Polaris part 2!

So yesterday you saw the pictures, (if you didn't you can go HERE) and the first of our ridiculous videos.

Last year they had fantastic guests like Ethan Phillips who played Neelix on Star Trek: Voyager, and Kai Owen from Torchwood and Mark Sheppard from Battlestar Gallactica. For book guests they had Kelley Armstrong and Robert Sawyer, plus SO many more.

I went to one panel, 30 years after the Empire Struck Back and one of the panelists was Craig Miller who worked on the Star Wars movies and had all these fantastic behind the scenes stories and stuff.

There were also two panels on Lost, since the show had just ended that year, and the discussion there was so interesting.

Kelley Armstrong, Alyxandra Harvey, and Michelle Rowen hosted a panel on What's Next for YA Fantasy and Supernatural Readers that was a lot of fun and we went to one panel on what to read after Harry Potter.

Larry Stewart (the master of ceremonies and a hilarious guy who is going to be there again this year) did a reading of a chapter of Harry Potter that had the entire room (which was packed to the gills) roaring with laughter and completely enthralled (I'm crossing my fingers he does another one this year).

There was a panel about vampires (cleverly called Then Buffy Staked Edward) in which several people argued heatedly against sparkles no matter how the panelists tried to direct the conversation, and one on Steampunk, which we attended because we were wondering what it was all about.

One of my favorite panels was called "The Book was Better" and the panelists were Violette Malan and Marc Mackay. It was fascinating and they were hilarious. I will never look at a movie adapted from a book the same way again. They are SO limited that it amazes me anyone is ever able to pull it off. We enjoyed it so much that we went to a reading by Violette Malan and got free signed books from her just by showing up! Also went to a reading/discussion by Nikki Stafford and to the one by Michelle Rowen.

Here's another ridiculous video:



There were also games you could play - they had a StarGate game that was kind of like bingo, except not. You got a sheet of paper with a bunch of StarGate symbols on it and then those symbols were hidden all over the building - little squares of laminated paper stuck on pillars, in rooms, behind benches, on the ceiling, etc and those papers had numbers on them. So you had to write down the number on your paper and the person that found the most won a free entry to this year's convention. There was also a Clue type game, which we didn't play because we were kind of confused and overwhelmed by the awesomeness that was Polaris.

Here's another ridiculous video:


SO this year Naomi and I are really excited because we know a bunch of the special guests. (And by know I mean we have watched the shows they were in, because we don't actually know them, though that would be super cool)
There's Armin Shimmerman who played Quark on Star Trek: DS9 and Principal Snyder on Buffy, Ben Browder from Stargate SG-1, Adam Baldwin - JAYNE! (Browncoats unite) and to make THAT even better, Jewel Staite is going to be there too! Yeah Kaylee! She also was on Stargate Atlantis as Dr. Keller.

The two big author guests this year are Charlaine Harris who writes the Sookie Stackhouse series that True Blood is based on and Brandon Sanderson, who writes fantasy and is best known now, probably, for being chosen to finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.

The panels look really good and I'm going to be on a couple this year. I even submitted a Lost panel that was accepted :D, there's one on the genre of YA, and so many others that should be fascinating.

AND they're doing a Whedon singalong with the Buffy episode "Once More with Feeling" and then Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog!

So, it's too late for pre-registration, but you can still buy tickets so, if you're free on July 15-17 and can make it to Toronto, you totally should come. Or you should make plans for next year.

You can go HERE for more information or just to check it out.

So... have you gone to any super fun conventions? Anything planned for this year?