Transcript:

World ConEvery year, science fiction and fantasy fans and writers gather together for a few days of mutual admiration. It's called the World Con, and in 1980 the 38th World Con was held in Boston. I was there, microphone in hand, meeting some of the masters of sci-fi and fantasy. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. Asimov: It creates a small world in which for four days, science fiction and fantasy fill it. Instead of being an outsider, as most of us are outside in the world generally, and a rather peculiar outsider, we are insiders at last, just for a brief time. We have our own universe, and it's somehow very much the real thing to us. Everything else is outside. Isaac Asimov, one of the great writers of both science fiction and non-fiction. The Hugo Award winners are announced at the World Con and in 1980 two Hugos were won by an author who would become one of the most popular fantasy writers in the world, George RR Martin.Martin: You have people all over the country who almost as a tribal rite attend these World Cons every year. Science Fiction writers are uniquely privileged in the amount of feedback that we get from our audience. The average non-SF writer gets a couple of fan letters every year. Never meets anybody; never sees anybody. We get direct feedback. We come to these conventions and there are all these fans to tell us how great we are or say that our last book was crummy. There's a kind of informality about this. A sense of everybody participating and being part of it. That's one of the charms of these conventions.We have some exciting news for our fans. Check out our website pulseplanet.com for details. That's pulseplanet.com. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.