A squee kind of a day

[klwilliams]

On Saturday Kepler's Books in Menlo Park held a Sci Fi/Fantasy Day. They had a very good program, with authors there, an even mix of science fiction and fantasy, who had panel discussions on a number of topics, most of which had to do with science fiction and, well, fantasy. The day started with Andy Weir, who wrote "The Martian", and Mathew Jobin, whom I hadn't heard of, but who wrote "The Nethergrim." They had a back-and-forth discussion that ranged from world building (more done on the fantasy, since Weir's Mars was as scientifically accurate as he could make it) to plotting to inspiration to many other topics. I enjoyed their talk, and I'm looking forward to reading "The Martian". (Yes, that sounds a little cold.)

The second talk was a class in Dothraki by David Peterson, the man who created the language. Since we don't watch AGoT, Chaz and I went next door with a couple of friends to have lunch. One of the nice things about local events of this sort is that we get to run into people we know but only see at conventions, and this gave us time to spend some quality time and have actual conversations. We had lunch with Effie Seiberg (who has a story in "Women Destroy Science Fiction", so there's one more reason to rush out and buy it) and Arley Sorg, who is supplementing his writing by being a fill-in photographer for Locus. The food, but particularly the company, was excellent.

Next was my favorite part of the day, was a group discussion called "Face Off: Science Fiction vs. Fantasy". This was supposed to be a discussion with the panelists taking sides, but since the panelists were Ellen Klages (who won a World Fantasy Award the weekend before), Pat Murphy (who herself has won a World Fantasy Award, and possibly a Nebula or two), Marie Brennan (who writes fantasy about science), and Chaz (who writes everything). What a fun panel! Emily Chiang (whose most recent book is a children's book set in China) moderated, and did a great job steering the flood of ideas. The audience enjoyed themselves and asked intelligent questions, and I certainly hope bought lots of books.

The final pairing was Tad Williams and Steven Erikson, but we didn't stay. That's too bad, because I've known Tad for a long time and Chaz has known Steven for a long time, but I doubt our absence was noticed. We had gone off to dinner and drinks with Chaz's panel participants plus spouses and other friends, and that was itself another fast-paced conversation with intelligent people. I was sorry the day had to end, but the nice thing about everyone being local is that I will probably see a lot of them at a Christmas party in a couple of weeks.

For those of you who would have loved to have been there, all the guests were interviewed by the podcast NerdVana, so you may be able to hear those at some point.

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[pennski.livejournal.com]

Hurrah for squee days!