Information

• 2007 Daily Dragon PDFs
• 2007 Convention Information

News

• Ve Vant Your Blood
• Enjoying Q&A Panels at Dragon*Con
• Space & Science Track Mitosis
• Dragon*Con Parade Last Call!

Interviews

• An Interview with Jamie Bamber
• An Interview with Neville and the Weasley Twins
• Meet the Stars of Harry Potter
• An Interview with Holly Black
• An Interview with Jennie Breeden
• An Interview with Jack McDevitt

Historian and comic book author Van Plexico joined me on a panel asking whether revisionist history was the new fantasy.  Incredibly, fans in the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Literature track were not only awake on Monday at 10AM, closely following Dragon*Con’s last late-night activities, they were exceptionally erudite and thoughtful.

Jamie Bamber is the English-American actor currently starring as Major Lee "Apollo" Adama in the SciFi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica.  He’s worked steadily as an actor in TV, film and radio in Europe and the US.  His notable roles have included Lt. Archie Kennedy in A&E’s Horatio Hornblower adventures and Lt. Jack Foley in HBO’s Band of Brothers.

Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom) and James and Oliver Phelps (Fred and George Weasley), the busy stars of the Harry Potter movies, kindly agreed to adjust their schedules to answer a few questions for the Daily Dragon.

The Parsec Awards, a "Celebration of Speculative Fiction Podcasting," were established in 2006, dedicated to rewarding excellence in various aspects of Speculative Fiction Podcasting—available for both Sci-fi & Fantasy Original Content, podiobooks, and a variety of other categories dealing with the new frontiers of Portable Media.

Saturday night, artists gathered in excited anticipation for the Art Show awards, presented by celebrated artist Todd Lockwood. The awards consisted of three categories: the Special Awards (people’s choice), the Treasure Chest Charity Art Project (the charity art project), and the Juried Awards.

Artist Don Maitz, who judged the treasure chests, could not attend because he was currently judging the Dawn Look-alike contest. A member of the audience joked that Maitz was judging “another kind of chest.”

And the winners of the 2007 Dragon*Con Independent Film Festival are:
Best Short Film: "Jakob and the Angels"
Best Animated Film: "Operation: Fish"
Honorable Mention: "Thanksgiving with the Kranzes" 

Even Master of Ceremonies Eric L. Watts’s spirited performance of “Hey, Miss Klingon” could not overshadow the political message of the newly-crowned 2007 Miss Klingon Empire, VarkNa B’traughh (Valerie Rice): the Klingon campaign to conquer Earth. “We must save the humans from their biggest enemies–themselves.”

The pageant opened with “Klingon Rhapsody,” accompanied by two trembling, red-shirted Federation security guards. Only one guard appeared as a captive during the event, running errands and pouring water at a Klingon warrior’s …

“My Eyes, My Eyes,” my second official panel late Saturday evening at Dragon*Con 2007, had me happily cornered in a clearly supporting role to Sherrilyn Kenyon.  The room was packed by fans gathered to view Ms. Kenyon in full regalia (I think as the Queen of Hearts) and hear her speak.  A good time was had by all, and the panel turned up unexpected dividends.  In answer to the key topic raised by the panel, “sex in SF/fantasy,” devoted fans sang out the names of books and authors so fast that I was hard-pressed to write them all down.

There’s plenty of heated debate to be found in geekdom—Linux holy wars, fans of different TV series at odds, RPG rulesets…you’d think adding politics to the discussions would be adding gasoline to the fire.  Miracle of miracles, four authors of varying political stripes managed to hold a stimulating (and respectful!) discussion about the role of politics in their genres.  The track’s panel discussion was held Sunday afternoon.Tom Kratman, John Ringo, Bill Ritch, and Van Plexico led the discussion.