I didn’t attend the World Science Fiction Convention a few months ago, in Anaheim, but I had thought to attend its fantasy counterpart this month since it’s being held in downtown Oakland, just a few miles from me. I wouldn’t need to rent a hotel room; I could drive back and forth each day (even though many of the events at such gatherings occur in the evening, often until late hours, not to mention ordinary gatherings at the bar). But then I waited too long to buy a membership, and found them no longer for sale as of earlier this week, and found daily passes (which Worldcons used to offer) unavailable. Still, inquiries led me to acquire a “Locus staff” badge, and I used it to attend the convention yesterday, Friday, from 10am to 4pm or so. (Not that there were any careful observers keeping non-members out of event rooms.)
It struck me as a low-key convention, rather small (only some 800 attendees, one of the Locus folk told me), and spread out across the sizeable Oakland Convention Center to such an extent that it had no central focus. The only eating place and bar was closed by noon (no lunch at the Convention Center!) and not due to open until late afternoon. (I found lunch at Chipotle, up the street.)
I’m glad I attended on Friday (rather than today, Saturday) because, first of all, guest-of-honor Ted Chiang’s interview was Friday at 11am, conducted by Cliff Winnig. Anyone who’s seen Ted in person knows his speaking style, which is … hesitant. A persistent pausing to find just the right word, the right phrase. He’ll never be a politician; he’s a perfectionist. The interview focused initially on his involvement in the adaptation of his story “Story of Your Life” into the film Arrival. The key was that the screenwriter, Eric Heisserer, insisted on holding true to the story, resisting studio suggestions, for example, to make the protagonist male. While acknowledging a key difference between the story and film, about the nature of the Amy Adams’ character’s death. Winnig and Chiang then discussed other of his stories, including “Tower of Babylon” (reifying ancient mythology, in a Klein-bottle way), “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” (time travel and why the story works in an Arabian culture), and “Hell Is the Absence of God” (about angels=messengers, and the true nature of God).
The second reason I’m glad I attended Friday is because, at the Locus table, I met Elan Samuel, the tech guy at Locus who has fixed the hacker problems over the past few weeks, and with whom I’ve been emailing back and forth. We chatted about tech issues, and books. Friday at 3pm or so he took off to take care of family business (I gather), so I would not have met him on Saturday or Sunday. Very nice guy, who’s been associated with Locus longer than I’d realized, and who’s much more savvy about tech than I have been over the past 15 years, when I’ve only learned enough about html and css and php in order to build the sites I imagined (e.g. sfadb.com), without understanding how to fix the problems that he was able to fix.
Chatted with Gary K. Wolfe and Dale W Hanes, and Karen Haber. Sighted in passing, many others: Joe H and Ellen D and Daryl G and Ellen K and Darrell K S and Rich H and Greg K and even Palo B and Betsy W and John P.
But not Robert S or Annalee N or Nancy K or the many other luminaries who reportedly attended.
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I got a couple insights to move forward. First, reports than when the Locus sites were down, Locus got a number of inquiries about sfadb.com. Apparently it’s quite useful to many people, and I should focus my attentions on refining and expanding that. (I never see any site traffic stats.) Secondarily, some thoughts how to develop my own site, and potential book.
