Category: Travel
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Ozblogging: The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Part 2
The three heroic questers set off searching for the plot coupons, and discover a problem which the Crooked Magician really should have thought of: none of them has the faintest idea where they're going. Ojo has lived his entire life in a remote cabin in the woods with a man who says about two words…
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Five Stories That Changed Everything: My Picks
A bit more than a week ago I drove to Boston in order to attend the venerable Boskone convention, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. As always, I spent a lot of my time either being on panels discussing things, or watching other people on panels discussing things. This year one of the most…
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Boskone 50, Featuring ME!
This coming weekend I'm heading back to the idyllic Westin Waterfront Hotel in Boston for the second of New England's two big wintertime science fiction conventions, Boskone. Here's my schedule: Friday, 9 p.m.: "The Monster in the Maze" — I get to moderate a high powered panel (Darrell Schweitzer, Paul Tremblay, and Christopher Golden) as…
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Sweringen and Spaceships
This past Thanksgiving I ventured to southern Maryland for a big family dinner. My host happened to live just up the road from St. Mary's City, the site of Maryland's first colonial capital. It's a very interesting site: there are reconstructions of some of the original buildings and some excellent exhibits about how archaeologists combine…
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City Life
In my after-action report on the Arisia convention I mentioned that the "Future of Cities" panel had crystallized some ideas that had been floating around inside my head. The panelists spent a lot of time discussing problems that afflict modern cities, particularly the metropoli of the northeastern United States. Congestion, sprawl, and the need for…
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Post-Arisia Report
I arrived at the Westin Hotel in Boston on Friday the 18th just as the convention was getting underway, and spent some time checking out the dealer room and saying hello to new arrivals. I did manage to attend one panel: "The Man Who Sold The Moon," featuring Cambridge Science Fiction Workshop stalwart Steven Popkes…
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Arisia 2013, Featuring ME
Next week I'm going to be a program participant at the always interesting Arisia convention in Boston, held at the Westin Waterfront hotel. My schedule, in case you want to follow me around and bask in my brilliance: Saturday (January 19) at 11:30 a.m.: Cambridge SF Workshop Flash Fiction Reading. The members of the coolest…
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Chicon 7: After-Action Report
Overall, the convention was a lot of fun. The whole family had a good time. I would like to give particular praise to the organizers of the childrens' programming track. Instead of just "day care" or "babysitting" they approached it like any other part of the convention activities: "what are some things we can do…
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Chicon 7: The Final Chapter
On Sunday I ferried Agent X down to the extremely well-run ChiKids program area for Doctor Who Lego building, Jedi costumes, and steampunk Nerf guns. Agent X had a great time at Chicon. I spent the same period watching a panel on screenwriting by Michael Cassutt, Melinda Snodgrass, and the alarmingly overqualified Dr. Harry Kloor.…
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Chicon 7: The Third Day
The Crack Team breakfasted in the room again, and once more split up for separate activities. Because Saturday was the day leading up to the grand costume contest, the two younger members of the Crack Team wore their hall costumes: "Agent X" (an alien-fighting Man In Black), and the "Dalekette" (a Dalek-inspired showgirl outfit). I…
The Cambias Digression 