DisCon II

Science Fiction Convention
Name:	DisCon II
Dates:	Labor Day Weekend, 1974
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DisCon II was the 1974 Worldcon.

Con Reports

WorldCon 74. DisCon ll. Labor Day weekend in Washington, D. C. DisCon, like the city of Washington, had so much of everything, it's hard to know where to start. According to the daily dispatch, there were 4500 people there, making this the biggest WorldCon ever. It was held, as usual, on Labor Day weekend at the Sheraton Park Motor Hotel in DC, whose help was obviously flummoxed by the convention, its size, and its attendees. DisCon had the usual agenda of WorldCons—parties Friday night, costumes (146 entries—another record) and parties Saturday night, the Banquet, Hugo awards, and parties Sunday night, the Art Auction Sunday and Monday, more parties, and the Dealers' Room all weekend. And parties.

This was a partycon, more so than Torcon was last year. Torcon didn't actually have more to do; it only seemed that way because Torcon had fewer people, and more official meetings of the special interest groups. People needed less to throw their own parties. Oh, like all cons, DisCon was fun. Fun! but sometimes...the grin was a bit strained.

The population explosion has hit the WorldCons. While Trekcons can sort of contain and pretty much amuse 10 to 20 kilopeople, because they're all there for just one thing: Trek; at WorldCons, once there are enough people for each group to throw a minicon in an unused room (and they practically do) the whole idea of all fen united breaks down. They may all be there, but there is no longer the camaraderie of all us nuts together, appreciating our mutual love of speculative fiction Cat's ,"sf", gang). That's what's known as diversity. DisCon came close to splintering. I do except, however, the World Premier of "A Boy and His Dog". Oh, sure the hiati between reels, the lousy sound, scratches and so forth were painful, but it was a fine movie. More importantly, most of the attendees watched it all together and enjoyed it each in his own way. It was beautiful—and an example of Art transcending us all. Urp.

Again, tho, size. Sheer numbers. Cons, all cons are burgeoning. Nycon with a ridiculous 17,000, WorldCons too big for their intentions. It's only the last five years any Worldcon topped 1000. These supercons are getting entirely too big for any one fan to experience the major part of. Are we any closer to Dr. Asimov for hearing him read one of his essays over a loudspeaker, than to read the very same article in F&SF? Is there FIAWOL in overcrowded, oversmoked rooms? All fen are slen, not sardines.

So what do you do? Drive out the immigrants newly come to the shores of fandom? Splinter cons? How do we save the WorldCon? Should we throw simultaneous regional WorldCons? Who gets which guests? Have we the right to limit membership in WorldCons? Have we the obligation to? What is the optimum number for a gathering of friends?

The panels were on the original anthologies, academia and sf, and the problems of the science fiction magazines. The first was the best; it was moderated by Robert Silverberg, and Daimon Knight, Harlan Ellison, Jack Dann and David Gerrold all took part. Some good points were made: Harlan Ellison was disturbed by the long gap between writing a story for an original anthology and its actual publi cation (nearly seven years, in some cases, such as his own DANGEROUS VISIONS series), and claimed that the gap is much less with the magazines (which is why he sends all his stories to P&SP now). Jack Dann pointed out the satisfying feedback that can come from working closely with a group of writers on a "theme" anthology. David Gerrold said that he was giving up editing original anthologies because he found that they cut too much into the time he wanted to spend on his own writing. And Damon Knight said that he regarded ORBIT as a hardcover magazine.

But it was obvious that the panelists hadn't gotten into the real meat of the discussion, which Silverberg was trying to push them toward: "Don't you think there is some real difference in the quality and the conception or approach in the stories published in the original anthologies, and those published in the magazines?" (This is the gist of what I believe he said.) But no one really got into this; nothing was really said about the actual fiction in the anthologies. All the discussion was centered, instead, on the trappings that revolve around the actual publication of a story (like the time-lag factor that Ellison brought up), and not the stories themselves. I was a bit disappointed by this, but it was still a good panel. The other panels were less interesting because I had heard most of what they said before.

Still, it was interesting to see a lot of the people I had heard about, but never met before; Susan Wood, Edward Ferman, Ted White, etc.; no one ever looks how you imagine them to be.