I traveled to five states in five days, and came home to this. I tried not to cry, but my overtired self failed miserably.

*******************

Ms. Kontis -

I finally started to read Beauty & Dynamite from the beginning rather than skimming and reading an essay here and there. I'm a little over halfway through. I'm deeply concerned that there are not enough mentions of Hypericon. I have counted eleven (11) different pages where Hypericon (Herein referred to as The Con) was not mentioned. Eleven! Not a word in any of those 11 pages! Just stab me in the heart, why don't you!

Let's look at the section on Andre Norton. Here is a clear example of either an unpardonable oversight or malicions .... uh, malicious....well, something really bad. How difficult would have it been for you to include Valuable and Pertinent information such as 'Sadly, Ms. Norton was never a guest at Hypericon. She would have really enjoyed it'?

There was also a reference to food on one of these pages where The Con was (we hope unintentionally) not mentioned. Here would have been an ideal opportunity to mention that The Con also had great food. Your DragonCon report also mentioned nothing of The Con, where the lines are shorter, registration is cheaper and the hotels are far less expensive.

This book is just one disappointment after another.

Let's now look at the table of contents. There is nothing here to indicate which essays mention The Con. Readers would naturally assume that, since there is no such indication here, The Con would be mentioned in All Of Them. Will they find The Con mentioned on every page? No! In at least 11 instances so far, they will feel Despair and Shame at being Denied!!! Don't you care about your readers? Don't you care? Don't you?

I hope that these heinous attacks by omission will be rectified in your Revised 2nd edition.

I'm sure you may wish to attempt to debate the need for these corrections. You may want to point out that there are many very popular books out there who make no mention of Hypericon at all. The Bible, for example. Well, you'll be surprised to know that The Bible was written several months before The Con. If it hadn't been, I'll bet The Con would have been mentioned after every Verily and Begat and Lake of Fire reference you could find. So don't go there.

I hope these issues can be rectified without getting lawyers involved. I hope this is the case since I don't actually have a lawyer. I know one, but he isn't very good so I'd rather not get him involved.

Angrily
F. Grimm
Co-Chairman -- The Con