Con, With Occasional Musings

Readercon 19 is over. Saturday morning, following 3 panels that covered, in order, neuro-biological responses to fantasy-fiction tropes, neglected historical periods for fictional settings, and philology's role in worldbuilding, I felt I was back at Brooklyn College where my first two years in the experimental New School of Liberal Arts consisted of a 4-hour seminar class every day, 4 days a week. I often feel like that at Readercon.

Jonathan Lethem and James Patrick Kelly were Guests of Honor. I don't read much short fiction these days aside from ancient anthologies I feel compelled to collect so I'm not familiar with most of Kelly's work. Lethem's written prose is terrific, and the two hour-long interviews with him were insightful, entertaining and encouraging. (Gordon Van Gelder managed about three questions edgewise, and Rob Killheffer I think managed four.) I admire Lethem's indifference to "genre" boundaries. I never understood the need for critics and analysts nurtured in tiny narrow academia incubators to succumb to the worst impusles of human nature and slag any writing that doesn't quite fit through the mail slots of their artificial habitats. I'm glad authors like Lethem -- and Atwood and Salman Rushdie and Michael Chabon and whoever else -- enjoy challenging the NYT and NYRB and other reviewers simply by being good regardless of the odd tropes they use to tell their stories. I'm glad the book-reading public now and then removes its head from its romance/chick lit/thriller/extruded fantasy product-saturated behind and gives something new a chance. (Why anyone might still give a damn what newspaper critics think of JK Rowling and the Harry Potter books, for example, baffles me...the millions of people who bought and loved the books certainly don't care whether Rowling is a woman or a man, and what is the opinion of someone educated to think only books with angst-ridden modern couples being unfaithful to each other are worth reading.)

James Patrick Kelly comported himself nobly during the Kirk Poland Bad Prose Competition, but I think it was Patrick O'Leary (in absentia but author of Seuss-like "A Yak of Siam" that blended beautifully with the chosen Bad Ending) and Yves Meynard (once again champion! and author of the amazing "Alphabetical Torture" segment) who I stole the show.

The book dealer tables were fruitful, the freebie book tables were generous (I think we now own half of Daniel Dern's former collection -- thanks, Daniel!) and the general vibe was as always awesome. There were familiar faces I missed but many new ones I very much enjoyed meeting. (Michael Kandel, on the very off-chance you see this, I forgot we own Captain Jack Zodiac!)

The lobster salad rolls at Travelers Food and Books were as superb as always. The Long Trail Hefeweizen was cold and refreshing. Chipping sparrows played on the lawn by the wooden moose. I found a hardcover copy of Allingham's Tiger in the Smoke for $2.50 in the basement bookstore. Win.

And thanks to the (beta) launch of TOR.com, I now have Dave McKean’s cover art for Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow, as my wallpaper. Sweet.