Ok so it’s been over a week since Swancon and I finally find the time to sit down and post something. In the week since Con I have Eaten pancakes, Applied for a Job, fallen in love with Guitar Hero (2), seen Tim Minchin at His Maj, had a brilliant idea for another comic, Dealt with a fairly huge personal crisis, gotten the flu, and secured an interview for the previously mentioned job… which is tomorrow… and I still have the flu… joy. But for this post I’m going to stick with Swancon.

The Con was all sorts of fun, I met lot’s of great people and the panel I was on went pretty well I think. Shane McCarthy (a late addition to the guest list and we only found out he’d be on the panel with us the day before) was really cool. The guy writes for DC… *boggle* if you’re a Batman fan you’ll probably know the name. He definitely added another level to the discussion and made the rest of us… mainly me (Colin and Cameron have been doing this a lot longer), seem a lot more legitimate and qualified to dispense advice. I would have liked to chat to him more but apparently car troubles kept him from attending the second half of the con.

The International guests of honour, Elizabeth Moon and David Gerrold were great. I always have the good intention of reading some of the guests work before attending the con… to date I have had a dismal track record in this regard and this year I thought I had failed yet again. But no! to my surprise I discover on the first day that Ms Moon is actually the author of the Paksenarrion books. A series I read and loved years ago and had just forgotten who had written them. So that was cool. Unfortunately I didn’t have any copies of her books with me so no signage for me. I did however attend many of her panels and was entertained by stories of fencing, fox hunts and the US marines. I also picked up a few writing pointers and such. What are the odds?

Unfortunately not only had I never read anything by David Gerrold I had also never seen “The Trouble with Tribbles” which is apparently a hugely memorable episode from the second season of the original Star Trek and was David Gerrold’s first success. Bad Me! However this didn’t stop me attending the panels he was on and being highly amused and educated by his tirades and anecdotes on a wide variety of subjects including the many idiots he’d worked with in his long career.

The Australian guest of honour Matthew Reilly was one of the nicest guys I have ever met. Although I had only ever read his book Hovercar Racer, the way he spoke about his other books really sold them to me. So out I went to the dealer room and secured a copy of “Area 7″ which while being book 2 in a series of 3, was the last of his books available at the con. Only pouting slightly I went to get it signed and during the signing I mentioned this to him, saying that I had been after “Ice Station” (the first book) but that his books had now completely sold out and he says that he has a spare copy up in his room, would I like it? … Muahahaha…. *cough cough* His generosity towards his fans notwithstanding I have to say the thing I liked most was how cool he was with my Nephew, who at 13 is quite possibly his biggest fan. Matthew took the time to chat to him about the books and seemed genuinely interested in what my nephew had to say about them. All I can say is that I’m almost finished with Area 7 and will need the third book very soon. *calls nephew to ask if he can borrow it* If you like big fast Hollywood action thrillers I can’t recommend these books enough.

This post has gone on far too long, much longer than I’d ever intended it to. Will finish talking about the con later… sleep time… bah to editing this… :p