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Grex Scifi Item 130: 2001 Worldcon: "Millenium Philcon"
Entered by krj on Sat Sep 1 07:06:34 UTC 2001:

At the moment this is just a quick postcard for everyone from the 
2001 World Science Fiction Convention in Philadelphia.  
It might turn into a trip report later, though most of the trip 
report would just be a listing of old friends I ran into.
 
In the huckster room, I think there are fewer non-collectible
books than I have ever seen at a major con.
 
It doesn't *seem* like a big worldcon.  All the room parties 
are blocked into floors 6, 7 and 21 of the Marriott, and this 
has fixed the perennial elevator overload problems.  
 
I'm getting up in a ridiculously small number of hours to escort
Leslie's mom to a panel with Connie Willis.  Later I hope to catch
the guided art show tour with docents Teresa Nielsen Hayden and 
Ctein.
 
It's startling to see that everyone in my fannish generation seems 
to have gray hair now.

4 responses total.

#1 of 4 by krj on Tue Sep 4 05:05:15 2001:

We're home.   Leslie's mom had a great time at the Connie Willis 
panel, and later getting to chat with Ms. Willis at some length at an
autograph session.  And she eventually seemed to get to enjoy the 
chaos of a 12-person fannish dinner party at a Chinese restaurant.
(And as a sign of how things have changed since I was last going to cons
-- three of the 12 fans were children, approximate ages 9, 11 and 13.
This increases the dinner chaos factor even more...)

The Connie Willis panel was a tribute to William Tenn/Phil Klass,
and we were sitting just to the right of the honored guest and 
just three feet in front of Ms. Willis and Robert Silverberg.
I do not think I have seen my mother-in-law so happy since I
married her daughter.  :)  We ended up buying the new NESFA 
edition of the complete William Tenn stories.

I suckered myself into buying six other books.  I feel all full of
book-reading energy, so we'll see if any of them actually get read, or 
if they join the poor neglected book souvenirs from Boston 1989,
San Francisco 1993, Glasgow 1995, and the last Wiscon we went to.

Leslie's mom got one copy of every Connie Willis book in the room, 
except for the two she already owned -- I think we ended up with 8
of them.  And there was a big stack of Young Adult fantasy books, 
mostly by Diane Duane, one by Jane Yolen -- to try to tempt niece 
Amelia.  I had to carry the four bags of books around for most 
of the day.

I resisted the temptation to drop $35 on a William Gibson book, 
"All Tomorrows Parties," which looks like it isn't going to have a USA 
edition.

(We skipped out on the con on Sunday -- we were supposed to drive home
that day, but Leslie wasn't feeling well so she slept and I joined 
the garden work gang for the afternoon.  This meant that we missed the 
Hugo awards.)

#2 of 4 by dbratman on Tue Sep 4 16:46:33 2001:

I decided to skip out on Worldcon this year because I went last year, 
and am definitely going next year (it's 5 miles from home), and 
experience has taught me that 3 Worldcons in a row is a surfeit.

I've actually read this year's Hugo-winning novel, a rarity for me 
these days.

Berni just read Connie Willis's newest, _Passages_ I believe it's 
called, and declared it an inferior, oversized remake of _Lincoln's 
Dreams_.

I am fond of William Tenn's work, and may buy that collection some 
time.  I bought the Kornbluth and the Cordwainer Smith, and I'm no 
fonder of them.

#3 of 4 by krj on Tue Nov 6 21:55:16 2001:

Folksinger Janis Ian wrote a con report about her worldcon trip,
which was her first SF convention:
 
http://www.janisian.com/news-oct2001wc.html

#4 of 4 by dbratman on Mon Nov 12 06:37:15 2001:

The world's most famous goshwow neo.

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