Pinch Hitters of Honor

Context: Carol A. Modesitt is yet another person who fell seriously ill at Renovation. As a result, her husband L.E. Modesitt has withdrawn as one of Context 24’s Guest of Honor.  The convention is happening this weekend (August 26-28) in Columbus.

The committee turned to their fellow Ohioan, John Scalzi, who agreed at the last minute to come and “help fill the sudden gap in their programming.” Scalzi can’t attend the entire convention but will do a full block of programming on Saturday, August 27 from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.

I thought that was pretty cool.

VCON: Larry Niven deserves kudos, too, for helping out  VCON 36 (September 30-October 2) on short notice.

Gregory Benford, initially announced the con’s Author GoH, will be unable to attend VCON this year “due to an unavoidable summons from DARPA” (the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). He must attend its meeting on September 30.

Now Benford will be among next year’s guests at VCON 37 while Niven has stepped in as VCON 36’s Author Guest of Honour.

The committee also announced that program participant Robert J. Sawyer will miss the con because he, too, was “swept up by DARPA.” The committee called it, “A signal honour for a Canadian Author.”