Like ships that pass in the night - More on WorldCon

It's been almost a week since I left San Antonio, but I'm still posting. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was drawn away for a few days covering a really serious local news story, but things are stabilizing, and besides, that story isn't going away any time soon. I am leading my newspaper on a community service project to get reparations for the wanton destruction of the railroad depot, or to force them to rebuild the structure. I'd say the odds are against us, because we are dealing with a bunch of godless money-grubbing assholes, but we will fight the good fight.

Back to posting about the WorldCon. Such a large event not only generates a lot of news, it draws a lot of people, and one of the drawbacks that comes with that is that you can go all four days and not meet someone you wanted to. Add to that the event was sprawled over three city blocks, and the result is you come back home regretting you didn't find someone.

For example, I've never met Cat Rambo in person, and I know she was at the con, but our paths never crossed. I wish I had also run into Harry Turtledove again; I met him once at a Dallas Con. I know I'm not the only person who had this problem, I've seen many similar observations from other people.

People I was happy to meet, and chat with multiple times, included Gardner Dozois, George R.R. Martin,  and Robert Silverberg. I'd never met Silverberg before, and he was very accessible and nice. A few people I saw just once, and quickly; these included Jay Lake, Michael Swanwick, Wesley Chu and John Klima. John and Wesley were people I had never met before. There were a few cases where I had nice extended visits with some people, including Steven Silver, David Marusek and Diane Turkshek.

Other people I met a few times in passing included Sam Taylor, Bill Ledbetter, and John Denardo.

There were two authors who were on the same panel with me twice, Gail Carriger and Madeline Ashby, for the record.

Other than Howard Waldrop and Gardner Dozois, there were really no authors I went out my my way to track down; Howard has always been a good chum, and I wanted to report to Gardner on the progress of my WIP, Letters from Gardner.

I knew when I found Howard, I'd find George R.R. Martin, and I was right, and I also got him and Gardner together, too.