Thank you, John Scalzi

Everything that follows is in some sense John Scalzi’s fault. From what I understand, many conversations in SF/F start with those words, but in this case it’s not a condemnation, it’s a thank you.

I stumbled across his post detailing his schedule for High Voltage ConFusion while I was deciding whether or not to subscribe to his blog.¹ I’d never been to a con, didn’t know much about them, and had always assumed they took place in locales more glamorous (and warm) than Grand Rapids, where I live, or Detroit, where I travel regularly.

But I was wrong, it was soon, and it was within my budget, especially when I elected to swallow my pride and crash in my parents’ spare room. Since I’m pushing forty, this took several gulps, but I’m committed to my craft. So thank you, John Scalzi (or John Scalvi, for reasons I’ll clarify later).

I told myself to keep my expectations low. I had no idea what to expect, except that Scalzi and other luminaries in the field (to wit, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld, and Karl Schroeder) would be attending and I was dying hear what they all had to say about SF/F, in particular YA (young adult) SF/F.²

The panel topics themselves (some suggested by the authors themselves) were worth the price of admission. The drool-worthy ones included:

• The Dynamic Duo Revealed! (Justine Larbalestier & Scott Westerfeld, hosted by John Scalzi)
• Originality is Overrated (Scalzi, Larbalestier, Westerfeld, Patrick Nielsen Hayden)
• SF isn’t Dead (all of the above)
• The Golden Age of YA SF (also all of the above)
• Piracy on the Internet (Scalzi, Nielsen Hayden)
• Gluten-Free Fantasy (Scalzi, Larbalestier, Westerfeld, Karl Schroeder)
• Evolving as a Writer (Scalzi)

I also missed Sending Clear Signals featuring Krissy Scalzi (damn you, scheduling gods) which focused on how to tell whether or not another geek finds you attractive/repulsive in a social setting, which is academic to me as a happily-married father of two, but I’m sure was hilarious.

In the end, I took 25 pages of notes and learned such an unbelievable amount it seemed a crime to keep it to myself. This is the first in a series of posts detailing the arguments, epiphanies and inside jokes from my time at the con, in the order I experienced them.³

First up, why people who live in cold climates need their heads examined and Somerset Mall doesn’t stand a chance in the pending zombie apocalypse.

1. I did subscribe: so much for keeping the reader in suspense [↩]
2. The author pauses to scrub his lips with a Wet Wipe… they seem to have accumulated a layer of pungent brown matter from somewhere [↩]
3. I’m not a digital recorder, so there aren’t many direct quotes, but I will do my best to express my understanding of the panelist’s intent at the time. [↩]