Category Archives: fantasy and science fiction

Looking back at the 1969 Worldcon

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Seeing Larry Niven at Windycon 51 reminded me that back in 1969 I went to the World Science Fiction Convention for that year, St. Louiscon. It was my first Worldcon and only my second SF con. I went with friends from the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club, which I had discovered the year before. Some of us put together a costume presentation for the masquerade, in which we won the prize for best group costume. For this effort we dressed up as characters from Randall Garrett’s novel Too Many Magicians. The novel does not say much about how the characters were dressed, so someone in our group (I am sorry to say I have forgotten who) suggested an 18th century look and help us pull it off.

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A note about Otis Adelbert Kline

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Long ago, perhaps before high school (1964-1968) I read a novel by Otis Adelbert Kline. It was set on Mars, a Mars similar to that of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Barsoom). The villain was Sarkis the Torturer and there was a particular scene that stuck in my mind over all the intervening decades. I recently tracked it down. The novel was The Outlaws of Mars. From Chapter XII:

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Chicagoland: Capricon 45 and St. Luke’s

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Mia and I enjoyed Capricon 45. It was held at the Sheraton Grand Chicago, February 1-4, as it was when we attended last year and three years ago. As on those occasions, we were very happy to be at a con in downtown Chicago again, with an almost infinite supply of places to eat and drink in walking distance of the hotel. As in previous years, some of our Chicagoland fannish friends did not attend, but others did, and we enjoyed seeing them again.

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Mainstream Geekery

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Notes from a panel at Capricon 45, Chicago, Feb. 8, 2024. Any mistakes are mine. The panelists are not responsible for any errors here.

Shaun Duke (moderator), Alia Federow, Janice Gelb, Sarah Hawkins, Will Saddler

Once up on a time, it was a sad and lonely thing to be a geek. Science fiction conventions were started to enable people who might have been considered nerdy outcasts to find each other. But guess what—we won! Science fiction now dominates mainstream media and being a fan, geek, or dork is cool. How has this changed the idea of a geek, and how has this impacted people who otherwise might have fit the mold? Is this change for the better? Where do you see mainstream Geekery winding up?

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The Folklore of Fandom

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Notes from a panel at Capricon 45, Chicago, Feb. 8, 2024. Any mistakes are mine. The panelists are not responsible for any errors here. I have added a few comments from my own experiences in fandom to this post.

Jeana Jorgensen (moderator), Megen Leigh, Victor Raymond, Wendy Robb

Our panel of fans and academics discuss all the ways in which sci-fi fandom has its own folklore: slang, customs, rituals, stories, material culture (costumes/attire, badge ribbons, etc.), and how these forms of folklore connect back to group identity.

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Automatons, Robots, and Other Humanoid Creations

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Notes from a panel at Capricon 45, Chicago, Feb. 7, 2024. Any mistakes are mine. The panelists are not responsible for any errors here.

Brian U. Garrison, Micaiah Johnson, Ada Palmer (moderator)

In the arc of human invention, automatons predate paper. That means before we thought “sure would be nice to write things in a convenient and portable manner” we thought “sure would be nice to have an inhuman creation in our shape that moves.” Why have automatons been with us so long, in reality and in fiction, and what roles and purposes do they fulfill in writing and culture and philosophy?

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Windycon 2024

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My wife Mia and I spend the weekend of November 8-10 in Chicagoland at Windycon, a science fiction convention that we have frequently attended since the 1970s, and which we went to last year. This was Windycon 50. I went to Windycon 3 back in 1976, and Mia and I both went to Windycon 5 in 1978.

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China, Russia, and science fiction

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Last month I read Ukraine Update June 14, which begins:

Russia has de-dollarized, and the yuan will now be the main trading currency for Russian citizens. China’s takeover is nearing completion.

This remined me of Robert Heinlein’s novel Sixth Column (originally serialized in 1941, first published in book form in 1949). Continue reading →

Fletcher Pratt

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Somehow Facebook led me to a gaming website to show me Adventures in Fiction: Fletcher Pratt. In fact I was interested. I have read and enjoyed several of his books. In the fantasy genre these include the Harold Shea stories, co-authored with L. Sprague deCamp and the more serious novels The Blue Star and The Well of Unicorn.

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