On the road again: World Fantasy Con, day 3

When you fill out the questionnaires from con programming staff, you always get to indicate the times you do not want to be on a panel. I always ask that they not schedule me before noon. I believe the con folks try to oblige these requests, but I suspect I am but one of many, many writers asking for the same morning relief. Thus, it was with no real surprise that I learned a week or so ago that my one panel at this con was at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, today.

The panel's topic was writing villains. My fellow panelists were the writer guest of honor, David Morrell, Anita Siraki, and as moderator, Janine Young (sorry, Janine, but in a few minutes of searching I couldn't find your site). I thought the topic had the potential to be interesting, but one never knows with panels; they can go anywhere.

In this case, the panel went quite well, with everyone contributing, Janice doing a swell job moderating, and all of us having a good time. I think the fairly full audience also had a nice time, which after all is the point of us being up there, so I was happy. I was particularly pleased that the conversation moved over a broad range of topics and types of evil and villainy.

I worked between panels but still managed to attend two others today. The first was an interview with publishing guest of honor, Tor founder and head Tom Doherty. Tom is a friend and, in my opinion, one of the last of the great SF publishing giants. His stories are always interesting and informative, and the interview that David Hartwell conducted provided more of Tom's usual wit and wisdom. I quite enjoyed it.

A different beast entirely was a later panel that was to feature the usual four panelists but that instead ended up including only my friend David Drake and David Morrell. The panel's topic of record--is fantasy an inherently violent genre?--was dumb and met with a quick and accurate answer from both panelists: No. The conversation then turned extremely intense, however, as Drake (going to last names here due to identical first names) discussed some of his experiences with violence in Viet Nam and Morrell explored what those meant and added his own cultural references and experience. I thought both writers ended up doing a super job, though I'm sure the panel must have left Drake wrecked and Morrell stunned. The nearly full house really got a treat in this one, though a rough sort of treat.

Dinner was also a treat, but an entirely fun one, as Tom Doherty and Linda Quinton hosted Dave (Drake), his Webmaster, Karen Zimmerman, Jennie, and me at The River Cafe. We ate and chatted about a wide range of topics, and everyone had a good time. I was particularly pleased to get to spend more time with Tom and meet Linda (I mean no insult to the other fine folks there; I just get to see them more often).

I slept little and worked a lot, and a great deal of work still awaits me, but overall it was an interesting day.