Galactic Suburbia 30
27 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in Books, Podcasts Tags: awards, books, cons, fantasy, natcon, podcasts, sf, swancon
Sorry, let me rephrase that: DITMAR-WINNING Galactic Suburbia, episode 30 ( 
) recorded live at Swacon36|Natcon50
News
Shirley Jackson nominees
PK Dick awards
BSFA awards
SF Hall of Fame inductees
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alex: Kraken, China Mieville; Doomsday Book, Connie Willis; Mappa Mundi, Justina Robson; Brasyl, Ian McDonald; Nightsiders, Sue Isle
Tansy: The Clockwork Angel, by Cassandra Clare, The Last Stormlord by Glenda Larke, Fun Home & Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel, Tales of the Tower: the Wilful Eye edited by Isobelle Carmody & Nan McNab, especially “Catastrophic Disruption of the Head” by Margo Lanagan, Nightsiders (twelve planets 1) by Sue Isle.
Pet Subject: Indie Press: Alisa talks Ebooks!
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Reflections on Natcon50
26 Apr 2011 7 Comments
in Books, Random Tags: books, cons, fantasy, natcon, sf, swancon
Well, it was brilliant, basically.
I went over on Wednesday, to get a head start on the fun. Tehani picked me up, which was lovely of her, and then I got to spend the afternoon with Kathryn. We had dinner with Alisa and Justina Robson, one of the Guests of Honour, which was a great privilege! I managed to get a good night’s sleep, which was a good thing… Thursday involved chasing down Kathryn’s artwork, which was cool, and then we had lunch with Justina and the other Guests of Honour – Ellen Datlow and Sean Williams – and a bunch of other Swanconners. Which was awesome. Then to the hotel, and starting the real business of the weekend: catching up with lots of people. Also hanging around the Twelfth Planet Press table. Thursday night was free; there was the Opening Ceremony, which I attended and it was good, and panels, which I didn’t attend and that was fine too. The con bag was awesome – four free books!
The con proper involved a number of panels that I was both on, and attended, including a megapodcast recording where we got to tell people what books they MUST read, and films watch, and I got to shock people by saying Lord of the Rings and The Fifth Element; and a recording of Galactic Suburbia too. I presented at the Edustream, which was good, and on a panel about religion in fantasy too. I attended a number of interesting ones: Grant’s presentation on Disney films was utterly enchanting, and the “Vikings are awesome” panel was far more informed than I expected! The best, though, was probably the panel that in theory was meant to be on “the crisis of the midlist, and the rise of the celebrity author.” It featured Justina and Ellen, and two Aussie contributors. It turned into a broader discussion, at least partly about how we figure out what to read – the place of podcasts, reviewers, etc, and how to know who to trust in those arenas. It was fun, becoming quite interactive towards the end.I also thoroughly enjoyed Jonathan Strahan interviewing guest Sean Williams. They have known each other for a very long time, and rather than the conversation being full of in-jokes it meant that Jonathan knew exactly the right questions to ask for it to become an interesting discussion for the audience. Also, Sean’s concertina-pack of his books’ covers was awesome.
Most of the time, though, was spent with people. The foyer of the hotel had a large cafe/bar with lovely couches and chairs and I spent a large amount of time sitting, chatting… generally doing the things that make cons brilliant. I made a few new friends, but really it was about catching up with existing friends. It’s hard having friends all over the country that you don’t get to see very often. Twitter and blogs and Skype make it feasible to actually call them friends… but spending physical time together really shows just how much those things are not really a substitute. I had breakfast, lunch, and what passed for dinner with friends all weekend, and spent many hours into the night with them too.
The evenings were, of course, very entertaining! Friday night had a celebration of the Twelve Planets, and I was particularly thrilled to see that Tansy’s Love and Romanpunk had come back from the printer… and, even more than that, it is dedicated to meeeee! I was gobsmacked and overwhelmed to discover this. (Also, Jonathan Strahan’s Year’s Best Fantasy and SF vol 5 is dedicated to me, Alisa, and Tansy, as the Coode St Feminist Advisory Council – which is very flattering indeed.) The evening also involved a cake made by the awesome Terri, surrounded by pink cupcakes to make it look like the Twelfth Planet Press logo. Saturday night was the masquerade, which I went along to for a little while to see the costumes and then retired to a room party to continue various conversations.
Sunday night… well, that saw the presentation of the WA awards, the Tin Ducks; and the national fan-voted awards, the Ditmars. It was preceded by a cocktail party thanks to Orbit and Gollancz, which was very pleasant indeed. I am an awards junkie, so it was a lot of fun to actually attend one with friends. Um, especially when many of the awards were won by said friends. I was so very pleased that Tansy won for Power and Majesty, and backing it up with the William Atheling for her Modern Women’s Guide to Dr Who was brilliant! Alisa’s Sprawl won best collection, which was well deserved, and Cat and Kirstyn sharing Best Short Story was great. I was really, really happy for Thoraiya Dyer winning Best New Talent and Best Novella. And, yes, Galactic Suburbia won the Tin Duck for best Fan Production and the Ditmar for Best Fan Production. And Kathryn, Alisa, Rachel, Tehani, Tansy and I won Best Achievement for Snapshot2010, which feels like it was a very long time ago but was heaps of fun! And… I won for Best Fan Writer, for my reviews, which I am still utterly and totally overwhelmed by. The perceptive among the audience will notice that all of those names are female. There was one male winner: Shaun Tan, for The Lost Thing for Best Artwork… and given that short film won an Oscar, we figure that’s fair enough. So the awards ceremony was one big barrel of awesome, and we retired to the bar to toast our celebrations. And try to ignore the fact it was our collective last night together.
I came home having had more sleep than I expected but less than was necessary; 4kg of books, only a few of which I bought – most are review copies or were freebies!; 4 awards (one physical trophy, since we split the others); a reading list a mile long, and instructions that I must watch Blake’s 7; and, most importantly of course, renewed friendships. Also immense respect for and gratitude to Alisa and the rest of her committee for running a brilliant con. The hotel choice was excellent – it was a lovely venue, and the fact that the hotel didn’t believe we’d all be there to eat and drink and therefore didn’t staff the bar well enough on the Friday was certainly not their responsibility! The programme was diverse and interesting and well organised, the guests seemed like they were good choices, and although I know some people had hitches of various sorts I, at least, had a completely trouble-free con.
And now I am home.
Galactic Suburbia 29!
08 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in Books, Podcasts Tags: awards, china mieville, connie willis, cons, ditmars, fantasy, galactic suburbia, natcon, podcasts, sf, swancon, tiptree awards
Diana Wynne Jones passed away.
Strange Horizons: dealing with the low numbers of female reviewers.
The Age on the poor numbers of women’s work being reviewed (in the literary “mainstream”), and coverage of a panel on the gender disparity, again in the mainstream.
Prometheus Awards nominees, from the Libertarian Futurist Society.
Authors, editors, and controversy: Running Press, Tricia Telep and Jessica Verday (links not necessarily linked to individuals).
Livejournal not so live this week.
Aussie Spec Fic Carnival
16 Jun 2007 Leave a Comment
in Random Tags: carnival, natcon, sf
Much of it is other people (and yours truly!) commenting on NatCon, but hey – it’s always fun to compare reports.
And there’s a plug or three for New Ceres, so it’s definitely a good thing!
NatCon #4 (and last, fear not)
14 Jun 2007 Leave a Comment
in Books, Random Tags: books, cons, natcon, panels, sf
Monday.
Started off away from the con – had ‘coffee’ with the lovely Alison and Kate. We were meant to go to Brunetti’s in the city, but they were closed. So we wandered to Burke St, and sat in a cafe for 15 min or so having ordered coffee and not getting any love; then we left and went to Laurent (I want to go there a lot), and I had a delicious chocolate and almond croissant. And a hot chocolate.
Then, back to the con.
And then to lunch. Took the gang (it really felt a bit like a gang by that time) to Deli France, and it finally proved that Melbourne really is the Food Capital.
Then back to the con. And sitting in the lobby, to be in a convenient place to see people signing out of the hotel. Rachel was good and went to the closing ceremony, but I never did hear if it was worthwhile.
Lots of sitting, lots of talking… me gaining review copies of stuff to read, particularly for LastShortStory.
I left at about 4pm, because J was going to be home at about 4.30 or so and he was a bit sick. It was hard to leave. Good friends in three days? Crazy, but true.
Thus endeth my first convention.
NatCon #3
14 Jun 2007 Leave a Comment
in Books, Random Tags: books, cons, natcon, panels, sf
Sunday.
I skipped on the earliest panel, feeling a bit guilty because surely that’s what the con is meant to be about? – but then I spent time with Alisa and Tansy et al, and it was ok. (At least, I think that’s what I did… maybe that was the morning I read? I dunno; I forget.) I did go to the panel “Science fiction and Fantasy in the School Curriculum” – which was sort of interesting, except that the main person on the panel was a bit of a twit. I got quite annoyed by him. Particularly when he was saying things like: “All due respect to my fellow educators…[insert insulting comment here].” Very annoying. Oh, and then there were the “only geeks who get beaten up at lunch read scifi/fantasy at school” comments.
Anyway, after listening to how people use/have used the genres in curriculum – and a few kids whinge about how creative writing never gets taught (a. some would say it can’t be taught; b. yes many of us don’t know how to teach it because it’s not a prereq to become an English teacher and that is not a bad thing about us; and c. … whatever) – I decided to have my say. I asked, basically, why we should include it. I understand the desire to get kids to enjoy your likes – heck, that’s why I teach history – but why were they getting so het up about it? Cath Ortlieb gave me a good answer… Ian got all huffy under the collar. Which was pretty funny. And then, because it was that time and because I had made my point, I left with Rachel to go to Cassiphone’s book launch. I won a book! And, in fact, I won Splashdance Silver, which I already own but got signed, so that’s very “ooooh.” Oh, and chocolate. Lovely. Lost Shimmaron looks like it will be a very entertaining series; I liked the mermaids in Seacastle.
Back to the con… and to an hour of movie trailers! Much fun! It’s great watching trailers with like-minded people. Yay Transformers.
For the rest of the afternoon, I stooged around. Went to a little bit of a “Create your own Space Opera” panel hosted by Paul Kidd (two space squid make a double decapod…). Missed the apocalypse panel. Went to dinner at a very dodgy cafe with Alisa, Ben and Rachel… and then went to the Orb #7 launch and the preliminary screening of The Liminal. A very funny (sometimes deliberate, sometimes not) film made on a shoe string. Most of the cast was there, which was nice. And then there was Renaldo, First Sheep in Space. Which was quite funny, although I imagine funnier if you know the fans involved. I particularly liked him starring in Violence of the Lambs, and Baa Wars.
NatCon #2 redux
14 Jun 2007 Leave a Comment
in Books, Random Tags: books, cons, natcon, panels, sf
The good vs evil panel was good (see how I’m picking up almost from where I left off?), and Tansy provided a good moderator – and even got a few words in edgewise, despite efforts to the contrary.
I stayed in the room afterwards, and listened to Gill Pollack talk about food and how it is important in world-building, and give some interestin foody anecdotes. She also threw chocolate at/to the crowd, but since I had already received a few of her choc beetles I declined. I did try the grains of paradise, which are/were supposed to be an aphrodisiac… no dice.
I was then thinking of staying on for a talk on new stuff in alternative history, but given who the speaker was I left. Rather quickly. Enough said about that… I then hung out with all my new-found pals, went and had dinner at a Japanese restaurant in China Town (go figure), and made it back for the free booze and nibbles at the launch of Dark Space (which I’m looking forward to; I think I managed to get named second reviewer for ASif!) and The Darkness Within (eh; not so much). And then – the Ditmars! which apparently recognise “excellence in science fiction, fantasy and horror by Australians” in the previous calendar year. GirlieJones won herself three!! Including Best New Talent! Ah, vote rigging, so much fun… but seriously, it was great; the look on her face was priceless (each time!), and they were of course well deserved.
Finally, it was off to my very first Room Party, hosted by Cat Sparks and Rob Hood, to launch Daikaju #2 – very exciting. As were the drinks: champagne with blue curacao and a lolly dinosaur. Excellent!
And then home, and to bed.
NatCon #2
12 Jun 2007 Leave a Comment
in Books, Random Tags: books, cons, natcon, panels, sf
One thing I had to decide was how many panels to attend. I knew that at least Alisa and Tansy weren’t planning on going to many, but I figured that since I had paid the money to be there – and it was my first con – I should try and get as much out of it as possible. Plus, I was still feeling a bit nervous about all the new people I had met and whether we would manage to keep being friendly for the whole weekend, so I figured I need somewhere to go for refuge, should it come down to it!
I went to one of the first panels of the day… on Second Life, of all things. People who… go on? play on? use? utilise? Second Life fascinate and bewilder me. I found out that people really do make money from it, and was fascinated that they had an in-world funeral for someone because – and these are the dude’s words – the avatar’s player died in the real world. Eventually, though, I got bored, so I left and went to the end of a panel discussion on cliche in fantasy – and wished I had been there for the whole of it, because it sounded like they were actually having a fun and intelligent conversation.
Rachel and I then went along to Richard Harland’s “HIstory of imaginative fiction for YA/children,” which was really more a history of childhood/changing perceptions thereof, rather than the books that have been part of it (someone actually asked him whether Gulliver’s Travels was meant to be for kids… hello!! Are you kidding?!). It would have been more interesting if I didn’t already know pretty much everything he was saying.
Rachel then left because she didn’t want to hear Isobelle Carmody talking about the next book in the Obernewtyn series. I stayed, because I’m a bit of a sucker. She was interesting enough – and she confessed that The Stone Key will, in fact, be the penultimate book, not the ultimate, because she couldn’t fit it all in… it’s meant to be out in November, and then the last should be out next year.
I will now take some time out to whinge about the programme of Convergence2. It was Convention Lite. I understand there were some problems with the guests of honour, but… the panels were not what I expected. I wasn’t interested in the ‘how to be a writer’ panels, but I understand why they were there and was happy for writers to get that forum for dicussing ideas. But there weren’t that many of them, and there weren’t many others either. I was expecting more like the panel I went to in the afternoon – “IS fantasy really all about good vs evil?” – which I was interested in and had to attend because Tansy was on the panel…. But surely this is the very place where these sorts of genre questions can be discussed? Like what makes things fantasy (which I know has been discussed previously), how science-y should scifi be, etc…? Maybe all of these things have been discussed at previous cons and everyone else is just jaded.
This has turned into a long post, and I am tired. I shall leave it here and continue anon (where anon = tomorrow, or any time after that).
NatCon #1
12 Jun 2007 Leave a Comment
in Books, Random Tags: books, cons, natcon, panels, sf
Yeh, so who did I think I was kidding? Me, start doing marking at 9.30 on a Tuesday night? When I’ve been out to dinner with a friend on a flying visit from Pasadena (UCLA, don’t you know… fluid mechanics, in fact), and J has managed to breathe enough to play trumpet (just) so I stayed and listened to Dry White Toast practise for a while (pacing around to get my steps up – that’s a whole other story – and reading), and then talking to cassiphone for ages.
Marking? Pft. They can wait.
So. NatCon. Convergence 2. My very first convention (and didn’t it show).
I was, to be honest, quite nervous. Meeting people in real life is a bit nerve-racking, when you’ve got on so well over email… and then there were the fears of the Real, Uber Geeks who might be there and who might either weird me out or make me feel inadequate.
Fortunately, I picked Alisa up from the airport on the Thursday night, and we talked pretty much the whole way back to the hotel, so at least I had a fairly good idea that we could, indeed, hold a real-time conversation as well as an email conversation.
On Friday, I rocked up to the hotel and met up again with Alisa, and met Ben, which was cool – and then off to meet Tansy, thus completing our quartet. Tansy’s partner Finchy and daughter Raeli were there too – she graciously allowed me to sit down, which was nice, and we played Giraffes Falling Off Chairs a bit. I also met Rachel then, and daughter Abby – starting something of a trend for the whole weekend, really, that group. Alisa, Rachel and I went off to look at buttons for a while (don’t get me either of them started! Abby was very funny – “I’ll have a handful of the red ones…”), then I ditched them when they also went to look at fabric. Went back to the hotel, got all officially rego’ed up, and had a look through my convention bag – always a good way to judge the quality of a conference, in my opinion. I got Aurealis #11, which doesn’t have a cover, which I thought was special until I heard someone had #1 (new idea of the weekend: round up back-issues of the major Aussie small press – I’m thinking ASIM, Aurealis, Borderlands… and read them, and then I can look like I’ve been in this scene for much, much longer than I actually have). Plus a bunch of other promo stuff that I still haven’t had a chance to look at.
Dinner was with a whole big bunch of people, because Cat just seems to gather people in her wake like a mini tornado. Have to admit, I was a bit scared by the horror writer group, until I discovered they are actually all lovely. Which was a relief. Fourteen of us went to the Shark Fin Inn, and it was all very jolly. I felt a bit out of it for a while, but eventually realised that was just me, not them, so I got over it.
So that was the first day.
Edit: I can’t believe I forgot the after-dinner entertainment! There was a Great Debate, about whether mass media is killing our beloved genre. Cat was on the against team, and her partner Rob Hood was on the affirmative. Jack Dann was the moderator, and as a Jack Dann newbie I thought he was pretty funny (I can imagine it would get old quickly). Apparently there was a deal of confusion between the teams about what the topic meant and who should be saying what, and the first speaker was way, way out in left field. I ended up agreeing with Cat’s team, because I already thought that anyway – mass media isn’t killing scifi and fantasy.
Then we went to the bar. People were getting drunk. Alisa managed to avoid people she wanted to avoid. It was good.
NatCon
11 Jun 2007 Leave a Comment
in Books, Random Tags: books, cons, natcon, panels, sf
I have an enormous amount to say about Convergence 2, and I’m not going to say it now. It needs to sit in my head for a while, and ferment. And brew a little. And… digest… and other appropriate bodily verbs. Basically I need to get around it, my very first convention. It was a bit overwhelming. But the best bit was meeting people, of course – my lastshortstory buddies, and others whom I didn’t know from a bottle of disinfectant beforehand, and now will certainly be keeping in contact with. Incredible what three and a half intense days will do, plus a shared love of scifi and fantasy.
So stay tuned. Ruminations on the con, and the nature of good and evil, to come….
