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Excellent site, bouncy email?
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TreverT
Posted 2007-09-19 9:18 AM (#1038)
Subject: Excellent site, bouncy email?



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I love the site - It's excellent, and looks like it will make fascinating reading. I foresee some classification challenges at defining how much fantasy and horror might cross over, but all told this is one of the coolest ideas I've come across. I, too, have experienced the, "Hmm, I'm suddenly 40 and still reading Heinlein - Who the heck is the next generation of greats?" phenomenon. I've already submitted a review, which seemed to go through fine, but I just tried submitting this message to the "Add an Event" link (for adding potential SF cons to the calendar - the email given is support@worldswithoutend.com) and it bounced. Dunno if it's a one-time glitch or a bad email. In any case, here is the original message, FWIW:
_________________________________________________________________________________

I don't know if you're interested in listing international SF conventions or not, but there's one coming up near here very shortly. Utopiales, in the city of Nantes, France, runs from October 31st to November 4th and is shaping up to be one of the best SF cons in mainland Europe. They get a pretty large attendance and fill up a hotel and exposition building each year now. It isn't quite DragonCon-sized but it's a good bit bigger than the usual college fanclub con. Here's their website:

http://www.utopiales.org/

The site is all in French, but they attract an international audience as well, and there are usually US artists and writers there also (Last year's main guest was Kim Stanley Robinson). I shot a lot of photos of it and wrote an article for my website on it, if you want a quick glance at what it's like:

http://www.talbertpipes.pair.com/franceadventuresutopiales.shtml

Anyway, disregard if you want to stick to North American cons, or post if you like. Voilà!
(By way of explanation, my wife and I are American SF geeks now living in Brittany, France, and this has given us an odd window into the huge chunk of non-English SF writing and scene that never even gets published outside France, and/or Germany, the UK, etc)
Trever Talbert
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Administrator
Posted 2007-09-19 10:15 AM (#1040 - in reply to #1038)
Subject: Re: Excellent site, bouncy email?



Admin

Posts: 4003
2000
Location: Dallas, Texas		mrT,
welcome to WWEnd! glad you like the site. WWEnd covers SF and Fantasy with perhaps a bit more emphasis on the SF cause that's what our group is more interested in. we suspect that will change over time. you're right, there are some horror crossovers in the fantasy awards but it's not our intention to cover horror.

there are some really great books in our database and one of the neat things WWEnd helps you do is find new authors! i've read many "new" authors since we started building the site. i had never heard of Charles Stross or Robert J. Sawyer or Rickard K. Morgan.... the list goes on. some of these guys have become favorites.

you're right about the email glitch. thanks for pointing it out to us. we're still fixing those little things. that email should work now. i think your review submission has dissappeared into the ether. another unrelated email glitch that's now fixed. please re-submit that when you have a chance. we may be changing the review process to be a simple forum thread that we'll link from the novel pages. that way you can get feedback and answer questions from other members directly. more on that later. so much to do.

thanks for the convention listings! we're happy to list any convention, anywhere, as long as it's SF/F related. i will add yours to the list this evening. we'll be expanding that section in the future to include clickable maps and details for the conventions in a sortable/searchable table. right now it's just a basic list.

i'm sure folks would like to hear about any conventions you've been to in euopre so please feel free to share your experiences in the forum! pics would be a huge bonus. give us guys stuck stateside a glimpse of what's happening in other countries.

be sure to add yourself to our frapper map on the home page. you'll be the first in France.

- dave
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TreverT
Posted 2007-09-19 1:00 PM (#1044 - in reply to #1040)
Subject: Re: Excellent site, bouncy email?



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Posts: 6
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Administrator - 2007-09-19 5:15 PM

mrT,
welcome to WWEnd! glad you like the site. WWEnd covers SF and Fantasy with perhaps a bit more emphasis on the SF cause that's what our group is more interested in. we suspect that will change over time. you're right, there are some horror crossovers in the fantasy awards but it's not our intention to cover horror.


Always a tough call. I think things like "Night in Lonesome October" which cross multiple genres (horror, fantasy, humor) seem to fit in just fine... but, I could see purists objecting. C'est la vie! Not to mention the really oddball semi-fantasy stuff like Jasper Fforde's books.


there are some really great books in our database and one of the neat things WWEnd helps you do is find new authors! i've read many "new" authors since we started building the site. i had never heard of Charles Stross or Robert J. Sawyer or Rickard K. Morgan.... the list goes on. some of these guys have become favorites.


Never heard of a one of those guys! I'm looking forward to exposure to new *good* authors too. I've found many current-day writers in fantasy (Pullman, George RR Martin) that I really enjoy, but my SF reading seems determined to be stuck somewhere pre-1972.


i think your review submission has dissappeared into the ether. another unrelated email glitch that's now fixed. please re-submit that when you have a chance.


It wasn't anything very fancy, but here tis, FWIW:

________________________________________________________________________
A Night in the Lonesome October - Review
(Note - the current description listed for this book is wholly inaccurate. Must be pasted in from another book)

A wonderfully entertaining seasonal book, and a perfect Halloween read. "Night" tells the story of the gathering of various horror "legends" (The Count, the mad doctor, Larry Talbot, the Great Detective, etc) on the eve of a Cosmic Event - The gates will be weakened, the world is in danger, and there's risk of Lovecraftian Other-Side beasties getting through. Contending over this are two camps, the Openers and the Closers, who either want the gates open or kept tightly shut. This may all sound way over the top, but the wacky gathering of fright icons is brought down to earth because it's viewed and narrated through the eyes of a dog.

Snuff is the canine companion and familiar to "Jack", and his laconic observations of human behavior and eccentricity add a witty and grounded tone to the book that makes it all hang together, where most other such "Let's have Holmes meet Dracula and the Invisible Man"-type books devolve into bad pulp. Snuff talks us through, and via his interactions with the other animal familiars we see the mad plotline develop almost as a secondary story.

Over all, very clever writing, consistently funny, wry, and an excellent book for anyone looking for some genuinely well-written fantasy/horror that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Trever Talbert
_____________________________________________________________________________



i'm sure folks would like to hear about any conventions you've been to in euopre so please feel free to share your experiences in the forum! pics would be a huge bonus. give us guys stuck stateside a glimpse of what's happening in other countries.

be sure to add yourself to our frapper map on the home page. you'll be the first in France.

- dave


Will do. Utopiales is a straight SF con with a literary focus, though there are movies and RPGs and all going on there also. I'll make a bunch of pics of this year's show next month and see if I can write them up into something legible. It's an interesting contrast with US shows, because on the one hand it looks just like the cons we know (dealer rooms, art galleries, auditorium shows, round tables, etc) but everyone is so much neater, LOL! No costumes at all. No Klingons, no anime catgirls, none of that - just several thousand people in regular clothes (I suspect most French people locally would be mortified by the idea of leaving the house in a Luke Skywalker outfit). From talking to some of the guest writers last year, it's a more polite atmosphere for the guests. One fellow said he loved it because the fans were less intrusive - They'd line up for autographs and chats, but didn't pull stuff like following him to the bathroom or turning up at his hotel room door at 4:00am.
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Administrator
Posted 2007-09-19 10:44 PM (#1057 - in reply to #1038)
Subject: Re: Excellent site, bouncy email?



Admin

Posts: 4003
2000
Location: Dallas, Texas		T,
i can hardly imagine a convention without the costumes! i'm not a costume devote myself but you gotta love those guys. they just don't give a damn about what anybody else thinks of them. they're having a good time and that's all that matters. not sure i could pull that off... maybe some spock ears or Andorian antennae but no way the full costume!

i've added the link to the french convention (sounds like a spy movie) and divided the list into groups by month so it's a little easier to peruse. lipstick on a pig but it helps a little. thanks for the input.

i checked out your pics from the last convention. very nice. if you do something like that on WWEnd that would be really great. we're trying to get con reports from all over so folks can share in the adventure. christopherw277 is going to a convention in Nottingham England in a couple weeks and i'll be going to FenCon in Dallas next week.

by the way, your pipes are truly amazing! the variety is incredible and i love the materials and textures. just looking at the pics i know they must feel great in the hand. you'd make a killing in Middle Earth with those. i especially love the construction pics! fascinating to see the artistic process. i'm just trying to get into woodworking myself. building out a shop for furniture and cabinets etc. tho i've put it on hold while i work on WWEnd. great stuff.

- dave



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TreverT
Posted 2007-09-20 4:43 AM (#1060 - in reply to #1057)
Subject: Re: Excellent site, bouncy email?



Member

Posts: 6
0
Administrator - 2007-09-20 5:44 AM

T,
i can hardly imagine a convention without the costumes! i'm not a costume devote myself but you gotta love those guys. they just don't give a damn about what anybody else thinks of them. they're having a good time and that's all that matters. not sure i could pull that off... maybe some spock ears or Andorian antennae but no way the full costume!


Yeah, I know it's a bit weird to see. I do miss the costumes for the sheer lunacy of it - Utopiales is overall a much more "buttoned down" sort of con than something like DragonCon. It is distinctly literary in focus, so maybe that's it. When it's going, they boast "Europe's Largest SF Bookstore" - They turned a full mezzanine level of the building last year into one giant shop about the size of your typical Borders, but ALL SF, fantasy, and horror. Granted, 80% of it was in French, but there you go... (My language level isn't up to easily reading it yet. I can read graphic novels but not books, which is too much like work)


i checked out your pics from the last convention. very nice. if you do something like that on WWEnd that would be really great. we're trying to get con reports from all over so folks can share in the adventure. christopherw277 is going to a convention in Nottingham England in a couple weeks and i'll be going to FenCon in Dallas next week.


I'll definitely shoot a bunch. The theme this year is "environmental SF" so I'm expecting lots of climate change stuff, and maybe some fun & goofy 70's "future disaster movies" like Omega Man. Last year we just went for one day, but this time I want to spend several full days there hanging out and seeing as much as I can.


by the way, your pipes are truly amazing! the variety is incredible and i love the materials and textures. just looking at the pics i know they must feel great in the hand. you'd make a killing in Middle Earth with those. i especially love the construction pics! fascinating to see the artistic process. i'm just trying to get into woodworking myself. building out a shop for furniture and cabinets etc. tho i've put it on hold while i work on WWEnd. great stuff.

- dave


Thanks for the kind words! It's my full-time job - has been for about nine years now. It's nice to be able to work at home and sell worldwide via the net. Plus, it's funny how much I tend to have in common with my customers - Pipe folks are an amusingly relaxed, reading-oriented bunch. I know what you mean about stuff on hold, though - I've had a secondary semi-professional illustration hobby on hold for, oh, about nine years now thanks to the pipe biz. You're going to have to be very careful because I'll bet WWEnd could easily eat your life!
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