james_davis_nicoll | Book oriented SF conventions in Canada

Book oriented SF conventions in Canada

I am appallingly ignorant of conventions in my own nation. If I were looking for something roughly equivilent to Minicon or Boskone, preferably in the urban corridor, what cons should I be looking at?

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Amazing to see those two conventions linked so in your post. Oh, the history! The history! LJ users jeffreyab, avt_tor, marahsk, or tammylc could give you much a better answer than I.

Minicon and Boskone remind me a lot of each other. I think there's a considerable overlap in attendees and of course some details in their histories are similar. Both experienced a small drop off in numbers after a clarification of their core mission, for example.

Now, Boston and Minneapolis don't seem much alike. For one thing, the MPLS airport doesn't resemble a converted bus station, nor have I ever feared for my life landing there, whereas Logan scares the hell out of me.

"small drop off in numbers"? Surely, sir, you jest. Boskone, I've heard, has recovered. Here the battle still rages.

MSP is trying its best to become a bus station. One of these days, it will succeed.

What's wrong with Minneapolis' airport? Assuming you avoid That Company, of course and since I make it a point to avoid any airline whose news coverage involves sewage running down the isles, I always have (Well, that and listening to Piglet on the subject the time we met in Wales).

In order to reach the really "bad" areas, you have to fly on the regional airlines. I'll guess you've never had that enjoyment. I guess it's just that they should allow taxis at some of the terminals, although it's hard to do if they're in the middle of runways.

The Toronto-MPL direct route uses the cutest scale model airplanes. The first time I flew to MPL, I was directed onto a bus at Terminal One or Two (I forget which) at Pearson, which took us past a series of increasingly tiny aircraft before arriving at the one we were to use. Luckily, nobody stepped on it.

After a few times flying direct, I realized that small aircraft maximize the things I hate most about flying so I took to going via Chicago, Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. Once they wanted to send me there via Seattle, which seemed like an odd route to use.

For some reason, every flight I took to MPL hit bad weather over Kitchener.

MSP is an okay airport. BOS...well, it's not the worst I've ever seen. (Scary landings? At least it has fairly long runways. LGA and DCA always make me uncomfortable.)

I have, I will admit, never flown into MSP and left the airport by ground transportation. This lack will be rectified later this month.

My first con was Boskone in 1987. Er.

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Book oriented SF conventions in Canada

Amazing

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