Return from Minnicon, Hugo Thoughts and Pulp

I have returned from Minicon. The event was fun, and we sold all the books I had. It took a bit of effort - basically me hand-selling the last few on Sunday morning - but it was worth it. The Minicon folks were all very nice and sociable, although I did find it a bit "cluby" - I kept being introduced as "the new guy."

Ted Chiang proved to be interesting. He read a non-fictional work of his about "folk medicine" and how our common conceit of the brain as an organic computer was an example of that. For example, the brain doesn't have "software" and "hardware." He also talked about how the human use of Memory palace was radically different from anything a computer would do. Definitely good stuff.

The Hugo nominations came out over the weekend. A couple of my picks made the ballot, but most did not. Looks like I'll have some reading to do. I see John Scalzi is tickled pink that his April Fool's joke / story made the cut.

I'm also happy to see shsilver and jimhines on the fan writer ballot. This will be a tough vote for me, as I know both of them. As a former Illinois governor said, "I've got something that's fucking valuable!" The voting will be in Chicago, so Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov will be submitting ballots! (smiley-face inserted here for humor-impaired)

Lastly, Greg Ketter of DreamHaven Books told me about the Windy City Pulp and Paper show, taking place a mile from my house the end of this month. Since this year's theme is Edgar Rice Burroughs and the attendees are going to see John Carter of Mars (pre-registered people get a free ticket) I think I have to attend.