And, back!

[annathepiper]

Very quiet Norwescon this year, on the whole. As pretty much expected, I spent most of the time just hanging out and either a) reading, b) proofreading lyonesse's werewolf novel, c) editing Lament (which the aforementioned proofreading got me in the mood for), or d) writing. I did actually go to a couple of panels, but the only one I wound up staying for in entirety was one about "Which Kong is King?" Others I attended in part were a panel on Laurell K. Hamilton ("Mary Sue on a Rampage"), a panel on Battlestar Galactica, and one called "A Horse is Not a Motorcycle". Saw a few folks in passing and chatted with them, too--sarekofvulcan, lyricae, tinlail, bethmo, resqdog51, and pauldf, among others.

And I hung out in Quiet Hospitality, and occasionally helped solarbird with the daily zine. It was odd--Dara, spazzkat, mamishka, and I all really kind of had the same reaction to the con, which was to say, we were all rather "meh" about it. Paul and Mimi wound up bailing early, and the only real reason Dara and I stayed until tonight was that Dara of course had to get her various bits of computer equipment together as well as help out a bit with others who were doing con tear-down.

I made it to the exercise room just once--and realized when I got there that I forgot to charge my stupid iPod, so I had to do a 45-minute treadmill workout without music. Oh well.

I wound up picking up some books from the dealers' room, anyway: Donna Andrews' You've Got Murder (which I actually wound up reading, and found very enjoyable and charming), Barb and J.C. Hendee's Sister of the Dead (which I had planned on purchasing, as previously posted), and John Zakour and Lawrence Ganem's The Radioactive Redhead, which sold me on the strength of a very, very funny blurb as well as a strong recommendation from another congoer at that book table next to me. I also wound up asking the bookseller from whom I got the Andrews and the Hendee books what her recommendations were re: Lois McMaster Bujold, since she was the Guest of Honor and I have yet to read word one by her. (She recommended Cordelia's Honor, but only had a trade-size copy in her area in the dealers' room, and I opted to buy the two smaller books from her instead.) And I also looked for matociquala's books, since I've seen very strong recommendations for her as well, but unfortunately I could not find a copy of Hammered in the dealers' room. I'll have to look her up later.

I must also note that I finally got a glimpse of the first two issues of the new Elfquest series, "Discovery". I flipped through them to see whether or not I wanted them, and was somewhat disappointed to discover that the answer to this was "no". The art didn't particularly grab my interest, and neither did Strongbow and Moonshade's new cub Chitter--who, I might add, gave me a bit of a jolt on the strength of that name alone, since Chitter was one member of my Willowholt tribe on Two Moons. And when I saw a bit where Suntop/Sunstream was finally coming out of wrapstuff and everyone was gushing over how he'd gotten so tall, the first thing that popped into my brain was "wait, he GREW in wrapstuff?! How'd that happen, then?" Sigh. Oh well.

On the other hand, I must also note that as of this afternoon while I was hanging around the con, I also started reading naominovik's His Majesty's Dragon--and I LOVE IT. As I've mentioned, I think, it's been described to me as "Patrick O'Brian with dragons", but my take on it so far (I'm about halfway through the book) is "Patrick O'Brian meets the Dragonriders of Pern". And I mean this in a very good way. The best bits of the dragonrider society out of the Pern books are strongly present in this novel, as well as all the neat military aspects out of O'Brian. And I LOVE that Novik's dragons are People, and not just beasts who carry the human characters around and have occasional remarks to make. More on this, much much more, will be coming in my next book post!

The one downer note for me about the con was that the hotel had remodelling going on, remodelling that was long overdue in getting done, and which was in fact getting done in our wing of the place. So there was a lot of plaster dust in the air, and at least for the first couple of nights it made breathing kind of hard in our room even though we were up on the third floor. The hallway where all the con offices--and the con suite, for that matter--live wasn't even done. On the other hand, the con took advantage of this by letting everybody leave grafitti all over the wallboard up and down the length of the hallway, and that was actually pretty cool. So were the extremely comfy beds in our room, which were new to this hotel. They were comfy enough that Dara and I actually wouldn't mind getting a bed like them.

For now, though, we're glad to be home!

Comments

[seattlesparks.livejournal.com]

I made a (very brief) appearance at Norwescon last night to help with the hospitality suite, since Foolscap was running the suite that night (and ended up briefly at the DAW room party, discussing the ethnography of ancient Grecian tribes with CJ Cherryh -- surreal night).

While there, I had no less than ten people tell me about the 'A Horse Is Not A Motorcycle' panel, and that it made them think of me. ;P

I also love the title of the Laurell K. Hamilton panel... :)

[annathepiper]

Aw man, sorry I missed you!

I thought about going to the Writer's Social that was in the DAW suite, but attended the Horse panel instead and thought about going to the How Not To Get Published panel as well... but last night I mostly wound up spending in my room, reading and chatting with mamishka since I hadn't seen her in a while and we wanted to get caught up.

But it sounds like you had quite an evening! And the half of the Horse panel I was there for was actually rather cool, in terms of helping me get a better idea of what horses are actually like. I was pleased to see that I sort of knew some of those things already, thanks to knowing a few horse geeks.

And yeah, the LKH panel title alone was what made me show up. But I bailed halfway through--it got too much into talking about other topics.

[seattlesparks.livejournal.com]

I will happily haul you to the stables someday if you would like to meet horses up close.

As long as you bring apples, carrots, sugar cubes, or... y'know, anything Roman can fit in his mouth... then I know at least one horse who'll be your friend. ;)

[annathepiper]

I have vaguely wanted to have a real introduction to a real horse for some time, but have never had the opportunity! Or been around horse people who actually have regular access to a horse. mamishka is a horse person, but no horses for her here; lyonesse is a horse person, but she's on the East Coast!

I think I'd like to meet a horse up close with someone along who knows what they're doing, though. :) I am totally horse-clueless.

[seattlesparks.livejournal.com]

Well, I ride every week, and sometimes I go in on weekends to visit the horses and feed 'em, or give Roman his coat treatment. Going along during a lesson might be interesting or might be boring, I dunno. :)

But the stables aren't that far from Kenmore, really. They're right over in Kirkland.

[annathepiper]

Ohhhhh cool. Well, if you don't mind having an absolute newbie along one day, I think I'd enjoy this very much. :)

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Anna, did you see that renovation sign that they showed in the Masquerade video recap?

"...blah blah blah, the sooner you will realize the truth."

"What truth?"

"There _is_ no bathroom."

[annathepiper]

Hah! I didn't see that, no. In fact, I wound up skipping the Masquerade entirely, and by the time Dara and I turned on the TV in our room this morning, we'd missed most of the video recap. But hee. ^_^

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Ael and I actually got tied up in a Settlers of Catan game that ran about twice as long as I expected (as in, "Hey, Ael, why don't you play all your cards face up, and we'll tell you what the best play is?"), and walked in to the Masquerade as the last two people were heading offstage. It _was_ just in time to see the Grayson trailer, though.

Damn.

I had forgotten how hard that rocked.

MAKE THE DAMNED MOVIE ALREADY!

[annathepiper]

The Grayson trailer? What's this then?

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

It's a fan trailer for a movie about Dick Grayson, after his "retirement" from being Robin. Of course, you know this sort of thing never actualy works (http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2645516)...

[annathepiper]

Huh, that link didn't like Firefox at all, I had to load it into IE to make it work...

But heh. Not bad for a fan trailer, at all!

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Huh. Worked fine for me in FF.

I wonder if he's written the entire script...

[leian.livejournal.com]

*refrains from sounding like a rabid fangirl... composes self* Bujold. Read. *points to self* Me Bujold fan. Have question, can ask.

*coughs.. reverts to semi-normal since the most combustible subject has passed* Do tell more about the LKH panel. Was it... vicious tearing apart of the author or what?

[annathepiper]

Heh, the intent of the panel was mostly to discuss whether LKH had really gone overboard with her last few books, since that's a lament I hear expressed by a lot of LKH fans. It got expressed here, too. A lot of the same things I've heard before--that she let the kinky sex overwhelm all traces of coherent plots, pretty much. Most of the people present really missed the earlier books and there was universal agreement that Obsidian Butterfly was the last readable one.

I myself tried to help encourage saying some good things about her as well, by mentioning that I really liked how she used to come up with neat concepts like the fey vampire and the vamp who sacrificed himself by immolating in sunlight, surrounded by a cloud of butterflies. But the panel eventually wandered hardcore off topic, so I left.

Hrmm, I get the impression you like Bujold, then. ;)

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

The first taste is free. ;-)

http://www.baen.com/library/1011250002/1011250002.htm

[annathepiper]

Heh! Thanks for the link. :)

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. That was the first story I read, back in a Nebula story collection. Didn't take me long to track down the rest of her stuff. :-)

[leian.livejournal.com]

Re Bujold: Aye. *nods*

[annathepiper]

So if YOU had to recommend a book of hers to a new reader, which one would you recommend and why? :)

[leian.livejournal.com]

If you're looking for SF (which is where she started and where I fell in love with her books), I'd say The Warrior's Apprentice. Because it is the first Miles book and ... really sets the pace for the rest of the series ^_^.

If you're looking for SF, with a feminine point of view and also something that will give you Miles's background (and assorted cultural hangups), read Cordelia's Honor (Shards of Honor/Barrayar published in one book). Do note, however, that Cordelia's Honor and Miles's books have a fairly different 'voice', since the main characters are different.

For fantasy (though I recommend her SF more) you can pretty much read any of the books -- they're fairly standalone. The only point I'd note is that The Curse of Chalion happens cronologically before Paladin of Souls -- a secondary character in Curse becomes the main character in Paladin. To re-emphasize, it's not necessary to read the first to understand the second. The Curse of Chalion and Hallowed Hunt have men as their main characters; the MC in Paladin is female.

[annathepiper]

Wow, I never did get around to answering this one--sorry about the lag time on that!

But thanks for the recommendations, I've got Cordelia's Honor on my list of ever-growing stuff to check out. Thanks! :)

[wildshadowstar.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you're back safely and that you had fun.

[annathepiper]

Thanks! Glad to be back. :)

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

one called "A Horse is Not a Motorcycle"

I suppose it's a combination of my background and the fact that I mainly read contemporary fantasy and near-future SF, but I kind of expect people who write about horses to be people who've had a lot to do with them (or grew up on a diet of school stories and pony stories). I was feeling very self-indulgent about the horse riding scene in A Fine Moon To Die Under until I realised that it wouldn't take much dialogue tweaking for me to properly foreshadow Richard's big faux pas later in that section of the story.

Motorbikes, on the other hand, are an area I need to research a bit more before writing the future-dystopia biker story.

[annathepiper]

I would absolutely expect a story in which horses play a significant part to have the horse details done correctly, yeah. Say, involvement on the level of the horses of in Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword (which to this day remains one of my all-time favorites, and in no small part because of the horses). Me, I mostly just want to make sure I get basic details right--so that if I do actually get published, any horse people who read a book of mine won't want to throw it across the room because I screwed up something obvious. Even though I don't plan to write about horses in any huge detail, 'cause, well, I don't know about them, I want to at least get the basic details right. :)

But I totally understand the sentiment, as I have a similar level of desire to see computers handled correctly in any book in which computers play a significant role in the plot.