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Worlds Without End Blog

Off to LoneStarCon 3 / WorldCon! Posted at 8:16 AM by Dave Post

Dave Post

235px-Worldcon_71_LoneStarCon_3_logoWell, it’s that time again.  Time for WWEnd’s 3rd annual trip to WorldCon!  This time it’s being hosted by LoneStarCon 3 down in San Antonio, Texas – our neck of the woods.  We’re making the drive from Dallas this morning and hope to be in Lockhart, Texas, Barbecue Capital Texas, in time for lunch at Black’s.  (We’ll hit Kreuz Market on the return leg.)  From there it’s just another hour to San Antone.

As we did for the last 2 WorldCons we’ve got a fan table to show off the site, make new friends and give out some Hugo Award bookmarks.  If you’re going to the con make sure you stop by and say hello and pick up some bookmarks.  They’re great for getting autographs – especially if you’re an ebook reader.  We love to meet WWEnders in person!  Oh, there will be candy too, or “nerd bait” as they say at the conventions.  How can you resist?

We’ll be posting about our trip here on the blog, on Twitter and on Facebook so keep an eye out for those reports.  And, of course, we’ll be live-tweeting the Hugo Awards from the ballroom so don’t miss that.

One of the great things about this year’s event is that our whole crew is going.  Rico, Chris and even Jonathan for his first convention.  In addition we’ve got WWEnder Charles Dee coming down with us.  We met Dee through the site a few years ago and lucky for us he was a local.  He’s been a huge WWEnd supporter and a great friend and we’re looking forward to hanging out with him this week.  He’s no stranger to conventions, he was in the book industry for years, but this is his first science fiction convention.  We’re going to push him and Jonathan into a Filk session and close the door so they get the entire experience.

Since we’re all going to be out of pocket there won’t be a lot of non-con posting on the blog until we get back.  So no Jo Fletcher Friday this week or new books added or site updates etc.  We’ll catch up next week on all that stuff.  Cheers!

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Hugo Awards Announced (Live Blog)! Posted at 8:11 PM by Rico Simpkins

icowrich

We are live at the 2012 Hugo Award ceremony, where the committee has reported a massive ballot turnout.  As I write this, hundreds thousands of nerds are filing into the Grand Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency in balmy Chicago in breathless anticipation.  We’re live blogging the results, so refresh this post to get fresher and fresher results…that is, unless you decide you’d just as soon go get something to eat and then get your results all at once!  Better yet, watch the live stream here.  We are also tweeting results to all who follow @WWend.

8:16: I wasn’t sure how much I liked the 2012 trophies.  All stacked together on the stage, however, they look great.

8:17:  “We are diverse, and we are all in this together”  –  John Scalzi, this year’s MC (to great applause)

8:28 Scalzi presented David Kyle, who presented the “Big Heart” award Juanita Coulson, noted author and fan.

8:32: Best fanzine A special committee award goes to Robert (Bob) Weinberg.

8:36:  A memorial for those who have died in the year since Renovation 2011, including the incomparable Ray Bradbury. Harry  Harrison, Neil Armstrong, Anne Macaffrey, Sally Ride, Maurice Sendack and many authors, artists and fans, whom will surely be missed.

8:48:  Analog Magazine editor, Stanley Schmidt (who received a standing ovation for lifelong career) is presenting the award for the John W. Campbell award for best new writer (not to be confused for the Campbell memorial award).  The award goes to E. Lily Yu.  Her reaction can be best described as shock.  Jay Lake presented the diadem.

8:53:  The base design for this year’s trophy (pictured above) is being explained by its creator, Deb Kosiba, who made each one by hand.

8:55:   Scalzi’s stages of being nominated for a Hugo:  elation, intimidation, bargaining, depression, nervousness.  The nominees are currently experiencing number five.  Personally, I think the story is dragging so as to intensify this stage for each of them.

9:00: The best fan artist award goes to Maureen Starkey.

9:04: The best fan writer award goes to Jim C. Hines.  He said he isn’t used to being popular, as he first learned in high school:  “It turns out that sewing a Star Trek patch onto your jean jacket isn’t the best way to get in with the cool kids.”

9:07: The best fancast (special category) award goes to SF Squeecast, Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente.  That was NOT a surprise to me.  Yes, there was much squeeing.

9:13 The best fanzine award goes to SF Signal edited by John DeNardo.  We are spared the histrionics of Christopher J. Garcia.  (Just kidding — I loved it last year)

9:20:  The best semiprozine award goes to Locus edited by Liza Groen Trombi, Kirsten Gong-Wong, et al.

9:23: The best professional artist award goes to John Picacio (the crowd roars).

9:28:  The best editor award (long form) goes to Betsy Wollheim.

9:33: The best editor award (short form) goes to Sheila Williams.

9:40:  The best dramatic presentation (short form) award goes to “The Doctor’s Wife” (Doctor Who), written by Neil Gaiman; directed by Richard Clark (BBC Wales).  Neal Gaiman accepted the award!  Gaiman claims that Community is a Doctor Who spinoff, due to Inspector Spacetime’s presence on the show.  Ha! Also “It would be the act of a fool or a madman to try to do it [write an ep] again.  So I’m on my third draft.”  (!)

9:53:  The best dramatic presentation (long form) award goes to Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss; written by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R. R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten, and Alan Taylor (HBO).  George R. R. Martin describes his original pitchmen as “mad fools” to think they could get his book on the small screen.  He adds “sure, I wish we had two more hours every season.” He and I, both.

9:55: The best graphic novel award goes to Digger by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press).  Scalzi, in the process of announcing the award, declares himself a sloppy fan of Neil Gaiman’s graphic work.  Heh.

10:03: The best “related work” award goes to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls, and Graham Sleight (Gollancz).  Graham Sleight, accepting the award, says he thinks he might be dreaming.  Scalzi promptly slaps him. “That,” Sleight responds, “is quality toastmastering.”

10:10: The best short story award, presented by Gardner Dozois, goes to “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2011).

10:12:  “The novelette is the Goldilocks form of story.  Not too short, not too long, just right” – Scalzi

10:14:  The best novelette award goes to “Six Months, Three Days” by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com).

10:17:  The best novella award goes to “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s, September/October 2011).

And now for the big one….

10:21:  The award for best novel goes to Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor).  Ta Da!

Jo Walton’s story is a really great one for fans.  She made the trip from fandom to authorship, and this award, I think, completes an extraordinary transition.  I can’t wait to go back and read ALL five nine of her books.

10:24:  Jo just said that she thinks the nominees are the important works (and so it doesn’t matter who wins).  We agree, and this is EXACTLY why we list nominees so prominently in our tiled lists.  We’re glad to see such a great author who thinks this way.

WWEnd at WorldCon: Day 2 Posted at 9:02 AM by Dave Post

Dave Post

We woke up early on Friday eager to get the day started and to forget the horrible chorus of snores that ensured nobody got a good night’s sleep.  There was a lot of finger pointing and the stories of snores and nocturnal emissions grew in the telling throughout our wicked expensive breakfast but by the end we were all still friends.  With our appetites’ diminished we headed down to the dealer’s room to set up our fan table.

The fan tables this time around were on the other side of the dealer’s room but we had a corner spot, which is essential for our big monitor, and we were lucky in our neighbor’s to either side.  The Heinlein Society is on our left with WindyCon on our right.  Great people at both tables which is nice.  We hooked up the big 31 inch monitor to the laptop, spread out some piles of bookmarks, the new ones for this year and some left overs from last, and settled in to hawk the site to passers-by.  The crowd was good and many folks made it past the dealer’s tables to the fan section so we had a nice flow past the table.

Just like last year we had all manner of people come up to see what we were about.  Some folks just wanted to take a peek and refused all attempts at communication on our part.  You could almost hear them thinking “don’t make eye contact, don’t make eye contact” as a kind of mantra to ward off evil.  Others stepped up and talked our ears off about their own projects with no apparent interest in WWEnd at all.  We made a fine captive audience it seems.  For those people it was “Smile and wave, boys.  Smile and wave.”  Of course the majority of our visitors were fans just like us and many took an active and keen interest in the site.  Those folks were a pleasure to talk to and it was quite fun to see how much they enjoyed our short site tour.  I hope we’ll see some new signups after the con.

The table was busy with just the three of us so there was not much time to do many panels.  In fact, I was the only person to get away at all.  I got to attend “100 Years of Edgar Rice Burroughs” which was an entertaining and insightful discussion of his major works and influences from Tarzan to John Carter and beyond.  The room was packed (and much too hot), the panelists were in high spirits and the audience offered some nice questions and commentary without the usual awkward soapboxing you often see in these kinds of panels.  One thing that I noticed was that the whole crowd was a bit long in the tooth.  I believe I was the only person there under 50 which is not particularly surprising since WorldCon skews older anyway (and Burroughs is most definitely old-school) but I could not help but wonder who’s going to keep reading Burroughs when this generation is gone?  It would be a shame if people only came to know his work through the movies.

The rest of the day we spent taking turns at the table and wandering the hall again getting autographs and looking for presents for the kids.  We went to the autograph session that featured Robert Silverberg and George R. R. Martin.  Strangely there was no line for Martin, despite being up for the Hugo, while the Silverberg line was rather long.  Quite a change from last year when the longest lines were for Martin.  We got Martin to sign our bookmarks and later we got sigs from Seanan McGuire too.  3 more to go!

Once we wrapped up for the day it was time to find some eats.  Since we had pizza the night before it was time for some Chicago hot dogs.  We walked about a mile or so to American Dog and ordered up some dogs.  Chicago style dogs come with relish, peppers, sliced tomatoes, onions, mustard and a wedge of pickle.  They were delicious.  We left determined to have another dog later on the trip.  Back at the hotel we decided to skip the parties and headed to the bar instead for some beers and hot wings while we waited for our pal Chris to get there.  Chris showed at last call so we bailed and went back to the room full, sleepy and 2 sheets to the wind.  The theory was that if we were too drunk to care we might all pass out before the snoring started again.  Another good day at the con.

Steaks on a Train Posted at 7:42 PM by Dave Post

Dave Post

20120829-193913.jpgEnough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking steaks on this motherfucking train!

WorldCon Bound on the Texas Eagle Posted at 5:35 PM by Dave Post

Dave Post

20120829-172711.jpg
The WWEnd crew is headed north on the Amtrak Texas eagle for WorldCon in Chicago. Chris (whargoul), Rico (icowrich) and yours truly are going to be meeting up with Charles Dee and our buddy Chris at the convention where we’ll be taking in the con and showing off the site at our fan table. If you’re going to be there too be sure to stop by our table and say hi. We’ll be posting daily updates like we did last year so you can see what we’re up to.

Addled by the Adler Posted at 1:31 PM by Rico Simpkins

icowrich

Those of you who are attending this year’s Worldcon in Chicago probably already know about the opening night event at the Adler Planetarium.  If you don’t, then maybe this news will be enough to entice you to come join us.  If you do attend, please come visit us at the fan tables section!  In the meantime, enjoy this little video I found about the attraction.  Although the Adler is stuffed with state-of-the-art shows and interactive exhibits, the main attraction to me is the history of the building itself.  It is the oldest planetarium in North America, and has an impressive collection of antique observational equipment.  Steampunk fans, rejoice!

From the Chicon 7 web site:

Chicago, Illinois, USA – Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention (“Worldcon”), will offer its members a spectacular opening night event at the Adler Planetarium.

On Thursday, August 30, Chicon 7 will be taking over the Adler Planetarium for an evening reception for convention members. This exclusive event will run from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m., during which time the museum will be closed to the general public.

During the reception, Chicon members can view the museum exhibits. In addition, the Grainger Sky Theater will be running the show “The Searcher” every 30 minutes. This show was written by Nick Sagan (son of astronomer Carl Sagan) and follows the story of a visitor from another galaxy as he searches for his lost civilization. It features stunning visualizations of the formation of our universe, the collision of galaxies, a spectacular supernova explosion, and a supermassive black hole. (Seating in the theater is limited, so there will be a $5 charge for admission to this performance.) Weather permitting, the museum will also host a sky-viewing session on its exterior deck, with telescopes and docents provided to members so they can see the wonders waiting in the night sky.

Museum campus parking will be available, and shuttle buses will run between the Adler Planetarium and the Hyatt Regency throughout the evening.

About the Adler Planetarium:

The Adler Planetarium was the first modern planetarium in the Western Hemisphere and first opened to the public on May 12, 1930. The museum houses extensive exhibits on space science including one of the world’s most important antique astronomical instrument collections. The Adler is also a recognized leader in science education, with a focus on inspiring young minds to pursue careers in science. The museum sits on the extreme edge of Chicago’s “museum campus” and is located on an artificial island.