During Readercon, you got to share Thai food with Resa Nelson, eat a full Irish breakfast with Jeffrey Ford, and down donuts with a parade of 15 writers, editors, and fans. Now it’s time to say farewell to Readercon with a visit to The Lobster Stop in Quincy, Massachusetts for (what else?) lobster rolls … and F. Brett Cox.

Brett co-edited (with former Eating the Fantastic guest Andy Duncan) Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic (which featured a story about Randy Newman by yours truly!), and has had fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews appear in Eclipse Online, War Stories, Century, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Postscripts, and many other venues. He’s also hard at work on a book-length study of Roger Zelazny for the University of Illinois Press.

Over lobster rolls, we talked of the debate we witnessed between Isaac Asimov and Harlan Ellison in 1974 at our joint first Worldcon, how the Connie Willis story “A Letter from the Clearys” made the scales fall from his eyes, why George Saunders is his “favorite contemporary American short story writer,” and more.

Here’s how you can grab a seat at the table— (more…)

I visited yesterday with a friend who’s winnowing down his book collection, and as we reviewed what remained on his shelves, we reminisced about those we’d both read a long time ago, including favorites by the likes of James H. Schmitz and Harry Harrison. He loved them so much he couldn’t bear to part with them.

But there was one book he was hanging on to not because it was so good, but because it was so bad.

He called Vanguard to Venus, by Jeffery Lloyd Castle, the worst science fiction novel he’d ever read.

I’d never heard of the 1957 novel or its author, but one thing was clear—whatever the quality of the words between the covers, the book’s back cover blurb was one of the best I’d ever read.

Check out its bold claims, including an ALL CAPS pronouncement that science fiction is “an exciting and imaginative NEW FORM OF LITERATURE that is attracting literally tens of thousands of new readers every year.”

How could you not love a blurb like that?

I hate eating in hotel restaurants, but never more so than when I’m trying to record an episode of Eating the Fantastic.

Not only does the food there tend to rise only to the level of the merely edible (if you’re lucky), but breakfast during a convention means many interruptions as the usual tablehopping occurs, with people popping by to say hi. Plus you get no sense of place, as one hotel restaurant is pretty much like another, especially when it comes to breakfast.

So when it came time to seek out a good setting in Quincy, Massachusetts to chat during Readercon with six-time World Fantasy Award-winning and three-time Shirley Jackson Award-winning writer Jeffrey Ford, whose new short story collection A Natural History of Hell was recently published by Small Beer Press, I looked for something off-site and more authentic.

And found it in McKay’s Breakfast and Lunch. When I read a review about “a popular townie joint” that served food which was “simple and straightforward (no creme brulee French toast or maple ganache cinnamon bread here),” I knew I’d discovered a spot with some character. So that’s where I took Jeff.

We talked about how being edited by Jennifer Brehl made him a better writer, what it was like to be taught by the legendary John Gardner, why he admitted “I don’t really know dick about science fiction or fantasy,” and much more.

Here’s how you can join us— (more…)

The Kansas City Worldcon is fast receding in the rearview mirror, but one more backward-looking post is called for before we let it all go, I think, especially because it concerns not only 2016—but 1992. As I was packing last month for MidAmeriCon II, where Pat Cadigan was scheduled to be our Hugo Awards ceremony Toastmaster, I remembered an artifact from long ago and far away which I thought would amuse her.

Luckily, I was able to find it deep within the Edelman Vault, and so some of you on site might have seen me wearing this.

What’s it all about? Why was Pat a Woman of Destiny at MagicCon, the 1992 Worldcon? What was ClariNet? What was the Library of Tomorrow? And why was there a button about all that? Ah, come closer, padawan, and I shall tell you … (more…)

Because one cannot live on BBQ alone, even when that BBQ is from Kansas City, I didn’t only eat burnt ends during my Worldcon trip, though I might have made it appear that way. I also wanted to experience the fine dining side of Kansas City at least once. So after a bit of research, I chose Bluestem, where Chef Colby Garrelts had won the 2013 James Beard Award for Best Chef Midwest.

And based on what I experienced with Ellen Datlow, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Pat Murphy, and my wife, I could easily understand why.

We chose the three-course dinner option—though if we’d wished, we could have gone for meals of five or ten courses. It was not a set tasting menu, in we had multiple choices for each course, so aside from the amuse-bouche and mignardises below, everything else represents my dishes alone, not those of my companions.

But believe me, we all left happy.

Amuse-bouche: Saffron arancini

(more…)

I loved, loved, loved last year’s Baltimore Book Festival, and not just because I had an opportunity to spend time with some of my favorite science fiction and fantasy folks on the planet. I was also able to meet new people, people I wouldn’t ordinarily have met as I travelled the convention circuit, because the event wasn’t a closed con that required payment to enter, but rather a way of interacting with the general public. That is—anyone who might choose to wander the Inner Harbor over a long Autumn weekend.

So, of course, I jumped at the opportunity to do it all over again.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America arranged a full weekend of programming September 23-25—orchestrated by local writer Sarah Pinsker—and you can see our complete schedule here. But since you showed up on this page looking for info about my appearances, here’s where you’ll be able to find, well, me.

Book Speed Dating
Friday, September 23, 11:00 a.m.
Our authors have a minute to tell you about one of their books and the perfect book to go with it. What could possibly go wrong? Find your next favorite book!
Authors: DH Aire, Lara Elena Donnelly, Scott Edelman, Addison Gunn, and more.

The Future of Science Fiction & Fantasy
Friday, September 23, 3:00 p.m.
Genre bending fiction, new frontiers, self publishing. Science fiction and fantasy are quickly changing, so what is on the horizon? Join us as we discuss where we are and where we are going.
Authors: Lara Elena Donnelly, Scott Edelman, Addison Gunn, Larry Hodges, Justina Ireland.

Second Breakfast & Snozzberries: Food in SF & Fantasy
Saturday, September 24, 5:00 p.m.
Sensory details are the hallmark of great science fiction and fantasy, and nothing brings that home quite like the food! Join our panelists as they discuss food in their favorite books. We guarantee you’ll leave hungry.
Authors: Cinda Williams Chima, Lara Elena Donnelly, Scott Edelman, Anna Kashina, Fran Wilde, K. Ceres Wright

Meet the Authors Party
Saturday, September 24, 6:00 p.m.
Rub elbows with your new favorite science fiction and fantasy authors at this annual event!

Hope to see you there!

I seem to have a way of finding art. Or rather—art seems to have a way of finding me.

Back in 2008, I told you how I’d found an abandoned painting leaning against one of the famous lions at the main branch of the New York Public Library, and later learned that artist Kael Cabral did that sort of street project a lot. It was a joyful thing to have occurred, and I never expected to make such a serendipitous discovery again.

Then came the Kansas City Worldcon.

As I waited a little over a week ago to be picked up by my Uber, I happened to look behind me and spot this small painting leaning against the outer glass wall by the airport exit. I was intrigued. Could I have encountered a second example of free street art?

An examination of the 5″ x 7″ piece showed—yes, I could! (more…)

This year’s World Science Fiction Convention meant a trip to Kansas City, and Kansas City, of course, meant BBQ. I managed seven BBQ meals, and wish I could have fit in a few more. There were several restaurants, such as LC’s and Snead’s, which I was unable to get to because of panel scheduling, party invites, and pulling off the recording of five new episodes of Eating the Fantastic.

Wherever I went, burnt ends were a part of my meal, though I was surprised by how many of the burnt ends weren’t, well … burnt ends. Several of them either weren’t burnt or weren’t ends.

In order to fulfill the demand for something which constitutes an incredibly small part of a brisket, many restaurants try to turn other sections of the brisket into burnt ends, which while sometimes tasty, doesn’t really fit my own definition of a naturally occurring burnt end.

And so …

Arthur Bryant’s

My barbecue tour began Tuesday night with what’s perhaps the most famous Kansas City barbecue joint, especially to those who don’t live there. I ordered the burnt ends, ribs, and baked beans, expecting to have my mind blown, and while I wasn’t disappointed by the meal, my mind remained unblown … but surprised. Because thought the ribs were fine, and the burnt ends were tasty, the latter didn’t seem either fatty or charred enough to be burnt ends, but were rather heavily sauced chunks of beef. And the beans, while above average, didn’t come close to my favorite, at Hometown BBQ. (more…)

I arrived home late last night from the Kansas City Worldcon, where I visited seven BBQ joints and recorded five more episodes of Eating the Fantastic. But before we get to any of those, it’s time for the first of three episodes captured during last month’s Readercon.

My guest and I wandered off from the con hotel to Quincy’s Pad Thai, from which Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, seems to have ordered takeout a lot.

Joining me was Resa Nelson, whose story “The Dragonslayer’s Sword” I published in the first issue of Science Fiction Age. My decision to purchase the story was validated when at the end of our first year, I tabulated thousands of subscriber surveys and discovered readers had voted that tale their second-favorite story—and their #1 fantasy.

We discussed how the short story of hers I’d published in Science Fiction Age grew into not just a single novel, but a series of novels, why she watches the Japanese movie The Mystery of Rampo before beginning any new writing project, what she learned from the hundreds of film interviews she did for Realms of Fantasy magazine, and more.

Here’s how you can pull up a chair to the table— (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…)