BIMBOS OF THE DEATH SUN
By Sharyn McCrumb
THE TRANSFORMATION OF LARRY CROFT OR THREE DAYS OF THE CON-DORKS
By Mark Finn

Since Gather in the Hall of Planets was pseudonymously penned decades ago, there has been remarkably little fiction set in the eccentric world of fandom and cons. Here are reviews of two books who ventured into that perilous land of poor hygiene and worse diets.

Bimbos of the Death Sun was the freshman effort of Sharyn McCrumb. It was an impressive first effort and won the Poe award for best original paperback in 1988. The story concerns various con organizers, an engineering professor turned sci-fi novelist, the world’s most obnoxious Sword and Sorcery writer, and divers maladjusted fans, gamers, paste-eaters, and ladies of epic proportions. Oh yes, there’s also a murder to be solved, but that’s more-or-less an excuse to traipse through the world of “Rubicon” and its peculiar denizens.

Mark Finn’s Transformation of Larry Croft follows four friends attending a con. As it turns out the hotel’s new manager is a practicing wizard who assumes the fantasy fans are not just nerds, but actual vampires, sorcerers, aliens etc. His confusion is nothing compared to that of Stercutus, the discarded Roman god of feces who is trying to make a comeback in human form. Rabbelaisian humor mingles with and almost pedantic urge to document just how much like Finn and his friends the characters are.

Of the two, Transformation works better. When all is said and done, Bimbos treats its characters not as people, but punchlines. McCrumb occasionally slips some darkly cynically observations that ring painfully true, but by and large takes a condescending view of the pathetic freak show. Finn on the other hand revels in the world of Con-dorks. Every dodge to get money form parents or drive a sharp bargain with a comic-book dealer is matched by a look behind the goofy face these kids show the world. Finn lets his characters’ vulnerability show with almost painful honesty. And in the end he lets his freaks have their moment of redemption without ever dipping the freak flag to the smug and self-satisfied world they face. Long live the Con-dorks!

-Dave Hardy

The Transformation of Lawrence Croft by Mark Finn is part of Gods New and Used and can be found online at: http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.html?id=1827