My Friday at Readercon was a whirlwind, filled with so many panels and conversations that I didn’t have time to grab lunch, surviving until dinner on a handful of nuts and dried fruit grabbed in the con suite. I did a reading, a kaffeeklatch, and a panel on Life After Clarion, sat in the audience for a couple of panels, and stayed up late with David Shaw strumming our ukuleles.

I’m not sure which song we were struggling through in the above photo. Were we mangling Amanda Palmer’s “Ukulele Anthem”? Or butchering Randy Newman’s “Political Science 101”? I can’t be sure. I only know that you’re all lucky Diane Martin only snapped a still picture, and didn’t bother capturing any video. Because if she had, no one would ever want to attend another Readercon!

But to show you why you should get to one, here’s more video, on top of Thursday’s, which will show what fun was had.

First up, a panel on “The Works of Fredric Brown,” which was held at 11:00 a.m. and featured Eileen Gunn, Donald G. Keller, Diane Weinstein, Jacob Weisman and Gary K. Wolfe. Here’s how it was described in the program guide.

Fredric Brown, the winner of the 2012 Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, is remembered largely as a mystery writer, but his influence on SF was immense. His story “Arena” was adapted on Star Trek and paid homage to by Joanna Russ; his mordant short shorts like “Knock” and “Answer” have entered the folklore of the field; and his novels What Mad Universe? and Martians, Go Home! pioneered comic SF. He was perhaps the only SF writer of the early 1950s to predict, in The Lights in the Sky Are Stars, that a successful space exploration program in the 1960s would be virtually abandoned by the 1990s. This panel will explore his achievements and lasting legacy.

At 1:00 p.m., I attended “The Revelator Group Reading,” which starred Richard Bowes, Matthew Cheney, Eric Schaller, Brian Francis Slattery, and Sonya Taaffe, and was described like so.

First published in 1876, The Revelator made its debut as an online publication in 2011 under the editorship of Matthew Cheney and Eric Schaller. Each issue features fiction, non-fiction, poetry, art, and comix. It was in the Revelator that the first authenticated photographs of the Thunderbird, the Unktehila, and the giant squid appeared. It is with this grand tradition in mind that the current incarnation of the Revelator upholds its history-altering motto, “The Truth and All.” This multi-media presentation will feature readings, visuals, and performances from recent contributors.

Later, at 10:00 in the evening, I watched the presentation of the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, which was announced by John Clute after an introduction by Rose Fox. To explain:

The Smith Award, honoring a writer worthy of being rediscovered by today’s readers, is selected annually by a panel of judges that includes Readercon 4 Guest of Honor Malzberg. Past winners include Olaf Stapledon, R.A. Lafferty, Edgar Pangborn, Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, William Hope Hodgson, Daniel F. Galouye, Stanley G. Weinbaum, A. Merritt., and Katherine MacLean.

I’d love to tell you more about my Friday, but you’ll have to excuse me—I have more Readercon to ingest!