Wednesday
This year, despite the absence of my wife again, DragonCon was the best it’s been in a long time. That’s not just because we missed 2020 entirely. This year, it just felt as if I did everything I wanted to do and didn’t short anything for the sake of another. I went to panels, wandered the dealers/exhibitors halls and art show, got some good costume watching, marched in the parade, got into some big events, and, most importantly, had some good times with all of my Con friends.
I arrived near midnight on Wednesday and Ubered to the Ellis Hotel, half a block away from the Westin. It’s quiet, but still plenty close to the proper DragonCon area. Just like in 2019, I roomed with my friend Donnie, who had arrived and passed out well before me. The Wandreys were just across the hall, so I stopped in to say a semi-quick hello. For my effort, I received a Four Horsemen universe Raknar T-shirt.
I had planned to turn in after that, as this year I’d resolved to make better life choices and avoid losing any hours or days to recovery. Thus, I went back to the room, got ready for bed, and laid down. At that moment, I received a message saying some of my friends were up and hanging out over in the Marriott. So, I got back up and went out. I met up with the Massas and the Urbaneks, with a brief glimpse of Griffin Barber. I didn’t deviate too far from my plan to make better choices and didn’t stay too long.
Rather than dump this at the end, I’m going to jump way ahead and give a summary of costumes at DragonCon. The costume of the Con was Loki. This is a semi-spoiler, but the existence of near-infinite Loki variants in the show meant it was as easy as getting Loki horns and maybe adding a touch of green and voila, you’re Loki. I in no way mean to downplay the concept—it was great fun to see a Loki variant everywhere I turned. The Gator Lokis were my favorites, particularly the ones with the kiddie pools.
One creative individual spent the entire weekend carrying around a long Evergreen shipping boat and went around blocking traffic (just long enough to get pics and remain funny vs frustrating). Honorable mentions to the John Wick lookalike and Blade Runner Rachel. Both looked remarkably like the characters they were portraying, to the point I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the former was actually Keanu Reeves hiding in plain sight. Doctor Stranges had a sizable presence, and there were a few Wanda/Scarlet Witches. One (I assume one, but I saw her multiple times, so maybe I was seeing different ones) was a well done black and white Wanda. On that subject, I didn’t see any Winter Soldiers or Falcons, but maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough. I would say that show happened too close to DragonCon for people to craft good cosplays, but that didn’t stop the Lokis.
There were less kilts than I’m used to seeing, enough so that us kilt wearers spotted each other and gave distance high-fives. Utilikilt didn’t show—their booth was left empty with a handwritten sign with information on how to look them up online. The kilt freedom bell did not ring at this Con.
It would be an understatement to say there are always incredible costumes throughout DragonCon. I swear I could have a great weekend doing nothing but sitting in the food court and watching costumes go by. I won’t do that, but my point is that alone would be a good time.
Thursday
After a good first night’s sleep, I awoke and donned my Air Force tartan kilt and my Raknar T-shirt. First thing, as aways, was a trip to badge up. I got Donnie into his peasant badge line until the Eternal badge room opened up. Then, I bid him adieu to go get my foot rub, glass of Champagne, and eternal member badge (just kidding, I only got the badge). Whilst doing so, I ran into the Urbaneks again and we went to get some Starbucks.
About this time, I began distribution of my first ever, homogeneously developed, writing-based, DragonCon badge ribbons. One ribbon was the Mushroom Farm, for all those who have even been “Kept in the dark, Fed only horse $#!+.” It’s the name of the 4HU short story in which I created Bull, the main character of my debut novel, These Things We Do. It’s been the motto of many a US military unit, particularly those who took part in the Son Tay raid, which was the inspiration/basis for my story.
The other badge ribbon was “Buff Orpington Core Author”, the premise being that the Buff Orpington franchise will let anyone write for them. A Buff Orpington, as some you will know, is the name of a type of chicken. I once remarked on a social media post that it sounded like a cheesy 80’s action hero. The idea took root and has, in point of fact, taken over my brain more effectively than a zombie virus. I developed a bunch of titles for fictitious Buff Orpington movies, some with the names of the Buff girls. Example: Buff Orpington and the Cannibal Chicks of Cancun, starring Angel Petit-Mort. This was about the time that Jamie Ibson and I were starting to work on Unshackled, our 4HU collaboration novel. We inserted the Buff Orpington movies into the novel as something characters would reference from time to time. We’re up to something like twenty titles and the list will be an appendix in the back of the novel.
After badge pickup, we met up with the Fosters and Chris Smith to have breakfast/brunch at the White Oak Kitchen & Cocktails. I had a delicious WOKC burger and a cocktail with a DragonCony name that was a sort of mint julep with cholula hot sauce.
Donnie and I then went on a tour of the hotels to re-acquaint ourselves with the battlefield. I, personally, could be dropped off blindfolded anywhere in any of the hotels and find my way to any other point, but it was Donnie’s second time, so he needed a refresher.
Then, we headed to the Westin bar, where we encountered the Massas as well as Christopher Woods and his entourage. I gave Woods the pitch for my Fallen World novel concept, and I think it’s a go. Good people all around, even Johnny Minion in his own special way.
We were graciously invited to a dinner at Ray’s in the City by Kim Schoeffel, a Four Horsemen and overall Chris Kennedy Publishing superfan. Wonderful oysters, seafood, wine, and company. It was my first Marisa Wolf and husband sighting, which is always a delight.
Following dinner, we thought we’d try to get into the bunny hutch. However, upon reaching our spot in line, Donnie decided it had been a long day. He headed to the room and I went to hang out with Rob Hampson, brilliant scientist and Baen author extraordinaire (with whom I an working on a 4HU project, the next Wrogul book). Thursday is usually a good DragonCon warmup day, and this one did the job well.
Friday
Friday began with the Great Shirt Odyssey. You see, in my packing, I had tried on the Mal Reynolds pants, in fear that my two years of retirement and COVID belly expansion might have created a problem. The pants fit fine. I did not, however, try on my Mal Reynolds costume shirt. I was, with much difficulty, able to get it on and buttoned up, but I could hear the buttons screaming in agony and knew it would be obvious to any onlooker that the shirt was at maximum capacity and then some. Worse, I feared it might spontaneously bust open at any moment throughout the day.
Thus, I had the brilliant idea to simply walk out in the Downtown Atlanta area and find a store at which to purchase a dress shirt. In my head, my travels included a seduction attempt by a trio of sirens, an offer to purchase a mind-expanding edible flower, and an assault by a large one-eyed man. In truth, there was a prolonged period of bouncing from one shop to the next until I discovered Brite Creations on Forsyth street, where I found a suitable Mal Reynolds shirt.
Problem resolved, I became a bearded Mal Reynolds. I worried that the costume might’ve become a bit too dated, but there were still plenty of other Mals, Kaylees, and Jayne Cobbs (plus lots of Jayne hats) throughout the Con. You can’t stop the signal.
Lunchfast (I don’t brunch without my wife and I never wake up early enough at DragonCon to have breakfast) was my first good chance to feast upon the glorious Buffalo chicken Mac n’ cheese at Meehans. Marisa joined us, where she passed off the shipment Joel Ascol sent me (more on that later).
Fully fed, I rushed off to the Build & Break a Character or Two Workshop led by Micheal Stackpole, one of my favorite authors. We built and broke a character and I garnered a lot of good advice on characterizing and developing characters. He did an excellent job taking crazy, off-the-wall inputs and translating them into something interesting and believable, while still adding advice and lessons. It was a great panel.
As soon as that ended, I raced to the Marriott to join with the other Mil Sci-Fi fans for parade practice for the following morning. I arrived a few minutes late and found nobody, only to find they’d moved after meeting up. I must have walked straight past them on my way. Anyway, it was quick and mostly a venue for them to help out anyone who had never been a part of a military formation. I am glad we did it since I was meant to be a rifle bearer, but no one seemed to realize I didn’t have a rifle. That problem was quickly resolved—that group had plenty of spare costume rifles to pass around.
I met back up with Donnie to take a good swipe around the Exhibitor’s Hall. I found the Missing Volume and said hi to Glennis and company. Donnie found some awesome leather costume pieces at Ravenswood Leather, and he collected some pieces from a few other spots to put together a Bloodborne costume.
Next up was the Military Sci-Fi Writers and Creators with a line up of people who I wish to someday become. It was my first chance to meet Jason Anspach of the Galaxy’s Edge novels and Marie Whittaker. I also discovered Rick Partlow in the crowd, who came up and said hi. It was nice to get to know him.
I met up with Mark Stalling and Jon Osborne at the Westin bar and we headed out to get some wings for dinner. Our waitress had a delightful Black Widow costume in honor of the weekend. Mark caught me up on the recently announced Eldros Legacy project. Go look it up, it sounds exciting.
I followed Jon to his Future Weapons panel, which also included my friend Griffin Barber as well as Rick Partlow, Jonathan Brazee, and Michael A Corrie. Most of the authors focused on physical weapons as that’s probably what the crowd went to hear about, but Griffin made the excellent point that information control and social media have become some incredibly effective weapons and will continue to be.
Donnie and I had intended to go to the Sinful Sci-Fi Improv Comedy that Marisa and Jeff Burns started this year, but the room was filled and people were turned away before we even got there. We then tried to get into the Alien Improv panel that Hampson was running, but that was full too. So, instead, we headed to the Fantasy Gather and hung out with some wonderful people for a couple hours. Of note, I finally met Terry Maggert, who I’ve been in an anthology alongside and whom I somehow completely missed at FantaSci (a feat as it was a fairly small convention this year). I also learned from Mel Todd that next year I can add a QR code to my badge ribbons, so that the obscure phrases can translate to traffic and proper marketing. My trick bag filleth.
We left the Gather to go see Voltaire. Now, I’ve known of Voltaire since my very first DragonCon back in 2002. Donnie learned of Voltaire through Youtube several years back, so he surprised me by both knowing who he was and knowing a lot of his songs. In addition to his classic “SS Make $#it Up”, I heard a few I knew and a few I did not. For the first time, Voltaire shared some details of his childhood and some of the hard times he had. Seeing Voltaire helped diminish the sting of CruxShadows not being at DragonCon.
Saturday
In tune with making better life choices, I turned in early enough Friday night to get some good sleep before waking up in time to meet the color guard at 0800. I dressed in the Tactical Flight Duty Uniform (TFDU, basically OCP’s for flyers) that I had worn until my retirement a year ago. David Fretz gracefully provided me ribbons, patches, rank, and black flight cap in order to make it a fandom uniform. I represented both the Cartwright’s Cavaliers and the Queen Elizabeth’s Own Foresters with a fan club approved patch on each arm. Someone else loaned me their buddy’s prop rifle.
We checked each other, ensured we were all hydrated and doing well and ready for a march. We strolled to the staging area and waited until 1000 to start the parade. We had a good patch of shade, and those of us with military experience were more than familiar with the concept of “hurry up and wait”. I’ll add it was a spectacular place for costume watching, as we essentially got an hour to see the entire parade standing around in front of us. The Borderlands folks were my favorite. In my opinion, they do the best job of painting themselves up in the comic bookish way of the game’s graphics.
I’ll be honest—I hadn’t fully processed that as the color guard, we would be at the head of the parade. Only the Dragons and the DragonCon 2021 sign itself went in front of us. I’d sort of thought we were just marching amidst the big long line to represent the military science fiction contingents. But no, we were the color guard carrying the US flag for the parade. When Joy Wandrey had sent out a call for volunteers to represent the Four Horsemen in the parade, I hadn’t really inquired as to what that entailed. I just knew I’d be carrying a prop rifle.
So, there I was, marching in the color guard right behind the sign and the dragons. It was a hell of an honor. In fact, it’s something I never even did when I was in the active military.
We finished the parade at the entrance to the Marriott. I routed in and around back to the Hyatt, where Twenty Two Stories was about to open. I coordinated for people to join me there for lunchfast. I’m sure I’d had the Unicorn Burger before, but I couldn’t remember. Next time I’ll remember that, while delicious, it has a bagel bun that makes it near impossible to eat as a burger. While my friends gathered and drank, I slipped back to the room to change out of my stuffy, heavy uniform and into a kilt with a Captain Hammer T-shirt. Sometime after I returned, it was time for the Baen Roadshow.
A good number of my friends are Baen authors at various levels, from short stories to full novels. As such, it was pretty cool to see their names on a lot of the published and upcoming novels. A friend was hoping they’d reveal the cover for his upcoming Baen novel, but they did not.
When that ended, I headed to the It’s the End of the World and We Know It (And I Feel Fine) panel in the Post-Apocalyptic track. It had three good friends of mine- Rob Hampson, Mike Massa, and Marisa Wolf as well as Doug Burbey. Over the course of the panel, we defined several seasons of a Post-Apocalyptic show that involved Kaiju Cat Dyson spheres, Nanobot-enhanced alligators, intelligent squirrels and their powerful sword Exsquirrelibur, oceans of multi-hued Koolaid and the Multi-hued manatees that lived in them. There was quite a bit more to it, but I only have so much room and it only gets weirder from there.
When that panel ended, it was clear that Marisa needed her buffalo chicken mac n’ cheese levels refilled, so we headed to Meehan’s to meet up with the Wandreys, the Fosters, Jon Osborne, Mark Stallings, and a few others.
Next up was the World Building panel with Hampson, Mark Wandrey, Griffin Barber, Mel Todd, and Brent Roeder. A solid, informative discussion on how to set the rules for a universe when you’re opening it up for others to write in. Particularly useful to me as this is most of what I’ve done so far.
I followed Rob Hampson to the Human Biology in Space. It was the first science panel I’ve seen my giant-brained, Ph.D’d friend on. It’s also important that I brush up on such things as it’s rumored their might be a second Founder’s Effect <strokes beard>.
Then came the moment I’d feared for weeks—the No Kidding, There I Was, character edition panel. I summarized the novel Unshackled as told by Alvin the Flatar. Unshackled is the 4HU novel I co-wrote with Jamie Ibson which releases 1 October. I’d jotted it down weeks earlier with intent to refine it, but had never really found the time. I’m gonna say I killed it in the first half, but kind of flubbed the back half through the ending. As expected, the others—Mike Massa, Griffin Barber, Rob Hampson, and Mark Wandrey—all had excellent and hilarious, stories. An aspect of Massa’s story still haunts me, but I won’t subject you to that. I had time for a second story, so I told the real life story of the Gnome Wars from one of my Djibouti deployments. Despite a series of jarring interruptions, that one went over pretty well.
The creme de la creme of the evening was the introduction of the Rocky Horror Picture Show to Donnie. He’d mentioned it as something he wanted to do, which made it something we had to do. While waiting in line, he was marked by a passerby as a RHPS virgin and I assumed that meant there would be virgin sacrifices, but sadly there were none. I’ll admit I was a bit out of practice with the callouts, but the rest of the audience took over for me. When it was all over, he was dumbfounded and said, and I quote, “I’m really not sure what just happened.” I remember the feeling. It’ll take him a while to process that one.
With a signing booth looming the next morning, I continued with my better life choices and went back to the room for some sleep.
Sunday
Bleary and worn from the series of sprints in marathon form that is DragonCon, I nonetheless got up to sit the Podium Audio booth in the Exhibitor Hall. It was my first time sitting a booth at DragonCon.
I dressed in my brown utilikilt, some steampunk gear, and put on the Mandolorian helmet and breastplate that Joel Ascol graciously crafted for me. As I’d only just received it, I hadn’t planned a costume around it too well. The helmet and breastplate themselves turned out wonderfully. He even put a little fan inside to help keep me cool in the hot Atlanta weather. Though it didn’t quite match, I put on my Bull Squadron athletic shirt from Squadron Officer School (from 2005). I had completely forgotten it, but my wonderful wife found it while digging through things, saw the writing across the front, and asked, “Isn’t that the title of your new book?”
The writing said “Mess With the Bull” across the top and “You Get the Horns” across the bottom. My novel, which releases on 10 September, is titled Mess With the Bull. So I added that to the ensemble. The colors worked.
Cheery and hopeful, I brought a stack of books for signing to the Podium Audio table. Podium Audio is the company that recorded my debut novel, These Things We Do, into the audio form. It was their first time having a booth at DragonCon, so I hope they found it fruitful. The Podium representatives were friendly, but I quickly realized I hadn’t planned for it well at all. I didn’t post that I would be there until I’d shown up. I also had pretty high hopes when I consider it was a small booth at DragonCon on Sunday morning when most people are still sleeping. I chatted up a few passersby and got comfortable interacting, but did not sell or sign any books. The exhibitor’s hall is overwhelming with things everyone wants to buy. One lonely guy with one lonely book that’s way far along in a universe they haven’t heard of… <shrug>. Moreover, I’d already realized that my cute little badge ribbons took a bunch of explanation, but didn’t have my name or website attached to them. I’ll work on my salesmanship in the future. I really hadn’t put any thought into it until right then.
I had planned to attend a stack of panels that day, but Donnie and I were invited to join the introductory Vampire: Masquerade RPG that Brian Urbanek put together. I ran by the room, grabbed a bite (no pun intended), and caught up shortly after the game started, early enough to still join in.
It was well built. We played as ourselves at DragonCon, when crazy vampire things started happening and a mysterious vampire woman (Tara) showed up to rescue us because one of us was important. After much shooting (Doc got the Ma Deuce) and crashing through the city, we entered the vampire world. Brian did a great job and we had a blast.
When it ended, we had time to rush over to the Science Fantasy panel featuring the lovely Marisa Wolf. Great discussion of the blurry, gray area and overlap between science fiction and fantasy. After that, I had my first, last, and only Yami Yami experience of the Con. It was everything I’d hoped it would be. Jon Osborne and the Wandreys joined us for lunch.
Then, at long last, it was time for the moment we’d all been waiting for—the party in Speaker’s Suite. Much fun and revelry was to be had by all. I finally came across the elusive Jenny Ringo. Aaron Haskins was gracious enough to loan me a cigar, which in years past has been a staple of my DragonCon experience. Inside, there was a deep Foster-Wandrey-Urbanek-Roeder discussion over whether the female orgasm was the basis for civilization. I will go on the record as supporting the idea.
Later in the evening, Doc Wohlrab led us through an awesome Star Wars RPG. As anyone who knows him would guess, we played as Imperials—specifically an Imperial Commando team searching for a rebel base. I was the demo guy and got to blow stuff up.
Normally, sometime after midnight on Sunday would be time to head to the Cruxshadows concert. Sadly, members of the band were stuck overseas and they were forced to cancel. This was the first DragonCon I’ve been to (and I’ve been going on and off since 2002) in which I did not go to a Cruxshadows concert. Oddly, I don’t feel too bad about it. It is the thing I consider to be my number one DragonCon tradition (read the tale of my first DragonCon to know why), but this year was so full and complete that I didn’t lament the loss of one last mega-shindig.
Besides, I’m getting old and I only got three and a half hours sleep as it was. Monday morning, I had just enough time to pack up and head to the airport. My Con was over.
So, this DragonCon had a few things working against it, like masks and cancellations. All told, however, I’m content I did everything I’d hoped to do and more. I don’t feel like I got too little time with the people I wanted to see, I attended enough panels that I don’t regret the ones I missed. I got to be on a panel again and plan to lobby harder to be on more next time. I learned a lot from my short time at my first real (and wholly unsuccessful) book signing and my first DragonCon as a published author. I marched in the parade with the color guard and still can’t get over what an honor that was. Voltaire and Rocky Horror scratched the late night party itch. I RPG’d with friends, which is usually planned but never accomplished as we never get everyone together at the same time. I hobnobbed with my writer friend circle and made some plans for future projects.
All in all, it was an outstanding DragonCon.
