The History of Odyssey Con

A Word From the Convention President:

It all began with a dream. A distant dream. A dream of warm tropical beaches, gently swaying palm trees, bikini clad women and tropical drinks with those funny little paper umbrellas. . .

Wrong dream.

Let me begin again. Odyssey Con all began with a dream. A dream of bringing a general interest Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention to Madison. We wanted a convention which would include all interests in S/F. In the words of Mao Zedong, “Let a hundred flowers bloom.” A small group of foolhardy souls decided that that the only way they were going to get the convention of their dreams was to do it themselves.

Many years ago, when I was little, I went traveling in France with my mother. While there I saw for the first time the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was dubbed in French, and my French then was just as bad as it is now. So there I was watching this extremely out-there movie, without being able to understand a word. (For those of you who are interested, HAL sings Frere Jacque in the France version rather than Daisy.) But somehow Kubrick was able to make a movie that made sense even without words.

It was in that movie that I first discovered the ability of science fiction to both amaze and educate. Now here we are, past the real 2001, and I have just one question, why can’t I book a flight into space on Pan Am like Heywood Floyd did in the movie?

At Odd Con we are going to celebrate our love of science fiction and fantasy. To those who say SF is just about escapism, remember this, thirty years ago a couple of engineers were watching an episode of Star Trek on TV and they began to wonder how they could store data on a little silver disk like an alien culture did in the TV show. So off they went into their lab, and came out a few months later with the first digital CD. However, while you are waiting for scientific inspiration to strike, feel free to indulge in escapism and dress up like Klingons.

We are going to have some wonderful panelists over the weekend, whom I cannot even begin to say just how glad I am that they are willing to come here to Madison to share a few words (and beers) with us.

Odyssey Con is the work of many people, all of whom deserve our thanks. I would especially like to recognize the members of SF3 and other local fan groups who contributed their time and resources to this little fandango. Over the weekend, be sure to thank those who helped out for their hard work. And if something does not seem to be working right, remember what HAL 9000 said, "No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error."

Jerome Van Epps (AKA: Fan Boy)

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Last Updated 06/20/2002