Editorial
A Meeting in Meatspace

Whenever I begin to think that the need for face-to-face contact has gone the way of the buggy whip in this wired world, it's always a good thing to pack my bags and hit the road.

Which is one reason I found myself in Austin, Texas, last weekend, where I attended this year's World Fantasy Convention. Gathering together in real time with friends and colleagues (and luckily, the many people who manage to fall into both categories) turned out to be a refreshing reminder that there are some things that can occur in the meat world that the Internet can never replace. (Though perhaps that's something the editor of a Web magazine isn't supposed to admit.)

The focus of this year's convention was on Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Cimmerian, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, King Kull and other pulp heroes, due to 2006 being the centennial of his birth in nearby Peaster. I admit now what I was careful not to say too loudly at the con, for fear of being bludgeoned by the butt end of a two-handed broadsword—but I developed a resistance to Howard a long time ago.

When I was a teenager, I compulsively read almost everything of Howard's that was then in print, but once I learned more about the details of his life and the tragic facts of his death, the hard, cold event of his suicide came to stand between me and his blustering heroes. As I've written about before, there are some aspects of a writer's life that I've come to believe it is best for readers—well, this reader, anyway—not to know. Howard's work was hurt for me by my knowing too much, and so was Lovecraft's—though I'll leave any explication of the details for a different editorial.

So even though the weekend offered many celebrations of Howard's life and influence, I passed them by. Instead, I decided to spend my time at the convention communing with the living rather than with the dead.

A time machine to tomorrow's fantasies

My method of doing that for the most part kept me away from the dealers room', art show and panel discussions. Instead, I went to the numerous readings held by such diverse writers as Jeffrey Ford, Mary Turzillo, F. Brett Cox and others. One of the things that the Web world cannot replace—even when podcasts whisper in our ears—is living, breathing storytellers standing in front of us, performing as they have for thousands of years.

Which meant that I heard Daniel Abraham read the first half of his long story "Cambist," which is slated to appear in the upcoming Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories, an anthology of stories inspired by the winning words from National Spelling Bee competitions. His tale pitted a hedonistic lord against an idealistic moneylender in a duel of moral mathematics. Unfortunately, Abraham's time ran short, and I was left hanging. That I cared what happened next meant that he had succeeded in his mission as a writer.

It occurred to me, as the weekend proceeded, that the writers were taking me on a tour of tomorrow's science fiction and fantasy, because they were mostly reading works that were as yet unavailable to be purchased and read.

Mary Turzillo read the story "Pride," a tale of an extinct creature brought back to life that will come out next year in the anthology Fast Forward. Jeffrey Ford read "The Bedroom Light," which will appear in the Ellen Datlow-edited anthology Inferno, F. Brett Cox read "Mary of the New Dispensation," which will be printed next summer in the magazine Postscripts, and Paul Witcover read the opening chapter of his novel-in-progress The Back Nine. Put those together, and you're looking at the nominating ballot for future Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards ballots.

As the writers roared, whispered, paced, choked up and laughed, each with a different accent, each in a different style, I had to admit that the real world wasn't so 20th century after all.

Meatspace, I realized, still has much to recommend it.