It’s been almost 10 years since Paul Levinson, then president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, approached me at the 1999 Philcon and asked if I would act as Toastmaster for the following year’s Nebula Awards ceremony in New York.

Ham that I am, I immediately accepted. Click below to see how I repaid Paul for that honor.

The event was recorded by a group called the Rochester Fantasy Fans, something which I’d completely forgotten. At the Montreal Worldcon last weekend, they presented me with a DVD containing a complete video of that evening, which contains speeches by Daniel Keyes and Brian Aldiss, plus stage appearances by Octavia Butler, Nancy Kress, John Kessel, and others.

Maybe you’ll get to see them in the future. But for now, here’s a brief taste of my shtick. If you behave, I may inflict more of it on you.

While digging through boxes of papers earlier this month in search of Clarion workshop manuscripts from 1979 which had been scrawled on by my instructors—needed for my Worldcon PowerPoint presentation “How to Respond to a Critique of Your Writing”—I came across a box containing photocopies of several pieces of artwork I hadn’t even remembered owning.

I’ll probably end up posting them all here eventually, but since I shared a a never-before seen drawing of the Scarecrow on John Byrne’s birthday last month, I thought—why not start off with a never-before-seen drawing of The Scarecrow by Don Perlin, an artist best known for Werewolf by Night, a title which had impressed me way back when.

According to the one page of script which was packed away with the photocopy, this was meant to be the splash page for Scarecrow #2, with room left at the top for one of Marvel’s introductory text paragraphs and at the bottom for the indicia.

(And forgive me if the top and bottom halves of the illustration don’t entirely line up—I don’t own a scanner large enough to fit the entire piece, and so scanned each half separately and put it all back together again with Photoshop.)

But (you may ask) whatever happened to Scarecrow #1? (more…)

During a break in the action at the Montreal Worldcon last Saturday, I snuck away from the convention center with power couple F. Brett Cox and Jeanne Beckwith. After lunch at Rôtisserie St-Hubert, we paused at a strip club, wandered a church, and toured the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.

As we moved through the museum, I was very conscious of the passage of time. The Locus gang was going to be hosting a wake for Charles N. Brown in Gary K. Wolfe’s room at 5:00 p.m., and I wanted to be there to help remember. Little did I know that there was something the universe very much wanted me to remember.

I learned this while examining one of the the massive photos hung for a special exhibition of the work of Robert Polidori. Mixed in with pictures taken in Chernobyl, Beirut, and Jordan was the following image, which was labeled, “La Guarida, Restaurant Entrance, Havana.”

Why was that meaningful? (more…)

After the fiasco of my trip home from the Montreal Worldcon—which I was reporting on in real time over at Twitter and Facebook, but which I haven’t had the time to write up here yet—I got right down to business, digging into the mountain of mail which awaited me and getting today’s online content ready for Sci Fi Wire.

But then I took a brief break to step out onto the back deck and admire the garden. As I came back inside, I saw something tiny and brown land on the glass of the door. I at first thought it was an insect, but as I knelt to look more closely, I saw that it was this little guy:

He was small! Definitely smaller than a quarter, and perhaps no larger than a nickel. Its back was entirely that orange-brown you see, with none of the white of its belly.

I’d hoped the box turtles would gather to welcome me home, but this will definitely do.

Gary K. Wolfe opened his room at the Intercontinental late yesterday afternoon to hold a wake for Charles Brown. And while many moving and tearful things were said by his many friends, which I will leave unreported as I believe that for the most part what happens at a wake should remain at a wake, one comment Gary made stuck with me.

Once the room was filled, he stood on a ledge by the window (inside the glass, of course) to get our attention and begin the proceedings. Some began to shout “Jump! Jump!” … because, as we all know, those of us who gather at Worldcon once each year are three-year-olds at heart.

In response to this, Gary pointed at Ellen Datlow and Gardner Dozois, seated on the edge of the bed, and said:

“The science fiction editor says ‘Don’t jump.’ The horror editor says ‘Jump.’ That’s all you need to know about those genres.”

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

I’ve been too busy at Worldcon to spend much time keeping up here. Even my tweeting has been unusually limited for a con environment, since to avoid insane international roaming charges I’ve been dependent on free wifi, which I’ve only been able to access at the hotel and in the dealers room, and not while watching or participating on any of the panels.

But before throwing myself out into the maelstrom once more—I’ll be attempting to moderate Bob Silverberg, Nancy Kress, James Nelson-Lucas, and Bill Willingham on the 11:00 a.m. panel “What Makes a Good Story?”—I’d like to share one of the more joyous moments I’ve had so far.

I very much wanted to see David Kyle this weekend. He was one of the Futurians, and a co-founder of Gnome Press. Dave was at the first Worldcon, and even at what was supposed to have been the first SF con before the Worldcon, which I believe occurred in 1936 when a group of New York fans drove to meet with some Philadelphia fans in the back of a bar owned my somebody’s father. (Any fan historians out there, feel free to correct me!) A Worldcon isn’t a Worldcon until I catch up with Dave, and I never got a chance to do that last year at Denvention.

I spotted him between panels early yesterday afternoon, rushing along to get to his next panel, with no time to talk. But just seeing him, hale and hearty at 90, bursting with energy as he passed me by and promised we’d get together later, made me happy.

Later, though, I did get to sit with him and chat for half an hour. We talked until I had to meet some friends for dinner and he had to rest a bit before heading out for a night of partying. I would have liked to have hung out with him all night, talking of the old days and the days still to come. Dave’s one of those people I hope to be like when I grow up. If you see him this weekend, be sure to say hello!

I have no idea how long this has been going on, or how long it will continue, but John DeNardo just pointed out to me that Robert Reed’s Wikipedia page features a photo of me instead of Bob!

Here’s the page as it looks right now.

I may have accepted Bob’s Hugo when he couldn’t make it to the Japan Worldcon, but as far as I know, I am not Robert Reed … unless something supernatural happened unbeknownst to me when I touched his trophy.

Guess I’d better start packing my bags for that move from West Virginia to Nebraska!

I dreamt that I was hanging out at the beach with coworkers in a gathering meant to induce bonding. I’m not sure how much bonding was going on, though, as I couldn’t even tell the identities of the coworkers who were with me. What office were they supposed to represent? Were these comrades from my current job at Syfy, or were they from past employers Sovereign Media or Marvel Comics? I couldn’t tell. As we milled around in the sand, it was one big faceless mob.

Then the boss stepped forward with a surprise. Two surprises, actually. The first surprise was that as soon as he started speaking, I recognized him. It was Steve Carell, in his role of the not-so-bright boss of The Office. (My coworkers remained anonymous after this big reveal, though, and did not suddenly turn into other Office cast members.) Surprise number two was his announcement that as an additional part of our supposed bonding, we were all about to go skydiving together.

My boss began climbing into his chute, and as he wrapped the straps around himself, he tripped and fell, bumping into a trash can in which a fire was going to keep us all warm. The can tipped over onto him, and his hair caught fire. No one else seemed to be doing anything as he screamed, but I scooped him up in my arms and, since we were at the beach, ran into the ocean to submerge him in water. (Though thinking about it now, awake, I’m not entirely sure that was such a good idea. What would salt water do to his burns? Maybe I should have covered him in sand instead.)

Suddenly, it’s months later. As a result of what happened at the beach—and I’m not sure whether this resulted as a reward for rescuing my boss or merely because an opportunity arose because my boss was dead or incapacitated as a result of the fire—I’m writing a massive issue of a Marvel comic in which the Hulk fights the Thing.

I’m doing it in a hotel room for some reason, my wife beside me. When I step into the hallway, there’s John Verpoorten, longtime Marvel Comics production manager (who’s long gone from the real world). He’s worried about my progress. Will I be able to get it done in time? I didn’t mind him asking, because it was his job to worry. I told him this would be easy for me, that I’d been reading stories of the Hulk fighting the Thing since I was a kid, so their rivalry was in my blood. It was going to be a snap.

I woke while continuing to reassure him in that hotel hallway, both of us smiling.

I dreamt this morning that I was visiting with Tony Isabella, a comic book writer and editor I first met a very long time ago. To give you some idea as to how long, I’d never have gotten my job at Marvel Comics without him. (There we are below in a Marie Severin caricature originally published in an ancient issue of Marvel’s fan magazine FOOM.)

In the dream, I was hanging with him in a hotel room, where we were accompanied by a couple of PR flacks I’d never met before. We chatted for awhile, catching up, and then Tony playfully said, “Hmmm … I wonder where I’m going to find someone to finish this aliens story I don’t have time to write?” Which was his way of asking whether I would take over a project he couldn’t complete.

I told him it sounded good to me, and then those corporate types jumped in, clarifying with the details. It seems I’d misinterpreted when Tony had spoken of lower-case “aliens,” because this was no tale of random aliens I was needed to tell, but rather some sort of continuation of the film Aliens. For some reason, they also thought it important to mention that there be no music in whatever I wrote, that these aliens did not have that art form. Since it had never occurred to that they would, that didn’t bother me.

The dream ended with Tony and me sitting and talking, just two old friends who haven’t seen each other in an awfully long time filling in the missing years.

In a later dream, I was in a phone conversation with Michael Dirda while he was in Cambridge and I was at home, and I was recommending what bookstores he should visit while there … as if Michael would ever need advice from me on where the best bookstores are!

I dreamt this morning that I was visiting with Pat Cadigan. We were walking through the streets of London, accompanied by a radio interviewer.

Actually, I wasn’t the one being trailed—it was Pat who was being followed around and interviewed as she moved through her day. I just happened to be there chatting with her. She was the focus.

We came upon a street which was terribly crowded. There were long lines running this way and that, making the sidewalk almost impassable. It turned out that the reason for the crowd was that the Queen was doing a book signing. (As if Her Majesty would ever do such a thing!)

I waved an arm at the crowd and told both Pat and her interviewer that the Queen didn’t deserve this—this was the size of the crowd that Pat should be having for her own book signings.

We made our way through the throng, and continued on through the streets of London, touring until I eventually awoke …