AussieCon 4 part two

I finally have a minute to continue my AussieCon 4 adventures:

Saturday 10am: Girl meets boy meets dragon: romance in fantasy
11am: Capes and skirts: The plight of the female superhero
12am: Lunch
1pm: Fringe: paranormal investigations in SF television
2pm: Kim Stanley Robinson guest of honour speech
3pm: Dealer's room
4pm: "Just a minute" gameshow
5pm: Love hurts: Young adult paranormal romance


Sunday 10am: Academic track: Adam Brown on Bladerunner
11am: Academic track: Andrew Cameron on astrology and astronomy
12am: Academic track: Weibke Eikholt on anthropomorphism in SF
1pm: Has hollywood sucked the vampire dry?
2pm: Academic track: Guy Mickelthwait on modes of time travel
"Science Fiction: The Language of Bioethics Philosophy" by ME!!
3pm: Academic track: Gilbert Hottois on philosophy in SF
Anita Harris Satkunananthan on postcolonialism in SF
4pm: Academic track: Deb Watson on paranormal romance
5pm: Build a lego Dalek (although we skipped out early to get some autographs)
6pm: Dinner
8pm: Hugo awards ceremony

Monday 10am: Bioethics of terraforming
Academic track: Rebecca-Anne Do Rozorio on fairytale in Dr Who
11am: Dealer's room
12am: Academic track: Jeff Harris on popular culture
"Adrift: the Generation Starship in science fiction" by Zachary Kendal
1pm: Lunch
2pm: Vampire and Zombie smackdown
3pm: Caught in the slipstream: fiction between genres
4pm: Closing ceremony

Here are some of my pictures from these days:

This is me taking questions at the end of my talk...

This is me stalking Shaun Tan for autographs!

This is my husband and I with John Clute whom we met at the Utopias conference before AussieCon.

That's it for now!

Aussiecon 4!

It has been a very busy couple of weeks beginning with a week long intensive at the Bourke St training labs for my optician apprenticeship training, then attending Joss Whedon's address at the Melbourne Writer's Festival, followed by a 3 day utopias and climate change conference, and then straight on to Aussiecon 4, the 68th World Science Fiction Convention in Melbourne!! In between this was the 5 yr anniversary of my husband and I getting together, which deserved much celebrating involving dinner out, crepes for room service and a visit to the Tim Burton exhibition at ACMI.

So far at Aussiecon I have seen the following:

Thursday 2pm: Opening address

3pm: Two academic papers given by Gillian Polack and Alice Davies

4pm: A visit to the dealer's room to buy SF paraphernalia

5pm: Academic panel on environmental issues, with Tim Moylan, Kim Stanley Robinson, John Clute, Glenda Larke and Jonathon Cowie (the first 3 of which I had a chance to meet at utopia conference previously)

I also met author Paul Collins and graphic novel artists Phil and Kaja Foglio, who created "Girl Genius".

After the panel, myself, my husband and an academic friend from Japan went out for dinner at Crown and saw "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" at the cinema. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in graphic novels.

Friday 10am: Shaun Tan's "The Lost Thing" short film adaptation

11am: A conversation between Kim Stanley Robinson and Robert Silverberg

12am: Book launch of Shaun Tan's The Bird King

1 pm: Signings by Shaun Tan and China Mieville

2 pm: Guest of honour speech by Shaun Tan

3 pm: Visit to the dealer's room to look at the art display

4 pm: Medical ethics in the 21st century

5 pm: Academic panel on race in SF

I also met Gregory Benford briefly and had a chance to browse some old school SF magazines in the dealer's room.