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Sunday,
August 20: Since we were well aware
of all the increased security precautions the airports were taking
since the London-to-US bomb plot had been discovered a few days
earlier, we had Laura drive us to the Dayton airport at 3:00
AM, just to make sure we had time to clear security before our
6:00 AM flight. By my watch, it took the pair of us 54 seconds,
total. (We changed planes in St. Louis. We'd been told that we'd
have to clear security again. What happened is that we exited
our plane at Gate 12, walked 20 yards to Gate 14, and got right
onto the Los Angeles flight. Elapsed time: about 90 seconds.
So much for security.)
We landed at 9:00 AM Left Coast time, and
my cousin Bob Hamburg and his wife Glenda were there to meet
us. After a quick breakfast, we went to a location Carol's been
wanting to visit since it was completed - the Getty Museum. Fascinating
place. Maybe a dozen architecturally-striking buildings atop
a large hill (or a very small mountain), with extensive formal
gardens, and an even more extensive art collection; every inch
of every building was filled, and a guard told us that more than
half the collection was in storage. The hill was so steep that
you parked half a mile away and took a tram up to the museum.
Carol and Glenda took the horticultural tour, Bob and I just
wandered through the buildings looking at paintings by Rembrandt
and Renoir and Reubens and a bunch of other guys, some of whose
names didn't even begin with an R.
At around 2:30 we headed south for Anaheim,
made the 35 miles in only an hour and a half of freeway driving,
and checked into our room. When the LACon committee asked me
to edit their Space Cadets book in honor of Media Guest
of Honor Frankie Thomas, who had played Tom Corbett on television
back in 1950 (and yes, I watched it religiously at age 8), they
wanted to know what I'd charge. I figured if I charged them a
fair price based on their limited print run I'd go broke, and
if I charged them a fair price based on my standard fee they'd
go broke ... so I suggested that since they had filled the hotel
and doubtless had some comp rooms, they could give me 6 free
nights on the 5th (party level) floor. It became 8 nights when
they asked me to contribute a story. The room was large, and
it had a private balcony, perhaps 12 feet on a side, overlooking
Disneyland; every night at 9:30 you could stand there and watch
half an hour of the most colorful fireworks display.
We met Janis Ian and her spouse Pat in
the lobby, and the six of us went out to dinner. I'd asked Bob
to hunt up the best Greek restaurant in the area, and he came
up with Christaki's. Great pastitso, very good dolmades, best
saganaki (flaming cheese) I've ever had. Interesting belly dancer;
not that skilled, but unbelievably beautiful. The four women
criticized her dancing; Bob and I just looked and admired.
Bob dropped us off at the hotel, we visited
a bit with the CFG (Cincinnati Fantasy Group) members who had
arrived on Saturday - Drew and Yvonne MacDonald, Bill and Cokie
Cavin, Debbie Oakes - and then, since I hadn't been to bed at
all the night before and Carol had only grabbed a few hours sleep,
we went to bed before midnight, unheard-of at a Worldcon.
Monday, August 21: I'm collaborating on a novel with Kevin Anderson
(our collaborative short story, "Prevenge", appeared
in Analog during the con), and we had planned to have lunch together
and spend the afternoon working. But Kevin was on a book tour
for the new Dune novel, and while he was in the area, he was
at a Hollywood hotel and found out that cabfare would be $125
each way, so we put off the meeting until he actually arrived
at the con.
That left lunch and the afternoon free,
so we walked over to Downtown Disney. It's pretty small, pretty
overpriced, and pretty ugly compared to the lovely, extensive
and reasonable Downtown Disney in Orlando. We grabbed a quick
and totally unmemorable lunch there, walked back, and Carol took
a nap while I went down to the lobby to greet new arrivals. At
4:30 we rented a car - a Sebring convertible, which Carol used
to drive before she decided a Jeep Cherokee with 4-wheel drive
was more practical on our very steep and hilly streets and driveway
- and drove off to meet two of my producers, Ed Elbert and Sarah
Black (and their spouses). They currently hold the options to
Santiago and Kirinyaga, and Ed, whom we've known
for 15 years, is the guy who got Carol and me the screenwriting
assignments for Santiago and The Widowmaker a few
years back.
The restaurant Ed had chosen was La Vie
en Rose, which is in Brea, about 11 or 12 miles north of Anaheim.
We arrived on time, but there was a call waiting for us that
4 of the 5 lanes of Interstate 5 were closed and the producers
would be half an hour late. I started reading the plaques on
the wall, and I was still reading them when our party showed
up. This place has been voted the best restaurant in Orange County
every year since 1993, it gets 5 stars from just about everyone
who gives out ratings, it has a certificate calling it the best
restaurant in Southern California signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger
(as the Governator, not the actor) ... this is some French country
restaurant. Ed and Sarah and their spouses arrive - Ed's wife
is a musician who scores movies; Sarah's husband is a screenwriter
who's currently scripting a Morgan Freeman film - and we order.
I had lobster ravioli, mushroom soup in a pastry bowl, duck in
orange sauce, and capped it off with an exquisite chocolate souffle
-- my first dessert in 3 months. Carol had venison, thereby taking
her revenge against the deer who keep invading her garden to
nibble on the flowers.
We talked some business, parted company,
and returned to the Anaheim Hilton. Oddly enough, not that many
people had arrived yet - the previous weekend had seen a Pokomon
tournement, and a lot of the kids were still cluttering the lobby,
playing their games. We hunted up some friends - mostly old-time
fans; I can't remember if we met my friend Darcee Monday or Tuesday,
but I kept running into her all week -- visited a bit, and were
in bed relatively early (exceptionally early for a Worldcon),
because we had things to do the next morning.
Tuesday, August 22: I think we had breakfast in the coffee
shop, but I was too sleepy to remember. Then we drove to the
Gene Autry Museum with Drew and Yvonne MacDonald packed in what
laughably passes for a back seat in the Sebring, and made it
in about an hour. Debbie Oakes and Cokie Cavin went in Debbie's
car, and arrived a few minutes after us. Bill Cavin was under
the weather and stayed at the hotel.
The Autry is my favorite museum in the
LA area, which figures for a kid who was raised up on cowboy
movies, and who still has a soft spot in his heart for Hoot Gibson,
Ken Maynard, Bob Steele, Sunset Carson, Rocky Lane, and that
whole crowd...but this time the visit was a bit disappointing.
About a third of the museum was closed for renovations and to
set up a new exhibit, and some of the permanent collection was
out on loan. Still, there was a remarkable display of Colts and
Winchesters, a beautifully refurbished stagecoach, gorgeous saddles,
Teddy Roosevelt's gun collection, a Buntline special, Doc Holliday's
little revolver, Billy the Kid's shotgun, a bunch of exhibits
from the B movies (but not the early TV shows; they were in the
part that was being renovated, so we didn't get to pay our respects
to Paladin, Bret Maverick, et al.) Still, it took us 3
hours to get through what they had, plus another half hour in
their exceptionally well-stocked gift shop, and then we started
driving back to the hotel.
The Autry is about 30 miles from the Anaheim
Hilton. We left at 1:30 PM, hardly rush hour. It took us until
3:45 to travel those 30 miles in LA traffic. We'd planned to
have dinner at my favorite Southern California restaurant (Babouch
- great Moroccan food, you sit on Persian rugs, prop yourself
up with embroidered cushions, eat with your fingers, and try
not to trip a series of great belly dancers), but it's in San
Pedro, another 35-mile drive, and I just didn't want to spend
5 more hours, coming and going, in traffic, so we turned in the
car after 23 hours and 51 minutes so as not to pay an extra day,
got hold of Tony and Suford Lewis - our dinner companions - and
told them we were eating locally. Lawrence Person, editor of
Nova Express and my guide whenever I'm at Armadillocon
in Austin - joined us, and we had a nice, if unexceptional, dinner
at a nearby sort-of-Mexican restaurant.
Adrienne Gormley showed up Tuesday, and
very graciously loaned Carol a laptop for the duration of the
con. I had a bunch of eBay auctions closing, and Joel Zakem let
me log with his computer on a few different nights long enough
to transfer the money from PayPal to my bank account.
By Tuesday night most of the bid suites
were opened - Chicago, Denver, Columbus, Australia, Kansas City
and Montreal -- and I managed to hit all of them. Carol missed
the first few - she watched those fireworks every night that
she could - and then joined me. As with every Worldcon, it was
the last night before the convention officially opened, which
meant that it was my last night to be a fan.
Wednesday, August 23: We had a table with 4 chairs and an umbrella on
our private patio, and Carol opted to have room service bring
her lunch there. I went down to the coffee shop to meet a pair
of Brits, George Mann and his assistant, Mark, who edit the brand-new
Solaris line in England. I'd already sold George a novelette
and he wanted to buy some books from me, which is a wonderful
way to put me in a good mood. The problem with these diaries
is that I write them up right after the cons, and the deals I
negotiate aren't complete for a couple of months, so I can't
tell you what the deal is, only that at con's end we thought
we still had a deal.
I had a quick hour to take my first tour
of the huckster's room, which Larry Smith tells me had 247 tables
and 17 booths. Then, at 2:30, I had a panel on "Great First
Lines". First panel in 30+ years I actually had to prepare
for. I mean, how the hell many great first lines can you remember
off the top of your head? ("The doorknob opened a cold blue
eye and winked", "In five years the penis will be obsolete",
"One morning the Pope forgot to take her pill", and
out.)
When it was over I went down to the huckster's
room to sign at the Asimov's table, where I ran into the
Female Person From Colorado (a/k/a Connie Willis), who was just
finishing her own signing, and finally got to meet her husband,
Courtney.
After that I went back to the Hilton, where
I did a one-hour reading to a nice-sized audience. I read them
a science fiction story that I think has a real shot at the 2008
Hugo, a fantasy story that could have been written by Damon Runyon,
and a little, funny, thousand-worder I did for Nature
Magazine.
I met Carol in the lobby after my reading,
and we took a cab to the Grand Californian Hotel - we were running
too late to walk - where we met Lou Anders, my editor at Pyr,
his wife Xin, his mother, and his 15-month-old son whom I insist
on calling Mike Junior. The restaurant was the Napa Rose, every
bit as expensive as La Vie en Rose, but while very nice, not
in a class with the other one. Had a wonderful two hours - Lou
and I have become close friends over the past couple of years
- and didn't really talk any business. They're happy with me
- I'm the top seller in the Pyr line - and I'm happy with them;
they've committed to buy 6 more books. So we just chatted and
gossiped, and I played with Mike Junior.
CFG finally got their suite, which they
kept open for the next 5 days. We never bid for anything; it's
a hospitality suite, open to friends (and by definition, since
we never advertise it, a friend is anyone who knows where to
find it). SFWA opened their suite, and so did ASFA (the American
Science Fiction Artists), both on the 6th floor to avoid a couple
of thousand kids trying to crash it.
I had brought along a DVD with three of
"my" films on it: Metal Tears, Jake Bradbury's
live-action adaptation of "Robots Don't Cry" that debuted
at Noreascon IV; Machines Don't Cry, a computer-animation
adaptation of the same story; and the 30-minute condensed backer's
version of The Branch, famed in song and story as the
film that got producer/director Josep Guarro excommunicated from
the Andorran church and thrown out of Andorra for 15 years. I
left the disk in the CFG suite, and anyone who wanted to load
it into a laptop and watch it was welcome to; during the con
I saw a number of fans doing so.
I got Drew and Yvonne into the SFWA suite,
introduced them to Greg Benford, Pat Cadigan, Gardner Dozois,
and a number of other writers and editors, then took them up
to the 7th floor where there was a reception for writers and
workshop participants, where they met Nancy Kress, George R.
R. Martin, and saw CFG member (and the only CFG pro not named
Resnick) Steve Leigh, who also writes as "S. L. Farrell".
Everyone kept asking me where Laura was
- I suspect she far outsells me these days - but she was home
recuperating. She'd just spent a few months in Israel for the
Associated Press, and got out the day before the shooting started.
(Well, before the shooting with Hezbollah; the shooting with
Hamas had been going on for a couple of weeks.)
After I left Yvonne charming a bunch of
pros, I went to some of the other parties. Ran into Bill Fawcett,
and for the first time in years neither of us had anything to
sell to the other. Made arrangements to meet next year at DragonCon;
I've never been to one, but they offered to fly us there and
put us up, so how could I say no?
Ran into Kay Kenyon, and insisted on introducing
her to some editors and podcasters who should love her work,
then did the same for a couple of other writers. Before the weekend
was over, I'd managed to introduce Rob Sawyer, Bob Silverberg,
Nancy Kress, Kevin Anderson and Harry Turtledove (as well as
Kay) to my Escape Pod guy, who I believe had committed to buy
from all of them by Saturday night.
Eventually I wound up back at CFG, as I
almost always do at Worldcon, visiting with Pat and Roger Sims,
Dick Spelman, John Hertz, Mark Linneman, Sue and Steve Francis,
and other old fannish friends. Pros don't come to CFG very often
the way they used to, because the two cultures have diverged,
and pros want to talk about the business while fans want to SMOF
or talk about what they've read - but I go to the suite to briefly
get away from the business end of things, so I'm thoroughly comfortable
there.
Thursday, August 24: Bob Silverberg and I always have lunch at Worldcon,
and since we both grew up in Jewish neighborhoods and now live
in places with no delis (not mediocre or poor delis, but no
delis) we always try to eat at one. We found a highly-recommended
one in Costa Mesa. And Bob was driving down from the Oakland
Hills and would have a car.
But Karen (his wife, Karen Haber) took
his car to go shopping, so we figured, what the hell, we want
a deli, let's take a cab, how much can it be? (Answer: $35 each
way. $70 total, so he could have a bowl of matzo ball soup and
I could have chopped liver and blintzes. Whoever said science
fiction writers are smart?)
We split the cabfare, but Bob had to pay
for the meal. And the reason he had to pay was because the LACon
committee had asked him to emcee the Guest of Honor speeches
on Thursday night and he said, No, get Resnick. The only reason
he lived long enough to have lunch is because I thought he'd
have a car.
Now, when the committee, on one week's
notice, asked me if I'd toastmaster this two-hour shindig, I
figured I should get a little something extra for it. Not money;
I'm a fan at heart. But I knew my cousin Bob and his wife Glenda
were coming by to hear the speeches and attend the private Resnick
Listserv party Thursday night, so I said Yes, I will host the
damned event, provided you give one-day memberships to Bob and
Glenda, which they promptly did. (Well, I also said. "Provided
I don't have to wear a jacket and tie, or shoes with laces.")
So while Silverberg and I were seeing the
countryside at $3.00 a mile, Carol met Bob and Glenda, saw them
through registration, and turned them loose in the huckster room
and art show (and they had such a good time that they're coming
to Denver in 2008). In the meantime, I had my official autographing
from 3:00 to 4:00.
So I sit down, and Eric Flint comes by
to say hello and schmooze a bit while I'm signing, and then Ralph
Roberts shows up and sits down next to me to visit, and since
he's in a dozen of my anthologies I have him sign whenever one
shows up, and I realize at 3:55 that my line is longer than ever.
Now, once in a while, I sign an extra few minutes beyond my hour
to take care of the stragglers, but this was like nothing I've
ever experienced. 4:15 comes and goes, so does 4:30, and the
line is still long, and I am hoping all my editors are
watching, because I am sure I am signing more books in one afternoon
than their royalty statements say I have sold in a year. Finally
Carol comes by at 5:00 to point out that we have to leave for
dinner so I can be back to host the Guest of Honor event, so
I tell the last few people to show up at Larry Smith's table
Friday and I'd move them to the front of the line.
When we'd gone to ConJose in 2002 we had
a couple of meals at a Marie Calendar's, which I gather are commonplace
in California but haven't reached the Midwest yet. We fondly
remembered their pies, so we asked Bob to drive us to the nearest
Calendar's, about 5 miles away, for dinner. Dinner was okay,
about the level of a Bob Evans or a Mimi's; the pies were superb.
Then it was back to the hotel, where we
showed Bob and Glenda around until just before 8:00, and then
mosied over to the convention center. I stepped out on the stage
to check it out, found the spotlight blinding and a notecard
I placed on the podium unreadable, and realized I was going to
have to do the whole thing off the cuff, except for one part
where I had to read off the names of Howard Devore's family.
Some guy backstage was nice enough to keep a tally, so I can
tell you that in the course of the evening I told jokes about
Nancy Kress, Janis Ian, Bob Silverberg, David Gerrold (twice),
Gardner Dozois, Connie Willis (thrice), Jim Gurney, Howard Devore,
George R. R. Martin, Joe Haldeman, Anne McCaffrey, and SFWA.
(It's nice to have friends, even if they're no longer your own.)
LACon lost two of its four Guests of Honor
this year - Big-Hearted Howard Devore, the Fan GOH, died a day
or two into the new year, and Frankie Thomas, the Media GOH,
died a couple of months ago. While I spoke a bit about both of
them, it made for a shorter ceremony that might have been anticipated
a year ago. Jim Gurney did a fascinating slide show, and Connie
Willis, the dreaded Female Person From Colorado, gave a very
serious, very emotional, very un-Connie-like speech, which ended
with her in tears (and made me decide not to clip her with any
zingers after she finished). It thought it went pretty smoothly,
and we wound it up in about 95 minutes.
Then it was back to the CFG suite to unwind
a bit, and at 11:00 I went down to the third floor, where LACon
had thoughtfully provided the Resnick Listserv and its friends
with a very nice room. I read a story, then Linda and Juli belly-danced,
then I read another story, then they danced again, and so on.
Adrienne Gormley also read one, and Bob Faw read a sonnet and
a short-short. Guy and Rosy Lillian showed up for part of it,
so did Drew and Yvonne MacDonald, Jack McDevitt was there for
the whole thing (and would still be there if the ladies
were still dancing), Eric Flint showed up for the final hour.
It wasn't a suite or a party room, so there were no couches and
no refreshments, but everyone seemed to have a good time, and
we broke up after maybe 2 ½ hours.
Bob and Glenda went home, everyone else
to their scattered parties went, and I went to the Baen's
Universe suite, which Eric was hosting. I'd sold him a pretty
nice novelette a month earlier titled "All the Things You
Are", and he'd asked me to bring another one to the con
so he could read it on the way home. I handed him a 6,000-worder
titled "The Big Guy" - a science fiction basketball
story, except that it isn't really - and instead of waiting to
go home, he read it that night and when I woke up there was a
phone message that he'd bought it. Which is about the only pleasant
way to wake up that I've ever discovered.
Friday, August 25: I dragged myself out of bed and made it down to
the coffee shop at the ungodly hour of 11:00 to have my postponed
lunch with Kevin Anderson. We spent a couple of hours working
out some of the broader details of the novel's outline - Kevin's
a guy who likes 60-page outlines, and considering the advances
he gets, who can say him nay? - and we'll probably be working
on the outline even longer than we work on the book. Hopefully
the outline will be ready for submission by mid-December.
Then Kevin and I wandered over to the huckster
room, where all the contributors to Space Cadets, the
anthology I'd edited for LACon IV, were seated at a huge table
for an autograph session. There was Connie Willis, Harry Turtledove,
Kevin, me, Nancy Kress, David Brin, Greg Benford, Larry Niven
- names like that. And we drew a huge crowd, one that
kept us there 45 minutes beyond our alotted hour. But there was
one guy, I couldn't see him clearly from where I sat, who signed
only one autograph the whole time. It was Walter Koenig, who
played Chekov on Star Trek. He must have confused this
with a Trek convention, because he sat down next to the biggest
names in the field, who of course were autographing for free,
and had a little sign posted to the effect that he would sign
an autograph for a mere $20.00. I wouldn't expect to see him
back.
Because of the autographing I was a bit
late for the Pyr panel, in which Lou Anders was introducing all
his authors, describing their books with fanatical enthusiasm,
and showing slides of their covers on a screen. I'd been nagging
Kay Kenyon for a year to submit to Lou - I know what he likes
- and she finally did, and sold him a 4-book series. This was
her first look at her cover; I think her face glowed brighter
than the screen. By the time the panel was done I think Lou had
made it pretty clear that Pyr is not a small press: in
his first two years he's published me, Alan Dean Foster, Mike
Moorcock, and Bob Silverberg, among others. I've had three different
cover artists from Pyr - John Picacio, Stephen Martiniere, and
Bob Eggleton - and all three were on the Hugo ballot.
Then at 4:00 I went back to the huckster
room for a signing with Janis Ian at Larry Smith's table. And
as I've been doing ever since Millennium Philcon, I asked the
belly dancers to come and draw a crowd - and as they have been
doing every year, they wiggled and jiggled and sold about $400
more Resnick books than I used to sell in that hour before I
thought of inviting them to dance. Larry and Sally had brought
a large supply of anthologies that had Janis in them, so she
was kept busy signing for most of the hour. Linda and Juli drew
so many onlookers/buyers than I stuck around another half hour.
I think when the dust settled I signed about 3 times as many
books at LACon as I'd ever done at any prior Worldcon. I don't
know why. My first thought was that I hadn't been out there since
the last LACon, but actually I'd been to Con-Dor, just 90 miles
south of there, maybe 4 years ago. I guess it'll remain a very
pleasant mystery. We met Glenn Yeffeth, publisher of BenBella
books, and my old friend and recent collaborator David Gerrold,
for dinner, and went into the upscale Italian restaurant in the
Hilton. We'd been taken there five evenings in a row at LACon
III and were thoroughly sick of it by convention's end, but it
had been a decade since we'd dined there, and it was a wonderful
meal. I'd been editing a reprint line of sf for Glenn for a couple
of years, starting in 2003, but it didn't sell as well as his
media books (big surprise, right?), and we decided to drop it,
which freed me to edit another line elsewhere should I choose
to ... but we remained friends, and indeed I've edited some anthologies
for him, and he's reprinting my Soothsayer/Oracle/Prophet
trilogy. During the meal he announced that he'd spoken to his
distributors about the latest anthology we planned to do, and
they were so enthused that he now wants to make it a six-anthology
series. Which was even more satisfying than dessert (but I had
dessert anyhow.)
Never did make the masquerade, though I've
now seen photos of all the costumes, and think "Captain
Jack Sparrow" - a 6-foot bird in a pirate's outfit - should
have been a shoo-in for Most Humorous, Most Creative, and half
a dozen other Mosts. Got up to the SFWA suite, where Asimov's
and Analog were having a dessert party, then stopped by
CFG long enough to partake of one of the pies - French Silk,
my favorite - that the gang had brought back from Baker's Square.
Stopped by the overcrowded (as usual) Tor party, got to say hi
to Beth Meacham and Tom Doherty, then went to the Escape Pod
Party. Stephen Eley, who runs Escape Pod, has bought six of my
stories in the past 3 months, and has made a firm believer out
of me; the first one I sold him was heard by a French producer/director
who promptly e-mailed me and bought an 18-month option on it.
Wound up back at the Baen's Universe
suite, which seemed to be the only non-bidding suite open after
3:00 - very unfannish, how early the parties kept shutting down
- and visited with the Baeniacs for a couple of hours, then toddled
off to bed just ahead of the sunrise, which is the way you're
supposed to do it at Worldcons.
Saturday, August 26: I had another ungodly early lunch at 11:00, this
time with Eric Flint. He'd just bought my story, we had collaborated
on an anthology for Baen during the summer, and I had a novel
idea that played to both of our strengths that I knew he'd love,
so I brought it - and Carol - along. Carol ate and left by noon,
Eric decided - no surprise - that he wanted to collaborate on
the novel, and we spent the next hour going over some plot points
and ideas for sequels, since it should be a relatively easy sell.
Which is just one more reason why I love
this field. There are absolutely no uninteresting people in it.
Three years ago I'd never heard of Lou Anders; five months ago
all I knew about Eric was that he wrote a lot of books, most
of them for Baen. Today they're two of my closest friends.
I went to my kaffeeklatsch - they finally
served kaffee at one of these things - and passed out autographed
dust jackets, cover flats, trading cards from Chicon IV (I still
have maybe 200 left), and discussed forthcoming works and answered
any and all questions. Lousy venue; we were located maybe 60
feet from the stage of the fan cabaret, with no wall between
us, just a curtain. Fortunately there was a lady harpist during
my hour; I hate to think of how it would have gone had there
been a drummer, or a guy who plugged his guitar into a socket.
I spent the next hour going through the
huckster room, signing my books at publishers' tables. Meisha
Merlin had brought out a trade paperback of A Gathering of
Widowmaker, Eric Reynolds had brought out Golden Age SF,
there was a pile of The Worldcon Guest of Honor Speeches
to be signed, and so on. The one thing I didn't sign was Space
Cadets. There were just no more to be had; the limited $75.00
edition was gone by Thursday, and the $25.00 trade was unavailable
by Saturday afternoon.
At 4:00 I stopped by the Edge table, which
had offered a corner to Rob Sawyer's Red Deer Books, and signed
with Nick DiChario. Red Deer had just brought out his first novel,
and I'd done an introduction to it, so we signed for an hour.
Even signed a few of our collection of 11 collaborations, Magic
Feathers, which was published 6 years ago.
Then it was time to get Carol and meet
my agent, Eleanor Wood, for dinner...but Carol had picked up
a mild stomach virus that morning and opted out, so Eleanor and
I ate together. She has been my agent and friend for 23 years
now, and I hate to think of where my career would have gone without
her. I have explained to her in no uncertain terms that she is
absolutely, positively not allowed to retire or die before I
do.
After dinner we were joined by Ed Elbert,
my producer, and his wife Karen, and we made it to the Hugo Nominees
Reception just in time to grab the last of the sweets they'd
laid out. (I'd arranged for Ed and Karen to be my guests at the
Hugos, as well as Carol and Eleanor - but I'd forgotten that
while the committee knew about them, the convention center's
security guards didn't. At the last minute I borrowed Bill and
Cokie Cavin's badges for them, and returned the badges after
the ceremony.)
Connie Willis was the Toastmistress, and
Bob Silverberg was her comic foil. The two of them delighted
the audience with a routine that ran throughout the ceremony.
By now you've all read the results - yes, I lost again, for the
23rd time, which makes my 5 wins seem kind of paltry; I mean,
if you couldn't hit .200, you'd find yourself sitting on the
bench in the Albanian League. Harlan Ellison presented the short
story Hugo and became everyone's main topic of conversation for
the next week or two after fellating the microphone, slandering
Ginny Heinlein, groping Connie's breast, and otherwise comporting
himself exactly like Harlan; this kind of stuff played a lot
better 40 years ago.
I took Ed and Karen to the bar for a couple
of hours after the ceremony. Then they had to leave - even at
midnight they're a 90-minute drive from Anaheim - and I went
to the room to check on Carol. She was feeling better, but thought
it wise not to eat or party. I recounted the Hugos, and my various
conversations, to her, then hit a few suites, went to CFG, found
everyone too busy playing this idiot card game called Wizards
to party, so Bob Faw and I went off to visit Baen Books, which
had rented out the Presidential Suite for the night. It was for
a Jim Baen memorial, but that was over, most of the crowd was
gone, and Bob and I sat down and, so help me, we spent the next
two hours bonding with Baen's powers-that-be by swapping dirty
jokes with Toni Weisskopf and Hank Reinhardt. We didn't break
up until 4:30, and believe it or not, it was the most fun I'd
had the whole convention.
Sunday, August 27:
This was the day of the late-morning Resnick Listserv brunch.
We were set to ask for a table for 14, but Bob Faw didn't show
up, and Fred Ramsey didn't show up, and Guy and Rosy Lillian
didn't show up, and Paula Lieberman didn't show up, and this
one didn't show up, and that one didn't show up, and when the
dust cleared there was me, Carol, Darcee, Adrienne, Debbie Oakes,
and Ralph and Pat Roberts. (You know, Ralph has been one of my
closest friends since 1980, but this was only the second times
we'd ever met in person. Amazing how the computer has changed
the art of socializing.)
After brunch Carol decided that she maybe
had a 36-hour virus instead of a 24-hour one and went back to
the room to lie down and take it easy. I was at loose ends. I'd
done the business I'd come to do, with Eric and Baen, Solaris,
BenBella, some anthologists and podcasters, and some of my producers.
The only other person I'd wanted to see was Ginjer Buchanan of
Ace; we'd been working together on next year's Nebula Awards
volume, we're old friends, and we'd planned to have dinner Thursday
night - but I got a panicky called from her Monday just before
she left New York that she'd inadvertantly double-booked dinner
for that night, and since I knew we'd have access to my cousin's
car and not be stuck at a hotel restaurant I said that we'd cancel
and meet for a drink ... and I never saw her the whole convention.
I'd given her a proposal and a couple of outlines back at Boskone
in February, and I figured if she wanted them she'd have said
so, so I just wanted to visit with her and catch up on gossip.
And as I was walking out the door of the hotel and heading for
the convention center, who should I literally bump into but the
elusive Ms. Buchanan. She was looking for someone, and thought
he might be in the con center, so I offered to accompany her.
"By the way," she said, "I loved your outlines
and ..." and then she broke off to point at some kid in
a cute hall costume, and I said, "Ginjer, if you don't finish
that sentence in the next 10 seconds there won't be enough of
you left to bury." "Oh, I'll be making an offer on
it this month," she said distractedly, and went back to
talking about the costume.
And
that is how business gets done.
Now I really had no more business to do,
so I went back to the hotel, checked on Carol, went to CFG until
dinnertime, found that Carol was finally feeling healthy again,
and we went down to the lobby to meet the DiCharios - Nick, Mom
and Dad - for dinner.
Then I went to CFG, Carol packed and joined
me, and we just hung out til maybe 10:00. Then, since Darcee
was driving us to the airport at 2 in the morning, Carol decided
to take a nap until 1:30, so I hit the few remaining parties,
wound up back in CFG where I ran into Andy Porter, Ed Meskys
(who had just lost his guide dog on Friday; that dog had been
to more cons that 80% of the attendees), and Fred Prophet.
Monday, August 28: And finally, at 2:00, it was time to go. For once
the highway was relatively empty, and Darcee dumped is at LAX
at 2:40 AM. Our flight took off at 6:00, we had a 2-hour layover
and change of planes in Dallas, landed in Dayton at 5:20, and
waited two more hours for Laura, who was caught in traffic right
behind an 18-wheeler that jacknifed, to pick us up.
We were exhausted when we got home, but
there was one package in the mail that looked so interesting
I opened it before I went to bed. It was Jack Williamson's latest
novel, published 78 years after his debut novel - and it was
dedicated to me (and others). When one of your boyhood heroes
does something like that, all the bad stuff - and all careers
have some bad stuff - fades away and you feel like you've Arrived.
Maybe one of my dedications can make someone
else feel that way in another 15 or 20 years, I hope so. |
