Anyway—a few days after this shocking experience it was time for the real convention. Now I knew at least where I was going and even though the locale was weirdly constructed it was not a smoky basement. When I get to the reception, I don’t recognize anyone except Carolina Gomez. Although it wasn’t a lot of people there I thought, I take my schedule and check what’s going on right this moment. It turnes out an interview is just about to start with Stephen Grundy, the other guest of honor aside from Robert Jordan. Because I think interviews can be pretty interesting, no matter the author, and partly because I have nothing else to do, I go there. When I arrive I find about 50 people in the audience. After scanning the audience I find out I know only a few of them. There doesn’t seem to be one person in there that I know the name of. Also, it seems like the audience average age is far lower than is usual on science fiction conventions. The only one I really recognize is Johan Anglemark that is holding the interview. Stephen Grundy proved to be a fairly short guy with long light hair and looks like an ordinary Swedish guy. Although he is an American who is at the moment writing his doctoral thesis on Odin at Uppsala University [Swedish university, translator’s remarks]. A large part of the interview is also going to be about Nordic Myths. Partly, he uses them in his novel Rhinegold and also he’s active in a society that devote themselves to practicing old Nordic religion. Among other things he described the society’s problem in making the world know they are not because of that Neo-Nazi skinheads.
At the end of the interview Lars-Olov Strandberg snuck in and immortalised the whole with his camera, and I drew a sigh of relief. Maybe this convention would shape up, after all. A Swedish science fiction convention without Lars-Olov Strandberg can hardly be imagined.
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