The weekend experience all began with a transporter.
Travellers ascend a platform, triggering light and sound effects.
There is a now a waiting list of volunteered names, which includes a very high ratio of senior managers. After the transporter introduction, the exhibition formally starts with the best-known early Canadian work of science fiction, James de Mille's A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder , published in 1888. In all the major lit- erary themes of the exhibition, we hark back to major works of Canadian literature which address like themes. In the same vein, while the exhibition specifically examines Canadian science fiction and fantasy, we recognize the roots of the genres in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , or H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds . Once our themes were determined, the curatorial team of Hugh Spencer and Allan Weiss fine-tuned the storyline and began gathering the core materials to be taken from the Toronto Public Library's Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy and from the National Library.