I approached Le Palais des Congres in Montreal this past Friday for this year’s World Science Fiction convention “Anticipation” with some trepidation. Would I fit in? Would the panels on science fiction and fantasy and related subjects be interesting? More importantly, would I be able to hold my liquor at the famous all night parties? Or would this be a colossal waste of time and money?

My wife had taken the kids to visit her brother in North Bay, allowing me the weekend to myself. My friend Fergus Heywood had offered to drive and share a hotel room. Both Fergus and I didn’t know quite what to expect. Fergus had never been at a con this big. I had attended Torcon in 2003, but that had been mostly work. Rather than sample the panels and enjoy the parties, I had lugged around a DAT machine and microphones, interviewing authors and fans for CBC Radio. This time my plan was no work, just complete immersion in a science fiction convention.

And immerse myself I did. I’m going to relate the experience in a series of several posts over the next few days (or weeks, probably). I plan to include some of the audio I recorded at my first Worldcon (Torcon) back in 2003.

First I have to say that the experience was everything I hoped it would be. It just got better as the weekend went on. Almost enough to make me want to go to Worldcon in Australia next year (AussieCon4, in Melbourne). Which ain’t gonna happen… I won’t have the time or the dough. And I fear every con I ever go to again will be an attempt to recapture the experience of this con, which will probably be impossible.

I have to thank Fergus, who made it happen by offering to come along and share expenses. Also, he was pleasant, agreeable, a fine conversationalist and an excellent traveling companion, even if he did flaunt his damned iPhone at every possible opportunity.

So let’s see, casting my mind back to Friday. We made it to Montreal, making only one wrong turn on the way to the hotel, which just about shot us back to Toronto, until Fergus’s iPhone saved the day. It’s got one of them newfangled GPS apps that led us practically to our room in the hotel.

Once checked in we made our way to the con, both of us wondering what to expect (although I suppose I shouldn’t presume to know what Fergus was thinking… for all I know he might have been thinking about noodles, which soon revealed itself to be a major preoccupation of his).

It’s probably not a great idea to tackle this report chronologically, because frankly I’m already starting to bore myself, so I’ll just skip around to the various interesting parts. Also (oddly) I appear to be experiencing a memory lapse concerning the events of early Friday evening (probably something to do with subsequent alcohol consumption, sadly). I remember picking up my membership bag, containing the updated program guide and a bunch of touristy material, and being disappointed that it all came in a plastic bag. You would think science fictiony types would embrace a non-plastic future. Besides, at TorCon it had all come in a neat cloth bag that my wife and I still use to cart stuff around in. But this is just me being picky. And boring. Did I not just say chronological attempts to report on the con were a bad thing? (Joe slaps self on head…)

Have to cut this report short as I’m about to run out of steam, both personally and computer-wise. But I’ll continue to jot down bits of the con experience over the next little while, some of which I hope will actually be interesting (in stark contrast to the drivel above).

Til tomorrow…