Open Thread: Minicon 51 Report

Open Thread: Minicon 51 Report

For those of you new to this blog, Minicon is the Easter weekend science fiction convention put on by MN-StF every year.  I’ve been going to it for somewhere around three decades now, and this year was no exception.  Once again it was at the RadiShTree (Bloomington Doubletree) hotel, and I was able to secure a room in the hotel, which was ready when I checked in!

I wandered around the Art Show/Dealers’ Room/Science Exhibit for a while, then visited the Consuite for a late lunch.  One of the nicest things about long-running conventions is meeting and talking to your friends you only see there–I did quite a lot of that this last weekend, as some of these folks I’ve had at least a nodding acquaintance with since the mid-Eighties.

I went to the Cinema Obscura to watch a short film titled Yesterday Was a Lie which is black and white, and involves time becoming unstuck for a detective.  Problems with the sound system made the first ten minutes seem even more “noir” than was intended, but being able to hear the words thereafter didn’t help much in unraveling what was actually going on.

Then I attended the panel “It’s Tough to Be an Introvert These Days” which had all three Guests of Honor: Seanan McGuire (writer), Lojo Russo (musician) and Sara Burrier (artist) and a couple of other people talking about how they balance their social media presence with their creative and personal lives.

After that was Opening Ceremonies, which were very short this year as the new MC was no-nonsense.  Dave Romm retired from the job after thirty years!

I went up to my room for a couple of hours to rest, then came down for the first panel I was on, “How to Survive a Horror Movie.”  As Seanan McGuire writes horror (among other things) she was also on this panel.  She got a corn-based trophy from some fans, referencing something I’m not familiar with.  We had a lot of fun, and I got to use my “don’t be a security guard” line.

After that, I dropped in on a couple of parties.  Dave Romm also retired from his day job, it seems, and has been spending time traveling with his mother, who was also there–the party was mostly so she could meet people.  Also got a review copy of a book you’ll be hearing more about once I’ve finished with it.

Next morning, I enjoyed the consuite breakfast–big thank you to the dedicated people that make that possible every year!  Then it was off to the spendy room again–unfortunately the one thing in the Art Show I’d wanted had been outbid.  My niece will be getting a different birthday present.  I noticed a headache coming on, but ignored it at that point so I could go to the Seanan McGuire interview.

She mentioned some things about the October Daye series that increased my desire to read it considerably.  Also a fun story about her visit to Tam Lin’s Well.  Afterwards, Ms. McGuire did a signing, and I got my copy of Indexing signed.  (More on that book in its review.)

By that time, my headache had spiked, and my need to obtain aspirin distracted me, so I was just barely in time for my first panel of the day, “Being a Fan of Problematic Things.”  I was the moderator, so I really had to be there.  Much thanks to my panelists Aimee Kuzinski and Katie Clapham for being willing to do most of the talking!  We covered a lot of ground, from “what does ‘problematic’ actually mean?” through “how to react when you find out something you like is problematic to other people” to “how do we teach our children about problematic elements in their fiction?”

My headache was mostly gone by the next panel, “Psy Phi” (psionic powers in comics) which I again shared with Seanan McGuire, who brought badge ribbons to vote for Jean Gray or Emma Frost as “best X-psychic.”  We talked about psi powers in science fiction and how the use of them evolved, a bit about developing the ethics of telepathy, and how comics tended to give psychic powers to women, the disabled and the “othered.”

A lot of the audience was the same for the next panel I was on, “Being an X-Men Means Never Having to Attend a Serious Funeral”, which was about revolving-door deaths in comics.  Mind, that’s mostly a thing with Marvel and DC–smaller companies and single-creator comics can permanently kill characters and not really hurt their bottom line.  The death of a character (and subsequent return) can be done well, but too often it’s subject to lazy writing.

Did other things for a while, then the headache came back, so I took more aspirin and laid down (I love having a room at the hotel!) for a while before my last panel, “50th Anniversary of Star Trek”  (The pilot was filmed in 1964, but the show didn’t hit the air until 1966.)  Unfortunately, the scheduled panelist who had worked with Gene Roddenberry back in the day took ill, but we managed to find a knowledgeable substitute.  Indeed, all the other panelists were way more informed about Star Trek than I am, so I fell back on the moderator’s privilege of asking questions and letting everyone else talk.

Apparently the JJ Abrams reboot is attracting new fans who can still get into the better old stuff.  (I was happy to see a few people in the audience who were actually younger than Star Trek itself.)

I quickly visited a few more parties, had more conversations, got a root beer float at the Consuite, then went up to my room to watch some dubbed anime on Cartoon Network before turning in.

Woke up late, breakfast in the Consuite again, then packed for the journey home.  (Checkout time is noon, and I am not made of money.)  Made a last sweep through the booksellers, then it was off to “The Year in SF”.  Lots of good stuff last year, the one noticeable trend was more “climate disaster” novels.

Then it was time for the “Mega Moneyduck Reveal.”  “Moneyduck” is kind of like a pen and paper version of “Telephone”–you start with a word or phrase, the next person draws a picture of it, the next next person writes a description of the picture, etc.  This particular game had been played on a long roll of paper all weekend.  The starting phrase was “Shall we play this again next year?” and the mutations took us through sentient alcohol, suicidal teddy bears, and alien preachers to “Batman and Robin caught the Hot Dog Bandit.”  Very silly.

Closing ceremonies were fun, and the assassination of the outgoing MN-StF President was accomplished by informing him that he’d been chosen as Trump’s running mate, bringing on a heart attack.

The bus ride back to Minneapolis was not so much fun–the sky had clouded over and the wind picked up, the local bus took forever to arrive, and the connecting bus drove away just as the local pulled up, requiring another half hour wait in the cold.

Back to work tomorrow!