After grabbing a bagel and some orange juice in the Green Room, I headed off to Daniel Abraham’s 10:00 a.m. reading. He performed “The Curandero and the Swede: A Tale from the 1,001 American Nights,” straight from the galleys he had been sent to proof for its upcoming appearance in F&SF. I was impressed when I’d heard him read “The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics” (for which he was a Hugo nominee this weekend) at the World Fantasy Convention in Austin, but this tale was several levels advanced from that, and left me a little stunned by its perfection. It was a masterful and moving story, and I look forward to seeing it in print to better judge how much of my reaction was to the performance and how much was to the page. His subtitle promised us another 1,000 stories, and he did share some of the others he intends to tell about these characters. I wish him the stamina to pull it off.

I had intended to the attend the “Arthur C. Clarke: In Memorium” panel at 11:30 a.m., but decided that I’d had too much death this weekend, what with my participation on the Williamson and Budrys panels. Though I’d only be in the audience of this one, I decided that it would be too much. I’m afraid that as I keep going to cons, there’ll be more and more panels like this, dedicated to people I’d long known and/or long read. I don’t know that I’ll be up to them all.

So instead, to pass the time until I was supposed to meet my lunch mates at 12:45 p.m., I wandered the dealers room for the last time, and signed a case of copies of Postscripts #15. I also bumped into Oz Whiston, who’d recently made her first sale to Analog, and we caught up on what we’d been doing since we first and last met at Balticon earlier this year.

Then it was off to lunch with Geoffrey Landis, Mary Turzillo, David Ira Cleary, and Cheryl Cleary, where I once more had bison, my fifth such meal this con. (What can I say, I’m a creature of habit!) We discussed dorm room doings from our college days, the mortgage crisis, vanity sizing in women’s clothing, whether a restricted diet will lengthen one’s life or only make it seem longer, and more. Our conversations went on for so long that by the time I headed back to the convention center, the closing ceremonies had already let out. But there were still plenty of people to talk to, including Andy Porter, who was adorned by not only this year’s con badge, but also his badge from the 1981 Denvention.

I then had a couple of free hours before dinner, so I went back to the hotel and used them to prep Monday’s content for Science Fiction Weekly. Then it was off to the bar at the Hyatt to meet up with Geoff and Mary for dinner. But before we wandered off, I also had a chance to chat again with Alan Beatts and hash over that Scott Edelstein issue I shared with you all here from Friday, as well as Lou Anders, who felt that the solution to the continual confusion people have with me and David Louis Edelman is for the two of us to collaborate. (Though won’t that only make things worse?)

During our dinner at Little India, Mary shared with us (I no longer remember how we got there) how chicken fed a diet of kimchee are far healthier than those which are not, but I still don’t intend to major in it.

Back at the Hyatt bar for one of my last hours at Denvention, I snapped one of my favorite photos from the convention, which happens to also be my final photo. Some of us speculated that what Ed Bryant is carrying below in a plastic baggie is the remains of someone who didn’t survive the con, but he assured us that all he was holding was leftover SFWA ham.

So …

Our revels now are ended, and short of bumping into someone I know in the lobby Monday morning during checkout, or on the flight on the way home, Denvention 3 is now over for me. Check out flickr to see my full photographic record of the con.

And I look forward to seeing you next year in Montreal!