On the road again: Denvention, day 7 - travel and home

Today passed in a blur of work, travel, work, and travel. I reached home after 11:00 p.m., which was not much later than I'd expected. So, I really have nothing to complain about.

Days like this are usually boring, but every now and again they grant you a fun story. Mine came today in the men's restroom at RDU, our local airport. I was minding my business (and doing it) at an end urinal when a very tall, thin, blond man walked in and stood at the urinal to the immediate right of mine. That in itself was odd, because we were the only two men there, and standard male restroom etiquette is to take every other urinal. Little did I realize that the truly odd part was yet to come.

The man glanced down at me, then looked ahead and said in a loud, clear voice, "I don't know how to handle that."

I have to tell you, that's not what you want to hear in a restroom from another man. (Okay, if you favor men, maybe you want to hear that, but that's not my preference.)

I did the only thing one could reasonably do: stared straight ahead and tried to finish my business faster.

The man then said, "Really, I don't know what to do with that."

At that point, I finished, zipped, and noticed as I was leaving, as you have probably already surmised, that he was wearing a cell-phone earpiece on his right ear, the one I could not see.

Normally, I'd not be one to criticize about this practice; I've been known to talk on a mobile phone in the bathroom when alone. I have to say, however, that this goes too far. Mobile phone etiquette should include not talking in such situations, or at the very least choosing your words more carefully.

On the road again: Denvention, day 3 - con stuff

I slept late and actually got a passable amount of slumber; six or eight months of this level of sleep, and I might begin to feel rested. Today will be the last full-sleep day, however, so no worries on that front.

After work, exercise, and more work, we headed to Rioja for lunch. The meal--we shared a bunch of appetizers--was fabulous and featured the single richest pasta dish I've ever tasted, their saffron fettuccine. Suffice to say that I ate half of an appetizer portion, and despite my status as a semi-professional eater, I don't think I could have finished an entree portion.

From there we rode the convenient and free Denver sixteenth street shuttle to the Sheraton for the Rising Stars reception. Though at some level it was the exercise in humiliation I had feared--new writers, one to a table, each staring soulfully into space in the hopes that someone would come by to chat--it was also, to my surprise, generally okay. I never had a moment without at least one visitor, I signed a few books, and I had quite a few pleasant and interesting conversations.

From there we hoofed it to the convention center and prowled the dealer's room. I signed books for booksellers who wanted me to do so, and all said my books were moving well--words to warm a writer's heart. I visited with some friends, then headed back to the room to work.

Dinner this evening was a Baen gathering that Toni Weisskopf, the Publisher, hosted at the Highland's Garden Cafe for the con's guest of honor, Lois McMaster Bujold, and multiple other Baen writers, editors, and friends. I had the chance to meet and chat with Rome Quezada, the editor of the Science Fiction Book Club and a fun and interesting man. The setting (an old Victorian house), the food, and the company were all good, and as near as I could tell everyone at the table had a good time.

After the cab ride back to the hotel, everyone headed out for the parties. Well, almost everyone: I'm writing this, and then I will work on Overthrowing Heaven. It's what I do.

Today was the light day. Tomorrow, it starts to get busy.

On the road again: Denvention, day 1 - the rest of the day

Ah, the optimism of my morning post. Our delay became shorter only for a brief time, because somehow American and the crew for our flight failed to connect, so a plane's worth of people stood around and waited for the crew to show up from the Raleigh hotel where they were staying. That wait made us an extra hour late, so we landed shortly after our flight to Denver took off. It was a lovely morning.

Fortunately, I'm both lifetime platinum with American and a member of the Admiral's Club, so I got the benefit of a very competent woman who worked for the better part of an hour finding ways to get us to Denver. She ultimately managed to get us on the next flight, which was as good an answer as we could have hoped for. Of course, waiting there ate work time, so I'm just now winding down, and I am bushed.

The rest of the trip was blissfully uneventful, though I do hate the fact that it takes almost as long to taxi to the terminal in Denver and to get from the terminal to your baggage as in Dallas or Chicago.

Quite a few foodie sources we checked declared Denver a culinary wasteland, but we found some advocates and some promising places. Tonight, we ate dinner at one of them, Restaurant Kevin Taylor, and I'm sorry to report that neither the meal nor the service lived up to the price we paid. The venison was the star of the seven-course, assemble-it-yourself tasting menu, and the floor captain was a welcome bundle of overly nice energy, but overall the experience was not up to similarly priced competition nationally.

Still, it's hard to complain about your life when you're staying in a nice hotel, ate a glutton's meal of way better than average service, and have jobs that let you work indoors. I like to keep that perspective in mind.

On the road again: Denvention, day 1

Two hours and forty-five minutes after I crawled into bed, I awoke screaming through clenched teeth due to a massive cramp in my left calf muscle. I'd awakened once previously from a nervous dream, gone to the bathroom, and buried myself again under the covers.

To say that I don't handle early wake-ups before trips well is obviously to commit quite an understatement.

We hit the airport on time, which proved to be useless due to the massive weather delays in O'Hare. The American Airlines folks were on top of their game, however, having left messages at both the phone numbers they had for me; in my early morning stupidity, I had forgotten to check them.

Fortunately, the delays shortened, we're now only an hour behind schedule, and we have a shot at making our original connection.

Not a great start to the trip, but I've had worse. Still, I am hoping the day will improve.

Perhaps more later today.

Heading out

Tonight will be insane: writing, packing, paying bills, family time, work, and so on. The nights before trips are always crazy. Worse, tomorrow I have to get up at what for me is a sad hour--about seven o'clock--and head to the airport a bit before eight. When I have to awaken early, I never sleep well, probably for fear I'll miss my flights. The good news is that if all goes well, I'll be in Denver by late afternoon local time.

If you're going to the Worldcon, I should be easy to find. In addition to the panel's I'm doing, I've also been invited to the Rising Stars reception and will attend it, and I'll be in the audience or helping at the Baen slide show. And, I'll hit a bunch of the parties, go to the masquerade and the Hugos, and so on. Feel free to come up and say hi, have me sign a book, or whatever. (Okay, maybe not any whatever, but most reasonable whatevers one might do in a public place with strangers.)

My Hugo rant: vote or don't complain

The Hugo awards, on the off chance that you don't know them, are science fiction fandom's version of the People's Choice awards: recognition by the fans who attend the annual World Science Fiction Convention of the best SF works in a variety of categories. The heart of the Hugo awards, at least as far as this fiction writer is concerned, are the big four categories:

* Novel
* Novella
* Novelette
* Short Story

Hardcore SF fans debate Hugo winners endlessly. SF writers, even the most famous and recognized, cherish the awards. (I obviously do; see my previous blog entry for my 2008 self-pimpage.) Many readers look twice at any book or author with "Hugo Award Winner" next to his or her name. I've heard literally hundreds of fans griping about why their favorite writers or books never win.

Yet very, very few fans participate.

It drives me crazy.

Expense shouldn't be stopping them. Here's all it costs to participate:

1) A little money. Be an attending or supporting member of the coming year's World SF Con. This year, the con is Denvention 3 in, where else, Denver. You can join here. An attending membership is pricey ($200) at this late stage, but you can buy a supporting membership for only $50. So, for fifty smackers you can help shape the awards. You must, however, have your membership before January 31, 2008, so you have less than a month left to join.

2) A little time before the end of February. By mailing in the paper form that they'll send you (I got mine yesterday) or that you can download, or by using the online form here, you nominate the works you consider award-worthy. You just have to do so before midnight Pacific time on March 1, 2008.

3) Another small bit of time before the first of August. When the nominees are settled--the good folks at Denvention will let you know--vote for the ones you want to win.

That's it: fifty bucks, and maybe two fifteen-minute chunks of your time, and you can shape the Hugo awards.

Yet, again, very, very few fans do.

How few?

Here, courtesy of the Web Weasel's research in Locus and a few online sites, are the minimum and maximum number of nominations for each of the big four fiction categories for the last three WorldCons:





(Sorry if that's a bit hard to read; I don't have time to fight more with the sizing options.)

To give you an example of how low participation is, to make the Hugo ballot for Best Novel in the most hotly contested awards of the last three years--those at LAcon--you would have needed only 46 nominations. To make the ballot for Best Short Story, 19 would have done it in any of the past three years.

These are sad figures indeed.

So, let's change it.

If you care about SF and you want the Hugo awards to represent the choice of a broad range of SF fans--including you, spend your fifty bucks, nominate, vote, and hope your favorites win.

To make sure we're clear that this is not about me campaigning, let me address the obvious questions. Would I like to be on the ballot? Sure. To win? Of course. But neither of those dreams is the point of this post.

What I want is to know that the Hugo winners reflect the taste of a large base of passionate readers.

Let's do it.