Recap Marcon Conference 2019 in Columbus
Introduction
I attended the SF Conference Marcon Conference 2019 in Columbus on May 11. They held it at 6500 Doubletree Avenue Worthington, Ohio at the Crown Plaza – Columbus North. The drive was two-plus hours taken in the morning and back in the evening. I also attended Marcon in 2017 and 2018. This year I attended four panels, a performance, and an interview.
The link to the Marcon website.
Leaving the Crown Plaza Saturday evening.
Marcon Conference 2019 Columbus Banner
Marcon Conference 2019 Columbus Program Guide Cover
Picture of my badge from Marcon Conference 2019 Columbus
Summary
Saturday, May 11th at 10 AM
Game of Thrones: Winter Has Finally Come, a panel with Vicki Meece, Ella Shurr, John Boone, Leslie Mehne, and John Picacio.
The scheduled room for the is panel was Salon B-C, but it was locked so we went into the empty Salon E room.
One of the panelists was the artist guest of honor John Picacio. His artwork was used for the program cover and the Marcon badge shown in the pictures in the introduction of this post. He was commissioned by George R. R, Martin to produce a 2012 calendar using Game of Thrones characters. This was before the HBO show was cast and he related that his artwork was displayed at the auditions and inspired the casting choices.
This is a link to the twelve Games of Thrones artworks John Picacio made for the calendar in 2011.
http://www.johnpicacio.com/portfolio/2011/index.html
Game of Thrones Season Eight Review
The panel reviewed each of the four episodes of season eight that had been aired before the panel took place.
Season Eight, Episode One
Season Eight, Episode One: The panel liked the many reunions highlighted in this episode. Their favorite reunions were Jon and Arya, Brienne and Jamie, The Hound and Arya, Gendry and Arya, Sansa and Theon.
Season Eight, Episode Two
Season Eight, Episode Two: This episode was the setup for the battle of Winterfell between the living and the Night King’s dead army. One question that wasn’t clear was did Jon tell Dany that Bran and not Sam told him that R + L = J?
Season Eight, Episode Three
Season
Eight, Episode Three: The episode was shot and
set in the dark which made it hard for the viewer to see what was going on in
the episode. “It’s a carnival ride.” A highlight of the episode was when Bran
called Theon a good man. One theory debated was if Jon was saying
“Go, go, go” to Arya as she headed to the God’s wood to face the Night King.
Season Eight, Episode Four
Season Eight, Episode Four: The theory being debated was whether Dany was becoming the Mad Queen.
Season Eight, Episode Five predictions: The fifth episode aired the day after the panel on May 12th. The panel thought that the Hound and Varys were the most likely to die in that episode.
Overall Season Eight: The panel was disappointed in the scant use of the Direwolves this season and in the absence of information about the situation in Dorne.
They held the panel in Salon E with 10 attendees.
Saturday, May 11th at 11 AM
Science Fiction is the Conversation That Starts Things, a panel with David Gerrold.
This panel was David Gerrold reminiscing about his career as a TV show writer, director, and novel writer. I’ll detail the topics he addressed as he presented them.
He recently turned in a novel called Hela. It will be the fourth novel in the Dingilliad series (aka Starsiders) which began with Jumping Off the Planet, linked below.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1111868.Jumping_Off_the_Planet
David Gerrold on The War Against the Chtorr
Gerrold contributes regularly to his patreon page. The book he started the page for has been sold but he continues to posts stories and reviews on the page although some of the content is available only to subscribers. He has been updating The War Against The Chtorr series on the page. The first 20 chapters were posted for free as linked below.
https://www.patreon.com/DavidGerrold
David Gerrold on The Martian Child
Gerrold talked about The Martian Child which was inspired by his relationship with his adopted son. He decided to adopt late in life as a single parent. It was challenging and rewarding for him. He published a novelette in 1994 which won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. Gerrold expanded the story into a novel. He wrote the screenplay for the movie that was produced in 2007 starring John Cusack.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/709750.The_Martian_Child
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0415965/
He is working on a graphic novel for his 1973 novel The Man Who Folded Himself.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/624122.The_Man_Who_Folded_Himself
David Gerrold on Star Trek
Gerrold wrote many Star Trek episode from multiple series. The most famous episode was The Trouble With Tribbles from the original series, season two, episode 15. He wrote a book called The Trouble With Tribbles about his experiences writing for the show.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77101.The_Trouble_with_Tribbles
Gerrold also wrote The Cloud Minders and I, Mudd for the original series, More Tribbles, More Troubles and BEM for the animated series. He wrote the novelization of the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Encounter at Farpoint.
David Gerrold on Star Trek Blood and Fire
He had a falling out with the showrunners of The Next Generation when they did not accept his script for Blood and Fire in 1987. The script featured an allegory for AIDS and included gay characters so it was not produced then. He sold copies of the script and donated the proceeds to AIDS research L. A. Star Trek: New Voyages was a fan-created webisode series. David Gerrold wrote and directed two episodes based in his screenplay and novel for Blood and Fire in 2008 and 2009 linked below.
Gerrold’s final thoughts were about thinking of it at the time “Who would remember these shows in twenty years? and who’d have thought we’d be talking about them for the last fifty years.”
They held the panel in Ballroom 1 and 2 with 16 attendees.
Saturday, May 11th at 12 PM
A Furry Thing Happened on the Way to Tranquility Base, a performance by the Confused Greenies.
Note: The Confused Greenies performed at Marcon ten years ago as well. This performance was inspired by David Gerrold’s works and other sci-fi influences. It starts with a holodeck recreation celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon landing at tranquility base. The holodeck malfunctions through sabotage. The Saturn V rocket is infested with tribbles and the Dalek saves the day.
They held the performance in the Cardinal room with 7 attendees.
Saturday, May 11th at 1 PM
Avengers Endgame: Half the World awaits, a panel with Roy Minamide, Paul Hahn, Chris Stephenson, Joe Beale, and Jeff Wolfe.
Avengers: Endgame was widely released on April 26, 2019, and the panel talked about their impressions of the movie and its place as the last of 22 movies in Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The panel began with the panelists and the audience members stating their favorite moments of the movie.
Endgame Questions
They went on to ask questions about the movie. How exactly did they create a GPS of the quantum realm? Where did Captain America get more Pym particles? The heroes are too powerful which leads to “superman syndrome” where the villains must become overwhelmingly powerful, so how do you manage that?
Three characters had satisfying growth arcs in the movie. They were Nebula’s redemption, Scott Lang’s redemption through conceiving the Time Heist, and Rocket’s embracing his new family.
The last topic was about how the writers will address the Snap in the new movie Spiderman: Far From Home which will be released on July 2, 2019. It may be related to Tony Stark’s comment to the Time Heist crew about “Bring them back, but don’t change the past.”
They held the panel in Salon B-C with 21 attendees.
Saturday, May 11th at 2 PM
David Gerrold Interview conducted by Julie Washington.
Julie Washington interviewed David Gerrold. She mostly asked him one question and he would have an interesting anecdote to answer her. He grew up in L. A. and then moved to the San Fernando Valley. He would go to the Van Neys public library every Friday and get 10 books to read for the next that week. Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert Heinlein started him reading SF. He says he became a writer because “There were stories I wanted to read but no one was writing them so I had to write them myself.”
He wanted to write SF where the laws of physics were followed and wrote “When Harlie Was One” about a computer with artificial intelligence.
He found the transition from writing screenplays to novel a tough one. In novels, the writer must describe the setting for the reader to get a mental picture while TV sets do that for you.
David Gerrold on Star Trek
On the Deep Space 9 episode Trials and Tribble-ations (Season 5, Episode 6) he was disappointed that he didn’t get a writing credit but he was given acknowledgment of his work and a cameo appearance in the episode in compensation.
Gerrold went over his story about the Blood and Fire script written for The Next Generation detailed in his 11 AM talk. He also wrote an episode of Babylon 5.
Gerrold talked about his cameos in the TV show Big Bang Theory especially the ones at Wil Wheaton’s party on the show and as a booth owner at the fictional Van Nyes comicon. This was poignant because the series finale of Big Bang Theory was scheduled for May 16, 2019, the next Thursday after Marcon.
Gerrold talked about getting the rights to republish his War Against the Chtorr series. He used a Kickstarter campaign to republish the four previously published novels. He has completed four more novels in the series and is in the editing stage leading to publication.
David Gerrold on Kickstarter
Checking on kicktrac.com, Gerrold has two projects that were on Kickstarter. There was a project in 2013 that would have adapted his first novel in the Star Wolf series but it was not fully funded and abandoned. Another project in 2016 was a mash-up of Star Trek and Dr. Suess named Oh, The Places You’ll Boldly Go! It was fully funded but could not proceed because the Ted Gisell estate (Dr. Suess himself) blocked the project. The projects are detailed at the following link.
http://www.kicktraq.com/search/?find=david+gerrold
Gerrold finished the interview detailing a few more projects he participated in. He wrote the screenplay for the webisode adaption of his Blood and Fire story. It was 96 pages, he was the director, and they only had ten days to shoot it. He wrote the Land of the Lost pilot. Gerrold also wrote adaptions of TV shows and movies. Some of his novel adaptations were for Encounter at Farpoint, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and Enemy Mine.
They held the panel in Ballroom 1 and 2 with 26 attendees.
Saturday, May 11th at 7 PM
The Expanse: Earthers, Mickeys and Belters Beware, a panel with Ralph Winans, Ella Shurr, Lee Shamblin, Amelia Brownstein, and Kathy Knese
The panel liked that the show depicted a technologically believable future. They could understand how Mars and the Belt could develop the way it was depicted in the show but found it unlikely that the Earth could be unified under the United Nations. The showrunners were faithful to the books but not exact.
A panel attendee described the series as “crunchy” sci-fi meaning that it was true to how things actually work in space.
The Expanse Book to Show Changes
The panel understood that the TV show could not portray belters as tall and thin as described in the books without using extensive CGI. They wondered about the motivation of Jules-Pierre Mao. It is not clear in the series. The panel asked how far the attendees had read in the novels and the response varied. Some had not read any of the novels will others have read the most recent novel Tiamat’s Wrath (The Expanse Book #8, released 03-26-19). Season three depicts events from parts of book two and three while season four will depict part of book three and book four. The ninth and last novel is unnamed but scheduled to be released sometime in 2020.
The first three seasons of The Expanse show was aired by SyFy network. The show was picked up by Amazon Video and it has been reported that the fourth season has completed shooting. At this time, the airdate has not been set except that Amazon expects to release it sometime in 2019.
https://screenrant.com/expanse-season-4-release-date-story-amazon/
They held the panel in Salon D with 9 attendees.
Recommendation – Conclusion
I had a great time at Marcon Conference 2019 in Columbus. The location was different from last year. It was easier for me to get to and the parking was free. My star of the con was David Gerrold. He was engaging in the panel and the interview that I attended with him. This year I plan to read his book on writing named Worlds of Wonder and am interested in his Trouble with Tribbles memoir. This year I attended four panels, a performance, and an interview. My other highlights of Marcon Conference 2019 in Columbus were the Game of Thrones panel and the performance by the Confused Greenies. I also attended Marcon in 2017 and 2018 and plan to return in 2020.
Links
Recap for SF Conference Marcon Conference 2018 in Columbus which I attended on May 12, 2018, at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio. I attended four panels and two game shows.
I attended SF Conference Marcon Columbus on May 13, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio. I attended four panels. I did not post a recap of this conference. If I post a recap in the future I will link it here.