So you thought last year was busy? Even if you aren’t leaving the Bay Area for SoCal conventions or the state for Westercon and Worldcon this year you can still look forward to a packed calendar.
After a relatively quiet January during which to recover from the holidays things are already beginning to pick up. Further Confusion already came and went, and looking forward, this year promises to be a very busy one for Bay Area fandom. This month alone we can look forward to three major events; Wondercon, PantheaCon and DunDraCon, as well as newer/lesser-known offerings such as Animation of Display — now in its sixth year — and a local concert by geek superstar Jonathan Coulton, of “Re: Your Brains” and “Greetings from Chiron Beta Prime” fame.
This month also should see submittal of the final plans for Viz Media’s proposed J-pop center in Japantown, which is apparently slated to include a 150-seat movie theater dedicated to anime and other Japanese pop culture, as well as a bookstore, boutiques and a cafe. A Maid Cafe perhaps? If all goes well the center may be open by the end of the year.
All of the usual conventions are back of course. BayCon’s theme is Space Pirates — which is bound to be a big, loud, drunken, hit. Fanime is also on Memorial Day weekend, alas — but it seems that many folks manage to hit both conventions anyway. Contact: Cultures of the Imagination returns to the NASA Ames Research Center after a one-year hiatus. Later in the year we can look forward to SiliCon, Yaoicon and APE. Those not making the pilgrimage to San Diego for Comic-Con may be able go to the wine country instead for Vintacon. And there are even some wild rumors floating around that there is a Con-X-Treme 2 in the works.
The most exciting event we can look forward to is definitely Costume-Con 26, chaired by the evilest genius of them all, Kevin Roche, and to be held at the good old San Jose Doubletree. From the look of things so far it promises to be of interest to both hardcore costumers and those of us who enjoy costuming as a part of the overall convention experience without ever hoping to acquire the skills to recreate a historically accurate Elizabethan gown.
Consonance, the local filk convention, returns in March. But throughout the year we can also look forward to performances by The Phenomenauts, The Aquabats, The TomorrowMen and Warp 11. Local independent movie theaters El Cerrito, Parkway Speakeasy and the Mighty Clay all have exciting genre events on their respective schedules, and although licensing issues shut down the immensely popular Buffy sing-alongs, there are still plenty of other things to look forward to including returning favorites like Thrillville with Will the Thrill and Monica (and often as not, Mr. Lobo) and Midnight Mass with Peaches Christ.
For those more inclined towards civilized fare, PEERs has a full slate of balls scheduled for all tastes and themes: Regency, Swing, American Civil War, Fantasy and even Steampunk. The Golden Gate Renaissance Faire returns, as do the larger faires later in the year.
If you have two left feet or are simply disinclined towards hijinks, there will no doubt be plenty of author signings and events; SFinSF has already hosted their first reading for the year at the Variety Preview Room. Conlan Press is releasing an unabridged audiobook of The Last Unicorn. Tachyon Publications has a slate of excellent-looking anthologies scheduled for publication, as well as a new edition of The Stress of Her Regard, probably my favorite book by this year’s BayCon GOH, Tim Powers.
Night Shade Books continues to dazzle with gorgeous covers and a nice selection of upcoming releases like the intriguingly titled Mall of Cthulhu. McSweeney’s dodged a bullet last year and not only survived but thrived, and the pirate store at 826 Valencia is now part of a network of 826 stores in several cities. The local bookstore scene is seemingly back on an even again. Every time I see it, I discover something else I haven’t seen before.
As far as audiobooks, most of the ones I’ve downloaded from iTunes are self-help and spiritual ones. But I recently found out that the BBC did a radio drama of the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. That trilogy is one of my favorites of all-time, right after The Lord of the Rings. I found the 8-episode series on the Internet and uploaded that to my iPod. I’m not done with it yet and it’s a little bit on the dry side… it is British and it’s from the 1970s after all. If anyone’s interested in listening to this, let me know and I’ll send you the link.
I did a little bit more research and found that there is an unabridged audio version of the trilogy, but it’s not available for rent from the producer’s web site or from any library except in Australia. It can be purchased, but for $60 apiece. That’s a lot of money. I might break down and buy it some day but with my splurging on iTunes recently, I’ll have to save up for that one for the future. The narrator is Scott Brick who’s the same narrator heard on the Legends of Dune prequels (Butlerian Jihad, Machine Crusade and Battle of Corrin) that I’ve been listening to these past few months. He’s pretty good so I’m sure I’ll enjoy these unabridged audiobooks.
The interesting tidbit I found during my research is that New Line was set to produce the Foundation Trilogy but it didn’t work out. So they had to come up with something else, and decided to do The Lord of the Rings instead. Well, that’s one great thing that came out of that. But why did they have to do LOTR instead of Foundation? Couldn’t they have done both? Can’t they do it now? I, Robot seems to have done well. The movie was nothing like the book but it was quite good.
So I’m completely immersing myself in things that I love via my new iPod. I’m filling it up with music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks and music videos that bring me joy. We’ll see how long this preoccupation lasts. I’m sure at some point I will want to come out of hibernation and enjoy the outdoors and being around people again. It’s already February, so Spring is on its way. I’ll probably come out and play again when the flowers are in bloom and the sun shines from a blue cloudless sky. Or maybe sooner. Fandom awaits.
~España Sheriff
SF/SF Issue #59, February 2008