I got back from Readercon 22 about half an hour ago. Rather than attempt to write a con roundup which I always swear that I will do and rarely, if ever, actually get around to doing well, I will merely say that I enjoyed it: I got turned on to some new authors that I haven’t read before and I got to listen to smart people say smart things and to silly people say silly things (sometimes, of course, simultaneously).

I was stunned that the audience actually won the Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition this year for the first time ever. I am looking forward to seeing how (if at all) they will deal with that fact in next year’s competition (as, usually, the winner is an on-stage contestant in the next iteration).

I have (as usual) a truly sickening pile of new books to read (only about half of which are really new-new) and I re-upped my subscription to Lady Churchill’s Rosebut Wristlet. (Can I pause for a moment to say how much I adore Small Beer press? I adore them SO FREAKING MUCH.)

The con was much fuller of things to do than my weekend was full of time in which to do them. Kind of like a microcosm of life itself, I guess. I am currently suffering from a mild case of what a friend of mine used to call PCBs – post con blues. The abrupt dissolution of the cheerful, focused intentional community that a con as small and specific as Readercon creates can leave one feeling a little bereft. But, of course, I will see folks again next year, if not before.

For now, there shall be rest, and laundry and a totally veggie-intensive dinner.

Apparently, Stephen Fry is doing everything he can to extend and honor the legacy of Douglas Adams’s work. I already knew about Fry doing new audio versions of Adams’s books.

I did not know that in 2009, 20 years after Adams traveled the world and wrote his fantastic book Last Chance To See on endangered species and the people who are attempting to keep them alive, Stephen Fry traveled the world to look for endangered species himself, for the BBC.

Last Chance To See, the TV series, apparently revisited the places and animals that Adams originally sought out with zoologist Mark Carwardine (who also co-authored the book).

Carwardine is also in the TV series. The web site for the series (linked above) seems to have lots of good content, including blogs by both Carwardine and Fry about their travels. Unfortunately (for me), the multimedia content is only available in the UK. Doubly unfortunately for me, the DVD doesn’t appear to be available for Region 1.

This seems like a great project, and I’m glad that Fry took it up. If anyone out there is not familiar with Adams’s book, it is well worth a read. It has all his wit and intelligence, Mark Carwardine’s zoological expertise and it is still depressingly and startlingly relevant today, over 20 years after it was published.

And now, I shall leave you with a brief clip from the show:

I was in a novel workshop this spring with Jeff Carver and Craig Gardner. One of the guys in the workshop is not just a talented writer, he can also draw. He draws his own characters as part of his creative process, and he also did a poster of the main characters of all the novels that were being workshopped.

He is is Chris Howard, author of Seaborn. Here is his conception of my main character, Suzannah:

Cool, right? I don’t want to talk too much about Suzannah just yet, but I think he captured her attitude.

It’s worth checking out the entire poster. It’s very cool.