We had a great time.
There’s just no other way to say it. Kathleen, Caroline, Ariel, Ariel’s friend Marina and I, after all the sturm and drang, had a great ol’ time at UFC. A decent number of appreciative fans (hard to determine exactly how many, but it seemed like a few hundred), smoothly run programming (I mean, yeah, the Saturday night banquet started fifteen minutes late, big deal), hanging out with old friends such as the peerless Bill and Eileen Mumy, Grace Lee Whitney and Tracy Scoggins, and making new friends such as BSG’s Nicki Clyne, Dr. Who’s Wendy Padbury, and–‘eeeeyyyy–Henry Winkler.
Bob Greenberger braved near hurricane winds to come up Saturday afternoon to hang out, which was great. Pocket Books was kind enough to send me one hundred copies of my brand spanking new Trek novel, “Before Dishonor,” which I gave out free to the first hundred people who came by my table. At the evening cabaret I read the first chapter of “Tigerheart,” Wendy did a reading of Doctor Who’s long-lost diary which was hysterical (I totally forgot to ask her if she wrote it because it was marvelous) and Mumy did a terrific half-hour set that he himself described as “schizoid,” a fair description of a set that includes heart-felt ballads, a song about the nightmarish blending of Will Robinson into Lennier, and ending with an audience singalong of “Fishheads.” Bill then continued the set out into the lobby, seated at a piano, dueting on some Barnes and Barnes songs with a hardcore B&B fan and even singing the theme to “Space Cases.”
Sold a bunch of stuff, made a decent amount of money, so that was good too. My sister Beth and her family came up as well on Saturday, so Caroline had an opportunity to hang out with her little cousins. Henry gave a terrific speech on Sunday: I missed the first half because I was signing, but Mumy said it was fantastic and inspirational (Kath took the above picture of myself, Henry and Bill afterwards.)
If they have the con next year and invite us up, yes, I’d be there.
PAD
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