Charles N. Brown reminisces…on Baycon 1968

Worth the price of the issue alone, Locus‘s Charles N. Brown remembers Baycon 1968.

This was the best con many of us had ever been to, or thought we’d ever go to. The 15-year-old Betsy Wollheim said that from then on other cons would be a letdown.

He goes on to report on the wild and woolly event, in which “science fiction fandom met rock fandom, the drug culture, and Star Trek culture.”

Excellent con report, Charles!

Note: I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a history of cons and con culture but probably I am not the one to do it. The scope of the idea is daunting; one of those “how do you eat an elephant?” projects. (Answer: one bite at a time.)

I don’t even know if it can be done. One would have to pick a golden age, the 1940s through to Star Wars, perhaps. And so many of the old guard are leaving us. If it can be done, it will have to be done soon, maybe as an oral history project.