I had my sights set on Loncon 3 in London in 2014, but this followed too closely upon the birth of my first son to be feasible, and the birth of my second son quickly killed any of hope of attending the 75th Worldcon in Helsinki in 2017. Baby number three almost prevented attendance in Dublin 2019 as well. It was initially planned as a family vacation, but in the end my wife, halfway through the pregnancy, felt it was a bit too much with all the other travel we had already planned, so in the end I went on my own.
Thursday
Due to work and available flights I only landed in Ireland around 19 on Thursday, and after an interesting bus ride from the airport, with a quick detour to the hotel, I found myself at the congress center around 20. Registration has already closed at that point, but after a couple of trips up and down between floors I was finally able to get a temporary pass, and attend my first panel, which asked the question "Does an AI Need a Body?". Either I was very tired or the panel was not very memorable, because I don't remember much from the panel itself, but I think the conclusion was no. This was followed up by a panel on horses, which seems to be a recurring theme, but didn't do much for me. By the sound of it, mostly attended by horse lovers and aspiring fantasy authors. Thus ended the first day without seeing anyone I knew, even though plenty of people I knew was already there, but based on social media, most of them were either sight seeing or busy in one bar or another.Friday
I arrived early on the second day and registration was quick, but already on Friday it was becoming obvious that even though the congress center was big, it clearly wasn't big enough, or the rooms too small. As a result you ended up having to queue for most panels, and if you attended a panel, in most cases you wouldn't get in to what you wanted the next time slot, as you would be too far back in the queue that the room or congress hall would fill up before you could get in. The queuing system was initially a disaster, but quickly improved to be very smooth by Sunday.I ended up attending a reading by Peter Morwood as my first program item for the day, and ran into Martin Andersson, which is always a pleasure. I haven't read anything by Mr. Morwood in ages, but his Japan inspired series Book of Years left quite an impression when I read them in translation in my youth. I have been afraid to reread them, as I am not sure how well they will hold up these days. I don't remember what Mr. Morwood was reading, but I liked it well enough, and mostly remember that the delivery was very good. Not all authors are natural story tellers, regardless of how good they are at writing.
I think I wanted to go the "Writing Beyond King and Colony" panel at the same time as well, but I wasn't quick enough, and the room was already full. I wasn't so much interested in the topic, as to see Joe Abercrombie in action. I had seen him in a couple of panels on other Cons, and he never failed to entertain. I tried to attend several of his panels throughout the congress, but never managed to make it to one. Such is life.
I found the program to be quite frustrating at times. It clearly wasn't written with me in mind, as it often had several interesting panels at the same time, to be followed by a session without anything particularly interesting at all. Thus I ended up attending "Fleshy Fears: Horror and the Body", but it didn't leave much of an impression. I snuck out halfway through and caught the second half of "The impact of Kickstarters on the Gaming Industry". As I am interested in board games and Kickstarter as a phenomena, I found the panel quite interesting. This was my first panel with Steve Jackson, a legend within the industry. I can't say I am a fan of most of his games, but it was nevertheless very interesting to hear him share his experience. Interesting points from Tom Lehmann as well. Less known to me, even though I have actually played some of the games he has designed.
After that the intention was to see "Done to Death: The Art of Killing Characters", with Patrick Rothfuss, who's books I very much enjoy, and I would have liked to see live. But it was around this time I was starting to realize you would need to start queue at least half an hour in advance, in order to be able to get in to the more popular panels. Sometimes the planning staff and the attendees seemed to have had vastly different ideas on what was interesting, and thus would have required larger rooms. In short, I missed the panel, and ended up going to "When Good Futures Go Bad: Dystopia as Horror Fiction", after trying two three other rooms, which were also full. In the end I enjoyed the panel, even if it didn't leave a lasting impression.
I ran into a couple of other Swedish people throughout the day, and spoke briefly to KJ Noren, and later Martin Andersson again. There was quite a lot of Swedes there, as expected, but I saw most of them only in passing going from one panel to another, queuing etc. From experience most of the more experienced con attendees spend more time socializing and less time attending panels, which probably explains why I did not run into more people.
The next panel I attended was "Is Epic Fantasy Conservative?", which seemed to have been a foregone conclusion, and from time to time turned more into a Trump bash than anything else, which seemed to be a recurring theme for panels touching upon politics the coming days. It can be entertaining enough and perhaps serve an important function in allowing people to vent, but to me at least it quickly got old. I quite enjoy political discussions, but panels are generally a poor format for this kind of discussion.
Next up was an interview with George R.R. Martin and Parris McBride followed by an interview with Steve Jackson. The first was funny and the second was interesting due to my interest in games and game development. I still don't see the greatness in Munchkin though, but it is obviously a money maker, so someone clearly enjoys it.
I don't think I attended much else during the afternoon, as the only interesting panels I wanted to attend were full. Nothing much stands out from the program, but I ended the night with the panel "Not Beyond Tolkien". I particularly enjoyed Amal El-Mohtar on the panel, and as a result ended up attending more panels where she was participating later on. Still haven't read her and Max Gladstone's "This Is How You Lose the Time War", even though it is on my reading list. I always seem to be several years behind what is currently being published as my reading pile currently is moving with glacial speed. Pre-global warming that is.
Saturday
The first panel I attended on Saturday was "The History of Tabletop Gaming", which was very interesting. I am probably just as much of a tabletop gamer as I am as reader, so I find this development of broadening the topics of conventions, catering to many different interests to be very interesting. I realize it may not be new for conventions as such, just new to me, who hasn't been to many conventions of late.Most of the scientific and/or academic oriented panels were at a different venue, making it difficult to combine with the main program, which was a shame, as many of the topics sounded very interesting. I am especially sad to have missed "The Artificial Uterus in Science Fiction", as this is a very interesting topic, as there are ongoing research in the area and advancement in the area could pave the way for true gender equality.
Next up I wanted to attend the reading by Martha Wells, one of my favorite authors within science fiction and fantasy. Unfortunately more people had the same idea, so I ended up missing it. I was first introduced to her books by way of "City of Bones" many years ago, which I found excellent, and then managed to pick up a copy of "The Death of the Necromancer", which I think was what really got me hooked. I loved all her Ile-Rien books, and was delighted with her recent elevation after the tremendous success of the Murderbot stories, which are great. Well worth a try, and a good starting point as they are short and fairly fast paced. I am eagerly looking forward to the first novel length installment coming this summer.
I was not very lucky when it came to attending readings by my favorite authors, as I ended up missing a reading by Charles Stross later that day as well. Such is life. Besides writing fiction he has a great blog, with a lot of great discussions around technology and politics as well as writing. Highly recommended. I briefly looked in to the "Authors and their Pets" panel instead, and was bombarded with pictures of cats. I ended up reading instead. Somewhere in between the missed reading I went to the Guest of Honor interview with Ginjer Buchanan. I generally like these interviews, and this was no exception, even though I was not familiar with her since before.
Then it was time for more Time Travel in the "Time Travel Novellas after the End of History". Good panel, with Amal El-Mohtar being the most memorable participant. After that I must have time traveled a few hours into the future, as I have no memory of any other panels until the "Future of Financial Systems and Transactions". This was not nearly as interesting as I would have hoped. Would have been interesting to see Charles Stross on this panel, especially considering he is exploring this topic in some of his books. Next time I attend a big con, which hopefully won't be as many years into the future as my last one was years in the past, I should probably take notes if I ever intend to write some report, or simply write it closer to the event, rather than 6 months later.
Sunday
As usual I arrived at the congress center in time for the first panels of the day, and ended up going to "How to Start a Podcast", which may be a bit of a surprise. I have however been interested in and followed the development of podcasts for a couple of years. I have mainly been listening to science related podcasts, such as "This Week in Virology" by Vincent Racaniello and "The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe" by Dr. Steven Novella. These days I don't have as much time for podcasts unfortunately, which is a shame, as the field is expanding and the quality keeps improving.I also used to play RPGs in my youth, and podcasts in the form of Actual Play Podcasts, have been a way of experience that again, as I don't really have the time for actually playing myself anymore. I will probably get back to the topic of podcasts at some later date, as it warrants some further exploration. The panel itself was interesting, and probably useful if you ever wanted to do a podcast.
I had actually planned to attend "It's All Gone to Shit: Grimdark Worldbuilding", but poor queuing discipline put an end to that. Next up was a panel where the Guest of Honors spoke about books that influenced them. Interesting, even if I can't remember what books they spoke about at the moment. Or maybe they are already in my reading pile, and I have just forgotten about it.
Surprisingly I managed to get into "Getting Published and Staying Published", the type of panel that usually fills up with an endless stream of hopeful yet to be published authors. My angle was a bit different. I was more interested in the publishing and agent side of the business. Patrick Nielson Hayden, which probably is as much of an authority as you can get on the subject, was great and informative, as always. The panelists did not always agree, which lead to some very interesting discussions, primarily between PNH and Michelle Sagara. In short there are a lot of commonalities when it comes to becoming published and staying published, but each author's journey is unique in its own way.
Then I managed to miss another reading, this time by Scott Lynch. Bringing your own books to read is clearly going to be a better strategy for next convention.
As I am currently living in Luxembourg, and still haven't really gotten involved on the local scene, I wanted to see if I could meet up with some of the fans attending the convention. As a result I spent part of the afternoon talking to Gérard Kraus, who is one of the main people behind Luxcon, a small but successful con here in Luxembourg, which has been growing steadily over the last few years, and has ambitions to host a Eurocon in the near future. I am really looking forward to that.
The next panel I managed to get into was "Will We Ever Achieve Sentient AI?" The panel mostly seemed to be leaning towards no. There was some interesting discussion around what sentience is, and whether it would ever be applicable to AI. I enjoy these sort of panels, but generally come away thinking it would have been time better spent reading an actual book on the subject. Most scientific topics are too complicated and panels too short, and probably the wrong format to achieve anything more than a basic introduction to a subject. One thing that usually works well though, when it is done, is to bring up and comment on the latest research and results in a particular field.
I am not much for award ceremonies, and therefore missed most of the Hugo Awards.
Monday
I started Monday off with a visit to Trinity College and looking at the Book of Kells. This was probably the most memorable part of the trip, and I would highly recommend going there if you plan on visiting Dublin. Coming back to the conference center, I spent some time working, as I had some urgent things to complete, as always. There were not so many interesting panels anyway, so this did not feel like a great loss.I spent the evening and the dead dog party talking to some fellow Swedes and an American gentleman, who I think my wife would have loved talking to, as she is very much interested in Mr Money Mustache, and he was a living example of FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early). We had some great discussions on politics, society and recent developments both in the US and Sweden. This is probably the best part of any convention, even if I am not the most social of people. So I should probably spend more time in the bar, and less listening to panels next time.
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