Belatedly Wiscon, Now with Extra Lightbreaker!

I was at Wiscon two weeks ago for about four hours. I drove up quickly to drop off some advance copies of Electric Velocipede. I debated having the copies sent directly to the hotel, but I decided in the end that it was better being there for a few hours than not at all.

Of course, it was far too short, and as I think back on it, it may have been better to have not gone.

Regardless, I was there, briefly, and this is what I saw and did.

Most importantly, I was able to get my hands on a copy of Mark Teppo's excellent debut novel Lightbreaker (seen on the left). If you like thought-provoking, action-oriented, modern fantasy, you should check it out. Pick it up from the publisher, Night Shade Books; they're having a 50% off sale right now!

Mark was very happy to be showing off copies at the convention, although he did show some restraint in not letting me walk in front of him on the streets of Madison holding his book aloft.

I saw too few people for too short a time. Here you can see the inestimable William Shunn in the foreground and Mark Teppo bathed in sunlight.

This photo is from Mark and Barth Anderson's room at the convention. We had just returned from lunch at the Come Back Inn. We had intended to eat at the Essenhaus, but that's only open for dinner.

We went into the Essenhaus (the four of us and Rajan Khanna) to discover it was empty except for prep people. This was the fourth or fifth door we tried in our attempt to enter the building (and this was after a circuitous route to the restaurant as we avoided the Farmer's Market crowds near the hotel).

The entranceway was so dark that when I went to leave the restaurant, expecting to be blinded by the light of the outside world, was instead confronted with perhaps the darkest space I had ever walked into in my entire life.

I had a moment of irrational fear where I thought I was on the edge of a deep pit but I forced my feet forward to the outer door and the blinding sun.

In the photo here you can see Barth with his full head of hair. This is only worth mentioning as Barth has had a wonderful shaved head for many years now and I know the hair was startling to many people (it looks good, people, it was not startling in a "Hey, that looks like shit" way, but more "Wow man! You have hair!") He was trying to prepare for a panel and the rest of us were not helping.

You see, since this was a convention, I had to partake at least a little in some drinking. The reason I was in Mark and Barth's room instead of in the dealer's room or the lobby of the hotel chatting with people was this:

OK, it wasn't just drinking. Hitting a convention at mid-day and hoping to see people is not the best of timing. Most people were in panels, or out to lunch, or just wandering around town.

I knew I wasn't going to see many people and the few I saw I would not see long enough. (and there were far too many seeing people literally only in passing) Man, this is long enough for being at the convention for only four hours, imagine if I had been there for the whole weekend?!

I will be at Wiscon next year, I promise. There were too many people I missed to make such a short trip again. Still, I was glad to get some copies of the new issue out for people to see. The remaining copies should be printed soon and then out in the mail to contributors and subscribers. I'll update here as I know more!