Scifi, scifi, scifi! Oi! Oi! Oi!

When you open The Age’s A2 supplement for a leisurely Sunday morning read and discover an article about the Hugo Awards titled It’s SF, but not as we know it, and said article reels off names like Paolo Bacigalupi, China Mieville, and Catherynne M Valente while giving a Booker-like roundup of the shortlisted works, well, then you know something odd is going on.

That something odd is, of course, AussieCon4, the 68th World Science Fiction Convention in Melbourne, which starts on Thursday.

And I’m good to go. I’ve organized days off from the Arvo Job, highlighted the program (check out Robert Silverberg and other such SF luminaries, try to get Kim Stanley Robinson to sign my treasured, but now yellowing copies of Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, learn how to make a Dalek with Lego blocks*...), cleared my camera and charged the batteries.

So yipeee! Only 4 sleeps to go!

*I later realised that the 'Build a LEGO Dalek' is in fact part of the kids program, as are 'Light saber making and training' and 'Steampunk my iPhone and iPad'. Drats, drats, drats. Bloody kids have all the fun.