Three dust jackets of books by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. From the left: - Before the Coffee Gets Cold, showing a cafe table with two cups of coffee, a lamp and two chairs. There is a cat under the table. - Tales From the Cafe, showing three clocks, a chair and a cat - Before Your Memory Fades, showing three windows with scenes of a flowered hill, a wintry tree-lined lane, and autumn leaves. There is a chair and a cat.

A #BoxOfBooks from Swamp Fox Bookstore in Marion IA!
We learned of #ToshikazuKawaguchi's time travel books at #Capricon45. Each book contains 4 novellas about people coming to sit in a certain chair in the cafe, drinking the coffee and traveling back in time.
@swampfoxbookstore.bsky.social

Selling genre jewelry and books at #Capricon45 for a few more hours.

2025-02-08 - #Capricon45
#SF #Fantasy
And that is the end of the con for me and my wife. We are skipping closing ceremonies and will be heading home on I-55 shortly.

Panel, from left to right: Geoffrey Landis, Thomas Barclay, and Larry Bartoszek

2025-02-08 - #Capricon45
#SF #Fantasy
Panel: How to Design a Spaceship.
- The devil is in the details
- Get a lube expert
- What happens when a cable fails?
- Media folk almost always ignore fuel
- Temperature control.
- Be leery of new tech. "Not on my spacecraft!"
- Uber for space would be nice.

Presentator Geoffrey Landis.

2025-02-08 - #Capricon45
#SF #Fantasy #GeoffreyLandis
Presentation: Exploring Venus with Geoffrey A. Landis
- High pressure, extremely hot temperatures and corrosive atmosphere make exploration difficult.
- Atmospheric plane in cool upper atmosphere controlling a hardened rover on the surface?

Con drunk is the best drunk. #Capricon45

A stage in a hotel ballroom, with a short femme-appearing person singing into a mic on the left and a large man seated playing a guitar behind a mic on the right. A woman in a light shirt bends over a control board behind the stage, and bits of the audience are visible in the foreground.

Yay Cheshire Moon! 💙🎶💙

#CheshireMoon #Capricon45 #Filk

SOON

#Capricon45
@scalzi.com

2025-02-08 - #Capricon45
#SF #Fantasy
Roundtable: Underrated SFF Anime
- A Wind Named Amnesia. What's become of humanity?
- Pantheon. The digital singularity
- Gurren Lagann. Digging out from underground
- Haibane Renmei. Awakening from a fevered dream in a strange world.

Panel, from left: Sue Burke, Larry Bartoszek, and Thomas Barclay

2025-02-08 - #Capricon45
#SF #Fantasy
Panel: Living in Space
Interesting points:
- we would have to accept a higher risks
- humans don't do well in microgravity
- we would need protection from gamma rays
- a torus space station would have to be built by mining asteroids
- read "A City On Mars!"

2025-02-08 - #Capricon45
#SF #Fantasy
Presentation: Powering the Space Elevator - Larry Bartoszek
Two ways of delivering power: wireless (lasers, microwaves, and solar) and wired (a tether).
A climber would need 1 terajoule and 1.4 Megawatts of power to make the 8 day trip to geosynchronous orbit.

Panel, from left: Scott Lefton, Alessandra Kelley, Gene Ha, and Thomas Barclay. Gene Ha is holding up a book jacket that he designed

2025-02-08 - #Capricon45
#SF #Fantasy
Panel: Designing Things That Don't Exist
"Pulling something out of thin air."
"Draw something and give it to the engineers."
"Carefully consider cable management. The Borg!"
"Unlike my anesthesiologist dad, if I make a mistake on anatomy, nobody dies."

An origami dragon

Someone is leaving little dragons around #capricon45 and i love it

2025-02-08 - #Capricon45
#SF #Fantasy
Group Discussion: Music Recommendations, moderated by Travis Creason.
A bunch of us folks with the energy to up early shared our music experiences, adventures, and recommendations.
#TIL of the John Butler Trio.

2025-02-07 - #Capricon45
#SF #Fantasy
Panel: Anime in the USA
Anime from Astro Boy through Crunchyroll.
Fun Fact: the Americanization of Pokemon changed onigiri 🍙 to donut 🍩.

2025-02-07 - #Capricon45
#SF #Fantasy
Panel: Judging a Book by Page 119
Ever have trouble picking out something from a bookstore? Just select a book, turn to page 119, read, and decide.
The panelists read assorted page 119 selections and the audiences gave 👍 or 👎.

Panel, from left:Jeana Jorgensen, Angeli Primlani, Oleg Kazantsev, Ada Palmer

2025-02-07 - #Capricon45
#SF #Fantasy
Panel: Worldbuilding Through Historical Example
- cultures aren't monoliths
- Great Forces vs. Great People

Panel members, from left: Will Saddler, Shaun Duke, Lisa Freitag, Janice Gelb, Laurie Mann

2025-02-07 - #Capricon45
#SF #Fantasy
Panel: Let The Kids Play On The Lawn, Darn it
Being old and decrepit, my wife and I have skin in this game.
As old folk, we try to bring young-uns into fandom.
As young-uns, they bring new experiences into fandom.

2025-02-07 - #Capricon45
Panel: Streaming: Unsustainable?
Like almost everything else on the internet, streaming services are becoming increasingly enshittified. When will people start canceling subscriptions? Which are likely to survive? What would improve their survival?

People on the dais and the audience raise their hands in response to "How many people here consider yourselves geeks?"

2025-02-06 - #Capricon45
Opening Ceremony
"How many people here consider yourselves geeks?"
"Let your geek flags fly!"

I've set aside the ones I want and will be giving the rest away here at #Capricon45.

Ada Palmer entrances the audience with stories.

2025-02-06 - #Capricon45
Presentation: Norse Myth Storytelling with #AdaPalmer
Much of Norse mythology and folk tales were oral, never written down and are lost to us. Clues in surviving stories point to the missing tales.
#TIL about Ullr, kennings, and lawspeakers.
#Norse #Mythology

Photo from 11th floor room with the northern Chicago skyline and the Chicago River in the foreground

2025-02-06 - #Capricon45
We just got settled into our room.

Photo of panel with, from left to right: Dr. Tom Barclay, Zeta Jane, Micaiah Johnson, John Kovalic

2025-02-06 - #Capricon45
Panel: Meet the Guests of Honor
Dr. Tom Barclay - astrophysicist at NASA
Zeta Jane - award-winning cosplayer and professional seamstress.
Micaiah Johnson - author of 'The Space Between Worlds'
John Kovalic - artist for the Munchkins game and developer of Dork Tower

Splash page for Capricon 45 showing two cartoon people holding a flag with white and light blue stripes and a goat resplendent. There is also a cartoon goat in the lower right hand corner with a 'XLV' banner on it.

My wife and I just arrived at the #Capricon45 Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention in Chicago. Reports to follow.

Me and my wife on our way to Chicago.

On our way to Capricon in Chicago! I’m going to have a handful or smaller original paintings and a bunch of prints of my bigger stuff available to view and buy at the Art Show/Auction. For anyone attending, I’ll also be hosting a watercolor make and take tomorrow night! See you there :)
#capricon45

Reminder I'll be at #Capricon45 next weekend! Hope to see you there!

ConClár Program Guide Glasgow 2024 Programme Guide

Got my panel/programming assignments for #Capricon45! Come see me natter and play games with me! guide.capricon.org/people/21