I was a big science fiction reader in my youth, but I really loved reading about the early days of fandom. Books like Damon Knight's wonderful The Futurians, Frederik Pohl's The Way the Future Was, and Sam Moskowitz's The Immortal Storm chronicled the days of olde, when First Fandom sprang up, and the ensuing years of organized science fiction fans.
It all sounded so enticing. I wished I had been around to witness the feuds, the rivalry, the fun. I wanted to be in a science fiction club more than just about anything.
Finally, when I was around eighteen, I learned about a local group. I contacted them, and I received an invitation to attend a meeting.
I was ridiculously excited. I felt that this was it. I would finally have my clan. People like me, who lived and breathed for science fiction literature.
I went to the meeting, and...
I didn't like it. I didn't particularly care for the people. They were decent enough, but I felt no kinship whatsoever, nor did I wish to create any.
Coming from a mostly unhappy home, I was a social misfit. Like many such teenagers, I found solace in the world of hard partying stoners. It was fun, but being in that crowd doesn't exactly make for social acceptability. It tends to make people cynical. It sure did for me.
I never went back to that SF club.
I did go to a couple of their conventions, and I had a pretty good time. I got on well enough with the pro guests and some of the attendees. Not so much with the people who ran the con. I was a hard drinker by then, which was my early twenties. Unlike most in that world, I worked in extremely rough circumstances, and that came forth in a lot of my behavior. Especially when I was drinking.
They cut me off from their keg, so I merely went and got my own beer.
Science fiction lost its luster for me shortly after that. The field was getting way too much influence from mediocre movies and shows, and it suffered greatly for it.
I migrated from science fiction to horror sometime around then. I liked horror and horror people, and despite meeting Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Isaac Asimov, Forrest J Ackerman, Ray Harryhausen and others, my experiences of organized SF fandom mostly weren't great. I barely looked back.
I began attending horror cons around the year 2000, and it was much, much more suited to me. I felt a much greater kinship toward horror writers than those who wrote SF. I am more comfortable discussing Friday the 13th and Dawn of the Dead than Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.
I ended up at a few SF cons over the years. There is, or at least there used to be, some crossover appeal between the genres. I avoided all the fannish activities the science fiction people indulged in.
I've been reading more old science fiction over the past decade. Going back to the classics I loved in my youth. I've also been selling used books at cons. Mostly horror, but I purchased some science fiction collections. I decided to take the plunge and purchase a vendor's table at local SF convention.
I told people I was going to the con, and some thought it would be full of Trekkies. No. That's mostly over. Now it's a lot of gamers, anime heads, LARPers, and a lot of cosplay. There are readers, sure, but not a whole lot.
I was at a con around twenty years ago, hanging out with a well-known horror-suspense writer. We were walking through the dealer's room, talking about great old science fiction, and he said "Twenty years ago this room would have been wall-to-wall books. Now every year there are more and more beanie babies and shit".
Yeah. Not a lot of books. Lots of crafts. Lots of stuffed things I can't identify. There was the usual row of indie authors. You know, the ones con veterans know not to make eye contact with. There was one other vendor with old books. And me.
People would parade by, ooh-ing and ah-ing at the stuff for sale. Then get to my table, see the books, and act like Superman around Kryptonite. I didn't believe there were actually any beanie babies, but I think you know what I mean.
Lots of people in all kinds of regalia. Warriors and wizards, witches and pixies, and I don't know what all else. I would have been grateful to see a Trekkie or two. Well, there was an aged Captain Kirk, walking around looking sad, lost, and lonely.
And fortune tellers! Science fiction fans used to be among the most intelligent and logical people in the world. The least likely to fall prey to charlatans.
I expected it, but I did hope for more readers. There were some, and we did all right. We made our table rate back and then some, but it was nothing like a horror convention.
God bless horror people. I know their faults. I've seen some unpleasant behavior here and there, but horror people are my people. And they read. They mostly read horror, but so many horror people are willing to read outside the genre. Science fiction sells better for me at a horror con than at a science fiction con! I sell books hand over fist at them.
Horror is simply cooler. The cosplay is way better. I'll take a slasher victim over a unicorn any day of the week.
Horror is my home and I love it. I'm getting older and I don't see things exactly the way many younger people do, but we speak the same language. The language of Dario Argento. Of Stephen King, John Carpenter, Sean Cunningham, George Romero, and Tobe Hooper. We have the same blood coursing through our veins and we love to see the blood of our brothers and sisters splashed across the screen. We read about maniacs, small towns and ancient evil, monsters, ghosts, and all the things that help us spit in the eye of the Grim Reaper. And have a great time doing it.
Written by Mark Sieber
It all sounded so enticing. I wished I had been around to witness the feuds, the rivalry, the fun. I wanted to be in a science fiction club more than just about anything.
Finally, when I was around eighteen, I learned about a local group. I contacted them, and I received an invitation to attend a meeting.
I was ridiculously excited. I felt that this was it. I would finally have my clan. People like me, who lived and breathed for science fiction literature.
I went to the meeting, and...
I didn't like it. I didn't particularly care for the people. They were decent enough, but I felt no kinship whatsoever, nor did I wish to create any.
Coming from a mostly unhappy home, I was a social misfit. Like many such teenagers, I found solace in the world of hard partying stoners. It was fun, but being in that crowd doesn't exactly make for social acceptability. It tends to make people cynical. It sure did for me.
I never went back to that SF club.
I did go to a couple of their conventions, and I had a pretty good time. I got on well enough with the pro guests and some of the attendees. Not so much with the people who ran the con. I was a hard drinker by then, which was my early twenties. Unlike most in that world, I worked in extremely rough circumstances, and that came forth in a lot of my behavior. Especially when I was drinking.
They cut me off from their keg, so I merely went and got my own beer.
Science fiction lost its luster for me shortly after that. The field was getting way too much influence from mediocre movies and shows, and it suffered greatly for it.
I migrated from science fiction to horror sometime around then. I liked horror and horror people, and despite meeting Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Isaac Asimov, Forrest J Ackerman, Ray Harryhausen and others, my experiences of organized SF fandom mostly weren't great. I barely looked back.
I began attending horror cons around the year 2000, and it was much, much more suited to me. I felt a much greater kinship toward horror writers than those who wrote SF. I am more comfortable discussing Friday the 13th and Dawn of the Dead than Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.
I ended up at a few SF cons over the years. There is, or at least there used to be, some crossover appeal between the genres. I avoided all the fannish activities the science fiction people indulged in.
I've been reading more old science fiction over the past decade. Going back to the classics I loved in my youth. I've also been selling used books at cons. Mostly horror, but I purchased some science fiction collections. I decided to take the plunge and purchase a vendor's table at local SF convention.
I told people I was going to the con, and some thought it would be full of Trekkies. No. That's mostly over. Now it's a lot of gamers, anime heads, LARPers, and a lot of cosplay. There are readers, sure, but not a whole lot.
I was at a con around twenty years ago, hanging out with a well-known horror-suspense writer. We were walking through the dealer's room, talking about great old science fiction, and he said "Twenty years ago this room would have been wall-to-wall books. Now every year there are more and more beanie babies and shit".
Yeah. Not a lot of books. Lots of crafts. Lots of stuffed things I can't identify. There was the usual row of indie authors. You know, the ones con veterans know not to make eye contact with. There was one other vendor with old books. And me.
People would parade by, ooh-ing and ah-ing at the stuff for sale. Then get to my table, see the books, and act like Superman around Kryptonite. I didn't believe there were actually any beanie babies, but I think you know what I mean.
Lots of people in all kinds of regalia. Warriors and wizards, witches and pixies, and I don't know what all else. I would have been grateful to see a Trekkie or two. Well, there was an aged Captain Kirk, walking around looking sad, lost, and lonely.
And fortune tellers! Science fiction fans used to be among the most intelligent and logical people in the world. The least likely to fall prey to charlatans.
I expected it, but I did hope for more readers. There were some, and we did all right. We made our table rate back and then some, but it was nothing like a horror convention.
God bless horror people. I know their faults. I've seen some unpleasant behavior here and there, but horror people are my people. And they read. They mostly read horror, but so many horror people are willing to read outside the genre. Science fiction sells better for me at a horror con than at a science fiction con! I sell books hand over fist at them.
Horror is simply cooler. The cosplay is way better. I'll take a slasher victim over a unicorn any day of the week.
Horror is my home and I love it. I'm getting older and I don't see things exactly the way many younger people do, but we speak the same language. The language of Dario Argento. Of Stephen King, John Carpenter, Sean Cunningham, George Romero, and Tobe Hooper. We have the same blood coursing through our veins and we love to see the blood of our brothers and sisters splashed across the screen. We read about maniacs, small towns and ancient evil, monsters, ghosts, and all the things that help us spit in the eye of the Grim Reaper. And have a great time doing it.
Written by Mark Sieber
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