Denvention: Sunday

[stoutfellow]

All good things come to an end...

The first event Sunday morning was "In the Beginning", featuring Lois Bujold, Lillian Stewart Carl, and Patricia Wrede, reminiscing on the early stages of their friendship/writing circle. That was a lot of fun; Wrede had a fat folder of her first year's correspondence with Lois. (She read from some of them; Lois was perplexed, not remembering any of this....) The story of how Lillian Carl brought Lois and Pat Wrede together was rather funny, but unfortunately I don't remember enough of the details to describe it sensibly.

While we were waiting for the panel to begin ("we" meaning the cluster of Bujold listies in the front three rows) I got into a conversation with Julian. I'd met him once before, at the Seattle NASFIC, but we hadn't talked much; here, though, we had an interesting chat on psychology, linguistics, and how both are dealt with in science fiction. (He confessed to being a synthesist, as against my own ordinological bent.)

At 11:30, there was another memorial panel, for Arthur C. Clarke. To be honest, I went mainly for the chance to see Frederik Pohl, who was on the panel. Naturally enough, Stephen Baxter was also on the panel. I can't say I learned much; such discussion as there was of Clarke as a person was, to my mind, rather less than flattering.

I went to a panel on Uplift next. Of course, David Brin was on the panel, and dominated the conversation. They discussed the ethical issues of the Uplift concept at length; Brin pointed out that it applied just as strongly to the development of artificial intelligence as to the raising to sentience of animals. (One of the stories in Brin's collection Otherness deals with the AI issue in an interesting way; let me check... Wrong: the story is "Lungfish", in The River of Time. I still think Greg Bear handled it best with the AI plotline in Queen of Angels.) One thought-experiment that was suggested: another race deciding to Uplift humanity.... Very interesting discussion.

After that came the closing ceremonies. When they were over, Lois, accompanied by her son, came over to a knot of listies and suggested dinner. (Let's see, who was there? Me, filkferengi, Sasha, nlbarber, mbernardi, Stellan, and of course Lois and her son.) We went over to the other Corner Bakery. (I'd gone to the one near my hotel; this one was near Lois' hotel, six or eight blocks away.) The food and the conversation were enjoyable, and I got one last good photo. After dinner, Lois and her son and, I think, Stellan, peeled away from the group - they were leaving that day - and the rest of us sat in the hotel lobby for more conversation. Eventually the idea of getting dessert somewhere arose. filkferengi fetched her husband, and we wandered around looking for a place that was still open, eventually settling on the Cheesecake Factory. For some, it turned into a second dinner (bad idea...); for others, dessert. filkferengi's husband taunted us with his appetite. When the get-together finally broke up, there was some discussion of meeting for breakfast the next morning, again at the Corner Bakery, at 7:00. I returned to my hotel.

That morning, the clock in my hotel room was accurate. I neglected to check it against my watch when I came in that evening. This proved to be a mistake.

Comments

[nlbarber]

FYI, Sasha is growlycub.