Musings of a Restless Mind

Fortunately this didn’t quite happen to me, but it was close.

Son of Silvercon, the last stop on my summer of cons, was July 19-21 in Las Vegas (actually, Henderson, but that’s just a jump to the left and then a step to the right).

I’ll get to the Con in a moment, but the first step was getting there. Since Vegas is only a little over 300 miles away, driving is my go-to option. The problem was that I had had some difficulty sleeping several nights preceding the Con. Yes, I live in San Diego, famous for its pleasant weather, but it’s still summer, and near the beach, they don’t believe in air conditioning, so sleeping when it’s 82 degrees indoors can still be a problem. So, I didn’t start off in the best of condition early Friday morning. Then there’s the road itself. A couple hundred mile drive on Interstate 15 through the desert is, how shall I put it, boring. Also on the California side of the border, the left lane is designed to slope gently into the median (Maybe for drainage? In the desert?), so you have to keep the steering wheel pulled mildly to the right. Also all the rest stops were closed “for repair” and probably on the same deployment schedule as the 20-year-old, no tracks yet laid, “high speed” imaginary rail line between Bakersfield and Merced, so the rest stops will be open again approximately…, never.

In any case, while cruising along at about 80 mph, I must have fallen asleep and found myself awakened suddenly as my car had veered into the median, so I startled awake, hitting the brakes, and my car spun a full 360 degrees before coming to a halt. Surprisingly no other vehicle had rammed me, and, with the featureless but, forgivingly wide median, I had neither run into anything or found myself facing oncoming traffic. After checking that I was still alive, I gathered my wits and drove back onto the highway towards an ominous cloud formation. About 10 miles later, I hit the deluge. It was torrential rain, that pounded the car as loud as if it were hail. Even with my lights on and my windshield wipers on high, I still couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me. Also there was a horrific side wind that was blowing the rain horizontally at a good 20 mph. Stopping didn’t seem like a good option to me, or probably anybody else who didn’t want to get rear-ended, so I slowed down to 10 mph and said my prayers. After a few miles, I was able to ease my death grip on the steering wheel as I emerged from the storm unscathed. I and all the other vehicles took our time, climbing cautiously back to our accustomed 80 mph as the hot desert air dried us off faster than any carwash blower could.

So, through no fault of my own, I made it to the Con. Thank you, Big Guy!

Unfortunately I missed most of the novel editing panel with Erin Lale though I did get to talk to her afterward. To be fair, I was busy selling a couple of copies of Advance Guards to fellow barflies across the parking lot.

Later I got to talk to Kortnee Bryant, former do-it-all person for Raconteur Press, now concentrating on her writing. She filled in an additional perspective on editing as well as recommended the Atticus formatter which runs on the Chrome browser.

Jarret Keene ‘s talk on Teaching F&SF In The Marxist Classroom was, needless to say, very enlightening. Amazingly, despite his heretical views, he has actually achieved tenure at UNLV. He also talked extensively about the Mexican graphic novels he collects. I’m trying to get him in touch with the Comic-Con Museum in San Diego.

Tim Powers was a great guest of honor, able to talk extemporaneously about SF and the cast of colorful characters whose life he interacted with over the decades. In the Workshops & Writers Groups – Worth It? panel, he talked about teaching at Clarion while Maxwell Drake was able to relate the successes of his own Starving Writers’ Studio workshops, noting Con co-chair Dan Minuci as one of his prize pupils who is featured in a new anthology.

Later, Tim Powers and Maer Wilson regaled us for 90 minutes with stories of Philip K. Dick and his bizarre life history. Let’s just say, you’re not really paranoid if they are out to get you. For much of it we were sworn to secrecy, but a lot is revealed in Maer Wilson’s book: The Other Side of Philip K. Dick.

There were the usual hotel glitches, but we made do well enough and had lots of impromptu conversations, as well as sugar shock snacks, in the con suite. Next year promises to be even more organized since we’re gathering at the same hotel, and arrangements have already been made to improve our use of the facilities over this year.

Come to Son of Silvercon V! We’ve got cookies…, and donuts, and chips, lots of chips, as well as great conversations.