Well, that was Octocon. Nice little convention.

On the plus side, they have a good hotel in a great city, and this year had a totally awesome guest. They also have a lot of enthusiasm. If I were more interested in film I’d be talking a lot about the Golden Blasters (winners here).

On the negative side, things were a bit chaotic. Of course that was in part because they didn’t know whether any of the Game of Thrones cast would turn up (kudos to Kristian Nairn for having the courage to do so), and with a con that small it doesn’t matter much if the program changes.

Personally I had a fun weekend meeting up with my Irish friends, with George & Parris, with Lorraine (who I had never met before) and a bunch of other interesting overseas visitors (hello Martina, Natalie, Monza, Katie). I didn’t get the interview with George, because by the time he was free of obligations he looked as exhausted as I felt. Neither of us would have been very good. I’m not sure that I’ll be back, mainly because these days I can’t afford the time or money to do conventions. Things will look up again when I have a bunch of books to promote and have a prospect of selling stuff at conventions.

Because I didn’t interview George I want to return to what he said about writing in his GoH speech, but that will need to be a separate post, and will need me to be more awake to write it.