Tag Archives: Anticipation

2013 Hugo Nominations Break Record

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For the fifth consecutive year Worldcon members have cast a record-breaking number of Hugo nominating ballots. LoneStarCon 3 received 1,343 valid nominating ballots, exceeding the 1,101 received by Chicon 7 last year. Prior to that, Renovation received 1,006 in 2011, Aussiecon 4 received 864 in 2010 and Anticipation received 799 in 2009, each a record-setting figure at the time.

This record-setting trend likely gained momentum from a rules change effective in 2012 which broadened the voting base. Since last year, members in the forthcoming Worldcon have been allowed to nominate too, just as members of the current and previous Worldcon have long been able to do. LonCon 3 in 2014 is a European Worldcon, and I would guess has many members who don’t typically join when the con is in North America, making the universe of potential Hugo nomination voters that much larger than it was in 2012 when the pool consisted of members of three U.S. Worldcons (Renovation, Chicon 7, LoneStarCon 3).

The 2013 Hugo Award nominees will be announced on Saturday, March 30, starting at 3 p.m. CDT.

The nominations announcement will be made simultaneously at four conventions in the United States and United Kingdom, with the shortlists being published through the LoneStarCon 3 website immediately afterwards.

Conventions taking part in the announcement are:

  • Norwescon 36, in Seatac, WA (1 p.m. PDT)
  • Minicon 48, in Bloomington, MN (3 p.m. CDT)
  • Marcon 48, in Columbus, OH (4 p.m. EDT)
  • EightSquaredCon, the British National Science Fiction Convention (Eastercon), in Bradford, England (8 p.m. GMT).

Nominations will also be released category by category via the LoneStarCon 3 Facebook page at www.facebook.com/LoneStarCon3 and the LoneStarCon 3 Twitter feed at twitter.com/LoneStarCon.

The full press release follows the jump.

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Rooms With A View

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The Haggard Room.

Chicon 7 will recreate as an exhibit the Haggard-themed room from the home of GoH Jane Frank and her husband, Howard.

The Franks’ admiration for H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, She and his other lost world stories inspired them to design a room in their house to showcase specifically commissioned art based on Haggard’s work. Decorated in Victorian-era furnishings, the Haggard Room displays thematic art by Michael Whelan, Don Maitz, and Bob Eggleton, Gary Ruddell, Donato Giancola, Ian Miller, Jeffrey Catherine Jones, Richard Bober, and Steve Hickman.

Chicon’s exhibit will be the most opulent room recreation ever presented by a Worldcon, a real peek into how “the other half lives” when you consider what has gone before.

Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon in Montreal, used large graphic photos to reproduce the apartment of its Fan GoH Taral Wayne, the visuals as intricately detailed as a Taral fanzine cover because of all the collections on display.

Entry to Taral's apartment at Anticipation.

Collections on display in Taral's apartment at 2009 Worldcon.

Previously, Chicon 2000 decorated its Fan Lounge to resemble the living room of a typical Chicago fan in the ‘80s, furnished with an ill-assorted bunch of old couches, lamps and end tables. One couch was occupied by two crash-test dummies dressed as Neil Rest and Phyllis Eisenstein – bearded “Neil” wearing sandals, jeans and a Windycon 7 t-shirt, and “Phyllis,” attired in black, a goth ahead of her time. Poor-fan’s bookcases made of boards and cinder blocks lined the perimeter of the room.

Roger Sims and Dave Kyle with “Neil” and “Phyllis” in the Chicon 2000 Fan Lounge.

These room recreations make innovative use of the exhibit space and have all been fun. I wonder if there been any others than the ones I remember?

Update 07/27/2012: Corrected identification of Chicon 2000 Fan Lounge crash-test dummy to Neil, per comment.

Smofcon Scholarships Available

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CanSMOF Inc., parent non-profit organization of Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon, is offering two scholarships to conrunners to attend Smofcon 29 in Amsterdam. SMOFcon will be held December 2-4, 2011.

Each scholarship will be worth up to C$1000. One will go to a Canadian, preferably someone who has not attended SMOFcon before. The other will be awarded without restrictions.

The full press release follows the jump.

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CanSMOF Awards Scholarships

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CanSMOF Inc., parent non-profit organization of Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon, has announced the winners of its two $500 scholarships given for the purpose of allowing promising conrunners to attend the Smofcon 28 in San Jose.

Kent Pollard of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan won the scholarship open to a Canadian citizen or resident. Norman Cates of Wellington, New Zealand won the scholarship open to anyone regardless of their place of residence or citizenship.

Psychological Distance

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The day after Aussiecon 4 ended, Renovation, the 2011 Worldcon, issued a press release drawing attention to the “changing of the guard.”

“With four of the last six Worldcons held outside the U.S., it’s great to bring Worldcon to Reno for the first time,” said Patty Wells, Renovation’s chair. “We hope to welcome back many fans who may have missed the last couple of conventions as well as reach out to new fans who have never been to Worldcon.”

I hadn’t thought that 2009’s “outside the U.S.” Worldcon was really that far away, Montreal being a mere 331 miles from the center of the publishing universe in New York. But when I said so several fans answered that the requirement of crossing the U.S. border was a more important deterrent than the trivial distance involved. (We had this discussion before Peter Watts’ border experience — I wouldn’t have to be convinced now.)

How many fans will feel that a Worldcon held in Reno is psychologically less far away than the geographically-nearer Worldcon in Montreal?

The full press release follows the jump.

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Chicago in 2012 Confirmed in Early Returns

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Chicago’s uncontested bid to host the 2012 Worldcon reportedly polled 447 votes out of 526 cast by members of Aussiecon 4. Another 20 ballots expressed no preference, while the remaining 59 were scattered among write-ins that will be identified later in an official report.

The figures were released in advance of the Sunday Business Meeting at which the site selection result will be officially announced and the Chicago committee will announce its guests of honor.

Around that time PR#0 will be distributed, the 2012 Worldcon’s website will go live, and Aussiecon 4 will put out a press release to the media.

This site selection vote total, 526, is the smallest for any year since 1974 (the earliest listed by Smofinfo). It’s only a shade less than the number of votes cast in 1975 at Aussiecon 1 (528) and in 1985 at Aussiecon 2 (527), but hundreds fewer than were cast in 1999 at Aussiecon 3 (820) so this isn’t something people were expecting simply because the vote was being held Down Under.

The 2012 committee be starting with substantially less funds than most Worldcons do. Something that will help is the pass-along funds they’ll receive from the 2009 Worldcon. The last public figure I saw indicated three future Worldcons (2010-2012) would get $22,500 from Anticipation’s surplus.

Meantime, Secret Masters of Fandom looking for their fanpolitical fix should read Kevin Standlee’s summary of the Main Business Meeting.

Standlee has also announced there is a low-res video recording of the Preliminary Business Meeting available for viewing.

You can also keep up with what is happening through the convention’s onsite newsletter, Voice of the Echidna.

The newsletter reports that attendance at close of business Friday consisted of “1582 preregistered members on site, as well as 52 walk-in full members. On Friday, there were 67 Friday day members.” I guess this means 1701. Which is a very enterprising number.

Anticipation Is Makin’ Me Wait

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Actually the waiting is over! Chris Garcia has posted the highly entertaining Fanzine Cover In An Hour featuring art improvised at Anticipation by Taral, Marc Schirmeister and Steve Stiles.

The zine’s official title is rather longer and here is Chris’ explanation of how he ended up with “Go Drop Dead” An Anticipation Fanzine in an Hour…kinda —

The theme for the art, which I got from the audience was…tentacles and airships! It did my heart good, being such a fan of both Cthuhlu and Steampunk. I asked folks for a suggestion for a title, particularly bothering Marc [Schirmeister], who told me to ‘Go Drop Dead”. That is how titles are made!

In one of several short articles between the drawings of tentacles and airships Chris Garcia pays tribute to poutine, a Canadian comfort food that may possibly taste good but does not photograph well. It looks a lot scarier than all those sketches of Cthulhu.

Anticipation Pass-Along Increased

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Congratulations to Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon in Montreal, for increasing the amount of surplus funds it is passing on to future Worldcons.

The first checks were delivered at Smofcon to Aussiecon 4 and Renovation, with an equal amount reserved for the next Worldcon to adopt the pass-along policy (maybe the winning 2012 bid.)

Earlier this month René Walling, who co-chaired with Robbie Bourget, announced the amount each of the three Worldcons is receiving has been raised to US$22,500 in total.

Simply multiply by three and it works out that Anticipation’s surplus was at least $67,500, which is remarkable coming from one of the smaller Worldcons.

The pass-along policy is a commitment to distribute at least one-half of a Worldcon’s surplus to the next three Worldcons that make the same promise.  A con may pass on much more than 50% if it chooses, of course. In any event questions about the size of Anticipation’s surplus will be answered by its financial report to the Aussiecon 4 business meeting (or earlier, if Robbie and René decide.)

Paul Krugman’s Anticipation

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Economist Paul Krugman’s appearance at last year’s Worldcon received a couple paragraphs of analysis in a lengthy profile by Larissa MacFarquhar for The New Yorker.

“Last August, Krugman decided that before he and Wells departed for a bicycle tour of Scotland he would take a couple of days to speak at the sixty-seventh world science-fiction convention, to be held in Montreal. (Krugman has been a science-fiction fan since he was a boy.) At the convention, there was a lot of extremely long hair, a lot of blue hair, and a lot of capes. There was a woman dressed as a cat, there was a woman with a green brain attached to her head with wire, there was a person in a green face mask, there was a young woman spinning wool. There was a Jedi and a Storm Trooper. Those participants who were not dressed as cats were wearing T-shirts with something written on them: “I don’t understand—and I’m a rocket scientist,” “I see dead pixels,” “Math is delicious.” Krugman has always had a nerdy obsession with puns….

Krugman explained that he’d become an economist because of science fiction….. “If you read other genres of fiction, you can learn about the way people are and the way society is,” Krugman said to the audience, “but you don’t get very much thinking about why are things the way they are, or what might make them different. What would happen if ?”

[Thanks to Gary Farber for the link.]