Well, that was short...

Bydion 2004 is over. I think I may have gotten too used to two and three day conventions, because this one was way too short. On the other hand, considering how tired I and con-manager Yael were by the end of it, it may not be such a terrible thing.

The morning started off rather terribly, as I was called and informed that Gayle Harven will not be attending. This was rather distressing, as she was the anchor of one of our major events - the World Building panel. I should hasten to add that this was NOT her fault. No one called her to confirm, and she didn't even know the con was today...

After a few phone calls, I managed to secure Gili Bar Hillel as her replacement. This turned to be an a pretty good idea, as I'll elaborate later. After some more arrangements, Tammy and I set off for the con.

At the con, Tammy entered Nir Yaniv's "Mean Tricks for New Writers" workshop, which she mostly enjoyed, while I missed Gili's lecture (to a full room) on "There and Back Again in Children's Fantasy" in favor of Coffee.

Next up for Tammy was Ilan Eshkoli's lecture on "Nonsense and Intelligent Nonsense in the works of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett." She reports that Ilan was well prepared, erudite, and amusing as always. I headed off to the "World Building" panel, hosted by Noa Menhaim and featuring Assaf Asheri, Dr. Emmanuel Lottem, and Gili. This was an excellent panel, as Gili and Emanuel sparred over the very existence of dos and don'ts in World Building, with Noa asking excellent questions and Assaf providing quite a bit of insight from an author's perspective.

Following that, I went to lunch and managed to miss lectures by Itamar Paran and Ayelet Aloni, both of which I really wanted to attend.

After that was my own lecture on Slipstream and the borders of SF&F. This was a difficult topic, as Slipstream is defined by being Not SF while looking LIKE SF. But it was a fun lecture, and after I managed to get off the topic of what is and what isn't Slipstream, and why, and on to the topic of Slipstream's impact on modern fantastic fiction, it also covered some meaningful ground. As I always do, I hyped Swanwick's Iron Dragon's Daughter and Mieville's Perdido Street Station as prime examples of the positive impact slipstream's rule breaking can have.

That was followed by general milling about, talking to people, and hanging with Paul Kearney while he signed people's books.

Next up was the day's grand finale - the Guest Author Lecture. I got to talk a bit about why we had this con, and then introduces Kearney, as well as Yael and ISSFF chairman Erez Avramovitch, who both spoke briefly.

Kearney's speech was excellent, very honest, and moving at times. He isn't the experienced showman Orson Scott Card proved to be in last year's Icon, but he spoke very honestly and eloquently about the process of becoming a writer, and the writing of his novels. For me, it was easily the highlight of the con.

Bydion was not a very well attended con, as it was held on a working day. However, it was always busy, and certainly well attended enough to show that quite a few people care enough about books and reading to show up at a con with no screenings, no games, no extracurricular activities. And the number of people that attended allowed everyone who wanted to a chance to converse with Paul Kearney, who turned to be a lovely man, friendly, intelligent, enthusiastic, and genuinely happy to be there. Having a guest of his talent and personality was a huge boost to my own enjoyment of the convention.

I think Bydion 2004 was a qualified success, but only qualified due to the less than perfect attendance. People seemed to enjoy it, and I know I did. Erez Avramovitch said on stage that we will have a second one next year, and I'm already looking forward to it.