I had a great time at Oddysey Convention (Odd Con) up in Madison, Wisconsin, this weekend. I haven’t been to too many pure SF/Fantasy conventions, but I enjoyed it.
I took part in panels on young adult fiction, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and humor in SF/Fantasy. Strangely, the con organizers didn’t ask me to help out with their two RPG panels. However, they passed over Ken Hite for a Lovecraft panel and missed John Kovalic for the humor panel, so I was in good company.
That’s especially true since I spent much of the weekend with John and Ken. On Friday night, John invited me to a party for his friends at To the Best of Our Knowledge, a weekly show on Wisconsin Public Radio, where we also joined up with wife Judith. Afterward, Ken caught up with us at the Hong Kong Cafe, an excellent restaurant John reviewed in his days at the Wisconsin State Journal. A few of John and Judith’s other friends joined us, including Christopher Jones and his wife.
Chris is the artist on Dr. Blink, Superhero Shrink, a great new comic that John writes and publishes through his Dork Storm Press. Cross Analyze This with the Justice League, and you get a dynamite book.
On Saturday, John and Judith invited us out to Chez Kovalic for a barbecue. The food and beer were great, and the company was just as excellent. Ken Hite was there again, and Bill Bodden (of ACD fame) and his wife Tracy joined us, as did Jason Blair, who took over from me as a game designer for Human Head Studios after I left the company last fall.
I had a great time, and it was a fine way to blow off a bit of steam after boiling away on my latest Eberron novel for so many weeks.
