I’ve participated in hundreds of panels during my decades of going to conventions, but the two I took part in yesterday at Awesome Con (sponsored by the Museum of Science Fiction) were a first, in that I can say, without fear of contradiction, that all the other panelists were far more qualified than me to speak on the topics at hand. They’re actual scientists, you see, dedicated to making real the technologies of which we spoke, while I’m but a writer of fiction, who takes what they’re doing in life and tries to imagine what implications their reality might have 50, 100, 1,000 years down the road.

My morning panel was 3D Printing: Replicating Success, on which I pontificated with Mason Peck, PhD (Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University), Nathan Castro (PhD Candidate at GW’s Lab for Nanomedicine and Tissue Engineering), Lewis Sloter, PhD, PE (Associate Director of Materials & Structures at US Department of Defense), and Jamie Gurganus, PhD (Associate Director of Engineering Education Initiatives at UMBC).

See what I mean about feeling outclassed?

While the other panelists, though occasionally veering into the realm of science fiction, stuck for the most part to the here and now, I did the opposite. Yes, I talked of how 3D printers have been used to create personalized prosthetics for amputees and Iron Man suits for Robert Downey, Jr., but I spent most of my time on some of the concepts of extrapolation given us by the likes of Isaac Asimov and Neal Stephenson, using them to talk about who we will be as a species if we ever reach a point when work is an option rather than a necessity.

I also offered up the famous quote from William Gibson that “The future is already here—it’s just not every evenly distributed,” to push for a tomorrow in which the fruits of 3D printing don’t widen the gap between the haves and have-nots, an idea which seemed to resonate with the audience, as they had a number of follow-up questions on that potential problem.

For the afternoon panel, Nanotechnology: Fact from Fiction, I was joined by Shelah Morita, PhD (Evolutionary Biologist and Policy Analyst at NNCO), Lloyd Whitman, PhD (Assistant Director for Nanotechnology, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy), Merrilea J. Mayo, PhD (Technology Innovator and STEM Advocate at Mayo Enterprises, LLC), Michael Meador, PhD (NNCO Director, on loan from NASA Game Changing Technologies), and Brian Cullum, PhD (Physics Professor and Nanotechnologist at UMBC)

Again, I stand in awe of those with whom I took the stage. I ended up sitting at one end of our dais, and joked that I’d been placed there because what I and my peers do can so often annoy them and their peers, causing them to groan and wonder how writers could have gotten things so wrong—and I wanted to make sure I was in a spot from which I could make a quick escape. Especially since what fascinates me most about nano is its potential for dealing with medical issues, enhanced abilities, and the coming age of humanity as a posthuman species.

While the others talked of where we are now, and the public perception of nanotechnology vs. the reality of it, I shared a bit from Greg Bear’s “Blood Music” and Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age … and tried as best as I could to stay out of the way of those who better knew what they were talking about.

I enjoyed listening to all my co-panelists, and hope that what I had to say added to the discussions rather than diminishing them.

Between panels, I had a chance to wander the Exhibit Hall, which is where one of my favorite moments of the day happened. I was able to catch up with yet another Marvel Comics comrade from my old days in the Bullpen. Last year, it was Mike Zeck, who’d drawn a story of mine which had been published in 1977. This year, it was artist Ron Wilson, and our history goes back even further than that.

When I was broke into comics as the Associate Editor of Marvel’s British reprint books in 1974, Ron was already there, having started doing splash pages and covers for that line as early as (I believe) 1973. We were just kids! How were the Marvel bigwigs so foolish as to let us get anywhere near the comics biz? I have no idea, but I’m glad they did.

Sadly, there was one old friend I didn’t get a chance to connect with at the con—Herb Trimpe, who had drawn a story I’d written about the Vision which was published back in 1976. When I’d made plans a few months back to attend Awesome Con, spending time with Herb was one of the things to which I’d most looked forward. But Herb died last month, and so it wasn’t to be. Which made the con occasionally glum, as I thought of that lost meeting from time to time during the day, and was reminded once more of his absence.

Still, it was a good day, and a con experience I hope to repeat next year, assuming the organizers feel I have anything to contribute … even if I happened to be, as I was yesterday, outgunned.