I was fortunate to attend
Necronomicon 2015 as my personal stars aligned with the dates of the
convention: Thursday 8/20/15 ( HPL’s 125th birthday) to Sunday 8/23/15. The FB promotions for the event were too
tantalizing to resist, although I had some trepidation in having no idea what
the experience would be like. I have gone to Howard Days and a hometown comic
book convention on a regular basis but Necronomicon promised to be somewhat
odder or unusual, at least in my imagination. After all it was HPL’s 125th
birthday and these guys celebrate Cthulhu and other Lovecraftian Old Ones. They
even have a Cthulhu prayer breakfast on Sunday! I hoped they had some idea of
the forces they might be unleashing. No one wants to be at ground zero of the
Cthulhu Apocalypse. So I approached it a little like the opening of the Large
Hadron Collider, where scientists were pretty certain they were not going to
generate a giant Galaxy devouring Black Hole, but … not 100% certain. However,
I knew Howardians would be there as Rusty Burke, Jeff Shanks and Mark Finn were
manning an REH Foundation table in the Dealers Hall. So there was barbarian backup if needed.
My travel plans immediately hit a
snag as weather cancelled my 8:30 PM Wednesday night flight and I could not get
on another until 8:40 PM Thursday night. I would miss the opening ceremonies at
the First Baptist Church which fortunately can be seen on You Tube where guests
of honor Leslie Klinger (The Annotated Lovecraft) , Ramsey Campbell (World
Fantasy Life Achievement Award winner), and Robert M Price (writer, scholar,
and anthologist) all gave speeches. Flying into Providence late Thursday night
the pilot announced that we should not worry about the cloud banks on either
side of the plane that were putting on a lightning show as we were flying in a
‘clear’ corridor between them. Very reassuring.
