Aries Moon

ConJose, the 60th World Science Fiction Convention, is quite a success by my standards. I pronounce it good.

This is astonishing, frankly. I have a love/hate relationship with Worldcons. They're so freakishly big, for one thing (attendance was about 4,000 at this one and that's on the low side). For another, they require an extraordinary amount of contact with highly opinionated, irrepressible smartasses, i.e., people exactly like me. Happily, they also contain a variable number of people I adore and don't see at any other time of the year unless I go to their town, which in the case of the Australians is just about never.

I still think my first Worldcon was the very best I've ever been to. It was there that I met and was completely enchanted by British fans. Well, all right, I met Martin Tudor and got completely drunk with him and his friends, but somehow I came out of it feeling enchanted by UK fandom. The Worldcon may have been a bust financially, but it was the starting point of my career as a fanzine writer and itinerant wanderer among the guest bedrooms and spare sofas of fandom around the world. I still remember it fondly. Uh, and if I slept on your spare sofa back then you have a standing invitation to come sleep on mine now that I have one.

Anyway, since hooking up with fandom in 1981 I have been to Worldcons hosted by Baltimore (1983), Los Angeles (1984), Atlanta (1986), Brighton (1987), New Orleans (1988), Chicago (1991), Baltimore (1998) and this one in San Jose. Eight out of twenty-one years is a shameful attendance record considering it's the mother of all family reunions for my tribe. I know people who've been going to them regularly since the Forties. I want to like Worldcons; it's just that I hardly ever do.

The thing is, I require conventions to have a very high percentage of my friends there or I don't enjoy them. There will be dear friends at each one, but unless I can get the numbers up to about fifty or the location appeals to me I really don't like to bother any more. I'm not much for attending panels, and in fact the only panels I attended at ConJose were the ones I was on. I don't mind missing the art show because really, how many winged cat pictures can a person stand? The Dealers' Room is always fun because I have several friends in the bookselling business, but I don't collect science fiction or fantasy, I just read the stuff. I go to conventions for the socializing and ... okay, I pretty much only go for the socializing. Most years it simply has not been worth paying for complete access to the con. I just go up in the evening and party.

But what can you do when it's in your own town? Everyone expects you to contribute, and you can't contribute if you can't get into the convention center. I felt obliged to be a full participant so I joined in July of 2001 when it was only outrageous and not astronomical. This year's last minute attending membership, meaning purchased within a month of the con, cost $200. I can hardly believe it. I remember thinking "They've gone too far, no one will pay that!" when Noreascon III crossed the triple digit line back in 1989. Oh god. I think I crossed the Fannish Geezer line just now.

Since I'd gone all out with the membership I decided to wring the maximum enjoyment out of the convention. I felt I didn't get my money's worth out of the last Worldcon I attended; this one would be different. I promised myself I'd do at least one new thing at the con, either observing or taking part in a scheduled event that I've always passed over before. So this year I finally made it to the Regency dance. John Hertz, a charming, witty man, has been organizing and MC'ing Regency dances in the LA area and at Worldcons for years. In his cutaway coat, perfectly fitted waistcoat, immaculate breeches, silk stockings, and dancing shoes he looked the very model of a Regency Beau as he instructed the masses in classic dance steps and set dozens of people chausseeing and waltzing to period music. I was genuinely thrilled by the sight. Also, I admit, I was hugely amused at some of the non-period outfits, but this was a Worldcon, not a meeting of some Regency Appreciation Society so it didn't matter in the least.

Besides my one new thing I did what I always do. I socialized with lots of friends. I contributed meaningful if not profound thoughts at my panels. I introduced numerous people to one another and introduced myself to a few strangers. I was exclaimed over by friends who didn't initially recognize me with blonde hair. I don't know why, my haircolor is rarely the same from year to year, but the blonde surprised everyone. I wandered the Dealers' Room and was hugged by Bryan Barrett and Greg Ketter. I got overheated and squashed while talking to everyone at the always crowded and excellent Tor Books party. I saw famous authors up close but failed to talk to them (I would have loved to talk to Terry Pratchett but he was constantly surrounded by overexcited fans and I just couldn't bring myself to join them).

Specific to this con I ran into DUFF winner Julian Warner about twenty eight thousand times at the hotels, the convention center, the sidewalk, and various restaurants. I went out for a meal with Ellie Lang and then saw photos of her new puppy. We talked about how unnerved all the New Yorkers were by planes flying overhead at about forty stories; the convention center is in the direct flight path of the nearby airport. I viewed the entire art show with Teresa Nielsen Hayden, an experience something like a cross between a genteel art history lesson and a comedy routine.

I had the singular experience of meeting someone who wished to read my romance novel manuscript. "Certainly!" I said promptly, and she gave me her card. I suppose I ought to write one now. Seriously, this topic came up more than once. Someone has clearly been saying I've written and/or been published as a romance novelist. I was even put on a panel about Writing Romantic Sci-Fic which I would have gotten out of based on the dreadful name even had I actually published anything resembling a novel.

On Saturday night I thoroughly enjoyed introducing a non-fannish friend, Trish Homis, to the madness that is Worldcon. She particularly seemed to enjoy one of my favorite aspects which is the "worlds collide" factor, when people you know from disparate parts of your life all turn up at the same party, or that nice fellow you were talking to just now turns out to be someone you've always wanted to meet, and so on.

I used my finely honed sense of timing to break up what was starting to become a shouting match between diplomat and science fiction author Jim Young and physicist and science fiction author Greg Benford at the Japan in 2007 bid party. I did this by insisting on saying hello to Greg whom I've known for so many years that he put my hairstyle from 1984 on one of his characters in a book. I then glibly swept Jim away to decompress and vent at Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden who actually understand the trends and fine points of our current foreign policy.

I visited the UK party suite to meet the famous Tobes. He was quite drunk, said "I've heard of you!" and promptly walked away. I don't think it was cause and effect. I waved at Sue Mason glowing rosily across the room, took note of Steve Davies (we're not at the hand-waving level yet), and recognized no one else from Britain. There were heaps of Australian fans there, though, and a very pleasant Belgian who seemed to be minding the door. A Norwegian fan lurched into me, apologized, and asked where the drink was. At that point I wanted to know myself.

Outside the exhibit halls I listened entranced to a synopsis of Jim's latest novel and expressed sincere hope that it gets published soon because I really want to read it. I purchased a charmingly absurd tissue box cover in the shape of a reclining koala at the DUFF/TAFF auction (the tissue emerges from its tummy in a slightly disturbing way). I was pleased to see the copies of Kim Huett's collection of my fanwriting get snapped up, a few by people who own the original fanzines in which the articles appeared (Janice Murray kept track of who took a copy even though it was a freebie). I had my photo taken for the Fan History Photo Project by Mark Olson. I spent quality time chatting with Moshe Feder, Damien Warmen, Sam Bushell, Anita Rowland, David Hartwell, Janice Gelb, Arthur Aldridge, Jerry Kaufman, Suzle, Lois McMaster Bujold, Susan Groppi, Art Widner, Lucy Sussex, Doug Faunt, and so many others I can't even begin to name check them all. It's been enormous fun.

It's not over yet and I'm already exhausted. I've completely blown off programming for today because I got home at two in the morning, got up six hours later to walk the dog, fought off a hangover from a single malt Scotch tasting party with liberal applications of Advil and the Sunday comics (I have decided all the education in the world will not make me appreciate Scotch), and then went back to bed for a four hour nap. I shall go back tonight for some post-Hugo fun, and I've been invited to a private party tomorrow afternoon after which I will gather Sue Mason and her belongings and whisk her off to my house to spend the night and have a nice, long chat. I am spending part of Monday cleaning the house in between studying for a test, both desperately necessary. And then, O Best Beloved, it will all be over and life will return to normal.

I can't do this sort of thing more than once every few years any more. The spectacle and the crowds are intoxicating and thrilling until suddenly I just can't take one more minute of it. But I get to missing it all the same. It's family, after all, even if I'd rather not see so many of them all at once, and I really wish Cousin Jack would wear deodorant, and Cousin Jill ought to know by now no one cares about how she got Robert Aspirin's autograph, and will someone please tell Old MacDonald not to stare at the Klingon women's breasts.

It's also the nexus of art and technology, of opportunity and inspiration, an unusual point in this community's history because we still have the First Fans with us, the elders of our tribe who have lived to see the world change from one they could only imagine while poring over copies of Amazing Stories and Astounding to one where we take rocket ships and global satellite positioning devices and microchips and DNA manipulation for granted, where personal computers are as common as toasters, a world where the biggest grossing movies of all time are dominated by science fiction or fantasy stories. In their lifetime a maligned and minor literary genre became not only acceptable but also a significant part of American culture as well as the literary and cinematic canon. And one of the most enduringly popular books of the twentieth century is found only in the Science Fiction section of bookstores: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

I'd be a part of this family whether it ever found its way into the mainstream or not. I was born to be a fan.



Past Life The Index Next Incarnation