One Brick at a Time

This is likely to be a rather long entry, so if you’re pressed for time, pop back later. I’ll still be here. In fact, let me know what time, and I’ll have a cup of tea waiting.

 This is what should have happened:

I had a great time, met some fantastic people, got a lot of work done, and didn’t spend nearly a grand on my mobile phone!

 This is what did happen:

 Thursday morning I finished packing, and left for Heathrow Airport at about 8.30, having already checked in online. I got to the airport well before noon (for a 3.40 flight), so handed my luggage over, and found a bar. This is the first time I’ve checked in online, and it was a great experience (great in the sense of “not having to stand in line for an hour”) – no queues, no hassle. I settled down with a large glass of Shiraz and opened my eBook reader. Marco (publishing director at Angry Robot) arrived about 15 minutes later, and informed me that the currency he’d ordered from work that was to see us through the next 5 days, hadn’t arrived. No matter. I’d converted $160, he had a few hundred, and we both had debit and credit cards.

 We had lunch, and chatted some more, and eventually they called our flight.

 The flight itself was excellent. Everyone had a small TV screen in the back of the chair in front – touch screen, with a choice of around 20 films and 40-50 TV programmes, on demand (so no waiting for a programme to start – you could start and pause at your leisure). I’d brought earphones, but they were distributed free of charge, anyway.

 When the hostess came through with a trolley I ordered another red, and was delighted to discover that all drinks and snacks were free (it’s been ages since I travelled long haul, and had forgotten this part of the service – none of the flights I’ve been on for the last dozen years have included free beverages).

 The flight went without incident, and I watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine (not as shit as I thought it would be), Monsters vs Aliens (fantastic!) and a one-hour Jim Jeffries special. Jim is an Australian comedian – think of the most offensive thing you can. Multiply that by 130. Jim is worse, and far, far funnier!

 It was a long-ish taxi ride from the airport to the hotel, but the hotel itself was very good (although it had the world’s slowest lifts!). I’d neglected to pack enough socks, so I went into the hotel clothes shop, and bought 2 pairs. For $22.31! Canada must have a national sock shortage, hence the premium. I may send them some spares.

 A quick shower later, then it was time for me and Marco to head on over to the convention centre. There I met our two launch authors, the immensely talented Kaaron Warren and equally brilliant Lauren Beukes. The four of us hit it off immediately – a great start to the weekend. I then headed off for my only panel of the weekend (I was to appear on 3, but one was cancelled, and the other took place while I was somewhere over the Atlantic). I was a team captain in Charades, opposite Paul Cornell’s team. Paul’s team eventually won, but not before I had the absolute pleasure to mime the book Servant of the Wankh. And no, I didn’t hold back.

 After Charades we all headed over to the bar of the hotel opposite, where we stayed until they kicked us out. Mind you, they kick out at 1.00am in Montreal – where’s the fun in that? I had some great advice from Paul Cornell when I asked how to get into comics writing: Do what I did – have some success in the writing of a few episodes of a hit British scifi series, then wait for another comic writer to ring you up and ask if you’d like to have a go. Yeah, thanks, Paul.

 Friday was a busy day. Lauren and Kaaron had a series of panels throughout the day, and we also met up with the brilliant Colin Harvey (another Angry Robot author) and the astonishingly good Alliette de Bodard, who is not only publishing her first novel with us in January, but who was also at the convention as a Campbell finalist in the Hugo ceremony on the Sunday. I also met up with the mighty Mur Lafferty, podcaster extraordinaire, who is as lovely in person as she appears to be on air.

 In the afternoon Marco and I met up with Steve the robot man (“the robot man” isn’t his surname – that would just be odd). Steve had driven from Toronto to help us make the Angry Robot party we were hosting that night a memorable affair. We got the party ready, and I headed off for dinner with Mur (though I suspect I was not the greatest of company, due to being so extraordinarily tired).

 Every night at WorldCon there are a series of parties held – 10 or more simultaneous affairs, sponsored by different people or organisations. They’re free to get in, booze is free, and most of them are open door, rather than invitation only, so people tend to party-hop all night. Ours was on the 22^nd floor, and featured a walking (well, trundling), talking robot, operated by Steve, who could see and hear what was being said to the robot from a remote location. Throughout the night, people entered the party, walking past our robot bouncer in the hallway, and pretty much everyone who came into the party had a conversation with him. It was fantastic, and well worth the *cough cough mumble* that it cost.

 Unfortunately, around 10.00pm the hotel management came to shut down the party as we were making too much noise. We rocked, man! *ahem*. Apparently, the convention organisers had put us in a room that was not on a party floor, and we were preventing some airline pilots from getting their sleep. Well, the hotel did exactly the right thing, of course. It wasn’t their fault that the con organisers had cocked up. 15 minutes later we were in a room on a party floor (floor 5), and the party continued. And our guests? They all picked up a couple of bottles, and headed on down to carry on having a great time. What stars!

 The party continued until early morning, and we packed up and went to our respective rooms (though Lauren left early to “change her shoes” – evidently South African street slang for “go to bed early as I’m a lightweight”). The room change turned out to be a good thing as our new room (donated, I believe by Tor – thanks, guys) was even better than our original, and the robot was able to stay inside. One of the highlights was when a guy dressed as a Klingon came in and took a bottle of beer, and the robot played the Star Trek “Red Alert” noise, and Star Trek theme tune. Classic. Fables writer, Bill Willingham, came in, and we had a good long chat – what an absolutely wonderful guy. So charming, and enthusiastic. Bill was there as a finalist in the new “Best Graphic Novel” category at the Hugos.

 Legendary fantasy novelist Trudi Canavan told Kaaron that our party was the best she’d ever been to at a WorldCon. I wonder if we’ll do one next year – we seem to have set the bar really high! (Thanks to Jetse deVries for organising the room and alcohol for us, and his mate Adam for manning the bar all night).

 The first thing I discovered on Saturday morning was a text from T-Mobile informing me that I was approaching my phone credit limit, and I should make a payment soon. I’d made a few texts and called home, so I was expecting an extra £20 or so to be applied to my account. As my monthly bill is usually around £50-60 I anticipated my credit limit would be around £100, so the text didn’t come as a great surprise. I logged onto my account using the hotel internet connection and discovered I had been billed £711 for internet usage while abroad – £218 of that during the hours of the Angry Robot party that I was co-hosting! I switched my phone off, and while it was off the account went up another £240, so £950 in total (or about US$1,700). Enquiries to T-Mobile have so far not produced the desired result.

 Saturday was another day of wandering the halls, occasionally seeing panels, but mainly meeting and greeting. Some of the Angry Robot crew sent out for lunch, and we had a particular restaurant recommended. It’s only a 10 -20 minute walk we were told. 40 minutes later we were still only a third of the way there, so we headed back into town for a good lunch elsewhere.

 Marco and I attended the Masquerade in the evening, as Angry Robot were sponsoring a “Best Angry Robot” award. Neither of us had attended a masquerade before, and expected there would be several hundred people dressed up, trundling through a hall being judged (not only by the judges, but by all the people not dressed up). Yeah, we were wrong. The Masquerade was a slick affair, with about 15 entrants, who each had up to 2 minutes onstage to present their outfits, be it by posing, dancing, or presenting a sketch. 15 entrants made it unlikely there would be many robot entries. Luckily there was one, and it was excellent. The masquerade generally, though? Well, I can now say I’ve been to one, and I need never attend another.

 After the Masquerade we headed over to the party hotel, wandering from party to party, until we were accosted by Nightshade’s Jeremy Lassen, who invited us to his closed-door party. Now that was a long night (in a good way). Colin Harvey and I teamed off with a chap called Derek and a delightful woman called Holly (who I will always love dearly, as she thought I was only 30. Also? Cute as hell). The four of us settled down into a game of “who has given the world more – the UK or the North American continent?” We took it one decade at a time from the 1950s to the present day, and it was a draw, so we had a tie-breaker of the fifty years from 1900-1949. We won with “penicillin” – it was easily my favourite conversation of the Con. Also present at the party – Colin’s agent, Jenny Rappaport (who blogged that I am “hilariously funny” – I think it must have been the alcohol that helped) and the gorgeous Julie Klumb (they’re real, folks!). Jeremy was the perfect host, and when I complimented him on the quality of his wine he admitted it was left over from our party the previous night! Truly, Angry Robot rules.

 I left Jeremy’s party at around 4.15, and got to bed around 4.30. I find it difficult to sleep in – especially when away from home – so I was up at 8.30, but didn’t leave my room until about 10.00. I headed over to the Con centre and hooked up with Bill Willingham and Lauren. Bill treated me to breakfast before heading off for a series of panels and signings.

 Sunday is a bit of a blur, though I did meet up with yet more great people, including the Israeli contingent, who were great, and we helped Paul Cornell write his Hugo Presenter introductions. Those good bits he said? All mine. The other bits? His. Those last couple of statements? Complete lies. Perhaps the best part of the conversation was when Nia (sp?) told us about a special treat he had arranged for his new girlfriend. He worked on an army base and looked after a bunch of huge missiles. He took his girlfriend into his workplace to impress her – not with the missiles (it apparently didn’t occur to him that she would be impressed by those), but with the air conditioning in the missile bunker!

 The Hugo ceremony itself was a bit flat, but it was good to be there. The results are posted in numerous other places on the intarwebs, so I’m not going to list them here, but I will talk about a couple.

 In the new Best Graphic Novel section, there were two stand-out entries – Bill Willingham’s Fables and Brian Vaughan’s Y – The Last Man. Either of these would have made fine (and worthy) winners, but we were rooting for Bill as he was there (and he’d bought me food). The winner turned out to be Girl Genius volume 8 – it’s an online comic, and it’s ok. Certainly not better than Fables or Y, but it won. By a huge margin. Even Joss Whedon’s Serenity comic beat Fables, and Serenity wasn’t even one of Whedon’s top 5 comics of last year, never mind the world’s top 5!

 Paul Cornell’s presentations of Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) and Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) were the best of the night. Wall-E won Long Form, which was the right result, in my opinion. The finalists were generally sound choices, though the audio presentation Metatropolis was a bizarre inclusion. As well as not being a dramatic presentation (it’s an audio book) it’s not long-form (it’s a collection of short-form works). The quality and reputation of its writers is in no doubt, it just should never have been on the final ballot.

 For short form, it was generally agreed that the winner was going to be either Dr Horrible’s Sing-along Blog or either of the Doctor Who finalists – Turn Left or the Library of the Dead two-parter. Paul opened the envelope and announced “and the winner is: Doctor…” cue long pause, and much laughter. And why should the two-part Doctor Who story be considered in the Short Form category, when it’s a Long Form piece split in two? Normally this wouldn’t matter, but with Metatropolis in the Long Form, despite being a collection of short form stories, it shows a degree of inconsistency in the categorisation. Perhaps greater guidance should be given to the acceptance of works in these categories. Also, if a work is nominated for both Long Form and Short Form (by different voters) are the votes combined into one category, or do the votes remain split (and therefore wasted)? I think I’ll look into this.

 In the Campbell Award (the most important of the “not actually a Hugo” awards of the night), Alliette de Bodard didn’t win. Truth to tell, she was nominated a year too early. She was nominated (and shortlisted) on the basis of her superb short fiction. The winner already had a couple of novels under his belt. And the final result? Alliette came second with 158 votes to the winner’s 161. A fantastic result! She’s been eligible for two years, now, so cannot be considered next year. A damn shame, as Angry Robot is publishing her first, excellent novel this coming January.

 One final word on the Hugos – the inclusion of the Best Editor (short form) and Best Editor (long form) awards is a bit daft. Without denigrating the fine efforts of the winners and other finalists, this appears to be a nonsense award (and this, coming from an editor). The work an editor does is never seen by the voting public. The most important part of the editor’s job is working with the author to ensure his or her manuscript is in the best possible condition before publication. The public only ever sees the finished product, and not the “before editorial input” stage. How, then, can anyone vote on the Best Editor? How can one judge how well an editor has edited? Perhaps in the short-form category this award could remain (and be renamed “Best Anthologist”), but Best Editor? It’s an impossible category to vote on with any degree of knowledge, and should be scrapped. Of course, if I ever win it, I will be gracious and accept. I never said I wasn’t a hypocrite!

 After the Hugos we headed over to the bar (the finalists and winners all went off to the traditional Losers’ Party), and we chatted until the bar closed (again, 1.00am – what is it with these early closes?).

 Monday we checked out, went to a panel or two, chatted to some more contacts, and headed home. The flight back was as good as the flight over (I watched The Boat that Rocked, largely due to the presence of the gorgeous Talulah Riley, but I spectacularly failed to get any sleep, despite it being an overnighter). I’d pre-booked the vegetarian option for food, as it’s usually better than the alternative on flights. When the staff brought around the late night snacks, they announced it would be muffins. When mine arrived it was a carton of chopped fruit. I really fancied a muffin, so I asked if it could be changed.

 “Didn’t you book the vegetarian option”? I was asked by the typically surly airline steward.

“Yes”, I replied, “but I’m fairly confident that the meat content in the blueberry muffin is pretty low.”

 The muffin was nice.

 And Montreal? Wonderful city, full of lovely people who have the sexiest accents. The service in the bars and restaurants was uniformly rubbish, but the food (when it arrived) was excellent. Would I recommend it? Hell, yes. Am I looking forward to the next WorldCon in Melbourne next year? Damn right!

 Oh, and just so you know – there was plenty of actual business conducted during the weekend, that I’ve not mentioned here. It wasn’t all fun and games! Well, it was – even the business meetings were enjoyable. I love my job! J