Necronomicon 2017

One of the cooler and most well-run cons I’ve guested at. And such an excellent keeper of a con-book:

When the longer version of that interview goes live, I’ll link it here.

Anyway, Thursday before things really got going, Paul Tremblay and me found a certain door open—Big Nazo’s—and asked could we come in, try some stuff on maybe:

After which we hit the Arcade—the oldest mall in America, as I understand—and went to Lovecraft Arts and Sciences, one of the coolest little bookstores I’ve ever been to:

That’s Niels Viggo-Hobbs. He both runs this store AND he ran Necronomicon. Cool dude. I bought a hardcover of Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Children there, and snapped this cool pic too:

Also, at a used book store—”Cellar Door” or something?—I bought enough vampire books that I had to mail them all home. Then it was a Tor dinner, of which I have zero pictures, which spilled over to this scene:

That’s Big Nazo on stage. There was a goat cooking over a fire, too, for goatsquid soup, which I didn’t get around to trying, quite.

Anyway, next day early was the werewolf panel:

That’s Kenneth Heard doing an excellent job of modding on the left, then Cody Goodfellow, some listening dude, and Sonya Taaffe. Cody and Sonya had some good, good answers.

And, though it’s not Necronomicon-ish, I then got to catch lunch with a friend I haven’t seen in nearly twenty years. We came up through the MA at UNT together, and wrote and wrote and wrote in workshops. So cool to be in the same town again, finally:

Next it was the Guests of Honor panel, of which I don’t have a snapshot of the full spread of us, but Kij Johnson and me anyway:

Then that night, after much carousing—well, much hanging on stools and talking with good people—it was the Eldritch Ball, of which I have only pictures in my head: giant jellyfish, blacklights, and all these tentacles on the dance floor. Such a cool party. They killed it with decorations, and everyone else killed it by dressing up. Except me. For once. You know how I’m usually the one overdressed in some Johnny Cash  looking getup? This time I only had a t-shirt. But they still let me in. More important: I have a kind-of policy, where I only go to cons where I might get to ride the elevator with someone in an elaborate latex mask. Necronomicon Friday night was my kind of elevator ride.

Saturday at noon, then, it was the Outer Dark panel/podcast (here):

I had to slip out early, too, to do a black & white reading:

After which I FINALLY had time to slip over to the dealer’s room, and buy some Nick the hat Gucker art:

That wolf man is going to make my study so, so much cooler. Cannot wait until it gets here. Also? It looks great under blacklight, somehow.

Only bad deal about the whole con was that I had to split Saturday afternoon: things to do in Denver. But I’ll be remembering Providence for a good long while. I mean, where else could I sit in the deep pews of the church Lovecraft went to Sunday school at?

And, I understand now why HPL wrote about what he wrote about: there’s no air-conditioning in this church.

Anyway, Providence and Necronomicon: you’re pretty cool, and you pull cool people to you. Thanks for having me. I’ll be  back.