Hugo's there?

I found few surprises in the list of Hugo Award winners this year and found the selection of Vinge's Rainbow's End as the best novel interesting. One thing struck me as I reflected on the winners and losers...I had met only one of the winners. Usually I had met at least a few of the winners but not this year. There are several I would really like to meet, especially Dave Langford because he is very funny. The one I have met was Patrick Nielsen Hayden. As I recall (which is becoming much more difficult it seems) it was in 1999 or so at Windycon 26 or 27 and Theresa was a guest of honor and he must have tagged along. Their hotel room was directly across the hall from my family's room...well, across the hall from our one wall as our door overlooked the courtyard. I saw them a total of 5 times in the hallway counting each encounter with one or the other as one and I politely said hello each time. Not once did they sell hello back; in fact, they barely acknowledged my lowly existence. Not that I cared a lot as it allowed me an opportunity to teach my son about being kind to people who aren't kind to you and to not judge a person's work because they are not nice. Now I grant you that I am pretty much a nobody but there really wasn't any real reason to be unkind.

I am getting to my point...........

When I read Rainbows End I remember thinking about how striking the story gave the message of finality and to basically suck it up and like who you are because you can't have everything. This was a departure (thankfully) from what I had hoped the story wouldn't be....a future world that destroyed the rainbow causes but eventually the GLBT crowd became the heroes and won back their freedom. Of course, this idea was based solely off the title and nothing more.

Now I get to my point. Why? Why the hell did I think that? What caused my mind to jump to this type of story arc? The answer is Patrick Nielsen Hayden. More correctly, the answer started with Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Windycon. It began there with a few arrogant, pompous people (the Hayden-Nielsens and Laurel K. Hamilton) and an understanding that they truly believed themselves better than anyone else and yet were acting exactly like the people they devour on their weblog. The last day of Windycon was the day I believed my voice needed to be heard and so began The Fantasy Times. More to come....