Readercon

Actually, I got it almost all done before the first symptoms hit.

It was the fifth episode recorded, but it's the first I want you to hear, so much so I not only pushed it ahead of all the other Worldcon episodes, but ahead of the second of my ReaderCon episodes with Barbara Krasnov and also my chat with John Wiswell as he was passing through Baltimore.

That's because this is the first lightning round donut episode I've recorded since 2023.

That one I call the Cap Clave Donut Carnival, which was preceded by, going in reverse chronological order, the 2019 StokerCon Donut Spooktacular.

A big thank you once again to Alex Under the Sky at Audio Jungle, composer of this episode's theme music.

And you know something? I should have probably skipped all of that usual wrap-up because saying it truly has exhausted me.

So let me end by saying that coming up next on the podcast, I will restore... order to the space-time continuum and bring you my ReaderCon lunch, my second ReaderCon episode with Nebula Award-nominated Barbara Krasnov, whose 2019 mosaic novel, The History of Sol 2065, is definitely worth tracking down.

Coming up here in the Meetspace world in three and a half weeks will be CapClave, where I'll attempt to capture a few more conversations for you.

Woo! Woo! Welcome to another episode of Eating the Fantastic, the first coming to you from ReaderCon, and also the first to go live after perhaps my busiest and most joy-filled WorldCon.

I'm Scott Edelman, a fan, a writer, an editor, a long-time convention goer, and your host, and so calling a WorldCon the busiest and most joy-filled is saying a lot, considering I've attended 39 of them since my first as a teenager.

And thanks to the disconnect between this podcast and my convention travels, I'm yet again feeling somewhat unstuck in time.

Right before heading off to LA for Worldcon, I brought live the last of four episodes recorded at StokerCon.

Then I went to Worldcon, where I captured five new conversations, plus a donut episode I'll be sharing with you.

While at the same time here, on Eating the Fantastic Time, ReaderCon's only just about to begin, and I'm thinking, what month is it anyway? What con did I just come from? What con am I about to go to? And did I just step through a chronosynclastic infidiblium? Something else which has disoriented me is what happened the night of the Yugo Awards.

No, I didn't win a Yugo that night, and honestly, and I do hope you'll believe me, I felt no disappointment.

I had zero expectations of winning, and only wrote an acceptance speech because I'd been ordered to do so by my friends, so seeing my podcast name projected on a screen in that auditorium after its tenth year was all the win I needed to be ecstatic.

So we haven't done the short fiction spotlight in a while.

And I was reminded during ReaderCon, it's important and we should keep doing it.

Yes.

Because there's lots of people reviewing books and less people yelling about wonderful short stories, it seems like.