The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

I used to go to pretty many conventions in the 90's. I'm at Readercon 26 this weekend, my first since I went to I-Con in 2010 to get Samuel R. Delany to sign my hard cover copy of Dhalgren. He's here this weekend where there will be a panel discussion on the book's 40th anniversary. I'll stop by here and report on anything interesting I encounter.

Is anyone else here convention inclined?

I'm crowd averse. I went to DragonCon with my wife once. She's been again but I stayed away - not a convention person.

Buck wrote: "I'm crowd averse. I went to DragonCon with my wife once. She's been again but I stayed away - not a convention person."

You might find Readercon OK. It's focused entirely on books and magazines, so there's no media involvement to attract huge crowds. It's why a lot of Science Fiction writers come back every year. Most of the panels I attended had 20-30 people in them.

So far the highlight for me has been the 40th anniversary panel discussion of Dhalgren. I sat next to Samuel R. Delany in the audience (well his assistant was between us). One of the people on the panel stayed up all night to read it for the first time to be on the panel. Three of the people on the panel read it for the first time in their late teens, as I did and all had read it numerous times since. Max Gladstone read it a couple of years ago at 30. All found it to be a transformative experience. It was a wide ranging discussion.

Clark Ashton Smith won the Corwainer Smith Rediscovery Award honoring an author worthy of being rediscovered by today's readers.

I went to readings by Nicola Griffith, the guest of honor and John Crowley, which were good.

I have to say Readercon looks very good. For sci-fi I don't know anything equivalent in Belgium. Sometimes individual authors come and do a book reading or are interviewed - Margaret Atwood and Michel Faber spring to mind but nothing on the same scale. Overall though Belgium is very good at promoting literature and there are many events throughout the year. I often go as I like to see how the author compares to the book.

I did read Ammonite by Nicola Griffith recently and it was good.

I spent a lot of time in the dealers room on Saturday, something I did in my last incarnation as a convention goer, but I find my tastes and collecting habits have changed drastically in the last 20 years and, I suppose, the books being produced have also changed. In the past my focus was entirely on buying first edition hardcovers of my favorite books. This weekend I spent most of my time at the Wesleyan University Press table. This press started out bringing back into print Samuel R. Delany's fiction and nonfiction work, along with a few other things. In the past few years they've branched out into forgotten classics of early Science Fiction and critical works examining the field.

I bought Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction edited by Mark Bould and China Mieville, Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction edited by Gerry Canavan and Kim Stanley Robinson and Phallos: Enhanced and Revised Edition by Samuel R. Delany. All of these are oversized paperbacks, which is all I bought this weekend. I had Delany sign Phallos, along with a bunch of others of his books I brought with me. He said Phallos was one of his favorites of his own work. I was wishing I had unlimited funds to shop at the Wesleyan booth. I could have easily walked away with another dozen or so books. But a lot of what they produce are essentially textbooks, so they are on the pricey side even with the Readercon 30% discount.

I also bought Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany, a tribute collection of essays and stories, three issues of Clarkesworld, which I was unaware came in a paper edition and Upgraded from Clarkesworld editor Neil Clarke. Upgraded was put together because Neil Clarke had a heart attack at Readercon a couple of years ago. Everyone in the dealer's room came together to keep his booth running as he was rushed to the hospital. Later he was fitted with a defibrillator, making him, in his words, essentially a cyborg editor, so he decided to edit an anthology on cyborgs. He was selling copies for $5 at Readercon as a thank you to the whole community for helping him two years ago. Of course, I had to buy a copy. What an amazing story.

Someone connected with Readercon died and his friends had to clean out his house. A chunk of his library needed to be liquidated, so it was set up in one of the rooms for attendees to take for free. Mostly the condition of the books and pulp magazines was middling to poor, but I did pull a gem from the lot, translated Soviet SF novel, Those Who Survive by Kir Bulychev published by Fossicker Press in Peabody, MA, which, apparently, is not on Goodreads.

Jo wrote: "I have to say Readercon looks very good. For sci-fi I don't know anything equivalent in Belgium. Sometimes individual authors come and do a book reading or are interviewed - Margaret Atwood and Mic..."

Readercon was put together 26 years ago as an alternative to the standard convention involving media beyond books and magazines, filking, costuming. There are no Klingons or Darth Vaders wandering around, no tone deaf singers destroying acoustic guitars and no TV or movie stars. The focus is entirely on books, magazines and reading and discussing written science fiction. It is a lot of peoples' favorite convention.