Surprise Con
Aug. 17th, 2008 12:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rbandrewsOn Friday night, after the trip to Fry's I wanted to make (another post), we were wondering what to do. So, aware that Google knows all, we googled "stuff to do in Austin" and discovered that something called ArmadilloCon was that weekend.
So yesterday we bought one-day badges and went.
It's hard not to compare it to Technicon. See, Origins, the only other con I go to regularly, is a whole different beast, world-famous, thousands of members, and focused on a whole different thing. ArmadilloCon reminded me of TCon back when it was awesome, only it was just a bit better in most ways.
The gaming was one tiny room stuffed way out of the way, that hardly had anyone in it. I was a little disappointed by that, but it was cool.
The dealers room was a little disappointing, consisting of fewer games and more books (and rare books).
But the guests were outstanding. Joe Haldeman, who signed my copy of Forever War and a board game, John Scalzi, who I didn't actually see (most of his stuff was Friday and Sunday), and Steven Brust, who still had the hat.
And, because Cassie is actually a writer and wanted to, for the first time I went to a few writing panels, and watched authors bounce off each other. It was a lot of fun watching Cassie geek on writing-ness for an evening.
All in all, it was awesome. Definitely going back next year.
So yesterday we bought one-day badges and went.
It's hard not to compare it to Technicon. See, Origins, the only other con I go to regularly, is a whole different beast, world-famous, thousands of members, and focused on a whole different thing. ArmadilloCon reminded me of TCon back when it was awesome, only it was just a bit better in most ways.
The gaming was one tiny room stuffed way out of the way, that hardly had anyone in it. I was a little disappointed by that, but it was cool.
The dealers room was a little disappointing, consisting of fewer games and more books (and rare books).
But the guests were outstanding. Joe Haldeman, who signed my copy of Forever War and a board game, John Scalzi, who I didn't actually see (most of his stuff was Friday and Sunday), and Steven Brust, who still had the hat.
And, because Cassie is actually a writer and wanted to, for the first time I went to a few writing panels, and watched authors bounce off each other. It was a lot of fun watching Cassie geek on writing-ness for an evening.
All in all, it was awesome. Definitely going back next year.
