Twenty-two years ago this very weekend, I was in Atlanta attending the 1995 World Horror Convention, where—without realizing it—I recorded what would eventually become Episode 31 of Eating the Fantastic.

Who knew?

You can thank Dave Slusher for that.

In 1995, Dave was the host of a national radio talk show of the fantastic titled Reality Break, which launched in 1992 on WREK 91.1 FM in Atlanta. Dave chronicled the World Horror Convention that year, stealing Adam and me away from the con venue—the Sheraton Colony Square Hotel—to the food court of the Colony Square Mall next door. And since food was involved—especially Adam’s pizza, about which we seemed to joke a lot—it seemed especially serendipitous to revisit that day in this episode of Eating the Fantastic.

Back in 1995, I was a couple of years into editing Science Fiction Age magazine, and my 13 years at the SyFy Channel—as well as this podcast—were still far in the future. And as for Adam, though he had published his first short story collection, plus the first story in the first issue of Science Fiction Age, his Andrea Cort novels, his Gustav Gloom series, and his 100 more short stories were still to come.

Note that this is not a photo of Adam and me (along with Nancy Holder and Connie Hirsch) at that year’s World Horror Con. However, as it is a photo of us from a World Horror Con three years earlier, we’ll let it stand. I don’t think either of us changed that much from 1992 to 1995.

So prepare to time travel back to a 1995 mall food court lunch as I talk about my first job at Marvel Comics, how I broke into writing for Tales from the Darkside, and the beginnings of Science Fiction Age magazine, while Adam-Troy Castro reveals how he created the first story in the first issue of that magazine, as well as how a cab ride he feared he wouldn’t survive turned into one of his most memorable works of fiction.

Here’s how you can join us at the mall— (more…)

When recording a podcast in a restaurant setting, sometimes you have to deal with the background chatter of other customers, and sometimes you have to deal with music pouring from overhead speakers … but I never expected I’d have to deal with a speeding locomotive!

That’s right—in an Eating the Fantastic first, my guest and I had to contend with a freight train. Actually, more than just a freight train—but many freight trains.

When it came time for dinner at Fiorella’s Jack Stack, we were given the choice of a table either in the main dining room or out on the patio, and because I was afraid the loud music combined with the conversation of other customers would create an ambient noise you’d find distracting, I decided we should eat al fresco … not realizing there were railroad tracks nearby, which meant an occasional locomotive would pass. But don’t worry—I think you’ll find the result more amusing than annoying, especially when (as you’ll hear) one overly loud engine caused my guest and me to break into song.

My guest this episode is Hugo, Nebula, and Stoker Award nominated writer Adam-Troy Castro. Adam has published more than 100 short stories, some of which I was privileged to buy back when I edited Science Fiction Age magazine, plus a story someone else had the honor of purchasing—my all-time favorite zombie story.

We talked about the epiphany caused by his first viewing of Night of the Living Dead, how he handled a heckler during his early days doing stand-up comedy, the history behind the novel he almost wrote spinning off from the classic TV show The Prisoner, and much more. We even, for reasons you will learn, had cause to sing a few bars of the Johnny Cash classic “Folsom Prison Blues.”

Here’s how you can share the BBQ— (more…)

Instagram didn’t launch until 2010—but why should that stop me from Instagramming L.A.con IV, the 2006 Worldcon which took place in Anaheim?

And so … here are seven snapshots of who were were a decade ago.

Bob Silverberg

At breakfast in a shirt I can’t quite believe I ever owned. (more…)

On Sunday, September 2, 2012, Adam-Troy Castro, lover of spicy food and author of the Gustav Gloom novels, slipped away from the Chicago Worldcon and traveled to Bricks, where he attempted to eat a painful pizza, which consists of spicy pepperoni, purple onion, fresh jalapeno, garlic, tomato sauce, mozzarella, and lots and !LOTS! of hot sauce.

I was one of his sadistic friends who journeyed to witness (but not to partake in) this act of masochism. But just because you weren’t there, doesn’t mean you have to miss the madness.

Check out Adam’s agony below.

If the poor guy’s pain proves to be too much for you to watch, just skip ahead to 15:50 to learn how it all turns out and see him sum up his ordeal.

I wish I could have shared the following videos while Chicon7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention, was still ongoing, as that would have hewed to Edelman’s Schadenfreude Rule of Convention Reporting. But alas, I was far too busy. (Future posts will show you just how busy.)

First up, on Thursday, August 30, Adam-Troy Castro read his short story “My Wife Hates Time Travel,” recently published in Lightspeed. Since you weren’t there, you don’t get any of the chocolate chip cookies he was handing out in support of his new novel Gustav Gloom and the People Taker—which should teach you to show up in person next time.

And then, on Monday, September 3, I read “A Most Extraordinary Man,” a sequel of sorts to Saki’s “The Open Window,” which will be published in the anthology The Monkey’s Other Paw: Revived Classic Stories of Dread and the Dead from NonStop Press. (more…)

I arrived home from the Reno Worldcon late Monday night, and as you can tell by the absence of recent posts, I failed to live up to Edelman’s Schadenfreude Rule of Convention Reporting, which states that all blogging must occur while a con is still in progress, so you can see what you’re missing while it’s still going on. If you were following me on Twitter or Facebook, you got a taste of the action, but I was just having too much fun to pause to tell you about it here until my return.

Well, now I’m back, and it appears I still don’t (and won’t) have time for a lengthy con report, so these few highlights will have to stand in for the long weekend. Here are my 12 favorite Worldcon moments:

Singing along with Dr. Demento

I started listening to Dr. Demento’s warped radio show in the early ’80s, which is how I first learned about everything from “Fish Heads” to Weird Al. So I made sure to catch the opening night presentation of some of his most-requested songs, which he shared via audio and video clips. He also sang “Shaving Cream” live while hundreds of us in the audience sang along to the chorus, which, you’ll forgive me, had me a little giddy.

Never heard of “Shaving Cream”? Here’s Benny Bell’s original version of it from 1946. Now imagine 500-800 fen (I’m no good at counting crowds) singing along. If you weren’t there, you missed a good time.

Dinner with John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow

After yucking it up with Dr. Demento, I headed off with John and Cory for dinner at the Atlantis Steakhouse, where we dined on aged beef, had a great conversation, and realized that Renovation was the second consecutive Worldcon to be held in a city with legalized brothels. (What’s that? You don’t remember prostitution being legal in Melbourne. Well, it was.)

By the way, we only discussed this hypothetically. No. Really. I mean it. (more…)

It’s too early to share any photos of the fun from this year’s World Horror Convention, because I won’t even be heading off to Salt Lake City until Thursday. But what I can share is a look back at a moment of fun from one of my favorite World Horror Cons past.

Here’s a kooky quartet of writers yucking it up sixteen years ago at the 1992 WHC in Nashville. (Click on the image at right to make this fantastic four even more fantastic.) The trio towering over me is, from left to right, Nancy Holder, Adam-Troy Castro (who I already told you about here), and Connie Hirsch. I have no idea how we ended up in such a compromising position, but since I have no shame, I guess it doesn’t really matter.

As you might suspect from everything that’s happened since, the only way that I got Adam off my back was by agreeing to buy all those Vossoff and Nimmitz stories when I was editing Science Fiction Age. Why else do you think I published them? If I hadn’t, he’d probably be around my neck still!

As you can see, World Horror Cons are always a blast, and I expect the coming one to be no different. Check back later this week to see just how wild and crazy it gets.

I’m may be the world’s least trustworthy recommender for Adam-Troy Castro’s first non-franchise novel, Emissaries from the Dead, just out from Eos.

I’ve been impressed by his work ever since I read his first published story, “Clearance to Land,” back in the same 1989 issue of Pulphouse that printed one of my own stories. I chose his “The Last Robot” as the first story in the first issue of Science Fiction Age. I published so many installments of the zany adventures starring his inept space characters Vossoff and Nimmitz that they eventually filled a book, one for which I wrote the introduction. His zombie tale “Dead Like Me” is one of my favorite short stories. And he’s been writing book reviews for SCI FI magazine and movie reviews for Science Fiction Weekly for years.

As you can tell, I’m a little biased toward his writing. So it might be pointless for me to talk up Emissaries from the Dead, since you’ll just figure that I drank the Castro Kool-Aid a long time ago.

But that’s not enough to stop me from saying publicly how much I enjoyed reading Adam’s new book. I was thrilled to finally be able to read him at novel length in a piece of fiction which didn’t star Spider-Man. Emissaries from the Dead is a science-fiction thriller, always a tricky sub-genre to pull off, because it’s tough to play fair with the reader in a mystery when tomorrow’s rules are so alien to our own. But Adam managed to write a book that worked both as SF and as mystery, at the same time creating intriguing alien intelligences, building a true sense of wonder, and introducing a compelling protagonist about whom he’ll be writing future novels.

Congratulations, Adam! I’m looking forward to many more.