I went to Lunacon for the first time this weekend. It was held at the Sheraton Meadowlands hotel, which means it was in Jersey, and I could just commute back and forth without having to spring for a pricey hotel room…though that did prove to be more of a hassle than I’d expected. Not fun driving home in the wee hours of the morning only to drive back after a few hours of sleep.

In addition to being the first day of Lunacon, Friday was also the date of a regular group lunch that Gordon and I attend monthly in Manhattan. My bud David Barr Kirtley was attending that for the first time, so he and I made plans to drive over to Lunacon together later in the day. But since he’d never ventured into Hoboken via the PATH train before, he went back to Hoboken with us right after lunch, and having nothing planned for the next couple hours until I got off work, he came back to the illustrious offices of F&SF and sat and wandered around those hallowed halls, eyes wide in abject wonder.

At lunch, the subject of men’s adventure novels came up. You know the sort, the ones like Don Pendelton and James Axler… titles like THE DEATHLANDS and THE EXECUTIONER. All series stuff, often post-apocalyptic, peopled entirely with gun-toting, amoral survivalists. Anyway, Gordon mentioned one of the problems with those books is that the protagonist always, at some point in the narrative, stops to admire his (for they are always male) six-foot-two frame in a mirror… a cheap narrative trick to describe the protagonist. Gordon complained that people don’t do that in real life. Dave disagreed, claiming that he was six-foot-two and he often stopped to admire his frame in mirrors. And he does too; I’ve seen him do it. In fact, we were late to several panels because he had to take some extra time to admire himself.

So anyway, Dave and I headed out to the con sometime after five, and we got off route 3 one exit too soon, so we ended up driving around in circles over by Giants Stadium. It’s all Dave’s fault; he was the navigator and he led us astray.

We get to the hotel sometime before six I think, then stand in lines to register for the con and check into the hotel. After waiting in the registration line for about 45 minutes, I realize I definitely should have pre-registered.

After getting that taken care of, we head off to dinner at the only restaurant, and run into Elizabeth Glover (who I know from the OWW), and her friend Rachel. We joined them, but they had to run off to get ready for a panel called “Wrong About Japan,” which was a discussion about all the ways in which Americans have come to have wrong ideas about Japan because of the way it’s depicted in anime and manga. That sounded like something I would like to hear, seeing as how I’ve been on this big Kurosawa kick lately (the man is brilliant), and had, in fact, just watched THRONE OF BLOOD the night before.

I did in fact get to see half the panel, but only half because the first half of it overlapped with Dave’s reading…which no one really showed up for. There was me, Christopher Cevasco (editor/publisher of PARADOX), and a writer Dave knew from the Odyssey workshop, Andrea Kail (who works at the CONAN O’BRIEN SHOW). There were also a couple of people just chatting in the room who deigned to silence themselves and listen when Dave started reading. So, could have been worse. It was a crappy timeslot — there was no time for Dave to talk to anyone at the con and to mention that he had a reading. He did a good job with his performance of “The Black Bird,” which I think is one of his best stories, and well worth hunting down if you haven’t read it (it’s in NEW VOICES IN SCIENCE FICTION, edited by Mike Resnick), though he ended up choosing that one really because by the time he got around to starting the reading he only had fifteen minutes left (and that one is quite short).

Next up was the Meet the Pros event in the lobby, where Dave and I wandered around for a while, but I don’t think we actually did meet any pros. But that was just for a half hour, because at 9:30 was the art show, which required special invitations for some reason — I think only panelists were allowed to attend or something — but Dave was a panelist so he was able to get me in, not that anyone was collecting invitations at the door. We caught up with Andrea and Chris in there and wandered around and admired all the art, much of which featured naked, muscular pixie women, though there was a pretty cool Noah’s Ark sculpture thing that Andrea and I were strangely obsessed with for a while. I was going to buy it, but it cost ten thousand dollars, so instead I charged it to my F&SF expense account (won’t Gordon be surprised!).

(TO BE CONTINUED…)