Shout-out to Anticipation

(riginally posted Aug. 8, 2009)

Hello sff fans at this year's WorldCon in la belle ville de Montréal!

Alas, we were going to do another four-legged turkey soirée as we did at Ad Astra, but the turkey shipment was lost when the single-wing scout got caught in a storm, the turkey-cart flipped over and broke open, and dinner-to-be scattered in all directions. They can't fly, but, All-Spirit, the little shen-eaters sure can run.

I'm still chasing 'em or I'd be there with Shirley. Okay, not strictly true, but my absence is related to five four-legged creatures and two two-legged (get Shirley to explain). I envy her for being in Montreal, the city that I would live in, I think, if I lived in a city. The Europeanest city in North America... the city where traffic lights are merely a suggestion (actually this is true in Athens, too, so perhaps it's a European thing)...

WorldCon memories... the giant jigsaw puzzle in Orlando, 8,000 pieces, incomplete by the end of the con, rolled up and continued at the next year's. Did it ever get finished? Chicon, early 90s, and a quickie flight with delightful turbulence (I like to know I'm flying when I am, e.g.: )

(N.B., this was research)

...as well as the coolest architecture of any American city. Midnight in the piano bar with the late George Alec Effinger (or was that an Ad Astra?). 3 a.m. readings of that turgid, orbicular, stygian gem among fantasy classics, "The Eye of Argon"... which we more recently introduced to two improv actors in Bracebridge, to find that improv actors can't keep a straight face reading it any better than fans.

In my world of online writing I knew from the start that I was appealing to two audiences: those who have read the dead-tree Chevenga works and those who have not. The new audience, at this point, has outstripped the old, good news for the future. But I'd love the entire old audience to find me again, because I suspect you might like what I'm doing now. Especially if you were ticked at me for killing off Chevenga. Or if you want to see images of what he really looks like with all the details correct. Or if you want to read scenes that I could never have gotten away with with Baen but can on the freedom-loving Internet.

Lots of love to all my sff friends new and old, and I hope you are all having a wonderful time.

-KW