Balticon 45 ran from Friday through Monday, but as usual for this local con, I only attended for a single day, Saturday. But on that day, I managed to squeeze in three panels, a reading, an autograph session, and on top of that—a durian feast!

My 1:00 p.m. panel, “Fantastic Books Presents,” was hosted by Ian Randal Strock, owner of (you guessed it) Fantastic Books, which published my collection of science fiction short stories, What We Still Talk About. While Ian explained why he does what he does, a few of his authors (me, Walter H. Hunt, and Daniel Kimmel) talked up our books, and actually managed to sell a few copies.

At 2:30, I read my short story “Goobers,” which originally appeared in The Book of More Flesh and was collected in my all-zombie collection What Will Come After. You were probably not there, but in case you wish you were, my performance has been preserved below.

Immediately following my reading, I rushed to the 3:00 p.m. panel, “Name-Droppers,” during which I was supposed to talk about my “personal contacts with the field’s departed giants,” along with Michael Swanwick and Ian Randal Strock. I shared anecdotes about my early encounters with Gordon Dickson, Nelson Bond, and Ted Sturgeon, while Michael talked about R. A. Lafferty and Ian discussed meeting Isaac Asimov. But mentioning only the dead turned out to be a bit depressing, so we moved on to sharing our stories of the living, too. (Including an extremely embarrassing encounter I had with Chip Delany when I was only 17.)

As you can see from this photo of me and Michael taken by Jamie Todd Rubin, the panel was also an advertisement for what was to come next. Yes, that’s a durian on the table in front of me. I was carrying it about the con because I wanted as many people as possible to know I’d be cracking it open in the parking lot and that they should come along.

So immediately following the panel, I marched a brave group out to my Jeep. I’d parked as far as possible from the hotel out of fear that the reputed sewer smell of an open durian might waft inside and cause an emergency evacuation.

Here I am, thanks to a photo from Adam Corbin Fusco, about to crack that sucker open.

What did I find inside? Did anyone pass out from the aroma? Were we able to do what Andrew Zimmern could not? This video Jamie shot will reveal all.

As the video showed, the durian wasn’t that bad after all, sort of like an onion pudding with the stringiness and some of the sweetness of mashed-up pineapple. While the second durian had a stronger oniony aroma than the first, still, it wasn’t at all disgusting. Which may be because of the variety of durian we ate, based on what I’ve been told by Eric Solstein.

Apparently, the durian I’d purchased were of the “mornthong” variety, which Eric described as having a “magical” flavor: “A bit more expensive, they have a texture not unlike cream cheese, and an odor much milder than the reputation for stank of cheaper durian, those responsible for their reputation.” I guess my durian were too good! Of course, those were the only durian that appeared to be for sale locally. I may have to visit Thailand to encounter the variety that defeated Andrew Zimmern.

Once I cleaned up from the carving, I headed off to my 5:00 p.m. panel, “Fans And Writers,” which had been moved ahead from its 6:00 p.m. time and changed to a different location at the last minute. Which would explain why NO audience members arrived to hear us pontificate … except for the spouse of one of the panelists! (I wonder whether our audience showed up at the originally scheduled place at the originally scheduled time.) So we talked among ourselves. Hey, we had fun even if no one else did!

I spent most of the time between that panel and my autographing session hanging out in the green room and chatting with Pricilla Olson about, among other things, Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”

The autographing closed out the official part of my day. I ended up signing copies of my collections, as well as various anthologies, while chatting with John C. Wright and Izolda Trakhtenberg, who were also scheduled for that hour.

And that was that for Balticon 45. Next stop—the Stoker Awards on Long Island in June! Perhaps I’ll see you there.