Penguicon 5.0: Less than two weeks to go

Check out the Penguicon 5.0 website if you might consider coming to Troy for a combined science fiction/linux/open source programming convention with swordfighting, music, gaming, dancing, parties, a dealers room, and such luminaries on the program as systems security expert Bruce Schneier, nanotech industry guide Christine Peterson, webcomic artists Randy Milholland (Something Positive), The Ferrett (Home on the Strange), and Rob Balder (PartiallyClips), Gaming hero Steve Jackson, and SF authors Charlie Stross, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, Nick Sagan (Carl Sagan's son), Karl Schroeder, Sarah Zettel, Tobias S. Buckell, and Sarah Monette.

Online registration is open until April 15 at just $45 for the weekend.

I will be busy for the convention being Charlie's GoH Liaison, which I expect will be a lot of fun. I'm also on a couple panels (Getting Things Done and Women in Technology, last I checked). Rikhei and Hope and I would welcome a fourth female roommate if you're looking for a room (the hotel is sold out). If anyone has a room staying over to Monday morning I could crash in, that would be a help, too.

Books Received

It feels a little like Christmas. A couple weeks ago Bill Schafer recruited me to write book reviews for Subterranean Magazine and we put out our first round of requests for advance reading copies. While I get the process in line I'll be reviewing some things from last year, including the Hugo nominees. Anyway, this is what arrived today. Some expected, some unexpected surprises.

From Jay Lake:

Mainspring, by Jay Lake (Tor, June 2007)
The River Knows Its Own, by Jay Lake (Wheatland Press, May 2007)

From Dot Lin at Tor:

Ragamuffin, by Tobias S. Buckell (Tor, June 2007)

From Tachyon:

Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, edited by James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel (Tachyon Publications, July 2006)
Catalyst by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Tachyon Publications, Oct 2006)
Year's Best Fantasy 7, Edited by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (Tachyon Publications, Oct 2006)
Portable Childhoods, by Ellen Klages (Tachyon Publications, April 2007)

Can't say for sure what will get reviewed. Cheryl has warned me about the possible deluge of books that can come with this gig, so I know to not make promises I might not be able to keep. I suppose I shall have to learn not to sink an entire weekend into racing through a trilogy, as I did this past weekend when I started with Hugo Nominee His Majesty's Dragon and just ... kept going.