And in Con.Clusion...

[shewhomust]

Monday was history day at Eastercon; only because that's how I chose my programme, of course, but nonetheless. I hadn't realised that a 'Head to Head' panel comparing Arthur C. Clarke and John Brunner would count as historical, but the moderator kicked off with the question 'why should I bother to read books published more than twenty years ago?' Obviously, this was only asked so the panel could say why these authors are still worth reading, and they all did - but it was a question that had never occurred to me, and it got me thinking. I'd be more likely to ask 'why should I bother to read books published less than twenty years ago?' I do, of course, read a fair number of books published within the last twenty years, but I could make a case for waiting to see which ones are going to last before spending my time on them.

Then two back-to-back sessions of more coventional history: 'Public Building in the Roman City' or Tony Keen's holiday photos, and very nice too; then downstairs for Edward James on 'How to Recognise a Barbarian'. This was immensely informative and hugely entertaining, complete with illustrations - mostly of the various ways the image conjured up by the word 'barbarian' is just Wrong, but including maps and a Buy My Book moment. How do you follow that? With lunch, obviously, and by the luck of the lunch queue we managed to catch a table and a brief conversation with chilperic and fjm, which was an unexpected treat. I tried to explain my theory about why there is such a happy overlap of sf fans and historians, and became very tongue tied: it's to do with the pleasure of conceiving of societies, cultures and attitudes which are not constructed in the same way as ours are now, having your mind broadened by (mental) travel - and then taking a fresh look at home in the light of elsewhere.

After which there was nothing left to do but the closing ceremony, with lots of thankyous for the people who had worked so hard to cram the weekend so full of entertainment and still keep it moving smoothly. So that was my first con, and I enjoyed it.

I think I was lucky in the programme - the strong historical strand was a real bonus for me - though no doubt there would always be something of interest. As it was, there were times when I wanted to go to two things that were running in parallel, but I wouldn't have wanted to add another hour to the day: all of which adds up to a very satisfactory programme.

On the whole, the split site worked well for me. We were comfortable at the Midland, and I enjoyed being able to retreat from the throng. I had one of the best conversations of the weekend on the shuttle bus, when I pounced on Sandra Unerman and told her I had enjoyed her contributions on various panels. The shuttle was quite time consuming, but I think there was only one occasion when we decided to skip going to the convention hotel because it would take too much time (so we missed the experience of watching Doctor Who with a couple of hundred fans, and watched it from the comfort of our bed). Particularly at those times of day when the service interval was half an hour, it would have helped to know whether a bus was due, or whether we had just missed it.

I wondered at times whether I should have asked for my badge to carry my LJ handle. It wasn't something that people seemed to do - but then, going to your first con wasn't something that people seemed to do; when your real name is better known than your online name, it makes sense to use it, but that's not the case for me. Something to think about - from which we may infer that I had enough fun that I wouldn't rule out doing it again.