Minicon 43

Minicon came early this year, which was a bit odd. What was even stranger was the 6" of snow Friday morning that I had to brush off my car before meeting my friend at the Convention. Overall, Minicon 43 was a great convention in some regards and not so good in others. I had a fantastic time eating out, playing games, knitting and socializing. The layout of the convention was much better this year when compared to the past 5 years but the panels themselves were hit or miss.

But let me start at the beginning! It snowed, for one thing. Darn that early Easter! My friend and I met Friday at 11:30a at the Café in the Sofitel. Our inital plan had been to go out and about but the weather deterred that. We decided to eat at Fougasse, a Mediterranean restaurant and we were both thrilled at the quality of the food, the prices, and the service. My friend had a Crab Phyllo over Eggplant and I was mundane and went for the tomato, pesto and fresh mozzarella calzone. Which was huge. I highly recommend Fougasse.

Afterwards, we drove across the street to the Convention, checked into our room and did some knitting and catching up while waiting for the Con to start.


Alastiar Reynolds was the GoH this year, author of Pushing Ice, Revelation Space and several others.

The panels that I attended:
Real Taboos in Fantasy and SF - There are some topics that even the most daring writers won’t touch (except Bujold). Which ones are they and why?

Unusual Jobs in Fantastic Worlds - Not everyone can be a hero, wizard or starship captain. There are other jobs out there, too: Wyrm Milker, Dragon Polisher, or Griever, for example. What other jobs would have to exist in worlds we know? And what do everyday people do in unusual worlds?

Writing Nasty, Mean and Horrible Characters - A lot of Alistair Reynolds’ characters are not very nice peo0ple, ye they’re not completely unsympathetic. How can writers create characters that make our skin crawl, who offend our morals, and who still make us want to keep flipping the page.

Editor’s First Impressions - Editors receive far more pages than they could possibly read, so it’s important to make a good impression from the first page. Our panel of experts will evaluate the first 400 words of sample manuscripts, and discuss how they would feel about runing to the next page.

Details as Reality - Some details in a movie or book can make it feel all the more real, but some details can violently wrench you out of your suspension of disbelief. Why do some details work and others fail? How can writers improve their craft by employing detail?

Geek, be not Ashamed - It seems like the “geeks” have won, but many geeky pursuits are still not socially acceptable. Many of us are still bashful about admitting our experiences, interests and ideas. What are some good ways to fly your geeky colors - without being obnoxious?

Why does Fantasy continue to Outsell SF? - At one point, fantasy was a small sub-genre withing the science fiction genre, but these days the SF section seems to be mostly fantasy, sales of hard SF are down and good SF novels are hard to find. What accounts for this change?

The thing with panels is - they are hit or miss in quality and it all depends upon who the panelists are. Over the years (and there have been 14 of them) I've learned who makes a good panelist, who doesn't and what the odds are of someone killing a panel discussion. Learning to knit last year has helped make all the panels more tolerable because it is "something to do" when the panel warps off topic completely which happens a lot. (My thanks to Jane Yolen for doing her best to keep a panel on-topic and the audience in check.)


I also picked up 3 books from the dealers room: Dzur by Steven Brust, Serenity Found by Jane Enespson, and one co-authored by Patrica Wrede. Oh, and a free book: Rebel Moon, I forget the author (forgive me, for I am tired after so much fun!)