Left coast con updates and other tidbits

As I begin to gear up for BayCon Memorial weekend, in San Jose, I thought I'd bring you some science fiction convention news.

First of all, the latest for BayCon:
The Celtic folk band, Tempest, will playing.
Unfortunately, little else has been updated there. I'm sure they'll pull everything together soon for another amazing convention. Author guests of honor are: Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon

FiestaCon (WesterCon) is in Tempe, AZ July 2-5, 2009. And they have Alan Dean Foster! I'll be giving a talk at an East Bay library instead. It's a bit far afield for me here in the North Bay.

And this just in from World Fantasy Convention 2009 in San Jose, October 29th to November 1st:
More guests of honor announced as follows:
* Lisa Snellings
* Michael Swanwick
* Ann VanderMeer
* Jeff VanderMeer
And Jay Lake will be Toastmaster.

Have you purchased your ticket yet? Do so here.

I received my official invite to SpoCon 2009 today in Spokane, WA. It's a new little con with lots of class.

Here's a handy convention finder to find a con near you.

I know you're wondering why I haven't blogged about the new Star Trek movie yet. Well, I haven't seen it yet. :( I put it off until Mothers Day and ended up letting my son beat me at pool instead. Ah well, much more sociable. I'll see it this week for sure, and there's no shortage of reviews for the movie anyhow.

Make sure to scoot on over to sfsignal for this fun little video showing George Lucas' reaction to the Star Trek movie.

I just finished WAKE and can only say WOW! Now that's an ending. I know I've said this before, but darn it, this is MY blog, and I'm going to say it again (perhaps better this time). When a reader picks up a book to read, he or she expects at least three things from that book: a beginning, a middle and an end. Just because it's a volume of a larger work, does not mean you can cheat the reader out of a satisfying ending. I understand the need for a bit of a cliffhanger to have them come back for more, but when they have to wait a year or two for the next volume, you can't leave them with next to nothing resolved.

Robert J. Sawyer's WAKE had a superb ending. The full review will be forthcoming at Mostly Fiction soon.

More news from Rob. ABC purchased 13 episodes of the series Flash Forward, an adaptation his book by the same title. He's a National Post article with more info.