Why do I go to cons? One reason is to hang out with like-minded people or at least with those who share many of my enthusiasms. But I can do those things at home. Some folks go to meet their heroes, writers they admire, but I’m old and I met Bradbury, Ellison, Sturgeon, Herbert, Zelazny, and Asimov long ago, and they’re not around anymore. I’m working at being like them now rather than fanboying over contemporary authors. You can always learn techniques and writing tips however, as well as promote yourself.
I’ll spare you the self-promotion (mostly). If you’re reading this and enjoying it, that’s good enough for me. Another reason to go to cons is the ideas they spark. Liberty Con had panel discussions of Brain Science (growing functioning neurons on a copper grid and teaching them to play pong. I’m not kidding!). Another panel was New developments in Space (getting there, being there, and potentially fighting it out there).
One of the most thought-provoking panels for me though was about a twist on the Fermi Hypothesis (Basically, if there’s so many other civilizations, why haven’t we heard from them?) The panel leader opened with the question, “If there were an advanced civilization on Earth 350 million years ago, what evidence of it could we find? Every suggestion foundered on the absurdity of any evidence of building materials or even geographic modifications lasting over such a geologic timescale until one audience member suggested that such evidence would have to be organic and passed from generation to generation to survive such a timescale. Something clicked in my mind as I contemplated that. I realized that whenever there’s an apex predator species, bio-diversity diminishes. Civilization is the apex predator extraordinaire. As many have lamented, we are currently living in such an age of mass extinction because we tend to kill off multiple species to preserve the one species of banana or corn that suits our taste, and kill off those we consider pests. Whenever the top of the food chain falls (or civilization theoretically), nature starts cranking out new species at an astonishing rate until it finally provides the next apex predator—seemingly a vicious cycle, but nature doesn’t care.
Add all that together and voila! You have just not only solved Darwin’s most vexing problem but also established the likelihood of a previous civilization on our own planet that was followed by the Cambrian Explosion! Is it really proof? No, but it’s a great premise for a SF story, or you could write one about a couple of million years into the future where another civilization detects our own previous existence by just such means.
On Friday I let Stephanie Osborn shatter my illusions by telling the true story of Mt. Vesuvius and Pompei. Like many SF writers, she’s found herself pursuing her many other interests, resulting in her book “Kiss Your Ash Goodbye” about historic volcanic eruptions as well as the much feared Yellowstone Caldera. Turns out the destruction of Pompei was not a single, “poof, you’re gone” but more a slow motion “you’re not getting out of here alive” week-long trap where rescue ships, dependent on the wind, couldn’t leave the harbor.
Next I listened to a panel of experts discuss where China, India, the 3rd World, NASA, and Elon Musk are going in space. After that I headed for the party floor and nabbed what I could to eat despite my Friday abstention from meat and spirits, the latter of which kind of defeated the point of the parties.
Saturday I heard about the unsettled chaos of copyright law and AI, and laughed and groaned my way through the 5 4 Horsemen of the Apuncalypse who tried to outdo each other in eliciting groans from the audience. I even got to share my all-time favorite pun to a loud, hooting response. Then I hit the bar for lunch and found myself talking to Max Cossack, the author and other half of the comedienne and Powerline columnist Ammo Grrrll. I think he felt a little out of place among the SF fans because his books are neither S nor F, but a friend and fan of his wife and him had arranged it all, then went and died. It seemed ungracious not to attend. He offered me a telephone audience with his wife, but we couldn’t find a quiet place. At his reading, a scattered few listened to his novel excerpt. The readings were scheduled to be 2 authors during each allocated hour, but his fellow author didn’t show and that gave me an idea. So I volunteered to read in place of anyone who didn’t show. I decided it would be good practice for reading aloud, especially if I decided to make my own audio books.
I found myself paired with Sam Robb on Sunday. He had an audience of 4 or 5 who graciously agreed to listen to my very short story (Mother Inc.) while Sam got settled. It turns out one of the audience had led the panel on teaching authors how to read aloud effectively. He told me that he usually found himself critiquing an authors technique, but instead found himself listening to my story.
Unfortunately he and his minions had to leave after listening to Sam read a very funny excerpt from his novel, featuring an old fisher woman and a crab who insisted he was he herald of the gods to the disdain of the cynical woman. After a gentle critique of Sam’s reading style, Sam, his wife, and I were left with a half-hour to kill, so I offered to read a favorite story of mine, The Gardener’s Wife. I had marked 2 different points to stop, but Sam and his wife wanted to hear the story to the end, so I read all 17 pages. They were impressed, and I slurped up the compliments. (Not so secret fact. Writers are suckers for people telling them they like their stuff. Who knew?)
After that I walked out of the hotel, looking for dinner, and found myself invited to dinner with Carol and Les Johnson and a group of their friends. (Les Johnson is an actual rocket scientist based in Huntsville, albeit currently more into theoretical propulsion systems.) He apparently thought I had said some intelligent things in one of his panels, so invited me along. I passed along one of my ideas of a society that lived in a part of space where stars and planets were much closer together than in our lonely corner of the galaxy, and an idea about solar sail propulsion for the asteroid/small planet hopping civilization. He approved my method as feasible at least for fiction, and I enjoyed a pleasant dinner conversation with the whole group. Then it was back to the hotel and off to the traditional dead dog party. That room was too crowded and noisy for useful conversations though, so I headed back to my own hotel to pack and prepare for my trip back which would start with an uber at 0530 back to the airport shuttle office as the start of my twisted path home. I wasn’t sure I could catch an uber at such an early hour in a small town like Chattanooga, but uber’s algorithm for premium pricing came to my rescue, so it cost me more than my trip to the hotel but got me there on time. Yay, premium pricing and free enterprise.
Musings of a Restless Mind 