Time is very much on my mind at the con this time around: there was the rush to get away from work on time today (especially since it was the last day of my contract and I wanted to wrap up as much as possible), trying to make good time in rush-hour traffic (which, luckily, I did), getting to VCon in time to actually take in some programming before the end of the day, making time for other outside-of-nerdity life this weekend, and, beyond all that, there's the theme of the con this year, which is Time Travel. Fortunately, even without a time machine at my disposal (although, as you can see from this photo from the dealers' room, someone at the con certainly has one at their disposal - and a flashy one at that!), it all seemed to work out. So far.
Against all odds, I made it from Downtown Vancouver to central Richmond to the con hotel in just under an hour (Been to the Lower Mainland before? Then you know the traffic hell of which I speak.) and was able to find a pretty good parking spot. Registration was friendly and reasonably fast, and I was pretty impressed with the con's programming schedule. In recent years, the programming's been hit-and-miss, but this year, even though it feels like there are fewer sessions on the schedule (and that's just a guess — I don't have last year's schedule for comparison and can't be bothered to hunt it down), overall a lot more of the panels look a lot more interesting than they have in a while. In fact, I'll even go so far as to say that hour-for-hour, the programming for modest little VCon this year looks more interesting than the average day at Worldcon this summer.
Next, I wandered around a bit to get my bearings. VCon's been at the Sheraton in Richmond many times before, but it's always good to do a refresher tour to see if they've located things in different rooms this year, and to see who's turned out. I had a nice chat with the folks at The 13th Colony BSG fan club table because I just can't resist stopping to check out a Cylon centurion mask. After that, I scouted-out the dealers' room, stopping to chat with my friend Walter at the White Dwarf Books table, as well as the folks at the Edge Publishing table (not much to buy from them this time around because they took all my money at Worldcon when I proved incapable of ignoring their collection of new anthologies). I also had to stop at a table selling knitted goods (she sold me a replica Tom Baker scarf a couple of years ago) to check out her new line of Doctor Who-themed scarves because my anniversary is coming up, and my wife loves the Time Lord something fierce. No buying though — not yet, because this time I was determined to stick to my no-buying-in-the-dealers'-room-on-the-first-day policy. Tomorrow though...
From there, I took in the Science of Fantastical Beasts panel. Think a "justify the science flaws" session focussing just on critters of myth, legend, and the fantasy genre, with a panel of scientists grasping at genetic straws to explain how these things could possibly exist and function in the absence of magic. Examples included the "vegetable lamb" of Hebrew mythology (think of a lamb that buds off of a tree, with blood tasting of honey, and flesh tasting of fish) that would probably be some kind of semi-ambulatory coral; and the King of Monsters, Godzilla himself: maybe akin to a sponge... a titanic colony of organisms, rather than a single creature. Yes, yes. I know. "Heresy!" you're no doubt hollering. "Godzilla is a force of nature beyond our ability to fully comprehend!" But maybe the big guy's a little like a bath product too. Anyway, lots of fun at this panel, and I was really glad to have caught it — especially since that was the only panel I had time for today.
After that, I sat down to interview author Kristi Charish for a little while. What's the interview for? Stay tuned, fellow fanboys and fangirls. Stay tuned. Suffice it to say that she's a great conversationalist and we had a pretty entertaining and informative discussion. If you haven't read her stuff yet, you probably should. Owl and the Japanese Circus has been getting a lot of good buzz, and I'm a huge fan of her "Canadian Blood Diamonds" supervillain short stories (the first can be found in Masked Mosaic: Canadian Super Stories, edited by Claude Lalumiere and Camille Alexa). All in all, a good way to end a first day (even if this "day" was only 2-and-a-half hours of con time for me) at VCon.
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