Well, that's an...interesting slate.

For those wondering, my reaction to the Hugo ballot was "well, that's...interesting."

(if you weren't wondering: good for you.)


Anything more than that, you can go read Jim C. Hines' "10 Thoughts on the Hugos," and pretty much hear me say "yeah, that."
Except I will say that the Hugos, as much as we make of them, and no matter how nice it might be to win one, are not the depth and breadth of the genre, and in fact reflect only one small subset of the convention-attending section of the genre (which is already a small subset). Spending any amount of time, energy or money to manipulate the voting seems - to me - to be an amazing waste of that time, energy, and money, proving nothing.

So yeah, I'm back....

Norwescon is a nifty convention, large (3k attendees, I was told) but well-run, and filled with fans of all ages and colors (including one who was purple), the costuming was excellent, the panels were very well-attended, the conversations fascinating, and apparently Simon Green and I have a comedy duo we can take on the road if this writing things fails out...

And the bar had very comfortable seating, and almost enough of it.

Interestingly, it wasn't a heavy-drinking convention. At least not for me. Two glasses of wine in the evening was my worst indulgence, and asleep well before midnight.

And a half-hour drive home, even with traffic. I liked that.

So yeah - hooray for my new 'local' convention.  And hooray for them taking no shit from would-be creepers...




And tomorrow we're back to the write-all-the-things and edit-all-the-things and file-all-the things schedule. Kinda looking forward to it, actually.