The Ottawa Science Fiction Society, Inc., or OSFS (pron:"Oss-Fuss") is a membership fan club in

Ottawa, Ontario Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. It is the oldest continuously operating

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

club in Ontario.

Current activities

OSFS switched from formal monthly meetings in 2012 to informal dinner meetings. Other gatherings and outings are held on an irregular basis. It publishes an amateur magazine called ''The OSFS Statement''.

History

OSFS was founded in 1977 by Marc "StarWolf" Gerin-LaJoie who was President for the first two years. Initial membership was around 150, and remained around a hundred for most of the first 15 years.

''Stardock''

''Stardock'' - Edited by

Charles R. Saunders Charles Robert Saunders (July 12, 1946May 2020) was an African-American author and journalist, a pioneer of the "sword and soul" literary genre with his Imaro novels.Tattrie, Jon.The extraordinary inner world of Charles R. Saunders, father of ...

was a

science fiction fanzine A science-fiction fanzine is an amateur or semi-professional magazine published by members of science-fiction fandom, from the 1930s to the present day. They were one of the earliest forms of fanzine, within one of which the term "''fanzine''" was ...

that published fiction and articles by OSFS members, as well as local writers and artists. Some notable contributors besides Saunders were

Galad Elflandsson Galad Elflandsson (born 1951) is a Canadian fantasy writer. Literary career In the 1980s, Elflandsson was a member of a group of fantasy writers who met at the House of Speculative Fiction bookstore in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, which he also mana ...

and

Charles de Lint Charles de Lint (born December 22, 1951) is a Canadian writer of Dutch, Spanish, and Japanese ancestry. He is married to, and plays music with, MaryAnn Harris. Primarily a writer of fantasy fiction, he has composed works of urban fantasy, cont ...

all of whom went on to be professionally published writers.

Maplecon

Maplecon was Ottawa's first fullfledged

science fiction convention Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of the speculative fiction genre, science fiction. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of expres ...

, initially held at the Skyline Hotel blocks from Ottawa's

Parliament Hill Parliament Hill (french: Colline du Parlement, colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Its Gothic revival suite of buildings, and their architectu ...

in October 1978. Started by StarWolf to give 'direction' to OSFS. It was co-chaired by Jocelyn "Bink" Tait and her husband Frank. In its second year, it merged with an event run by the local comics club, called the International Comic Collectors Club (aka I.C. Cubed), and comics joined the mix. This led to a rapid expansion of the convention. Maplecon grew to a membership of around a thousand attendees, with many notable guests from both science fiction and comics. This rapid growth caused concern about liability, and the "Committee for Change" was formed by a group of concerned members. Its aim was to convince OSFS to spawn off Maplecon as a separate organization so that if Maplecon failed catastrophically, it would not also sink OSFS. This also freed Maplecon from OSFS's control, which had a mixed outcome. An oversight corporation was formed called Ottawa Fandom Inc (aka ''OFI''), and ownership of Maplecon was sold to OFI for one dollar. Eventually, without oversight by OSFS, the comics aspect overwhelmed the science fiction and fantasy written word aspect, and that spawned conventions to meet the wants and needs of the literary fans. First was Pinekone and later, CAN-CON. Another ramification of Maplecon's rapid growth was that it moved to Carleton University. Although this dramatically lowered the cost of the accommodations, it also dramatically lowered the quality of the accommodations. This became a frequent complaint, and is one of the reasons cited as why Maplecon lost attendance. The last Maplecon was number 13, held in 1992.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Organizations established in 1977 Science fiction fandom Science fiction organizations Science Fiction Society Canadian science fiction 1977 establishments in Ontario