I just got back from Worldcon/Chicon 7 and I had a great time despite some travel excitement and some professional disappointments. As Chuck Wendig mentioned, Worldcon was like real life twitter. Thus, it is impossible to keep up with it all. I’m just going to mention some of the highlights and beg forgiveness of the people I forget to mention.

I finally met some online friends like Chuck Wendig, Stephen Blackmoore, Rose Fox, and Myke Cole that I had not met before. Of course, it always fabulous to meet up with friends I do know: John Scalzi, Patrick Hester, Saladin Ahmed, John Helfers, Kerrie Hughes, David Brin, Ellen Datlow, Todd Gallowglass.

Some highlights of the convention included the following:

* Someone I’ve never even seen before came up to tell me they are a fan, that they loved and miss The Edge of Propinquity, that they nommed both the magazine and me for a Hugo and that they were sad neither made it to the ballot. I was floored. It was so nice.

* Someone coming up to the SFWA table with every anthology I have edited or contributed to and every fiction book I have out from Dark Quest Books asking for my signature on all of it—so many books.

* Meeting Brian Hades of EDGE and signing Rigor Amortis books.

* Having John Scalzi declare me a personal hero in the SFWA meeting for stepping up to the plate and volunteering my services. Despite losing the Western Regional Directorship, the fact that I was willing to make a go out at it made him happy.

* Having David Brin tell me I smelled good. (Odd compliment but still pleasing.)

* Meeting the entire crew from SFSignal. That is a great bunch of guys.

* Doing a “Literary Beer” with Paul Cornell and a koffeeklatch with Saladin Ahmed.

* Having lunch with Matt Forbeck and then wandering around with him.

* Having dinner with Ken Hite, Jed Hartman, and Maryanne Mohanraj.

* Hanging out with Kat Richardson.

* Watching Myke Cole react to seeing my mysterious bruise was fascinating. He grew like a foot taller. (The mysterious bruise is on my arm, is huge, looks like a defensive wound, and I have no idea how I got it.)

* Being mistaken for Kate Baker about four times – I need to pass on a couple of hugs and “congratulations” to her.

There is so much that happens at a convention with so many people you don’t normally get to interact with. It’s like life, condensed and put on fast forward. There was the SFWA suite (fab), parties (crowded), and BarCon (awesome).  So many people, so little sleep, so little memory. The first couple of days after a convention, I run around in a fog and I remember the convention as if it were a particularly fabulous fever dream. The convention itself wasn’t perfect but I don’t regret going.

Here are a couple other perspectives on the convention from:

Chuck Wendig

Stephen Blackmoore

Tobias Buckell