VCON 44: Pick Your Punk — Living Through the 21st Century.

For decades, VCON has been part of British Columbia’s speculative fiction history.

Now, VCON is back!

On Saturday, November 14, 2026, WCSFA will host VCON 44 at BCIT Burnaby: a one-day convention focused on speculative fiction, fandom, creativity, community, and the many futures we imagine, resist, build, and survive together.

This year’s event is a deliberate rebuilding step. It will not attempt to recreate every part of past three-day VCONs all at once. Instead, VCON 44 begins with the core of what our community told us matters most: strong programming, shared fandom culture, meaningful conversations, and the chance to connect with other fans.

Our 2026 theme is Pick Your Punk: Living Through the 21st Century.

Cyberpunk, solarpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, hopepunk, biopunk, mythpunk, stitchpunk, nanopunk, lunarpunk — bring your goggles, your circuits, your seedlings, your cautionary tales, and your better futures. 

I've been a member of the West Coast Speculative Fiction Association (WCSFA) for about a year now.  I freely admit that I joined for the simple reason that I wanted to attend their annual Fandom Bazaar: members got free admission, and the membership fee was the same as the admission fee. Since then, I've enjoyed their monthly newsletters, and won the monthly draw once, an occurrence which excited me more than it should have - I am generally not lucky when it comes to winning prizes.  

Among other activities, the WCSFA hosts VCON, an annual three-day convention based in the greater Vancouver area.*  Sadly, VCON has been inactive since 2021, and as part of the process of rebuilding the event, the WCSFA is planning a one-day convention this fall as a bridge to the full three day version.  

VCON 44 will take place at the Burnaby BCIT campus on November 14, 2026.  For updates on guests, programming, panels and vendors, bookmark the VCON site at vcon.ca, subscribe to the WCSFA newsletter, or follow the WCSFA on Instagram, Facebook, or Bluesky.  

- Sid

* The first VCON was held in 1971.  Responsibility for the event transferred from the Western Canadian Science Fiction Convention Committee Association to the WCSFA in 1993.  You can read the full history of VCON at the WCSFA VCON Archive.

But not actually, you know, exploding.

"I must remind you that the scanning experience is usually a painful one.”

ConSec scanner, Scanners 

I suffer from Exploding Brain Syndrome, a harmless condition with the most over-the-top name ever.  EBS is a sleep disorder-related sensory illusion: some people hear explosions, or perceive flashes of light - in my case, it's like a brief cymbal crash that occurs three or four times in a row, separated by a few seconds.    

Because EBS has such a dramatic appellation, it's impossible for me to experience it without thinking about Scanners, David Cronenberg's breakout 1981 science fiction horror film.  Scanners is best known for the horrifying scene where Canadian actor Louis del Grande's* head is made to explode by Michael Ironside, who plays the villain of the film.  The overly graphic effect was created through the rough and ready special effects expediency of firing a shotgun up through a prop head filled with dog food, leftover hamburger, and rabbit liver, resulting in an undeniably effective moment** that makes me very grateful that my experience of EBS is not a literal one.

- Sid

* Coincidentally, Del Grande went on to create and star in Seeing Things, a CBC dramedy about a newspaper reporter who experiences psychic visions of crimes.  The show ran for six years and featured the who’s who of the 80s Canadian acting community.

** For anyone wishing to see the cinematic results, here's a link to the clip:

https://youtu.be/KYEOuBWVFvk?si=cthRaE_tf0ApOJDF

The exploding head is quite near the end of the scene, if you happen to be one of those people who just can't wait to see what that might look like. 

Canada Day 2026: Art Imitates Life.

Happy Canada Day, everyone - celebrating 159 years of being the place that desperate people escape to from the United States.*

- Sid

* Strangely enough, it actually never occurred to me that this statement applied in the real world as well as in science fiction until I typed that sentence.  I was really just thinking of The Handmaid's Tale, although the photo is from a Philip K. Dick story.