Comments on: Guest Post: Enter the Dragon*Con http://www.sfwa.org/2012/10/guest-post-enter-the-dragoncon/ Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Fri, 20 Apr 2018 21:42:47 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.5 By: Jaym Gates http://www.sfwa.org/2012/10/guest-post-enter-the-dragoncon/#comment-134101 Thu, 11 Oct 2012 23:59:17 +0000 http://www.sfwa.org/?p=26131#comment-134101 I completely agree that WorldCon, WFC and even the smaller pro cons have their place and are important to the genre. As much as anything here, I speak to my own prejudices: when I weigh what cons I WANT to go to, it comes down to WFC, the Nebulas, etc. Dragon*Con is big, hot, expensive and exhausting. It’s hard for people to meet up.

But it’s important, and I need to remember that as much as anyone.

Also, I’m about the millionth person to say this, but GO HELSINKI!!!

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By: Andrew Trembley http://www.sfwa.org/2012/10/guest-post-enter-the-dragoncon/#comment-134076 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 23:26:11 +0000 http://www.sfwa.org/?p=26131#comment-134076 After a few years of attending conventions mostly populated by writers, it was a refreshing change of pace to hear from a larger crowd.

I’ve had this argument with pros before.

World Fantasy Convention is primarily a networking convention for genre professionals. I’ve worked on a WFC. That’s what the WFC board likes. There was some grumbling about how many Neil Gaiman fans displaced pros by registering early for the San Diego WFC.

Worldcon, on the other hand, isn’t.

Sure, you can spend your whole time at the con-within-a-con genre professionals bubble. You can go to the SFWA suite and avoid fans. You can spend all your time in pro-heavy publisher parties. You can find out from your peers what hotel bar has been designated “the writers’ bar.”

Or you can spend some time on pro commitments, and the rest of your time hanging out with fans. Pouring drinks at the Barfleet party, like Seanan McGuire did this year. Leading a tour of the art show, like Teresa Nielsen Hayden did. Participating in “Writer under Glass” in the Fanzine Lounge (I think I remember Charlie Stross, Nancy Fulda and Lauren Beukes contributing).

Yes, it does skew older and whiter than Dragon*Con. Yes, you never know exactly what you’re going to get, it’s a different city, different hotels and a substantially different committee every year.

But that risk of a bad con is balanced by new fans from different parts of the world, fans who wouldn’t consider traveling to Atlanta but will take a chance on Worldcon if it’s in their backyard. Because, frankly, Helsinki may have an uphill battle to win the 2015 Worldcon, but Dragon*Con will never be in Helsinki. Or London. Or Montreal. Or Boston. Or San Jose.

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By: Morgan Alreth http://www.sfwa.org/2012/10/guest-post-enter-the-dragoncon/#comment-134009 Fri, 05 Oct 2012 23:02:00 +0000 http://www.sfwa.org/?p=26131#comment-134009 You mention, “…whitewashing all the issues out of a culture or time-period.”

There are frequent, often not-so-subtle, demands on the submission guidelines for at least some magazines that political correctness must be strictly observed. It’s not stated in those blunt terms, but that’s what it boils down too.

Ironic, since speculative fiction is supposed to fearlessly explore possibilities. Or it used to.

I am reminded of those who periodically scream about banning Huckleberry Finn due to Twain’s use of the (at the time normal and expected) use of that taboo word that we americans are barred from uttering on pain of social catastrophe.

How realistic can an imaginary society possibly be, if everyone in it is as tolerantly enlightened as a 21st century member of the Western intelligentsia? Seriously?

A stone age society, where anyone not of your clan was lunch? Copper or Bronze Age, where all females were currency, infanticide was safer and greatly preferable to abortion, and outlanders were the source of so much public entertainment amidst parties while they were being burned alive?

Perhaps a steampunk culture, like the British empire? Those Brits were enlightened and tolerant people. Just ask the Zulu.

If people don’t want to read something, here’s a concept. They can always put it down.

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