Worldcon is over, but I’m still here, logging on from the business center in the bowels of the Anaheim Hilton. I’m lingering for a few days post-con to Do Meetings with my film agents and other Hollywood folk.

It was a good con, and as usual the Brotherhood Without Banners had the best parties at the convention. The Human Chess Match was a hoot and a half as well, and Daniel had me really worried for a while there.

I did lose the Hugo, alas. Indeed, I finished an ignonimous fifth out of five. Win some, lose some and all that. The award went to SPIN by Robert Charles Wilson, a really terrific novel and a very worthy winner. Losing doesn’t sting nearly as much when you’re beaten by a book that good, so I am pretty philosophical about all this (unlike, say, Philadelphia in 2001). No need for condolences, folks, really.

I got to pass out plenty of Hugo Loser ribbons too. This year marked the 30th anniversary of the Hugo Losers Party, and we wanted to celebrate the occasion. The first one was held in my room at the 1976 worldcon in Kansas City, Big Mac… still the best and most innovative of modern worldcons.

All in all, I was pretty pleased with the Hugo results. It was particularly gratifying to see rockets go to Donato Giancola, David Hartwell, and Peter S. Beagle (though I would have loved to see Beagle tie with Howard Waldrop, since they both deserved Hugos).

Lots more to report on, but this business center time is expensive, so I’ll save all that until I get home.

I fly back to New Mexico tomorrow, and it’s back to work the day after.

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It has been an interesting few days, to say the least. I never dreamed my posts here would get such an overwhelming response. Thanks for all the comments, pro and con. I appreciate the support, and even the thoughtful and reasoned responses from many who disagree with me. As for the handful who chose to chant cant or throw insults… you should be ashamed of yourselves.

No politics this time. I’m packing right now. Tomorrow morning I’m off, first to Albuquerque for Bubonicon, our friendly little local convention, and then on Monday to LA for worldcon. Let us all hope that no new crisis intervenes, so that I am allowed to board the airplane. I will try to resist the urge to go “baaaaa, baaaaaa, baaaaaa” as I pass through the metal detector.

I love worldcon, and this year should be a good one. Aside from being in Anaheim (not my favorite part of LA), the convention facility is a great one, really well set up for parties, and the Brotherhood Without Banners is promising to pull out all the stops this time around.

On other fronts, I should mention that we have just added a new stop to my ICE DRAGON promotional schedule. On Tuesday, September 26, I will be signing at the River Lights Bookstore in Dubuque, Iowa. Full details will soon be posted to the Appearances page on my website. I lived in Dubuque for three years (1976 – 1979)a long, long, long time ago, but have only been back there once in the last twenty-six years, and that only briefly, so I am looking forward to seeing my old haunts again. I hope the place hasn’t changed as much as my old neighborhood in Chicago had when I went back there in May.

And to appease all those who come to my site mainly for updates about A DANCE WITH DRAGONS… sorry, guys, you’re not going to like this news any more than I do, but the last month has been a washout as far as writing is concerned. My home renovations have been very distracting, all sorts of other things have been breaking or demanding my attention, there were tax records to prepare for my accountant (I had to take an extension last April), and it seems as if every day has been full of crises and interruptions. I do hope the worst is behind me, however, and that I can plunge back into the book when I get back from LA. I need to make certain that September is a more productive month than August.

I do intend to continue to speak out on political issues from time to time, but perhaps not at such length as I have these past few days. It has been fun, and invigorating, and even enlightening in parts, but it takes time and energy, and just now I need to save most of my time and energy for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and WILD CARDS and my myriad other publishing projects, old and new.

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I have been pleased and surprised by the vast outpouring of comments on my last two journal posts, and heartened by the overwhelming show of support for some of the things I said. Not that there hasn’t been a fair amount of disagreement as well, some of it considered and thoughtful, some… less so.

A few of the more recent posters wonder whether I will ever read their thoughts, given the sheer number of comments. Let me assure you that I am reading all the comments. I have even responded to a few, as you will see if you scroll through the pages. For obvious reasons, however, I cannot respond to all of them.

I would like to reply to a few of the things that have been said, however.

A couple of people have argued that flying is not a “fundamental right.” I am not really sure how a “fundamental right” differs from an ordinary right, but never mind. This is one we’ve been hearing since airport “security” was first created thirty years ago. I suspect the wording actually derives from some court decision, since those first security measures were tested in court way back when, and upheld. If so, I think it was a bad decision, and one that to my mind flies in the face of the plain words of the Constitution.

Of course “flying” is not a right. The Constitution predates the Wright Brothers by more than a century, so it is doubtful that its authors would have felt the need to include specific language as regards commercial aviation. What they did write is this:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

That’s the Fourth Amendment, part of what we now call the Bill of Rights. That’s the reason why the police need to get a search warrant before breaking into your house. That’s where the whole concept of “probable cause” comes from.

Note, however, that is it not limited to houses. The framers did not want the police stopping and searching people on the streets either. Besides houses, the Fourth Amendment also gives us the right to be secure in our PERSONS… not only in our homes, but also when we step outside to travel and conduct our business.

That’s the “fundamental right” at stake here. There is “right to fly,” but neither is there is a “right to ride a horse,” “right to travel by stagecoach,” or “right to walk down the street.” All those are implied by the plain and simple language that is there: our right to be secure in our persons, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Mind you, there is legitimate ground for argument here, and I acknowledge that. The key word is UNREASONABLE. One can argue, legitimately, that airport “security” searches are reasonable and necessary. I do not agree, but there at least there is legitimate ground for debate. There should be no debate on whether we all should have the right to travel as we wish without being stopped and searched, however, whether by trains, planes, automobiles, or our own two feet.

As for “reasonable,” well, read the news, read some of the other comments, take a look around the next time you go to the airport. If you think frisking an eleven-year-old girl or an old woman in a wheelchair is reasonable, I’m afraid we have to disagree. If you think that stopping thousands of law-abiding citizens, searching their effects, and seizing their bottles of Evian and tubes of Crest is reasonable, I am at a loss at to what to say to you. We obviously live on different planets. (And one more aside. Not only does airport “security” infringe on the Fourth Amendment, but it also limits the First, the right of free speech that I think all of you would agree IS a “fundamental right.” I am talking about those signs you see at every airport warning passengers not to make jokes about bombs and guns. Where else can one be detained and interrogated for MAKING A JOKE, but at an airport? And do please note, I am not saying that joking around at the metal detector is a good idea. It’s a stupid thing to do, in fact… but you know, free speech includes the right to say stupid things. And just to forestall the inevitable response, please don’t come back to me with the hoary old “fire in a crowded theater” argument. I’ve heard good ol’ boys in security queues saying stuff like, “Hey, better search grandma there, I think she’s got an A bomb in her purse,” and it is not remotely similar to shouting fire in a crowded theater).

While we are on the subject of rights, one poster argued that our only rights are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Uh, no… actually, those words are from the Declaration of Independence, and the Declaration, while a splendid and inspirational document, has no standing in American law. You need to read the Constitution, and especially the first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights. You won’t find pursuit of happiness there, but you will find a list of the actual rights that the framers thought were worth protecting.

A couple of posters have asked me for a “solution” to the problem of terrorism. No small order there. Obviously, I don’t have a solution. I don’t think anyone does. I did, however, put forth one suggestion for a PARTIAL (please note that word) solution, albeit a long-term one. You will find it in my reply to the third comment on the first page. I won’t repeat it here, but go and take a look at that if you’re interested.

Finally, there is the argument, put forward many times in the comments, that airport “security” is a “small inconvenience” and much preferable to being blown up by terrorists.

The fact that so many people will actually advance this argument with a straight face really does suggest that the terrorists are winning.

Why do you think they call it TERRORISM, folks? The point of terrorism is not to kill us, but to MAKE US AFRAID. And comments like those show that it is working. No one was killed by last week’s plot, so in that sense it was a failure… but in the broader sense, the terrorists scored a huge success, since millions of us are now a lot more fearful than we were a week ago.

The truth is that it is VERY unlikely that any of us will die at the hands of terrorists. We stand a better chance of being killed by lightning, and we stand a MUCH better chance of slipping in the shower and cracking our skulls on the tub. Overall, an airplane in flight is a much safer place than the average American bathroom. Shampoo is dangerous stuff, all right… but more so when we use it than when it’s packed away in our carry on.

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Yesterday’s post seems to have triggered a huge outpouring of comments, and I see the same issues being discussed all over the internet, in a hundred different places. Needless to say, there’s a huge range of opinions, but some of the polls I’ve looked at suggest the majority of Americans are okay with these new TSA “security” measures because, after all, they are “for our safety.”

Sigh.

Can we really have turned into such a nation of compliant sheep? Or maybe it’s a question of age. I have a feeling that the people who are most outraged by the TSA and its counterparts around the world are my age or older (I am 57, for a point of reference), because we’re the only ones who still remember what it was like to live in a free country.

This erosion of freedom has been going on all my life. It did not happen all at once on a Tuesday, when some fascist government came to power; it happened in dribs and drabs, so gradually that we hardly noticed it, with a law here and a rule there and a little tightening of security over there, and always for our own good, to keep us safe, to protect us.

I am not just talking about air travel either, though airport “security” is perhaps the most egregious and in-you-face example. Our “protectors” have touched almost every facet of modern American life… and I get the feeling there are a lot of people in their twenties and thirties who think that things were always like this.

They weren’t.

A few examples.

When I first started selling stories in the early 70s and went to New York City to see my editors, I would walk into the building, check what floor they were on, ride up in an elevator, and tell a receptionist I was there to see Mr. Smith. Now, when I visit my editors, I have to check in with uniformed security guards in the lobby, present a picture ID, clip a badge to my jacket. In some buildings I have to pass through a metal detector, just like in an airport.

When I first started staying at hotels, I would give my name to a desk clerk, who would check my reservation, and then present me with a card to fill out, or a register to sign. No one ever asked to see my identification. No one ever asked to take a credit card imprint. It was understood that you would settle your bill when you checked out, either by credit card, cash, or check. (Yes, I paid by check a lot back then, even in distant cities). You were assumed to be who you said you were… and if you wanted to give a fake name (I didn’t, but there were those who did), that was your business too, so long as you paid your bill.

When I was a kid, we always felt free and superior watching World War II movies, where those evil Nazis were forever stopping the heroes and demanding to see “their papers.” That would never happen to US, we knew. We were Americans. We did not have to carry “papers.” Yet now there’s talk of a national ID card, and the driver’s license has become almost that by default. A driver’s license was intended to prove that you were licensed to operate an automobile, yet now all sorts of people demand to see it for all sorts of things. At the bank, at the grocery store, in the airport, in a thousand other places, you have people refusing to allow you to do your business unless you first show your “papers.” We have become the very thing that we once despised.

These are just a few instances. I could cite a hundred more, if I did not have a book to write. Security codes and security guards have become so ubiquitous in this society that we hardly notice them any longer (when I was kid, you only saw guards in banks). More and more jobs and professions require licenses and fees before we are allowed to practice them. Zoning laws and building regulations grow ever more complex and stringent all over the country, so our neighbors and local governments can tell us what we can and cannot do with our own property. And those friendly feds are always there, keeping track of what we read and who we email and listening in on our phone calls. The Bush administration has been the worst offender in this regard, but they are by no means the first.

And it is all to “protect” us.

From who, I wonder?

I don’t feel safer than I did when I was twenty. Far from it. I do feel less free. We live in an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust and fear, and when we dare to raise our voices in protest, there is always some yahoo ready to tell us to shut up and leave these matters to the proper authorities, that it is all to keep us safe. And it seems there will always be a large sheepish majority ready to accept whatever new rule or regulation is being promulgated. “Baaa, baaa, it’s to keep us safe, baaa, baaa, it’s for our own good, baaa, baaa, it’s just a little thing, nothing important, only an inconvenience, why do you want privacy if you don’t have something to hide, baaa, baaa, baaa.”

These people have forgotten what it was like to be free. Maybe they never knew.

What is “freedom,” anyway? We could debate that for hundreds of posts, I’m sure, and maybe we will. The way I see it, however, it has got to mean more than just being able to choose between a Republican and a Democrat every few years. I want all the rights and freedoms guaranteed me in the Bill of Rights, certainly… including the one protecting me against unreasonable searches and seizures that we have abrogated in the name of safety and airport “security.” But the Bill of Rights should not be the end of it. The right to privacy may have been invented by the Supreme Court rather than the Founding Fathers, you can argue that as you will, but however it came about, it’s a pretty nifty right and I’d like to hang on to it. I want the right to do stupid, hazardous, self-destructive stuff as well; to drink absinthe, smoke pot, smoke tobacco, drive my car without the seatbelt, bungee jump off bridges, watch porn, order my eggs sunny-side up and my hamburgers rare, have unprotected sex, drink unpasteurized milk. I have only done a few of those things, actually (I will leave it to you to figure out which ones), and most I would never consider — but I SHOULD have the right to do all of them. The choice should be mine, not yours, and not the government’s. Giving individuals a CHOICE in how we live is our lives is the essence of freedom, I think.

And shouldn’t ordinary law-abiding people have the basic, fundamental right not to be treated like goddamned criminals everywhere they go?

The world is a hazardous place, certainly… but you know, the world has always been a hazardous place (in the cosmic scheme of things, it was not so long ago that we were building walls around our towns and cities), yet in the end, all men must die. The important thing is how we live while we’re still here, and I would sooner live free, even if that means more risk. A police state is always safer than a free country, so long as you stay on the right side of those police, but I’d rather not live in one all the same.

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The news coming out of England this morning is depressing, and the reactions to it scary. I am glad that Parris returned home from Ireland on Monday, else she might be caught up in the madness at Heathrow. I am of course pleased that the British caught a bunch of terrorists, and look forward to seeing them tried, and the evidence of their plots (these liquid explosives and electronic triggers) brought forward in a court of law, but I am aghast at the “security” measures that are now being taken in the wake of those arrests.

I have always hated airline “security.” Step by step, year by year, the TSA and its predecessors have taken away more and more of our freedoms, subjecting millions of perfectly innocent travellers to searches and interrogations and other hassles in the vague hopes of catching hijackers (in the old days) and terrorists (these days). Even if it worked, the price would be too high, but of course it does not work. It has never worked. All of the 9/11 killers strolled through airport “security” without a problem, yet little old ladies in wheelchairs are pulled from line and patted down, people who have never committed a crime in their life are being forced to remove their shoes and belts and empty their pockets, and cigarette lighters and toy guns and Swiss army knives are being confiscated and sold (yes, that’s what they do with those lighters they take from people, they SELL them and keep the bucks).

And now, in the wake of the arrests in England, a new wave of rules and prohibitions are about to be foisted on us by TSA — no liquids or gels in carry on, no electronic devices of any kind, no ipods, no cell-phones, no cameras (some reports are even claiming that books are being banned, though that makes no sense whatsoever to me). You are supposed to put your electronics in your checked baggage, they say. Your UNLOCKED checked baggage, another infuriating rule foisted on us by the TSA. And of course what happens if your electronics are damaged and stolen en route? Why, nothing… the airlines take no responsibility, and TSA won’t either. Will TSA start confiscating iPods and cellphones and laptops at the security gates now? Hey, those will certainly bring in a lot more dosh than lighters when they’re sold.

I wonder how long this prohibition on electronics will last, and how far it will extend? If this truly includes ALL electronics, it will effectively end my own ability to travel by air. Forget about book tours in the future, forget about seeing me at any con that I cannot drive to. Right now, I am even worried about how I am going to get to worldcon… though LA is close enough so that, if worse comes to worst, I will be able to drive. Obviously, that won’t apply next year for Yokahama, if these new rules become permanent.

What’s next, I wonder? Anal probes, x-rays, body cavity searches? Have we become such a nation of sheep that we will line up and swallow all this meekly? If so, let’s change the words in our national anthem. Instead of “land of the free and home of the brave,” maybe “land of the safe and home of the scared” would do.

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This will no doubt upset all those readers who want me to stay home and write, write, write, but it looks as though I will be taking to the road again in the fall.

If you’ve ever looked at the Knights page of my website, you’ll know about my passion for collecting 54mm toy knights and medieval miniatures. The “worldcon” for toy soldier collectors is the Old Toy Soldier Show, held every September at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Schaumberg, Illinois, outside of Chicago. I have had to miss the last couple of OTS shows, but I’m returning this year.

And then there’s Archon, the regional in St. Louis, which I’ve been attending since 1977. I have missed a couple of those in recent years as well, but once again I mean to return this year.

Usually the Old Toy Soldier Show and Archon are only one week apart, so I fly into Chicago, do the show, rent a car, make a leisurely drive down to St. Louis, and fly home from there. This year, however, the events are TWO weeks apart, so I had to determine whether I’d make two trips, or just linger in the midwest a little longer than usual.

I decided on the former, since it gives me the chance to visit a few other cities, and see some fannish friends that I don’t see often enough. So after Chicago, I am going to visit Indianapolis and Cincinnati (where I’ll catch the first day of the fabulous Tall Stacks steamboat festival, a fun event that never fails to awaken memories of FEVRE DREAM for me), and only then turn toward St. Louis.

And as it happens, this is just about the time that Starscape Books will be releasing its illustrated hardcover edition of THE ICE DRAGON, with the lovely Yvonne Gilbert artwork, so I am going to combine some business with my pleasure and do a few bookstore appearances as well. I will be signing at a Border’s in Chicago, at a Barnes & Noble in Indianapolis, at Joe Beth in Cincinnati, and at Border’s in St. Louis (must admit to having some trepidations about the last, given what happened the last time I signed at a bookstore in St. Louis while Archon was going on thirty miles away in Collinsville, Illinois, but maybe this time will turn out better). Details of times and places will be posted on my Appearances page.

If you missed me on my last swing on the midwest, here’s your chance.

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For a science fiction or fantasy writer, there is no bigger honor than being named Guest of Honor at the World Science Fiction Convention. (Yes, I know, the field has other awards for lifetime achievement, most notably SFWA’s Grandmaster Award, but for me that will always rank second). The honor comes with an obligation, however — you have to give a speech at the con.

Of course, any writer who’s been around for a few years has probably given dozens of speeches at regional cons and book signings, in addition to sitting on hundreds of panels, so none of us are exactly strangers to public speaking. Some writers have a standard speech for all occasions, a one-size-fits-all sort of talk. Others write a new speech every year or two. Some wing it. If you are really hard up and/or lazy, you can even take questions from the audience, or ask to do an interview instead of a speech. I confess, I have resorted to all those dodges in my time, at one con or another.

A worldcon is different, though. It’s the biggest honor most of us will ever get, unless the Pulitzer Fairy or the Nobel Prize Santa Claus should somehow take note of us, and it requires a real speech. Something major, memorable, substantive. A speech with some meat on its bones. Probably Robert A. Heinlein’s fault. At the first of his three worldcon GOHships, in 1941, he set the template with his famous “time binding” speech and gave fans something to talk about for years (the speech he gave at his third GOHship in 1976 was rambling and incoherent and ended abruptly in mid sentence when the alarm clock on his podium went off, but never mind, third time can’t always be the charm, and RAH was not in the best of health by then).

My own worldcon GOHship was in 2003 at Torcon III. I began agonizing over the right topic for that speech from the moment Toronto won the bid, and I worked on the text off and on for most of the year leading up to the convention… which might explain why I was so cheesed off when LOCUS reported afterward that I hadn’t given a speech, but did an interview instead (for the record, I gave a speech AND an interview). I wasn’t too thrilled by the small room that Torcon put me in either, a far cry from the grand ballrooms where the Guests of Honor always spoke when I first started attending cons in the early 70s…

Never mind, though. It wasn’t my intend to complain, but to praise. I’ve just got gotten my copies of a new anthology from ISFic Press, edited by Mike Resnick and Joe Siclari. WORLDCON GUEST OF HONOR SPEECHES, it’s called, and I’m astonished that no one thought of doing this sort of book earlier. Resnick and Siclari collect thirty-one GOH speeches in one attractive hardbound package, from Frank R. Paul’s address at the very first worldcon in 1939 to Christopher Priest’s talk at last year’s Glasgow con. Heinlein’s famous 1941 speech is here (but not his 1976 speech, mercifully), along with Philip Jose Farmer’s infamous 1968 speech, two talks by the late great Robert Block, and speeches from such luminaries as Theodore Sturgeon, Donald A. Wollheim, Fritz Leiber, Doc Smith, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, and many others, all too many of whom are no longer with us. Even Hugo Gernsback himself is represented, the man for whom the Hugo Awards are named. (Siclari and Resnick have also included my own Torcon speech, “The Heart of a Small Boy,” so if you’re one of those who couldn’t squeeze into that cramped little room in Toronto, or one of those who believed LOCUS and thought I did not give a speech, here’s your chance to read what I said).

The book is not complete, alas. There are as many speeches missing as there are included, sad to say, and some of those may well be lost to us. That’s certainly understandable when we’re talking about the 40s and 50s, half a century ago; most of those writers are dead, and it may be no one thought to write down what they said. More puzzling, however, is the fact that the entire decade of the 90s seems to be missing, save for Joe Haldeman’s speech from the 1990 worldcon in the Hague. Those writers are still around, mostly, and you’d think that some of them would have saved the text of their speeches…

Oh, well. That’s a cavil, and we can hope that some more of those talks will turn up in the future, and make for a great second edition. What Siclari and Resnick have given us is good enough. If you’re interested in the history of SF, the history of worldcons, the history of fandom, or would just like to sample the words and thoughts of some of the giants who built this field, this is a book you need to have. I imagine there will be copies available at this year’s worldcon in LA. Those not planning to attend can order this from the ISFic Press website at
http://www.isficpress.com/WGOH.html

And speaking of LACon IV, Connie Willis is the GOH at that one. You won’t want to miss HER speech, I promise you. I don’t know what her subject will be, but knowing Connie, she’s been working on the speech for two years, and it’s sure to be as provocative as it is hilarious, and I’m certain that LACon will give her a room big enough to hold everyone who wants to hear her.

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