Bubonicon

This weekend I’ll be at Bubonicon 40, Albuquerque’s very own science fiction convention.

Bubonicon’s been going on for forty years, and (god help me) I’ve been attending for most of those years. It was a small local con at the beginning, and now it’s a medium-sized regional con. And I’ve got to appreciate it a lot more as the years have gone along.

Because Bubonicon is still about the books. In a time when conventions are becoming ever more about the media, Bubonicon is still devoted to print on paper.

And wow, does this regional con have authors. Aside from GoH David Weber and Toastmaster Daniel Abraham (and artist Bob Eggleton), Bubonicon will feature Mario Acevedo, Doug Beason, Richard Berthold, Ben Bova, Suzy M. Charnas, Douglas W. Clark, Yvonne Coats, Dr. Larry Crumpler, Terry England, Gordon Garb, Steven Gould, Sally Gwylan, Betsy James, Andy Kuhn, Anne & Jeff Lambert, Jane Lindskold, Emily Mah, George RR Martin, Victor Milan, John J. Miller, Laura J. Mixon, Pati Nagle, Richard E. Peck, John Pelan, Scott Phillips, John Maddox Roberts, Joan Spicci Saberhagen, Debbie Lynn Smith, Melinda Snodgrass, S.M. Stirling, David Lee Summers, Eldon Thompson, Ian Tregillis, Robert Vardeman, Carrie Vaughn, Jerry Weinberg and yours truly.

I mean, like, whew, man.

And yes, Bubonicon is named after the Black Death, along with its mascot Perry Rodent. New Mexico used t0 be America’s biggest reservoir of the plague, with a couple dozen cases every year. Thanks to a ruthless policy of destroying wild mammals in cities (and possibly the fact that the number of citizens regularly eating squirrels for food has declined), cases of plague in the state are now reduced to a couple every year.

Which means your chances of getting buboes are very tiny, and there’s no reason not to come to the convention.

Right?