Recap: Inconjunction 35

I only attended Inconjunction on Saturday, since that was the only day I had free that weekend. I had two goals for the weekend: first was to hand out the promo cards for ‘Undercover Unicorn’ and second was to see people that I don’t usually get the chance to see these days.

The first was easy enough: I dropped off a stack of cards on the freebie table, but mostly I handed them out to people in the dealer hall and creators area. There were a surprising number of self-published and small press authors there, and I made sure to talk with each one. In the midst of everything else I have to do this week, I will be checking out their websites soon.

The second was also easy, as everyone I wanted to see were conveniently situation in the dealer hall.

First off was Tim Zahn, who had a table immediately inside the dealer hall. It was good to see Tim and his wife Anna there: it must have been maybe 15 years since we last met, back in the GenCon Milwaukee days. Tim’s career definitely took off when he got the contract to write for Star Wars but he was an award-winning author even before that. He and his wife are really good people.

Secondly was Larry Smith and Sally Kobe, with Larry Smith, Bookseller. When I was a regular attendee at SF conventions, I was also a regular customer at their booth. As I hadn’t attended a major SF convention where they were set up in ages, I went prepared to make a serious dent in my budget for the weekend, and that certainly happened. All in all, the haul was pretty light, though:

• Two Mercedes Lackey books
  • Blood Red, her latest Elemental Master book in paperback
  • No True Way, the latest Valdemar anthology
• Ancillary Justice, the 2014 Hugo and Nebula winner and predecessor to Ancillary Sword, this year’s Hugo nominee
• The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi, based on how much I liked his short story collection Collected Fiction
• Artemis Awakening by Jane Lindskold, because I became a fan of her through her association with Roger Zelazny
• Linesman by S K Dunstall, because of the buzz regarding it at File770
• The award-winning and best-selling The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland (In a Ship of Her Own Making) by Catherynne M Valente.

I was looking for a copy of Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrell, what with the British television adaptation now coming out, but it was alas not recent enough for Larry to carry it.

Thirdly was Mogchelle Cosplay, who I remember from IkasuCon last year, but whom I eventually discovered was in a photo shoot I did at Animé Crossroads back in 2009. She was a featured guest at Inconjunction and will be a guest at GenCon this year. She is an amazing cosplayer and well worth meeting: she will have a booth in the artist / creators area at GenCon and I look forward to stopping by to talk with her again.

All in all, Inconjunction was an enjoyable time. It is a very good local convention in a large metropolitan area so it has a large fan base. It was well worth the 2×2 hour drive for the day. Because of it, I am able to get back into fandom some more, and that has been a good (and in a few cases surprising) thing.