Charlie here (back again, briefly), with news on two upcoming appearances.
Firstly, I'm in Berlin next Monday (September 10th) (that's the capital of Germany, not the small town in New Hampshire—or the one in Maryland): I'm doing a reading and Q&A (and signing, of course) at Otherlands Bookshop Berlin, Bergmannstraße 25 (U7-Bahnhof Gneisenaustraße), 10965 Berlin, from 8-10pm. And afterwards I'm moving on for drinks at the Dolden Mädel Braugasthaus, Mehringdamm 80, 10965. (I am informed there's a Facebook event for this: if you plan to turn up, please sign in so we can give the bar some idea of how many people to expect.)
Secondly: this October, I'll be in Vancouver as one of the author guests of honour atthe VCON 42 SF convention, from the 5th to the 7th; memberships are still available if you go to SF conventions and are in the Pacific north-west. (Unfortunately I can't make it to CanCon in Ottawa the following weekend—the time line doesn't link up—but hopefully I'll be able to fit in a bookstore event or pub meet-up in Toronto or Ottawa before I go home, later in the month. Watch this blog entry for updates.
TO-RON-TO! TO-RON-TO! TO-RON-TO! TO-RON-TO!
Toronto sounds like a good place to visit.
As we're flying out of Toronto on the 22nd it's definitely on my list of places to visit, however briefly. Ahem.
The Anthropology Museum at UBC in Vancouver is really worth visiting. Hope you enjoy Western Canada — if you end up driving west of there, there's some amazing natural scenery: The Spotted Lake, the Burgess Shale, the Paint Pots. It's a pretty spectacular part of North America.
Pacific North-East?
/me looks at all of the "Pacific Northwest" references around him in Seattle.
Um...
Curses, you saw through my cunning attempt to misdirect everybody to the wrong coast of your quaintly small principality! Foiled again ...
Thank you for pointing me to Outland in '15 for your (then) new book release, I was able to pick it up there despite the French postal or dockworkers strike, whichever was fashionable at the time. Wonderful bookstore, and lovely neighborhood. Wanted to buy a lot more books but needed to respect baggage allowances for our return flights. Wish I could be there for this signing.
I FINALLY got around to leaving them a review on Yelp!
Best wishes for your tour!
Any pub intentions for Vancouver? I can recommend a couple of you indicate neighbourhoods...
You're going with misdirection? I expected you to come back with an argument from euro/asiocentrism and point out that it's in the north-east of the Pacific ocean :)
And it's in the south-western corner of Canada.
"Pacific North-East?"
It all depends on your perspective.
I live in Victoria, the capital of B.C. and thus the center of the world. We are south of the 49th parallel so all the rest of B.C. is north and east of us. So pacific north east it is.
Hmm we're flying out on the 14th to head back to Winnipeg. Sounds like we'll just miss you!
Have much fun in Berlin. T have been to Otherland only once a few years ago after the last C3 in Berlin, but it was nice; AFAIR it's in the middle of Kreuzberg, so you might like to get a look at the surroundings, too.
I've been to that museum in Vancouver, and I concur entirely with Cadre Rokne.
Forget Toronto - Come to Ann Arbor!
TOO LATE! I just got back from Berlin @ about 23.55 last night ....
One comment - Berlin has a public transport system that WORKS ( Oh & they don't shout 150% unnecessary "instructions" at you every 20 seconds, either ) The BEER is alright too - I got to try atleast 4 different Micros products whilst there
Maybe I'll see Charlie here... hey, Charlie, I realized that we haven't seen She of Many Names here lately. Is she ok?
Vancouver has pretty decent beer these days, especially if you like very hoppy stuff, but there's also lots of microbreweries doing weird stuff. Probably the place with the best local menu is the Alibi room, and there are two good clusters of microbreweries, one close to the Olympic village skytrain station, and another in East Van proper (Powell st. and Victoria). For something with a bit (a lot) of fantasy/sf ambiance, and a decent beer menu, Storm Crow (alehouse or tavern) is a good bet.
Any chance you'll grab William Gibson and do a public chat or something? Maybe even Neal Stephenson will decide to drive up, although there's the pesky thing of the border confrontation with Gibson, not sure if the craters have been filled in yet [1]
[1] https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-responds-with-wit-and-humor
I know we're nowhere near 300 comments here but I'm hoping to be forgiven... I'm also hoping nobody else has posted this here: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-am-part-of-the-resistance-inside-nyarlathoteps-death-cult
Is it an old tradition to drop anything random but amusing into comment section from time to time?
Anyway, I wonder if anybody can make use of this. http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/nursery-rhyme-near-a12-scaring-residents-1-5690152
Turned out to be an automated semi-alarm system on a warehouse, about 0.5km away, with the sound being reflected oddly. Their sensors were too sensitive & large spiders had made webs in front of them .... HERE
Something amusing - for some values of amusing - from Charlie's Twitter: on Urban Dictionary some people are trying to change the slang definition of 'gammon' to be 'wicked shouty white left-wing liberals'.
Not sure what brought about this manifestation of stupidity, but there you have it.
For different values of "amusing", there is the definition for Free Tommy Robinson.