The final day of Worldcon was a day for winding down. I had committed to only one event, a reading by Jeannette Ng, in which she read from a work in progress, her short story 'How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic' (published in an anthology of stories in conversation with works by Kipling, called Not So Stories), and recited excerpts from the Mulan epic poem in Cantonese, translating into English as she went.

I made friends with people in the queue for the reading, and was even given a bottle of colour-changing gin by someone else in the queue (apparently because I'd asked a 'kitbag question', which had impressed the gin gifter, an Israeli, who explained that due to the fear of an ordinary question becoming a kitbag question, asking questions is somewhat discouraged in Israeli culture, something they found frustrating. So the gin was a gift to me for being the opposite of that ... aggressively helpful to the point of personal detriment). Of course the problem was that we only had hand luggage with Ryanair, so I spent the remainder of the convention trying to find someone to give the gin to!

After meeting up with Matthias (who had been in a panel on literary representations of dragons), we headed off for a final lunch in Dublin, in a nice Japanese restaurant near the convention centre, before collecting our bags from the hotel and heading for the airport. In spite of the fact that we were flying with Ryanair, we had more luck getting home than many other friends, whose tales of flight cancellations and other debacles sounded horrendous. Our flight was only one hour late, which with Ryanair means you've come out ahead!

In spite of how much time I spent in queues at Worldcon, I didn't end up spending much time reading, but I did manage to finish two books (mainly on the flights and in the airports): The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu (a cosy mystery set in 1930s Singapore, told from the point of view of Chen Su Lin, a Singaporean Chinese teenage girl who works as the assistant to a police inspector, which I enjoyed so much that I immediately bought the sequel and am reading it now), and The Heart of the Circle by Keren Landsman (a disappointing urban fantasy set in Tel Aviv which unfortunately had flat characters, inconsistent worldbuilding, and essentially reminded me that while I like how Abigail Nussbaum writes her reviews, I tend to disagree with her taste and interpretation in 95 per cent of instances and shouldn't look to her blog for recommendations).

I've got a photoset of pictures from my time in Dublin up on Instagram, and also a photo of the lovely message Kate Elliott wrote in my copy of Buried Heart, which she signed for me.

All in all, I had a fabulous time at Worldcon, and am very glad I went.

I've fallen behind on these posts a little, and for that I apologise. I should have the last three days written up by the end of this (in the UK) long weekend.

( Behind the cut are panels on misconceptions of medieval history, motherhood in SFF, fanfiction, and children's fiction, a kaffeeklatsch with Kate Elliott, spoiler chat with Ada Palmer, and dance party with John Scalzi )

I really felt that these two evening events — the dance, and the spoiler chat — were acts of such extraordinary generosity. They went far beyond just promoting the authors' works or fulfilling contractual obligations to sign books, participate on panels and so on. They were a gift to us, as fans and convention-goers, and I enjoyed both immensely.

Matthias and I got back from Dublin yesterday, having spent six days in the city enjoying our first ever Worldcon! I'm going to take a leaf out of naye's book, and post mini recaps of each day (I'm in awe that she was able to do so while the convention was going on — that's dedication!). I'll list the panels I attended, followed by a few sentences in summary. If you want a more blow by blow, but less in-depth recap, I was tweeting a lot, over at ronnidolorosa.

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We arrived in Dublin on the Wednesday before the convention began, picked up our badges and checked into our very swish hotel, before heading off into the centre of town for a little bit of exploring, and to meet two sraffie friends of mine for dinner. Matthias hadn't been to Dublin since he was a toddler, so it was great that he was able to see a little bit of the town before the convention got going.

After that, it was panels, crowds, and so. much. queuing.

I will write the titles, panellists, and panel descriptions in plain text, and my own thoughts in italics.

( Panels on non-western fantasy, Regency SFF, and being a reviewer, and a reading by Ada Palmer )

I was able to meet up with schneefink for coffee (and in person for the first time) in the morning, and we then kept bumping into each other throughout the convention, and I met auroracloud in person for the first time, when we joined each other for the Regency panel and then had a chat over coffee afterwards.

In one of those bizarrely serendipitous moments that kept happening throughout the con, Matthias and I bumped into doctorskuld and naye while we were grabbing a sandwich. And while we were sitting around on benches outside the convention centre, who should appear but Ada Palmer (along with Jo Walton and several other friends)? Now, by coincidence doctorskuld knows Ada Palmer from back in the day, and the two fell to chatting. This led to all of us being introduced, and being given loads of Terra Ignota swag, including stickers for our respective Hives. (For those of you who have read this series, I am absolutely, emphatically a Cousin, and could be nothing else.) Most amusingly, doctorskuld had been given no cutlery with which to eat lunch, leading to Ada Palmer loaning a pair of reusable steel chopsticks. This led to our quartet (doctorskuld, naye, Matthias and me) dubbing ourselves Team Ada Palmer's Reusable Chopsticks — and a better group of fellow first-time Worldcon attendees I could not have found! (See my Twitter thread about this rather bizarre encounter.)

We gave the chopsticks back after Ada Palmer's reading, and the four of us then went off to have dinner in a tapas place that brewed its own beer, recommended to me by sraffie friends who live in Dublin. After that we went our separate ways, and collapsed into bed, minds buzzing.