The 51st World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as ConFrancisco, was held September 2–6, 1993, at the ANA Hotel, Parc Fifty Five, and Nikko Hotels, and the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California, USA.
The supporting organization was San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions, Inc. The chairman was David W. Clark. The Guests of Honor (called "Honored Guests") were Larry Niven, Alicia Austin, Tom Digby, Jan Howard Finder, and Mark Twain (Dead GoH). Mark Twain was "channeled" by Jon deCles. The toastmaster was Guy Gavriel Kay. Total attendance was 6,602, of 7,725 paid memberships.
ConFrancisco was the last Worldcon not to have its own official website.
The original plan of San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions, Inc. was to hold the convention at the futuristic San Francisco Marriott Marquis, designed by the noted architect Anthony J. Lumsden, which is topped with a jukebox shaped glass tower that makes it look like a skyscraper from a Flash Gordon comic strip by Alex Raymond. This building is a notable example of futurist architecture. However, the hotel backed out of the contract when a more lucrative larger convention wanted to schedule there on the same weekend.
Read more about 51st World Science Fiction Convention: Notable Events
Famous quotes containing the words world, science, fiction and/or convention:
“We all end up living secret lives. We create what we are willing to admire and admiring what we shouldnt confess to the secret of our own sin, our own insufficiency, our own sadness. We all end up taking our secrets into the world and handing them over to strangers, only to realize its often too late to claim them back. The very nature of time passing is sad beyond words. Memories mean theyre gone.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“Our science has become terrible, our research dangerous, our findings deadly. We physicists have to make peace with reality. Reality is not as strong as we are. We will ruin reality.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (19211990)
“The obvious parallels between Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz have frequently been noted: in both there is the orphan hero who is raised on a farm by an aunt and uncle and yearns to escape to adventure. Obi-wan Kenobi resembles the Wizard; the loyal, plucky little robot R2D2 is Toto; C3PO is the Tin Man; and Chewbacca is the Cowardly Lion. Darth Vader replaces the Wicked Witch: this is a patriarchy rather than a matriarchy.”
—Andrew Gordon, U.S. educator, critic. The Inescapable Family in American Science Fiction and Fantasy Films, Journal of Popular Film and Television (Summer 1992)
“Mankind owes to the child the best it has to give.”
—United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989.