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 William Drinkard, author and scientist Les Johnson, author Stephanie Osborn, author and publisher Bill Snodgrass, author and scientist Dr. Travis S. "Doc" Taylor, and 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
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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 and, in spite of having gotten married a year ago, shows no sign of slowing down.
You can find out more about David Weber on Wikipedia.
John Picacio
Artist Guest of Honor
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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
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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"
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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
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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 sweet 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, 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 the anthologies 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.
You can find out more about Les Johnson on his website.
Julie Cochrane
Julie Cochrane was born in Ohio and grew up in New York and South Carolina, with a lot of time in Alabama along the way. She wrote her first stories at five years old, and made her first attempts at novels in junior high and high school when she had more appetite for science fiction and fantasy than money for books.
Initially studying Chemistry at Georgia Tech, she got her bachelors in Psychology and promptly decided that Computer Science really would have been a better way to earn a living. She spent a number of years as an Oracle Database Programmer and Usenet Addict. After leaving the cubicle jungle to homeschool her daughter, she discovered more time to write fiction and the wonderful world of Baen's Bar. She lives in the Atlanta Metro area with her husband, their daughter, one very enthusiastic German Shepherd, and the gerbil custodian of the secrets of the universe.
Read more about Julie Cochrane at her 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 cannot 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.
Bill Snodgrass
Bill Snodgrass began writing during his high school days. In the winter of 2003, however, he embarked on the journey of becoming a published fiction author. Bill writes fantasy, science fiction, and other fiction. Bill is Executive Director for Double-Edged Publishing and is part of the editorial teams for several of its magazines. He is also an assistant professor at Visible School, and a partner in a web development company, Web-Net Solutions. In his spare time, he pursues another graduate degree from Memphis Theological Seminary.
You can read more about Bill Snodgrass here.
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, while writing science fiction mysteries based on her knowledge, experience, and travels. Her current novel in work at Twilight Times Books is Burnout, a science fiction mystery about a Space Shuttle disaster that turns out to be no accident.
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.
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.
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. "We're musicians and ghost hunters...If we had a talking dog, we'd be a cartoon."
You can find out more about The Cemetery Surfers on their website.
