Worldcon Was Life-Changing, but That Wasn't My First Impression

At San Diego Comic-Con 2025, a senior dressed like a wizard stopped by the Hot Tropiks booth and told me Filipino stories should be at Worldcon 2026, which was coming to LA for the first time in 20 years. I'd never heard of Worldcon before, but this magical being had me intrigued, so I looked it up.

That's how I ended up at Worldcon, aka LAcon V (the naming conventions are confusing as shit, but that's not the only thing that's confusing about this con). I showed up ready to introduce Philippine speculative fiction to the world's largest gathering of sci-fi and fantasy fans.

I thought this was going to be like all the other cons, but then it clicked why this event has been running since 1939. It’s the oldest fan-run sci-fi and fantasy convention in the world—where the Hugo Awards happen, where countries bid to host, and where authors, publishers, and fans end up in the same room. I realized why people travel from all around the world to be here, and why what I came to share mattered more than I thought. But that wasn't my first impression…

Wednesday was setup day. It went by smoothly enough. It was my first time working with teamsters, and having them put my stuff on a pallet felt cool. One thing stood out immediately: it was like Comic-Con, but run by seniors who had been doing this for decades. It didn't have that dry, soulless corporate feeling of other events. This event was actually run by the fans…

Thursday was the first day of the actual con, and it was dead. The Dealer Room barely had any people, sales were slow, and the energy was low—I just wanted to get out of there. People asked if I wanted to stick around for Barcon (whatever that meant), but I skipped the Worldcon evening entirely. Looking back, it's a strange way to open a con that ended up mattering this much. I almost missed all of it before it even started.

Friday was a completely different story. Sales picked up in the Dealer Room, and the vibe was a bit more optimistic as I met really interesting people. Someone handed me a flyer for a room party. Then, the wife of John Scalzi, one of my favorite authors, randomly stopped by my booth to tell me I should go to his party later, where he’d be DJing. I was finally ready to see what this con actually had to offer.

Everyone kept saying "fifth floor." All day I kept hearing the same word over and over: Barcon, Barcon, Barcon. Somebody in the dealer room finally told me: "Just go to the Hilton bar." My friend Cory Tran from Planet Land Comics and I walked down, walked up to the crowd, and asked where we could find Barcon. A guy looked at us and said, "You're at Barcon."

That's also where we met up with KC and Russell, who became part of our Worldcon crew. After hanging at the bar, we hit the fifth floor to check out the party from the flyer.

The fifth floor opened onto the Lanai, a maze of parties running at once. I ended up at the Maya party, where I met Anand Gandhi, co-author of Maya (with Zain Memon) and co-writer, executive producer, and creative director on Tumbbad, the film that swept awards in India. They had really good catered Indian food, and somehow a bartender was set up in one of the hotel bedrooms. From there, I jumped over to the Japan delegation's party and met people from the Japan team.

I came thinking I'd network, but I got something unexpected: great conversations, real connections, and getting to know people just to know them.

Then came the moment that summed up the night: John Scalzi, one of my favorite authors and a New York Times bestseller with about 4.5 million copies in print in the U.S., DJing for a bunch of nerds letting go. It felt like home…

The next day, Saturday, Anand came back to the booth, and I showed him our full catalog: Maharlika, Nightgate, and Mythica Obscura. All day, I showed everyone who stopped by what Hot Tropiks came here to introduce: speculative fiction from the Philippines that barely exists in American bookstores.

With Anand, something clicked around Maharlika and the anime trailer specifically. He saw what we were building—a focused, long-term effort to bring these stories to the world. Sitting with him and watching him dig into the work gave me a glimpse of what's possible if you think bigger about what you're trying to do.

It wasn't just Anand, though. All day, people kept stopping by the booth. The crowd was paler than you'd typically see at a Southern California convention, but it was cool to meet a Filipino American scientist who works at JPL. So glad to know that we have Pinoys participating in aerospace. When I explained what Hot Tropiks does, they reacted with genuine curiosity: "Wow. I didn't know this existed.”

They were especially excited by Mythica Obscura, Karl Gaverza's documentation of 44 Filipino mythological beings based on ethnographic research and interviews with storytellers from different regions of the Philippines. The creatures. The spirits. The actual belief systems from different Philippine cultures.

People from Friday night kept coming back to the booth. That's when it made sense: there was a genuine appetite for Philippine speculative fiction among the Worldcon audience, even if they didn't actively know to look for it beforehand.

By evening, I met up with Cory, KC, and Russell at the Hilton bar. I made the mistake of drinking too early, and it kinda bit me in the ass. I stopped by the Masquerade contest in the Arena, but there was no booze there… so by the time I went to the Lanai to meet with the rest of the gang, I was running on fumes.

We ran into Eleanor from Locus Magazine and Team BellRinger (Jacon and Taylor), and they invited us to a "private publisher event." We stepped away from the main party and into the presidential suite on the same floor, and it was a completely different vibe...

That suite was an entirely different ecosystem: producers, screenwriters, industry types... There were rumors of celebrities like George R.R. Martin having a secret society that kidnapped people to take them to even more exclusive events, and Wil Wheaton walking around in a mask. It definitely felt more Hollywood at that party; the general attitude was "Who are you?" and "What can you do for me?" Anyways, that was cool enough, but I was already burnt out from the night before and didn't have the energy to schmooze. It was interesting to see these folks here; it was such a contrast from the Lanai.

By Sunday morning, Father John, who had been coming to the booth throughout the weekend and bought Mythica Obscura, invited me to a 9 AM mass before the dealer room opened. It was held in a Malibu room, just him and another Christian doing a non-denominational service together. Here at the world's largest sci-fi convention, there's a priest offering mass. There's real variety in what this community actually is.

After mass, I opened up my booth—it was still a bit slow. I was in a rush to close up the booth because I wanted to sit in on a few panels, explore the place, and check out the Hugo Awards.

T. Kingfisher, who hosted, gave an opening acknowledging that many international attendees had canceled out of fear of ICE and didn't come to the US. That hit me; it explained the low attendance in the dealer room I'd been seeing all weekend. I caught her opening, then left before the first award was presented.

I met back up with Cory, KC, and Russell at the Lanai, and we room-hopped to watch the ceremonies from different watch parties. By that point, I was pretty beat and ready to go home. We still had Monday, and it was exhausting. I wanted to go hang with my daughter and start packing for my trip to attend Super Manila and MIBF.

I went into Worldcon as a dealer behind a table, feeling a bit unsure about the future direction of Hot Tropiks. I left as part of a community with a clearer vision of where I wanted to take it. I found people who were genuinely happy that Hot Tropiks exists, who wanted to help bring these stories to the world, and who reminded me why I started this in the first place.

Hot Tropiks will always be rooted in Philippine culture, but there's an entire tropical world of creatures, monsters, and mythologies waiting to be shared. The mission is clearer now, and nothing is stopping us. Sitting on this train headed to LAX for my flight to Manila right now, it all comes together… time to find the next stories from the tropics to share with the world.