There was a Star Wars fan in every seat when the science fiction convention Arisia 2000 screened a late-night showing of The Phantom Menace, but the crowd seemed more interested in the fantasy than the science.
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| Master costumer Rob McKeagney and his fellow costumers, Rae Bradbury-Enslin and Craig Enslin, told the lurid tale of Darth Maul and his older sister "Strip" Maul as part of their entry in Arisia's masquerade contest. |
After an elegant lightsaber battle, Darth Maul (Enslin) falls to the ground and his weapon breaks, leaving him helpless before his Jedi foe (McKeagney). Enter Strip Maul (Bradbury-Enslin), who throws off a trenchcoat to reveal an intricately-painted bodysuit "covered" by a golden loincloth. |
While the Jedi goggles at the "skin" on display, Darth Maul sneaks up from behind and kills him. The performance won the trio the "Best in the MasterDivision" award, even though a chilling version of Washington Irving's HeadlessHorseman took "Best in Show." |
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The
screening was the first time the film had ever played at a convention, making the event something of a coup for Arisia's organizers.
Fans dressed as Jedi and Rebel pilots wandered the halls Friday night. An extra-long panel discussed The Phantom Menace Saturday morning, and then on Sunday SF writers talked about the way Star Wars had influenced them.
A wide variety of interests
Of course, Arisia isn't just a Star Wars convention, and that's just how its organizers like it.
Lisa Hertel, one of the convention's press liaisons, has been involved with Arisia for more than a decade.
She's been active in the convention segment of science fiction fandom since 1978, and first met her husband at Boston's last
World SF Convention in 1989. On Friday night, she split her public relations duties with looking after her 21-month-old daughter, Liana.
Hertel regularly volunteers to help run both Arisia and Boskone, Boston's other long-running SF convention. While she loves both conventions, she sees a substantial difference in their interests and the people who attend them.
Arisia's attendees, she says, are "more the Star Wars and Star Trek generation" -- in their teens, 20s or 30s, interested in a mix of books, movies, television and games.
The events offered at Arisia reflect the diversity and size of this audience. In addition to the panel discussions or presentations of books, movies and science, there are readings, intimate coffees with authors and plenty of parties.
A room for board games and roleplaying games is open all night, as are rooms showing videos and Japanese animation. As for the costume contest, Hertel says Arisia is the only convention in New England big enough to hold one every year.
By contrast, the Boskone crowd is older, more focused on books and the relationships that come from years of meeting friends and authors at conventions. Boskone also draws a smaller crowd -- about 750 to Arisia's usual 2,000.
Here we see master costumers Craig Enslin, Rae Bradbury-Enslin and Rob McKeagney showing off their award-winning "Strip Maul" routine.
Dragons and swords, but only the occasional rocket
However, amid all Arisia's variety, space seems to get short shrift.
Granted, a few of the events at Arisia were oriented toward astronomy and deep space exploration. Legendary hard-science fiction writer Hal Clement presented a slide show on how advances in astronomy have changed SF, while another panel discussed space stations.
Beyond that, there just wasn't much space on the program, and most of what there was came from movies and television -- Space: 1999, infamous for its sometimes cavalier approach to scientific accuracy, shared billing on the video program with the much more rigorous
2001: A Space Odyssey.
In the dealer's room, chainmail vests, dragon figurines and even harps dominated the paraphernalia for sale. Veteran convention bookseller Larry Smith says he sells mostly fantasy these days -- space-related books represent only a fifth of his sales.
The uneven popularity of SF was itself a topic of discussion at Arisia. At a Friday evening panel, Star Trek editor John Ordover argued that the current dominance of media tie-ins over original SF is due to a fundamental problem in SF publishing.
Ordover said SF writers and editors are trying so hard to be original that they're forgetting to be accessible to a mass audience.
"You can't reject the idea of a basic first contact story just because Murray Leinster did the definitive first contact story," he said. "Most people haven't read Murray Leinster today. You can do a story like that and reach an entirely new audience."
Star Trek and Star Wars succeed, according to Ordover, because they present the archetypal ingredients of science fiction -- and "pulp-era SF" at that -- to an audience hungry for familiar images and fun reading.
It's quite a party if you need Galactic Lensmen as bouncers.
The next generation
If the programming schedule of Arisia is light on space, it may reflect a lack of enthusiasm among Arisia's attendees about the current space program.
Pete Sloane is a delivery driver who runs a science fiction book group in Braintree, Mass. He's interested in space, and was excited by X-ray pictures of a black hole that appeared on the front page of Saturday's Boston Globe.
However, he doesn't feel we'll be making much progress in space over the next 20 years.
"It depends on who's in power," he said, although he's worried neither the Republicans nor the Democrats will do much to push space travel.
It's a sentiment echoed throughout the convention. As magazine editor Warren Lapine put it, "we have the money [for space travel], it's just nobody is willing to put it there."
On the other hand, there's always optimism.
Eliana Feasley (age 10) and Betsy Costikiyan (age 11) don't want to be astronauts when they grow up, and even at their age they have doubts about the progress of the space program.
Still, Betsy, daughter of SF writer Greg Costikiyan, is hoping for colonies on Mars and the moon, where she would like to live someday.
Here's hoping her dreams come true.
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