Aussiecon4 (Worldcon) Report - Day One

Aussiecon Day One was the first day of my first convention. It was initially a little overwhelming and very exciting. Shortly after arriving I passed Hugo nominee Howard Tayler (of Schlock Mercenary fame) on the escalator and had my first fanboy moment. These became far more frequent but much less intense as the Con continued - Howard himself was constantly available in his Dealer’s Room booth, and I felt like every time I turned around I saw Peter V. Brett or Ian Tregillis. In fact, I’m sure I was constantly surrounded by industry professionals, given the small size of the convention, I just didn’t know what they looked like.



Morris, Tayler, Harland

My first panels were excellent. Howard Tayler, Tee Morris and Richard Harland discussed ‘The balancing act of speculative fiction comedy,’ then the delightful Kate Elliott moderated a panel (which included Hugo nominee Catherynne M. Valente) entitled ‘Steal the past, build the future,’ which was essentially about using history and folklore in your fiction. I plan to reflect on some of the better panels (including these two) in my next post, so I won’t go into detail about content at this stage.



My copy is safe from Corelings.



My afternoon ended with Garth Nix (the one author who looked exactly like the pictures I had seen, and actually was as tall as I imagined) signing my three books from his Old Kingdom series (which I enjoyed greatly in my formative reading years). I also enjoyed a quick signing and great conversation with Peter V. Brett in which I had the opportunity to complement him on the brave direction of The Desert Spear (the second book in his Demon Cycle). Peter very kindly warded the title page for me, you know, in case of demon attack. If you haven’t read The Painted Man, you should. Then read The Desert Spear.

By this point I was tired, having woken up at 3 a.m. to drive from Sydney to Melbourne, and I was carrying vast amounts of books (there were giveaways, I couldn’t resist) so I headed back to my hotel. I had plans to get up early. Well, early for a ‘holiday.’

Continue to Day 2
Convention Day 3
Convention Day 4
Lessons from the Convention