10/26/00 -- World Fantasy Con, Day 1

A haze of travel and arrival and "Where is my roomie?"

So getting to WFC wasn't going to be the easiest thing on the face of the planet.  Long long ago, in a galaxy far far away, I wasn't going to be traveling for work.  I was going to be in Denver.  No problem.  I'd fly from Denver to Corpus Christi.  I bought my plane tickets.

But all was not as planned when those tickets were purchased.  I was back on the road.  I was in Boise.  And, finding out when I did, I had about a week to try and get plane tickets from Boise to Corpus Christi.  Wasn't going to happen.  $2000 for a round-trip ticket was totally impossible.  No one was going to pay for that.

But I had to be in Boise.  So I flew home last thing last night.  I flew Delta through Salt Lake.  Only the flight I was supposed to take out of Boise was delayed until 7 so they shoved me onto a SouthWest flight to get me to Salt Lake.  Where I got to sit around for a while until my connecting flight.  That was a close call and it turned out to be a good thing that I didn't try and cut my 6:10 flight any closer than I had or I wouldn't've got on that SouthWest flight and I probably wouldn't've made it to WFC today.

So anyway, I get home around 10:30 last night.  I unpack my work stuff.  I pack my fun stuff for WFC.  I crawl into bed at midnight.  My plane leaves at 7am so my alarm goes off at 4:30.  My first thought is, This isn't my hotel room.  The clock looks wrong and so does the room layout.  I was so confused.  I finally realized I was at home.

Boo was nice enough to get me to the airport.  I made it, and realized when I slumped into a chair at the gate that I'd left my camera at home.  Whoops. Too late to do anything about it.  When I got on the plane, I promptly passed out.  I generally don't sleep on planes, but I slept from Denver to Dallas Ft. Worth.  The landing in Dallas was probably the smoothest I've been in in a long time, but as far as airports and flights went, the smooth stopped there.

I discovered in Dallas that I wore the wrong shoes.  I brought my platform boots because they went with my vinyl pants.  They have huge heels.  I thought, How much walking will I possibly have to do in the airport?  More than I expected.  We landed late and I had a tight crunch (I thought) to make my connection to Corpus Christi.  There was a line longer than Montana at their little train station and the trains were really full and no one was getting off so no one could get on.  I walked all the way from the far end of one terminal to the far end of another.  I had huge, screaming blisters on the balls of my feet  before I was halfway there.

And then the plane was delayed.  Actually, they weren't certain the plane was even going to take off.  Oy.  But it did.  Finally.  After much ado.  They got us out on the little bus thing, then there was no crew for the plane.  Then the crew finally got there.  And we got on the plane.  And there was someone from Baen on the plane.  And there were two other women going to the con.  And I promptly passed out on the plane again.  Did I mention I was tired?

So we got to Corpus Christi.  And there was a hotel shuttle.  So we got on there.  And got to the hotel.  Which wasn't ready for people to start checking in.  So I pre-checked in, checked my bags with the hotel, and wandered upstairs to find registration.  Found it.  Checked in for the con and found a chair where I could get off my aching feet and look through my goodie bag.

The first issue of Black Gate was in there.  Gorgeous looking mag.  I had a few issues with the resolution on some of the internal graphics, and on some of the layout, but for a first issue, it didn't look bad at all.

Finally, I could get into the room.  So I grabbed my stuff, went upstairs and changed shoes.  Then I paid bills (the joy of working on the road again) and went down for a panel--The Roots of Fantasy.  My first panel of the con.  After that, I went back up to my room and worked (shhhh, I know I'm supposed to be on vacation, but...).  I hoped Jennfire would arrive soon, though I knew better because she wasn't scheduled to land until around 6pm.  I hoped Paula would arrive soon, too.  And Gavin.  I was hungry.

I had planned to go to panels between the 4pm Roots of Fantasy panel and whenever Jennfire arrived, but I didn't.  I worked.  I know.  Bad f'angle.  And when I had just about given up hope, when I had decided, It's now or never, I need to eat something because I haven't had anything more than a pack of pretzels on the plane., Jennfire arrived!  Wheeee!  I had gone down to give the folks at the front desk my bills to be mailed and she was there, checking in.  All was well.  We went back upstairs, then downstairs to find dinner somewhere.  We wound up eating at this diner-type place.  Then back to the hotel for a panel--something about the undead.

Afterwards, well, afterwards, I'm not sure what happened.  I think we ran into Gavin and Kelly Link.  And I think we saw Derek and Stuart, too.  I can't remember.  I have a lousy memory, sometimes, for conventions and what I've done.  I'll blame it on the lack of sleep.

Anyway, here are some of my thoughts and scribbles from the panels:

Roots of Fantasy

There was a lot of talk about what, specifically, fantasy was.  One of the definitions that got tossed up was something that Chip Delany said once to define fantasy, or maybe he was defining science fiction: Science fiction has not yet happened; fantasy cannot ever happen. I kind of like that definition.  It keeps my writing comfortably in the realm of fantasy.  Well, most of it, at any rate.  So the discussion turned to whether something could be considered fantasy if people believed in it, or if fantasy was only possible with the breaking with consensual reality.  I don't recall if there was ever a consensus about whether fantasy could exist if there wasn't a breaking of consensual reality, or not.

I wound up starting to make a list of books or authors I should probably be reading.  Out of this panel, I came away with: Tim Powers' Anubis Gates, Elizabeth Hand's Waking the Moon, and Black Light.  And then anything by Jonathan Leetham or Judith Tarr.

Day of the Undead: The Evolution of Vampires

I knew it was an undead panel of some sort....

There were a lot of theories thrown out about the evolution of vampires.  One panelist even suggested that perhaps the vampires aren't evolving, but we are, or, rather that they're changing because we are.  People are growing up with different ideas of what vampires are these days with Buffy and Angel and even Anne Rice's vampire novels.  Vampires aren't monsters anymore.  They're sexy, they're fun, they're different.  People are exploring the life of the vampire, what things are like for vampires, and doing that makes them more human, less monstrous.

Vampires used to be very mysterious.  There was no figuring them out, they just were. They were a force of nature.  Exploring vampires, delving deep into what they are and learning about their un-lives starts to lose that simple, chilling power of the vampire.  They're not that different from us once we start looking deeper.

So, having talked about what makes vampires frightening, where they started (the disgusting nosferatu, Stoker's Dracula), where they went (Buffy, Angel, Anne Rice's vampires), what they might or might not be (a metaphor for what men fear about women's sexuality), the question left was: What is the further evolution of the vampire?  Is there one?  What comes next?

I think that's going to be left as an exercise for the writers to figure out.  And to give to the readers who want to know.