I am back home again after Balticon! Sunday was a light day mostly because I slept in. I didn't go to any panels— I cannot tell you how annoyed I am about the lack of program descriptions. Others have complained as well. For example, the Starship Troopers panel proved to be entirely about that specific book rather than, as one might have thought, about military science fiction in general. I did get a chance to duck into the art show (lots of whimsy on display) and I went to a reading by Benjamin Tate (aka, jpsorrow, or as pbray likes to call him Benshua) that was interesting because he not only read from the new book Well of Sorrows, he talked about the differences in writing the current 3rd person, multi-POV book (soon to be books) as opposed to a first person series.

Overall, my impressions of Balticon were good, though, in spite of my annoyance about the program. For one thing, the con suite was always well stocked, and registration and other volunteers were very helpful. For another, Worldcons tend toward the older crowd so much, it was good to see so many young people are a con. I also noted an interesting trend I had not observed before; several of the hall costumes I saw were for crewmen in Star Trek TOS. No Klingons, though. I can't recall ever seeing that before.

And, for no other reason than I think every writer or friend of a writer should see it, I am including the video that's making the rounds by mystery writer Parnell Hall. It's sad and hilarious at the same time.