High on sci-fi
48th annual Bubonicon focuses on rockets, robots and ray guns
Bubonicon is bringing back the three R’s.
Yes, that’s rockets, robots and ray guns. “The three R’s, as we call them — are the building blocks of a lot of early science fiction, and they still show up today,” says Chris Chrissinger, Bubonicon co-chair. “We might tend to call them spaceships or starships now, but they’re still rockets. Even if not cigarshaped.”
Chrissinger says there’s a certain appeal to those Chesley Bonestell rocket images that we see on pulp magazine covers and in films like “Rocketship X-M.”
Chrissinger and Caci Cooper co-chair the event, which takes place today and through Sunday, Aug. 28.
The guests of honor are fantasy authors Rachel Caine and David Gerrold.
The toastmaster will be Joe R. Lansdale. Lee Moyer is the guest artist, and Sid Gutierrez is the science speaker.
“It’s actually interesting that both our guests of honor and our toastmaster all have experience with Hollywood,” he says.
In fact, Caine’s “Morganville Vampires” was made into a web-based TV miniseries in 2014 for Felicia Day’s “Geek & Sundry.”
Meanwhile, Gerrold started his career when he barely was out of his teens — writing the episode “The Trouble with Tribbles” for the classic “Star Trek” series. He also wrote for the animated “Star Trek” series, “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Land of the Lost” and “Babylon 5.”
And Lansdale has seen his short stories, “Bubba Ho-Tep” and “Incident on and off a Mountain Road” turned into film adaptations. And in 2014, his novel “Cold in July” became a feature film.
“Right now, the Sundance Channel is doing “Hap and Leonard,” based on a couple of continuing characters from his East Texas gritty crime novels,” Chrissinger says.