SF

Hey there folks, welcome to the first in a series of articles that I'll be writing for Octocon.com, exploring the connections between science fiction and music. This is the first of a planned three article series, with each part covering a slightly different aspect of the relationship: to begin with, “Music from SF” will cover the soundtracks and themes of science fiction films and TV shows; “Music in SF”, the second article, will examine the music that exists within science fiction settings; and finally “Music as SF” will be about music that tells science fiction stories.

This of course, could change entirely as I write it. I'll also be touching on these same topics in horror and fantasy worlds, and I'd love to get feedback and suggestions from readers.

We've already gotten some great suggestions on our twitter page, including a link to the excellent blog Sci-Fi Songs (thanks to @JohnAnealio for the link!).  Their top-rated song, the excellent Cylon #6, brings me nicely to my starting point: the music in the TV show Battlestar Galactica. 

So this year my very good friend G persuaded me that flying to Minneapolis in the height of the summer mugginess was indeed the way of the future. She had wooed me with tales of CONvergence (http://www.convergence-con.org/), the mecca to geeks of the mid-west americas.

We turned up on Thursday at around noon.. Me, somewhat jet-lagged, everyone else, somewhat bouncy. G had to go set up shop in the dealer room so after we cheeked into the hotel I went for food at TGI's across the parking lot.. This TGI Friday probably does its best business at the CON weekend as it was already starting to fill up.

The Convention itself takes over one entire hotel (the Sheraton Bloomington for those who are interested). There were two floors of party rooms around the pool area and further party rooms on the fourth floor.. Which I never made it to as there was so much other stuff to do. There was also a gaming floor on the 22nd floor for anyone wanting to board game or play tabletop (yes there were more than 22 floors in the hotel and yes every room was booked and occupied by con goers, final attendance was in the region of 4,000).

The only thing we had planned for opening day was the Opening ceremony so I spent a lot of the first day wandering around open mouthed in awe at the sheer scale of the convention. I also did a badging session so that I could get my volunteer badge and patch. This was somewhat fun and let me soak in the early con atmosphere with relative ease.