MidSouthCon is a feast for fans of fantasy, sci-fi, horror

Photo by Stan Carroll // Buy this photo

Fans who attend events like MidSouthCon like to dress up as their favorite characters. At last year's convention, Stormie Stone wears the costume of a vampire from the role-playing game "White Wolf" while browsing merchandise from Renaissance Fashions.

"Can you hold on for a moment? Let me type three more words," said Kevin J. Anderson, upon answering the phone this week at his home office in Colorado.

One gets the feeling that Anderson says that every time he answers the phone. The author — a guest of honor at this weekend's science-fiction convention, MidSouthCon 28 — has published more than 100 novels in the past 20 years. His "more than 20 million books in print in thirty languages" (according to his Web site, wordfire.com) include spinoffs from "Star Wars," "Dune," "The X Files" and DC Comics ("The Last Days of Krypton" imagines the first meeting of Superman and Batman), and collaborations with such writers as Dean Koontz and the late A.E. van Vogt. His original works include the seven-novel "Saga of Seven Suns," an epic tale of interplanetary war.

Photo by Stan Carroll

Fans who attend events like MidSouthCon like to dress up as their favorite characters. At last year's convention, Stormie Stone wears the costume of a vampire from the role-playing game "White Wolf" while browsing merchandise from Renaissance Fashions.

Prolific husband-and-wife authors Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta are among guests of honor at MidSouth-Con.Courtesy Kevin J. Anderson

In other words, Anderson said, "There's always something exciting going on here, whether I'm destroying Superman's planet, Krypton, or riding with Captain Nemo on his submarine or helping Luke Skywalker fight off the Dark Jedi."

The 28th MidSouthCon — an annual gathering of science fiction, fantasy, horror, comic book, anime and gaming aficionados — begins today and continues through Sunday at the Whispering Woods Hotel and Conference Center, 11200 E. Goodman in Olive Branch.

Anderson, 47, and his wife, science-fiction novelist Rebecca Moesta, 53, who has written "Young Jedi" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" novels, are among the convention's guests of honor. Some others include comic-book scribe Gail Simone, current writer of "Wonder Woman," and Sherrilyn Kenyon, best-selling author of the New Orleans-based "Dark-Hunter" vampire series.

The convention — or "con," in fan lingo — is expected to attract up to 1,200 people from throughout the South and Midwest, according to marketing coordinator Carlin Stuart, 44. That's good news for the economy: The Whispering Woods hotel and the nearby Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott are booked solid for the weekend, which means the lobbies are more likely to be filled with Klingons and Death Eaters than power-suited business people.

Like thousands of other such gatherings held annually throughout the U.S. and the world, MidSouthCon is an offspring of the small fan meetings first held in the 1930s, the most famous of which was the first "World Science Fiction Convention," which attracted about 200 people — including future greats Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury — to New York in 1939.

Like that gathering, MidSouthCon began as a primarily literary event that expanded over time, even as the fantasy genre exploded from a niche market to perhaps the entertainment industry's dominant commercial force. (Currently, 17 of the top 20 all-time U.S. box office champs are genre films, including the No. 1 hit, "Avatar.") But the con stays true to its roots by raising money for two book-related charities, Literacy Mid-South and the Science Fiction Writers of America Emergency Medical Fund.

"In some ways, it's a three-day costume party," said Stuart, referring to the fan predilection for dressing as favorite fictional characters (which culminates in Saturday night's much-anticipated Masquerade contest). "But we're also raising money for our charities and actually educating our minds."

Other attractions include panel discussions on everything from Camelot to Godzilla; an art show; gaming rooms; movie screenings; a dealer's room filled with books, toys and memorabilia; live music performances; and programs relating to space exploration and science fact rather than fantasy — subjects close to the heart of Anderson, who majored in physics and astronomy and worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California before he became a full-time fiction writer.

"If I had written a story a long time ago where we put a man on the moon and went back five or six times and then said, 'Been there, done that,' and scrapped the program, I'd have been laughed out of the science-fiction community," he said, lamenting NASA's current identity crisis.

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