Lunacon

Last weekend I attended Lunacon.
I went Friday night after dinner, and after a relatively painless registration, hung out at the Garden State Horror Writers table, which was conveniently located five feet from the registration desk.
After a quick look at the dealers room (so many books, so little money!) I ventured into the bowels of the Hasbrouck Heights Hilton, currently under construction -- or undergoing some sort of inter dimensional shift, where stairways lead nowhere and some panels are held on the top floor in the ballroom.
I went to Sean Fedora's reading first. I attended the same high school as Sean, but never met him except in cyberspace. He read, well, the only way to describe it is a Penguin's Tale. Or Tail. Either one.
The first panel I went to was "Science Fiction about Mars," which was interesting. One person in the audience commented during the discussion of Apollo 13 that space movies have gone from SF to historical costume dramas in one generation. I never thought that engineers in short sleeves and ties construed a "costume" but I guess that's the way others see us.
Saturday I spent time behind the GSHW table, hawking the many fine books from members available for sale (see previous post) and answering any questions people had about the group, which were few and far between.
I went to the "How Editors Think" and "Ask the Editors" panels. The first had book editors, and the second had magazine editors. Then on to "Escaping the Slushpile." All good advice, most of which I'll probably forget, but it is nice to see the people who have to send out those rejection letters. Also went to Wren Spencer's reading.
Sunday I spent more time behind the GSHW table, and attended the "Who are the next generation of writers" panel. There were a couple of other panels I wanted to go to, but it seems many of the panelists were leaving early -- quite a few were AWOL.