Rowan Tree and Red Thread

Damn, now this sound like a panel I would have enjoyed. Cheryl Morgan chaired a panel at the Denver Worldcon with Charles N Brown, Gary K Wolfe, Graham Sleight and Karen Burnham discussing their choices of the best 20 SF works of the last twenty years.

nhw pointed me to this post by Niall Harrison discussing the same panel. he comes up with a consensus list:

• The Culture Novels, Iain M Banks (starting 1987)
• The Hyperion Cantos, Dan Simmons (starting 1989)
• Grass, Sherri S Tepper (1989)
• The Aleutian Trilogy, Gwyneth Jones (starting 1991)
• The Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson (starting 1992)
• Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson (1992)
• The Flower Cities sequence, Kathleen Ann Goonan (starting 1994)
• Fairyland, Paul McAuley (1996)
• Diaspora, Greg Egan (1997)
• Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds (2000)
• The Arabesks, Jon Courtenay Grimwood (starting 2000)
• Light, M John Harrison (2002)
• Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang (2002)
• Evolution, Stephen Baxter (2003)
• Pattern Recognition, William Gibson (2003)
• Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
• Air, Geoff Ryman (2004)
• River of Gods, Ian McDonald (2004)
• Accelerando, Charles Stross (2005)
• Spin, Robert Charles Wilson (2005)

(thanks Niall!)

In the spirit of Nicholas' statistical analyses I've figured out my reading pattern suggests I'm 38% match for Charles N Brown, 35% Gary K Wolfe, 35% Graham Sleight, 45% Karen Burnham and 40% Cheryl Morgan. I'm only 40% caught up with the consensus too.

I guess I need to read more.

Thanks also to drcpunk for her private communication include her notes from the same panel. I really have to get booking a holiday in Canada for next August.

What follows are assorted notes I jotted down while we were at Worldcon, prettied up a little. I've missed some panels out that I enjoyed but don't have very clear memories of, but it's long enough as it is.

We arrived after a hard flight. It was a little Saab twin-prop job that hopped around the sky, tossed about by turbulence. I hated it. Once we were on the ground I regained my composure, but I was terrified while we were in the air.

We got to the hotel around 3.30 or 4.00. We didn't do much that afternoon and then wandered down to the conference centre to register. The dealers' room wasn't open at that stage. Afterwards we went back up towards Sauchiehall Street and ate dinner in the Argan café, a Moroccan and Mediterranean restaurant. It was delicious but marred by the very slow delivery. I know that I ate tapas-style and Sam had the more regular starter and main course, but her main course arrived about 45 minutes after I'd had my last dish. Crap.

Thursday was getting into the swing of the con, learning our way around the venues and hitting the first of the panels. ( Thursday )

Friday was a panel marathon, but we also caught up with old friends. Whisky was consumed. ( Friday )

Saturday the panel marathon continued and I began to think I'd have to write a novel just to empty my head of the hundreds of ideas that were cluttering it up after this intense SF dose. ( Saturday )

( Charlie Stross's kaffeklatsch )

( Game design: playability vs. realism and Tall Technical Tales )

( Anonymous Claire )

By Sunday my note taking was more comprehensive. Yet more panels and some incredible Indian food.

( AIs: the aliens we make )

( Forgotten children's books )

( Genre-killing ideas )

Sunday lunch at the Mother India Cafe on Argyle Street. Simply brilliant Indian food. We ate way too much, including chilli king prawns, chicken achari, lamb pasandi, curried smoked haddock, some aloo thingy in a pancake, plus nan, paratha and raitha. What an excellent meal with great combinations of flavours. I'll definitely go back there the next time I'm in Glasgow. The only drawback was the bloated stomach and burping I had for the rest of the afternoon having overeaten at lunch. Eyes bigger than stomach, I'm afraid.

( Jack Cohen's kaffeklatsch )

( The rest of Sunday )

( Scarpering home )

Apologies to anyone I met and forgot to mention, or any panellist who I didn't include. I'll plead ignorance and exhaustion in roughly equal measure. I'd like to thank the organisers of Interaction publicly. It was a fabulous con, and I really enjoyed it. SECC security might have been a pain, but the quality of the panels and the general mood of fannish good nature were splendid.

We're off to Worldcon tomorrow, so this is my last post for about a week. I'm sure you'll all find something to entertain yourselves with in my absence.

Our big experiment in childrearing by proxy begins tomorrow too, with Rowan spending five nights with her grandparents. Rationally I'm sure she'll do well; she's very close to them both and has spent a night with them before without a hitch. The worried parent in the back of my head is gibbering slightly nonetheless. I'll run up a phone bill and a half while we're away no doubt, checking in.

Other financial burdens are in sight too, in the form of the dealers' room at Worldcon. I believe we've left extra space in our luggage to allow for the major book 'accident' we're planning on having. Anyone in Cork with extra storage space to share should get in touch.

Bye!