Continuity and a Long List of Books
I'm home from Continuity, which I'm thinking of as the first real in-person NZ National Convention since the start of COVID. We've had some virtual cons, some mini cons, and I was lucky enough to scarper over to Melbourne for Continuum earlier in the year, but this was the first time it felt like things were back on track.
It was a small convention, sure, but it felt complete. We had the usual badges and some excellent lanyards (I have a collection). There were two solid tracks of programming, and I think the programme crew did a great job finding a balance between too niche and too broad - I enjoyed all the panels I went to.
Of course there were the staples - the guest of honour speeches, the ceremonies, the business meetings. I was delighted to see some very worthy creators receive Sir Julius Vogel Awards. (I can't boast about mine too much because I was in fact the only one on the ballot, but I do appreciate those who nominated and voted for my interactive fiction piece Sidetrack - thank you!)
Most of all, it was so nice to see people! While again, it was small and a number didn't make it, there was enough of a crowd for some great catch-ups: hanging out in the bar (you know when everyone orders chips for the table and suddenly there's 3 times as many chips as anyone can eat? yup), turning up at some poor eatery and asking for a table for heaps of you, those quick between-panel runs to the bakery? Felt like old times.
I was scheduled on three panels. On the first I talked with Darusha Wehm and Rem Wigmore about SFF Shakespeare retellings - writing our own, what we've enjoyed, why basically everything is gay, and what we'd like to see. In the Positive SFF panel Jacques Smit, Anna Kirtlan and I talked about some of the intersections of cosy/fun/hopeful/positive writing, for the reader and the writer. And lastly...
Books
...Darusha, June Young and I went through some of the (mostly recent, mostly SFF) books we've most enjoyed recently. I promised to keep a list, and here it is: books mentioned, mostly from the panel, a few from the audience. Happy reading!
(I was scribbling this down as I went, so apologies for any mistakes or omissions.)
Djinn City - Saad Z. Hossain
A Song for a New Day - Sarah Pinsker
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries - Heather Fawcett
Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands - Heather Fawcett
Unconquerable Sun - Kate Elliott
The Mimicking of Known Successes - Malka Older
The Audition - Pip Adam
The Parasol Protectorate series - Gail Carriger
Chain-Gang All-Stars - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Turncoat - Tīhema Baker
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep - H.G. Parry
Watched - Tīhema Baker
Guardian of the Dead - Karen Healey
Na Viro - Gina Cole
A Fractured Infinity - Nathan Tavares
Fourth Wing and Iron Flame / Empyrean series - Rebecca Yarros
A Snake Falls to Earth - Darcie Little Badger
Yellowface - R.F. Kuang
The Mountain in the Sea - Ray Nayler
Deep Wheel Orcadia - Harry Josephine Giles
Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone - Benjamin Stevenson
Rodham - Curtis Sittenfeld
The No-Girlfriend Rule - Christen Randall
The Saint of Bright Doors - Vajra Chandrasekera
The Spear Cuts through Water - Simon Jimenez
Tinkered Stars series - Gail Carriger
Gideon the Ninth - Tamsin Muir
Beware of Chicken - Casualfarmer
The Magician's Daughter - H.G. Parry
The Stranger Times - C K McDonnell
The Grimmelings - Rachael King