Report on Sunday at Wiscon forthcoming, when I have managed to scrape my brain back together. In the meantime, behold the enormous pile of loot with which I returned!






All of this was given to me by various LJers, in return for British delicacies such as Marmite and digestive biscuits. Let me just say, I did not give away nearly as great a volume of snacks as I received. I was staggered by the friendliness and generosity of everyone.

So, you wanna know what's in the pile?

2 bags of Doritos, Trader Joe's Peanut Butter Cups, Trader Joe's Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Maltballs, a bag of Sea Monsters (my god, these are the best things ever. Also, if you eat more than half of one, you will die), 2 bags of Ice Cream Cone marshmallows, a jug of maple syrup, a bottle of Canadian wine, 1 tub of maple butter (my life, it is complete), maple syrup fudge, maple sugar, Goldfish crackers, six Nut Goodies, Circus Peanuts (I... have no idea, but I'm sure they will be delicious!), 2 Hello Kitty marshmallows (they are HELLO KITTY. ON STICKS. The awesomeness, it overwhelms!), Hershey's Milk Chocolate Filled With Creamy Peanut Butter (King Size!), Reese's Whipps (with 40% less fat, as the packet informs me. I don't think that's going to help, in this case), Twix Peanut Butter (which have already horrified my husband, who is of the opinion that there are places peanut butter should not go), 2 packets of peanut butter M&Ms, Take 5 bar, Reece's Sticks (is there any shape that Reeces will not fill with peanut butter?), Reece's Crispy Crunchy Bar, 2 Pay Day bars, 1 bag of Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Pretzels (which I intended to bring home to freak my British friends, but which, er, didn't last the flight. Yum), Reece's Fast Break bar, and, last but certainly not least - wait for it - THIRTEEN PACKETS OF REECE'S PIECES.

The Reece's-shaped pillow at the back was given to me by hazelchaz on the last day of the con, as a trophy commemorating the runaway success of the Snack Swap. I am leaning on it even as I type now!







Bought from the Dealer's Room: Valente's 'The Grass-Cutting Sword' and 'The Book of Dreams'; the Paper Cities anthology of real urban fantasy, Ekaterina Sedia's 'The Secret History of Moscow' (she was very sweetly giving away free imps of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's Steamworks perfume collection at the table, and was anxious to assure me that I didn't have to buy the book to take some imps. It took a little while to persuade her that actually I had come over for the purpose of buying the book), Lois McMaster Bujold's 'The Sharing Knife: Legacy', Liz Williams 'The Demon and the City' (Which I can get in the UK, but it was soooo cheap and I've been really wanting to read it)

Picked up for free or practically free: 'The Archangel Protocol' (from the bookswap at the ThinkGalactic party; I traded Peter S Beagle's 'The Folk of the Air', which I brought to read on the plane), 'Iron Angel' (sequel to 'Scar Night', which I quite enjoyed though I thought it had a serious case of computer-game physics at several points - like the fight inside a rolling building trundling to its doom, where one combatant is flying. Anyway, picked it up for practically free at the ARC table at the Gathering), Delia Sherman's 'The Porcelain Dove' (traded for tea), the Coyote Road anthology of trickster tales (again, traded with Kushner and Sherman for tea)

Bought from Paul's Books, the awesome second-hand bookstore: Ancient Cities of the Americas, The Daily Life of the Aztecs, Ancient Egypt: A Cultural Topography, Habitat Economy & Society (a comparison of how environment have affected cultures throughout the non-Western world), Rice Bowl Women (translated writings of women from Japan and China)

Why yes, I am rather interested in Bronze-age non-European cities at the moment... how could you tell?



Not pictured - the talismanic silk jacket that Ellen Kushner gave me at the clothing swap, the awesome Chinese brocade top that someone else gave me at the clothing swap, and the very cute handmade glass fish pendant from Dragon's Den, which called out to me throughout the weekend and finally persuaded me to part with my last chunk of cash.


My luggage was indeed 4kg overweight, but I managed to get away with it by cramming the excess into my hand luggage and pretending that it was really, really light and thus the airplane staff couldn't possibly need to weigh it. I thank my gym and its weights machines for ensuring that I can nonchalantly lift 15kg at arm's-length with one hand...