World Con 2016

Today was the first day of World (SF) Con 2016. The World con moves around from year to year. This year, it’s being held in Kansas City and is called MidAmeriCon 2. (Kansas City held its first World Con – MidAmeriCon – back in the ‘70s.)

The cheapest time to buy a membership is right after the vote that determines where the World con will be held TWO years from now. The votes happen at World con, so the members of this year’s convention get to decide what city will host the convention in 2 years. Of course, their choices are limited to those cities who have figured out how and where they would have the convention.

Worldcon 2017 will be in Helsinki. We didn’t buy memberships to that one, because we seldom follow the con outside the US. When the worldcon is held somewhere other than North America, there is a North AmeriCon held that year. That location for 2017 will be chosen at this worldcon. We might go to that, depending where it is. The choices are San Jose and New Orleans.

World cons last for 5 days. They used to be held over Labor Day weekend, but that made it difficult for parents to attend, because the school year was just beginning. So they have migrated to mid-August. North Americons are typically 4 days long.

Worldcons generally have a few thousand people. When they are held in large cities – like LA – they might have 8,000 attendees. So much larger than the 200 attendees at the first, held in New York in 1939.

Other conventions are larger; Dragoncon in Atlanta, Nebcon in Omaha are just 2. But worldcons are big enough to be daunting, especially to shy or introverted people. The dealer’s room is large, the art show amazing, the costume contest can be over the top. And the panels! LOTS of panels, on all sorts of subjects. As usual, I find 2-3 panels I want to attend, all at the same time, and probably at opposite ends of the convention center. It can be tough to choose which one I will actually go to.

Sooner or later, we run across friends at worldcon. Some are people we know from smaller conventions. Others we only run across at worldcon (or North AmeriCon). In either case, we take some time to chat and catch up.

If you’ve never been to a worldcon, a description really can’t do them justice. I suggest you save up your money - tickets can be $250 for 5 days at the door, and the surrounding hotels are high-end brands. If the WorldCon is close enough for you to drive, you could save some money finding a cheaper hotel further away. But you will have to pay to park somewhere near the convention each day. And don’t forget to have money on hand for food; WorldCons provide snacks (chips, veggies, crackers) and soda at certain times of the day, but not anything that could be considered ‘real food.’

Despite the expense, they can be fun and informative. However, they are not a comicon, an anime con, or a media con. They are a literary convention. They are aimed mostly at science fiction & fantasy readers. When we walked through the dealer’s room today, we saw 4-5 tables selling t-shirts, and at least twice that many selling books.

So if you don’t read, this probably isn’t the convention for you.

Love is in the Air

Do you read romances? I have. At times, I would read dozens of romances, one after another. Eventually, I would set them aside and move to another genre.

Mostly, I didn’t find romances very... satisfying. I couldn’t ‘identify’ with the characters.

For one thing, money never seems to be a problem in a romance. Whatever one of the protagonists wants, they buy. With hardly any thought about it. I can’t remember a single instance of the heroine realizing she needs a new coat, but doesn’t have the money for it. Or the hero’s frig is bare, so is his wallet and checkbook, and payday is still several days away. Or one of them has a sofa that’s missing a leg and a hole has duct tape covering it. Apparently, these types of things don’t happen in a modern romance.

That makes it hard for me to ‘suspend my disbelief.’ I grew up on the poor side of ‘middle class’, and I’m still there. I suspect the authors don’t want to anger their readers by making the woman struggling to make ends meet, because that would be ‘sexist’. And they can’t make the man financially struggling, because that might seem to be ‘man hating’. No, they figure both members of their couple need to be strong, independent, self-sufficient... equal.

But people can be strong and capable without having a fat bank account. The world is full of strong and capable people who have to pinch their pennies.

Another thing I find hard to identify with is the chosen location. As I remember, the vast majority of them happen in a huge city - New York, Los Angeles, London, Rome... Okay, I’ve attended conventions in Los Angeles and London, but I can’t say I really know anything about them. I can’t even imagine other huge cities like that, because the biggest city I’ve ever lived in is Kansas City. I remember just about enough about that city to not get lost... as long as I stay on the interstate! So, how am I supposed to identify with people who live in a place so alien to what I know?

You’d think, since I have such strong feelings about the romances I have read, that I would simply avoid the genre. Yet, from time to time, I find myself writing romances, using the pen name ‘Linda Joy’.

When I do write a romance, the location is usually a small town, often one I’ve actually lived in. My main characters may not obsess about money, but they are careful with it. They have jobs/careers that might afford them some degree of comfort, but if they suddenly find they need a new coat, or a new car, they’ll look for a bargain. And hope they don’t hate the color.

My theory is, Love can be in the air anywhere, not just in big cities. It can develop between the struggling and the have-to-be-careful just as well as the well-to-do. But if I can’t identify with the characters - at least a little bit - I won’t be happy with it. And if readers can’t identify with the characters, I will have wasted their time. My readers (AND my characters) deserve better.

Thoughts on Electric Cars

A power company in Missouri will be installing close to 100 vehicle power-up plugs in Northwest Missouri and the Kansas City area. “That’s nice,” was my thought. “Now, if I had an electric car, my home charge would (probably) get me to Kansas City, and that charge would get me close to St Louis. But there’s still a long distance between St Louis and Florida. I wonder if any other power companies will do the same? St Louis? Paducah? Nashville? And so on? And how far out of my way would I need to go for one of these power-ups?”

As an author, I’m an ideas person. I have to be. I have to come up with ideas about characters, plot, scenes, everything. When I write science fiction, I don’t know exactly how thing works, I just have to be convincing.

Why has everybody been designing electric cars that are good for running around your home town, but not for traveling? I like to travel. If I could do both in an electric car, I would be scrounging up pennies to get one. Instead, I had to opt for a car that got decent gas mileage on the hiway.

I keep hearing about ‘tweaks’ some car company has made - like when you apply the brakes, a slight charge is trickled back into your battery.

Why stop there?

Here’s some ideas I wish SOMEbody would incorporate into an electric car. 

1. Solar panels. They’re being put everywhere else, why not on the car’s roof, trunk lid, hood... even the fenders, doors, sides and bumpers! They don’t have to be big and clunky; they can be small and flexible. (I’m not in favor of alternating colors into a checkerboard, but maybe that’s just me.) Trickle that power into a spare or already-discharged battery, and you’ll get further before you have to pause and charge up all the batteries.

2. Wind power. Windmills are good enough to put in the fields, why not put some tiny ones on the car? A few unobtrusive intake slots, and again, you’ve got some electricity to trickle into the batteries. Just moving down the street, a vehicle has air sliding past it, why not use it?

3. Human power. For those times when the sun isn’t out, or you find yourself way out in the middle of nowhere with dead batteries, this would be your backup. Open up a panel - perhaps in the dash in front of the passenger seat - and out pops cycle pedals. If you could change the position of the pedals, you could either use your legs or your arms. Just pedal away to charge your batteries so you can get further down the road.

I actually use these ideas in some stories set in the not-too-distant future.

Okay, talk to me. What improvement would you like made to today’s electric cars?

A Comparison: Megacon vs Planet Comicon

Ten days ago, John and I went to our first Planet Comicon in Kansas City. For the past several years, we have spent time at this point in the year in Orlando, where we attended Megacon. Both are 'comic' conventions, but - as always - each has its own flavor. I could not keep myself from comparing them, and I'd like to share my thoughts with you.

A comic convention is, to my mind, a giant dealer's room first and foremost. A huge room, it contains dealers selling t-shirts, toys, models, comics and all sorts of retail items; artists showing and selling their artwork; authors selling their books; fans selling their craft items; fan groups looking for new members; media guests selling autographs and photo shoots; and at least one school trying to drum up new students. If I had to guess, I'd say Planet Comicon's dealer room was about the size of a football field. Happily, they did have some empty chairs lined up against the one empty wall, and I was not the only person who used those chairs. Megacon's dealer room is even larger, with more of all of the above types. There are no chairs along the wall to let your tired feet rest for a moment. I managed to get about halfway through Planet Comicon's dealer room on Friday before I wandered off to see what else was going on, and on that day, it was not horrendously crowded. Megacon's dealer room is always packed with shopping sardines, on any day, and I can't stand being in it for more than a few minutes at a time.

Planet Comicon also had a gaming room, 4 rooms for panels, and 1 room for large panels (panels, for instance, with the media guests tend to have a huge line forming in the hallway at least an hour before-hand). Megacon has a lot of rooms, of various sizes; rooms devoted to gaming, to anime, to costuming, to assorted and sundry other subjects. The largest rooms with the stages are for those panels with the media guests, of course, and there, too, you had better arrive early if you want a seat.

The food vendors at Planet Comicon were mostly brands I had heard of, and their prices were a little high, but not ridiculously so. The food vendors at Megacon are brands I had never heard of before, and their prices are sky high. The one time we bought something from a Megacon food vendor, it didn't taste any good, so we tend to fill our pockets with simple snacks and refill our water bottles from the water fountains.

After a long day at Megacon, one has to walk back all the way through the west wing of the Orange County Convention Center, find your way outside, take your bearings, and then - walk to the furthest end of the colossal parking lot to find your car. I always felt I was hiking back to Nebraska. If I had a similar thought at the end of a Planet Comicon day, as we made our way to our car, at least Nebraska wasn't nearly as far a hike!

Any comments on comic conventions you've attended?