Con*Stellation XXVIII: Vulpecula

September 18-20, 2009 in Huntsville, Alabama

Guests!

We have a great lineup of guests this year! The Guest of Honor will be author David Weber. Our Artist Guest of Honor will be award winning science fiction and fantasy artist John Picacio. Master of Cermonies will be award winning author Jack McDevitt.Fan Guest of Honor will be Gary "The Fish" Shelton.

Also expected to attend are Hugo nominated editor Lou Anders, author David Drake, William Drinkard, author Mark Fitzgerald, author Eric Flint, author Allan Gilbreath, author Sara Hoyt, scientist and author Les Johnson, author Scott Oden, scientist and author Stephanie Osborn, scientist and author Dr. Travis S. "Doc" Taylor, and award-winning publisher Toni Weisskopf. There will be a special performance by Jeff Ugly Shoes and the Cemetery Surfers. Check in often for more info and updates! To view info about each of our guests, click a link to the right.

David Weber

Author Guest of Honor

David Weber is often compared to C.S. Forester (the celebrated creator of Captain Horatio Hornblower), is the recipient of critical praise worthy of Heinlein or Asimov, and has hordes of voracious fans clamoring for more and more Weber. Fortunately for them, Weber keeps steadily producing book after book with first printings that sell out almost immediately, then go back into printing after printing after printing.

His novels range from epic fantasy (Oath of Swords, The War God's Own) to breathtaking space opera (Path of the Fury, The Armageddon Inheritance) to military science fiction with in-depth characterization (the celebrated and awesomely popular Honor Harrington novels, the bestselling At All Costs being the latest). Reviewers call Weber "irresistible . . masterful" (Publishers Weekly), "highly entertaining" (Booklist), "outstanding . . . superb . . . excellent" (Wilson Library Bulletin), "remarkable" (Kliatt), "the best" (Dragon), "worth shouting about" (Philadelphia Weekly Press), "great" (Locus), and "the best writer around today" (FosFax). Readers call Weber similar things, but mostly they call the Baen offices several times a week demanding more from their main man. Weber lives in South Carolina shows no sign of slowing down.

You can find out more about David Weber on Wikipedia.

John Picacio

Artist Guest of Honor

John Picacio is an award-winning illustrator who has created covers for works by Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock, Robert Silverberg, Neil Gaiman, Joe R. Lansdale, Jeffrey Ford, Graham Joyce, Lucius Shepard, Charles De Lint, David Gemmell, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Frederik Pohl, Hal Clement, and many, many more. In 1992 he earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Four years later, he illustrated his first book--the 30th Anniversary Edition of Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man.


In May 2001 he chose a career in illustration over a career in architecture and devoted himself fulltime to the craft of illustration. Since then, his client list has continued to grow, including companies such as Random House/Del Rey; Harper Collins/Eos; Tor Books; Pocket Books; Pyr; Monkey Brain Books; Viking Children's Books; roc Books; Tachyon; Golden Gryphon Press; Orion/Gollancz; and Realms of Fantasy Magazine.

His illustrations have been selected numerous times for the Spectrum Annual, and in 2002,he received the International Horror Guild Award for Best Artist. In 2005 he received a Chesley Award (for Best Paperback Cover) and he was a finalist for the Hugo Award (Best Professional Artist). Later the same year, he received the much-coveted World Fantasy Award (Artist).

You can find out more about John Picacio on his website, or his blog.

Jack McDevitt

Master of Ceremonies

Jack McDevitt is an award-winning American science fiction author whose novels frequently deal with attempts to make contact with alien races, and with archaeology or xenoarchaeology. McDevitt's first published story was "The Emerson Effect" in The Twilight Zone Magazine in 1981. Two years later he published his first novel, The Hercules Text, about the discovery of an intelligently conceived signal whose repercussions threaten human civilization. This novel set the tone for many of McDevitt's following novels, which focused on making first contact.

Frequently this theme is mixed with both trepidation before the unknown and a sense of wonder at the universe.

With The Engines of God (1994), McDevitt introduced the idea of a universe that was once teeming with intelligent life, but contains only their abandoned artifacts by the time humans arrive on the scene. Although it was initially written as a standalone novel, the main character of The Engines of God, pilot Priscilla Hutchins, has since appeared in five more books, Deepsix (2001), Chindi (2002), Omega (2003), Odyssey (2006), and Cauldron (2007). The mystery surrounding the destructive "Omega Clouds" (which are introduced in The Engines of God) is left unexplored until Omega. McDevitt's novels frequently raise questions which he does not attempt to answer. He prefers to leave ambiguities to puzzle and intrigue his readers: "Some things are best left to the reader's very able imagination." His novel Seeker won the 2006 Nebula Award for Best Novel, given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He has been nominated for the Nebula Award fourteen times; Seeker is his only win.

You can find out more about Jack McDevitt on his website.

Gary "The Fish" Shelton

Fan Guest of Honor

by his "Friends"

Most people only know Gary from watching him play Killer Cutthroat Spades at the cons. But Gary also supports cons by his efforts. He has been knocking around conventions for many years helping out. He very seldom formally joins any organizations, but he is always there helping out during setup and teardown at cons. He typifies a lot of those unsung fans who are there helping out, but who very seldom ever get any praise for their efforts. - Tim Bolgeo

Now we don't want you to think that Gary is a paragon of virtue or something. No, he has his evil side. First off, Gary can be easily bribed with unsweetened tea and little white powdered sugar donuts. - Sam Smith

Secondly, Gary has been known to try to corrupt women at conventions. Gary can almost always be seen shmoozing up to the ladies by bringing them Krispy Kreme doughnuts during the morning hours. And if that isn't enough, the Mississippi fan club fans and back scratchers make him a favorite among the ladies at cons (actual fans and back scratchers that he gives out to ingratiate himself with the female fen). - Brandy Spraker

And last but not least, Evil Gary™ is a total A?#H&le when it comes to playing Spades. When he is at the card table, there is no kindess in his heart or sympathy for the other downtrodden Spades players. He is an animal. - Tim Bolgeo

Gary Shelton was born in Scottsboro, Alabama, just a stone's throw from Huntspatch! Gary works for the US Department of Agriculture in Stoneville, Mississippi. At work, he is something of a hermit. He only comes out of his corner office when the soybeans call, or when the scent of barbecue gets in his nostrils. As in fandom, he is reluctant to make a big show of himself or his efforts. However he manages to juggle the mad desires of post-docs, researchers, student hourlies and co-workers without breaking a sweat. Perhaps most important, from my point of view, is that he can make the homicide inducing mandatory training videos bearable. - Cathe Smith

You can learn a bit more about what Gary does in the fandom world by visiting the Mississippi Delta Science Fiction Association website.

Lou Anders

A 2009/2008/2007 Hugo Award nominee, 2008 Philip K. Dick Award nominee, 2009/2007 Chesley Award nominee and 2006 World Fantasy Award nominee, Lou Anders is the editorial director of Prometheus Books' science fiction imprint Pyr, as well as a series of anthologies including: Fast Forward 2 (Pyr, October 2008), Sideways in Crime (Solaris, June 2008), Fast Forward 1 (Pyr, February 2007), FutureShocks (Roc, January 2006),

Projections: Science Fiction in Literature & Film (MonkeyBrain, December 2004), Live Without a Net (Roc, 2003), and Outside the Box (Wildside Press, 2001).

In 2000, he served as the Executive Editor of Bookface.com, and before that he worked as the Los Angeles Liaison for Titan Publishing Group. He is the author of The Making of Star Trek: First Contact (Titan Books, 1996), and has published over 500 articles in such magazines as The Believer, Publishers Weekly, Dreamwatch, DeathRay, free inquiry, Star Trek Monthly, Star Wars Monthly, Babylon 5 Magazine, Sci Fi Universe, Doctor Who Magazine, and Manga Max. His articles and stories have been translated into Danish, Greek, German, Italian and French.

You can find out more about Lou Anders on his website.

William H. Drinkard

William H. Drinkard, an Alabama native, is a life long SF addict and novice SF writer. His main interest is SF novels with realistic alien cultures. In March 2008, Tor Publishing released his first novel, Elom. Elom was praised by David Drake, "Engaging characters in a story told with the feel of a myth passed down by word of mouth". Drinkard is hard at work on his second novel, Fair Chance.

You can find out more about William Drinkard on his website.

Les Johnson



Les Johnson is a NASA physicist and manager, author, husband and father. By day, he manages the Science Programs and Projects Office for NASA at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. In his spare time he writes popular science books and articles, reads science fiction, and fulfills the role of husband and father to his two children.

Mr. Johnson has co-authored books on Solar Sails and Living Off the Land in Space.

He is currently at work on the upcoming Paradise Regained: The Re-Greening of Planet Earth. You can find out more about Les Johnson on his website.

Dr. Travis S. "Doc" Taylor

by John Ringo

The following appreciation, as they are usually called, was written about Dr. Travis S. "Doc" Taylor for the Con*Stellation XXVI (2007) convention program guide. It is reproduced with the permission of the author.



Once upon a time Jim Baen (may he rest in peace) sent me a very cool manuscript he was considering for publication called Warp Speed. Naif, a trifle rough in places, it nonetheless captured something I hadn't seen in a long time in SF: that sensawunda that was found only in the Golden Age stories. That sense that space was cool and all that us monkeys had to do to reach the stars was get a grip and go for it. All of that grafted to the most bleeding edge physics and cosmology.

Doc Smith's allotropic iron became cassimer energy and flubells. Wormholes and fluctuation fields and super-tornadoes, Oh My! There was even a female, red-headed, hot-tempered, almost-assuredly-virginal, Air Force colonel who was a physicist and an astronaut. You can't get more Heinlein girl than that.

I later met the author at LibertyCon and discovered that the whole damned thing was a "Peggy Sue". Doc Travis is the main character, and should be, because Doc has all the requirements of a main character in a good-old-fashioned pot-boiler SF story. Multiple degrees, background in astronomy and other hard sciences, worked for various agencies over the years, but mountain bikes, does karate, is a private pilot and SCUBA diver. Doc is a character from Golden Age SF. He's even done extensive professional research on FTL drive systems. He's Doc Savage with a drawl, Buckaroo Banzai but plays better rock-and-roll guitar.

I'll admit to having used him as a character myownself. Characters like that don't grow on trees, you know.

Since then Doc and I have collaborated on several novels. He's managed to get some aspects of quantum physics to almost stick in my head, and I hope that I've managed to smooth out his writing. It's a testament to Jim's foresight and love of the genre that he perceived the central fact of Travis Taylor, Ph.D.: That he loves the stars and thus can not fear the night.

Over the years Doc and I have become good friends and I cannot imagine a better Guest of Honor for Con*Stellation than a good-ole-boy from Huntsville who coon hunts and wears a ballcap, yet has become a leading light in science fiction and in the space industry.

Next step: Warp Speed!

--- John Ringo

Read all about Dr. Travis S. "Doc" Taylor and his work in both science and science fiction on his website.

Stephanie Osborn

Stephanie Osborn is a former payload flight controller, a veteran of over twenty years of working in the civilian space program, as well as various military space defense programs. Stephanie is currently retired from space work. She now happily "passes it forward," tutoring math and science to students in the Huntsville area, from elementary through college.




She also writes science fiction mysteries based on her knowledge, experience, and travels. She currently has two novels in print. Her newly published novel from Twilight Times Books is Burnout, a science fiction mystery about a Space Shuttle disaster that turns out to be no accident. Her other novel, The Y Factor, is available as an e-book.

You can read more about Stephanie Osborn here.

Toni Weisskopf


Toni Weisskopf succeeded Jim Baen as publisher of Baen Books, a leading publisher of sf and fantasy, in 2006. She has worked with such authors as David Weber, David Drake, Lois McMaster Bujold, Eric Flint, Wen Spencer, and many others. With Josepha Sherman she compiled and annotated the definitive volume of subversive children's folklore, Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts, published by August House, now in its third printing.

For Baen she's edited three original hard sf anthologies: Cosmic Stories: Adventures in Sol System, Cosmic Stories: Adventures in Far Futures and most recently Transhuman, edited with sf author Mark L. Van Name.

Baen is also known for its innovative e-publishing program, which has expanded under Weisskopf's leadership to include not only titles published by Baen, but also titles from other publishers, all without DRM.

Weisskopf is a graduate of Oberlin College with a degree in anthropology. The widow of Southern fan and swordmaster Hank Reinhardt, she is the mother of a delightful sixteen-year old daughter, possessed by a truly devilish little dog, and a fat and lazy cat who styles himself a "rare mini white puma". You can read more about Toni Weisskopf here and here.



Photo: Copyright © Steve Hughes

The Cemetery Surfers

Formed by a Group of Parapsychologists and ghost hunters, The Cemetery Surfers spend as much time in haunted locations as they do onstage. "We're musicians and ghost hunters...If we had a talking dog, we'd be a cartoon."







The band formed in August of 2005 when Jeff Uglyshoes was invited to play at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Lacking a backup band, he called his friend, Dr. Mark Burtman, and with the addition of Jake Wood (Amnesty) and Jason King (Killjay), the Cemetery Surfers made their first appearance with minimal practice and a strange sense of humor. After being announced as "The Jeff Uglyshoes Band," Jeff turned around and introduced the band as "The Cemetery Surfers". Much to their surprise, the band was very well received, and so it began. Jake later returned to his own band, and Jason King went on to become the guitar player for Killjay. They were replaced by drummer "Silent" Jody Evans, who appeared on their second CD, The Monster that ate Mississippi. Jody later moved on to out-of-state work (real musicians have day jobs) and was replaced by keyboard/drummer "Elusive," who was doing quite well with his one man act, Elusive Groove. With the addition of Connie and Monica (the Cemetery Girls), they are now complete.

With an elaborate stage show (with everything from a zombie attack to one of the musicians frying in an electric chair during the guitar solo) they are becoming one of the most popular acts onstage. But every night after they play, look for them in graveyards or haunted houses.

You can find out more about The Cemetery Surfers on their website.

Sarah Hoyt

Sarah A. Hoyt was born in Portugal, where she thought she was a cat until the age of six. This was a logically drawn conclusion from the fact that she was the youngest - by far - in her family and that cats were the only other small creatures around. Upon being disabused of this, she had to come up with a more realistic goal for her existence than sleeping in the big armchair by the wood stove.



Having settled upon the goal of becoming an angel, she gave up on it when she realized it involved dying first. Instead, she decided to aim for the more improbable goal of becoming a professional writer.

Currently she lives in Colorado, with her husband, two teen sons and an embarrassment of cats. Her work currently in print includes - in addition to a few dozen short stories in magazines and anthologies - two fantasy series: the Shifters series with Baen books, and the Magical British Empire series with Bantam Books.

As Sarah D'Almeida she is the author of Prime Crime's Musketeer Mysteries, as well as Dying By The Sword.

Under the house name Laurien Gardner, she wrote the historical Plain Jane for Berkley Jove. She's also edited an anthology - Something Magic This Way Comes - for DAW books.

You can read more about Sarah Hoyt on her website.

David Drake

by Sarah A. Hoyt

The following appreciation was written about David Drake for the Con*Stellation XXV (2006) convention program guide. It is reproduced with the permission of the author.



David Drake says he writes as therapy. Since he is the most truthful man I know, I see no reason to doubt him.

And yet, his fiction bears none of the marks of obsessive self-involvement and compulsive detail-piling that accompany authors who say they write for their mental health. On the contrary, his imaginary worlds appear with feel of detail and realism only possible when each detail is dropped in almost surgically - precisely and just the right size and shape to suggest that what's left out is larger and yet more intricate than what is shown.


Each of his cleverly buried bits of back story, character shadowing, and world detail is absolutely necessary to advance and enrich the story. And yet, it leaves the reader with the feeling that beyond each tall mountain the character climbs, other mountains loom - perhaps taller, or colder, or more steep - outside the field of vision of this character and the scope of this plot, but there nonetheless. This leads the reader to feel he walks in a real world which the writer has experienced first hand.

It is, in other words, an ideal storytelling technique and one that is achieved with precise craftsmanship which does not usually accompany compulsive activities.

All this is not to say that David Drake's books are devoid of passion. No. The precision is only noticed on second and third reading and when I am - frankly - looking for instruction on the craft.

On the first reading, beyond the thoroughly imagined worlds and plots so intricate that, like a good tapestry, they take a second or third look to see the full expanse of detail, what you carry away with you is the feeling of living, breathing characters. People with emotions, passions, and drives of their own.

And here - as if I had the authority to make such a judgement - I would say David Drake's genius lies - and the therapeutic value his writing carries to the reader.

David's characters are not quite the supermen of early SF. Oh, they are usually - though not always - strong and quick and good at their specialties. But beyond that, they often make the wrong choices, or let themselves get carried away by their passions.

They make mistakes and rise again. They are capable of extremes of villainy and sainthood. And yet, neither his books nor his characters are amoral. Even when lured to the wrong side of a dispute, the slippery side of an argument, David Drake's characters have core values of loyalty and friendship, protection of those in need and responsibility for one's own actions and learning from one's mistakes.

This is where his books work as therapy for readers. Readers emerge from his books knowing there are people like his characters out there. Which makes even a perpetual pessimist like myself feel better about the world. And makes even me strive to be better. As a writer and as a human being.

At signings across the country, fans tell him that his books have helped them - perhaps deal with similar experiences, perhaps grow beyond a troubling memory. And David is always gracious and kind to fans - as he was and is to this fledgling writer.

David has been a full time writer since 1981, but he started publishing far before that. From sitting next to him at mass signings, I can tell you that he was published in magazines deep in the psychedelic cover-art era. I'm not sure to how many of those he wants to admit. But he does admit to publications starting in 1966. And he has written all sorts - and I mean all sorts - of speculative fiction between space opera and sword and sorcery.

By which I mean to say that somewhere in that output there is something for everyone. I prefer his sword and sorcery to his other work by a razor thin margin - not a small compliment considering I rarely read sword and sorcery, and when I do I usually regret it. But Dave's are different. They are more real somehow, and far less predictable. If you don't believe me, read them and you will see.

In fact, stop wasting time reading this booklet and go read a David Drake novel. It's great writing and better therapy.

You can read more about David Drake on his website.

Scott Oden



Scott Oden is the author of two critically-acclaimed novels from Medallion Press, Inc.: Men of Bronze (2005), an epic set amid the splendor and ruin of 26th dynasty Egypt, and Memnon (2006), which chronicles the rise and fall of Memnon of Rhodes. His third book, a white-knuckle Arabian Nights adventure called The Lion of Cairo, is due out soon.

Scott blames Tutankhamun for his interest in Antiquity. In 1976, his third grade teacher showed the class slides from the Boy-King's traveling exhibit, thus sparking a lifelong fascination with Egypt and the Mediterranean. His other interests he blames on Tolkien and Robert E. Howard.

When not writing, Scott enjoys miniatures and role-playing games, video games, and debating the historical inaccuracies in cinema to whomever might listen.

You can read more about Scott Oden on his website.

Photo: Marcia DeFiore

Allan Gilbreath




Allan Gilbreath is an award-winning author, story-teller, and instructor. He has been published in numerous anthologies, magazines, and e-zines. Allan has appeared on stage, television, radio, and web cast. He is currently working on the third novel in his vampire series, along with numerous other projects.

You can read more about Allan Gilbreath on his MySpace website.

Mark Fitzgerald





Mark Fitzgerald is a recognized speaker, performer, artist and educator and is a strong proponent of the edutainment form of adult education. He is also the editor of Kerlak Publishing's Time Intertwined, Tales of Fantasy and the upcoming WTF anthology. Mark has also done cover art for Time Intertwined and Short Attention Span Mysteries as well as contributing to the covers of Tales of Fantasy and Modern Witches, Wizards, and Magic.

You can read more about Mark Fitzgerald on the Kerlak publishing website.

Eric Flint Has a Brain Bigger Than
Both Of Us

by Mercedes Lackey

The following appreciation was originally written about Eric Flint for the Con*Stellation XXI (2002) convention program guide. It has been updated by the author for our website, and is reproduced with her kind permission.



The first time I heard the name of Eric Flint, I thought he was one of Jim Baen's young 20-something military SF wunderkinds that I was going to have to babysit through his first fantasy novel.

All right, you can stop laughing now.

Let me go back a bit; you see, Larry and I were finally getting over a rather bad patch in our lives that had begun with the disastrous studio fire.

I was finally off anti-depression medication, we were beginning to get out of the financial hole the fire put us into, and I was finally getting my feet back under me, prose-wise. But there were a lot of contracts that I needed to catch up on, and one in particular that was never going to be fulfilled---a heavily illustrated Bardic Voices novel that relied on the many, many never-published drawings in Larry's portfolio, now, alas, ashes.

Jim being the kind of editor he is, was willing to take anything reasonable in place of that novel. And I had about eighty thousand words of the Merivingen Nights stories that were never going to see print again, that I really wanted to fit into a new book, or even a series.

Enter what I then tentatively called "Dark Waters"---an alternate-history fantasy novel set in a rather different Venice, in a world in which the Christian Church took a fundamentally different path, following (for the most part) the form of the Church founded by James and Peter rather than Paul. I ran this past Jim, suggesting a different collaborator. He countered with a tentative okay, but wanted Eric Flint instead.

Well, one of the drawbacks of writing as much as I do is that I don't get a chance to read very much sf/f, and I tend rather stodgily to stick to established favorites. This is in part because Sturgeon's Law is correct---and though at least I no longer have to worry quite as much about the book budget as I used to, starting a book that is poorly written is extremely irritating. And while I had seen 1632, I had taken one look at the cover, and thought, "Oh, right. Vietnam soldiers time-travel back to medieval Europe. Been done to death back in 1980," and thought no more about it.

But Jim persuaded me, and I agreed, thinking "Well, even if this guy is a total jerk, there's no way he can mess up the 80,000 words already written, and I can probably polish up whatever he does to give folks a good read." Then Jim sent me a copy of 1632 to read, and I gave it my initial test.

Read the first chapter, read the last five pages, and see if it holds up. That was my first hint that what I'd been thinking was dead wrong. I powered through the whole book, then read the author's bio, and REALLY knew I was dead wrong. Because he wasn't 20-something, he was my age. AND he wasn't a right-wing neo-conservative, he was an old leftest (even moreso than me!). AND he'd done more weird jobs in his life than I had. AND he was from my old stomping-ground, Da Region (for the uninitiated, that's the East-Chicago/Hammond/Gary area of Northern Indiana, the blue-collar Rust Belt. The Buffys and Muffys and Biffs of the well-to-do bedroom communities around about there called us "Region Rats" and shuddered in their penny-loafers in our presence).

"Give me his e-mail address!" I demanded of Jim, who was reluctant to do so, afraid there would be a---as he delicately put it---difference of opinions amongst us (for by now, Eric's co-author Dave Freer was in on the circus too).

But I prevailed, for I am She Who Sometimes Is Obeyed, and not only did we get along like a house afire (after some tentative tiptoeing around by the two gentlemen through the first couple of emails) but a wonderful exchange of flying Plotting ensued. The single book blossomed into a series. The plot became infinitely more complicated, infinitely richer, and infinitely more realistic than the book I had initially imagined. This is totally due to Eric and Dave, Eric in particular. He's forgotten more real-world history than I will ever know. He's got a knack for putting interesting warts on characters, and taking the too-new shine off of them. OK, I do magic better, but I've got more practice at it---I have the horrible suspicion that after the third or fourth book of the series, Eric's going to do it as well as I do. I have to say that I have never had more fun than I have in working with these guys. We are on the second book of the "Heirs of Alexandria" right now, and we leave each other irreverent notes in the text that probably ought to be preserved for posterity and amusement...I suspect Eric would enjoy presenting the unexpurgated version as much as I would. Though I may never forgive him OR Dave for leaving me to do the blasted childbirth scene....

And I definitely Owe Him Bigtime for getting me to go sign onto the Baen's Bar section of the Baen website, wherein he is known as the Red Bear, Ursus for short. And I owe him as much, at least, for getting me to throw some of my older titles with Baen onto the Baen Free Library. Both were two of the best moves I've ever made.

Let me say here that I have very seldom even disagreed with him mildly on anything. But the man is an Apache when it comes to discussion. I've watched him work his magic will on any number of folks. Someone will start out expecting a knock-down drag-out argument, and is confronted with this laid-back guy that looks like someone who is about to tell a good story in the bar. He starts out in that Midwestern drawl, and what he has to say is so interesting that the victim starts to relax a little.

Then Eric opens up his Brain.

Still in that relaxed, Midwestern drawl, he proceeds to drown the victim and his argument in a Benares flood of fact, history, and devastating counter argument, all related in such a leisurely fashion that the victim doesn't even realize that he's been held under until his argument is dead, water-logged, and floating down the river of rhetoric face-down.

Then Eric trundles off, whilst the spectators try and figure out what they just watched.

It's a beautiful thing.

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You can find out more about Eric Flint on his website.

"Eric Flint Has a Brain Bigger Than Both of Us" is Copyright © 2002, 2009 Mercedes Lackey. Used with permission.


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