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Windycon Part 3
Nov. 15th, 2006 05:36 pmIn this post, I will talk about some of the after-hours entertainment at Windycon. Part 1, my Sunday panel, is available here and Part 2, about the Writer's workshop, is here.
I ended up reading John Scalzi's The Android's Dream
on Friday, so not much of interest there. Well, actually, Scalzi's latest, about a Terran diplomat killing an alien via farts, thus nearly sparking a war between a fourth-rate military power, the Nidu, and the fifth-rate Terrans, was a hoot, but I'll post a review later.
Saturday was a more interesting evening. I attended the Isfic Press launch party for Jack McDevitt's new book, Outbound. I ended up in a very interesting discussion with Jack, Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute and several other folks. Jack kicked off the conversation by asking Seth for his answer to the Fermi Paradox (why aren't the aliens here.)
Seth gave his answer, which was partially "I don't know" and partially that he didn't think aliens would be that into travelling. The energy costs of going from say Earth to Alpha Centari were (per Seth) something like equal to all the energy used by man in the last 500 years, at least at any reasonable fraction of the speed of light. Somebody asked about generation ships, and Jack mentioned that he'd heard research to the effect that the society on a generation ship would collapse in more then one or two generations. I suggested that was horse-hockey, and a lively discussion followed. I was surprised at the time at how pessimistic Jack was about interstellar settlement. Maybe I shouldn't have been - the one book of his I remember reading, Seeker, was partially about a failed colonization attempt.
The conversation branched off into several different topics, including a side jaunt on SF movies (not sure how we got there, but the road seemed fun) until my desire for adult beverages led me to leave. (Isfic parties are dry, but have good cake.)
This year, Windycon parties were on 4 and 5. There were several good parties. The Kansas City 2008 Bid party had great barbecue, and the folks from Cincinnati (home of an old con) had great bourbon. One of the local Star Wars fan groups was apparently invaded by Battlestar Galactica - 6 or 8 of them were running around in Galactica dress blues purchased on Ebay. They had the best room decorations, having papered the entire room in a starfield paper, then hung paper asteroids from the ceiling.
My last party was one of only two on the fifth floor. There is a group that attends Windycon that's rather heavily into bondage. They took over a primo suite, covered the floor in white plastic (which by saturday was delaminating and tracking everywhere) and had a great time. I arrived just as one of the gents was tying his girlfriend (fully clothed) up into a rope harness. She seemed to get quite a kick out of the process. At the same time, they had a young gent tied up and were demonstrating various whips to / on him. It was, shall we say, stimulating, but in a different way from the McDevitt conversation.
All in all, I had a good time, and will be back next year.
I ended up reading John Scalzi's The Android's Dream
on Friday, so not much of interest there. Well, actually, Scalzi's latest, about a Terran diplomat killing an alien via farts, thus nearly sparking a war between a fourth-rate military power, the Nidu, and the fifth-rate Terrans, was a hoot, but I'll post a review later.Saturday was a more interesting evening. I attended the Isfic Press launch party for Jack McDevitt's new book, Outbound. I ended up in a very interesting discussion with Jack, Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute and several other folks. Jack kicked off the conversation by asking Seth for his answer to the Fermi Paradox (why aren't the aliens here.)
Seth gave his answer, which was partially "I don't know" and partially that he didn't think aliens would be that into travelling. The energy costs of going from say Earth to Alpha Centari were (per Seth) something like equal to all the energy used by man in the last 500 years, at least at any reasonable fraction of the speed of light. Somebody asked about generation ships, and Jack mentioned that he'd heard research to the effect that the society on a generation ship would collapse in more then one or two generations. I suggested that was horse-hockey, and a lively discussion followed. I was surprised at the time at how pessimistic Jack was about interstellar settlement. Maybe I shouldn't have been - the one book of his I remember reading, Seeker, was partially about a failed colonization attempt.
The conversation branched off into several different topics, including a side jaunt on SF movies (not sure how we got there, but the road seemed fun) until my desire for adult beverages led me to leave. (Isfic parties are dry, but have good cake.)
This year, Windycon parties were on 4 and 5. There were several good parties. The Kansas City 2008 Bid party had great barbecue, and the folks from Cincinnati (home of an old con) had great bourbon. One of the local Star Wars fan groups was apparently invaded by Battlestar Galactica - 6 or 8 of them were running around in Galactica dress blues purchased on Ebay. They had the best room decorations, having papered the entire room in a starfield paper, then hung paper asteroids from the ceiling.
My last party was one of only two on the fifth floor. There is a group that attends Windycon that's rather heavily into bondage. They took over a primo suite, covered the floor in white plastic (which by saturday was delaminating and tracking everywhere) and had a great time. I arrived just as one of the gents was tying his girlfriend (fully clothed) up into a rope harness. She seemed to get quite a kick out of the process. At the same time, they had a young gent tied up and were demonstrating various whips to / on him. It was, shall we say, stimulating, but in a different way from the McDevitt conversation.
All in all, I had a good time, and will be back next year.
