CAN-CON Review • a****4@f******.********n.ca 31/05/1996 00:00:000 UTC Sender: a****6@f*******.********n.ca (Christian Sauve) Message-ID: <4ob5ni$***@f******-****.********n.ca> Reply-To: a****6@F******.********n.CA (Christian Sauve) NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet2.carleton.ca For all of you who wanted to know what happened at Can-Con '96... Here something completely different: A message that doesn't talk about the Doctor Who movie. CAN-CON '96 Convention report 1996, Christian Sauve [Warning: Long.] INTRODUCTION, GENERALITIES Last May 18 and 19, Ottawa was the host to Can-Con '96, an annual Science-Fiction Convention. This year situated at the National Museum of Science and Technology, Can-Con is a meeting of fans, readers and authors of Canadian Science-Fiction. Also present was the 1996 Academic Conference on Canadian Content in Speculative Arts and Literature. [ACCCSAL] (This event, however, wasn't attended by your reporter and thus won't be discussed.) Can-Con'96 was a smallish event, attendance hovering near (from eyeball estimates) a hundred person. Last year, Can-Con '95 was unquestionably the most important SF convention in Canada. Host of the first ACCCSAL, the first-in-years french SF convention Boreal and Canadian roving convention Canvention, it set a heavy standard for this year's event to follow. The question might then be stated: Did Can-Con '96 live up to last year's legacy? Was it as much fun, informative and interesting as Can- Con'95? This report, in addition at making an attempt at reporting the events as truthfully as possible, will make an attempt to answer this question. But first, a word about your reporter: I'm a French-Canadian 20-year old student (In Computer Science, of course :)), avid reader of Science- Fiction. (I have a preference for Hard SF, but often dabble in other "flavors" of SF) I'm not an avid convention-goer, so keep this in mind while reading unintentionally naive comments. (Can-Con '96 was my third convention, after Can-Con'95 and Con*Cept'96) I occasionally make attempts at writing SF, but so far -thankfully-, no story of mine has escaped in the published world. For the record, however, I tend to consider myself rather a Reader than a Writer. Oh, and I am in no way associated with Can-Con, NorthWords, ACCCSAL, the Canadian Science-Fiction and Fantasy Foundation or the National Museum of Science and Technology. I don't know any of the people associated with these organisations (as hard as that may be to believe) and I don't know any of the authors/panellists involved in Can-Con. (Furthermore, I wasn't paid by any of the above, and not even by Robert J. Sawyer... :) ) This report is mostly in chronological order, with a general introduction and conclusion. (Some quotes, however, were re-arranged for better thematic unity) It's also being written from short notes taken during the convention. That means that some things will be vague, inaccurate, missing or simply wrong. Citations, in particular, are to be taken with a grain of salt and considered as paraphrases: My handwriting IS horrible and I didn't take down everything I heard. This report is also quite long. Be warned. CONVENTION LOCATION As stated before, Can-Con'96 took place at the National Museum of Science and Technology, probably the most fitting place for this kind of event... :) The Museum is a radical change from last year's hotel, The Talisman. But was it an improvement? The jury is still undecided. On the plus side, The Museum was moderately easy to access, especially from Highway 17. (Always a plus for out-of-towners like me.) Since it's a public building, parking wasn't a problem, and free of charge! The main conference room was large, equipped with more-than-adequate audiovisual facilities (even if Hal Clement had a few problems with his slideshow remote control). Even better, the chairs were *comfortable* movie-style seats. The Museum meant that if there was a less-than-interesting panel, one could very easily go spend a few minutes gazing at the exhibits, and get an education in the meantime. In a sense, the Museum was a fifth stream of programming for Can-Con. It must have been my fifteenth visit to that museum, and I *still* found something new this time. (Not to mention that I always get misty-eyed near the train engines exposed in the Museum...) In spite of being asked to fill out a questionnaire about an exhibit, I could find no problems with the Museum's staff. :) On the minus side, there seemed to be... well, let's be polite and call it "slight problems of organisation", especially at first. Okay, so I arrived at 0845 the first morning, but a few redirection signs could have been installed the evening before. More on this Can-Con tradition of shaky starts in a moment. By far the biggest problem relating to the venue was the virtual isolation of the Dealer's Room/Computer Show/Art Show from the remainder of the convention: While the Main Programme, the two conference rooms and the Hospitality Suite were situated at the entrance of the Museum, the three other events were relocated at the far end of the building, inside a room that was in itself inside the Computer exhibit of the Museum. (Appropriate, you say, but bloody inconvenient, I say. I only learnt about the presence of these three events late Saturday afternoon) Due to the proximity of the Museum's classrooms, (but this could have been an uncontrollable event,) Robert Charles Wilson's interview (in Conference Room B) was marred by the sounds of schoolchildren in full hyperaction. ("It's an alien invasion!" "Well, it sure does sound like it.") There wasn't clocks in any of the rooms, but to be fair, the Museum has a *huge* mechanical clock with a hourly chime (Actually, when they're this big, they call'em "gongs") that could *easily* be heard, at least in the Main Programme Room. This helped quite a few panellists finish their presentations on time. (This gong was remarked on by several spectators/panellists, and always favorably. Con organizers, are you taking notes??) Mixed feelings, then, about the Museum. However, it is worth noting that a few of the complaints (and the biggest one) could be easily solved by "taking over" the classroom occupied by the alien invaders... er... and putting the dealer's room/computer expo/art show there. Since I'm always a sucker for the Museum's model boats exhibits, let's give a thumbs up to the venue... DEALER'S ROOM / ART SHOW / COMPUTER EXPO / HANDOUTS / PROGRAMME GUIDE As said before, the Dealer's Room / Art Show / Computer Expo were exiled at the opposite corner of the museum, something which seemingly displeased everyone. When one finally DID get there... There were preciously few dealers. A T-Shirt vendor, fps, Tesseract books, a book dealer and that was about it. I would have gladly spent a few dollars on SF art books, but these were sadly absents. I wonder if Can-Con contacted the House of Speculative Fiction? Or was it them, and I didn't see their logo? Either way, I didn't buy anything and while that's good news for my tuition-stressed bank account, I'm still a bit disappointed. The Computer Expo, unless I'm blind, consisted of Achilles Internet, and nothing else. Well, better that than nothing... (During the convention's wrap-up, Chairperson James Botte said that Achilles' staff entered the room and *discovered* an unused ISDN line. "Gee, can we plug on this?" Hmm!) The Art Show consisted of a few artists (eight, I heard), mostly French-Canadians I'm familiar with by way of an interest in French SF. (Mario Giguere, Jean-Pierre Normand, SV Bell, etc...) As usual, Jean- Pierre Normand was worth the trouble of finding the art show by his paintings alone. I'm always amazed at his work: Stuff on par with anything Bob Eggelton does, yet always underpublicized... A shame. A good, solid (if not extensive) art show. Congrats to... let's see the name of the Art Show Directors... Anne Methe and Caycee Price. Handouts: An SF convention wouldn't be an SF convention without handouts, right? Especially interesting were free copies of Parsec (Canada's SF News/Fiction Magazine: A good read, but the price/content ratio is average at best) and On Spec (Canada's Leading English-Language SF magazine: How can you be a fan if you don't read this?). Also impressive was "Soulwave: The ROBERT J. SAWYER Newsletter" (Issue No.3: May 1996), a professionally-published one-page newsletter about no other subject than Sawyer himself. (RJS also get my "Best Self-Promotion Award" for this convention, for the second year in a row. This guy really wants you to read his book/stories: He gave away chapbook copies of "Lost in the Mail", his Aurora-nominated short story. Authors, are you listening??) As for the most important handout of them all, the Programme Guide, it was, among other things, late. ("A Can-Con Tradition" said Robert J. Sawyer) To be fair, it was received around noon Saturday, so there weren't too much people screaming for blood at any time. Nice, unspectacular, informative programme. SATURDAY MORNING As usual, I arrived a bit in advance (0845), and thus had the privilege of witnessing the usual Can-Con organisational hiccups. The responsible persons were quite helpful, however, and by 0910, I was fully registered and ready for the convention. The convention, however, wasn't quite ready. The directions signs were slowly being put in place, the panellists arriving, etc... The Opening Ceremonies, scheduled for 0900, finally began at 0930. Can-Con chairperson James Botte and Co-Chair Farrell McGovern both attended the ceremonies, along with guests Robert J. Sawyer and Hal Clement. Botte further expanded on Can-Con's mission: To promote written SF, and Canadian-written SF in particular. This emphasis on the literary side of SF, and Canadian content, fills up a gap on the local convention scene: Few media-SF coverage, (Movies, TV, radio) unlike Toronto's Ad Astra and Montreal's Con*Cept Conventions. A fair amount of the Opening Ceremonies was used to expand on the distinctive peculiarities of Canadian SF. The sense of difference, isolation, the setting as a character. James Botte: "At certain times in Canada, without an environment suit... you will die." The remainder of the panel/Ceremony was devoted at introducing the four notable guests of the convention. First, Robert J. Sawyer (RJS). Adequate congratulations were heaped upon Robert J. Sawyer's recent Nebula Award (_The Terminal Experiment_, Robert J. Sawyer, Harper Prism. Read it, it's a good book.) RJS is (as far as we know) the only canadian-born person making a living writing SF. (He should have added "in English", but...) For those who still don't know it, RJS -in addition of writing really kickin' novels- is a master of self- promotion. He's also -deservedly- quite self-confident, some say to the point of arrogance. (This humble reporter, however, says that makes him one of the most interesting persons around.) More on Sawyer later. Then, Robert Charles Wilson. Wilson is a softish-SF writer which usually focuses on social interactions of people faced with standard SF premises. His novels are very well-written, occasionally feverishly-paced and enjoyable for readers that aren't necessarily SF fans. (Much more on Wilson later.) Charles de Lint, despite living in the Ottawa region, was at his first convention of this type in the area in many years. An internationally- renowned writer of fantasy, he is credited at creating the Urban Fantasy genre. (Since I haven't read anything by de Lint, you'll have to go elsewhere to get information on this author.) Finally, Hal Clement wasn't an official guest of the convention, but still is *Hal Clement*. Better known (unfortunately so, according to him) as the writer of the classic hard-SF novel "A Mission of Gravity," Clement is also an active fan and panel-giver. Despite his age, Clement is witty, intellectually nimble and utterly sympathetic. Botte was apologizing for Clement's lack of "Canadian Content" when he interrupted him, saying that both of his parents were Canadians. So Botte named him honorary Canadian, said that he had the right genes, and proceeded... Right after the Opening Ceremonies, at 1000, was a panel titled "Writing and Selling SF&F", given by none other that self-promotion guru extraordinaire, Robert J. Sawyer. Let it be said up-front that there could be no better person to give this panel that Robert J. Sawyer. An author of ten novels (six published, three in the pipeline, another already sold) in six years, Sawyer is fast becoming a writer of international stature. His latest novel, _The Terminal Experiment_, has garnered a Nebula and a Homer. Sawyer began by reciting Heinlein's Five laws of Writing, (In short: Write it, Finish Writing it, Don't Revise it endlessly, Submit it, Sell it) and added one of his own: Write Something Else. Sawyer said that the reason for his success is mostly due to the fact that he was able to publish six novels in five years. Without such a quick interval between books, it would have been unlikely for him to stay in front of the scene in such a way. Self-promotion, according to RJS, doesn't consist in selling your books. It's selling yourself that's important: Don't corner the reader! Instead, make him like you enough that he'll read your books. (What can I say? It worked for me!) A particularly interesting example is Jerry Pournelle and his monthly column at Byte, a perfect example of indirect promotion. "The Key to success is to keep doing good work. The Best Marketing tool is your work." When author Charles de Lint asked about career developpement, Sawyer admitted that he had problems selling "The Terminal Experiment" to Ace, because it wasn't "his usual dinosaur stuff". (the novel was ultimately sold to Harper Prism.) For agents, Sawyer recommends selling your novel first, then going at a convention and asking pro authors what agent they prefer. Interestingly, Sawyer said that he tailors the spelling of his pieces according to the destination market. It's become automatic for him to switch between Canadian/American spelling. Sawyer, along with his wife Carolyn Clink, is also recruiting for the next edition of Tesseract, the Canadian SF anthology. Flyers were available for interested persons. Said Sawyer, the reason they're doing this is to repay onward, helping out the newer writers as they were helped themselves. Overall, an enjoyable panel. Similar in tone (if not in content) to last year's "Sawyer panel" Recommended for everyone, whether or not if you're a Sawyer fan or a writer. (Even if, however, going to such a panel could make you both) At 1100, still in the Main Programme Room: A Science-Fact panel titled "Copyright or Copywrong: Intellectual Property Rights in the 21st century" with panellists David Hartwell, Farrell McGovern, Chris Krejlgaard and Glenn Grant. (One of them wasn't there, or at least arrived late, but I can't remember if it was Grant or Krejlgaard) While this panel didn't really stay *on* the subject of Copyrights, it was still a great start to Can-Con's series of science-fact panels. Tor Books editor -and SF semi-authority- David Hartwell was notable by his presence and his viewpoint on copyright issues. (It is worth remarking that Hartwell, as a renowned anthologist, can speak from several viewpoints on this subject. Last year, while discussing the Tor Canadian-SF anthology Northern Stars, he said "It's a good thing we were negotiating with living authors... Authors are interested in seeing their name in print. Estates just want the most money they can get.") The panel began with a denunciation of the new copyright laws, which guarantee exclusive right for "author's lifetime, plus 75 years", up from 57 years. Hartwell said that this is due to pressure from the *big* players in the industries: Movie and music companies. All panellists expressed dismay at the rising number of post-lifetime years of copyright. Hartwell: "I have nothing against post-lifetime rights going to the spouse, or helping put the kids through college, but at 75 years, you're mostly talking about putting money in the publisher's bank." Hartwell also talked about the Tarzan imbroligo: While the original Tarzan novel (By Edgar Rice Burroughs) has been in the public domain for fifty years, the name Tarzan itself has been copyrighted (trademarked?), which makes it impossible to re-issue the novel. (Glenn Grant remarked that a novel was pulled out because of the cover blurb that compared the novel to "Tarzan") The big scandal of 1995-1996, according to Hartwell, will be the fight for "all electronic rights" sold to publishers. As publishers are increasingly part of multimedia conglomerates, the tendency is for contracts to include such a cause, which makes the publisher sole responsible for control of movie, TV, CD-ROM adaptations.... (At a later panel, Robert J. Sawyer said that he had initially sold "all electronic rights" to _The Terminal Experiment_ to Harper Prism (It was a contract- breaker clause) but then his agent manager to get back the rights. At last news, _TTE_ had been optionned by a production company.) From then on, the discussion moved on to patents. Farrell McGovern illustrated the current information-restriction craze by saying that there were companies deliberately holding back on promising cures because they were natural processes, so far un-patentable unless they find an artificial (patentable) way of accomplishing these same cures... From patents, the discussion moved on to the Internet. While the question of copyright and the Internet was never addressed head-on, a few side remarks we made on the subject. Random tidbits of information: -Bell Canada tried to trademark "The Net", an action successfully fought by the Canadian Electronic Freedom Foundation. -A company called Stentor (sp?) is currently hitting all WWW sites with "webcrawler" robots. Since Stentor is associated with Schoolnet, wouldn't it be correct to assume that Schoolnet is preparing The Mother of All Search Engines for their very launch? -OMNI online has about 75-100 hits on each of their online short fiction. This is a bit surprising, given the quality of the authors.... (Actually, OMNI was discussed some more, but nothing of extreme interest.) After that, lunch! SATURDAY AFTERNOON Back in the Main programme Room at 1300 for the Robert J. Sawyer reading. RJS began by excusing himself, since his wife had driven off with the car and in the car was the work he was planning to read. Instead, he read "Lost in the Mail", his Aurora-nominated short-Story. Said story was enjoyable fantasy and Sawyer a decent reader, so I wasn't bored as I thought I would be. The reading took thirty-five minutes and the remainder of the hours was a Question-and-answer period. This, incidentally, would become standard for all three of Can-con's readings: A short work, then a Q&A session. Sawyer talked a bit about his Nebula, saying that a lot of Canadians - including his father- didn't think it would win because it was taking place in Canada. (Said persons probably forgot that both _Timescape_ and _Doomsday Book_ took place in England, not to mention farther places like Arrakis, Ringworld, Rama or Lustania) There were also quite a few reactions to gun mistakes (something about the safety on police revolvers), but as Sawyer said, "gun nuts are just... nuts about guns." (The subject of research would come up again in a later panel.) A few scoops on Sawyer's upcoming books: -_Illegal Aliens_, a courtroom drama/murder mystery involving aliens 200 years travelling, a trial for murder with an alien accused (In California; that could mean death penalty), all taking place in 1999. -_Frame Shift_, a novel about Genetic Engineering. (Said Sawyer: "The trend about Genetic Engineering... I did one, Nancy Kress did one... It's over, now! You can't write one now to cash on the trend!") Sawyer says that his "single biggest contribution to the SF field" was to be the first author to give his novel to a publisher on a disk rather than letting them re-type the whole thing. "There was paranoia I would go behind their back and change whole parts of the manuscript. [...] The technological changes that will affect the world most will affect the publishing industry last." He had a few problemns with Ace with the passages concerning abortion in _The Terminal Experiment_, where his editor simply said that Ace couldn't sell such a book in the South. "You can still control your art" said Sawyer, who then sold the book to another publisher. (Is it still necessary to repeat that _TTE_ won the Nebula?) Finally, Sawyer had to defend himself against rabid Ottawa-lovers, who thought that the city had been unjustly represented in _The Terminal Experiment_ as "a soulless, boring town." Most of the audience -and Sawyer- was exasperated by this point of contention: "There's the soulwave to argue about, and we're talking about *Ottawa*??" To give credit where credit is due, however, Sawyer defended himself quite adequately. 1400, Interview with Robert Charles Wilson. This was the first of two "interviews" with RCW which I attended. The second one was an informal Q&A session that replaced his reading Sunday morning. This panel was a much more structured interview, with Paul Valcour as the interviewer. I will, however, combine information from the two sessions in here. Both interviewer and interviewee had problem recalling the name of one of RCW's books, a fact that I found hilarious. (And I get bragging rights, since I was able to tell them the title they'd missed: _A Bridge of Years_) Robert Charles Wilson, as far as he can remember, has always wanted to be a writer: "Obsessions are hard to explain or justify" (He spent "Summers in High School, just writing") He lived in the US (South California) for a part of his childhood, then moved to Toronto. "I had never seen snow... It might as well have been a martian environment. Disconnecting." A few years ago, he moved to Nanaimo, BC but has recently returned to Toronto. "What can I say? I just missed Toronto... You go and tell that to people and they just _stare_ at you." He had been writing short stories for a few years when Asimov's editor (Shauna ???) asked him if he had written a novel. "No, but I'll write one for you" he replied. The rest of the story is known... Good news for Wilson fans: He is currently working on another novel, this time for Tor. About the theme of the book, he said "I'm tired of this fashionable dystopian wave in SF. What I would like to see aren't utopias, but rather a return to this sense of playful possibility." About the book itself, "At this stage, it's just a big, thick stack of pages." The premise: "It begins as Europe gets destroyed in 1912. It's just a big wasteland, uninhabited, empty. Then it becomes a sort of New World for the New World. It looks like an alternate history, but isn't." Mister Wilson also talked about cultural shock, often referring to his rural grandparents. "The Central Theorem of SF: Things changes. [...] We can't predict the future, but it's an awful lot of fun to try." Between 1975 and 1980, he was an active fan in the Toronto area: "For the encyclopedia-type boy, fandom is a great way of learning humility." The discussion about fandom prompted audience-member David Hartwell to state that he often has problem with writers who don't come from fandom: "They've got... odd ideas about SF." Asked to name his five favorite authors, RCW said Heinlein, Delany, Zelazny (mostly "early stuff: _This Immortal_... _Lord of Light_"), Simak and Leiber. He liked the current, diversified state of contemporary SF, and named Greg Bear and Kim Stanley Robinson as two of his current favorite authors. Regarding his own books, he's fond of the new one, but still likes _The Harvest_. As for Media SF, RCW said he recently enjoyed "12 Monkeys" and watched Star Trek and the X-Files. He never had any impulse to write for Media, "not since my teens, where I'd write stuff for my favorite shows... They're completely different ways of writing." Asked why he got into SF, he remarked that when he was a kid, he noticed that movies offered two different universes, and that the "Parallel universes of Bug-Eyed monsters and cities blowing up were much more interesting than the Business Suit universe." Discussing the craft of writing, he says that he's got "no impulse to write, but feels guilty is he doesn't." He likened writing to driving a car: "At first, the mechanics are impossible, until you gets the grasp of it and begin applying it unconsciously until it becomes natural." He never was a great fan of Writer's groups or writing workshops: "I was talented enough to know the badness of my work." Talking about his past bad jobs, he confessed still occasionally thinking about writing as "a lull between bad jobs... I have an understanding spouse." He's always writing with a clear idea of where he's going. Wilson surprised most of the members of the audience by saying that he usually writes only one draft of his manuscripts, "due to my outlines and the magic of word processors" David Hartwell remarked that this was fairly common from writers working from a precise structure. Talking about his books, Wilson said that by far the most feedback he had was on _The Harvest_, where people would stop him and discuss the choice they would have made and why. "There's something in this book... that makes you question yourself." He was once browsing in a chain bookstore when a customer went to the counter and asked "for that new book, it's called _Mysterium_" RCW then went to introduce himself (A driving license was shown at one point.) and talk with the reader. "It not often something like that happens." Overall, an enjoyable interview, and a sympathetic author too. The only complaint (apart from the alien invasion in a neighbouring room, mentioned above) was the lack of proper chairs. (We had to sit on round benches. The situation was corrected for later panels in that room.) Back in the Main Programme Room at 1500 for a panel titled "The Business of Writing Speculative Fiction." with Robert J. Sawyer, Charles de Lint and omnipresent Tor Books editor David Hartwell. This was, I think, the most-attended-to Can-Con panel, with approximately 35 persons present. (Speaks volumes for the size of the event, doesn't it?) The panel -as most panels- was captivating, entertaining and passed much too quickly. Most of the discussion was an enumeration of "hints" to break in professional writing. As all three panellists know their business, it was a real treat to hear them talk openly about it. Hartwell: "What aspiring authors need to do is... satisfy the reader. I'm not looking for publishable manuscripts: I've got those. I'm looking for something MORE. [...] Inattention to setting is the biggest reason for rejection. [...] If you're discouraged by all this, by all means go away and have a happy life." Sawyer illustrated the need to observe the accepted manuscript format by telling an anecdotes: Some time ago, he met an aspiring author who had done *every single thing* wrong: He had simultaneously submitted (and gotten back) a manuscript to *ten* publishers. He had gone to the expense of commissioning a professional editor to correct the book (and mentioned this in his cover letter), bound the manuscript (with cover illustration and typesetting), got an ISBN number, etc... In essence, he was saying 'I don't need a publisher.' Sawyer added that every aspiring author should "learn to write good, so to speak." And as the opening pages are the ones most in-house readers make their decision upon, "revise these first pages last." De Lint: "I write books I like to read, but haven't been written yet." One of the most interesting discussions of the convention happened on that panel on the subject of Synchonicity. Simply put, *Synchronicity happens* Whether it's waves of books (Mars books, Dinosaur books, Genetic Engineering books) or specific details, it just... is. Some examples: -Sawyer was dismayed to find strong similarities between his own _Golden Fleece_ and John E. Stith's _Redshift Rendez-vous_: "Both novels have a main character with the same name, both begin with a suicide or a suicide attempts in the docking bay, both have plots that hinge on relativity..." And since both novels came out at the same time... -Sawyer and C.J. Cherryh brought out novels both called "Foreigner" in the span of a few months. "By the time she and I saw the notice in 'Locus,' it was too late." -de Lint was accumulating material on the Fisher King when suddenly, two fantasy novels came out on the subject, plus the Robin Williams film: "I just... shelved the notes." -In the seventies, Hartwell suddenly received three vampire manuscripts in a single month. "There wasn't the current passion for vampires, nor were significant novels about that subject before that time, it just happened that way." All three novels were eventually published. -The strongest case of synchronicity Hartwell ever saw was between Greg Bear's _Blood Music_ and Paul Preuss' _Human Error_ "The first third of each book was virtually identical. (Both main characters driving the same car, etc...) I called both authors, asked Bear to read Preuss' manuscripts (Since Bear had previously published a novella of the same name) and he just said, 'No, no copying' and even gave a good blurb to the book. [...] Turned out that both authors had used standard cliches in the industry." Gratuitous editorial: As a reader, I always get a kick out of those "how-to-write" panels: Just for the window they offer in the writer's mind, they are often invaluable. It's a bit like knowing how a magician do his tricks: Sure, it's less impressive, but on the other hand it gives us the background necessary for a proper appreciation of the art involved in the trick. Plus, of course, you get stories like these synchronicity anecdotes... 1700: The last panel I attended on Saturday was "Canada and Space", given by David Stephenson. (He was supposed to have John Seed and Donald Kingsbury as co-panellists, but as neither said much, let's just pretend he gave the talk alone.) Said Stephenson: "There are three ways to look at the future Canadian Space Effort: 1. Visionary: Canada will help colonize the solar system and beyond. 2. Optimistic: Canada will participate in a massive industrial effort into space. 3. Realist: Yet more of the same." The current plan for the Canadian space effort seems to be an emphasis on private commercial money and applications. Stephenson considers the national space agency a "PR effort". For Canada, space exploration might be realised using the same techniques than the upcoming NASA Discovery missions: Small, unmanned, relatively cheap (100-150 million $) probes. At these prices, it might be a reasonable example for Canada to follow. It would seem that an opportunity might exist in the current shortage of time on the Deep-Space Network of observatories: There are abandoned installations in Canada that could return appreciable capital, both monetary and scientific. Such an observatory was recently coveted by the JPL (the institute offered to help finance the refurbishment of the observatory), but the deal unfortunately fell through. A fair amount of discussion was devoted to discussing the feasibility of corporate exploration of space. The problem being that satellite upfronts are horrendous; the returns are good, but the risks are high: "A single mistake can make your 50 million investment scrap junk." Stephenson, however, still dreams of corporate sponsorship: If it what it takes, why not a Corel Explorer, or a Molson Radarsat? At about mid-panel, discussion slowly veered toward What's Wrong With our Society: The MBA mentality (which manages people like numbers, and not... well... like people), The retirement crisis (A staggering percentage of the canadian scientific establishment will retire in a short number of years)... It was remarked that the Internet isn't a result of corporate research, but "Just a bunch of pure-research people playing around with their equipment," a "proof" that pure research, far from being a monetary sinkhole, can sometimes bring unforseen results. All in all, a mildly depressing panel (Our Society Went Wrong twenty years ago, even if I'll vehemently argue that _I_ had nothing to do with it.), luckily the last of the day. SUNDAY MORNING Arrived at the museum at 0845. Went to the Main Programme Room to read a bit before the first panel: "Patent Pending... Collapse Imminent!" At 0920, there were three people in the room: Presenter David Stephenson, Audio-Visual supervisor Ken Delepper [?] and me. Panel was cancelled. It might be hypothesised that the relative absence of the audience was caused by the non-hotel location, combined to the usual Sunday Morning inertia. I would humbly suggest going back to the time-honored method of scheduling a "Sex and SF" panel in this timeslot... At 1000, however, attendance picked up and there was a panel on the Aurora/Boreal awards. Said panel (with Paul Valcour, Dennis Mullin and Ann Methe) was mostly introductory and informative. (ie: If you already had a good idea of the Aurora/Boreal awards, you lost nothing by not going to this panel). Just for reminders: At the beginning of each year, a list containing most of the eligible works is circulated, and nominations are made from this list. Then, using these nominations, participants may vote on their favorite works. (The Internet, says Mullin, is considerably saving costs for the award organizers in private discussion and ballot (e-)mailing. Paul Valcour historically had the idea of the eligibility list. There was a small discussion about the possible educational/bibliographical value of such a list. Paul Valcour then revealed that a current project is to use these annual lists as the basis of a WWW database of contemporary Canadian Science-Fiction. Other possibilities include the publication in books form of a full bibliography of canadian SF. Future possible developments also include corporate sponsorship for the Auroras. Possible sponsors include the Science-Fiction Book Club and/or an association of independent bookshops. A good panels for those interested in the mechanics of the Auroras (there was only cursory talk of the Boreal, dues to the relative absence of any french-canadians in the room), but otherwise not too flashy. SUNDAY AFTERNOON At 1200, went into Conference Room B to see David Stephenson's presentation on "The DCX Single-Stage to Orbit Reusable Rocket". As usual, Stephenson was brilliant, witty, informative and quite humorous. A professional scientist, Stephenson mostly gave a brief introductory talk, then shown -and commented- a recent video compilation of PR material. (see www.space-access.org for details about the video.) I was quite informed about the DCX project, but this presentation helped put it all in proper perspective. I remain convinced that the DCX is our last, best hope for the conquest of space. A lot of information on this panel, too much to fit in here. Especially impressive was the footage of Test Flight #5, which began by a spectacular mishap: Vented Hydrogen inexplicably ignited on the landing pad, blowing a hole through the outer hull of the prototype. The DCX took flight anyway, but the controllers decided to abort the mission, and put the ship on automatic landing. By itself, the DCX landed safely even with pieces of the outer hull falling down. Stephenson: "It's all completely automated... It uses Vorlon technology." At 1300, back in the main programme room for a science-fact seminar on planets of Multiple Stars, given by none other that Hal Clement. I'll state up-front that this presentation was much more entertaining that most of my high-school physics lectures. Kudos to Clement's finely- honed teaching experience. Despite (or maybe "because") of his advanced age, Clement stay fresh, witty and informative. "This seminar" says Clement "exists for three kind of people: Those who wish to write Hard SF and know what you can get away with, Those who wish to criticise Hard SF (Nasty people!) and those who want to write space-opera yet wish to avoid nasty letters correcting your science." Clement DID deliver on what he promised: Perfect-8 orbits are out; imperfect-8 orbits are only slightly more possible; the way to go is either to reduce the system to a simple two-body orbit, or a three-body problem with standard solutions (Star B orbits Star A, with Planet orbiting in the L4 or L5 points); Climactic effect with a multiple-star configuration is negligible. I took a fair amount of notes during the panel, but nothing especially suitable to a general con report, so you'll just have to attend one of Clement's seminar by yourself to get a better impression. Immediately following were three panels (at 1400, 1500 and 1600) that left no lasting impressions on my mind: Mythology and SF, A Reading by Charles de Lint and Donald Kingsbury's panel on his unauthorized "sequel" to Asimov's Foundation series. There were a few good points raised on the Mythology panel: Robert Charles Wilson advanced the theory that mythology is the beginning of formal scientific thought. John Park thought that SF had only "created" two myths: The Alien Invasion and Frankenstein-type Creature-Turns-on-its- Creator. (David Stephenson then said that Wells' War of the Worlds was only a satire on British colonialism. Followed chaos and confusion, of course.) It seemed to me that the panel went through many turns, curves and flat-out tailspins to stay on subject, so my interest waned during most of the panel. Even then, however, I can't say I was really bored, just... distracted. I only assisted at the last fifteen minutes of the Charles de Lint reading (by that time, it had metamorphosed into an informal Q&A session with Charles de Lint.) Most of what he said then struck me as interesting and thoughtful. (He writes "organically", he once wrote a sorta-cyberpunk novel, the Fisher-King story, etc...) de Lint fans probably enjoyed this more than I did. I had high hopes for the Kingsbury-on-Asimov panel, but my final impression was one of disappointment: While the subject matter was interesting enough, and specific examples were persuasive, Kingsbury went through an impressive ("overwhelming" might be a better word) amount of parenthesis, tangents and Asimov-blasting to make one wonder what was the point of the panel, exactly? (To be fair, I must confess that by the time Kingsbury read a few pages of his manuscript, I had begun to develop a mild headache.) It DID make me want to read the upcoming book, so in that respect it succeeded, but it could have been vastly more entertaining. A friend remarked that "at least [Kingsbury] has the proper sideburns to write Asimov stories." At 1700, it was time for Can-Con's closing ceremonies. I was disappointed at the number of people who turned out to assist (Under ten, and of those I was the only person NOT connected to Can-Con), but that's on par with the rest of the Convention. The panel was headed by co-founders James Botte and Farrell McGovern. The biggest complaint of the convention, according to Botte, was that the computer/dealer's room was unfindable. This bug should be corrected in the convention's next release. Consequently, the most displeased people were the dealers themselves. They were surprised at the amount of interest for the Art Show, even if McGovern added that maybe they only asked because they couldn't FIND the Art show. Still, they said it was an impressive improvement over last year. Botte: "We've had way too much brain damage doing this... so we're going to do it again next year." Venue is uncertain, but the Science & Technology Museum have its advantages, including the fact that many of this year's problems are going to be corrected. Other "interesting" venues include the Museum of Nature or the Museum of Civilisation. Even if I was personally disappointed at the turnout this year, Botte says that the registrations are almost exactly equal to their estimates. They were slightly disappointed, however, at the number of people nominally visiting the museum going to watch a Can-Con panel or two. On the subject of budget... Can-Con'96 had 10% of Can-Con 95's budget. But the venue this year is already paid for, so that leaves, I believe, Can-Con in a better financial position. The principal impression I get for the closing ceremonies is one of optimism: Yes, it was fun, and _we're going to do it again._ Great, I say. CONCLUSION So Can-Con'96 wasn't Can-Con'95. Actually, Can-Con'96 wasn't any convention except Can-Con'96. This isn't a WorldCon-type event, nor it is a decently-sized media-SF convention like Con*Cept. It's just... Can-Con. Make no mistake: Can-Con is targeted at a very specialized group: People around Ottawa who like to read and particularly read canadian SF. Of course, the audience for this type of event is limited. But smallness has its charms: Informal discussions with authors are possible, and your questions have a better chance of being answered. The "intimacy" Can-Con provides does give an impression of a much more personal convention. (This impression is also present in the french Boreal conventions, but there the author/reader ratio is around 5:1...) One of my complaint last year was that one easily overdosed on the "canadian-canadian-canadian" content of the convention. Call it a better panel selection or simply different expectations, but that focus didn't seem remarkable to me this year. Then again, it just might be the invited authors (who just write plain good books, period.) Finally, at the ridiculous price the convention charged (6$, 5$ for students)... who can complain? In short, a decent, pleasant convention. Added curiosity points for an unusual -yet totally appropriate- venue. Great selection of authors, and superb choice of science-fact panels. A few bugs to iron out, and a deficient dealer's room but still an event not to miss. Will I be there next year? Absolutely! -- Christian Sauve a****6@f******.********n.ca 1166 Alma, Rockland, Ontario <*> Just face it... _Babylon_5_ Rules <*> K4K 1E4 http://aix2.uottawa.ca/~s663002/