Remember the Merry Marvel Marching Society mystery I asked for your help in solving two months back? The one about how I’d thought my name had appeared as an M.M.M.S. member in an issue of Tales from Suspense which featured Titanium Man on the cover, though one of you thought my name was actually published in Strange Tales instead?

Well, it turned out I was right all along!

According to Claudio Piccinini, my named appeared (along with 24 other M.M.M.S. members) in Tales of Suspense #69 (September 1965), which featured the first appearance of Titanium Man. I would have been 10 years old.

Mystery solved!

I’m home from the World Fantasy Convention now—well, not completely home, as we’re on Day 8 of no Internet, and I’ll be spending lots of time in cybercafes until this is fixed—but before the week gets away from me, here are some pics to represent the final day of WFC. I hope to eventually get around to a full con report …

… someday.

Waiting for the banquet to begin with Nalo Hopkinson

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Were you in Toronto this afternoon to watch the World Fantasy Awards ceremony?

No?

Don’t worry. Someone has taken care of that for you …

(You’re welcome!)

And once again, I’ve been having too much fun at the World Fantasy Convention to have any time left over for a full write-up, so these five photos will have to stand in for the details, which I hope to share in a full report in the future.

Hanging with Andy Duncan and Brett Cox

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So you couldn’t make it to the World Fantasy Convention this year—or perhaps you could make it, but wasn’t able to figure out a way to be omnipresent—and are pissed? Don’t worry. There are at least three readings you didn’t have to be present to witness.

And here they are …

F. Brett Cox

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I was up until nearly 3:00 a.m. last night, and once again have no time to share with you in any detail the fun I had at this year’s World Fantasy Convention. That’ll just have to wait until I get home. Until then, let these five photos stand in for the friends and food and general good times I had.

Deep-fried soft dumplings of Berkshire pork at Lai Wah Heen

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Since I’m having too much fun at the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto to write up a full report just yet, let these six photos suffice for now to let you know what my first day was like.

Vatican City burger at Burger’s Priest

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I’d planned to fly down to Florida Saturday afternoon, and was going to be spending today working on Blastr from my mother’s dining room in Boca Raton instead of my home office in Glengary, West Virginia. I’d have had no trouble getting south, but you all told me there was no way I’d be able to get back north again tonight, even though based on initial reports, it didn’t look as if things were going to get bad around here until tomorrow.

So based on your advice, I went ahead and canceled my brief trip, and it’s a good thing I listened to you …

I only hope the same thing doesn’t happen to my 8:08 a.m. flight Thursday to Toronto. I have too much fun planned there, both at the World Fantasy Convention and at some mighty fine restaurants!

As for our safety here, don’t worry—we’re on high ground, and won’t flood unless the whole country’s under water. And since our most fragile large trees got taken down by the derecho, we should be safe as far as the wind is concerned, too.

I hope you’re safe today wherever you are as well!

And when I write that I’ll be eating in Toronto during World Fantasy Con, I mean, yes, I’ll be eating in Toronto during World Fantasy Con … which though it bills itself as a Toronto convention, is actually off in Richmond Hill. But I’ve rented a car so I can head off on foodie expeditions, bringing along with me as many other victims volunteers as I can stuff in the car.

Assuming, of course, that the coming Frankenstorm doesn’t mess with my plans.

All six of these buzzworthy destinations are in Toronto, about a half an hour away from the hotel, and some have asked—how can I dare to tread so far from the convention itself? Won’t I be missing out? Nope! When I go, with four or five others in the car, it’ll be like I’m taking the con with me!

So … what’s on the menu?

Thursday’s lunch: The Burger’s Priest

When I asked for advice on which Toronto burger joint was the best, the responses got so heated you’d think I was in a conversation about the presidential election. But a consensus soon formed around The Burger’s Priest, which has a secret menu not posted at the restaurant. Which means you can only order something like The Vatican City—”a double cheeseburger squeezed between two grilled cheese buns”—if you find out about it online. (more…)

I just ran across a yellowing four-page flyer, “A Field Guide to the Readercon 2 Program Participants,” and it gives an interesting snapshot of who we were back in 1988. Both in that some of the attendees are sadly no longer with us—such as Algis Budrys, Stan Leventhal and John Morressy—but also for the ways in which those of us still around have progressed—such as Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who back then had just been named (respectively) Tor Books’ administrative and managing editors.

Wonder how that worked out for them?

Take a look below to see what (almost) a quarter of a century has done to us.

Let’s hope that those of us still around have every day in every way continued getting better and better. We can dream, can’t we?