This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending Fencon, a fan-run science fiction and fantasy convention in Dallas/Fort Worth. The convention skews towards older, Southern fans in their late forties to seventies, and as a younger millennial steeped more in Tor than Baen, I had a blast getting outside my bubble and diving into oldschool fandom, learning the history, and exploring some cultural divides.
The convention, attended by perhaps 150 people, featured panels ranging from cozy discussions on favorite books, to brainstorms on military strategy in alternate histories, to NASA scientists debating the best way to mine asteroids. Military SF author Jack Campbell gave a lovely keynote speech about respecting your readers, and other people generally, and delved into the complicated dynamics of writing military life and hierarchy. I particularly enjoyed the contributions of Baen publisher/editor-in-chief Toni Weisskopf; I could listen to her talk all day! She is incredibly humble and generous, funny as heck, and has a breathtaking mastery of the editing craft–truly a legend. Rhonda Eudaly was another leading voice at the con, whose passion for sharing resources and bringing up new writers shone in everything she did.
As a younger millenial, and someone who fell away from reading for a while in my twenties, my speculative fiction cultural touchestones are way more recent–Ann Leckie rather than C.J. Cherryh, Jeff VanderMeer rather than H. P. Lovecraft. I was as surprised by the ignorance of many older fans about the stuff I consider “big” right now as I was confronted by my own ignorance of the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
I kind of assumed even older fans would occasionally check out what’s currently bestselling, but at a number of panels, speakers confessed a lack of knowledge about developments in the genre since 2000. For example, one panel focused on the panelists’ perceived prevalence of cynical stories about brutally violent antiheroes, but my perception, based on what my peers are into, is that the hottest heroes right now (outside dark fantasy, at least) are messy but noble-hearted reformists and revolutionaries working against Empire: Ancillary Justice, A Memory Called Empire, Gideon the Ninth, the Expanse, Some Desperate Glory, etc. On the flip side, through the weekend I collected an extensive list of big names I am embarrassed to have still not yet read—Zelazny, Delany, A. E. van Vogt, Lois McMaster Bujold, C.J. Cherryh, etc. Folks were more than happy to recommend titles (and pass on 6 actual books, courtesy of Scott Cupp) to deepen my knowledge of the pre-1980’s era.
Another divide was the difference between this type of con and what its members deride as “gate shows”–huge conventions like Comic-Con and Anime Expo, that are professionally produced and intended to turn a profit. The fans in my generation and younger attend these types of cons, and don’t even know smaller cons like Fencon exist. And unless Fencon finds a way to radically transform, or use their institutional knowledge to help invent a new kind of fan-con for the new era, it’s apparently on the decline. I heard several older fans lament “the problem of graying,” and the approaching death of Fencon, and reference a similar fate that befell ConDFW (Covid didn’t help). I was surprised to feel a surge of grief myself for something I only just learned existed, and started brainstorming ways I could bring all my friends next year, perhaps reinvigorate it with new life, connect the rich, institutional knowledge of these fore-fans with the new fandoms of today. But, and I say this well aware when we’re old, we’ll probably do exactly the same thing, it seemed like many of the older folks are content to keep it as it is and grumble about younger fans and their strange ways.
Still, I had a surprisingly emotional experience at Fencon, a bittersweet sense of both reunion and loss, coming home and grieving. This is a community that grew from handmade fanzines and correspondence snail-mailed across the country, from clubs organized out of the backs of magazines, who remember taking guest speakers like Harlan Ellison and Leonard Nimoy out to the local honky-tonk for drinks. I had a glimpse of what we younger fans have missed out on: a cozy, for-us-by-us gathering of fans, artists, editors, and writers from amateur to big name, all nerding out and partying together without autograph fees or thousand-dollar costumes or the expectation that you be the very best in whatever you do. Sure, we can exchange fanfiction and fanart instantly across the internet and have extensive discourse over social media, in special Discord servers, etc. but dammit, I want something tangible!
Hearing tales of Fandom past made me pine for an actual paper zine with scribbly cartoons and hot takes and gossip that arrives in my mailbox. And yes, I know people still make zines, but it’s not the thriving culture it was, and there’s also things like perfectionism and fear of commitment that makes organizing persistent activity difficult. So many initiatives start with a burst of energy and then immediately get dropped. Why make little fan cartoons when other creators are sharing professional quality content on Instagram–who would read it? Isn’t it cringe? And why show up to a small club or fan convention if you don’t know anyone, or don’t totally feel like it that day, when you could just connect with your perfect group of people online, without leaving your house? We know we’re lonely, we know we’re missing face-to-face connection and the joy of building something together, but I think we largely just don’t know how to do it anymore. I think many of us are struggling with having been raised as consumers and/or capitalists, “creators,” but not creatives, not organizers and participants in an offline creative social life.
But I don’t want to end on a morose note. Despite the comments above, I don’t feel cynical about the newer generations, and I’m confident we will continue evolving our own forms of community and overcoming the obstacles to it. And, while this will sound like a cliche moralism, I do think we will get a head start if we make an effort to seek out the wisdom of older generations, get outside our bubbles and attend things like Fencon, and study the history of the genre even where pulpy and problematic. Likewise, I would love to see older fans fight for continuity–pass on that institutional knowledge of how to organize cons, how to bring people together, how to resolve conflicts, etc. to new generations.
One idea–Fencon has often run a “con within a con” format, where they team up with a specific fandom (this year, the 1632 universe) to bring in more numbers. What about networking with Gideon the Ninth, or Powerless, or ACOTAR fans, who don’t have a con of their own, to have a mini-con within Fencon and bridge the gap between established and brand new fandoms? Now, there’s nothing more annoying than someone rolling up, knowing nothing about what you’re doing, and telling you how to fix it, so my two cents may be worthless. But I would love something like Fencon for the next generation, and despite retiring from organizing I find it hard to turn off organizer brain, so I can’t help scheming…
AUSTIN DEWAR 