Take a look at the three men below. Note the hope in their eyes and the smiles on their faces. Approximately 30 hours from now, the smiles and hope will be stricken from two of those goofy mugs.

These three competing nominees in the Stoker Awards category of Long Fiction are, from left to right, Lee Thomas, author of “An Apiary of White Bees,” you know who, the author of “Almost the Last Story from Almost the Last Man,” and Nicholas Kaufmann, author of “General Slocum’s Gold.”

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We were going to settle this competition with a knife fight in the dealers room, but since we couldn’t find the other two nominees in our category, William Browning Spencer and Gary Braunbeck, we figured it was pointless to get started. But if we can track them down before the awards ceremony begins, boy, oh, boy, but the blood will fly!

Actually, blood almost flew this afternoon when Guest of Honor Dennis Etchison read his heartrending story “Red Dog Down,” though at least it would have been self-inflicted. The tale was so bleak and depressing that if razor blades or handguns had been too easily available at the conclusion, a few teary-eyed audience members might have decided to end it all rather than continue on with the rest of the con.

His mood-altering work done, Dennis invited us all down to the bar to drown our sorrows, but the bar wasn’t yet open, because this is, after all, Salt Lake City. And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly in search of other convention consolation.