August 01, 2005

World Science Fiction Convention Roundup (plus trivia)

by Alan Beatts

It's nice to have time to write this column again.  The last few months have been even more hectic than usual and getting this newsletter out has been a very late night project.  As kind as all our customers are, I didn't want to inflict the kind of writing that I do at three in the morning on you.  Hence, no column.

But right now it's five in the evening and my desk is completely lacking piles of papers that have to be dealt with RIGHT NOW.  So, I'm going to write a nice column for this issue.  It's a bit of a grab bag of topics that have been on my mind in recent months.

Overheard at the Con

This is a new feature that will appear periodically, as we attend conventions and overhear things.  The tradition of keeping track of anonymous overheard bits and bobs started for us at the 2002 ConJose in San Jose, when a staff member overheard someone she couldn't see scolding, "Shelby, it's not okay to touch your sister's breast with the back of your hand, either!".  Trying (or trying not to) fill in the blanks on other overheard conversations made us laugh so much that we thought we'd share some highlights from this years World Science Fiction Convention: