My Worldcon Schedule
Posted on August 8, 2018 Posted by John Scalzi 18 Comments
Next week I’ll be at Worldcon 76 in sunny San Jose, California. Want to know my schedule of events while I’m there? Sure you do! This is what it is. All events in the San Jose Convention Center unless otherwise noted:
Thursday, August 16:
8pm: Retro Hugos Party (includes 80s dance), room LL20: All attending members are invited to the Red Carpet Celebration for the 1943 Retrospective Hugo Awards. Immediately following the Red Carpet, you’ll be dancing through the decades as we award Science Fiction’s best for the year 1943. Come for the awards and then stay to rock out, 80s style, with DJ John Scalzi and dance the night away.
Yes, that’s right, I’m DJing an 80s dance, roughly beginning at 10pm! Come and bring everyone you know — it’s gonna be fun.
Saturday, August 18:
1pm: Hugo Finalist Reading, room 211A: Listen to some of this year’s Hugo Novel finalists as they share their work.
This reading includes me, Ann Leckie and Mur Laffery. I’ll likely be reading from The Consuming Fire.
3pm: Keeping Ahead of Tomorrow: Near Future Fiction, room 210F: How do you successfully write near future fiction when reality is constantly catching up? Is it meant to be predictive? A warning? Can your story avoid becoming dated? Panelists explore stories, books, and authors that have done this successfully, as well as the techniques that make it work.
Panel includes me, Sarah Pinsker, Linda Nagata, Annalee Newitz and Chen Quifan.
5pm: Author vs. Fan Ownership, room 210DH: How much do readers “own” the books they read? Writing is a private art intended for public display. Once the story is out of the writer’s hands, it can take on a life of its own–inspiring fandoms, fantheories, and fan interpretations that can vary widely from the author’s. How much do the fans own the work? Can you (and should you) divorce the writer from their fiction? What is the writer’s role in participating via social media in debunking or encouraging fan theories? Can the author be “wrong” about their own work? Our panel of authors and expert fans discuss the various and increasingly complex interactions between work, author, and reader.
Panel includes me, Foz Meadows, Greg Hullender, Renay Williams and Eric Kaplan.
Sunday, August 19:
2pm: Autographing, SJCC: Come get your books signed by me!
8pm: Hugo Ceremony, Grand Ballroom: Come see me probably lose a Hugo, but possibly win one instead!
And that’s my Worldcon 76. You might see me otherwise wandering about. If you do, feel free to say hello to me.
Also, for those of you who might ask “Hey, didn’t the Worldcon used to have you scheduled for just one event, which you then offered to give up?” Yes! It did! Or more accurately it released a previous version of its schedule, which was superseded by a newer, revamped version. As you can see I am now on more things and also, many of the other issues with the previous iteration of the schedule have been dealt with. So now I’m on things again!
I’m a little sad that you don’t have a Kaffeeklatsch this time, but going to a party you’re DJing is a pretty cool alternative :)
So, I guess Worldcon has several small autograph sessions, but no mass autograph session. Correct?
I know they regularly stream the awards ceremony. But will any of the panels be streamed?
Dan:
Don’t know.
Neil Ottenstein:
There are too many authors and notables to do that.
Donaithen:
I had a kaffeklatsch slot on Monday, but I gave it up on the last iteration of the program for someone else to have.
That all sounds fun and interesting! I wish I was going.
I’ve been a fan of Linda Nagata’s for a while – she did a great take on an emergent AI in The Red Trilogy.
I won’t be there, because school, but I’d be interested to hear how that panel goes.
I hope San Jose is sunny net week–that the fires in Northern California have eased up enough to allow for blue skies.
This one isn’t in the cards for us to attend, but I hope you have a terrific time. The panels you’ll be on sound very intriguing, and I hope someone in attendance writes up a report or a summary or an article about them.
Good luck to all the excellent candidates (and there are so many this year!) for the Hugo Awards – it was a damnably difficult ballot to decide on, and whoever the winners turn out to be are well deserving of the honor.
Whatever you pick as the DJ– promise us readers that you won’t try to belt out the theme to Game of Thrones on a vuvuzela….
Looking forward to joining the 80’s bash and a few of the other panels. Remember if you win a Hugo then you can’t go to GRRM’s after party. There’s and upside to either result :-)
Hey John,
“Super Taqueria” is a small chain of made fresh Mexican fast food joints in the South Bay. Best burritos ever! And not far from the convention center. Enjoy !
There’s a “Sushirrito” in the food court of Westfield Valley Fair Mall, not terribly far from the con…
Neil:; What John said. Far too many possible signers to fit them into the autograph area simultaneously. There are some scheduled group signings, if you peruse the schedule. I believe a few publishers also reserved extra booth space to permit signings at their booths without impacting traffic.
Dan: The Hugo Awards ceremony will be streamed. Panels in general will not be. It’s a pure matter of economics, with such a large and varied program. Quality streaming requires extra tech and more bandwidth than WiFi can support. External streaming of performances like the concerts or Masquerade would require music sync licenses that are also beyond the means of a typical Worldcon.
“Keeping Ahead of Tomorrow: Near Future Fiction” sounds fascinating.
Charlie Stross has said he wanted to but is unable to write a third book in his “Halting State”/”Rule 34”, uh, trilogy for just this reason. Reality is too volatile.
Looking forward to seeing you there, will be missing the reading for Peter Beagle’s “Last Unicorn at 50” panel (I do have other favorite authors). Good luck with the Hugo!
I remember years ago when the San Jose folks were trying to be chosen to host (Wester con) the con for western North America. I presume they succeeded. They used a garden gnome and the saying, “Do you gnome the way to San Jose?”
(For folks Athena’s age: the song is a good one, just google ‘do you know the way to San Jose?’)
I started to read the program book but stopped—I have my own con to go to this weekend, not quite sf, but sf related. Summer is the season!
If you’re there I highly recommend the 80’s dance party! John threw an amazing one on the JoCo Cruise this year, we had a blast!