Norwescon 2010: Day 2

Today was fun.  I started the morning on the panel, Building a Balanced Mythos at 9:00 a.m.  Let me tell you, 9 am is the wrong time of day to talk about anything touching on religion. Thank God (ironically) I had very smart co-panelists and  we had a fairly forgiving audience.  I think my favorite moment was when we were talking about how cursing is usually based on taboo actions and blaspheming on the sacred.  So in a culture that believed in free love “f*ck” wouldn’t be a curse.

What would? We thought tossed out several including “Impotent Whore.” Because in a freelove society paying for it would be deviant and then not getting any after all that?  Tsk.

Next on my plate was reading from Shades of Milk and Honey. I’ve decided that I love Norwescon because I had a very full room AND people asked intelligent questions after I finished reading. That was a lovely thing.

I sat in on the Tor spotlight to get a sense of what was coming down the pike.  Highlights included (but aren’t limited to):

• DISCORD’S APPLE by Carrie Vaughn sounds awesome.
• BLACK BLADE BLUES by John Pitts is a “very strange and wonderful urban fantasy.”  I agree with that and am reading it now.
• They mentioned Jay Lake, who “is a wild and wonderful writer who writes more novels in a year than you can read. And they are all good.”  PINION had them very enthused.
• A iography of Robert A. Heinlein. David Hartwell said, “He was much weirder and more interesting than even we thought.” and this is part one of the biography.
• They discussed Dan Well’s I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER which got enthusiatic endorsements from the audience.
• They have Kage Baker’s final two novels, which sound wonderful although the fact that they are her final novels makes me sad.
• Naturally, they are also raved about Cherie Priest’s next one. “Always a good ride”
• Also mentioned David B. Coe’s new book which sounds like it has a great magic system.
• They’re talked about Blake Charlton’s Spellwright, which has already gone to a second printing. This explains why I’ve been having trouble finding a copy of it. I seriously want to read this one.

Also on the list of awesome let me show you the belated birthday present I received from Stephen H Segal. ::snerk:: Robot monkeys…

I’m not even going to try to list all the really, really cool people I got to talk with because that would be everybody. There’s a serious concentration of awesome up here.

So on the whole, I’ve had a fun time. And you?

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