#worldcon 76

[darling-child-tisarwat]

Worldcon Imperial Radch/Provenance cosplays today!

[gailcarriger]

WorldCon 2018 Gossip from the Author Side + How a Con is like Tam Lin (Also Links to Things I Talked About On Panels & Useful Stuff)

Hello dear Gentle Reader,

I need to process, so you’re getting a con review today. Here are my feels on WorldCon (including the parties) plus resources and links follow ups on my panel discussions.

Frankly, WorldCon felt a bit like being Tam Lin, in the end. As if I had been pulled underhill, into a place with no time and too much terrible beauty.

Beware the unsidhe and fandom, or are they the same thing?

WorldCon San Jose 2018

By far the best thing to happen was Mur & Matt winning the Hugo for Best Fan Cast: Ditch Diggers. Are you a writer? Then you should listen to this podcast. No excuses now, shut up and listen. You’ll make my life a lot easier because you’ll stop asking me stupid questions.

Yes, there are stupid questions. Anyone who told you differently was selling something.

Mur in a Chicken hat and self at the Hugo After Party having a grand time

So Ditch Diggers wins and I am flipping ecstatic. I love them both, and we met because of podcasts. I am so delighted they won. It helps that I’m the Fairy Godmother of Ditch Diggers, so YES!

If you want to watch a great summation of WorldCon and listen to some awesome thoughts on the event and winning the Hugo, you can’t do any better than Matt’s little video…

The Venue

San Jose gave its all, in terms of weather and food. I feel like both would be hard to beat by any other WorldCon ever. There was so much hole-in-the-wall deliciousness within walking distance. My biggest disappointment was The Grill at the Fairmont – overpriced, overcooked, and bland. That’ll teach me to eat at the hotel and not the obligatory Nor Cal hole-in-the-wall. Nash.

Us locals were particularly amused by the general delight in all the yummy tacos, which, quite frankly, for us were merely passing good. Yes, including the lamb and pork belly ones. Trust me, this is WHAT WE DO.

My crew and I trekked vast distances for stellar Indian buffet and yummy Ethiopian on the advice of those who actually live in downtown San Jose and were not disappointed. Honestly, I keep ending up living in the Bay Area because of the food.

Rarely do I get a chance to eat exactly how I want to at a con – which is to say, not-American lighter faire, and mostly vegetarian. San Jose made that easy. Not to mention the fact that my hotel, the Hyatt, laid on a nice breakfast spread to get the day started RIGHT.

The Panels

I had three panels, a kaffeeklutch, and a signing. That’s actually pretty light schedule for me. But I also had interviews and meetings and such.

My favorite panel was the first one with my friend Shelly Adina. We are both comfortable at cons and with public speaking and don’t have many pickles left to give, so we went all out with hilarious and snarky. The room was packed and the questions were brilliant and people laughed at all the right times.

Photo source.

Panel Resources

Carriger & Adina Talk Steampunk (tea and silliness optional)

Things of interest from that panel:

Storypunks Podcast: Steampunk With Author and Podcaster Gail Carriger

The Sea Is Ours: Tales from Steampunk Southeast Asia

Writing and Researching Steampunk & Victorian History (my big blog post with TONS of resources)

Follow up article: Steampunks Abound at Worldcon

Young Adult: Looking at the World Through a Skewed Lens

Things of interest from that panel:

The 38 Best Queer YA Novels

The Lesbrary book review site

Why You Should Read “Fluff” Books

Spy-Fi: Secret Agents, Fantasy, and Science Fiction

Things of interest from that panel:

Gerardo Horacio Porcayo had some fascinating things to say about CyberPunk in Mexico, check out his stuff

History Extra podcast: Spies through the ages

Back to (Assassin) School: An Unconventional Reading List

Kaffeeklutch and signing….

I always give away swag and secrets at these things (and at my bookstore events) so no links of anything for you here. You have to come see me in person for that. Although the Chirrup may have something new and exciting to tell you this weekend.

WHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Source: Steampunks Abound at Worldcon

The Parties

I didn’t really hang out much on the party floor. I helped throw a lovely little tea party with Borderlands in their sponsor suite. And I buzzed up once to visit Locus. In general, however, the room parties were a bit too hot and crowded for me, most of the time.

An Informal Afternoon Tea: Etiquette, Fashion, and Excess in the Late 19th Century

What’s the Difference Between English, Irish and Scottish Breakfast Teas?

Mostly I hung out at the bar, or tried too. Because the best bar (Fairmont) would keep playing less than the best music, loudly, so we kept leaving and migrating about to lesser bars.

Running into the lovely Debbie at the Retro Hugos.

Too much time was spent walking aimlessly trying to meet up with people. Bars we did end up at weren’t prepared for authors-en-masse and did dumb things like close early out of fear or desperation or trauma. My shoes got progressively more practical as the convention went on, because there was just so much walking. This did not thrill me in any regard.

By far my favorite evening gathering was a the Hugo After Party, mostly because I always relax more at the end of the con, and I got to dance. The music was really good and I had my girls with me so there was lots of bouncing about. I did take an epic tumble due to a spilled drink on the dance floor and am now sporting an extremely impressive bruise. Yeah, I’m graceless AF.

The Concluding Muddle

WorldCon was kind of all over the place for me.

I started it off receiving some very sad news, which rather impacted my mental state the whole time. But I ended it over-the-moon happy for two friends of mine and dancing my little heart out. In the middle? I spent most of the con unmoored. Physically drifting from bar to bar, panel to panel, person to person. Emotionally wavering between grief, delight, annoyance, and joy. I socialized with buddies from Faire, friends from high school, author soulmates, steampunk lovelies, and professional contacts.

In a weird way, my whole identity was tested.

I guess you could describe my reemergence into mundane life as rather muddled and a little fractured right now. So forgive me these confusing times while I work myself back out?

I seem to be still there, at WorldCon, in that odd in-between underhill of magic and fairies and lost time and space, and beauty, and horror.

You know how it goes with the fae. Right?

Yours as always,

Miss Gail

Which reminds me you should all go read The Perilous Gard. (And for goodness sake why isn’t this in eBook form? Who’s managing that woman’s estate. Are you mad?)

Members of the Chirrup will have the option of entering to win this parasol on Sunday. You need to join before it goes out. This charming lace sunshade is one of a kind… because I decorated it with the blue ribbon myself. There will also be more gossip about WorldCon, and a super exciting secret about an upcoming project.

Not into newsletters? Get only new releases by following Gail on Amazon or BookBub!

[codyvrosh]

Adding the final touches to my pieces for the WorldCon art show. I love that gold mica. Can't wait!

[fuckyeah-nerdery]

There’s a panel at Worldcon 76 about horses in fiction called “The Horse is Not a Subcompact”

I love my nerdkind.

[the-expanse-rp-blog]

Support Paine X MacTane for the Expanse Belter Bar at Worldcon 76!

Background and Story

We are Maeve Athanasiadis and Dionys "Dio" Gallagher, a pair of rock-hoppers from

the Belt

. Born to a life of hardship, we were never very good at mining. Or engineering, really - when our ship broke down, it broke hard, and the towing fees to

Tycho Station

nearly wiped us out. We couldn't afford to repair our ship, the Black Moon, or

Mung Belék

, so we decided to follow our secret passion and converted it into a bar. Now we're parked at Dock 73Y, slinging drinks out of our cargo hold.

It turns out we're way better at bartending than we ever were at mining, and we love it. Our creative drinks, true Belter hospitality, and novel (if cramped) location have earned us the admiration of dockworkers, engineers, and visiting customers alike. As one of the hottest

bars

on Tycho, we're expanding, but we need your help to keep things running and the drinks flowing.

What We're Doing

This will be a suite party at WorldCon 76 in San Jose this August, themed around the Belter culture from the award-winning book and TV series

The Expanse.

The party will run on August 17th and 18th (Friday and Saturday nights). This is an expanded and improved version of the Belter Bar that some of us ran at BayCon 2017, when Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, the authors of

The Expanse

were guests of honor at the con, and spent quite a while attending our bar, enjoying the decor and drinks, and generally having a good time.

When you walk in, you'll be entering the most immersive

Expanse

experience we can create, with great drinks made on the spot as well as Belter language and culture. We invite everyone - Belters, Martians, Earthers, and those who haven't chosen a faction - to join us in space for an evening!

Donations will go toward:

Supplies of alcohol, mixers, and food;

Decorations that provide an immersive, atmospheric experience ("Those look like the same string lights we had on our set," observed Ty Franck, co-author of The Expanse, at the last party)

Safety measures and equipment for the hotel suite

Transporting all this to and from the site

All our staff will be donating their time and energy.

Who We Are and Our Experience

In real life, we're Hanne Paine and Kagan "Kai" MacTane, who work together as

Paine × MacTane

. Hanne is an Expanse superfan who has been a focal point for NYC Expanse fan meetups, was instrumental in the

Save the Expanse

effort, organized the epic 200-person Season 3 Finale party this year, and has taught an immersive

Lang Belta

class at sci-fi cons in from Baltimore to Rome, Montréal, and Worldcon 75 in Helsinki. Kai hosts Lang Belta meetups in the San Francisco Bay Area, created the

Lang Belta phrasebook on Memrise

, and has taught a Lang Belta class at last year's BayCon, as well as being a co-host of that con's Belter Bar.

Together, we've merged our two courses and taught at this year's BayCon, co-moderate the

/r/LangBelta

community on Reddit , and we're best known as the duo behind the

#ExpanseCocktails

series of recipes honoring various characters in the series. Between our cocktail knowledge, our party hosting experience, and our deep love and knowledge of Belter culture, we're uniquely suited to make this party a success.

Risks & Challenges

These are our risks and challenges.

If we don't raise enough money, we won't be able to make this event as good as it should be. We have great plans for set dressing and for food and drinks, and we'd hate to turn away thirsty people.

Other Ways You Can Help

If you can't help us out, please spread the word to other Screaming Firehawks attending Worldcon and around the world!

[dedalvs]

Congratulations to the nominees for the first Worldcon YA Award! They are:

Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor

The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller

The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge

Summer in Orcus byT. Kingfisher

As a reminder, if you’d like to nominate works for the second Worldcon YA Award to be presented next year, you need to sign up for an attending or supporting membership to next year’s Worldcon by December 31st, 2018. You can do so here.

[darling-child-tisarwat]

I was Andan Tseya for the Hugo Awards! You can sort of see the roses in the back of my hair.

[darling-child-tisarwat]

What up my name’s *checks smudged writing on my hand* Caral Ret.