RavenCon 18

RavenCon occurred this past weekend in a hotel near Richmond, Virginia. The weather was a bit weird for Virginia in late April. While the days were nice enough, aside from occasional bursts of rain on Saturday -- however, a rainbow appeared, a rare spectacle -- the nights and early mornings got abnormally chilly. The hotel is actually a complex of three buildings, one with guest rooms and two that contain convention spaces, registration desk, restaurant, etc., so people have to either walk outside or go through tunnels between buildings. Happily, buffet meals were available for Friday and Saturday dinners, Saturday and Sunday breakfasts, and Saturday lunch. That was a welcome improvement over last year, when there was nowhere to eat on Friday evening except the bar, overcrowded with painfully slow service, causing us to miss most of the opening ceremonies that evening.

The musical guests included at least two acoustic performers as relief from the relentlessly loud, "energetic" groups that seemed to predominate in previous years. I especially enjoyed the Possum Princess, who has a lovely voice and sings so I could understand the lyrics. (Since I'm not musical, I have a low bar for music performers, and that's my main criterion.) She sang for almost an hour in the art show room on Saturday, allowing one to combine listening to her with admiring the displays. The Guest of Honor was fantasy author Alix Harrow, several of whose books I've read. She gave an engaging interview. She also appeared on a panel about Appalachian folklore and fiction, which I found fascinating and got several book recommendations from. In fact, I ordered two of the folklore-related books right away, and they're arriving this week.

The masquerade/costume contest, surprisingly, had only six entries, but they were all impressive: Harley Quinn (female) from the Batman franchise, Fizzarolli from HAZBIN HOTEL, one of Ken's buddies from the Barbie movie, Bo Peep as seen in the TOY STORY series complete with her sheep lamp, Queen Amidala from the Star Wars universe dressed as the Queen of Hearts (quite a wild crossover idea), and Amalthea from THE LAST UNICORN in human form but with a lit-up horn on her forehead, who won first place.

Some other notable sessions I attended: Darker Disney -- how and why have more recent Disney movies become darker than the vintage ones, if they have? Discussion on WICKED, the book, stage play, and movie (part one), with references to Baum's original series. Law enforcement for writers, presentation and freewheeling Q and A by a veteran in the field. Writing alternate history, with extensive reading suggestions, presented by an author of a trilogy about ancient Romans in North America interacting with Native tribes, among many other books. Panel on Vincent Price's movies, in which I heard about lots of films I was previously unaware of. "Neurofollies," avoiding overused and often false tropes about "brain functions and dysfunctions," a very detailed 90-minute lecture plus Q and A on the structures of the brain and how they work, with slides. "Old-school monsters," how they reflect and deviate from their folkloric and literary sources, well attended and very lively. Favorite world-ending disasters -- how likely the familiar ones are and how to survive them, or try to. Writing RPG games such as Dungeons and Dragons, and what to do if the players veer off in unexpected directions, which had a rather small audience but a nice discussion. I also dropped in on parts of some other panels; the one I most regretted missing the start of was "Eugenics in Science Fiction."

A novel activity occurred during the lunch hour Saturday, an improv live-action D and D scenario in which a three-person party explored the dungeon of the Mad Mage's castle in search of his missing wife. Audience members got to roll the oversized, Nerf-textured 20-sided die for the monsters and non-player characters. Entertaining with some very funny moments.

This was the scheduled "off" year for my husband and me, no panels. Having total freedom in planning our schedule was nice, but I look forward to appearing on panels again at future cons.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.