World Fantasy Convention

I'm getting back on my feet now after having been sick all week, so I thought I'd better write a little about the World Fantasy Convention before I forget everything that happened there.

First of all, this photo is from the Nineteenth Century Heroes panel moderated by Bill Crider, which turned out to be one of the best panels I've attended at any convention. From left to right, Scott Cupp, Bill Crider, Jess Nevins, and Barbara Kesel.

Now, to back up to last Thursday, most of which was taken up by the drive down to Austin. I arrived in mid-afternoon, checked in to the hotel and at the convention registration counter, then wandered through the dealer's room for a while and said hello to people. Evidently the art show was moved into the dealer's room at the last minute (I don't know the story on this, just going by comments I overheard) and the result was a more crowded room than usual. The highlight of the day was the CROSS PLAINS UNIVERSE party that evening at Rudy's Barbecue, my favorite place to eat in Austin. The food was great and so was the company. I have a few pictures from that evening that I'll get posted in the next day or two.

Friday I attended the excellent Guest of Honor interview of Glenn Lord conducted by Paul Herman. Glenn is so friendly you tend to forget that he's a living legend. I went to one panel about barbarians in fiction that was pretty interesting. Friday was also the day the members of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers who were at the convention got together. Bob Vardeman was already an old friend of mine, and I got to meet Jeff Mariotte, Nancy Holder, Tim Waggoner, and Alice Henderson. I've read and enjoyed books by all of them except Alice, and I intend to read something by her soon. That night was the mass autographing, where I signed copies of CROSS PLAINS UNIVERSE one after another for nearly two hours. Between that and the NOAH'S RIDE signings, I think I've autographed more books in the past few weeks than in all the rest of my career put together. Later that evening I stopped in briefly at the launch party for BLOOD AND THUNDER, Mark Finn's new biography of Robert E. Howard, but I was too tired to stay for very long.

Saturday I attended the CROSS PLAINS UNIVERSE reading, which consisted of Michael Moorcock, Jessica Reisman, Lillian Stewart Carl, and Lawrence Person reading excerpts from their stories. The selections were all excellent and really made me want to read the rest of the book. The panel I was on also took place on Saturday. The subject was "Deconstructing Howard", and while I think it was a good panel and I didn't make a fool of myself, there were at least a dozen people in the audience who were more qualified to be up there than I was.

I didn't attend the awards banquet Saturday night but heard a lot about it later, most of it well-deserved anger for the failure of the judges to give the Lifetime Achievement Award to Glenn Lord. That was a terrible lapse of judgment.

Sunday I packed up, checked out of the hotel, attended Bill's panel, did a last pass through the dealer's room, then headed out for home, taking with me a cold virus and a lot of good memories, most of which revolve around seeing old friends and spending hours just sitting and talking with Bill and Joe Lansdale and Scott Cupp and Bob Wayne. Even though I was worn out, I hated to see the convention end.

I didn't buy much in the dealer's room: Mark's BLOOD AND THUNDER and several of Joe's books that I didn't have, plus one of his daughter Kasey's CDs, which I'll be writing about here once I've had a chance to listen to it all the way through. What I've heard so far is great.