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.