That's what I wrote on Monday when we got back home, now it's Thursday and I'm only just getting on with it.
In the 'old' days, I always used to define a successful con as one where I:
- Met up with old friends
- Developed a previous acquaintance into a close friend
- Met some new acquaintances.
Novacon 40 met 2 out of 3 of these criteria, so I count it as a success. I definitely met up with old friends - it was great to see Chris Priest & Chris Evans again, though the latter didn't hang around for nearly long enough for my liking; to meet up again with Randy Byers was an unexpected surprise and Novacons just wouldn't be the same without Lennart . I didn't develop any acquaintanceships, but having bemoaned the fact that Novacons just don't seem to be bringing in the newer fans, I was proved wrong!
The most surprising occurrence at the con, though, had nothing to do with other people, but with my and John's earlier incarnations. On the freebie fanzine table on the last night I found a copy of Wallbanger 2. Knowing I was missing one copy, but not of which issue, I decided to take this one, and then I started reading it. That was really strange, because it didn't feel like me at all. I think I need to get re-acquainted with this person purporting to be related to me and see if I can track the differences. I always thought in the early days of our fanzine activity that we were deemed too 'nice' for the KTF times we were living in, but perhaps my memory is mistaken.
And John was downright rude in his fanzine reviews. That just didn't feel right somehow, John is NEVER rude... Still, we were obviously different people then.
The zine also contained an article by the greatly missed Rob Holdstock, which I've attached it here for everyone's delectation.
Rob Holdstock article
In the intro to the article, I explained that I was asking various 'famous' authors whether and why they are still fans. Don't know if I understand Rob's answer even today - was he being satirical, or serious? Unfortunately it's now too late to ask.
One thing that I do remember which appears to be true, is how very active we were at those times - I was doing Wallbanger, and we were editing Matrix and we were doing the BSFA printing as well. We were young! It's a different situation now, though things are changing. Having ducked out of doing anything for some time (well, not since Eastercon 2003 and Worldcon 2007) we have now put our names in the hat for doing publications for next Novacon! Well, at least that job is over by the time the convention starts!
Only time will tell if this was a good idea - but at least we made it whilst sober.
