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2014 World Fantasy Convention: Thursday

2014 World Fantasy Convention: Thursday

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Although there were some pre-convention workshops to start the day, the panel discussions didn’t begin until 2. So Bess and I decided to do some sight-seeing. We took the Old Town Trolley tour from our hotel, which allowed us to ride between multiple locations at our leisure.

Handsome Devil

      Who’s this handsome devil?  Just kidding.  I know it’s me.

Our first stop was the Lincoln Memorial, which is also near the Vietnam War Memorial and the Korean War Memorial. It seems cliché to use the word surreal, but seeing these monuments just makes me feel like I’m not living in reality or it’s the realization that I am living in a reality I wasn’t fully aware of.

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2014 World Fantasy Convention: Wednesday Scotch Tasting

2014 World Fantasy Convention: Wednesday Scotch Tasting

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I’m usually posting retro reviews of Galaxy, but for the moment, I’m on assignment covering the World Fantasy Convention in Washington. Okay, technically the hotel is located in Virginia, but we are only minutes away from the White House, Pentagon, and U.S. Capitol building, among other sites.

WFC 2014 Banner

My wife, Bess, accompanied me on this trip, which is my fourth WFC. For her, this is a brand new experience. I’ll add her brief comments after mine to provide a full range of coverage, both from the perspective of someone highly involved in the speculative community and someone who supports someone highly involved in the speculative community.

We elected to drive from Indianapolis, which provided amazing views of the changing foliage within the forested hills and mountains of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland. It was truly outstanding.

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Goth Chick News: Chicago Comic Con 2014 – Hold Onto Your Spandex… (Part 2)

Goth Chick News: Chicago Comic Con 2014 – Hold Onto Your Spandex… (Part 2)

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image004Last week and prior to the end-of-summer bacchanalia that is Labor Day weekend, we got half way through telling you all about the adventures kilt-clad Black Gate photog Chris Z and I had at the largest Wizard World Comic Con Chicago has ever hosted.

On the hottest weekend of the summer, with temperatures climbing into the three digits, we arrived at one of the city’s biggest convention centers and waded into a sea of vendors, artists, and cosplayers clad in unbreathing fabric which, in some cases, was stretched to the breaking point.

After agreeing it was about time to ask “The Boss” John O’ for hazard pay, we set about scoping the con’s coolest people and products to tell you about.

So here is part two; and let me say, we’re pretty excited…

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Enter the DragonCon

Enter the DragonCon

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Jon Sprunk at DragonCon-smallThis past weekend, I attended my fourth DragonCon in sunny Atlanta.

It’s a working vacation for me, where I spend most of my time at the Pyr Books booth telling people about the wonderful products this SFF imprint produces, but I also make a little time to walk around and see the sights. And there are a LOT of sights to see at DragonCon.

The host hotels. Sadly, I haven’t been able to snag a room at any of the four massive host hotels since 2010, but that doesn’t stop me from walking through them and marveling at the sheer scope of this convention. There are a ton of people. (Attendance is listed as 57,000 in 2013, and I’d wager there were more than that this year.) And so many people are in costume.

Cosplay has grown in popularity over the years, and DragonCon is one of those venues where people come out to show their stuff. (My wife attends in her Xena, Warrior Princess costume, which gets a lot of attention.) Some of the costumes are just fun and light, but others are true works of art, as good as (or better) than the costumes used on major movie sets.

This year, I saw Yaya Han showing off her cosplay of Enira, the Banshee Queen, which was spectacular. There are so many wonderful costumes, and the party lasts until the wee hours of the morning. If you love cosplay, DragonCon is a place you need to see.

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Goth Chick News: Chicago Comic Con 2014 — Hold Onto Your Spandex… (Part 1)

Goth Chick News: Chicago Comic Con 2014 — Hold Onto Your Spandex… (Part 1)

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image002It is hard to believe, but we once again find ourselves in that very special time of year here in Chicago. It’s August, temperatures push well past the 90 degree mark, Labor Day looms just around the corner, and Midwesterners from a 150 mile radius (or more in some cases) descend on the city in unforgiving, unbreathable, highly form-fitting, man-made fabrics.

Yes dear Black Gate readers – its once again time for Chicago’s Wizard World Comic Con.

Though Wizard World never officially discloses attendance numbers, local media reports that the 2014 event has drawn nearly 100,000 visitors to the Rosemont Convention Center during its four day run. And like we have done for the last six years, Black Gate photog Chris Z and I are wading into the fray that has literally backed up traffic almost to O’Hare airport.

With weathermen ominously reporting daytime temperatures would “feel like” 115 or more, Chris shows up dressed for battle in his Black Gate polo shirt and a kilt, commenting about how on this day above all others, a breeze is necessary.

This isn’t the first time Chris’s Utilikilt has made an appearance and it won’t be the last. At least I am happy to report most Hollywood starlets could take a lesson from Chris on entering and exiting a low-riding vehicle without acquainting the free world with what lies beneath – if you get my meaning.

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LonCon 3 Report: Attending the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention

LonCon 3 Report: Attending the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention

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LONCON3_logo_270wLast weekend in London was LonCon 3, this year’s Worldcon. The convention, which has been held in various cities around the world since 1939, is where the Hugo Awards are given out and where fans from all over the globe meet up.

It was my first Worldcon, and while I’ve been to large conventions before such as World Fantasy and Eastercon, not to mention several local conventions such as Tuscon, I still wasn’t quite sure what to expect. What I got was five fun days of events, conversation, and camaraderie.

The Loncon staff did a fine job making everything run smoothly. A handy pocket guide steered me around the huge convention center without a hitch, and twice-daily newssheets kept me up-to-date on any changes.

There were only a couple of small minuses. First off, the dining options at the ExCel Centre were overpriced and generally substandard. Not that this is unusual for a convention center, so I don’t blame LonCon for this!

Also, the ExCel is huge and has all the ambiance of a shopping mall. But as Robert Silverberg pointed out, “Cons aren’t about venues, they’re about people.”

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GenCon 2014 – Part 3: Pathfinder, Pathfinder, and More Pathfinder

GenCon 2014 – Part 3: Pathfinder, Pathfinder, and More Pathfinder

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PathfinderAdvancedClassGuideEvery year, one of the most enjoyable booths to attend at GenCon is the Paizo booth. And I’m certainly not alone in that belief. Last year, the massive rush at Paizo to get copies of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords base set (more on this later) resulted in a line that snaked its away across a massive section of the Exhibit Hall. This year, they had to actually have a line out in the hallway to even be admitted into the booth, to avoid cluttering up the Exhibit Hall itself with all the desperate Pathfinder fans. And there were certainly a lot of great products to inspire a spending frenzy this year.

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game

The flagship product coming from Paizo Publishing is the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Pathfinder always has a ton of great releases coming out on an extremely aggressive schedule – a range of adventure modules, player companion supplements, campaign setting supplements, and so on – but here are some main hardcover rulebooks slated for the next few months that are of particular interest to anyone who plays Pathfinder.

Advanced Class Guide (Amazon, Paizo)

This new book provides details on 10 new hybrid classes, which are designed to meld together traits from two of the core and base classes from previous supplements. For example, the hunter is a hybrid of the ranger and druid, a martial character who is able to channel animal powers and bond more closely with their animal companion, but still wield spells. The bloodrager mixes the combat features of the barbarian with the mystical bloodlines of the sorcerer. The brawler is a fighter who gains several of the unarmed combat benefits of the monk, but without the spiritual aspects.

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GenCon 2014 – Part 2: Kickstarters of Future and Past

GenCon 2014 – Part 2: Kickstarters of Future and Past

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DungeonDwellersTitleYesterday, I spent some time talking about some new games that are becoming available from smaller game publishers. Several of these had their origins in Kickstarters … and that’s becoming such a common thing that it’s worth devoting a single post just to Kickstarter-based games. This model by which fans can directly support their games that are under development is growing more and more popular among the GenCon crowd. It seems like most of the smaller, independent game companies have been going the Kickstarter route.

We’ll start with the new games and products that have already been successfully funded on Kickstarter:

Dungeon Dwellers – This is a cooperative dungeon crawl-themed card game, which I stumbled upon while trying to get across the Exhibit Hall on Sunday. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn’t have time to play a demo of the game, despite the fact that it looked like a lot of fun. Fortunately, their website has a number of videos showing how the game is played for those who are interested.

Incredible Expeditions: Quest for Atlantis – This steampunk exploration card game was so new that they didn’t even have copies to sell at GenCon because it was held up by U.S. Customs. (People who have backed games on Kickstarter have no doubt gained an amazing appreciation for how diligent our nation’s Customs officials are … at least when it comes to slowing down delivery of games.) They did, however, have demo copies and a great booth that drew a lot of attention and traffic to make use of those demos. The game can be played either cooperatively or competitively, as well, which I always consider to be a bonus. Again, their website has a great video talking about the game, though, so check it out.

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GenCon 2014 – Part 1: Boosting the Signal

GenCon 2014 – Part 1: Boosting the Signal

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ThunderscapeThis year marks my sixth year of attending GenCon to represent Black Gate, and one thing that I always enjoy is finding some more esoteric, outside-the-mainstream games to suggest to people.

I definitely have some solid booths I attend every year — Paizo, Wizards of the Coast, Privateer Press, Cryptozoic, and so on — but those are generally games that people will hear of through normal advertising and marketing channels. If I can shed some light on a game that’s being overlooked or is just starting up, well, that’s the sort of thing that Black Gate was really built to do.

With that in mind, I’m going to start my GenCon coverage by discussing some of the less well-known games and publishers that I came across this year, but which have new and upcoming games that might be of interest. I’ll cover the big guys over the next few days, but I definitely want to get the word out on these as soon as possible.

A lot of these games are so new they aren’t even available for purchase online yet, but I’ll provide information as they become available.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The International Exhibition of SH

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The International Exhibition of SH

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Exhibit_Room
The scene of the crime, where you have to determine a bullet’s trajectory

The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes began its run last year in Portland and has set up shop here in Columbus, OH, from February through September of 2014. It will be moving on to St. Louis, Dallas, Santa Ana, and Denver before the final stop in Seattle in October of 2016.

The Exhibition capitalizes on the massive popularity of the world’s first private consulting detective. Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1886, Holmes has never been more popular worldwide than he is over one-hundred and twenty years later.

It is a traveling Holmes museum and includes a mystery that you attempt to solve by examining clues and conducting tests. And the various items, which are all enclosed in glass cases, are absolutely worth seeing.

The show is hosted on the second floor at COSI: the Center of Science and Industry. After being instructed that you cannot take food or drink in, take pictures or use your cell phone inside, you are given your Notebook for solving the mystery.

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