ith the latest World Science Fiction Convention, ConJose , barely two weeks away, my thoughts keep straying back to my first such Worldcon, 28 years long years ago, when I was still a young teenager, and science fiction (and the world itself) seemed so much simpler. The sights and sounds that I discovered there were as marvelous and awe-inspiring to me as the cosmic visions contained in even the most mind-blowing SF book or movie.
Roger Zelazny, whose classic story "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" had seduced me not long after I'd first discovered science fiction, was the guest of honor. Issac Asimov and Harlan Ellison were also there, hurling loving insults at each other over our heads as they stood at opposite ends of a ballroom and waged a comic duel. The Hugos that year (which were handed out at a banquet back in those days when the audience for the ceremony was still small enough to be fed) went to tales that remain classics—Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, James Tiptree Jr.'s "The Girl Who Was Plugged In," Ellison's "The Deathbird" and Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." Ellison showed a rough cut of his film A Boy and His Dog, sans sound effects, and pausing to change the reels himself, a year before its release.
Giants walked the Earth in those days. I shudder for the poor fans who now have to settle for me. Well ... to some degree I jest, for plenty of the SF superstars of today will be there in San Jose. But for me, as I sit on my panels and attempt to speak knowledgeably on such subjects as "Trends in E-Books" and "SF on the Web"—and please, if you're there, come up and say hello—there'll always be in the back of my mind the ghosts of the panelists from that first Worldcon of mine, and I'll feel the pressure to be as moving for a new audience as those 1972 SF writers and editors were for me.
From Worldcon to World Wide Web
But I guess the real question is—can conventions ever mean as much to today's fans as they once did to me, and to those who came before? As a science-fiction fan in the early '70s, I often dreamed—literally—of upcoming conventions, imagining myself walking hotel hallways surrounded by friends who were my peers and by the professional writers whom I hoped would one day be my peers. The year-long wait from con to con seemed almost unendurable. The occasional fanzines or letters and phone calls from other fans were not enough for me to feel plugged in to science-fiction fandom. Ray Bradbury once wrote that Mars is heaven, but for me, the conventions were a sort of heaven, too.
Now, science-fiction fans no longer must suffer an unendurable wait. Now, fans can have instant gratification and a worldwide community. For today, there is the Internet. There's a convention every day, right here. Chat rooms for every possible interest group. Official home pages where we can meet our favorite writers. More SF content than could possibly be digested in a lifetime. With all that, could the hunger for the real rather than the virtual ever be the same? Can conventions still compete?
Yes, they can. Conventions still matter, and I think they always will. Putting your favorite book in the hands of your favorite author and getting it autographed is for now something that can only be handled when flesh-and-blood humans meet face to face. The wound inflicted by an editor's critique can only be erased by the accompanying smile, and not by cheery emoticons, not matter how well-placed. And watching a presentation on upcoming films in the company of a room full of friends can't be beaten by Internet downloads, no matter the bandwith.
That's why you'll find me in San Jose this year, and Toronto next year, and Boston the year after that. For me, and I suspect for most of you as well, a true sense of family requires that from time to time, we become more than just pixels to each other.
Scott Edelman started his trek to the editor-in-chief position at Science
Fiction Weekly back in 1974, when he began working as an assistant editor at
Marvel Comics. Between these two positions, this four-time Hugo Award nominee in
the category of Best Editor was the founding editor of the
award-winning magazine Science Fiction Age, in addition to editing
Sci-Fi Universe, Sci-Fi Flix and Satellite Orbit. Currently, he also edits SCI
FI, the official magazine of the SCI FI Channel. His science-fiction short stories can be found in the recent DAW anthologies Mars Probes and Once Upon a Galaxy.
