Remember the post I made Saturday about the Warfare in SF panel at Penguicon? Well, as I knew he would, bless his heart, Tobias Buckell has posted his audio recording, along with his own brief commentary on the experience.

I urge you, for the love of all that is funny and interesting, to go have a listen. I make two comments from the peanut gallery, and you're sure to hear my son whining and carrying on at some points. I'm sure that's what Toby must have been referring to, in his diplomatic way, as "background noise."

So, after keeping me up late, the little guy slept until 8, which was crazy late for him. We breakfasted out of the con suite, then returned to the room to shower and all that stuff.

Tarri and the baby headed for a panel on Bird Flu at 10am, which was in the same room as the characterization panel. After getting myself ready and heading in that direction, I came across tobiasbuckell in the registration area, where he was dealing with some miscommunication issues regarding panelists and such.

We met back up in the panel, where we sat down to discuss characterization with M. Keaton and Nancy Atwell. Mr. Keaton, who is not to be confused with the actor, spoke up right away to say that the latest reviews of his work have generally savaged his characterization, so he would be learning as much as anyone else. And then I got to admit that I had only one short story sale, and it wasn't out yet. Of course, then I forgot to name the story or mention the magazine that it was coming out in. Go me.

Overall, the panel went really well. My pet peeve of relentless military stereotyping got us into some really interesting areas of discussion. Toward the end, Toby (as moderator) posed the question to the panel regarding favorite author or book for characterization, fiction and non-fiction. I threw out the Vorkosigan series (which someone disagreed with) and Orson Scott Card's Character and Viewpoint, the title of which I transposed. Oops.

Oh, and one of the very good topics we got to was the question of making alien characters more than the sum of their cultural quirks. In other words, how do you give aliens identities that are not defined by what makes them alien, rather than what makes them individuals. I had to give "mad props" to kristine_smith for her Idomeni characters and how they are quite individual while at the same time, as Toby suggested was necessary, seeming more alien than the Japanese. (Who of us, after all, hasn't read a book where the aliens were more recognizable than many human cultures?)

Lunch followed, with Toby, and we discussed at length the joys of navigating Toledo's freeways.

After lunch, the wife went down for a nap, and the little man and I hung out in the hotel's atrium.

Then, at four, came the Tea Party panel which, in fact, was hilarious. Though moreso in terms of the "geeks overcoming" than the hilarity of the puns. (Though, at one point, M. Keaton referred to a military attack as "teabagging" ... and I'm the only one who laughed at all.)

Dinner followed, at Red Robin across the street. It started to rain while we were in there, and at one point I noticed a weird rush of servers and employees to the fron lobby area of the restaurant. When we left, we saw why: the clouds had thinned to the west, causing a huge double rainbow to appear over 6 Mile Rd to the east. Quite spectacular.

At eight we kicked off another Black Sweater Party. Two of the participants had returned from the night before, and a few had returned from last year. Though we had a new guy there in knock-off MarPat digital cammies, who seemed to be quite irked whenever I corrected him on technique. In the end, they ran three simulated assaults on part of the hotel, one of which ended in a horrible friendly fire incident. In fact, in that incident, both myself and the other referee, Sal the owner of Aegis Consulting, were "shot" in the exchange.

Good fun and good exercise.

And then, bless his heart, Tony went to sleep. So I watched some baseball (go Tigers) and then wandered out into the con. Chatted with howardtayler and some other folks whose names escape me... except for Karen, whose name sticks with me, because she kinda reminds me of a cousin by the same name.

By 1am, I was dead, and collapsed in bed. But I have to say, this was one of the longest and most interesting con days I've ever had.

I'll certainly have more to say later, but I want to tell this story right now, mostly in an attempt to strike while the iron is hot.

I was hanging out with John Scalzi (scalzifeed), Jeff Beeler (jeffreyab) and Tobias Buckell (tobiasbuckell) outside of a conversation pit where Jeff and John were going to be on a panel concerning Warfare in Science Fiction. At that moment, a few minutes before the panel was set to start, the head of programming approached and informed John and Jeff that the panel would have to be moved into a cafe enclosure across the hall, in which three other events were taking place simultaneously, because the hotel did not want War discussed in an open area like the conversation pit.

So I merrily suggested they discuss Tea Parties in Science Fiction instead (since a tea party was one of the events that was occurring in the cafe space I mentioned), as in John's Hugo-nominated science fiction novel, Old Man's Tea Party.

And they took it, and ran with it. They included the other two panelists on the... analogy, then clued in the rest of the audience. And away they went. Toby did an audio recording of the whole thing on his Palm, and hopefully it'll be up at his website soon.

What was most amazing was that after about five or ten minutes of sniggering and sly looks, the whole thing settled down into a really awesome dsicussion of warfare in science fiction--with tea-relaed words and concepts slotted in. Panel and audience together only slipped up a handful of times, maybe less.

This certainly approaches the level of the Authors Who Did Not Attend Clarion panel at Chicon in 2000.

Well, I've managed to wangle my way onto some Penguicon panels this year. I dunno how many of you all are going; I can only think of jeffreyab (and scalzi and tobiasbuckell, but I don't know how much they read this), but that's alright.

Friday 8:00pm
Black Sweater Party
Wear comfortable clothing, please. Be prepared to move around, learn, and have fun. Hands-on SWAT team-style building clearing and hostage rescue simulations with the Aegis Consulting Staff.

(I'm not in Aegis Consulting, but I helped out last year, and I'll be lending my expertise again this year.)

Saturday 11:00am
Writing and the Art of Characterization
David Klecha, Sarah Zettell, Nancy Zettell, Tobias Buckell
Ever read a book which had an interesting world and a good plot, and you didn't give a damn about anyone in it? Our panelists discuss how to make characters real, and make your readers care if they live or die.

(Should be interesting. I've got plenty of opinions on how to do all this, so we'll see how it goes with a couple of well-published authors on the panel as well.)

Saturday 8:00pm
Black Sweater Party
Wear comfortable clothing, please. Be prepared to move around, learn, and have fun. Hands-on SWAT team-style building clearing and hostage rescue simulations with the Aegis Consulting Staff.

(I love teaching geeks how to move like Marines. I had so much of a blast last time, I accidentally missed the first half of a Writing Workshop session, where none other than scalzi was critiquing my work.)

Blogging for Life
The Ferrett, John Scalzi, David Klecha
News pages. Online journals. Web logs. A lot of people are using them. What are the tools available, and what are the best ways to use them?

(Did this last year, too, actually, when jeffreyab tossed me in to substitute for Slashdot's Rob Malda when he got waylaid. It's where I actually met John Scalzi for the first time, and he and Schlock Mercenary's Howard Tayler and I had a great time.)

So if you happen to be in Livonia, come see me. :) Or, heck, just come to Penguicon, because it's a great time.