I Can Fly Twice As High — AKA, My HalCon 2018 Recap

I AM BACK FROM THE FOGSOAKED WILDS OF COASTAL ATLANTIC CANADA, FROM THE LOVECRAFTIAN REALM OF DONAIRS AND POUTINE AND LOBSTERS.

Halifax was great.

Hal-Con, in particular, was sublime.

It’s one of those “just right” cons — not so big it’s a soul-crushing meat-grinder, but not so small where you’re not really sure the juice was worth the squeeze. It had tons of local vendors, ace cosplay, and a really nice spread of great people — both fellow guests and fans. (Bonus: got to hang with my Sister from Another Mister, Delilah S. Dawson — whose newest, Treason of Hawks, is out in both print and e-book, and it completes her excellent Shadow series.) They also treat their guests like fucking royalty. I had a personal assistant! His name was Spencer and he looked like a young Matthew McConaughey? (Sidenote: why the fuck don’t I have an assistant?) It’s nice. It was all nice.

Nice as cookies.

I mean, except for the flight back, to which I say:

EAT SPECTACULAR SHIT, AIR CANADA.

This is the third time I’ve traveled with them.

And the third time they’ve canceled a flight right out from under me.

Like, you get to the airport.

You wait until approximately the boarding time.

And then the flight is just — boop! It’s fucking gone. It never existed, maybe. It was a collective hallucination borne by the ticket-holders, who knows. Either way: this happened again yesterday and they were like, “You can go home tomorrow instead.” And I was like, “There are no additional flights?” They said there was one, but it had no seats. And they were going to give me a hotel room but they didn’t have any hotel rooms and I was gonna have to wait. And technically I had to be back here today because I have child-entangled things to do, and then also Halloween tomorrow, so my kid was crushed I wasn’t coming home. While waiting, I toodled around the Internet for about 17 seconds and found out hey yeah there are too seats available on the next flight?

The Air Canada person told me (in what I am to understand was a lie) that she couldn’t rebook me on that one For Reasons, and I could book it and they’d just fix the difference later? Ugh. So I did that.

That flight was to leave at 9PM.

And ended up not leaving until after 10PM.

Which meant I didn’t get home until after 1AM, which is not fun.

But I got to gently wake up B-Dub and give the kid a hug, which was honestly the best reward at the end of such an irritating kidney stone of a journey.

Oh also, another thing that makes it all worth it?

Yeah, that’s right.

That’s Levar Burton.

One of the actual architects of both my childhood and, one could argue, my very career. Inspiring me then, and inspiring me now because this dude is as kind as any. He walks into a room and introduces himself to everybody, warm and smiling. He is pure cool and total comfort. (Bonus: to my great shock, he knew who I was, which pretty much completes Life Bingo, I think. I won life. I have conquered the summit. If I perish here, know I am satisfied at having made it.)

So: if given a chance to go to Hal-Con?

Do it.

(Just don’t fly Air Canada.)

Let’s see, what else is up?

Big announcement tomorrow, I think.

The Mega Ultra Super Big-Ass Book Bundle is still on sale for another day, 50% off with coupon NANO2018 — you can click here to grab a shitload of writing books and a couple novels.

One more deep-dive on the bots-and-puppets phenomenon surrounding, well, me. This time over at Vox-dot-com, so give a click and have a read. I don’t agree with every assertion made, and I think there might be some context missing, but it will be a fascinating read for you just the same.

You Might Be The Killer screened at Toronto After Dark, and it think won some cool audience awards? It’s also still showing on SyFy now and again, including via on-demand.

I’m working through Wanderers page proofs at a furious pace.

And I think that’s it for now.

See you soon, my sweet babbies.