Kudos to the Locus team for organizing an excellent event.  I had a great time, and enjoyed this year’s awards even more than last year’s.  A couple of highlights:

• Most of the winners were there.  So were a lot of the nominees.  That was very nice.  It’s a lot more fun to see someone win an award than to see an award accepted bysomeone else…it just is.  The emotional content is just a better quality.
• The University Bookstore and Locus did a nice job of supporting the signing – many books appeared. I, of course, bought too many.  Sigh.
• Connie Willis did a nice job as the emcee. 
• We have a huge science fiction community in Seattle, and a lot of them showed up.
• Watching Connie get her award was really touching.  She gives good speech, and by the end a few of us were crying.  All of the Hall of Fame ceremony was nice, of course. 
• I had a fun conversation with Frank R. Paul’s grandson, who accepted his award for him (but since Frank R. Paul is dead, he can be easily forgiven for missing the induction).  But we talked about the need for positive science fiction and the power of spiritual science fiction and the magic that certain places seem to have.  He is from Taos, which is on my list of magical places.

The honorees have always been talked up and shown off in the Sky Church at the SFM, and this year we ended up in the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel (a fine hotel, but NOT the Sky Church).  I do hope it moves back to the dressy SFM event next year – this felt kind of disrespectful to people like Connie and Michael who have given us all so much.  All we could give them back was a hotel meeting room?  Perhaps next year….

Most of my pictures came out marginal, but I posted some of the better shots.