It was known that this will come – the time of hybrid conventions. I am not sure which one was the first – it is possible I missed something. Yet for sure SMOFCon Europe was one of the first. I had the chance to work on it. It was an interesting endeavour. I made some mistakes, I learned a lot and I had a good time.
Hugo Musings – Best Fan Artist
This category is even more difficult than Best Proffesional Artist. The level of the presented works is amazing and choosing the order on the ballot here was a challenge to me. Once again I concentrate more on how I like the art and not necessarily on the deeper interpretation.
Imladris 2021 diving into virtual realm
Imladris is a very special convention to me. It was my first SFF con back in 2003. It was also Imladris that was was my 200th convention two years ago. This is why I was sad that last year we didn’t have it. Instead there were regular meetings spread over the few months – yet it is not the same. This year however the team decided to held a virtual convention. The plans were to have an event smaller than usual.
Octocon 2021 – Coming back to virtual Dublin
I love Ireland and I love Irish fandom. I enjoyed my time at my first in person Ocoton, my first virtual Octocon and of course at Dublin 2019 an Irish Worldcon. Although you cannot read about it here I also spent some fabulous time and Shamrokon (Eurocon 2014). YYou should not be surprised that I attended this year’s Octocon. It was held virtually and therefore was easily accessible for me.
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Hugo Musings – Best Professional Artist
Best Professional Artist is quite tough for me to write about. Firstly it is easier to judge a single work than a whole year of someone’s creativity. Secondly I am not well versed in interpreting visual arts. So instead of trying to interpret the works I am rather concentrating on my “do I like it?” feeling.
Copernicon 2021 – Spacious convention
Copernicon 2021 did something remarkable. They decided not only to reproduce their venue in the IT environment. They reproduced large part of the old city in Toruń. There were some issues (I’ll cover them later) but in general what they did was absolutely amazing.
Kapitularz 2021 with a bit too few social interactions
For the second time Kapitularz had to be organized online. Similarly to last year I managed to attend it. I rather enjoyed the con however I missed socializing. Yet let’s move to the details.
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Hugo Musings – Novellas
I like novellas. They are long enough to tell a more complicated story but are relatively short and thus allow us to read them fast. Some of my favourite SF works fall into this category. I was looking forward to read nominated novellas.
Please be aware that the post below may contain some spoilers.
The order in which I covered the stories is not the one I used on the ballot.
Readercon 31 – a con to talk about books and writing
I firstly heard about Readercon years ago. It was even before the times when I joined the international fandom. Yet since then I had some picture of the con in my mind. I wanted to visit it yet I didn’t expect for it to happen. Yet sometimes we have surprises. This year I had the opportunity to attend the virtual Readercon 31.
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Hugo Musings – Novelettes
So here they are – my musings about the second category of works nominated for Hugo Awards – Novelettes. First of all I must mention that there will be some spoilers in this post. If you haven’t read the stories and you don’t like spoilers it may be best to refrain from continuing reading this.
The order in which I covered the stories is not the one I used on the ballot.