I’d be lying, and everyone who was there would know I was lying, if I didn’t say that the most exciting thing about day 3 was getting to meet Alastair Reynolds. Minor fangirl moment. I got to chat about astronomy with him, as well as about his writing, and of course got his autograph. So that totally made my day week….

The first panel I went to was Tansy’s on the plight of female superheroes. Sadly, it was largely derailed by the bloke on the panel, who somehow hadn’t realised that a panel on that topic might be intended as a feminist critique of the institutionalised misogyny of the comic books industry, as well as other interesting topics. I’m not a comic book reader, although I might be if I thought there were better representations of women; even so this panel was disappointing.

Spent the next while in the dealers’ room, helping a bit but mostly hindering, and meeting more interesting people. Then I went to the Girl Genius radio play, which I’d been a leedle concerned about because all of the roles (except Agatha, played by Kaja, and some random ones played by Phil) were played by con attendees. But I should not have been concerned: they were, largely, excellent. It was hugely entertaining, there was some audience participation (GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER!!!), and all in all it was a brilliant part of the con.

I rushed out of there to a panel on feminists writing fantasy, which had a really good range of women speaking: some young writers, and some older; some writing ‘traditional’ fantasy and some deliberately flouting traditions. They talked about female characters, sex scenes, male characters, and their own inspirations. Reading list: Delia Sherman, Alaya Johnson.

The evening’s entertainment was a low-key affair. Alisa and I accompanied Tansy back to her apartment to record a short (for us) Galactic Suburbia ep about the Ditmars. We left Tansy with her loving family and went down to Tehani&Terri’s apartment, for dinner and gossip and general relaxing. It was really really nice.