by Robert Lopresti
Two
weeks ago my family cruised across Washington state to Spokane to
attend Sasquan, the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention. It was
quite an experience, not least because it was the first such con to
be held in the middle of a
federal declared natural disaster. On the way out through what
has never been more accurately described as the Dryside of the
Evergreen State we were listening to NPR. The announcer came on
and, quite out of the usual calm public radio persona, announced "The towns
of Winthrop and Twisp are being evacuated. If you are in Winthrop
or Twisp head south immediately." We were already one hundred
miles south. That was the day three brave firefighters died.
The
night before this I realized that I was coming down with a cold so, hoping
to spare my car-mates my germs, I picked up a box of paper masks like
the one above. Little did I know that I had scored the most
popular fashion accessory in Spokane that weekend. All the members of
my group were wearing them and people were asking where they been
acquired because the city was sold out.
This is what the view from the Conference Center is supposed to look like:
And here is how it looked on Thursday afternoon just after I left a panel on climate change:
My first thought was, jeez, the panel was convincing enough without the visual aid.
But
this is supposed to
be a blog about crime fiction, so I want to concentrate on the
difference between the mystery fan world and the science fiction
fandom, which is larger and has been around longer. You will
notice that some of these differences relate to each other (especially to the first)..
* The median age at a Worldcon is much younger than at Bouchercon.
*
There is much less emphasis on books. I would estimate that
at last year's B-con seventy percent of the energy (panels, special
events, etc.) went into fiction with ten percent going to true crime
including forensics), the same amount to media (film and TV), and ten
percent to other. At Worldcon I would estimate forty percent was
about fiction. The rest was scattered among real science, media,
gaming, art, costuming, etc.
* Speaking of costuming… At B-con you will
see a few trenchcoats and fedoras, some deerstalker hats, and
occasionally a woman dressed for tea in St. Mary Mead. But at
any given moment at Worldcon at least twenty percent of the crowd was
in costumes ranging from full Boba Fett armor to fairy princess
complete with wings to a simple set of wolf ears poking out of one's
hair.
* Free food is much more plentiful at Worldcon. In
orbit around the main hospitality suite were rooms for
gluten-free/vegan, nutfree, kosher, and simply overflow (That's where
the hot dogs were turning on rollers.)
* They have tech problems just like us! I walked out on one panel because there were no microphones and I couldn't hear a thing.
* The swag bags are much
better at B-con. There you expect to find free magazines and half
a dozen books you can swap at the multiplying freebies tables.
Nothing like that at Worldcon.
* A few times a year (like
B-con and Edgars Week) the mystery writers and readers turn into a
community. But science fiction fandom is a culture,
all year round. There were actually workshops on the history of
fandom, to help newbies get on board, and separate discussions of what
should be collected now so that fen (SF people like their deliberate
alien-y misspellings) in the future will have a record of fandom
in the dim distant past of 2015.
And speaking of culture, every family has its feuds and this year a big one broke out. Next time I will talk about that, and some of the panels as well.