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Conventions: A place for the truly obsessed to get together and share their fan boy or girl-ness with others, to learn, to grow, to make connections, and to have fun.

Or possibly just the latter.

While ConDFW isn’t the biggest con that Dallas hosts, it has a modest importance - it’s a sci-fi con, one that draws in big names and important authors. This year, for example, it’s the Jim Butcher\David webber party: both authors are New York Times best sellers, and both are here to grace our lovely (well, you know) city with some true fun and geekery, excellent tidbits for rabid fans and a lot of info to cram into our brains.

Friday starts off late, opening for registration at two pm. But the fun takes off immediately - first up is Jim Butcher (wearing a Sunnydale t-shirt - yay for Buffy fandom!) and his wife, author Shannon K Butcher, at the autograph table. Jim’s almost a shy guy - he’s great when you engage him, but you have to engage him first. We chatted a bit as he signed my books (and I giggled with mad delight - as the buttons recently passed out at New York’s Comic Con say, Harry Dresden is my hero). He said that writing the comic Welcome to the Jungle was as much work for him as writing a novel, which is why he passed on writing the adaptation of Storm Front.  Shannon, a redhead (who seemingly misses nothing) pimped her new paranormal romance novel and joked around with her husband’s seemingly countless fans.

So, what to do between rounds of panels and events? Check out the dealer room, of course. There were book vendors aplenty (which one would expect from a mostly literary con), though the best, by far, was the Half Price Books booth. They had all kinds of goodies, including a lot of Butcher, an album by Mr. Spock (my hand to God) and a Doctor Who role playing game from the seventies. There was jewelry of the beaded variety, the chain mail variety, and my favorite, the steam punk variety. Snarky t-shirts, original artwork, swords and costumes, everything you’d expect from a con was represented.

At four, the panels began. The first up (and one of the panels that I most looked forward to) was Jim Butcher reading the first few chapters of the upcoming Turncoat.  A brief summary goes like this: a headachy Harry is woken from a nap by someone pounding at his door. Enter Morgan, bleeding profusely from a wound. He says only one thing before he collapses - the wardens are coming. Harry takes him in, and finds someone to help tend to the hard-ass warden’s wounds - Butters, our favorite friendly morgue guy. Butters does what he can, and Mouse does the rest - keeping Morgan off his bad leg. Morgan asks for Harry’s help - a council member has been killed, and Morgan is being framed. Though the both of them are nearly crushed by their own pride during this exchange, Harry is on the case.

And that’s just the first two chapters.

The rest goes as would be expected: Harry goes to reach out to his friends for help. Thomas, of course, and his spy paramour Justine. The wolf pack are instantly brought into the fray as a creature of darkness, something so evil it causes Harry to convulse when looking at it with the Sight, begins to hunt him. The preview was engaging, witty, action-packed and made me start to sweat with the very thought of the wait until its release in April.
Jim Butcher and David Webber teamed up with three others - Lee Martindale, a feisty, sassy woman of great cutting wit and much information, Patrice Sarath, who came off a bit too huggy-warm-fuzzy, and Paul Black, who attempted to moderate David Weber and Lee Martindale’s very large personalities - for an aspiring writers panel. Much was tossed about between the five; there were debates, mockings, and advice given. They covered topics from agents to slush piles to the best way, if any, to get into the market. For the most part, David and Lee did the talking, and they were fantastic. David Webber has countless stories and Lee Martindale clearly doesn’t know how to hold her tongue - and God love her for it. Jim Butcher jumped in when prompted, and whenever he did he provided entertaining and sage advice (he’s old hand at advising writers -  his live journal blog is packed with excellent advice on writing). When not prompted to talk, however, he leaned back with a slightly glazed over look in his eyes.

Toss in a little meet and greet quaintly called the opening ceremonies, and you have day one. Day two begins early, and provides for steampunkish goodness from The Babbage Patch Kids, a local Dallas group who put together events like The Brass Ball for the nightclub The Church, a two hour long panel with the Butchers, countless panels on what makes good sci-fi and fantasy, countless readings and autographs, an appearance by J. O’Barr, a costume contest, and hopefully, a good party or two. Your gal Friday will check back with updates.

The party is just beginning, find out what happens on Day Two.

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