And home again!
Nine Worlds was lots of fun. I hadn’t really known what to expect, but it turned out to be very busy and very entertaining. I spent most of the convention chatting to people, but managed to find time to catch a few panels – standouts were one on the historical reception of Lord of the Rings by Dr. Anna Caughey, and a talk on infrared astronomy and the Herschel Space Observatory by Dave Clements.
I’ve come to look forward to cons because it means I get a chance to hang out with other authors and talk shop, which was exactly what I ended up doing here. I spent most of my time with the rest of the Orbit author brigade – Charlie Stross, Francis Knight, and Kate Griffin – but I managed to also get in a little time with David Tallerman and Adrian Tchaikovsky. A weekend can really fly by when you’re catching up with people you haven’t seen for months.
As for the actual events, there’s less to say. The signing was quiet (I spent more time chatting with the other authors than I did signing books) and the panel went well (the small rooms at Nine Worlds are a lot more comfortable to talk in than a huge lecture theatre). My panel could equally have been titled “Getting Published 102” so it ended up being a how-to session as much as anything.
Of course there’s always a fly in the ointment, and in this case the curse of British transport once again reared its ugly head. Instead of staying at Heathrow, I’d figured I could save on hotel bookings by taking the Underground to and from the con each day. It wasn’t until the night before that I found that Nine Worlds had somehow ended up scheduled on literally the ONE weekend in the entire year that half the Piccadilly line was down for maintenance. Doing a loop around the closed section of track doubled my travel time, and caused me to miss the reading on Saturday night (as by the time I would have made it halfway back the trains would have stopped running).
Still, it’s not much of a complaint, and all in all I had a great time. Looking forward to next year!