My Readercon is off to an auspicious beginning. I’ve just arrived, and I’ve already left the only copies of Infoquake and MultiReal I brought somewhere in Logan Airport. I think I probably left them sitting at the courtesy phones for the rental car shuttles.

Here’s my schedule, for those who will be in Burlington, Massachusetts and want to catch up with me:

Friday, 2:30 PM: How I Wrote Infoquake and MultiReal.
A 30-minute talk by yours truly. I haven’t entirely figured out what I’m going to say, but at this point I’m planning to talk about how I wrote Infoquake and MultiReal.

Friday, 4:00 PM: I’ve Seen Things You People Wouldn’t Believe: The Influence of Blade Runner.
David Louis Edelman, Glenn Grant, Matthew Kressel (L), Geoff Ryman, Diane Weinstein.
This year saw the twenty-fifth anniversary release of the definitive version of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, a film universally recognized as one of the two or three greatest achievements of sf cinema. The film’s groundbreaking (and insanely detailed) visual design has influenced everything from runway fashions to building architecture, and some would argue that the current “default” dystopian science fiction vision comes right out of the film’s dark LA streets. How pervasive has Blade Runner’s influence been on sf (both written and cinematic)? Has the film altered the way we look at ourselves and our future? Is it possible that its dark landscapes have discouraged us from envisioning a better tomorrow?

Friday, 7:00 PM: Economics as the S in SF.
David Louis Edelman, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Alexander Jablokov, Ernest Lilley (L), Brian Francis Slattery.
SF stories concerned with economics have predominantly been either satires of consumerism or arguments for libertarianism. But there are also sf stories that investigate economic principles in the way that traditional sf explores the physical sciences. Damon Knight’s A For Anything examines the impact of a new technology on our current economic system; Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom imagines an entire new system; and John Brunner’s The Shockwave Rider does some of both. We’ll discuss these and other classics of the subgenre. Is today’s generation of writers more economically aware than their predecessors, and has there been an uptick in these stories as a result?

Friday, 8:00 PM: Kaffeeklatsch.

Sunday, 2:30 PM: Reading.
I’ll be reading from Infoquake and/or MultiReal and/or Hustler magazine. Yeah, it’s the last timeslot of the con. No, I don’t expect a heck of a lot of people to show up.

I’ll admit that I’m fairly new to the science fiction con circuit, but having been to Readercon twice now, I have no hesitation crowning it my favorite. The panels are generally high-minded and intellectually stimulating; the guest list is always first-rate; and best of all, there isn’t a single dork with a Klingon outfit or a lightsaber to be found.

Of course, the flip side is that once the bar closes at 12:30 pm, there’s pretty much nothing to do but go back to your room and sleep. Peter Watts, Jenny Rappaport, and I tried to find a party after last call on Saturday, only to get accosted by a very angry woman asking “us people” to keep the noise down. When we did find the one open party in the hotel, security arrived two minutes later to shut it down.

Highlights of my weekend include:

• Getting to ogle Mary Robinette Kowal’s steampunk laptop (as recently featured on Boing Boing) and listening to plenty of stories about her beaver. And how did I thank her for being one of the coolest people on Earth? By going into an unstoppable coughing fit during her panel on techniques for reading aloud and having to duck out of the room.
• Sharing many a beer, many a story, and many a laugh with George Mann and Christian Dunn of Solaris Books. The fact that George and Christian accepted my SF short story “Mathralon” for publication in their forthcoming second Solaris Anthology of Science Fiction helped my mood quite a bit too. I introduced George and Christian to Mary Robinette Kowal, which may have been a mistake, because the rest of the con they kept making obscure comments about clockwork monkeys.
• Continuing to confound the world by appearing at the same con with Scott Edelman (see photo to the right) and insisting that we’re not related.
• Sharing a panel on alternative points-of-view in fiction with (among others) Peter Watts (of Blindsight fame) and gossiping about the biz with him and Jenny Rappaport over beers until closing time. Turns out Peter is just a fabulously nice guy with a very wry sense of humor and a big ol’ Canadian accent.
• Gabbing over meals and beers with Matthew Jarpe, author of the David Hartwell-edited debut novel Radio Freefall, and listening to his humorous reading from same.
• Breakfasting with the divine Elizabeth Bear not once, but twice. I will even forgive her for accidentally calling me “Scott” during one conversation.
• Discussing J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin, among other things, with Realms of Fantasy slushmaster and all-around nice guy Doug Cohen.
• Watching fellow Pyr author Kay Kenyon promote the hell out of her new novel, Bright of the Sky, through readings, panels, talks, fliers, signings, ads, and who knows what else. I also got a chance to share drinks and a ride back to Logan Airport with Kay and fellow Seattle-area author Louise Marley.
  
• Meeting Infoquake fan Skott Klebe, discussing the life of an SF writer over drinks at the “Meet the Pros(e)” party.
• Getting pleasantly hammered at the “Meet the Pros(e)” party on pricey Scotch provided by Elaine Brennan.
• Chatting innumerable times with Slush God John Joseph Adams, who must have committed some kind of venal sin, considering he was wandering around the con with the Mark of Cain on his forehead.
• Actually getting a few words in edgewise on a panel about politics and SF that also included James Morrow, Paolo Bacigalupi, John Kessel, and guests of honor Lucius Shepherd and Karen Joy Fowler.
• Enjoying several beers, meals, and chats with Andrew Wheeler, SF reader/editor/blogger extraordinaire and late of the Science Fiction Book Club.
• Discussing the fine points of “You, Me, and Dupree” over drinks and dinner with René Walling, Matt Jarpe, and a very charming woman named Kristin, who despite the fact that I’ve met her two or three separate times now, I still keep forgetting her last name and made an ass of myself by confusing her with someone else.
• Publicizing Matthew Kressel’s Sybil’s Garage magazine by wearing a sticker on my badge that said “Sybil’s Garage” in Hebrew. This turned out to be such an effective promotional tool for Matthew that I think I talked about Sybil’s Garage more than I actually talked about my own books.
• Debuting two passages from my forthcoming novel MultiReal to a small but enthusiastic audience of people who were still around at 2 pm Sunday for the last slot of the con.
• Catching up with various other folks here and there in the hallways, including Craig Gidney, Eugene Myers, Ernest Lilley, Jim Freund, Hildy Silverman, Diane Weinstein, Lee Weinstein, Robert Legault, Ellen Datlow, Joy Marchand, Yves Meynard, and Tom Purdom.

This weekend, I’ll be at Readercon 18 in Burlington, Massachusetts. Readercon’s kind of special for me, since last year’s Readercon was my first exposure to the SF con scene. (Read my recap of Readercon 17.)

Last year, I headed off to Readercon knowing literally one person in the SF field: my editor, Lou Anders. This year, I can look at the programming schedule and see all kinds of friends and acquaintances on the list, including John Joseph Adams, Matt Jarpe, Mary Robinette Kowal, Tom Purdom, Kay Kenyon, Ellen Datlow, Jim Freund, Matthew Kressel, Doug Cohen, Jenny Rappaport, Ernest Lilley, Scott Edelman (for the last time, people, no relation), Elizabeth Bear, Hildy Silverman, and Lee and Diane Weinstein.

I’ll be arriving on Friday afternoon (after making a pit stop to see my sister and my nephew) and heading for the airport after my reading on Sunday. Here’s what I’m doing in between:

• Saturday, 10 am — Other Points of View.
  Panel with Laurie J. Marks, Maureen McHugh, Wen Spencer, and Peter Watts. Description from the program: “In several places, Karen Joy Fowler’s The Jane Austen Book Club adopts a first-person plural viewpoint: ‘we’ are thinking about the conversation described, and the reader gets to think about who, exactly, ‘we’ may be—not everyone in the room! While third person and first person singular are the standard viewpoints in fiction, here we talk about the alternatives, and when we (you?) can best employ them.”
• Saturday, 11 am — Political Beliefs and Fiction.
  Panel with Paolo Bacigalupi, Karen Joy Fowler, John Kessel, James Morrow, and Lucius Shepard. Program description: “Both our Guests of Honor have histories of political activism. We’ve learned from other authors that the relationship between strongly held political beliefs and fiction is not always what it seems: apparently apolitical stories have hidden political motivations, or the overt political elements which would seem to be central to a story’s conception are in fact late additions. Our panelists discuss their stories with political elements or motivations. How do different creative circumstances (e.g., coolly rational vs. mad as hell) lead to different flavors of fiction or different degrees of success?”
• Sunday, 2 pm — Reading from MultiReal.
  I will be reading (for the first time) excerpts from my forthcoming novel MultiReal. (Read a preview of MultiReal from an earlier blog entry.) Unfortunately, the folks at Readercon decided to schedule my reading on Sunday afternoon in the last time slot of the con. Well, I guess someone’s got to be there. And to make things worse, I’m programmed opposite Peter Watts talking about “How I Wrote Blindsight” and panels with Elizabeth Bear, David Hartwell, and James Morrow, among others. Somebody please come see my reading.

So if you’re at Readercon and want to say hello, don’t be shy. If you can’t find me anywhere else, you might want to try the bar.