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September 09, 2004

WorldCon Report

The World Science Fiction Convention (short form: WorldCon) is a large (around 6000 this time), moving around the country and world, all volunteer convention bringing together those interested in Speculative Fiction and related areas (movies, anime, filking, etc...) annually. This year it came to Boston for the first time in 15 years as Noreascon 4 (Noreascon 3 was the previous one in Boston in 1989) and so I went for basically the whole thing (began noon Thursday and went through Monday). This report is going to be pretty long despite the fact that I am going to be very brief and focus on the highlights. To start off with, I really, really enjoyed the whole experience and am actually going to consider going to ones outside the area although at those I wouldn't know nearly as many people and that would make the experience considerably less enjoyable. I will probably also go to Arisia next year for the first time as it doesn't conflict then (as it usually does) with the MIT Mystery Hunt.

Highlights for me included the George RR Martin reading from A Feast for Crows and very interesting discussion afterwards on why this book is taking him so long to write, fully interesting and believable enough for me to forgive him for at least a while longer on not getting this book out, the book I am without question most eagerly anticipating. I think this series is probably for me the best Fantasy series since Earthsea 35 years ago. Martin was also kind enough to sign my copy of A Game of Thrones afterwards, sparing me the long autographing lines which I just don't have the patience for. The Neil Gaiman reading from Anansi Boys and Terry Pratchett reading from Going Postal (both forthcoming) were also excellent.

Another highlight which I am not going to try to describe the task and vehicles/devices for was Junkyard Wars where teams had 90 minutes to construct from a bunch of junk (but lots of tools to manipulate it) a device to complete a given task. A bunch of the devices were absolutely great but the device which took a very close second was absolutely brilliant and amazing they could design and build in so little time. Thanks, Mark, for pointing this item out to me as I think I would have completely missed it otherwise.

The evening programs were generally pretty well done although with some significant delays and audio problems (which the smaller panels and thinks didn't have at all and went almost entirely like clockwork) and the best of them were the Hugos (with Gaiman doing a great job MCing and Robert Silverberg giving a great retrospective on the past 50 Hugo ceremonies, all of which he's been to) and the Masquerade which had some beautiful costumes but went way too slowly and then the judging took absolutely forever, despite giving awards to almost every single entry. I also was not a fan of the MC who seemed to constantly want to fight with the audience. I was particularly impressed with the Discworld entires A Pale Rider (particularly the wonderful remote controlled Luggage briliantly driven by Rincewind) and Not the Usual Unusual but missed seeing due to taking a soda break the Best in Show winner Arctic Circle. Blight in the Novice division was also excellent. Still, the whole program inculding the judging ended up lasting 5 hours which was ridiculous although Charles Ross's one-man halftime show presenting the entire original Star Wars Trilogy in 45 minutes was a tour-de-force but it occurred so late I could only manage to keep myself sitting still for half of it. The only good thing about the length was that I managed to chat a couple of times with Terry Pratchett and get him to sign my (just bought second) copy of Good Omens. Unfortunately, that means I now really need Neil to sign it also and didn't manage that here. A young woman in the costume contest with a Discworld entry (Death's granddaughter Susan Sto Helit) also got her picture taken with Terry and the Death of Rats miniature he was given which I imagine was one of the highlights of her entire life and was really sweet to witness. I didn't find the Retro Hugos or the Opening Ceremonies all that interesting other than the amusing Pratchett interviews Weston segment.

The one Hugo I was of course disgusted by (although totally expecting) was Return of the King winning Best Dramatic Presentation. I went to three Tolkien themed panels, two of which (both of which had bloggers Jo Walton and Patrick Neilsen Hayden on them) on Tolkien's Techniques and the Theme of Loss in Tolkien I tthought were quite interesting and generally excellent. Both focused entirely on the books and refused to even here mention of the movies. The third, on the book-movies relationship, I knew I would probably not like but felt obligated to go to. However, when I discovered that the entire panel absolutely loved the movies, I left the panel after 15 minutes to avoid either screaming in pain or getting into a fight with probably almost the entire room which I just wasn't up for and would serve no purpose. I still just can't understand how people can forgive the massive problems these movies have but I guess things will stay that way.

Other interesting panels I went to were on the amazing anime of Hayao Miyazaki , Must-See (SF) TV and Movies, The Art of Screen Writing: Big and Small (nicely moderated by George RR Martin), The World Map of 2100 - What Does It Look Like? (with very interesting demographics and commentary by panelist and author S.M. Sterling), a panel on the Simpsons, a panel on The Character of Death and a very funny panel (almost entirely due to the outspoken and Devil's Advocate comments of panelist Rick Berry) on SF cover art portraits. Berry was advocating completely ignoring the author's character descriptions in his art but amusingly an author stood up to thank him for the accuracy of his cover painting for her book. Finally, I went to a couple of Cory Doctory (of BoingBoing fame) panels on privacy and other issues and a bunch of other panels for brief periods or longer.

The Dealer's Room was pretty good but there wasn't really much of anything I really wanted surprisingly and I basically didn't buy a thing. I looked over the Tshirts particuarly a lot and there were a ton with Dragons on them but none that I really loved. One thing I was blown away by was the cost of signed first editions of quite modern books including a $1500 copy of Snow Crash and $250 copy of A Game of Thrones (just like the one I had had Martin sign for me) - I was just astounded by these prices. The Art Show was also very good but generally prices were just way high. I did buy one cute print of two kittens with wings (a SF concept I have always loved) which I ended up giving to my Mom due to their similar look to her cats. The other thing I seriously considered was a Margaret Organ-Kean piece entitled "Redmond Ho!" showing three penguins girded out in battle gear (bow, pole axe and spear I believe) and in marching formation. I thought the piece was beautiful and given the theme it would have been perfect to hang at work but although I was willing to pay $200 for it when bids got to $400 I decided it was just too much for me but I somewhat regreat this.

The other thing worth mentioning is the room parties every evening, of which there were ten or so representing convention location bids, SF groups and other random interest groups. The ones I enjoyed most were Xerps in 2010 (fake bid party - great tightly integrated theme and decorations), Boxboro (old Mass group regrouping - excellent Death theme and themed deserts), George RR Martin fans (excellent drinks) and the final party we went to Sunday night for Norwescon (excellent food including chocolate fondue and a full bar which they had us take a bunch of away as this was the last night and then they were returning to Seattle - thanks!).

A final thanks to all the people I hung out and/or chatted with for various periods including Mark, Julia, Cally, Andy, MarkK, Bill, Paul, David (whose Guitar Circle performance was really interesting and wonderful), Heidi, Ricardo & Kate, and a bunch of others I am sure I am forgetting.

Posted by aarondf at September 9, 2004 11:28 AM

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Posted by: Em at September 12, 2004 08:17 PM

Posted by: Serg at June 8, 2006 10:19 AM

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