Capclave 2021

      Friday, October 1, 2021: Wow! Capclave 2021 would be the first science fiction convention (SF con) that I attended since Philcon 2019. The Washington, DC, Science Fiction Society (WSFS) played host to this SF con, and they held it at the Rockville Hilton, 1750 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, for three days. Capclave has been a smaller SF con compared to other local SF cons such as Philcon and Balticon, etc. They mainly focused on writing short stories and most of their panels usually had to do with writing, but they also presented some panels & lectures on science, an area for playing games, author readings, and so on. For the SF con’s first day, I mainly hung out at the Con Suite where I could talk with other SF fans while masked. This hospitality suite also offered soft drinks and snacks. 

     Saturday, October 2, 2021: My days of going to different events and panels have been pretty much over, but I attended one panel: Softening Up Hard SF. Here the panelists, David Walton, Alan Smale, Kristin Janz, Jack Campbell, and Martin Berman-Gorvine wondered how to write the science in SF stories so that those who only had high school science could understand it. Another subject that they discussed was about stories that were once thought of as hard SF, but nowadays, would be thought of as soft SF or science fantasy. They also suggested putting scientific explanations in scattered parts of the story rather than in one long section. Overall, while the science had to be mostly correct, character and plot development has also been important. After this, I spent most of the day hanging around the sitting area and watched the SF con go by. (Yes, I do meet a lot of SF fans that way.) 

     On Saturday night I listened to a lecture that mostly went over my head, The Quantum Internet: Hype Or The Next Step? John Ashmead explained what quantum Internet was, if we needed it or not, the pros & cons of it, and so forth. I could follow some of it, but much of it was confusing to me. He used PowerPoint in his presentation to aid in his talk, and I’m sure some people got it better than I did.  For the next few hours, I was doing what I did during the day: sitting by and watching the SF con go by as well as talking to a few SF fans. 

     Sunday, October 3, 2021: After more hanging around, I went to the Dealers’ Room and bought a T-shirt. There were 15 vendors, and 12 of them sold reading materials of books, magazines, and fanzines. The rest sold jewelry, games, and T-shirts. After this, I went home. It was what I expected in a smaller SF con, and a good place for me to get back into the SF con world.