It was day two of Worldcon, and today’s panels were a little more interesting, although even though I got a good night’s sleep I still passed out for a few minutes during one of them. First I spent some time in the dealer’s room and got a few paperbacks of Asimov and Silverberg, hoping to get the latter ones signed since the guy is 73 and I’m not sure how many more Worldcons we can count on. There are two dealers here who have cheap old paperbacks, and a couple of others who are asking $8 or $10 and up for most of theirs, some of which are admittedly collectable, but is The Alternate Asimovs really worth six dollars? Apparently yes, because that’s what I paid for it, I’ve been looking for it for a year and this was the first time I’d seen it.

Saw four panels today. The one I dozed off at was not necessarily boring, since it featured Stephen Baxter and Connie Willis, two people who are always worth listening to, talking about first contact stories and the infinite varieties thereof. Willis looks much grayer since last I saw her in Anaheim, but she continues to impress with how well read she is in the field, referring to plots of random stories by William Tenn and others that tied into the topic. Mike Resnick was the marquee name in a panel on pulps, focusing primarily on the sf pulps of the 30’s and 40’s, and told a few stories I hadn’t heard before.

Ben Bova was featured in a panel of people who knew Heinlein, also including the guy who wrote the Heinlein biography, Bill Patterson, who knows just about everything there is to know. Hadn’t seen Bova since he was guest of honor at the 2000 Worldcon in Chicago, he’s definitely looking old too, so after the last panel I went back to the dealer’s room and bought a couple of paperbacks for him to sign also, since unlike Silverberg he doesn’t come to Worldcons that often. Lastly, Sheila Williams was on a panel that was supposed to be talking about trends in SF publishing, but ended up kind of wandering around different topics.