Blackmoor Vituperative

This is not urban fantasy

We are home, safe and sound, from MystiCon 2011. We had a good time, and we are glad we went. Here are some thoughts in no particular order.

I liked Brinke Stevens. I can’t recall (offhand) ever enjoying a guest of honor as much at a con. I wish her luck with her writing.

It annoys me that “horror” is apparently no longer a genre, and that all of these vampire romance novels are called “urban fantasy”. WTF. I have an easy test for anyone wondering if a book is “urban fantasy”: if the protagonist or antagonist in your novel is one of the Universal Studios classic movie monsters, it’s not fantasy, much less “urban fantasy”. Storm Front is urban fantasy. Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter is not. War For The Oaks is urban fantasy. Dead Until Dark is not. This is not rocket science.

We really enjoyed hanging out with Carla and Brian. Fun folks. I hope they come to RavenCon some day (although they won’t this year). We met several other fun people, as well, but I am terrible with names, so I can’t tell you theirs.

The character sheet for Greg Porter’s new Verne game is simply amazing. Also, CORPS has been replaced with EABA… as of eight years or so ago, which shows you how out of touch I am.

The podcast thing worked out pretty well, I think, but I have learned something in the process: I am painfully tedious. There are some people who are so tedious that I can barely stand to be in the same room with them when they are talking. I am one of those people. I don’t know how anyone else stands me. Aside from my annoying nasal voice, I combine the worst aspects of someone who can’t string together two coherent thoughts and someone who appears convinced of their own brilliance. If I was in the audience for a panel I was on, I would probably just leave. No accounting for taste, I guess.

I need to find a way to tether my phone to my laptop, so that I won’t be dependent on a malfunctioning hotel internet connection. I know that there are Android tethering apps; I am just not sure if my phone can do it.

I would like to play in a superhero LARP some time. We were too busy for me to participate in one this time.

Having pizza in the con suite Friday night was awesome. Having a hotel room across the hall and one door down from the con suite was doubly awesome.

In general, I am glad we went.