Vcon 33

I’m back at work after spending the weekend at Vcon 33. I am very tired, and unwell. I went to Vcon suffering from a cold, tried to ignore the cold during the con, and returned home with a cold. Obviously, I have little right to complain about lingering illnesses given such behavior.

Vcon was back in Surrey, at the Compass Point Inn, the site of five previous Vcons, including Vcon 22 which I chaired. It’s by no means a great hotel, but I like it for Vcon as we can fill it up, take it over and have it to ourselves. And by being away from downtown or the airport the Compass Point is not exactly bursting at the seams with business, which means they tolerate our eccentricities. And they have a hot tub.

Our guest room was terrible. The window looked onto the part of the roof where big scary vents release whatever it is that rooftop hotel vents release, filling the room with constant rumbles and hums. The room was stuffy and hot, and while there was an air conditioner it’s loud whine added to the horrible din. The shower, as DR observed, did not so much shower you with water as it quietly leaked on you. Luckily we shared the room with good friends, which did much to ameliorate the situation.

This year’s author Guests of Honor were Kelley Armstrong and Patrick Rothfuss, neither of whom I have read. DR is a fan of Kelley’s books, as are a number of my friends. I found Kelley an interesting and thoughtful panelist, and I mean to add her to my list of authors to read. Patrick Rothfuss is an excellent panelist; engaging and funny, and I now plan to pick up his debut novel. I chatted with him briefly after the convention was over, and he seems like a really nice fellow. The literary programming at this year’s Vcon suffered from over-staffing by the programming department. Too many of the panelists on the writing discussions were almost-authors, self-published authors or fan-fic authors. I don’t mind having such authors on panels if the panels are about topics such as self-publishing or fan-fic, but to have them on the same panels as the Guests of Honor is frustrating. One assumes that anyone attending a Kelley Armstrong panel on writing is there to hear Kelley Armstrong – having someone who’s not published anything on the same panel adds little and takes away time from Kelley. It’s no surprise that the best writing panel of the weekend was the one on backstory, that featured Kelley and Patrick and no one else. Vcon needs much tougher standards for who appears on the programming, and they need to cut back on the number of names per panel. Quality over quantity is generally the best strategy for staffing panels.

I went to two panels that relate back to my work, both featuring Gaming Guest of Honour James Ernest, known to many as the man behind Cheapass Games (and to me as the man who kicks my ass at poker). In James’ panel on game design a lot of useful ideas emerged and his observations on design fundamentals are astute, so there was a lot for me to take back to my workplace and share with my fellow producers. The panel on violence in games and comics was also relevant to my work, as I handle the various international age rating and content warning submissions and negotiations for the games I work on, and I was able to contribute a fair bit to this panel.

The Art Show was a bit shabby in presentation, not surprising given the Show’s organizer resigned a couple weeks before the event and the committee had to scramble for volunteers. I liked the works on display from Artist Guest of Honour Lisa Snellings-Clark – her sculptures are wonderfully creepy and strange. And I was thrilled that my friend PW sold some pieces, including a few to the Artist GOH. The rest of the show was of little interest. (It’s always hard for me to comment on this department as I am not much of a fan of amateur art shows. I expect art to try and communicate something, or at least contribute something unique or new, and most of what’s on display at cons has little to nothing to convey, and nothing new to add to the field.)

The Dealer’s Room disappointed. There were no used book dealers, and Vancouver’s new SF book dealer, White Dwarf Books, did not have a table this year, other than a two hour appearance Friday night. This meant a lot of attendees could not buy the guest’s books at the event and get them signed by the authors. This really needs to be fixed for next year’s event. There were a couple of small-press publishers in attendance, but they only carried books from their catalogs, and had nothing of interest to me. I did buy a board game from a rather good games dealer, my only purchase at the con.

As is typical for me at Vcon I spent most of the convention in Hospitality where I caught up with friends, many of whom I had not seen in quite a while – in some cases years. All three evenings found me up until the wee hours of the night in conversation. And this year’s Hospitality had four excellent beers on tap from R&B Brewing. R&B has always been a great sponsor for Vcon, and their beers seemed to be well received by all. This was the best Vcon Hospitality Room since Vcon 28, the last time we were in this hotel.

Speaking of beer, one advantage to the con’s location this year was proximity to the Central City Brewpub, which I’d been meaning to get to. A small group of us gathered for pizza and beer. The food was fine, but – wow – do they make good beer. My friends from Bellingham, who are serious craft beer enthusiasts, seemed to agree. I had the Red Racer Pale Ale and the Iceberg Copper Bock, both excellent. The room is ultra-modern, and very impressive, but for all that it’s a sportsbar with the usual televisions all around. I would not mind the televisions but that the audio for the baseball game was cranked up, instead of music, despite no one paying attention to the game.

Despite some frustrations, I had a pretty good time at Vcon this year. Now I need to recover from this cold, and decide if I am going to make it to World Fantasy Con in Calgary at the end of the month.

Denver/Denvention Trip Part 5

On the social side of the con, Denvention played host to a good number of room parties.  The best nights for room parties are often Wednesday and Sunday the first and last nights of the con when attendance is not quite so high, and that proved to be the case this year as well.  The Seattle WorldCon Bid party did a good job with their Steampunk-themed night, and The Reno WorldCon bid party had a great setup for their marine-themed night.  The Texan party had a number of Texan goodies to nosh on (including pickled okra!) and the Scandinavian contingent threw a great party with flights of aquavit to try (I had the caraway-flavoured).  But ultimately, the room parties were too crowded, and populated with more people trying to have fun than actually succeeding.  The rooms in the party hotel were just too small and narrow.

For the most part I spent my evenings in the more spacious suites of the publisher’s parties.  One is more likely to run into interesting authors at these, and much more likely to find a place to sit.  And while I appreciate a cup of green, glowing alcohol of unknown origin as much as the next con-goer, I appreciate the availability of beer and wine generally to be found at the publisher’s events even more.

The last night of the con was a mellow evening of chatting in a room party held by the good people of Anticipation, next year’s event to be held in Montreal.  Given the great people involved in running Anticipation, its  location in a favourite city of mine, and a guest list that includes Neil Gaiman and Ralph Bakshi, I am already greatly looking forward to going.  Plus, I’ve promised to direct Robert Silverberg to a good spot for Montreal Smoked Meat sandwiches – a promise I mean to keep!

In the meantime, it’s time to get down to some writing.  Attending WorldCon always inspires me to write.  The trick, as always, is to maintain that inspiration, and to make sure that the creative energy I’ve come away with is well-spent by the time next year’s event rolls around.

Denver/Denvention Trip Part 4

So it’s taken me four posts to finally talk about why we went to Denver in the first place; Denvention, the 66th World Science Fiction Convention.

Worldcon is never short of excellent authors in attendance, and this year was no exception.  Denvention offered fewer of my favourite authors than I expect from a Worldcon, though this was more a matter my personal tastes than a reflection of the guest list’s depth.  Guest of Honour Lois McMaster Bujold drew a lot of fans, but I was there to see James Morrow, whose excellent, “The Last Witchfinder” is one of my favourite recent reads, and whose catalog includes classics like “Towing Jehovah.”  Morrow’s books are intelligent, thoughtful and viciously funny, and these traits could describe Morrow himself.  He was charming and informative on his panels, and I greatly enjoyed his reading from his upcoming “Godzilla” novella.  I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to chat with him at one of the publisher parties, and he was kind enough to indulge me in conversation.

The overall programming at Denvention was a bit disappointing, and I attended far fewer panels than I normally will at a Worldcon.  Guests were not always scheduled appropriately (for example Morrow was not included on the religion panel, despite this being his hobby-horse, and Sharon Shinn was included on a forensics panel, despite nothing in her catalog reflecting this), and science programming was almost non-existent.  The best panel I attended was the H. P. Lovecraft panel featuring, among others, Hugo-winner Charles Stross and my friend Julie McGalliard.

If an overall theme emerged in the Denvention programming it was what is now being referred to as, “Slipstream fiction,” and many panels that were ostensibly about something else would drift to this as a topic.  This is a reflection on the current state of fantasy/sf publishing, where many younger authors strive to blur the boundaries between SF, fantasy, horror, romance, mystery and historical fiction.  Michael Chabon’s “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” winning this year’s Hugo award for best novel under-scores this trend.  Sadly, I missed this year’s Hugo ceremony due to a need for some dinner.

If the programming was a let-down, the Dealer’s Room more than made up for this, and I walked away from Denvention with more than two-hundred dollars worth of books.  Among the haul: Ian McDonald’s, “Brasyl,” James Morrow’s, “The Philosopher’s Apprentice,” Jonathan Barnes’, “The Somnambulist,” Ramsey Campbell’s, “The Grin In The Dark,” as well as some small press novellas from Tim Powers and Connie Willis, and a hard-to-find collection of R. A. Lafferty shorts.

Denver/Denvention Trip Part 3

It became a matter of some debate on this trip as to whether Denver was geographically qualified to claim being in the South-West. After a sampling of the regional cuisine I would have to agree that it is, but while in the family of South-Western cuisine, the food of Colorado has a style of its own.

The most ubiquitous menu item in Denver was the green pork chili, a side available in many of the restaurants. Perhaps the most famous version of this Colorado classic is found at Sam’s No. 3, a downtown Denver institution since 1927. Foiled on my first attempt to order this famous chili by the distraction of biscuits and gravy, which you just can’t find in Canada, I finally tried the most famous chili in Colorado on my last morning in Denver. Thick, meaty and tasting strongly of hot green chilies, it was delicious, well worth the wait, and after but three hours of sleep as effective as the coffee at waking me up.

The best meal I had in Denver was at the Santa Fe Tequila Company, where South-Western cuisine is approached as fine dining, and tequila recieves the status normally reserved for Single-malt Scotch. The Carne Adobada Burrito, served “Christmas Style” (dry red chile sauce on one side, fresh green chile sauce on the other) was outstanding; deep, rich, complex and spicy, and one of the best South-Western dishes I’ve ever had. The Company’s list of tequilas was impressive, and I enjoyed an outstanding margarita (done right, an elegant cocktail over ice and NOT a sweet slushy drink) and after dinner, a glass of the fine Corazon Anejo. I was fortunate to share this dinner experience with a number of friends, and it was a memorable night overall.

Outside the realm of South-Western we had some wonderful ethnic food as well. The all-you-can-eat Peruvian buffet at Los Cabos II was so good we went twice. Peruvian food is one of the world’s most unique cuisines, and can seem very unusual to the uninitiated, but our friends were game and they seemed to enjoy it. The ceviche I enjoyed there, raw seafood “cooked” in lime juice, onions and chilis, ranks as one of the best preparations of that dish I’ve ever had.

Another spot that proved worth two visits was Bayou Bob’s, thanks to our friend Paul who was quite insistent that we try this Louisiana-style restaurant that he ranks as the best New Orleans food he’s had outside of New Orleans. Given that Paul visits New Orleans almost every year, this is high praise indeed, and I was not disappointed. As this represents yet another cuisine unavailable in Vancouver we perhaps went a bit overboard, and left both times rather stuffed. Crawfish étouffée with a side of crawfish pie, deep-fried pickles, mushrooms stuffed with crawfish (we like Crawfish!), the best gumbo I’ve ever had, and a giant helping of boudin; a Cajun white pudding. Amazing!

Denver/Denvention Trip Part 2

Due to room availability issues, Dawna and I stayed in two different hotels on this trip. Neither hotel was very good, nor were the staff at either hotel terribly helpful, but both hotels were near the convention center, and both were situated on 16th Street.

16th Street is probably what I like best about Denver. A long pedestrian mall lined by restaurants and cafés, 16th is Denver’s go-to neighbourhood for casual meals and drinks for tourists and locals alike. There’s a good energy to the strip, lots of patios and, best of all, it’s serviced from the early morning to late at night by free buses that arrive every couple of minutes.

Create a car-free neighbourhood in any city in the world and good things happen there. It’s a wonder more cities don’t try it (personally, I think Vancouver ought to try it with Commercial Drive, or maybe Water Street).

16th Street does suffer under the weight of too many chains, however; Coyote Ugly, Hard Rock Café, Earls, Starbucks, etc. And even many of the independents managed to feel like they were chains, and no doubt this is what they’re shooting for. It’s an interesting phenomenon, as many people in Denver were talking about how relieved they were about Denvention (and the other conventions that were concurrent, of which there were many) and the upcoming Democratic National Convention coming to Denver, as the local tourism economy has been struggling. So often a city will embrace national chains, forsake their local businesses, thereby funding a process of generification, and never make the connection that the ways they are spending their money is shaping their city in a way that removes the reasons for anyone to visit there in the first place. Anyway, I digress…

16th Street was a good place to sample the local beer. Brewing is big business in Colorado, and in addition to giants like Coors and Anheuser-Busch are a number of excellent micro-brewers and brew pubs, almost 100 in number across the state. I tried a number of local beers, in places such as the Paramount Café on 16th, where the knowledgeable staff guided us to a number of excellent beers such as the fine Big Nose Red, and the Wynkoop in SoDo, Denver’s oldest brewpub where we sampled the Patty’s Chile Beer, slightly spicy as advertized. In all, too many beers to mention, but I have to call out Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat as the best beer I had on this trip, an elegant whit-style with overtones of blueberry and lemon. (Leinenkugel, I should admit, is actually from Wisconsin.)

If the staff in the restaurants proved knowledgeable on the local brew, the staff in the hotels did not. Asking the staff to recommend a local microbrew and they would invariably direct me to Blue Moon, made by Coors. It has become a strategy of the corporate brewing giants to produce beers that look and sound like microbrews in order to compete with the burgeoning micro-brew industry. From the ignorance of the hotel staff I have to conclude that, sadly, sometimes the strategy works.

Denver/Denvention Trip Part 1

Leaving Denver’s new airport by bus I was struck by a large sculpture of a blue horse with fiery red eyes, rearing proudly over the bleak Colorado landscape. I found the sculpture striking, oddly unsettling and rather incongruous in the Colorado landscape of dry hills, endless parking lots, and low, industrial buildings. As I would later learn, artist Luis Jimenez had died before completing his statue, when it loosened and pinned him down in his studio, but the statue manages to be creepy even without this knowledge. Denver residents for the most part seem to dislike this sculpture, which is too bad, because it was in many ways the first and last really interesting item I found in the Denver landscape.

To be honest, I like Denver just fine. But it is not the most compelling city I’ve ever been to, and without the World Science Fiction Convention to draw me there I probably would not have found myself back there for my first visit since a drive-through over a dozen years ago. The brick building skyline in my memory has been replaced by cliffs of concrete high-rise offices and glassy, over-priced condos, and the few neighbourhoods of interesting architecture, such as the LoDo, now live in their long shadows. Being a city no older than my native Vancouver, Denver did not have a lot of history to offer me, and with no large bodies of water, and the nearest mountains being quite far away, the natural landscape is no great shakes either. In fact, Denver may be one of the least green, and least architecturally interesting cities I’ve been too.

With all that, I wasn’t too worried. I was there to see friends, attend the Convention, think about writing, buy books and, as I do, to eat and drink as well and interestingly as I can.