World Fantasy postmortem 3

Mark Finn bugged out of the mass autographing around 9 p.m. in order to get ready for his big book release party. I slipped away from the table to try and get my modest stack of books signed by Joe Haldeman, Charles de Lint, Nina Kiriki Hoffman and Lisa Tuttle. I had my copy of Lone Star Universe for her to sign, since she's now living in Scotland and not readily available to us Texas folk these days. Only no luck--she'd apparently slipped out around the same time as Finn. Drat. Ah well, time to check out the parties.



So what's the first thing I see at Finn's party? Pretty much what I expected to see--Mark Finn holding court, a bottle of the special beer in one hand and a warhammer in the other. I'd like to point out that Finn had placed a cover flat of Blood and Thunder on the door of the party room, which I have on good authority was generously supplied by Monkeybrain Book co-head honcho Chris Roberson. The book flat that is, not the room. I also spotted RevolutionSF co-fiction editor Matthew Bey sucking down one of the magical brews himself. He tells me he hasn't gone blind yet, but we'll see.



The other RevolutionSF fiction co-editor, Steve Wilson was there as well, apparently intent on documenting the depravity rather than getting schnookered. Then Tim Powers arrived, and engaged the cowboy-hat wearing Darrel Schweitzer in conversation as some dude I don't know listened in between them.



Shortly thereafter, Tim and his lovely wife Serena discovered the delights of Finn's colorfully-labled beer. Finn started geeking out an unseemly degree--even for Finn--so I jaunted over to the Del Rey party. John Joseph Adams, aka the Slush God is there in all his bald glory (above right) along with writer Blake Charlton, also in all his bald glory. The Del Rey party, oddly enough, seemed to be running on autopilot, as nobody seemed to know who or where the host was.



It wouldn't be a party in Austin without the usual suspects, so here are Chris Roberson and John Picacio at the Del Rey party. Jeff VanderMeer showed up as well, somewhat recovered (apparently) from Turkey City of some months back. He said he was decked out as he was after coming from a soiree thrown by his publisher. Yeah, like he doesn't dress up for all his party-going excursions.



Sara Felix, she of button-making fame, along with artist GoH John Jude Palencar put in an appearance as well. Then the beer started running out, and partygoers started scattering--many heading down to the lobby bar (which was also running out of drinkables. Poor planning, methinks). I was fortunate to catch this triumverate of literary illuminati on the smoking balcony just before calling it a night: John Ford, John Klima and Chris Roberson. Ford and Klima I hadn't met prior to the convention, and while I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I'd like, they both struck me as funny and thoughtful. I'm looking forward to talking more with them at future cons.

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