I missed blog posting last week as I was at Continuum – Melbourne’s Speculative Fiction Convention. It was a great weekend, catching up with people I met last year, and being on panels and attending panels.

Cons are great fun. My biggest problem is making sure I don’t panel myself to death. I love hearing from the fascinating, intelligent people who share their knowledge and passions. Sunday I panelled from go to whoa, and nearly did my head in, so I eventually told myself to head off to bed, and I even listened and went!

I was fortunate enough to participate in three panels – Weedy Seadragon (all about Australian wildlife that might be great in spec fic), Remove or Explain (looking at classic spec fic and discussing problematic views such as racism, classism and sexism), and Separating the Art from the Artist (what do you do when your favourite author espouses views you don’t agree with or proves to have feet of clay). It was a lot of fun, and we had some great discussions.

I’m always impressed with the sheer breadth of knowledge at these events. So many fantastic authors give of their time and experience, and so many fans have such a depth of knowledge about so many spec fic things that it’s like being at an enormous smorgasbord.

The guests of honour this year were RJ Anderson, and Tansy Rayner Roberts.who both made memorable guest of honour speeches. There were several tears shed during Rebecca’s speech, and many crowns worn during Tansy’s. They are remarkable, eloquent women, whose writing I greatly enjoy. I hadn’t read any of Rebecca’s until a couple of weeks ago, when I picked up Ultraviolet. I loved it. I’ve read several of Tansy’s now – and particularly like her Creature Court Trilogy.

Of course I had to purchase a couple of books, or three, or four…so I grabbed Ultraviolet and its sequel, Quicksilver, for our daughter, and grabbed myself the Ticonderoga anthology Hear Me Roar, and Redback by Lindy Cameron which I’m currently in the middle of and enjoying very much.

Then there were the market stalls, but because I was very restrained, having already purchased four books, and World Con supporting membership, and a pre-bid supporters thingy for New Zealand’s bid for World Con 2020, I restricted myself to one small, but beautiful, necklace from Michelle at One Small Duck for our daughter.

Enough of my purchases! This is a very self indulgent post!

On a very nice note, however, my husband thinks that we should go to World Con at some point shortly. I didn’t even have to marshall any arguments as to why it might be a good idea, as he loves to travel. So here’s hoping Helsinki gets the bid, and we can head off to Finland in 2017!