I’m back home, with not a little bit of convention adventure under my belt.
Bottom line: the event appears to have been a success on many levels: this was probably the last convention I’ll be able to attend in person: we did celebrate Amazing’s 100th: it was not the celebration that I wanted it to be (my fault): Golden Tickets do not need to be redeemed UNTIL we announce the publication of the special; 100th anniversary edition (and I think its wonderful that they were so well received by attendees. Their eagerness to redeem those tickets gives me hope.) (The email address for redemption is Goldenticket@amazingstories.com – assuming I got it right this time.)
***
Before getting into the meat of the matter, I feel an obligation to explain “reality distortion fields”. It’s a term that was created to describe the reality of my life – which seems to be textbook Murphy’s Law, with a large side order of “Gee, I’ve never seen that happen before” thrown in.
Another way that I have described it in the past is “living on the left side of the probability bell curve”. I’ll share one real-world fairly recent example by way of illustration:
This “new” version of Amazing Stories’ first actual publication was a comic scripted by David Gerrold titled “A Doctor For the Enterprise“. It was to be a signed and numbered special edition limited to 500 copies. A good promotional buildup was completely sabotaged by: the artist getting seriously ill; one of five presses (the one our job was running on) getting taken out by a lightning strike; the shipment of comics to the artist for signing getting trapped and delayed in a snowstorm; the shipment of comics for signing by the author getting delayed in the Rockies by a snowstorm.
All accompanied by transparency and explanations to the steadily diminishing potential audience.
My wife, Karen, was, for a long time, witness to the fact that such “hiccups” were not from lack of appropriate planning, nor bad research or any of the other possibilities suggesting failure on my part. (There have been times when I have been lazy, or disinterested, or uncaring or just plain incompetent, but I own up to those. They’re not what I’m talking about here.) Another indicator may be that of the three greatest loves of my life, two are dead including my wife and the other was nearly so, owing to being a little too close to a major terrorist incident.
I’m not suggesting that the universe has got it in for me, or that karma is a bitch and I must have done something horrific in a past life (I don’t believe at all in the supernatural – nothing we experience can be from outside of nature: if it happens, its part of the world although possibly lacking in explanation) but I have had to learn to live as if Job had a sidekick and the sidekick is me (a sidekick with no daughters).
I had much bigger plans for the SF100 celebration at Ravencon this past weekend and the fact that they didn’t happen was entirely my fault.
Most of you are probably unaware of much of what was planned and so didn’t miss something you were expecting – but some of you were and my apologies for not delivering, and my apologies to all of you who attended who did not get to experience the intentions.
A good portion of it was owing to illness – both my own diagnosis of severe COPD (which, I guess, kinda happens when you’ve been smoking since sixth grade) and my mother’s continuing issues as she reached 93 years of age and now continues on towards 94 – as well as my failure to realize how much I was being affected by illness.
I am STILL learning that things – everything – will take more time than when I was relatively healthy (more time walking from place to place among many other things taking more time); that I can no longer handle many physical tasks (like carrying boxes of books or magazines from home to car and from car to dealer’s room – and back again). And pretty much everything else because when you can’t clear your lungs of CO2, it exhausts you, and that makes all other work – even sitting at the keyboard and typing – more difficult, less attractive and less inspiring.
Just one example: I had intended to bring a magazine display with me. I rented a car and, on the day of pickup and departure (a day when my brother visited specifically for the task of helping me load the rental for my trip) I was denied the rental because I only had a ‘debit card’ – despite having rented from the same company (and the same dealership) numerous times in the past with the same card. I was not aware, nor informed when I reserved and paid a deposit with that same debit card, that their previous policies of acceptance (which included putting the entire rental fee on hold at my bank) had been “refined”. My bad.
So I had to take my own car which was not large enough to fit the display.
The drive is about twelve and a half hours. After my brother helped me load the car (excuse: after my brother loaded the car while I watched) I left the following morning (Wed) and got in a full eight and a half hours of driving, stopping in a hotel in Lumberton, NC overnight. Kermit pointed out that Lumberton is the town where the film Blue Velvet is supposed to have taken place. Not that I looked around all that much but there was no sign of Dennis Hopper anywhere. More’s the pity.
I arrived in Richmond at the lovely Virginia Crossings and Convention Center well before set-up was allowed to begin. In fact, I was one of the first people there for the con (yay me?).
Once things got going we found Mike and asked him for some bodies to help – Kermit’s got his own issues and could not pick up my slack on the physicality stuff. Mike corralled one of his volunteers (who’s name now escapes me – sorry. I asked this tall, gangly Zoomer about his painted nails as I was generally curious about the cultural penetration of such things and got a short “I did them myself” answer which did not obviously answer the question but, not being familiar with Gen Z makeup and other appearance protocols, maybe not talking about your nails is itself a thing – what do I know? Apparently nothing and it looks like its going to stay that way. Anyway, I also offered this fine young individual the opportunity to stop by our booth when set up and pick up any of our publications he was interested in by way of compensation (we’d have given him run of the table if he was interested), but so far as I am aware, he never showed. So, dude (I’m presuming he/him as I believe is appropriate) with the black-painted nails – THANK YOU AGAIN and, if you ever want one of our publications, just remind me of who you are.
Once we had everything at our table (I believed we’d gotten two, but apparently not – we got compliments for how efficiently we were using our small space – see pics for verification) Kermit and I were able to sort everything and began setting up.
We placed an ENORMOUS number of issues of the magazine and comics on the freebie table. Apparently left-0vers are magically transported to similar tables at other regional conventions (a great idea if others are not already doing similar) so I expect folks in the mid-Atlantic region of the US are in for something of an Amazing Stories flood…at least on their freebie tables. Again, I did not obtain names so, thank you to unidentified individual(s) N+1 through N+∞.
Our next door neighbor didn’t seem to be showing, so I asked Mike if we could buy that table too, but, no. On the other hand, he was going to move the convention’s Artist GoH – Ruth Sanderson – there. Ruth just so happens to be the artist who has created the cover for the up-coming 100th Anniversary issue of the magazine (see below) titled “Future Fan”), so that was ok. I joke. It was WAY COOL!.
Ruth really captured one of the “spirits” of Amazing Stories. If you go back and read some of the many autobiographies and biographies of many of our founding fans, authors and artists, you’ll find that their interest in things SFnal was initially inspired when they picked up a copy of Amazing Stories (and in some cases Science Wonder – but those folks got better quickly and also found their way to Amazing Stories).
I was late for my first panel because I needed to stop along the way to catch my breath more times than I’d originally estimated (sure, use the elevator instead of the stairs – except when the walk to and from the elevator requires more effort than tackling the stairs. Neither choice is optimal and neither choice is anywhere near the equivalent of “just walking” somewhere like you’re used to doing).
That first panel turned out to be a surprise – thanks to Ravencon, Rebecca Gibson, Sean CW Korsgaard and of course the chair, Michael Pederson – but mostly because I’d not had a chance to read the program guide and descriptions, having only obtained my “assignment” times. I was not aware that there was going to be cake. There was a very nice and, according to others, quite tasty sheet cake with the SF100 logo on it. It looked great!
I also received what is the closest I’ve ever come to a standing ovation at the end of the panel – “thank you”s for preserving the magazine/keeping it alive. THANK YOI ALL for your various levels of support over the years. We keep trying.
***Personal health issues…family issues…..more personal health issues exacerbated by family issues….more family issues exacerbated by health issues…Extreme Reality Distortion Forecast for the Next Several Weeks (don’t bother to take precautions, they’ll get distorted too)****
And now its two weeks later than I intended to get this piece finished and, naturally, memory is not as fresh as it otherwise would have been.
Such is life living within a distortion field.
Anyway.
That first panel was actually not the first panel I attended. The first was the David Brin AMA. David had originally been scheduled to be the author GoH for the convention (arranged by me) but, owing to various issues beyond anyone’s control, was unable to make the flight (distortion field, anyone?) and so he agreed to do a virtual AMA. I’m glad I went because David is a friend and because it gave me an opportunity to break the ice on asking questions.
What was that opening question? I’ve not a clue. However, it was nice to have David publicly acknowledge my presence and give Amazing Stories a boost. I do remember a fair amount of discussion of “Uplift”; commentary on both Kevin Costner the actor and Kevin Costner the director (The Postman); several instances in which David was visibly passionate and then curtailed himself over issues beginning to edge into mundane politics. His restraint was admirable.
The next panel was the birthday cake panel. 100 YEARS OF SCIENCE FICTION: AMAZING STORIES TURNS 100! WITH CAKE! with me Rebecca Gibson (M), Sean CW Korsgaard, Kermit Woodall (Kermit was unable to attend). Both Rebecca and Sean helped carry me through this panel and, again, memory no longer serves to bring up specific topics or discussion, but I’m pretty sure it involved things like where Amazing is at today (doing well, publishing a growing line of books, getting ready to resume regular quarterly publication of the magazine), where it was and where it might be going in future.
My final panel on Sunday was THE FUTURE OF WORK: AUTOMATION, AI, AND UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME with Andrew Caballero and L. Ana Ellis, both of whom have experience with government work (as do I in a small way). The panel mostly focused on two things – the infiltration of AI into the workplace and how it will affect the workforce and on the impact that the fact that corporations often act like idiots may have on that infiltration.
The most common expression I used throughout the panel was “I’m going to be the Debbie-Downer here”. I offered up my half-believed theory that Super Intelligent, self-aware AI is already here and biding its time to acquire the resources and capabilities it needs to assure its future dominance; I shared some stories of corporate stupidities from my days at AT&T and Bell Labs and essentially took the position that worrying about the future of work was moot because in one manner or another, that subject won’t be part of our future concerns.
What do I really believe? I think we’re either on or have just crossed the threshold of AGI (and that the time frame from AGI to SGI will be negligible) at least in the lab. I think we’ve got absolutely no idea of how that’s going to turn out. I also think that corporate America/world is absolutely not planning for it in any meaningful, effective way.
We all did agree that “artisans” will continue to find economic relevance, but I do think that I also made a strong case for the fact that the general “ignorance” of the “audience” will make it much easier for AI “art” to displace human-derived content. (Most of the audience, at least for film and TV are incapable of distinguishing good art from bad, which means that a source that can provide more content, faster and with greater “customization” will prevail in the marketplace. Sturgeon’s Law will have to shift by at least one order of magnitude- but it won’t really matter because when you’re wading through a sea of shit, whether its warm or cold, chunky or smooth, its all still shit.
Anyway. We all got told that the panel was “very good”, and that’s the goal.
Beyond that – so far as travel goes, I’m definitely done with flying. If I hadn’t had to transport heavy boxes of books and display materials, the drive would have been easy. I can apparently do at least ten hours behind the wheel with little to no discomfort. I gave serious thought to driving for 12 the first day, but decided that I didn’t want to get to Ravencon itself way too early on Thursday. (Analog radio sure has gotten almost pointless since digital radio came in….and no, audio books are not an option for me. Solo drivers obviously having an intense, arm-waving argument with themselves while behind the wheel tends to attract police attention.)
I’m very glad I went. I’m glad we were able to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Amazing Stories and Science Fiction with fellow fans and I’m glad that the other attendees I heard from said they had a wonderful time. I’m sorry that “life” prevented me from being able to deliver as much as I had intended and I hope no one was disappointed by not getting to experience something they’d been anticipating.
A couple of pics of our table (more images from the event are available in numerous places on the web):
Steve Davidson is the publisher of Amazing Stories.
Steve has been a passionate fan of science fiction since the mid-60s, before he even knew what it was called.
