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September 13, 2009
(Belated) Worldcon Report
With Amie sharing her experiences at Dragon*Con, I thought I would post something about my convention experience in August. Worldcon, the World Science Fiction Convention in Montréal, Québec, Canada, was my very first science fiction convention - I was glad to be able to travel from my Nova Scotia home to attend.
Worldcon is the oldest science fiction con (running 67 years so far... ) and focuses primarily on written sf, though the discussion panels also touch on TV, film, comics, music, etc. The "celebrities" everyone lines up to meet are not actors or producers, but rather authors: old, young, well-known and obscure. Neil Gaiman was guest of honour, and other big names included Robert J. Sawyer, George R.R. Martin, Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross, and even Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman!
Anyway, the Star Trek aspect of this report comes in the form of two veteran authors, Joe Haldeman and Larry Niven. Their best-known novels are The Forever War and Ringworld respectively. Being authors who rose to fame in the 1970s, each worked on early Star Trek: TOS tie-ins.
Haldeman wrote the Bantam novel, World Without End. I read this (fairly short) book years ago, and remember liking it, so I will have to find it again and review it fully.
Niven's Tales of Known Space cycle provided many elements for the animated episode The Slaver Weapon. Admittedly the episode is not one of the best, but it does nicely merge the TOS and Niven universes.
Both authors were pleased with their involvement in the franchise, and have been faithful fans and regular convention goers since the 1960s. I was happy to have the honour of meeting them. (As you see below!)
You can view more Worldcon photos in a Flickr set I put together. Since next year's Worldcon is in far-away Melbourne, Australia, I'm going to join Amie for Dragon*Con in 2010 instead. :)
Labels: books, fandom, worldcon
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