Almost done. Down to books now.

I have told you about the people, the podcasts, my presentation... but not, yet, about the books. As was to be expected, there were a lot of books at LonCon, at various places. There was a library where everybody was invited to take home a book (or as much as you could carry during the last two days). There were plenty of book-seller stalls in the Dealer's Hall, offering everything from used books for small money to signed special editions, wrapped in cellophane. (I did not enquire after their prices. For me, books are there to be read, and while I try to treat them kindly, I do not mind if they look used after a while. That's their point - to be read. At best, again and again and again.) And, of course, a lot of new ones, freshly out.

Such as my friend Gillian Polack's new time travel novel Langue[dot]doc 1305. Obviously, I had to get a copy of that one. A time-travel novel written by a proper historian! And so new it's not even the real book yet, but the uncorrected proof version. Only very few of these were printed, so if you want to give that a read, you should be quick... or have to wait for the final version. Gillian, by the way, has a lovely quirky evil sense of humour, which I know all too well through our endless chat conversations when we work together on our co-writing project. Go buy her book, it will make her happy, and she deserves that. Go buy all her books, while you are at it.

Our two right-hand table neighbours also sold books - Clare Davidson writes YA fiction about hidden races in our world, and you can have a look at what she writes and read excerpts here. Chuck Ian Gordon writes fiction about near-future AIs in MMORPGs, and there are excerpts of the German original and the English translation on his website, too.

I also went to one of the used book stalls and made good use of a ten-pound note and their offer to get a 6th book for free if you buy five. Well... I scored a book by Spider Robinson that is not from his Callahan chronicles (which, if you like puns, is a total must-read). And then I picked things that sounded interesting and that I did not know yet - one book by David Brin, who with "Rivers of Time" now has become one of my favourite authors. The "Exiles Trilogy" by Ben Bova, and that is another author I want to read more of. Plus some others that I have not read yet and that did not ring any bell. Yay surprise books!

More from LonCon.

LonCon was lovely, as I already told you. Unfortunately, as announced on the LonCon website, the next two worldcons will both be in the US of A - way, way too far away for me to go. (Seems that there is a very strong bias towards Worldcon in the US, something that has been criticised before - why call it "Worldcon" if it's "Mostly Americon"?)

I do hope it will be in Europe again in 2017, and I don't care whether it's Helsinki or Dublin. Both are comparatively fast and easy to reach from good ol' Germany, as opposed to about anywhere in the States.

But enough moaning - here's one more gem that made us laugh and go "ooh" in awe, both at the same time. Diagonally across from our table, on the front end of the next table island, sat an artist demonstrating her work: SoMK. She was featured on the LonCon Artist list, but of course I didn't read that. She had things in the art show, but I almost didn't manage to go in there in time... so I feel lucky that her table was so close to ours, or I might have missed her. Go look at her art on Deviantart - I especially loved this one, and it was even possible to buy a postcard with the print. SoMK also has a flickr collection.

(If you fall in love with one of her pieces - there are prints of a few of them, and there's a message function in Deviantart. Also, the originals in the LonCon art show were very, very fairly priced in my opinion, should you prefer an original...)

LonCon, and Dread Pirate Robert's Favourite Winter Hat

As I already hinted: it was wonderful at LonCon. That was not only my first WorldCon, but also my first convention ever, and I started full speed ahead - with a dealer's table and a one-hour presentation about medieval textile crafts (with examples from London).

I met a lot of wonderful people, and I had the joyful experience of having an hour and a half on the very first evening, giving my presentation. Thanks again to the wonderful organiser of the academic track, Emma England, who made this possible! From the feedback that I got afterwards, it was an enjoyable experience for my audience, and I had a lot of fun too. There was a bit of an "aaargh!" moment at the very beginning, when I found out that all of the six (six!) microphones on the table were live, and fretted over toppling them over with my textile tools. There were a few further "oops" moments during the presentation, when I did my tools and process demonstrations before having clicked on to the cue cards in the presentation slideshow... but all of these were very minor and more something to grin sheepishly about than to really be troubled.

Apart from that first evening of (enjoyable) work, I spent the time after 18:00 hanging out with friends in filk concerts and in the "Fan Village", or at one of the several dances. During the day, I was mostly at our table in the Dealer's Hall, and that was not any less enjoyable, thanks to lovely customers, colleagues and neighbours. Susanne, our trusty and immensely helpful sidekick, hung out with us most of the time, helping to sell and chat - it wouldn't have been possible to enjoy the Con half as much without her. In fact, we had so much fun we decided it would be nice to do this again - surely not at the next WorldCon, because that is in the US, but there are more conventions apart from that one...

I also learned (quickly, hah!) about the Thing with the ribbons. You see, for your con attendance, you get a plastic badge that you hang around your neck. And if you like, you can stick ribbons to the bottom of it, stacking them. If you are really keen on ribbons, you do that until you have a long, scarf-like tail of cloth hanging from your badge. (I just wanted a few. I ended up with eleven.) There were some official ones (such as the bright orange "Dealers" ribbon, or the light blue "Programme Participant" ribbon, or the multi-coloured "First Worldcon" ribbon) marked with the LonCon symbol. Most of them, though, were unofficial and made by fans, and with all kinds of statements on them - such as "I <3 -="" a="" advertising="" and="" back="" because="" bid="" book="" br="" bryan="" citations="" city="" convention.="" coveted="" dead="" did="" doctor="" dog="" during="" evening="" fetch="" few="" film="" for="" four="" future="" get="" go="" his="" host="" hotel="" i="" instantly="" kind="" last="" making="" manage="" me="" my="" of="" on="" one="" or="" out="" party="" really="" ribbons="" room="" s="" saw="" showing="" so="" support="" that="" the="" there="" thing="" three="" to="" totally="" very="" wanted="" was="" were="" worldcons.="">

The Con also saw the debut of the pattern for Dread Pirate Roberts' Favourite Winter Hat (ravelry pattern page link here), and it was very well received indeed!

The pattern is printed in colour, contains clear illustrated instructions for the special moves that are necessary for the lace part, and is now available via my webshop. Since I wanted to be able to sell it as a printed version, and prints do cost money, I am not planning to offer it as a download for at least a while (read: until the printing costs are, at least to a good part, regained). I know that it's nice to pay, download, and start right away if you buy an electronic pattern, but I did want very much to have the real ink-on-paper version for this one.

And as the introductory offer, you will pay no shipping costs if you order it now! The offer is valid until September 10, 2014.

I am back, and things might return to normal now.

I am back home after the long, long trip - one and a half days spent in the car to come back, well, with a ferry break after the first third of the first day.

It was a wonderful, wonderful time, both the holidays and the LonCon trip. Now normalcy beckons - back to work it is, answering emails, getting laundry done, watching the cat sleep. Oh, and sorting all the newly-bought books into shelves.

I have not sorted out all the bits and paper pieces yet that I brought from the Con, and a good amount of them is still in the car (which is not yet completely emptied out), but there are lots of interesting things, and I promise to link them all.

For now, I can tell you that it is utterly awesome to receive a ninja gig right in front of one's stall in the Dealer's room! Talis Kimberley sang us a knitting shanty (and then another knitting shanty). A few of her songs are on youtube, so I can share with you:



We had been to her concert the evening before, and it was wonderful - just the mix of serious political stuff, tongue-in-cheek humour and lightness that I love. Seeing (and hearing) her live is even better, but you can also get some of her songs via her webshop and her bandcamp site.

More tomorrow!