Earlier today, I came across an update from Ravencon announcing this year (2013’s) guests of honor, and I have to admit I’m really conflicted on wanting to go. The family and I drove down for 2012 Ravencon, and the experience didn’t live up to expectations. To be perfectly fair, my expectations were completely over the top and out of proportion, not to mention unrealistic.
This was to be the first convention I’d ever tried attending, so I was pretty excited. The guest this year was Glen Cook, who’s books I’ve loved, and it was “local” to us, so that was an added bonus. So we packed up the kids and drove down (about an hour from Casa Cummings), intending to spend the day there. My expectations were completely skewed by reports from events like ComicCon, DragonCon, and WorldCon. Visions of huge dealer rooms and costumes as far as the eye could see clouded my vision as I drove. Is it any wonder that walking into a hotel in Richmond to see a small dealer room (compared to images from, say, San Diego’s ComicCon) was disappointing Or that without any planning or forethought on my part, the only types of tracks open were some gaming tracks.
To add to my de-moralization, my meeting Glen Cook was less than stellar. With the reflection that six+ months later can give you, its understandable that he was tired, possibly worn out and at the end of his ropes. But at the time, walking up to him to say hi and getting a grumbling, brusque grunt and a nod was a real downer. Didn’t he know how much this meant to the random guy walking up to him in the dealer room with kids in tow?
I know, I set myself up there.
I’d almost forgotten about Ravencon, and then they announced that this year the guests of honor: Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta. And the first thoughts through my head were “How cool! I loved the Seven Sun Saga! And a quick google confirms that although I haven’t read a lot of Moesta’s work, I’m familiar with it. It would be so cool to go and attend some writing sessions, maybe stay for the weekend, and…”
Yeah.
And I start thinking, well, maybe this time if I actually watched to see what the tracks were going to be ahead of time and planned this, maybe it would be worth it…
