Well, WorldCon is over. Congratulations to all of the Hugo winners, especially Ellen Datlow. Very, very well deserved. It’s been a long and difficult week for me, mostly for personal reasons I suspect. Nonetheless, it was good too see everyone and I’m allowing that I should be able to look forward to going to San Jose later in the year. Right now, though, I mostly want to get home. Still another week before that happens, though. Great friends in Melbourne will help, though. More soon!

It happened again.  No blogging.  I meant to. Honest. Since last we spoke, dear blog, I’ve had dinner with friends, traversed a continent, changed nations, and arrived in Montreal.  Much has happened.   A fun dinner with lots of people, lengthy time in the bar, an appallingly bad panel, some time in the disappointing dealer’s room and so on.

What do I remember right now? Well, it’s 8.30am and I have a breakfast thing in 30 mins.  Hmmm.  Standing outside a hotel while Neil Gaiman walked past, with him stopping to introduce his Clarion class who trailed behind him like chicks after a mother hen to the folk assembled outside between drinks.  Laughing more than I should with friends in the bar.  Dinner last night with Nalo Hopkinson, Geoff Ryman,  Ellen K etc., which was nice. Someone back home should get Ryman as a convention GOH.  Funny, intelligent, articulate brilliant man.   Um. Walking through Chinatown with Karen H, chatting with Bob, late night chats with Ellen, and so on.

Already there’s enough packed in around the alcohol and lack of sleep that I don’t know at I’m leaving out.  Stuff.  It’s busy, good, and odd.  More later.

I can’t even keep track of how long it is since I took that photo at the airport. 10am Friday. Well, it’s 6am Sunday, but there’s all kinds of dateline nonsense between here and there. Suffice it to say, it took waaaaaay longer to get here than you’d think. How was it?

Well, the flight from Perth was fine. Packed, but fine. I arrived at about 4pm, had time to do the online check-in thing at the airport before being picked up by Nick. Went back to his place and he showed off his awesome new toy art that he’s doing for his exhibition, and we nattered away until Terry, Kerry, Deb, Chris and Adrian all showed up. We then headed off to this terrific gourmet pizza place where we ate, drank, laughed and talked. Then back to Nick and Adrian’s for dessert and wine. It was a wonderful, wonderful evening.

Next morning I was up fairly early. Terry came over and we strolled through Paddington and found somewhere for brunch. It’s a stunning area – the only place in Sydney that I’ve seen where I’d love to live – and again we had the relaxed kind of easy conversation you only get with long time friends.

After that it was all good-byes and off to the airport again. The twelve and a half hour flight was fairly horrible. Cramped, unpleasant. I fell off the plane in San Francisco tired and just awfully depressed. This was jetlag, of course, but still… I was met by Amelia who was incredible and kind. We headed back to Oakland for a long lunch where, in a haze of jetlag driven funk I spoke much nonsense. Then shopping before coming up to Charles’ house, where I’m staying. Amelia headed off and I then pottered around, had something to eat and spoke to Gary (which was welcome). I’ve slept some and will sleep some more before brunch today. Need to find the post-jetlag fun so I can enjoy Montreal. Not there yet.

The reason you can’t contact me is because I’m not HERE, I’m THERE. QF642 is waiting at Gate 2 and I’ll be in Sydney in five hours or so, I guess. Stuck in the ‘travel time’ limbo. Should be great seeing everyone today, but a weird time.

I will *try* to post info and photos about the trip, but I warn you that I always fail in this. I’ll mostly be offline till Sunday. See you then!

When: Thu 15:30
Location: P-516D
Title: 2009: The Year in Short Fiction
Session ID: 625
All Participants: Adrienne Martini, Ellen Datlow, Jonathan Strahan, Sheila Williams, Bill Fawcett
Moderator: Adrienne Martini
Description: Our panel of experts tell you about the must-reads of the year.

When: Fri 17:00
Location: P-516AB
Title: Handicapping the Hugos II: The Short Fiction
Session ID: 590
All Participants: Ann VanderMeer, Jonathan Strahan, Karen Burnham, Niall Harrison, Bill Fawcett
Moderator: Ann VanderMeer
Description: Our panellists survey the Hugo-nominated short stories, novelettes, and novellas: they tell us what they want to win, what will win, and why.

When: Sat 10:00
Location: P-521A
Title: Kaffee Klatch Jonathan Strahan
Session ID: 1062All Participants: Jonathan StrahanModerator:
Description: A chance to ask one of your favourite authors those burning questions.
When: Sun 14:00

When: Sun 14:00
Location: P-516AB
Title: Charles N. Brown: a Tribute
Session ID: 1693
All Participants: David Hartwell, Ellen Datlow, Jonathan Strahan, Robert Silverberg, Gary K. Wolfe, Connie Willis, Anthony Lewis, Gardner Dozois, Liza Trombi
Moderator: Gardner Dozois
Description: Charles N. Brown, the creator of the newszine Locus, the winner of the most Hugo Awards, and a tireless promoter of the science fiction field died suddenly last month at the age of 72. Join Charles’s friends in remembering him. Hawaiian shirts encouraged. Aloha, Charles.

When: Sun 17:00
Location: P-517D
Title: The New Space Opera 2
Session ID: 1702
All Participants: Bill Willingham, Cory Doctorow, James Patrick Kelly, Jay Lake, John C. Wright, Jonathan Strahan, Mike Resnick, Robert Charles Wilson, Robert Silverberg, Walter Jon Williams, Tom Clegg, John Scalzi, Peter Watts, Gardner Dozois
Description: Meet the editors and authors of both the first and second The New Space Opera anthologies. Jonathan Strahan, Gardner Dozois and Tom Clegg will attend the entire event and will be available for autographing. Other New Space Opera writers may drop by