We came over the back of the broad land, past lakes and gator-haunted rivers, through pines and palms and less definable fronds, dodging the urban centers and their congested traffic. Orange groves perfumed the air and peculiar birds flapped slowly over the swamps. We sped past signs warning of bear and deer crossings, avoiding the dreaded Mouse King of Orlando, and made for the safe haven of Okeechobee, whose sugar-white roads brought us finally to the frantic traffic of Fort Lauderdale and the crumbling walls of the John Wyndham Hotel. We've done this for a round dozen years now, and it's like coming home.

        As usual, first priority was Permanent Special Guest Brian W. Aldiss, an essential ingredient for a successful ICFA.
        Brian, shown here at a pre-lunch Friday reading in the Boardroom, miraculously escaped the Curse of the Intermittent Compressor which plagued other readings.
        Guest of Honor Rudy Rucker was into computers before there was an internet. He's a pioneer in the creation of artificial life-forms; in fact, every time a mad scientist sends a giant robot to destroy a city, they're using algorithms he helped develop. Just kidding, I think. He also writes interesting books, paints wild pictures, and has better vacation photos than that crocodile hunter guy.
Rudy Rucker

        Jim Holte introduced Jeri Zulli and Radu Florescu. Zulli's paper on Invisibility in Late 19th and Early 20th Century American Fiction apparently caused the third presenter to vanish, leaving more time for Florescu to tell the amazing tale of a Dracula theme park in Romania.
Holte, The Invisible Person, Florescu, and Zulli.
Radu Florescu and Elizabeth Miller.
The Conference Opening Reception was crowded and noisy, exactly as planned.
People had to stand on each other and communicate by telepathy or semaphore.
The Age of Wonder
        Thursday morning Grace Dillon chaired a session on Philosophy, Esthetics, and the Fantastic, featuring papers by Chris Tonelli and Donna Hooley. Tonelli showed us a fascinating and disconcerting world of wordless sound-singers, whose audiences sometimes run away. We stuck it out and heard Donna's command performance of The Wit, Perception and Husbandry of Brian W. Aldiss. Brian was kind enough to come and listen, and didn't flinch very often.
I never miss a paper by Donna Hooley.
Chris Tonelli explains that the screaming man on tv is making art.
Brian seems to want to choke one of the readers. Or the screaming tv guy. Grace Dillon and Loren Means look on.
Grace Dillon was attending her first ICFA. Yes, they're all this way.
        Then it was on to the Guest of Honor Luncheon, featuring Gnarl-seeking author/mathematician Rudy Rucker. Rucker has achieved the life dream of many academics, namely retirement. He's a successful writer and teacher, and he showed us why by giving a user-friendly explanation of gnarl and its many uses, which he's already posted on his blog.
Rob Latham warms up the crowd for Rucker.
Rucker tells us of the gnarl he seeks. We've heard worse ideas in our time.

I Sought the Gnarl
and the Gnarl Won

Next to the John Wyndham Hotel is a Triffid Sanctuary. Donna and I go there every year and poke sticks at them through the wire fences. This year I realized they had a bunch of gnarls as well. Here is a picture of one.
To offset the concrete and diesel of the airport, the city is required by law to have a triffid farm.
Apparently lizards are necessary as well, because there were a great deal of them.
Below, the hotel grounds have lots of semi-sentient vegetation as well.


        Post-luncheon, John Kessel hosted a reading by James Morrow and Peter Straub in the Boardroom.
Guest Author John Kessel
James Morrow
Peter Straub


        As the hot Florida night fell, the time drew near for Jeanne Beckwith's play THE VIPERS OF MILAN. Brian Aldiss and Sydney Duncan played the eponymous vipers while Graham Sleight and Joe Sutliff Sanders played two monks who are drawn into their murderous orbit. A little something for the family.
Hannibal Lecter or Brian Aldiss?
The monks and the vipers.
A little quarrel between vipers.
Nose to nose
Jeanne Beckwith, F. Brett Cox, and Kevin Maroney applaud.

        The next morning, Charles Nelson hosted Brian W. Aldiss and Patrick O'Leary in a Boardroom reading that was supposed to include John Crowley. His absence left more time for the Patrick and Brian Show as two fine writers told us what's been on their minds.
Aldiss and Nelson
O'Leary and Aldiss
Brian was full of mischief.
His tale of a man and his bee was very touching.

        The deadly chairs drove us away from the Guest Scholar's Lunch before his speech, so I have no pictures. We did make it to the first poetry reading, hosted by Judith Kerman and featuring Don Riggs, Stefan Hall, Donna Hooley, Tenea Johnson, Patrick O'Leary, and Judith herself.
I never miss a poetry reading by Donna Hooley.
Don Riggs describes the ants in his bathroom. At home, that is to say. Not the ones in the hotel bathroom. Those are different. Wait, maybe it was spiders. Stefan Hall, Donna Hooley, and Tenea Johnson are all thinking "This guy needs a good exterminator."
O'Leary, Kerman, and David Lunde.
Those boys are reading poetry about bugs. Ewwww!
        The intense Florida sun was safely below the horizon before the members of the Lord Ruthven Assembly began their annual meeting. These are the Scholars of the Night, tracking the revenant figure through literature and art, and their conclave was partly to consider Forgotten Gems of Horror for a forthcoming book. President James Craig Holte called the meeting to order, recognizing VP Margaret Carter, Secretary/Bulletin Editor Kathy Davis Patterson, and Treasurer Sharon Russell as well as author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.
Holte, Patterson, Carter.
Russell, Yarbro.
LRA mainstays Jean Lorrah and Radu Florescu.
       By morning it was already time for another poetry reading, this one chaired by Don Riggs and featuring the poetry of Gina Wisker, Rebecca Rowe, Marilyn Jurich, Bryan Dietrich, David Lunde, Brian Aldiss, Joe Haldeman, and Judith Kerman.
Wisker, Rowe, and Jurich.
Dietrich, Lunde, Aldiss, Haldeman.
"Hellas est omnis divisa in partes tres." Brian maps Greece for us.

        Art Evans chaired Loren Means and John Roche for a session on Rucker/Aldiss, attended by Rucker and Aldiss. After a pause while a weird voice sang from a service tunnel, Means explored Rucker's robots, who differ from Aldiss' robots in nearly every way, including purpose, and Roche the Zen of the Ware novels.
Loren Means and Art Evans
John Roche and Loren Means
Rudy Rucker
The Brian Aldiss Fanclub

        And then the roller coaster had reached the top, and it was all going faster now. A gnarly cocktail party in the hall preceded the Awards Banquet.
        I wasn't in position to catch much of the Crawford or formerly-known-as-Asimov's Awards, and they aren't really the point of this highly unofficial page. Brian Aldiss was given an award for longevity, otherwise known as a "Birthday Cake." He'll be eighty soon, and decided not to eat the entire cake himself after all, so we all had a taste.
Brian is singled out.
Donna went up and hugged him as the cake was revealed.
What a cake!
         And for us, the ride was over. More energetic souls partied long into the night, but we faced a long drive home the next day. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep. Our last sight of Brian: conferring with Chip Sullivan in what appears to be a torchlit Malacian tavern.
Be cheerful, sir, Our revels now are ended.

With many a backward glance, we loaded our wagon and aimed it north. Reality was waiting, and it was checking its watch. But there were orange groves and palm trees to see, birds were flying, and the alligators were waiting.
Reality was just going to have to wait a little longer.
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