*Balloon Boy Not Included

There has seemed in the past to be some tension between two philosophies, if you will, with costumes at World Fantasy. One: costumes are highly unprofessional at a highly professional con, and are to be strongly discouraged. The other: It’s Halloween, damn it, and there’s such a thing as bending over backwards in order to seem proper. The latter view (thankfully, in my view) was on display enough last night to show perhaps a bit of a sea change. Some great costumes last night! I, myself, went as a demented rodeo-hand, perhaps as an extra from Desperation that only made it to the cutting room floor. Or something like that.

There were also parties with magnificent balloon cakes!

Alas, today, my departure will be a little bit early. The last flight for my particular airline out of San Jose today is at freaking noon, which is kind of ridiculous for the Largest Airline in the World, but whatever. I will be missing the banquet and the awards ceremony. But heading home I’ll be, well, likely crashed out and asleep–BUT filled with many great memories of friends old and new. If you were at the con (or not!), feel free to keep in touch (or introduce yourself!); my blog is Goblin Mercantile Exchange and I tweet at adeniro. My novel, Total Oblivion, More or Less, is also coming out in a few weeks from Spectra, so if you are interested in your tale of “Scythians invade the Midwest + teenage angst,” do check that out.

Now I am going to attempt the reverse Jenga to fit all the books in our suitcases…

That giant bag o’ books, however is just the beginning. World Fantasy has one of the highest “bang for your buck” dealers’ rooms out there. Lots of high quality books of every stripe. And indeed, the question becomes one of a spatial issue, especially if one is flying home (there is a makeshift post office set up not far from the dealers’ room for this very purpose, to ship the books back to one’s home). Since Kristin and I arrived in San Jose with literally a suitcase of our own press’s new book (Under in the Mere, by Cat Valente), we are hoping those sell…briskly, to allow us room to bring home more of other people’s books.

Some nice finds: Vampire City by Paul Feval and “adapted” by Brian Stableford, a lovely, tenebrous volume that was only $10. (Of course, the dealers’ room has books in the rarified air for collectors, which one might need a large bank loan to properly finance.) The Night Shade Books table also had some superb new titles, such as Paolo Bacigalupi’s Pump Six and The Windup Girl (he happened to be sitting at the table and happily signed the books for us). I’m sure we will make a last surge of picking up a few more strategically picked books either later tonight or tomorrow morning.

One question that I’ve wondered about: as the field moves in more of a digital textual direction–as e-books gain more of a foothold–what does that hold for the convention dealers’ room? I’m sure that’s inextricably tied to questions about bookselling in general in the next ten to fifteen years or so. And yet, a dealers’ room such as this is the nexus for the book as physical object. Perhaps the focus will grow even larger on the specialty and collector side of things. Will more digitally oriented displays and purchase options be in the future? It’s hard to say, but certainly, despite the changes that will almost certainly be forthcoming, an event like World Fantasy gives one knowledge–which is better than hope–that the field is vibrant and thriving, and the texts will find their way to avid readers no matter what the circumstances.

Bobbing Birds!

You can see, at the party last night, the interrelationship between the actual birds and the one on the cover. These were the prizes given for the Last Drink Bird Head Awards.

behold...

Here, Neil Clarke, who happened to be holding the final award, ready to give it to the winner, turned out to actually be the winner! A nice moment.

Here is the scene from the Zoran Živković reading. A great story about meeting God on a train. Existential hijinks ensue.

Zoran was also a participant in the translation panel–the consensus seems to be that, although the situation is woeful with books being translated into English, with wide swaths of practically entire fields never making it to American shores, the situation is slowly but surely changing for the better. The Internet’s potential to bring readers from different cultures together cannot be underestimated. The manga market, and its attendant spillover into a demand for fiction, is an excellent example of a potential global template for finding new audiences for speculative fiction.

Then, the “limits of violence” panel that I happened to be on. A good panel with many different viewpoints: how real-life experiences with violence can shape fiction-writing, how setting and culture can affect the “triggers” that lead a character to violence, and many more interesting strands of conversation.

Later tonight is the Night Shade Books party, the Locus party, and who knows what else. We shall see what occurs!

Anyway, that’s a roundabout way to say that those very types of questions come up a fair amount for me at any type of gathering such as this. Note: these cons, especially ones with a more professional bent like World Fantasy, are expensive. They involve time, travel, and money. So breaking it down into its essence, why do events like this occur/get off the ground in the first place?

First, there is obviously a built-in, sustained network from a community that is bolstered through previous real-life and online interactions. The latter are becoming increasingly important from blogs, discussion boards, tweets, and the like. This network finds its real-life (albeit occasional) expression in real-life loci such as this.

Secondly, let’s talk about the content itself:  literature of the fantastic, as expressed in its broadest terms. The content bleeds into the network of friends and peers through the physical (or virtual) artifacts of text: books, magazines, etc., etc. These are the units of currency that bring people together and spark conversations about said content. At my first few cons, even the absence of having anything published functioned as a sort of presence, and provided its own (sometimes terrifying!) context with interactions. Even now, I sometimes have trouble talking about upcoming projects or publications with any type of specificity or regularity. (Yes, I have a novel coming out–see? I had to insert this in at the last minute.)

Lastly, a con like this has “official” functions; namely, awards to give out, which is, at its root, a chance for the community to tell a shared story of what they valued throughout the previous year. Obviously that can be very idiosyncratic and subject to taste (and illuminating to examine that taste), but the awards provide their own bonds, and allow people to feel the shared accomplishment of the field. One of the finest, more localized examples of this was the Last Drink Bird Head awards presented by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer. Very poignant–and very fun. (Hopefully there will be some pictures of this tomorrow to upload.)

Anyway, I know I’m reeeeeally breaking this down into some elemental units, which may or may not be useful. We fly in, we fly out, we hang out in over-expensive hotel bars and then go to boisterous receptions and parties. We read to others and have others read to us. We buy books and are given books. We talk. We gather in (large) groups to find dinner somewhere. All of these same things could be done, say, at a tech convention, a scrapbooking convention, whatever. As writers and editors getting together, though, there is a chance to find a communal energy, and find what draws us together, build upon it–and make sure all the while that we don’t get walled away from the outside world. This is crucial, and can be very difficult. The trick is to find new ideas from people outside one’s comfort zone, from new cultures, and allow those people to participate in the shared experiences listed above. Without that, there is an increasing chance of moribund decay.

Thankfully, I think the sf/f field has gone about and made those changes, has broken down those walls, and felt less tension and threat from imaginary enemies from people in other fields, who are presumably going to other cons (though they don’t call them cons, of course). I thought the discussions here at SF Signal about “mainstream acceptance” were for the most part insightful, and even the ones I disagreed with I could see where they were coming from. One passage, however…well…let’s quote part of it here:

I get the feeling that what you’re asking is “does literary sf/f have literary respect?” The answer to that, of course, is no. We don’t win those awards, we don’t appear in those magazines, we don’t get filed on those shelves. And that’s okay, because we have our own awards and shelves and magazines. There are a lot of voices calling for sf/f to get the recognition it deserves, but I think that’s wasted breath. We’re trying harder and harder to get recognized and admitted to a club that just keeps getting smaller and duller and less important. What we need to understand is that sf/f is the seat of innovation, modern creativity and true cultural relevance. Of course the literary establishment is borrowing from our toolbox. It’s the best toolbox there is, and they’re welcome to borrow it. It’s kind of amusing to watch them treat time travel, or the apocalypse, or whatever else as a shiny new plot device. They probably won’t hurt themselves.

Well. Aside from the pure factual inaccuracies (we do appear in those magazines, and on those shelves–honest! One would be surprised if one bothers to look), what really struck me as demonstrably corrosive is the assumption that people who write differently than oneself have the worst intentions at heart–as if those who don’t dwell in the genre, saddled with inferiority complexes they hardly know exist, are all, in their totality and by definition, unimaginative scavengers trawling the genre for Shiny Bits, because they know we’re the bestest. We have everything; they have nothing. Having these assumptions is no way to let the field live, breathe, and grow. This is pretty much the definition of that wall I talked about earlier, and it’s the very definition of the insecure stagnation (especially the railing against an imaginary “literary establishment”) that would mean the death of any field of artistic endeavour.

The generosity and the communal spirit of most of the genre, however, belies any walls that might be thrown up, and does a good job at breaking them down. It’s not always easy, or linear, but it does happen, and the field is stronger for it. So that’s what I’m reminded of the most here at the beginning of World Fantasy–it’s not the whole kit and kaboodle. It’s part of an exciting continuum. And now, once, more, I really, really need to get to bed.

About me: I write, well, a little bit of everything, but mostly what could be loosely classified as science fiction and fantasy. My first novel is coming out from Spectra in about 3 weeks, entitled Total Oblivion, More or Less (Jay talks a little bit about it here). I’ve also had a few other pieces reprinted in these fine pages.

Also, with my wife (Kristin Livdahl) and Chris Barzak, I’m one of the co-editors of Rabid Transit Press, and at World Fantasy we’ll be debuting Cat Valente’s Arthurian novella “Under in the Mere,” with cover and interior illustrations by James and Jeremy Owen. So obviously that will be an interesting experience on both fronts; aside from the usual panel reports (of which there will be at least one, because I’m on one!), I’m going to talk a bit about the ground-level view of a con like World Fantasy–what it’s like when one has an imminent book, what seems to be drawing people’s attention in terms of trends (or non-trends) in fantasy, and what, if anything, can be gleaned about the state of fantastic literature in 2009 from such a gathering.

If you’re at the con feel free to say hi; otherwise if there’s anything you’d like to hear about or want followed up on at the con if you’re not able to make it, drop a note here. I’ll do my best as the people’s correspondent. (Oh, and I have something to say about this discussion, which I’ll try to wend into the con report itself somehow, but it’s 1 a.m. here, and sleep is calling.)