How to cover the biggest, wackiest sci-fi convention out there? I took my own shot at it a few years ago on CNN.com. I still like my take on things better (via Dante's "Inferno"), but a new take on this perennial story is definitely needed.
I went religiously for many years, living close enough for the welcome diversion, but once the novelty wore off, too much sameness from year to year started to give me that feeling of "been there, done that." I went back to September to find the story, because there's still something about that massive space for the joyously fringe that I miss.
Link: Wired News: Sci-Fi Fans Chase the DragonCon.
Sci-Fi Fans Chase the DragonCon
02:00 AM Sep. 07, 2005 PT
ATLANTA -- At 10 a.m. Saturday, thousands of bleary-eyed science-fiction fans lined up on the streets outside the downtown Hyatt Regency. They were looking for fairies, and even more unlikely creatures.
Eventually the road filled with mysterious beings coated in sparkles and green paint, their gossamer wings floating in humid Southern air. They were followed by a troupe of mournful vampires, a couple of Spider-Mans, Aeon Flux, Superman, a fleet of Klingons on motorcycles, a mass of Harry Potters, assorted characters from Babylon 5 and of course an entire phalanx of stormtroopers marching more or less in formation behind a gaggle of Princess Leias.
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Somewhere upward of 20,000 fans descend on Atlanta for this event every year, filling three massive hotels to share everything from their comic-book collections and home-brewed Lord of the Rings fan fiction to gigantic Transformer costumes they've spent months creating for the Masquerade Ball contest.
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The dealers' room was a massive catacombs of booths packed with everything from T-shirts that say "Legolas is My House Elf" to Buck Rogers rocket pistol model kits.
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A panel devoted to women in gaming brought an activist message to the convention, albeit with a fannish twist. Mur Lafferty, a longtime gamer and the brains behind top-ranked podcast Geek Fu Action Grip, urged women in the audience to fight the stereotype of the passive "gamer girlfriend" by taking leadership roles in games. "You can change men's perceptions of you by becoming a game master and telling them they'll be playing a game on your terms," she said.
On other panels, such as "Hacking 101," science fiction was set aside in favor of science fact. Learning Perl author Randal Schwartz talked about being arrested at Intel in the mid-1990s for using the software tool Crack to check the security of his company's password files. "I worry that we're going to see other frivolous convictions like mine in the world of peer-to-peer," he said.
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Best of all were the late-night parties. At about 3 a.m. Sunday, Eric "Qenatlh" Koske shared "the most common Klingon joke."
"Is a Klingon warrior red?" he boomed. "No! He is green!" Suddenly this reporter was surrounded by laughing Klingons. "It's hard to explain to humans why that's funny," one said, raising his flagon of blood wine and drinking.
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