Despite the looming threat of war, some of Mankind's best and brightest arrived in Fort Lauderdale for the 24th Annual Conference of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts. We were all there when the bombs began to fall. History in the making, but history was never my favorite subject. I prefer literature, and there was no shortage of it here.

    We made our way to the registration desk, which was open right on time, and got signed in.
Len Hatfield was watching over the details.
Authors' readings are always fun, and this one was really good. Gary Wolf presided over a Rick Wilber, Peter Straub, and Stephen R. Donaldson production, in which SRD returned to the Land long enough to show us Linden Avery wracked by guilt and privation again, Peter Straub played selections from "Little Red's Tango," and Rick Wilber confessed that his late father keeps calling him up and demanding a cheeseburger.
Chip Sullivan chaired as Brian Aldiss and Robert Holdstock read from their works. Brian read from his new science fiction novel SUPER-STATE, which is unavailable in the States, and demonstrated his deft touch with the Irish accent.
LAVONDYSS is back in print, and Rob Holdstock is pleased. He read from it for us, and as usual
there were severed heads and mythic imagos aplenty in his selection.

David Skal addressed the Lord Ruthven Assembly on the fun he had getting permissions and material for his DRACULA book. He is seen here explaining why his slides didn't arrive in time while Sharon Russell looks on.

          Of course, what I was looking forward to was my wife Donna's paper entitled The Inhumanity of Brian W. Aldiss, or Why Do the Aliens Get All the Best Lines? She worked hard on this paper and wanted Brian to either agree or disagree with it.

I think he did.
This is the panel: L-R Sondra Swift, Chair, Donna Ross Hooley, Fiona Kelleghan, and Peter Goodrich. Peter's paper on Mannerism and the Macabre in Lovecraft’s Dunsanian ‘Dream-Quests’ had everyone subtly tickled. We were all relieved that HPL was not there to respond. Donna's paper went well and didn't provoke too many outbursts from its subject. Fiona had also brought an author for show-and-tell: Gregory Frost, whom she revealed to be a 'savage humanist.' He seemed quite tame to the audience.
Gregory Frost, Savage Humanist!
Donna responds to questions from the audience.
Brian reacts to Donna's paper. We hope he was amused.
Brian talks to Donna and Jean Embree after the performance.
Brian was nice enough to respond to questions and other harassment after the papers were read.
Then at the end of the day, Donna hosted the second poetry reading.
Brian Aldiss passes out his puzzle-poem, which mostly stumped us. L-R Aldiss, Marilyn Jurich, David Sandner, Michael Arnzen's back, Donna Ross Hooley. Marc Petersen sat against the far wall . . . he's a rebel.
He even read Guipo Zasnitch's poetry instead of his own. When everyone had a turn, Don Riggs made good on his threat
to read a Brian Aldiss poem himself, demonstrating his deft touch with the British accent.

      Laura Groover of Ogeechee Technical College, one of my wife's students, presented a paper on Sluggy Freelance,
the longest-running and most inventive internet-only comic, which blends pop culture and anime with SF/Fantasy themes
and a switchblade-toting rabbit.

      We enjoyed the speakers and the excellent food, and found plenty of good company at table as always.
Rhonda Brock-Servais and her husband Tony are old friends of ours.
      We enjoyed the cocktail parties and bacchanalia as well.
Brian Aldiss tends to be the life of the party, and all the women end up gathered around him.

NEXT YEAR: We huddle in a bomb shelter, flinching from the explosions and reading papers by candlelight as we celebrate the 25th ICFA. Okay, I was wrong about the robot waiters in 2000 so I may be wrong about this. I still say it was rude of Bush to bomb someone during our conference, and he may end up wishing he'd never gotten our attention:
"Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage among his books, for to you kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned with the flick of a finger." -- Gordon Dickson

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Last updated =March 2003