enough mediocre guacamole to completely fill a small teddy bear. (Don't blame me for that image; I'm reading Dexter By Design, the most recent Dexter book by Jeff Lindsay. Read it, and then the comparison will make sense.)

The result was exactly as tasty as you'd expect, which makes it all the more amazing that I ate a sizable portion of it.

The afternoon brought work, a delightful IM session with Sarah, and a frantic drive to a grocery store and some quickie marts to fetch supplies for the Baen party we later hosted.

Dinner was at Oishii, where last year we ate two of the very best meals of the trip. Each preparation we tasted was good, but not one dish was up to the norm of what they served us before. I'll hope the difference was due to us dining on a Sunday night and not a decline in the general level of the restaurant, but as with the other dinners on this trip, the food was good, even very good, but at no point great.

The late evening brought the Baen party, which I co-hosted. We had sweet snacks and many beverages and books and goodies to give away, and people came and ate and drank and took things. They also talked and visited, until the point well after two when we said the last goodbyes and finally shut down.

And now, to write some more!

On the road again: Boston, day 4 - Arisia, day 2

I fell into bed a little after five a.m., so my eleven-thirty wake-up came earlier than I would have liked. Still, by my normal lights over six hours of sleep is generous, so I didn't feel too bad.

What proved annoying was that the reason I got up, my reading, turned into a waste of time, because no one showed up. That's happened to me before and will happen again, but I do wish all no-show readings occurred in the middle of afternoons.

Lunch was a pair of lukewarm hot dogs from the cart in the hotel lobby. I love hot dogs, but these could have stood more time in the water or steamer. After that, we hit the art show, where Jain's work was the very best stuff by far, and then wandered through all the dealers. I signed a few books and saw a little interesting stuff, but nothing yelled at me to take it home.

After some work, I headed off to a panel on hard SF. Allen Steele did a good job of moderating it, I got to chat for a few minutes with Alex Jablokov, and a decent-size audience stayed the whole time, so I have to count it as a win.

More work, then off to the next panel, this one on machines augmenting people. All the panelists contributed, I was able to moderate reasonably, and the SRO crowd applauded at the end, so I was as happy with it as I tend to be with these discussions.

We checked out the masquerade, which was fun, and then headed to dinner at Eastern Standard with John Grace of Brilliance Audio. The conversation was lively and far-ranging, and the food was good (but never better than good), so I had a nice time.

A party is happening right outside my door, but I have speakers for my iPod, and work on my book is proceeding. To that work I go.

On the road again: Boston, day 3 - Arisia, day 1

The con officially began today, and so, of course, did my con-related duties. Work filled much of my day and late into the night, but scattered among the work hours were two panels and a tasty dinner.

The first panel, Trauma as Character Development, preceded dinner. Five of us discussed trauma from both personal and literary perspectives. The (admittedly too small) room was packed, with people leaning against the rear wall and many folks turning away after being unable to make it inside. The discussion never came together as well as I would have liked, but it was interesting and seemed to keep the audience fully engaged for the entire hour. At the end, one young woman came up and thanked me for a rather forceful statement I'd made about people with PTSD; what the statement meant to her was enough, all by itself, to make the entire trip worthwhile.

Dinner found us at Troquet, where we, of course, tried the tasting menu. In keeping with the norms for this trip so far, it was good but not great. Perhaps our standards have grown too high. Still, we quite enjoyed it, and one item was actually the best of its kind I have ever tasted: the small scoop of salty caramel ice cream. It was amazing, utterly perfect.

After some more work, I headed downstairs for my second panel of the evening: Tokyo's Media Shadow. I wasn't sure before entering the room if I had much to contribute, and afterward I was positive: I did not. All of five people showed up to watch the five-person panel, and a few of those in the audience came with the panelists. I don't know how it played from the house's perspective, but to me it was a train wreck of a panel that never came together in focus and that wallowed often in inaccuracy and stereotypes. I apologize to those five audience members for not contributing more, but after a bit I became concerned that if I were to speak, I might not be entirely polite or appropriate.

That said, I still must praise Arisia's programming folks for holding generally strong panels and its members for usually turning out in good numbers. The topic could have resulted in a solid or better discussion, but we panelists failed to deliver the goods.

And now, to write.

On the road again: Arisia, day 4

Arisia contains more adult-oriented programming than any other SF con of which I'm aware. From panels on the poly lifestyle to various kink discussions, the program provides a far wider range of topics than one typically finds at these affairs. I usually give these additional offerings a wide berth, but sometimes you can't help but encounter this side of the con, as in this handmade notice, which was hanging on the door of one of the vendors here.

It's the "and cake" that really makes this sign special.

In other news, it's been snowing off and on all day, and what began as beautiful (as in this photo of a hotel courtyard) turned into a hassle as we rode very slowly back to the hotel after dinner. Not that I'm complaining about the pace, mind you; I was quite pleased to have a cabbie who took seriously the very bad and more than a little dangerous weather.

The meal in question, by the way, proved to be quite a disappointment, as the chefs at L'Espalier, who had last year dazzled us with a wonderful tasting menu, this time managed to damage every dish they produced. Whether it was the foie gras, which they rendered tasteless via the application of too many Middle Eastern spices, or the scallop, which they so soaked in lemon juice that all you could taste was lemon, the beautiful ingredients inevitably vanished in the face of sub-par preparation. It'll take a great deal to persuade me to eat here when I next return to Boston.

On the road again: Arisia, day 2

The second treadmill from the end hates me. I learned this fact this morning the hard way: by trying to walk on it. No matter what I did, every minute or two it lowered the incline and slowed the pace. Then, it sucked all the power from a fully charged iPod. I gave up, moved to another treadmill, and finished the rest of my walk in peace.

An elevated, non-insulated, mostly glass-walled walkway connects the hotel and the gym, which sits atop the parking garage. It was about ten degrees outside. You do the math:

ten degrees + 1 walkway = my genitalia crawling into my body in search of warmth

Exercising here is big fun.

In other news, both our lunch and dinner servers decided we were insufficiently cool to warrant decent service, which made both meals less enjoyable than they could have been. We had lunch at Trident Booksellers & Cafe, a place we'd quite enjoyed last year. This time, our sandwiches were good, but the service, as I noted, sucked, and my potato and broccoli soup resembled nineteenth-century gruel overgrown with mold.

Dinner was at Pigalle, for which we had harbored high hopes. Instead, we ate a perfectly reasonable meal, one that less than a decade ago might have been among the best meals I'd ever tasted, but one that for its price and given the accolades its chef has received was simply adequate. The biggest sin of the meal was the complete lack of truffle in the supposedly truffled risotto. The one high point was the cannelloni stuffed with braised beef short rib confit, one of the best ways I've ever encountered to serve the rich meat of short ribs.

The con screwed me on the programming front, dropping my third panel at the last minute and so leaving me with only two. They told me not to worry about my membership, however; they'd take care of it. No such luck. I had to buy a full-price, at-the-door membership, which really sucked. So it goes.

My reading tonight initially drew three hardy fans I did not know but who had read my books. The crowd swelled considerably, however, as people arrived early to hear a porn reading. Fortunately, they stayed to listen to me, so maybe a few of them will give my books a try.

Ah, the glamorous life of the beginning SF author.

Travel day

Worked late, got less sleep than I wanted, and then resumed the cycle. Worked, worked out, showered, packed, ate, and then dove into the joys of modern airport travel. The lines were unpleasant but no more so than usual.

American Airlines gave me one piece of good news: its folks had found the glasses I'd left on the plane on the way to Boston, and they held them for me at Logan Airport. I was pleased to have them back.

The Admiral's Club failed me--me and many others--because we could never get full connectivity. So, no email for me, but much frustration.

The flight itself was bumpy but tolerable, though on a regional commuter jet so cramped I could not work on my notebook PC. Frustrating.

Family dinner was at Cinelli's tonight; that was fun.

It's after five in the morning, and I'm still working, so that tells you how it's gone.

I also had the pleasure of giving myself two allergy shots tonight. That's really overstating the hassle, however. Though I had a severe needle phobia when I began taking the allergy shots over five years ago, I'm long since over that problem. I can watch as I push the needles into my skin, and it simply doesn't bother me anymore.

Back to work for a bit more, and then I will finally crash.

Arisia report, day 3

A bit over six hours of sleep, a half hour on the recumbent exercise bicycle in the gym, a shower, and I was ready to face the world. Lunch was a pair of barely warm hot dogs from a cart in the hotel lobby. The world won that one.

We then went through the art show, which was typical of the similar exhibits at regional conventions of recent years: small, heavy on prints, and largely unimpressive.

A panel on Studio Ghibli sounded promising, with a tease that we'd get to see bits of Miyazaki's Earthsea, but the audience proved to know more than the panelists, and the video was almost entirely older films. Earthsea's credits ran, and then we had to leave the room. Quite disappointing.

We prowled the dealer's alley, which was basically most of the rooms on the third floor, but found nothing we wanted to buy.

After work in the room, we joined the long line for the masquerade. The show was on par with regional con standards, but it also struck me as more proof that the days of costuming as a widely held interest in fandom are sadly behind us.

Dinner was at O Ya, a restaurant without a Web site. A fusion of sushi, tapas, and a wide variety of non-traditional ingredients resulted in a delightful meal. High points included the foie gras presented as nigiri, the tuna, and some thin, melt-in-your-mouth Wagyu beef slices seared ever so delicately. A meal at O Ya can, depending on the number of courses you choose, be insanely expensive, but in this case the cost was proportionate to the food joy.

And now writing beckons, so to it I go.

Arisia report, day 1

After a not very refreshing two hours and forty-five minutes of sleep, I rolled out of bed, trimmed my beard, showered, and headed to the airport for the delight that is air travel in America today. Everyone was quite kind, though the sheer quantity of electronics in my briefcase caused the nice TSA folks to swab many different parts of it. In the Admiral's Club I enjoyed a bagel I'd purchased earlier and caught up on email, courtesy of their now-free-to-members bandwidth.

The flight was on a commuter jet and uneventful. I dozed a tiny bit, read, and tried to keep my water from spilling during the bumpier bits of the descent. I carry an older pair of glasses for use on the plane, because I've lost glasses on planes before. Well, I did it again. I am dropping too many stitches--and I'm now out of spare glasses.

The con hotel is a pleasant Hyatt, though like most of its type (maybe all) it has the poor taste to be a Pepsi products establishment. The room is the usual adequate con hotel room, though the wireless is better than normal and the cell phone service in my room far worse--non-existent, in fact. I must make calls from the lobby. The only upside is that while doing so I ran into and chatted briefly with multiple fan friends.

We had lunch at the very nice Trident bookstore/cafe, then strolled Newbury Street for a bit before stopping in a quickie mart to load up on Diet Coke and water and then cabbing back to the hotel.

The early evening brought the gift of a lovely hour and a half with Dave Seeley, whose work I like and who did the cover painting for Transhuman, which as the link shows you can now order, and Rick Berry, whom I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time. I've long admired Rick's work; maybe someday I'll be able to afford it. I hope to be able to spend more time chatting with these two in the future.

Dinner was a tasting menu at Clio. Had this been my first tasting menu and my first top-drawer restaurant, the meal might have blown me away with its greatness. Instead, I found it overall a disappointment. The place charges prices comparable to the top-tier places, so it should provide food as good as theirs. Though the courses were indeed quite tasty, they were often a bit overwrought and frequently missed the mark by using one ingredient that overwhelmed the rest. A perfect small scallop, for example, sat in a shell in a pool of cranberry juice. Both the scallop and the juice were tasty, but eaten together the juice masked the flavor of the scallop. (I had two, so having learned my lesson with the first, I drank the juice of the second and then ate its scallop.) A perfectly seared piece of foie gras vanished in the face of the hot pepper shavings on the plate with it; I made that mistake only once. And so on. I recommend the place overall, but I would not again pop for the price of the tasting menu.

The rest of the night has been all work. To that I now return.

The night before a trip

is always a nightmare for me unless I don't have to leave the house until 2:00 p.m. or later. Well, I have to get up at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning to shower, dress, and head to the airport, so tonight is indeed not good. I have yet to write, finish a fairly large chunk of PT work, pack, and so on, so I will keep this short.

Once I'm conscious and ready to go, the morning's next obstacle promises to be the weather, which is threatening to be sleet. Lovely. If you've never been in a North Carolina ice storm, you have no idea what you're missing. Be thankful.

Once I make it to Boston, however, I'm hoping to have a good time at Arisia, a con I've enjoyed in the past. Maybe Larry Smith will even have One Jump Ahead for sale (unlike at PhilCon); hope springs eternal in an author's heart. If you're going to the con and would like to chat, feel free to find me. I should be easy to spot, at least on the days I have panels.