WorldCon Day 3

Bugs from the Night Bazaar/Night Shade Books party.

Woke up at 5:30 for no reason, again, and at a more reasonable hour went with roommate to eat breakfast at the Corner Bakery Cafe. Breakfast was spoiled by the fact that they put the calories of everything on the menu, so did not order the 1400plus calorie french toast. What we did have was really good, though, and we sat outside again and looked at pretty buildings.

Did the art show again that morning. Oh, and I wanted to talk about the exhibit hall, which had a space flight display, a set of video games, and a set of these special video booth/virtual reality things where you get in and play a game where you're like a transformer or giant robot. I didn't do it so my knowledge of it is vague. Also, one of the neatest things was a collection of hand-painted globes depicting various SF worlds.

My first panel was Female Villains at noon, and we basically came to the conclusion that a good female villain should be written the same way as any other character, as an individual with individual goals, an agenda a viewpoint. Also talked a bit about classic villains like Malificent, antagonists, and also villains who see themselves as the hero.

Then we had late lunch at an Indian restaurant in a subterranean passage under the hotel that my roommate had found, then went upstairs to help with setup for the Night Bazaar party.

We did the first Night Bazaar (the group authors blog for Night Shade Books) party last year at Reno, and it was very successful. Courtney Schafer (The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City) organized it again, and this time we had a bigger suite, more books to give away, and a better idea of how much and what food and liquor to buy. The suite had a beautiful view which I forgot to take a picture of. I couldn't stay very long to help, as I had a dinner that night with my agent and her assistant, and then a panel after that at 7:30.

The dinner was excellent, and I had a glass of Prosecco which was also very good. The panel was on Worldbuilding, with Jacqueline Carey as moderator. It was her first time as moderator but she did a great job, and I think we had a really good panel, despite it being late in the day and after dinner. Then I went up to the party, which was in progress.

Last year at the Reno party, we didn't have as many books to give away, so author Katy Stauber and her husband Chet Hoster had supplied some bugs (sour cream and onion crickets, scorpions inside lollipops, etc) and people had to eat a bug to get a free book. This proved very popular (there was also a lot of free beer, etc) and we decided to do it again in Chicago. The party was very crowded and very happy, and lots of people were willing to eat bugs for books. One person told Chet that he had been to our party earlier, then did a tour of the others, and came back to ours because he felt the most welcome there. So that was really nice. Since my birthday was Saturday, they gave me an awesome musical Star Wars card. There was also a cake, but I was so tired I forgot to eat any.

And I found out from David Palumbo that Matthew Stewart won a Chesley award for the cover of The Cloud Roads!

I had to leave at a little after 11:00, because I was dead on my feet when I got there at 9:00 and increasingly incoherent through the evening, though it was really fun and I wanted to stay. They gave away all the books by the end (I had brought about 32 copies of The Serpent Sea, I'm not sure how many there were of the others). We're not sure when the end was, because there were still people in the suite talking when Chet closed the door and left at 4:00 am.

Courtney Schafer also has some photos here.