One of the two program items I attended at Boskone was Rosemary Kirstein's coffee-thing, which was very exciting because I'd missed her reading. (radiotelescope went, and reported back in comments here.) Present were me, Chad, alexx_kay, adrian_turtle, a relative of Ms. Kirstein's (judging by the name), and a man who had obviously known Ms. Kirstein for a while, whose name I have forgotten and whose relationship I don't think I ever knew. As this was a conversation, I did not take notes; everything is a paraphrase and I welcome corrections.

First, to repeat myself: she's working on the next book. As she did not offer an ETA, I felt it rude to ask. This is the book that she thought was going to be after City in the Crags, not a completely unforeseen book as I'd somehow thought from prior reports. So that's good news. She thinks there'll be three, maybe four books in addition to the published ones, plus a prequel.

She said that she can't just write fast to get it all out on the page, that's counter-productive for her.

She's interested in maybe releasing the first book as a free e-text, along the lines of Tor.com and Baen. alexx_kay is planning to proof an e-text of it for the visually impaired and was going to send it to her. It didn't occur to me at the time, but I've seen people who've read the Tor.com free books come back and say, hey, I'd buy the rest,but only as e-text. Since only the last is currently available commercially as e-text, that might be something to consider. On the other hand, I very much doubt that there are enough people who would have that reaction to outweigh the people who would go buy paper copies.

And I'm going to put the rest of this behind a cut-tag, so I can talk about spoilers.

( spoilers through Language of Power, and one spoiler for the books to come )

I was asked elsewhere if Boskone went okay. It was fine! I've just been busy, not hiding because of RaceFail fallout. (Yes, it affected me, the choices I made and the way I looked at things and the enjoyment I derived overall; but there was no active additional Fail.)

In great haste:

I was hardly there. By the time we got in Friday night, SteelyKid was (a) really soundly asleep after having had a brief but intense meltdown in the car and (b) due to eat after she woke and then go immediately to sleep for the night. So while we were sorry not to be able to present her to her adoring public, it couldn't be helped.

Saturday morning I brought SteelyKid up to her loving grandparents, where I left her smiling and cute and having a grand old time, yay, and made it back to Boston in time to see Chad's talk on the "Many Worlds" theory of quantum mechanics. (His slides are available here, or you can wait until the fall and read about it in his book.) Then I showered, had lunch, and went to a panel on cover art, notes forthcoming. Wandered the dealer's room and art show, where a young woman whose name I have completely forgotten was playing lovely music on a violin or suchlike. Picked up our pre-ordered copy of Lifelode and bought memberships for next year—Tom Shippey as a special guest! and I will still be doing the LotR re-read, too, though only barely if I keep to schedule. Then a coffee-thing with Rosemary Kirstein (yay!), notes on that also forthcoming (but no, no concrete news on the next book's release; she's working on it), and then back to my parents to spend the night with SteelyKid.

Sunday, no panels or programming, just wandering around the dealer's room and art show some more, where I eventually bought a bookmark of marykaykare's and two cute little polyclay dragons; lunch with papersky; and a brief stop at Jim Macdonald's first aid talk before heading out.

Scattered thoughts:

• I saw a bunch of people in passing. Sorry I didn't get to talk for longer than a couple of minutes, but, like I said, barely there.
• The new space is more compact and, I think, generally an improvement thereby, but having the coffee-things in a cavernous space that also includes the dealer's room, the art show, the con suite, the kids' section, and program ops was really not ideal from a sound perspective.
• On a related note: All panel rooms must have microphones. Preferably collar mikes, so that people don't have to remember to use them. It's lovely when people treat panels as conversations, but when they then forget that other people are trying to listen to that conversation . . . (This is a long-standing gripe of mine, and I don't even have impaired hearing.)
• There was a Donato painting in the art show of a very pale-skinned blond man dressed in white standing still and looking straight out at the viewer, surrounded by a ring of very dark-skinned dark-haired men and women dressed in dark clothes all looking outward and holding weapons. I thought it was called "Predator," but Google isn't turning it up and the artist's site (a) isn't searchable and (b) doesn't seem to show it as a thumbnail on the gallery pages. Does anyone know anything about it?
• I tried mentally counting con members who belonged to visible racial minorities. I think I broke double-digits.

Link roundups, presently unannotated except for length, over at boskone. Oh, and if anyone can look at the PHP script that automagically posts the links and tell me how to stop it escaping every ampersand it sees, that would be wonderful. ETA: sorted, thanks murklins!

The preliminary program schedule for Boskone is up.

Normally I go through it with a fine-tooth comb and post anything I might go to, but I am drowning in work, my con-going enthusiasm continues very low thanks to Race Fail '09: The Failening, and I've already done all the (extremely minimal) scheduling I'm going to, since thanks to SteelyKid I won't be around much and, when I am, my schedule is going to be hard to predict. (Friday night, it's possible she and I will make a brief appearance somewhere after 7pm, but this strikes me as unlikely; Saturday night I'm spending at my parents' with her.)

However, I do hope someone will go to Rosemary Kirstein's reading on Friday night and report back. (And go see Chad explain Many-Worlds, Saturday at 11!)

Panel report two of two. Again, very minimal unpacking (limiting self to 30 minutes so I can go to bed); requests for clarification welcome.

Description:

Editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden has said, "Sometimes the unkillable merits of otherwise terrible work are a lot more interesting to discuss than the several perfections of the best." Let's see if we can prove him right.

Kathryn Cramer (m), Wen Spencer, Teresa Nielsen Hayden

(It is a coincidence that both panels I went to were based on PNH quotes. Honest.)

( Panel notes: )

(Half an hour on the nose. I told you this takes surprisingly long . . . )

Panel report one of two. I usually turn my at-panel notes into something resembling grammatical sentences, and I started doing that with this . . . but I realized that this takes a (surprisingly) long time and that I have a lot of obligations in the next few weeks. So let's see how much I can get done in the way of really minimal unpacking while waiting for a morning doctor's appointment.

Description:

Editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden has said, "Much of the genre works by appealing to our wish that the world's extra-legal violence be under the control of the kind of smart people we admire. The Second Foundation and the X-Men — and, for that matter, the Scooby Gang and the Laundry — are all, to some extent, basically the Ku Klux Klan, except that the extrajudicial violence they carry out is (we're assured) merited and just." Discuss.

Alexander Jablokov, Beth Meacham (m), Paul Park, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Karl Schroeder

(Park ended up performing much of the moderator function, which Meacham stated later she was fine with because she was quite ill.)

This was also videotaped; maybe it will eventually show up here?

( Panel notes: )

Feel free to ask for clarification if I didn't unpack any notes sufficiently.

This was the super-ultra-minimalist version of Boskone for me, because I had a cold and other commitments. The weekend basically went like this:

( cut for gratutious use of present tense )

So, only two panels, and not a lot of socializing either—though what I did, was very good. And because of the peculiarities of my weekend, I can't say much about the hotel situation either. Breakfast at the restaurant was overpriced, but the food cart in the lobby was indeed the cheaper promised option (I'm not sure if it was already sold out on Saturday or if I was too zonked to notice its presence) and was perfectly edible. But I had neither lunch nor dinner at the hotel, and went to a known restaurant for my only other at-con meal, so I don't know if the non-breakfast food situation was materially improved. (I note that the hotel is adding three restaurants next month, and hope that at least one of them is fast and cheap.)

Things I can say about the hotel: double showerheads look ridiculous but are really, really nice. Despite the bed not being immediately uncomfortable, both of us spent Saturday and Sunday with aching backs. We got a 4 p.m. checkout just by asking (and being members of the free rewards program), which is nice. The parking situation remains absurd.

What else? The con suite was very well stocked; for instance, if I'd realized and wanted, I could have had instant oatmeal for breakfast. The projector for Chad's talk worked. The dealer's room looked a little small, but I spent approximately five minutes there. (Chad wondered if the con itself was smaller; I don't know if attendance numbers are or will be available, but I did notice that the Tor party was not an insane crush.) Two of the three program rooms had sound problems: one was long and narrow and had speakers of inadequate power to reach the back, and the other was wide and narrow and had no microphones. (The third was of a reasonable shape, but also had Chad speaking, who is used to projecting his voice to a room.)

Panel reports forthcoming. And I am collecting links on delicious and automagically posting them at boskone.

A.K.A., let's revise the panel description right here.

When I first read it, this panel description:

Hidden Biases in SF

Why aren't there more blacks or Asians, Jews or Catholics or Muslims or Buddhists in even our most richly imagined futures?

Tobias Buckell, Gregory Feeley, Gregory Frost (m), Daniel Kimmel, Pamela Sargent

made me immediately say "Oh look, I could play Bingo!" Being cranky and wanting to get through the rest of the panel descriptions, I didn't think about it any further. But a comment of desdenova made me think more about why I had that reaction. While there are problems with that one sentence as it is [*] , my reaction boils down to that useful phrase from Pratchett's most recent book: this is the wrong sort of question.

[*] "Our most richly imagined futures," says who?; why is this being restricted to race and religion; what about multi-racial people; I prefer "black people" (etc.) to "blacks" (etc.); and probably more, because I have my own biases and defaults that I can't always spot on first glance.

( why I think it's the wrong sort of question )

In other words, I think that the answers this question invites are very 101-level. And maybe that's what Boskone/the proposer of the topic/the panelists intended, which would be fine. But the prospect of sitting through a 101-level debunking does not thrill.

What's the right sort of question, one that would move this past a rehash of FAQs or bingo-playing? My first thought is:

What are useful ways of identifying and addressing hidden biases in SF? What are the resulting benefits to writers, readers, and stories?

( cut for intermediate edits )

[Edit #2, 2/11: desdenova formulates a much better proposed description in comments, to wit:

Much SF produced in the U.S. displays a lack of cultural diversity at odds with the reality of American society. Frequently, this lack can be ascribed to unconscious default assumptions made by creators. What are some effective strategies for identifying hidden biases in SF? How can doing so benefit us as readers, writers, and fans?

Which has been duly forwarded in case it's not too late to let the panelists see it and consider it.]

The traditional notes to self about panels at Boskone, next week. (Nb.: I am cranky and dissatisfied today and it shows.)

( panel notes )

(Icon in honor of Chad's talk, which will have lots of cute dog pictures.)

The last one. Warning: sketchy notes ahead. Also, punctuation abuse (I seem to have jumped from over-use of ; to overuse of : in these reports).

( Publishing: Myths vs. Reality )

No, I haven't given up! This is the second-to-last of them. Disclaimers: I'm feeling slightly under the weather, and a result: this is more telegraphic in style than usual (and I've felt free to triage random comments that didn't lead anywhere), and I may be cranky. Also, this panel swung wildly between specific what-ifs and general discussions of alternate history; I thought about trying to reorganize the comments into two sections based on this division, but I don't think it would work.

( What If Nelson Had Captured Napoleon: Missed Turning Points in Alternate History )

I'm doing this one out of order because it's shorter.

( Brother Guy on Ice (or why the GT flag is flying at the South Pole) )

Work got hectic, so I've not had time to sit down with panel notes until now. Here's the second-most-demanded panel report. Because my Palm keyboard's batteries died, my notes are handwritten and a bit cryptic in places. I'll do my best to untangle them and welcome corrections or amplifications; in particular, I didn't stop and ask people to spell names, so while I think I have all the women pirates identified properly, I don't guarantee it.

( Pirates in Petticoats: Women Pirates in Fact and Fiction )

I'm doing this one first because I took minimal notes and it's currently winning the poll.

( The Dragon Still Waits: A Look Back at the Works of John M. Ford )

Remarks about this year's Boskone, on everything I can think of that wasn't a panel.

( General caveat )

( The new location )

( John M. 'Mike' Ford Memorial Auction & Extravaganza )

( Miscellaneous hanging-out, also food )

( Poll: panel reports )

Links to other people's reports (more to be added):

• marykaykare's report
• veejane's panel reports: on the "rift" between pros and fans; on American fantasy
• nineweaving's report
• drcpunk's report
• John Scalzi's report
• Tobias Buckell's report
• Andrew Wheeler's report
• Chad Orzel's general report and report on the visiting-Japan panel
• alexx_kay's report

Notes to self behind the cut on Boskone's preliminary schedule. Who else is coming?

( cut for length )

My report on Sunday at Boskone 43 is up at The Internet Review of Science Fiction; you'll need a login to view it, but it doesn't cost anything (if you object on principle, I may repost here when the exclusive rights period is up. Haven't decided yet.). Contents: two detailed panel reports on "Audio Books" and "SF as Literature?", and annotations to one talk, "Weird Quantum Phenomena."

I have something to get done tonight, so I don't have time to read or comment on the rest of the issue, alas, but the table of contents looks interesting.

This post has no detailed panel reports, because I am in the process of writing them up for submission to The Internet Review of Science Fiction—if they want it, great, $70 for something I'd do anyway (that's 3.5 Fullmetal Alchemist DVDs!); if not, I'll just post it here later. I only went to panels on Sunday anyway, so you're not missing much. However, the writeup is taking forever [*], and it can't possibly appear in IROSF for a while, so I might as well stop on that for the night and do all the chatty personal stuff that IROSF won't want.

[*] Taking notes on a Palm + keyboard saves a little time in turning the notes into a report, in that I don't have to wonder what that scribble meant. However, turning notes into sentences still takes just as long, plus I was able to take more notes than usual because I type faster than I write.

This was a con with a big hole in the middle for me: I had lunch with non-congoing friends in a suburb on Saturday, which basically killed the entire day. Here's the short version of the con: Friday: Tor party setup and attendance with physical stupidities; Saturday: dinner and hanging out with logistical stupidities; Sunday: actual panels.

( The long version: Friday )

( Saturday )

On Sunday, I started the day by a quick pass through the dealers' rooom and then headed for the consuite to drink some water and wake up some more. Of course I sat down at a table with John M. Ford hidden behind a vase of flowers. I built a tower of dominoes and listened to other people talk, being completely too short on sleep to even cope. After that, actual panels, which as noted are to be reported elsewhere or later: John M. Ford's reading from The Fellowship of the Woosters; a panel on audiobooks; "SF as Literature?"; and "Weird Quantum Phenomena." Then we waved vaguely at people in the hotel lobby and stumbled out.

Bookspoils:

• The Kestrel, Lloyd Alexander, used. I failed to realize that this was #2 in a trilogy, despite it being clearly printed on the bottom of the cover; I guess that was logistical stupidity #3. However, the library has Westmark, which I shall borrow anon.
• Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis, used. Slowly filling in holes in the series.
• The Destroyer Goddess, Laura Resnick, free. Chad didn't see anything he wanted for a prize after throwing an alien into the volcano, so I snagged this. I have the first one in the series and will read it eventually.
• How to Keep Dinosaurs, Robert Mash, new. This is actually Chad's purchase, but it's so damn cute I have to mention it: a perfectly deadpan guide to owning dinosaurs as pets or livestock, in the style of a dog-breed guide. It has little information icons like a teddy bear ("likes children") and a teddy bear with a bite out of the leg ("likes children to eat"), note-perfect discussions of the merits of various species for different purposes, and beautiful illustrations. Our edition is a UK one, ISBN 0297843982; apparently it's also available in the US under ISBN 0297843478. I highly recommend it.

Overall: good con and great to see everybody, as usual. I keep wanting to think of something that I could volunteer to be on programming for, since Chad enjoyed his panels, but really I can't think of a thing I'd be specially qualified for, and who wants a panelist who doesn't have any more qualification than anyone else in the audience?

Other reports:

• rilina
• veejane
• Chad Orzel
• batwrangler's roundup
• "Boskone" tagged photos on Flickr (including Chad and I, where yes, I am standing on tip-toe)

The preliminary program is up, and I'm making notes to myself to figure out my schedule for the weekend.

But first, I whine: my throat feels like some evil persistent imp has taken a Brillo pad to it, my lungs ache profoundly, the skin around my nose is bright red and stings when I move any muscle on my face, my stomach has gone on strike to protest the steady diet of cough drops, all the synapses in my brain have edged away from their neighbors thanks to the decongestants (which have mostly stopped working), my ears are blocked up and I just did something nasty to my jaw when yawning to try and clear them, and I am vastly lacking in sleep. In short, I have a cold, and I want it to stop.

There. Aren't you sorry the program came out today so I had an excuse to post?

( notes towards a preliminary Boskone schedule )

I am bringing my spiffy new Palm with wireless keyboard, so I will be typing notes at panels; if anyone would particularly like detailed notes for anything on this list, please say so in comments. I refuse to feel obligated by requests, but I am more likely to distort my wrists on the little keyboard if I know someone actually wants to read the things.

My 4:00 conference call was rescheduled, and through the heroic efforts of my secretary, I was able to get out early. (And to drive while Chad dozed, my very small contribution to his programming efforts.)

Seen at the Prudential mall while getting dinner: signs saying, "The Shops at Prudential Center Welcome Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections."

( Friday: blogs, Einstein )

( Saturday: Pierce Kaffeklatsch; J.D. Robb; Catastrophes; 'The Fairy Tale'; Saturday Night Dead; Atlanta Nights Reading )

( Sunday: Space Opera; Design )

Links to other people's reports:

• veejane
• rilina
• oracne
• Chad on his panels
• Elisabeth Riba
• dxmachina
• stealthmuffin

And now I'm going to bed, minimal proofreadings and all.

( cut for boringness )