Highlights of ‘Amazing Stories Magazine’’s First Convention

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

“Amazing Stories", said to be the world’s oldest science fiction magazine, held its first convention last weekend, June 12 through 14th. It wasn’t only its first virtual convention but its first convention ever! “Amazing Stories” released its first issue in 1926 and then went out of print for more than 10 years. Fortunately, it was relaunched by its current publisher, Steve Davidson. Davidson released the first issue of the resurrected science fiction and fantasy magazine for the World Science Fiction Convention in 2018. Last post I had a partial con report of AmazingCon, the official name for “Amazing Stories”’s convention. This weekend I have a more detailed report of the panels I attended. Unfortunately, I was only able to tune in to the first and second days but of what I attended it was all really amazing! (Pun intended.)

Day One

The first panel I attended was about pitching stories to editors. Sadly, it didn’t last long and I mentioned why last post. Because the panel had to end almost as soon as it started, there’s, unfortunately, really nothing to talk about as far as the panel itself goes.

The second panel I attended, was called “The Eras of Science Fiction Authorship”. This panel discussed science fiction throughout the years from its beginning to the present. One of the most notable things talked about was an indication that we could be arriving at a newer era of science fiction yet. It was pointed out that the impact of significant events determines an era of science fiction. For example, the industrial revolution of the 19th century brought about an age of fiction involving high tech inventions and exploration to uncharted areas of the world; and the atomic bomb scare of the mid-20th century brought about the atomic age of science fiction. Needless to say, the world impacting event of today is the Covid-19 pandemic. Expect to see a lot of new science fiction influenced by that.

The next panel I attended was called “Biologies and Ecologies In Science Fiction”. What was notable about this discussion was some of the panelists suggested that, to improve the realism of the science fiction you write, you should research topics of biology that you really enjoy. Myself, I’m more of a techno science fiction writer at least when it comes to the science aspect of the genre and so I read up on computer science a lot. However, I try to read up on my share of biology and if I were to pick a concentration I think it would be in giant marine life. Whales and Great White Sharks fascinated me since I was a kid, probably because of my love for giant monsters.

“Resurrecting Pulp Heroes” was an interesting panel. However, it struck me as being a bit chauvinist. The panelists were all male and there was only one female attendee whose name I remember seeing in the panel’s virtual room. However, this may have been due to the nature of the topic and so not intended. The discussion was really informing and showed hope for the survival of pulp fiction and its heroes of the past. Perhaps what’s needed alongside reviving pulp heroes is bringing the female pulp characters of the past to the heroic role as well.

Day 2

The first panel I joined in on Saturday was “World Building 101, Session B”. It was part of a series but the only one that I had time to attend. However, I got a lot of good tips from it. One was how to organize your story’s world. Because keeping consistency in the world of your story, especially a series of novels, can be very overwhelming some tools for organisation were suggested. Some of these tools were Scrivner, Excel and white boards. This was a tip that I was really able to use since I’ve been going all over the place in the novella I’ve been currently working on.

The panel “From Fiction To Film” I felt was a little mistitled. It was more about how to get your movie funded and how to turn your script into a film than it was about how to adapt a book to film. However, one author, Jean Stine, talked about how her science fiction novel was made into a movie. Her book, “Season of the Witch”, is about a person who is forced to transfer his lifeforce to an older woman’s body and so is about transsexuality of a sort. The author said that the film was titled “Synapse” (a.k.a. “Memory Run”) but had nothing to do with the novel’s plot. Instead of transsexuality, it concerned itself with brain transplants. But she said YouTube offers the movie right now. I’ve seen the trailer and it’s not my kind of science fiction movie; the novel seems way better.

The last panel I attended was called “SF Film Then and Now”. Science fiction movies of the early 20th century to date were discussed. One of the panelists, Daniel Kimmel, talked about his recent viewing of the original 1955 “War of the Worlds” film and how it’s relevant to today’s pandemic. It makes sense: a plague is an alien invasion of a sort, a microscopic alien invasion not so much of the world but of the individual bodies within the world. Yet the invading of these bodies has a serious impact on the world, as we have seen.

Then one of the modern movies that were discussed was “Mortal Engines”. Panelist Richard Graeme Cameron said he really liked this film even though it was more of a popcorn one and, as he said, it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. I meant to see this one when it released a couple of holiday seasons ago but it did so bad at the box office that it didn’t last in theatres very long. This is one I’ll have to rent even though I would have like to have seen it on the big screen since it features mobile cities that swallow up each other. It was adapted from the young adult book series of the same name.


So that’s the report of the panels I attended. To make it more like a traditional sci fi and fantasy con, AmazingCon also featured a filk concert, an art show, and even a virtual con party. Except for a little bit of the art show, I didn’t have time to attend these. But thanks to “Amazing Stories” publisher Steve Davidson and his con crew! They worked very hard on this science fiction and fantasy virtual convention and Steve himself said that he went through a lot of trying challenges to get it going. Even so, it has been announced that there will be an AmazingCon II! Steve said in an email that “Response was so good and so positive that we have already announced our intention to host AmazingCon II - bigger, better, faster, stronger - for March 12-14 of 2021”.

Next weekend will be our postponed Book-To-Movie review of, finally, “The Invisible Man”! Have you read any “Amazing Stories” magasines old or new? Do you plan on attending the second AmazingCon next year?

Until next time . . .