The CascadiaCon report
Sep. 6th, 2005 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperAnd here is my post about NASFiC!
It's not going to be terribly impressive, I'm afraid, mostly due to the fact that I spent most of the convention in quiet recovery-from-surgery mode. This pretty much meant that I spent most of the time either a) sleeping, b) writing on my handheld, c) playing Nethack on my handheld, or d) doing newsletter assistance tasks for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
solarbird, such as proofreading, going to get submissions out of the submissions boxes, or distributing new issues out to the various distribution points around the convention. So I actually honestly didn't see much of what was going on.
But I did get to bump intoresqdog51, who I know via local offline Pern fandom, and that was cool. I also met ladymondegreen and two more of her friends, when they came by the newsletter room to say hi, and I bumped into writersweekend in passing. Also cool!
And I got to do a couple of cool things involved with the con in general. First and foremost, although I missed all her panels as well as her formal autograph signing session, I did actually get to briefly chat with my current favorite SF author, Julie Czerneda. I managed to corner her in the dealers' room when she came in to sign all her books on the table being run by the local University Bookstore. I told her she was an inspiration to me and that I hope to write books as richly detailed and evocative as hers are. She lit up. It was neat. I shook her hand, and she signed the copy of Hidden in Sight that I'd bought at the convention, the third book of one of her trilogies I needed to read. She also signed a bookmark, so I got two autographs for the price of one encounter. I'll have to be careful with the bookmark, since it's a long one and won't fit in a paperback! Also, she wished me good luck with my writing. *beam*
The second cool thing was that one of the few panels I attended was one about SF noir and what has been going on with it post-Blade Runner. I attended this partly mostly becausemamishka was anxious for me to lay eyes upon an actor that was at the convention: Jeffrey Pierce, who stars in the Canadian TV series Charlie Jade. He and the show's producer were two of the three panelists for the SF noir panel, and it turned out to be a very enjoyable panel just because of hearing these guys talk about their show. This prompted me to eagerly seek out the second round of the showing of the pilot for the show, which was very cool indeed. Meems and I like it well enough that we want to seek out the rest of the series--though we'll have to do it off of Bittorrent since the show hasn't aired in the States. The folks involved with it are trying to correct this, but so far haven't gotten the Sci-Fi channel interested in running it unless they can do it 'for free'. So they're trying to drum up a U.S. fanbase in the hopes of leaning on the Sci-Fi channel some more, and the producer in fact cheerfully encouraged folks in the panel audience to download the hell out of this show. Now that I've seen the pilot as well as the following episode, I can heartily recommend it. It's got a feel that reminds me of both Blade Runner and Minority Report, and it's also got elements to it that are all its own. Most appealingly to me, they've set it up as a "novel for television", such that a given episode comes across a lot more as a chaper in an ongoing story rather than something where a situation will get resolved in one hour. I approve. I approve a LOT.
Also, Jeffrey Pierce is really cute. ;)
The con suite, I must say, was excellent. A good variety of munchies, and a lot of fruit and 'real' food like hot dogs and a lot of meats and cheeses and bagels and bread to make sandwiches, a cut above just having a bunch of cookies and chips and pretzels. One of the last nights of the con, too, they had ice cream. Way cool.
I wound up missing the Masquerade, mostly because Meems, Dara, and I were having a nice dinner in the hotel restaurant and we missed the beginning, and Meems and I opted to return to the room and rest up before she headed out for parties rather than to try to go to the Masquerade at all. We hear tell that the Masquerade turned out to be small, but pretty good regardless.
The biggest thing I was really sorry I missed, though, was Heather Alexander's Uffington Horse concert and her Jam in the Key of C panel. This is what I get for being Thyroid Recovery Girl and not bringing an instrument with me to the convention.
I did make it to the art show, though, and while it was mostly a lot of stuff that's familiar to me from art shows over the years (fairies of assorted levels of cuteness or sexy-ness, cutesy cats with wings, cutesy dragons, long-haired elfin-looking folks with or without pointed ears or wings, etc.), there were one or two cool and unusual things that caught my eye. There was a map of what looked like Middle Earth in the Fourth Age, and as near as we could tell it was based off of a Tolkien RPG. Dara and I had a bit of fun trying to pick out the familiar landmarks in the midst of a whole lot of unfamiliar names. And there were some nice masks made out of nothing but gold wire, very light and delicate work. And Meems had a cool new print up, but unfortunately nobody bought any of her prints. :( Sniff.
Along with Dara I popped into a couple of the parties, but only very briefly--this was on Sunday night, the last night of parties for the convention at all, and I was only just barely getting my wind back by then. But we did see a few of the Arisia crowd, which was neat, and they got points for having drumming going on in their party.
Let's see, what else... non-LJ friend Rod roomed with Dara, Meems, and me, which made it feel like a Worldcon since Rod usually rooms with Dara and me at Worldcons. However, having Mimi around made it feel like a Norwescon! This also meant that it felt weird to not havespazzkat around, but he did wind up joining us for Sunday when he came down to buy a day pass for the convention. So that was neat.
A lot of the local Norwescon regulars really missed the Norwescon hotel, and even some of the folks who aren't Norwescon regulars were really missing the Norwescon hotel. This was a two-hotel convention, and from what I was hearing a good bit of the programming scheduled over in the Radisson suffered because people didn't feel like trekking over there from the Hilton. The Norwescon hotel would have been a lot better for the con, though, due to its size, plentiful convention space, and being all in one big sprawling building. But oh well. Ultimately this pair of hotels wasn't bad, to be sure--or at least the Hilton wasn't, since I never made it over to the Radisson. It was kind of nice to just have all of the hotel programming on a couple of floors, and even when party hopping, not having to wander all over hither and yon looking for parties to go to.
Oh oh oh, this reminds me--one of the parties I did manage to hit was the one being held by Windstorm Creative, through whom Mimi's episode guide for Firefly has come out. It was pretty keen to see actual physical copies of this little book, with Mimi's name on them, and keener to hear from Meems that people were stopping her and asking her for autographs. One woman even cornered her in the art show and apologized profusely to her for interrupting her on her non-work time, to ask her for a signature. Way cool.
Also, I sawmizkit's Urban Shaman on sale in the dealers room. *beam*
That's about it, really--a quiet relaxicon for me, mostly. Once I actually got on my feet, I had a bit more fun--but that was only in the last day and a half or so of the convention. Oh well! Maybe I'll get to be more active at LACon IV next year!
It's not going to be terribly impressive, I'm afraid, mostly due to the fact that I spent most of the convention in quiet recovery-from-surgery mode. This pretty much meant that I spent most of the time either a) sleeping, b) writing on my handheld, c) playing Nethack on my handheld, or d) doing newsletter assistance tasks for
solarbird, such as proofreading, going to get submissions out of the submissions boxes, or distributing new issues out to the various distribution points around the convention. So I actually honestly didn't see much of what was going on.But I did get to bump into
resqdog51, who I know via local offline Pern fandom, and that was cool. I also met ladymondegreen and two more of her friends, when they came by the newsletter room to say hi, and I bumped into writersweekend in passing. Also cool!And I got to do a couple of cool things involved with the con in general. First and foremost, although I missed all her panels as well as her formal autograph signing session, I did actually get to briefly chat with my current favorite SF author, Julie Czerneda. I managed to corner her in the dealers' room when she came in to sign all her books on the table being run by the local University Bookstore. I told her she was an inspiration to me and that I hope to write books as richly detailed and evocative as hers are. She lit up. It was neat. I shook her hand, and she signed the copy of Hidden in Sight that I'd bought at the convention, the third book of one of her trilogies I needed to read. She also signed a bookmark, so I got two autographs for the price of one encounter. I'll have to be careful with the bookmark, since it's a long one and won't fit in a paperback! Also, she wished me good luck with my writing. *beam*
The second cool thing was that one of the few panels I attended was one about SF noir and what has been going on with it post-Blade Runner. I attended this partly mostly because
mamishka was anxious for me to lay eyes upon an actor that was at the convention: Jeffrey Pierce, who stars in the Canadian TV series Charlie Jade. He and the show's producer were two of the three panelists for the SF noir panel, and it turned out to be a very enjoyable panel just because of hearing these guys talk about their show. This prompted me to eagerly seek out the second round of the showing of the pilot for the show, which was very cool indeed. Meems and I like it well enough that we want to seek out the rest of the series--though we'll have to do it off of Bittorrent since the show hasn't aired in the States. The folks involved with it are trying to correct this, but so far haven't gotten the Sci-Fi channel interested in running it unless they can do it 'for free'. So they're trying to drum up a U.S. fanbase in the hopes of leaning on the Sci-Fi channel some more, and the producer in fact cheerfully encouraged folks in the panel audience to download the hell out of this show. Now that I've seen the pilot as well as the following episode, I can heartily recommend it. It's got a feel that reminds me of both Blade Runner and Minority Report, and it's also got elements to it that are all its own. Most appealingly to me, they've set it up as a "novel for television", such that a given episode comes across a lot more as a chaper in an ongoing story rather than something where a situation will get resolved in one hour. I approve. I approve a LOT.Also, Jeffrey Pierce is really cute. ;)
The con suite, I must say, was excellent. A good variety of munchies, and a lot of fruit and 'real' food like hot dogs and a lot of meats and cheeses and bagels and bread to make sandwiches, a cut above just having a bunch of cookies and chips and pretzels. One of the last nights of the con, too, they had ice cream. Way cool.
I wound up missing the Masquerade, mostly because Meems, Dara, and I were having a nice dinner in the hotel restaurant and we missed the beginning, and Meems and I opted to return to the room and rest up before she headed out for parties rather than to try to go to the Masquerade at all. We hear tell that the Masquerade turned out to be small, but pretty good regardless.
The biggest thing I was really sorry I missed, though, was Heather Alexander's Uffington Horse concert and her Jam in the Key of C panel. This is what I get for being Thyroid Recovery Girl and not bringing an instrument with me to the convention.
I did make it to the art show, though, and while it was mostly a lot of stuff that's familiar to me from art shows over the years (fairies of assorted levels of cuteness or sexy-ness, cutesy cats with wings, cutesy dragons, long-haired elfin-looking folks with or without pointed ears or wings, etc.), there were one or two cool and unusual things that caught my eye. There was a map of what looked like Middle Earth in the Fourth Age, and as near as we could tell it was based off of a Tolkien RPG. Dara and I had a bit of fun trying to pick out the familiar landmarks in the midst of a whole lot of unfamiliar names. And there were some nice masks made out of nothing but gold wire, very light and delicate work. And Meems had a cool new print up, but unfortunately nobody bought any of her prints. :( Sniff.
Along with Dara I popped into a couple of the parties, but only very briefly--this was on Sunday night, the last night of parties for the convention at all, and I was only just barely getting my wind back by then. But we did see a few of the Arisia crowd, which was neat, and they got points for having drumming going on in their party.
Let's see, what else... non-LJ friend Rod roomed with Dara, Meems, and me, which made it feel like a Worldcon since Rod usually rooms with Dara and me at Worldcons. However, having Mimi around made it feel like a Norwescon! This also meant that it felt weird to not have
spazzkat around, but he did wind up joining us for Sunday when he came down to buy a day pass for the convention. So that was neat.A lot of the local Norwescon regulars really missed the Norwescon hotel, and even some of the folks who aren't Norwescon regulars were really missing the Norwescon hotel. This was a two-hotel convention, and from what I was hearing a good bit of the programming scheduled over in the Radisson suffered because people didn't feel like trekking over there from the Hilton. The Norwescon hotel would have been a lot better for the con, though, due to its size, plentiful convention space, and being all in one big sprawling building. But oh well. Ultimately this pair of hotels wasn't bad, to be sure--or at least the Hilton wasn't, since I never made it over to the Radisson. It was kind of nice to just have all of the hotel programming on a couple of floors, and even when party hopping, not having to wander all over hither and yon looking for parties to go to.
Oh oh oh, this reminds me--one of the parties I did manage to hit was the one being held by Windstorm Creative, through whom Mimi's episode guide for Firefly has come out. It was pretty keen to see actual physical copies of this little book, with Mimi's name on them, and keener to hear from Meems that people were stopping her and asking her for autographs. One woman even cornered her in the art show and apologized profusely to her for interrupting her on her non-work time, to ask her for a signature. Way cool.
Also, I saw
mizkit's Urban Shaman on sale in the dealers room. *beam*That's about it, really--a quiet relaxicon for me, mostly. Once I actually got on my feet, I had a bit more fun--but that was only in the last day and a half or so of the convention. Oh well! Maybe I'll get to be more active at LACon IV next year!