Ad Astra 2013: In General
Apr. 7th, 2013 07:07 pmI did not go up Friday night, as none of the panels grabbed me. To be fair, I was mostly judging books by their covers as it were, and only checking the details of a panel if the title caught my interest. It worked reasonably well.
Once again, I managed to end up at a panel without realizing one of the GoH's was on it. In this case, it was "Magic in the Big City" with Jim Butcher, Lesley Livingston, and Kelley Armstrong. It was an interesting and entertaining hour, mostly for the author anecdotes and sidebars about writing process and the strange coincidences that seem to go hand in hand with writing urban fantasy/paranormal.
Both Saturday and Sunday had me thinking "where IS everybody?" Maybe my perception has been skewed by WorldCon/WFC/Arisia, but it just seemed lightly attended. Maybe it was just because the group I've come to think of as "the usual AdAstra cosplay suspects" wasn't there. I don't know.
It did mean that when I finally caught up with a writer friend, we were able to crash on a couch and chat for two hours without feeling like we were in the way or hogging the comfy seating. Bonus.
I have to stop trusting the Weather Network. Seriously. Their forecasts have been crap for weeks now. We never hit the advertised daily high, and the wind forecast today was utterly wrong. Frustrating, when you really want to believe in Spring and not lug the winter jacket around (no coat check, alas).
( Panels, the short short version: )
That last one, Form versus Function in Steampunk, was an interesting dialogue mostly between steampunkers from an aesthetic/costuming perspective, along with one of the other GoH's - Stephen Hunt - moderating/facilitating. Not what I expected, and VERY lightly attended, but still interesting. No notes from this one, as my tendonitis was being aggravated by writing long-hand (because of how I hold the notebook with my left hand while scribbling without a table, apparently).
Once again, I managed to end up at a panel without realizing one of the GoH's was on it. In this case, it was "Magic in the Big City" with Jim Butcher, Lesley Livingston, and Kelley Armstrong. It was an interesting and entertaining hour, mostly for the author anecdotes and sidebars about writing process and the strange coincidences that seem to go hand in hand with writing urban fantasy/paranormal.
Both Saturday and Sunday had me thinking "where IS everybody?" Maybe my perception has been skewed by WorldCon/WFC/Arisia, but it just seemed lightly attended. Maybe it was just because the group I've come to think of as "the usual AdAstra cosplay suspects" wasn't there. I don't know.
It did mean that when I finally caught up with a writer friend, we were able to crash on a couch and chat for two hours without feeling like we were in the way or hogging the comfy seating. Bonus.
I have to stop trusting the Weather Network. Seriously. Their forecasts have been crap for weeks now. We never hit the advertised daily high, and the wind forecast today was utterly wrong. Frustrating, when you really want to believe in Spring and not lug the winter jacket around (no coat check, alas).
( Panels, the short short version: )
That last one, Form versus Function in Steampunk, was an interesting dialogue mostly between steampunkers from an aesthetic/costuming perspective, along with one of the other GoH's - Stephen Hunt - moderating/facilitating. Not what I expected, and VERY lightly attended, but still interesting. No notes from this one, as my tendonitis was being aggravated by writing long-hand (because of how I hold the notebook with my left hand while scribbling without a table, apparently).