If you haven’t put your votes in yet, you only have a bit over a day to put in for your favorites for the Locus Awards. If you are not familiar, Locus Magazine is the closest thing the science fiction publishing community has to a professional trade magazine. Voting closes April 1st. Just opened up is the initial set of nominations for the MTV Movie Awards, with their usual off the wall selection of categories. This is you chance to put in for some of the movies that got slighted at the other awards, like District 9, Star Trek 11, or even Avatar. Go out and make your voice heard! For those of you who are members of the SFWA, you have until midnight tonight PST to vote for the Nebulas this year.
A Fan-run con in Bloomington, MN is MarsCon; they have a goodly collection of guests and some interesting events, including Steampunk Bullwhip displays and Dragon Making by Committee.
CoastCon 33 in Biloxi, MS, is another Fan run con, this time with David Drake for the writer GoH and Nicky Clyne as the media GoH (the full guestlist is here).
StellarCon in High Point, NC is a general SciFi con. What I find interesting is it claims to be a smaller event, generally pulling around 500 attendees, and yet the guest list is large and includes some excellent authors.
Pikeville, AL will be hosting a Horror, Paranormal, and Cult film fest/con event called the Dark Woods Con. And RagnaroKon 10 is a Gamer con in Columbia MO.
One of the MediaCons this weekend is Creation Entertainment’s Twilight Con GA in Atlanta. The other media event is a Back to the Future reunion in Florance, AL
Lots of people look forward to holiday weekends because of the extra time you get, and fans are no different than anyone else in that respect. Give a fan an extra day or two, and they will look for a way to celebrate; one of the better celebrations is a good Con, and there are a lot of them this weekend. In fact it looks like this may be the final major weekend of the 2009 convention season, since December looks noticeably more quiet.
In Keokuk, Iowa we have KeoKon, a general readercon, with fan films, filk, Anime, and all the usual guests, costume ball, dealers rooms, etc. This one runs Friday and Saturday only.
ChambanaCon 39 takes place in Springfield, IL, and refers to itself as a RelaxCon. GoH this year is Eric Flint, and again all the usual ReaderCon events. This particular Con does seem to be heavily into Filk, with what looks to be a Con-long Filking room (Con long being Friday through Sunday).
OryCon 31 happens in Portland, OR, with Writer GoH Patricia Briggs, editor GoH Lou Anders, and several others. This ReaderCon has a lot going on.
LosCon 36 has the tag line BUT WAIT… THERE’S MORE!, and that seems to sum this event up. Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes are the writer GoH’s, themes include Dress Like A Pirate Day on Saturday, there is a Steampunk Science Competition… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You will have to visit the site to see what all is happening at this one.
Steampunk also features in to DarkoverCon in Baltimore, MD. The tracks at this Con are so rich they have built four of them into the web site, and you will find the Steampunk Events in the Alternate Track. Again this is a ReaderCon, built by fans for fans. The Video schedule has some rare gems, including the 2008 remake of The Survivors, based on the 1970’s classic BBC series. They will be showing all 6 hours of season one (yes, they are making a season 2); the original was created by Terry Nation, inventor of the Daleks. Another classic film offering is Mistress of Atlantis/Siren of Atlantis/L’Atlantide (1932); the queen is the Maria of “Metropolis,” Brigette Helm. And there are so many more, and still more tracks.
SorcererCon is somewhere between a ReaderCon and a MediaCon, and takes place in San Jose, California. Their baseline statement is to complex for me to re-quote here, but trust me, this is an event you will want to be a part of if you possibly can.
TardisCon in Chicago (or if you want to be nit-picky, Lombard, IL) looks to lead the pack for this weekends MediaCons. They have a truly impressive collection of talent here, centered around the 8th Doctor TV-Movie, with Paul McGann, Daphne Ashbrook (Dr. Grace Holloway), and Yee Jee Tso (Chang Lee) all taking part. Other media guests include Naoko Mori (Toshiko of Torchwood) and Nicholas Briggs, amongst still others.
Another Fan-run MediaCon this weekend is Star Base Indy located in Indianapolis, which has been running since 1988. It started life as a Trek con (witness Garrett Wang, William Morgan Sheppard, and Deborah Downey as the primary guests), but is now expanding itself to a wider fanbase.
There was a great article on paratime fiction over at io9 yesterday in Bad Boys of the Multiverse. It did include mention of Jerry Cornelius, the Airtight Garage, Amber, and the World of Tiers, among many others. It did not include any sign of Lord Kalvan or Keith Laumer, and Harry Turtledove was only included as a sort of in joke for the sharp eyed reader.
Geek Tyrant (or perhaps Geekty Rant) has posted a list of 5 Films that changed the way people look at Sci-Fi Movies. Starting with Metropolis, lobby posters and film clips are included. Over at Bookstove there is another list of the top 10 Science Fiction authors of all time. As with all such lists, both of these are subjective decisions, but it is fun to see what others think and comment on your own inclusions for the list. If you are at all into art, be sure to check out Mari Kasurinen’s My Little Pony collection. She has done some amazing work; I particularly like My Little Stormtrooper, Han Solo, and Boba Fet from the Star Wars universe, as well as the Trek, Batman, and Cthulhu entries. And a little Nerdcore…
io9 strikes again, this time with the 10 best Fan Collectibles that don’t exist… and neither do the fans. More than one of them was created by Joss Whedon. There is a new Mind Meld at SFSignal; this time the topic is Books That Hold Special Places in our hearts and on our shelves. I found quite a few favorites listed there, as well as a few I missed the first time around.