Con (A Tale of DragonCon Past)

I didn’t exactly lie.  I just let them believe what they wanted to believe. 

So, according to my esteemed colleagues, I missed work that Thursday and Friday (years and years ago) to drive all the way to Atlanta, GA, to meet the great American writer Ray Bradbury.

Sure Bradbury wrote science fiction, sure he wrote fantasy, sure he wrote horror – but that didn’t matter.  You see, Bradbury had reached that iconic status where he was actually taught in classrooms.  Pick up sophomore or junior high school textbook, and you will more than likely find a Bradbury story.  In the mainstream American mind, he had made it.  Never mind that he was good.  He was important.  He was a success.

So off I went.

Maybe I should have explained it more thoroughly.  Maybe.  I just couldn’t quite imagine something called Dragon*Con to be the ivory tower affair they did.    Don’t get me wrong – I have enjoyed and admired Bradbury’s work since, well, high school I guess, but I had made arrangements to attend the con well before he was announced as one of the guests of honor.  When folks asked why I was driving approximately eight hundred miles there and back, however, Bradbury’s name seemed to satisfy their curiosity.  I suppose he made the trip legitimate in their eyes, especially for a high school English teacher.

Dragon*Con is a what you would call a science fiction convention – a con in fanboy lingo –  but it is so much more.  It is annual gathering of the best and the brightest among the science fiction, fantasy, and horror community.  The guest list spans across every form of media: print, film, music, internet, games.  If it’s genre related, chances are it’s there somewhere.  Me and Craig, a friend and fellow fanboy since high school, went every year and have rubbed elbows with the likes of David Prowse (who was the man inside Darth Vader’s suit in Star Wars), Brinke Stevens (who screamed mightily in films like Nightmare Sisters and Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity), Stan “the Man” Lee (who created Marvel Comics, along with the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and such), and Jefferson Starship (yeah, the rock band, who were actually nominated for a science fiction award for their first album, Blows Against the Empire). 

Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled Bradbury was coming this year.  Giddy as a fanboy could be.  He was scheduled to head a special seminar that Saturday, which was to be followed by a special autograph session, so I carefully packed away my copy of The Martian Chronicles.  The smooth, worn cover flaked slightly around the edges, and the well-read pages had browned somewhat.  I could have gotten a better copy, sure, but we had a history together.  I can fondly remember sneaking it into English classes when we were supposed to be reading whatever it was we were supposed to be reading.  I’m pretty sure the teacher knew, too, but she never confiscated it.  I think she was just happy to see somebody actually reading.

Saturday arrived.  To kill time, Craig and I wandered around the dealer’s room, amazed by some of the things we saw.  It was just like out of the pages of a monster magazine or comic book.  We counted ten brooding vampires, nine different anime characters, eight barbarians, seven “dark” fairies, six flocks of Goths, five demonic beings, four aliens, three musketeers, two mad scientists, and one thing that we couldn’t quite classify.  The fans that didn’t dress up usually wore dark colors and/or t-shirts advertising their favorite TV show or movie or displaying some saying that they, at least, found amusing.

Overall, it was a festive occasion.

The dealer’s room was quite nice.  It was like being in a maze of memories you could buy, sell, or trade.  Every book, toy, and game I had ever owned or had ever wanted to own was right there.  I laughed, I cringed, I spent much cash.

Overall, it was a festive occasion.

For me anyway.

Unfortunately, Craig’s fanboyness was not up to par.  He started to crack under the pressure of all the fandom and general weirdness surrounding us.

“Freaks,” he shouted from the balcony overlooking the dealer’s room where we had perched to patiently await the coming of Bradbury.  “Freaks.  You’re all freaks!”

I guess the proper analogy to fully illustrate the irony of Craig’s sudden declaration lies in the 1956 Vincent Price film The Last Man on Earth.  In that film (based on the even better Richard Matheson novel I am Legend), a plague transforms the human race into vampires.  The Price character stakes vampires during the day and struggles to survive by night.  Among the vampire community, however, Price has become the monster, and in the final agonizing scene, he dies shouting, “Freaks!  You’re all freaks!” oblivious to the obvious irony.  I, therefore, did not point out that our pocket-tees and blue jeans were as subtle as the first gross and gooey mutating appearance of the Thing in Carpenter’s classic remake.

Anyway, that’s when I saw him down in the dealer’s room.

The orange Hawaiian shirt flashing from beneath his striped polyester jacket was the first thing I noticed.  Then the bright, white pants.  How odd, I thought, odd being a relative term, of course.  Then I saw the man wearing it: sixtyish, balding, thick glasses, ear-to-ear grin.  It was him!  The one and the only.  That’s right, I was staring down upon the grandeur and greatness that was Forrest J Ackerman.

Forrey was, is, and will be the archetypal fanboy.  He has the largest science fiction, fantasy, and horror collection in the world.  People travel from all over the world to visit and tour his home.  Filmmakers have asked him to do cameos in their works, he has edited and published some of the biggest genre names, Bradbury included, and he created and published one of the most famous and influential genre magazines ever:  Famous Monsters of Filmland.

I had read Famous Monsters as a teenager in my insulated hometown to find out all kinds of neat stuff about sf, fantasy, and horror films.  My friends and I loved it, couldn’t get enough of it, but most importantly, most adults hated.  I remember my ENG III teacher peering over her winged-tipped glasses while confiscating copies and chastising us for being “rude, crude, and socially unrefined.”

I don’t know how conscious I was of the connections ticking off in my mind at the moment, but I did realize I was standing in a hall full of people staring at a strangely dressed old man like a teenage girl gawking over a rock star.  But I didn’t care – it was Forrest J Ackerman!  Craig and I even followed him for a while.  I think we tried every way possible to convince ourselves it wasn’t him, but the truth could not be denied.  Here, indeed, was the man, the myth, the legend.

We finally managed to calm down enough to introduce ourselves.  I honestly couldn’t tell you what I had imagined talking to the Ackerman would be like back in high school, but I’m sure it met every expectation then went way beyond them.  Basically, he was a lot like any fan.  The three of us spent the entire afternoon wandering around the dealer’s room looking around and talking fan stuff.  And he could come up with some of the greatest – worst? – puns I’d ever heard.  

He had a story to tell about any old toy he touched.  Just by watching him, you knew he was seeing everything he told you; it was almost like out of a story, like he had the power to actually look back in time to when science fiction had just begun to flourish.  He told us how it was more vibrant back then, more alive.  Yeah, the stories weren’t scientifically accurate and the films didn’t have the best special effects, but the stories were – well, there’s no better way to say it – good.  Writers didn’t need brooding heroes that weren’t heroic, and filmmakers didn’t need CGI to create gianormous explosions.  The stories were good.  They made fans want to know what happened next; they had genuine emotion.  I had gotten a glimpse of it by watching the old movies and reading the classics, but here was a man – THE man – who had lived it, even helped shape it.  Fandom would not be what it is today without him.  Science fiction and fantasy would not be what it is today without him.

I missed Bradbury that con, so in honor of Mr. Ackerman, I guess I should say that’s my con-fession.

I heard Bradbury’s panel was great.  He delighted and dazzled the audience.  I watched highlights on the souvenir video I got.  I didn’t get my copy of The Martian Chronicles signed either.  Much to the astonishment of my colleagues, I wasn’t disappointed.  And they didn’t seem to care too much about Forrest Ackerman either.  The kids in my junior English class got a big kick out of it, though.   

Of course, they were all rude, crude, and socially unrefined. 

My Belated DragonCon Blog; or The Unexamined DragonCon is Not Worth Visiting

I had good intentions. 

I was at DragonCon.  I had my laptop.  I had wireless (after I paid the $10.00 for twenty-four hours at the Sheraton).  I had my schedule highlighted and color coded.  I was going to do lots and blog the heck out of it.

Of course, none of that happened.

Day 1 . . . well, I don’t really remember everything I did.  There was that Babylon 5 panel I had planned on going to, but it got booted because of the Shatner/Nimoy thing.  From there, things sort of just took on their own strange existence.  All the color coding blended into one  . . . blended color.  There was so much to do and so little time to do it.  Should I try to do it all in one big miserable, marathon of a time?  I could have, and in years past I would have.  But that was then.  So, that’s when the revelation arrived.  Echoed in my mind was that famous line you always hear somewhere during your educational experience: “the unexamined life is not worth living.”  DragonCon 2009 proved to be, for me, the kind of situation one needs to jog the flotsam and jetsam of the mind.

So, I did some reflecting.

This was my umpteenth time at DragonCon.  This year, however, I was carrying around forty plus years and a five year old.  Things were different.  Not worse.  Different.

During previous years, I did the dashes from panel to panel, wandered the walk of fame, fought through the dealers’ room, danced around the exhibiters’ hall, and strolled throughout the art room.  I used to do it all in those four days.  I was a fan of action.

Well, I’m still a fan.  I’m still active.  I’m just more careful with my time.  This year, I learned that the time I was willing to devote to my fannish activities was not the same as in days of yore.  I remember hitting the walk of fame with a fist-full-o-cash and stopping by the table of anyone I recognized from a TV show or film from my youth.  Not this year.  Sure, there were found memories as I walked around, but there was only one I stopped to get: Bruce Boxleitner.  Why?  Babylon 5 entertained me, it moved me, it made me think.  I was willing to invest the time and money because of everything Mr. Boxleitner had given me with his contribution to my favorite TV show of all time.  Oh, don’t fret, I know Peter, Claudia, Tracy, and Stephen were there – I got them several DC’s ago.  This was Boxleitner’s first visit.  Maybe his last.  I couldn’t pass it up.

The same went for Mr. Patrick Stewart.  I stood in line a good hour and a half.  Willingly.  Five or six years ago, I would have done the same thing for Shatner and Nimoy, even though I really don’t care for the original Trek.  They are icons, and their contribution to science fiction is immeasurable.  But now, I had something else to do.  I almost went into hypothermia jumping into the pool with my little girl.  I quickly climbed out, but sat and watched her have a good time.  At that moment in all of history, that was what was important to me.

When Mr. Stewart spoke, my cousin Steph waited two or three hours to get in the hall.  I passed.  I would have liked to have been there, but I new I could watch it on closed circuit TV.  Anyway, I wanted to get in line for Gene Wolfe.  His signing began just as Stewart was finishing.  Mr. Wolfe is one of the greats.  I expected a huge line and was willing to wait.  I got there an hour early and was probably the tenth one there.  Steph stopped by to check on me after Mr. Stewart’s panel, by the way.  When I looked at the line there was maybe forty people, so yeah, I could have gone.  No, I don’t have any regrets. 

I also struggled to stay awake to check out Abney Park Friday night (Saturday morning actually).  Fantastic!  They are such an awesome live band.  Better, I think, live than recorded – which to me, is the sign of a great band.  Anyway, the next morning, there was something I had colored in on the grid, but when I woke up snuggled up to the misses and the little one, well, it doesn’t get much better than that.  We had breakfast and back to the pool we went. 

So, what’s the point, you ask? 

Well, it came down to an either or for me: I could have either done it all (and blogged) or I could have just enjoyed the moment.  I enjoyed the moment. 

You know what?  I can’t wait to go back.  I’m sure it will be different still, but watching my daughter discover the wonders of fandom is worth lots more than any autograph or panel.  Besides, the whole idea of conventions was to bring the like-minded together.  You still get that at a lot of the little cons, and I’m sure it’s true to some extent at DragonCon, but anymore DC, to me, feels more like a commercial event.  I’m not saying I don’t like it.  I will go back, but when I go back, I will be enjoying it in my on way, on my own terms, and on my own time. 

"Voyage of the Dawn Treader" Ready to Set Sail

According to Narniafans.com, production is set to begin on the third Narnia film this month.  IMDb tells us that Michael Apted is at the helm and a December 2010 arrival is scheduled.  During this outing, as most you probably know, we lose some familiar faces - only Lucy and Edmund make this trek.  Filming begins at Cleveland Point, on the Golden Coast of Australia.

Old News But Good News: John Carter of Mars Movie in Pre-Production

It might be old news to some, but at least its good news: John Carter of Mars is going to the big screen. I should qualify that. It’s potentially good news. If anybody could mess up a straightforward-science-fiction-pulp-classic-adventure yarn, it’s Hollywood.

But let’s not be too pessimistic. I try to be thankful for all the good that comes my way: potential or otherwise.

So, what’s good? Well, after years of false starts, decades really, we have the film in firm pre-production. According to IMDb, the release date is 2012. (Of course, this in and of itself could be a Hollywood ploy to get our hopes up and already spending on pre-release stuff before the Mayan prophecy proves true, destroying the world, and saving producers from having to face the fact they screwed up something as beautiful and simple as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ beloved classic. But again, let’s not be too pessimistic.)

What else is good? Andrew Stanton, the man behind Wall-E. Yeah, Wall-E was cute and adorable and a heart-tugger, but it was one of the smartest science fiction films to come along in a while. It was story driven, unlike say, most everything that has come out in forever, not to mention it wasn’t a remake or a part two of something. Stanton, too, is a confessed lover of Burroughs. That’s always a good thing: to have someone who knows and appreciates the source material. Let’s face it, The Lord of the Rings worked because Peter Jackson knew and loved The Lord of the Rings.

Of course, my first concern here was that we were going to have an animated Carter and Dejah. While that’s not entirely a bad thing, animated films tend to automatically be labeled family films. In many cases they are family films. If you’ve read any of the Barsoom books (for the uninitiated, that’s Burroughs’ name for Mars), Carter can be pretty gritty on occasion, and no, animated or not, Pixar or not, I would not even hope for Dejah Thoris to be gracing the big screen displaying her glorious natural assets for the whole universe to see as she does throughout the book. From what I understand anyway, it’s going to be released as a Disney film. That info comes from johncartermovie.com, which, by the way, is an excellent unofficial site. I’ve been checking it out for some time now.

So that brings us to Disney. Can go either way here. They’ve made some classic family films, which may or may not resemble the source material. 20,000 Leagues is my personal favorite. But they have gone grittier in recent years with the whole Pirate franchise. But herein resides the problem. I read somewhere, forgive me for not recalling the exact place, that Disney was hoping for another franchise success like Pirates. Well, all you have to do is remember what went on in Pirates 2 and 3 and you know why my heart cringes at the thought. What few producers realize is that nothing works, absolutely nothing, when the goal is simply to make money.

Nothing.

On the bright side, Michael Chabon is reworking the script as you read this (if you’re reading it in 2009, that is). Chabon is, for lack of a better word, brilliant. Check out The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Not only did it win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2001, it was awesome. Then there’s The Yiddish Policemen's Union and Gentlemen of the Road. He acknowledges genre fiction, he appreciates genre fiction, he writes genre fiction. To me, this is one of the strongest arguments for doing this film right now. Disney could mess this up, however. Chabon could write something too good. (Good, for some reason, is not appreciated by most money-grubbing producers. They could just as easily order a rewrite. But let’s not be too pessimistic.)

What else is good? Well, they’ve got the primary characters cast. Taylor Kitsch will be playing Carter. Kitsch played in Friday Night Lights and more recently in Wolverine as Gambit. (Is it me, or does he look a little young for a civil war officer?) Lynn Collins will be Dejah Thoris. She, too, was recently seen in Wolverine, playing Silverfox. Well . . . I mean . . . what can you say? Just look at the picture!

Veteran actor Willem Dafoe will be portraying everyone’s favorite four-armed green Martian, Tars Tarkus. Dafoe is a pretty spectacular actor, but I suspect some serious CGI getting ready to happen here. Still, no complaints. Remember how great he was under all the make-up in Shadow of the Vampire? Heck, his voice is a better actor than a lot that I’ve had to watch.

Interestingly enough, as I write this (August 24, 2009), three more cast members have been confirmed. NewsOk.com reports that Oscar nominee Samantha Morton (“In America” and “Sweet and Lowdown”), Dominic West (“The Wire” and “300″) and Polly Walker (HBO’s “Rome”) have joined the cast.

All we can do for now is sit back and bask in the glow of expectations and potentialities. This is a movie with everything going for it. What could go wrong?

(Now, now, let’s not be too pessimistic.)

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolfe?

I have a confession.

I am forty-two years old. I have been reading science fiction and fantasy for at least thirty. In all that time, I’ve read many of the classics, I’ve loyally followed several authors, and I’ve read much stuff of questionable merit. In all that time, however, I have never read anything by Gene Wolfe.

Oh, I knew about him and read much about him and his work. Now that I think about it, that may have been the problem. I’d always heard how his works were “literary” and defied the genre in which they were published. There’s also lots of discussions concerning allegory and religious symbolism, particularly within the volumes comprising The Book of the New Sun. None of this scared me. I’ve read Moby Dick, for crying out loud. And then there’s the use of archaic and exotic words, again mostly within The Book of the New Sun. That didn’t frighten me, either. I’ve read Stephen Donaldson’s The Chronicle of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever – twice. (Yes, I had to keep a college-level dictionary in hand both times.)

I still don’t know what kept me away, unless maybe, it was the “mythic” reputation that surrounded Wolfe’s works. When I’d mention reading any of his stuff to anyone, I would either get a firm “I love it!” or a sudden, almost overwhelmed wash across the poor soul’s face and a half-whispered “couldn’t do it.” It’s not dissimilar to talking about tomes like Moby Dick or The Fountainhead. At one point, about 10 years ago, I bought a used copy of The Shadow of the Torturer. As a fan of SF & F literature, I felt an obligation to try to make it through the book. I had done the same thing with Moby Dick in college. As a Lit. major, I felt I had to read it. After three attempts in about twice that many years, I finally did it and loved it. I felt the same about The Fountainhead. I finally broke down and read it. I quite enjoyed it as well. I don’t know what became of the Wolfe book. I lost track of it on my shelf, and it ultimately vanished entirely from my collection.

I never read it.

Life went on.

Every year, I try to attend two or three SF & F conventions, and one of my favorites is DragonCon. I get giddy with anticipation as the days draw near when they begin releasing their guest list. This year . . . Well, you don’t even have to guess whose name I saw first on the initial list. Let’s just say that when I saw it, I felt something that could only be compared to shame. Then I asked myself how I could call myself a true fan having never read works that have won the World Fantasy Award, the Nebula, the Locus Award.

So I began.

I ordered a second-hand copy of Wolfe’s The Shadow of the Torturer, the first volume of The Book of the New Sun. I’m now over halfway through it, and I love it. I more than love it. It’s one of those books that I look forward to picking up again. I become so absorbed in the tale of Severian, the torturer, I forget that I’m actually reading. Before I had finished the third chapter, I was at my computer ordering the rest of the books.

The language in the book is fluid – like prose poetry at times. And the archaisms do not interfere with the work at all. (Okay, maybe in the first chapter when you’re not used to them.) While reading Donaldson, the words interrupted the flow of reading at times; they seemed more like added speed bumps than part of the road. Not so with Wolfe. If anything, the words add to the atmosphere of the piece. It’s almost as if you can feel the inexorable doom of the world while the red sun hovers in the sky.

Severian’s world is in our far future, yet you can’t help but feel you’re reading a medieval romance. There’re guilds and halberd-carrying guards and walled cities. Occasionally, however, some sort of ship will fly over. There’s talk of traveling among the stars, but that was long, long ago. The distinction between technology and magic no longer exist.

But what’s most remarkable to me is the narrator/protagonist, Severian. He’s a dishonored torturer, who is forced into exile beyond the only world he’s ever known. He is definitely not a typical hero (or anti-hero as today’s trends seem to favor). Besides being a torturer, he’s down-right unreliable. At the beginning of the book, he tells us that he has a perfect memory. Shortly thereafter, however, he states that he is insane. And then he seems to forget when he has told certain information. In one discussion, he even contemplates the fact that lies become truth over time.

So what’s the truth in this story? I don’t know, yet. I may never know, but that’s okay because that’s a powerful message in itself. The tale itself is beautiful and beautifully told. Sometimes that’s enough.

Anyway, I can confidently say that I will finish Wolfe’s wonder-filled The Book of the New Sun, and I’ve a feeling I’ll be reading more, too, like the Books of the Long and Short Sun, the Soldier series, and the Wizard Knight duology. I’m just sorry I waited so long to begin. Gene Wolfe is deserving of every bit of his praise and then some. So, take my advice: there’s nothing to be afraid of.