On the Road
Nth Degree might be coming to your home town... don't say we didn't warn you
Indianapolis, IA
August 13–16
Reviewed by Marian McBrine
I attended Gen Con, from August 13th to 16th, 2009, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Gen Con is the largest gaming convention in the country, with over 27,000 unique attendees, and over 7,000 events. In the interests of full disclosure, I do a great deal of volunteer work for Gen Con, running both their Spousal Activity (SPA) program, as well as their Costume workshop program, and their forums.
Although Gen Con is primarily a gaming convention, they have a very strong writing program, with over 70 hours of writing workshops and seminars this year by authors including Mike Stackpole, Jean Rabe, Elizabeth Vaughan, Richard Lee Byers, and Author Guest of Honor Patrick Rothfuss. Other notable author guests in attendance included Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
Highlights from the convention this year included the returning True Dungeon, and the new TerrorWerks event. True Dungeon is a way to play Dungeons and Dragons in a life-size, walk through environment. A large hotel ballroom is transformed into a “dungeon” complete with realistic props. Each room contains a puzzle to solve, or combat with an enemy, resolved using a unique shuffleboard system. Terrorwerks is an immersive experience in which your team of space marines investigates an alien invasion using air soft guns and other weapons.
Additional highlights included a strong anime schedule, with voice acting guest Vic Mignogna, actual Battletech “pods” used for networked Battletech games (the sort of pods that used to be in entertainment venues such as Dave and Buster’s), my own SPA program with over 90 nongaming events such as jewelry making, crochet, knitting, pilates, and sewing classes, a Victorian LARP held in an actual Victorian museum, and of course thousands of gaming events, including Role Playing Games such as 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, card games such as the World of Warcraft Trading Card, and every board game imaginable. Particularly notable was the wide range of board games from the Rogue Judges group, who also run very popular Car Wars games on a large-scale playing table, complete with roads and actual “matchbox”-sized cars.
In sum, a strong schedule of games, combined with a variety of programming this year, made Gen Con an entertaining convention for the causal or hardcore gamer, with plenty to do for even the nongamer.
Charlotte, NC
May 29–31
Reviewed by Tera Fulbright
Born from the ashes of a failed Worldcon bid, ConCarolinas 2009 became the first local fan-run SF/F convention to cross the 1000 attendee mark in several years. I knew it was going to be an interesting convention when we walked passed a pre-registration line that wrapped around the halls.
ConCarolinas has had an excellent relationship with the Marriott for the past several years. However, the convention moved to a new location this year—the Charlotte Hilton University Place—and the new hotel responded well to the convention and its attendees. Room rates were still reasonable at less than $100 per night. In addition to more convention space for gaming, programming and fan tables, the hotel provided very affordable concessions. The hotel space was nice with lots of chairs and other “hang-out” locations but some areas were darker than others and could have used a little extra light.
This year’s Writer GOH was Katherine Kurtz, one of my all-time favorite authors. She’s incredibly personable and doesn’t dominate the panels she’s on. Kathy Mar was the Music Guest of Honor and Alan Welch was the Artist Guest of Honor. ConCarolinas had special Media Guests in Anthony Forrest, Charles Root and Brandon Stacy. Anthony Forrest, in particular, seemed to have a long line of stormtroopers waiting for his signature at each signing. Other guests included Cheralyn Lambeth, Stephen Euin Cobb, Tony Ruggiero, Davey Beauchamp and many more. ConCarolinas invites a variety of guests from authors and actors to gaming and paranormal experts, which helps diversify the convention’s attendees and provides for a well-rounded event.
The convention itself is well organized and seemed to run seamlessly even with the added influx of attendees. Programming information was provided a few weeks before the con itself and seemed to remain close to the published schedule. One of the best things about ConCarolinas is their Dealer’s Room. It always has a wide range of vendors, from gaming and costuming to jewelry and swords.
The only major complaint seemed to revolve around the consuite trying to limit its visitors to certain types of attendees during certain hours. I heard several people complain about being told they had to leave the consuite so that specific attendees (i.e. guests and dealers) could be the only ones allowed in. I know the Con Chair did try to remedy the situation but it seemed to be a bit of an issue throughout the weekend. I’ve heard that there are plans for ConCarolinas to add a Green Room next year for dealers and guests which should eliminate the problem.
The panels and special events all seemed well attended, and fans seemed to gather in every nook and cranny of the space. Adding new events like the Pirate Stage Combat Demo and Nerf Wars to regular events like Klingon Karaoke and the Zombie Walk allowed fans and fan groups to get involved in the convention programming. The fan groups continued to show their support with large contingents of Pirates, Stormtroopers, SCAdians, StarGaters and Klingons wandering the halls throughout the weekend. Rock Band had been set up in one hall and there seemed to be a never-ending flow of music and sound from that area. Glancing in the gaming room showed tables filled with gamers, maps and miniatures.
As always, ConCarolinas is an excellent convention for fans by fans. With ConCarolinas hosting DeepSouthCon 48 in 2010, I look forward to seeing what next year brings.
Atlanta, GA
September 2-5
If what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, what happens at Dragon*Con never really happened. It is a fleeting moment of fantasy spread across an all too short weekend. Dragon*Con is a menagerie of every sci-fi and fantasy character you can imagine and some of the actual actors and authors that first breathed life into them. From author Anne McCaffery to actress Marina Sirtis—Star Trek: TNG’s Deanna Troi—to the cast of Joss Whedon’s Serenity. There were storm troopers, Darth Vaders, Jedis aplenty, Aliens and Predators, the Incredibles even made an appearance, and I swear I saw Ben Affleck, the real one.
The filk on the main stage, Saturday night, was fantastic. The talent and genius of the performers and their love of their art was apparent. Along with the regulars was Rob Balder, his first time on the big stage. After a few minutes of banter he performed “Sympathy for George Lucus,” which was featured recently on the Dr. Demento show. I attended the “Nuts and Bolts of Producing a Webcomic” panel Sunday evening; an informative and inspirational panel featuring Jeff Darlington (General Protection Fault), Erin Lindsey (Venus Envy), Jennie Breeden (The Devil’s Panties), Chris Impink (artist of Fragile Gravity), Bill Holbrook (Kevin & Kell), and Rob Balder (PartiallyClips).
The artwork on display on the gallery was absolutely beautiful. Each piece invoked emotion and imagination. You could create a universe and get lost amongst the surreal images brought to life in oil, bronze, wood, and water color.
Dragon*Con, has once again demonstrated why it is one of the largest science fiction, fantasy, and pop culture conventions in North America—spanning three massive convention hotels. I can’t say enough good things about the staff. They worked tirelessly and tried to accommodate every guest, press member, and con-goer. My personal thanks and appreciation to Star in the press room. rk
Chesapeake, VA
July 29-31
This may have been one of the most confused (and confusing) cons I’ve ever attended. Personally, I suspect that there was a secret second con going on behind closed doors that nobody was telling me about. If not, then this was a seriously bi-polar convention.
For starters, we were unable to get a room in the convention hotel because it was already booked up (several weeks in advance). So I went in expecting a sizable event and instead found a small little relaxacon with maybe 200 people in attendance; they were only sold out because the hotel was so small—it didn’t even have a restaurant or bar. No problem there though… Some of my favorite cons are relaxacons and I’d heard people raving about Liberty in the past.
Second sign of trouble—$45 for a badge! Pretty steep for a small con. I quickly headed to the con suite to see what my $45 was paying for. This is where the extremes first raised their ugly head. Food pretty much consisted of a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a bowl of chips. However, there were two kegs of beer. Bonus! Sadly, it was one Coors product and one Miller product—neither of which appealed to my inner beer snob. But I can’t blame them for that.
Weirdness abounded on the guest list too: Fred Pohl, Timothy Zahn and Robert Asprin (great guests!). In contrast though, the Artist GoH was Beth Willinger who (despite some nice work in the Art Show) I had never heard of. I had been looking forward to hearing Pohl speak but he was only scheduled for two panels—one on Sunday (which I missed because of the long drive home) and one on Saturday. The Saturday panel was on writing a story outline. Frankly, I had enough of that lecture in high school, surely they could have come up with something better for one of science fiction’s Grand Masters.
There was a poolside cookout on Saturday afternoon that stayed pretty crowded but the menu of hot dogs, hamburgers, sausages, and chili didn’t appeal to my non-beef-eating diet. I was beginning to feel like someone had planned this con simply to snub me.
I was told that the Saturday night room parties would make up for my disillusionment. No such luck. The two room parties that I found were small and poorly attended and didn’t make much of an attempt to entertain. Even the Baen Barflies were slow that night.
It’s hard to say, bottom-line, that this was a bad con. Granted, I didn’t find much to entertain myself (a first) but everyone around me was having a blast. It felt like I had stumbled into a family reunion that I hadn’t been invited to. So, what’s the bottom-line? Great con for the regulars. Otherwise, bring LOTS of friends and plan your own room party. mp
Chesapeake, VA
July 23
Fantasci (a.k.a The Little Con That Could) is a small one-day con that’s open to the public. With many cons shrinking these days, this is something of a brilliant idea. Fantasci is held in the Chesapeake Public Library. “Public” of course translates to free. No attendance fees and free dealer’s tables. What you end up with is a wide spectrum of attendees. There were a lot of familiar faces from local fandom but there were even more people there had never been to a sci-fi con before. And the mundanes seemed to be having a great time!
There was a single track of programming, lots of authors (many of them local) and several fan groups (Star Trek, Star Wars and StarGate, among others). It turned out to be a really fun day.
There are rumors that they may go to two days next year. mp
Durham, NC
July 15-17
Trinoc is a con of polar opposites. There was really cool but poorly organized programming, and enthusiastic but small attendance and a friendly, but mostly invisible staff.
Programming was great, the panels I attended were interesting and the critter contest (create a costume for a plush bear and then enter it in the Masquerade) was too cute. They also had a lot of crafty stuff for people to do. The major problem was finding out where it was. There was no schedule in the programming book, just boards in front of each room announcing the schedule. This meant you had to run to each board to find out where any event was. Even guests seemed to have trouble figuring out where they were supposed to be.
Attendance was down, even the bartender for the hotel commented on this. I understand that they had some competition so maybe a new date is in order. Or maybe it’s still fallout from their last date change.
The staff, the ones I saw, were all very friendly. A couple of times when I asked where an event was held, I was referred to a board. Politely. But it wasn’t really the info I wanted. Moderators in the panels were knowledgeable and knew when to go with debate and when to move on and the people helping with the craft panels were very hands on and available. Unfortunately, there was no way to discern who was on staff and who wasn’t. I only saw three people all weekend that I could identify as staff members and this was mostly because they were standing behind the registration desk.
All this combined to cause a fair amount of frustration for people. I saw (and heard) many people searching frantically for where they needed to be.
The Gaming Room… Gaming was well attended, more so then the rest of the convention. Trinoc used to be a mostly literary con but is now drawing more gamers. Not a bad thing, but they may want to start billing themselves as a gaming convention. I walked through the room a couple of times and discovered that the Gaming Dealers were in the Gaming Room. Logical, right? I do game but not at cons and had I not been searching for the Dealer’s Room (which wasn’t to my mind very clearly marked) I would never have found them. Fortunately, it turned out that Gaming Dealers were the people who had what we wanted to buy.
I did get some face time with Joe Lansdale, one of my all time favorite writers and perhaps the coolest guy in the universe, so I had a great con.
No one was angry or disappointed, just… somber. Trinoc has so much going for it, a bright, creative staff, a good central location and great taste in guests. If they work out a couple of what are really minor bugs, this will be a wonderful little con. ch
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
July 1-4
For people who have never attended a Westercon, this is a “floating” con sponsored by the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society but hosted by various fan groups along the west coast, southwest and northwest regions.
Let’s get the unpleasantries out of the way first. Out of the three years that I’ve attended, programming has always proved a challenge. This year, I submitted my ideas for panels and didn’t heard anything in reply. After several e-mail requests I was finally told to check a programming grid online. The grid was awkward to read, not exactly printer-friendly, and color-coded with green for “open” panels and blue for “closed.”
There was a lot of blue staring back at me.
I attributed the awkward manner in which guests were supposed to check the programming grid for themselves to Westercon’s decision to have the Con Chair serve as head of Programming. This is a lot of responsibility for one person to shoulder and should have been delegated better. I did manage to get panels though—all of them solid, fun panels that I looked forward to.
The Westin Hotel of Calgary was our host, and with “early bird” programming commencing a day early the Dealer’s Room was open for setup. I was at the Dragon Moon table alongside The Sentry Box, one of the biggest and most popular Calgary-based gaming/book store; Edge Publishing (another Calgary-based publisher); and OnSpec Magazine. The Dealer’s Room had a lot to offer in books, jewelry, clothing and other cool stuff.
My first panel was “The Independent Press: Myths and Mythconceptions,” featuring Dragon Moon author Valerie Grisworld-Ford and myself alongside Danita Maslan (launching her debut novel, Rogue Harvest) and independent comic book artist Andrew Foley. The questions from the house (and from the panelists) foreshadowed a great con as the curiosity level from the fans and panel participants was sincere and engaging.
Dragon Moon Press publisher Gwen Gades hosted “Just Tell Me What You Want,” a two-hour seminar on what to send publishers, for both art and manuscript proposals. Robert J. Sawyer (with special guest Edo Van Belkom) presented his own solo panel, “Ask a Professional Anything,” a chance to find out what really goes into making a professional writing career. “Making a Reading Work” was my own two-hour workshop where readings, character voices and foreign accents were explored.
With all the workshops and panels, you would think Canadians are a serious bunch. Hardly. They also know how to have fun with their SF/F, as was evident with “Chicks in Chain Mail,” a panel about the popularity of kick-ass women in the genre. This panel had everything going for it—it was recorded for broadcast on Canadian radio with seven panelists, and I was the only guy on the panel… and I had to go to the bathroom.
With the first question, “What are the panelists opinions of wearing chain mail bras and, if you have, how do you deal with the chafing?” I knew this was going to be one wacky ride. The microphone eventually reached me and I finally uttered, “I’m the only guy here, I’m feeling very insecure right now, and I have to pee. Hello, Canada!” With a standing-room-only attendance, this panel was a real hoot, reminding me why this topic is a favorite of mine at cons.
Canadian Scapers were a VERY strong presence at Westercon. I was invited to participate on “Farscape: Beyond the Miniseries,” provided I prepared materials for this panel. This lead-in presentation to a widescreen showing of Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars was run by Nicola Wood of FarscapeCanada.com. I’m glad I invested time and funds in creating a sampler DVD of Farscape clips as Nicola gave a PowerPoint presentation of carefully constructed battle plans, ranging from donations to libraries to support for the upcoming Joss Whedon epic, Serenity.
Finally, Westercon 58 hosted the most book premieres I had ever seen at a weekend convention. On Friday, Danita Maslan launched her debut eco-thriller Rogue Harvest, the latest title from Robert J. Sawyer Books. EDGE Publishing launched two books on Sunday: Courtesan Prince, by Lynda Williams and Tesseracts Nine, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Geoff Ryman. It was on Saturday when Dragon Moon held the biggest launch: Legacy of Morevi, Not Your Father’s Horseman, and Dominion. Dragon Moon’s launch also had the largest number of authors in attendance, with the most collective miles travelled: Valerie Griswold-Ford (from New Hampshire), Lai Zhao (Hong Kong), Michael R. Mennenga (Arizona), Evo Terra (also Arizona), J.Y.T. Kennedy (Alberta) and me (Virginia). The Canadian fans exceeded my expectations in their turnout.
To celebrate this incredible launch, Dragon Moon authors had reserved a suite for the weekend, dubbing it “The Dragon’s Den.” We rearranged the furniture so we could feature a bar, plenty of space for guests and a direct route to the bathroom. In one corner of the room, we had our books for sale and along the wall we had on display the covers of Dragon Moon titles. The iTunes Party Shuffle was fired up with my eclectic Science Fiction/Fantasy mix (inspired by Nth Degree’s own party mix) and the party was underway. We only had one rule for this celebration: If you spew, you clean it up and you pay for any damages. That’s it. A beautiful Dragon Moon Press cake—that we forgot to serve at the book launch—was finally cut and served to the guests, many of whom had attended our premiere. By eleven o’clock (and as it was Calgary, the sun was just setting!) the suite was in full swing. Outside on the balcony, my roommates Val and Lai shot me narrow-eyed looks as Michael R. Mennenga and I indulged in cigars. I gave myself an hour tops for my energy as I had done three panels, manned the Dragon Moon booth and premiered a book. I was running on empty and was hoping to make it to midnight.
2 a.m. That was when the last guest left, the signs on the door came down, and the room was cleaned. All three of us were stunned at the amount of leftover alcohol, so we agreed that maybe another party was in order for the following night.
After another day of panels, we decided not to wait for a formal start to the party to break in our two OnSpec shot glasses. The Dragon’s Den beverage of choice: Captain Morgan’s 1680, the drink of pirates and privateers everywhere. These may have been double-shot glasses to the land-locked Calgarians, but we “maritime opportunists” regarded them as singles… all night long.
Now what made this particular—completely off-the-cuff—party crazy was not that we were encouraging people to drink our leftover alcohol, but that the Canadians were bringing contributions to a party that was supposed to rid us of all alcohol. Valerie and I did what only good pirates could do: we shot whatever people brought us. There was “Sour Puss,” a raspberry liquor. Then some peach schnapps. The rum. And finally, a pink tequila mix called Baja Rosa. After being caught by digital cameras performing the Tragically White Boy Dance, I retired to the balcony, again with the guys, enjoying a good Cuban stogie and a beer. I honestly didn’t think this party could get any odder after some party guests spontaneously began performing yoga…
…until two words passed from party guest to party guest: Pool Party. The Westin’s pool was still open after midnight and some of our Dragon Moon regulars were in the mood for a good soaking. The room cleared pretty quickly and I bravely slipped into my black Speedos and headed out for some hot tub fun.
The post-con crash lasted about a week, and that was on account of Westercon being nothing less than incredible. An amazing time, beyond any other con experience I’ve known. tm
Charlotte, NC
June 3-5
I fought thunder storms and rush-hour traffic to make it to Charlotte by early evening. I arrived a little worse for wear.
My first stop—after checking into my room and cranking the AC to fight back the oppressive southern humidity—was the bar. I remembered from the previous year that they served Guinness in the nitro cans and that was just what I needed. On arriving I discovered that Tee Morris and Tony Ruggiero had already beaten me there. A couple of pints later I had gotten the scoop on Tee and Tony’s book tour and was ready to join the real world, or at least the con world. I sat in on Tony’s panel on “The Role of Modern Day Vampires” and then retreated to the bar for dinner. Tee introduced me to writer/podcaster Mur Lafferty and then it was off to my first panel, “Internet Publishing.” The turnout was pretty good for a Friday night panel and it was the only one I had scheduled, leaving me free for the rest of the night.
Apart from myself, what else was going on at the con? Guests of Honor included Greg Keyes (Writer), Farscape’s David Franklin (Media), and The Great Luke Ski (Filk). Horror movie icons Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) and Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th) were on hand for autograph sessions as well.
Saturday was my busy day. I was scheduled on panels from 10:00-4:00 and then for a signing from 4:00-5:00. Seven hours, no break. Now, I’m not one to complain and I do like being on as many panels as possible but a lunch break would have been nice in there. Just something for programmers to think about in the future. On the plus side though I got to have dinner with Ken Foree, so there was some karmic balance.
Saturday night started off back in the bar. The cliche really is true, many writers and editors do spend a lot of time at cons in the bar. Especially at ConCarolinas. The Marriott Executive Park has got a very nice bar with an excellent staff. The group gathered there that night included SMOFs, writers, actors, editors and fen. A real cross-section of fandom. Saturday night is also the best night for events at the con too though, so after a couple hours it was back to the con for Klingon karaoke. Also got to catch some of Luke’s concert—funny stuff, as always. We also made it to the Stellarcon pirate party for some pretty serious rum concoctions. Sadly, I missed the dueling Slave Leia costumes at the Masquerade. I hear that they were quite the hit.
After the traffic nightmare on Friday afternoon I had vowed never to return to Charlotte for another con but by Sunday morning I was making plans for next year. ConCarolinas does a fantastic job of mixing Literary and Media programming and also provides a large, well-attended Gaming Room—a great recipe for bringing in a younger generation of fans. mp
Baltimore, MD
May 27-30
Once again, me and mine attended the annual science-fiction convention of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society over Memorial Day weekend. The Writer Guests of Honor were Stephen Barnes and his spouse, Tananarive Due, the Artist Guest of Honor was Bob Eggleton and the Filk Guest of Honor was Jordan Kare. This was the fifth year that Balticon has been held over Memorial Day weekend with an expanded, four-day schedule, and I can truly say they have handled the transition beautifully after some initial growing pains.
My son and I arrived at the Wyndham Inner Harbor Hotel midafternoon on Friday. Check-in was quick and painless. My son, a gamer, spent the bulk of the weekend running between the computer room (participating in networked online tournaments), the gaming room and the anime room. My interests on the other hand are focused on writing. I started off with a panel on fanzines moderated by Nth Degree’s own Michael Pederson with great visual aids and stories supplied by Steve Stiles, followed by a panel on “Creating Realistic Species,” and finished off the evening with a panel on “Humor In Science Fiction” moderated by Bud Sparhawk. I also managed to watch a few episodes of anime and visited the Dealer’s Room and Art Show. The topper for the night was a presentation by local TV personality Count Gore De Vol, dressed in full vampire regalia. The Count was in good form as he introduced a number of independent films.
Saturday started off early for me with the Writer’s Workshop at 9:00. This workshop, moderated by writer Steve Lubs, is a teaching workshop and this year he focused on creating believable characters. With a room full of aspiring writers, we had lively discussions on how to create compelling characters for our stories. The art show was in especially good form with a whole section devoted to Bob Eggleton’s work as well as dozens of other artists. My favorites were Moifa’s Chinese-style brushwork, and Mark Rogers’ fantasy artwork. I first saw Moifa’s work at Philcon several years ago and have watched as her sparse watercolors have gone from being a steal to the point where I can no longer afford them. The rest of the day was spent in various panels, including one on “Breaking Writer’s Block.” This panel was especially comforting as it helped me to appreciate that writer’s block among authors is as common as Klingons at a Trek convention. I just wish they had some magic bullet for curing it.
After dinner, my son and I attended the Masquerade. As usual, the competition was hosted by Marty Gear in his vampire persona, with roughly twenty entrants. My favorite was a humorous presentation ably assisted by Marty. He reminisced fondly about visits from the tooth fairy when he was a child. She removed the tooth painlessly and paid you lots of money. The lights then came up and out on the stage walked another fairy, wearing a white fright wig and carrying a three foot hypodermic. Marty advised us that now that we’re adults, we will receive visits from this person, the root canal fairy. She will cause you great pain as she extracts teeth, and will leave only after you have paid her lots and lots of money. It was a scream! As lighthearted as this presentation was, it still managed to take two of the top prizes of the night.
After the last presentation, my son headed back to the gaming room and I headed to the room parties. Sadly, this year the number of parties was quite low. Nth Degree had the most popular party of the night, dispensing its own special brew of “tea” in the much-sought-after glow-in-the-dark cup. But aside from a party hosted by the Philcon con committee and another hosted by the Chicago in 2008 bid committee, that was it (at least that I could find). Understand, this is quite unusual for Balticon, as there are usually a dozen or more parties to choose from all weekend.
Sunday started for me at 10:00 with a panel on “Writing as a Second Career,” with a number of authors—including novelist Robert Chase—participating. This panel was the highlight of the weekend for me. As I am an attorney like Bob Chase, as well as a fledgling writer, I asked how he dealt with the ticklish ethical question on how to keep your legal career separate from your writing career. Attorneys have strict ethical requirements as members of the legal bar not to mix their legal careers with any other public endeavors. Our discussion continued after the panel was done, and he took me to the Green Room to continue our chat. We were joined shortly by Analog Mafia member and noted Heinlein historian Eric Kotani and by David Silver, also an attorney and the President of the Heinlein Society. Our talk covered a number of topics and lasted for the rest of the morning. Wonderful! Contact with important writers in the field is what I come to cons for.
Sunday was another busy day attending panels, watching videos, bidding at the art auction, participating in the voice auction that followed and then collecting my prizes. The day was capped off with the Second Annual Balticon Film Festival. Although still a new feature of the con, they received more films than they could schedule on Sunday. I understand that many of the films that Count Gore De Vol presented on Friday actually were submitted for the film festival, but could not be presented because of time constraints. As you would expect, they ranged from truly awful to quite good.
Monday was the final day of the con, but was still very active with panels, video presentations and of course the Dealer’s Room. I had visited several times throughout the con but was surprised to see the room still packed with dealers eager to do business. One dealer later explained: At most cons, you do little business on the last day so many dealers pack up and leave as soon as they can. For some reason, most of the dealers were doing better business Monday at Balticon than they had the rest of the weekend, and nobody was leaving.
After making my round of good byes, I packed my car and headed out. Next year will be yet another transition for Balticon. After over a decade located in Center City Baltimore, the con committee decided to relocate to the Hunt Valley Marriott outside the city. From its web page, it looks to be a beautiful facility, so I guess change is good. See you next year! jsr
Memphis, TN
April 1-3
MidSouthCon 23 was a real success again this year. It was expected that attendance would be down significantly from last year—since DeepSouthCon 42 (a regional science fiction con that is hosted each year by a different convention) coexisted with MidSouthCon 22—however, attendance for MidSouthCon 23 exceeded 1000, as it did for MidSouthCon 22/DeepSouthCon 42. This is very healthy growth for a con that averaged 400 to 500 attendees for years. This year’s programming reflected the higher attendance with 120 hours of programming scheduled in up to six simultaneous tracks (and that’s not counting the Anime, Video or Gaming rooms).
MidSouth’s Artist Guest of Honor was Stephen Hickman. The Art Show featured several of his paintings and he hosted a slide show of his work. You may own some of his work without being aware of it—he has illustrated approximately 350 covers for Ace, Baen, Ballantine, Bantam, Berkeley, Dell, Del Rey, Doubleday, Phage Press, Tor and Warren Publications as well as a lot of Tolkien and Lovecraft art.
The Science GoH this year was Gregory Benford. He was on the panel for “Using SF to Teach the Scientific Method”—a good match since he won a Nebula Award for his novel Timespace and is also a professor of Plasma Physics and Astrophysics at the University of California.
Of course any convention featuring Brinke Stevens, “The Queen of Scream,” is on my list of favorite places to be. Brinke was the Media GoH. Her panel, “Bad Movies and Why We Love Them,” turned out to be a real hoot. A little known fact about Brinke is that she has a Master’s Degree in Marine Biology from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla. And for a time she worked at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Station and National Marine Fisheries.
The Filk Guest of Honor was The Great Luke Ski (Luke Sienkowski). Luke has the energy of a dozen tribbles. His parodies, “Stealing Like a Hobbit,” based on Eminem’s “Cleaning out my Closet” and “Peter Parker,” a Spider-Man parody are two of the funniest songs I’ve heard.
Gaming was well represented. FORGE (Fellowship of Role Gaming Enthusiasts) set up a room with ten tables for running sanctioned RPGA games. I gamed with them and, as usual, really enjoyed it. MidSouthCon’s gaming schedule included over 150 role-playing, miniature, collectable card and board games as well as a LAN party, a LARP and lots of other fun stuff. The Memphis Strategy Board Gaming Community was also well represented. AEG kicked off its Warlord World Conquest at MidSouthCon and met with great success. Games Workshop was the Gaming GoH and gave a panel on their company that explained a lot about the gaming industry.
The Art Show had art ranging from hobby artists to consummate professionals. As usual, I could not keep my hands in my pockets and ended up bidding on several pieces and winning a few. The Dealer’s Room, in my humble opinion, did not have as good a selection of wares as in the past but I know that the con organizers cannot be blamed for that. There are so many cons now that it is impossible to avoid scheduling conflicts with other locations.
The hall costumes and the Masquerade were good, as was the Art Auction (I did sit on my hands during the auction). Private parties flourished. The Con Suite was always packed, but well run with a good selection of con survival nourishment. As usual I had a good time. Ah well, until next year! jj
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