Swancon 17 – November report – The Perth SF&F Writers' Workshop

Posted on 5 March, 2019 by australian sf-history

Page 13 of the PR starts with “New stuff in the Non-Anime Video Stream”, and then goes on to:

The Perth SF&F Writers’ Workshop

The Perth SF&F Writers’ Workshop will be held on the weekend of 18th and 19th of January 1992 at St. Columba’s College, Stirling Highway, Crawley. The workshop will be a “sleep-over” event, and as such a fee of $20 to $30 will be charged for accommodation and hire of the venue (meals will be taken away from the venue and will be paid for by the individual attendees).

The Workshop Convener will be Dr. Philippa Maddern assisted by Lucy Sussex. Terry Dowling (a Principal Guest at the SwanCon 17 Convention) will participate in some of the Workshop. Philippa and Lucy will also appear as guests at SwanCon.

Applicants must submit an example of written work to the Workshop Convener. This piece may be used at the workshop, so be prepared to have it discussed, dissected and critically evaluated. It’s important to remember that the Writers’ Workshop is not the same as the very successful “mini-workshop”/writers’ discussion group which has taken place at SwanCon over the past two years and which will feature as part of the Conference at SwanCon 17. Workshop results may be discussed at that session, but otherwise the events are quite separate and distinct.

Please remember that attendance at the Workshop will be based on submission of a recent manuscript to the Workshop Convenor (Dr. Maddern) for appraisal, and that numbers will be strictly limited. Interested persons should submit a manuscript to Dr. Philippa Maddern c/o the History Department, University of Western Australia, Crawley, 6009. Any enquiries, including questions about payment, should be directed to The Festival of the Imagination, PO Box XXX, North Perth 6006.

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Swancon 17 – Westrek and JAFWA

Posted on 26 February, 2019 by australian sf-history

The SwanCon 17 July 1991 progress report has two unnumbered pages between pages 8 and 9. The first of these is a full page advert for the WA Star Trek Fan Club – Westrek (probably not going any more), while the second is a full page advert for JAFWA (Japanese Anime Fans of Western Australia – still going somewhere last I heard)

While as ever, we the transcribers are committed to faithfully transcribing all the typos we can bring ourselves to duplicate, there is no such dedication to replicating idiosyncratic layouts from before the dawn of HTML formatting. Ditto replicating out of date phone numbers and opening hours.

The first page is in a box, with a logo of the TOS enterprise above the outline of a map of Western Australia in the top left.

WESTREK
P.O. Box XXX, Bentley 6102, W.A.

IF YOU ENJOY

STAR TREK

In its various forms then Westrek is the club for you.

We meet at the Lapidary and Rock Hunting Hall, 31-25 Gladstone Road Riverdale on the last Friday of every month. The Meeting starts at 8:00pm.

A $2.00 door fee for non-members is charged, to help cover refreshment and hall costs. Door prizes can be won every month.

EVERYONE WELCOME!


For more Information
Call Ray Raspa on XXX XXXX
or write to us at PO Box XXX, Bentley WA 6102

The other page had no box around it but a large picture from the Dirty Pair Anime left centre, and bottom right several characters from Ranma 1/2 (Gemma, P-chan and Shampoo in their animal forms)

JAFWA Presents

ANIME NIGHTS

JAPANESE ANIMATION

TITLES SCREENED:
DIRTY PAIR
MEGAZONE 23
MAISON IKKOKU
GALL FORCE
ORANGE ROAD
CRYING FREEMAN
BUBBLEGUM CRISIS
OUTLANDERS
URUSIE[sic] YATSURA
RANMA 1/2
AKIRA

Saturdays X:XXpm to X:XXpm
XX Brampton Road, Wembly Downs
Phone Tom on XXX-XXXX*

*This is not where JAFWA is now. A google is likely to give you current location better than a post that may go out of date. So if that link doesn’t work please google.

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SwanCon 17 – Souvenir book – Imaginings: A Preface

Posted on 19 February, 2019 by australian sf-history

page 3 of the beautiful SwanCon 17 Souvenir Book is titled ‘Imaginings: A Preface’, written by Jeremy G Byrne, Programme Book Co-Editor. It starts with an epigraph attributed to ‘The Welcome Mat’:

“And all I see as I look through these years
Is ten thousand people with the same ideas

I don’t believe in half measures. It strikes me as particularly pointless to expend time and energy on a project if one doesn’t intends that it be the best it can. That philosophy has driven us, in the development of The Festival of the Imagination, to strive for something a little different. We could have chosen to simply organise and run a good convention; that would have sufficed. Instead, we chose to attempt far more. We planned a series of events to accompany the convention, and we planned far more development of the individual components that went to make up a “standard” convention than had been attempted before, at least in the small world of WA SF Cons. Whether this will be perceived as entirely successful remained to be seen, but the indications as of this writing are that things have gone well. How true that turns out to be is in many ways dependent on you, for only if the Festival has been worthwhile for its attendees will it have accomplished anything.

The symbolism of the cover of this book might not be apparent to some, and perhaps begs explanation. The choice of design was very deliberate. The colours we picked are green and gold; their connection to the Australian theme of the Conference is obvious, and is intended to be so. We feel that Australia has a strong endemic science fiction, currently in ascendancy, and that this should be recognised. This is neither parochial nor particularly patriotic; it’s simply recognising talent and quality where it exists. You’ll notice a dominant Australian content to this book; not simply science fictional, but local. It’s time, we feel, that more attention be shown it.

The choice of cover stock included consideration of the fact that it is recycled paper. Environmental consciousness is a facet of modern life, whether one is fanatical or indifferent. We live on the crest of a wave that’s sweeping into the future, and little things like this are constant reminders. How much attention was paid even five years ago to the use of recycled paper? Now, for example, certain local government departments are preparing to convert exclusively to its use, despite a cost disadvantage. Our choice is perhaps a token gesture (especially considering the terrible toll the production of this book alone has taken on the world’s paper supplies), but important nevertheless.

The illustration we have used as the centrepiece for the cover is of the floating city from Hiyao Miyasaki’s stunningly beautiful Tenku no Shiro: Laputa (“Laputa: Castle in the Sky”), and so has an obvious connection with the visual subgenre features at SwanCon 17, which is Japanese Animation or Anime. Yet it is far more appropriate than simply that for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Laputa is not a Japanese invention, but is taken directly from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, a classic piece of early science fiction (albeit heavily political and pointed social commentary besides). The idea of a utopian city which travels the globe, hovering above the oceans, suspended by the “magic” of magnetism and reachable only by air or during the brief periods when it descends to the surface is a marvellously imaginative and compelling one, and thus appropriate to a Convention which seeks to promote “the imagination”. Secondly though, the development of the story in Miyasaki’s film includes the crumbling, the decay of this flying island to little more than the citadel above the vast lodestone at its heart, tenuously held together by the roots of a gigantic tree. This magical place is dying, rapidly passing beyond salvation, desperately in need of renewal.

Perhaps the allusion is cynical. Perhaps it’s not really justified. Certainly it is pessimistic, but it does contain the seed of optimism. The tiny sprout on the back cover, the final word in this book if you will, is perhaps a better expression of our feelings. Criticism, even “constructive” criticism, is often simply damaging if unaccompanied by suggestion and contribution. It’s not my intention to be smugly critical in a po-faced and self-serious manner, nor to hijack a Festival publication for a swathe of trite and egoistic blathering, but more to try to promote reflection. The quote that opens this piece may seem just a little despairing, but its’ not meant simply to damn. Imagination and reflection are keys to both creation and renewal, and we’ve tried to foster both through the Festival. I feel (platitudinously, perhaps) that hope springs eternal and, with careful nurturing, so will achievement. Perhaps this Festival will have contributed to that hope. If so, it will have been enough.

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Swancon 17 – November report – Dreamers in the Net (Part 2)

Posted on 12 February, 2019 by australian sf-history

Pages 20-21 of this progress report have to do with one of the Cyberpunk RPGs being run at the convention – Dreamers in the Net. Page 21 contains the advert with the title Dreamers in the Net in very big letters and then the tagline was “In Cyberspace, Everyone can hear you Dream. It is apparently a FANTASY ROLEPLAYING ADVENTURE for a group of five players of ALL LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE using a SYSTEMLESS RPG ORGANISATION incorporating elements of CYBERPUNK II. To be run during PARSEC, written by Stefan Brazil with ideas from the PARSEC committee. The preceding page has the second of a faux newspaper article, the first having been produced in the July progress report, giving background to the adventure.

The Urban Outback by Gerry Cornell

Part 2: Virtually Alone.
This asphalt desert recedes towards an infinitely distant horizon. The sky is a deep purple, heavy with ominously black banks of cloud, and the quality of its crimson light is almost carnal. Tendrils of actinic white flicker down to kiss the ground far, far away, and each brief flash raises a puff of fluorescent violet that, at this huge distance, could be the passing of a mountain. Before us is the “piece”. My companion, never quite satisfied with his art, hovers at its four metre peak, sharpening the emerald spines with a fingertip. I am uncharacteristically awed. Worldly sophistication fails me in the presence of this object d’impossible. I know it is not alive, but its writhing is primally disturbing. The child-like faces that peer out from amongst the twisted steel girders, distorted street-signs, neon advertising and twisting ropes of slick, grey-green flesh are blank, dull-eyed, uncomprehending. I know its name because it whispers it over and over in the weirdly echoing silence of this place, its voice saying nightmare and city and anger and pain in a rugged undercurrent of sibilants just at the edge of sound. Its name is its message and its ultimate pathos. Its name is “Home”.

Gabrielle Julian Robinson is a naïve artist. His work, while lavishly presented and poignantly emotive, is quite often cliched and overdone. He constantly refers to his roots in the pre-Closure US Urban tribalism of the late 1980s, with its youth art of graffito, its “bombing”, rap music and linguistic exclusivity. Yet it’s a false affinity, for their world and his are far apart, and in my conversations with this strangely talented and strangely lost young man, I came to feel he beautifully illustrated, far more in what he was than in what he produced, much that is wrong with our society of today.

Gabrielle works four hours a night in his elder sister’s Coffee-Sushi Bar, sweeping floors, cleaning tables, finding taxis for the drunks. In his room, amongst the paraphernalia of inner-city youth of thirty years ago and half the Earth away, are a Kaeida Scope™ virtual visualisation system with its pre-beta copy of Autodesk Japan’s incredible Nu-Reality II real-world modeling package with professionally customized Materials Palette, four SonyZai VR suits, an NEC Hyperlink® ultra-high speed, satellite-based Net-portal, and an experimental holo-store subsystem which can hold a billion of his worlds within its palm-sized case. These items carry a street value of over six hundred and twenty thousand yen. Gabrielle earns less than A¥35 a night, on average. Who pays?

Coming out of the world of “Home”, Gabrielle and I share a Coke and a chat while he reads the Net. Casually, as though it were something he might do every afternoon, he shows me a hack-line via Greece that penetrates the Desert Wall. I watch a cable-TV broadcast in what was once Syria, read some electronic mail from the offices of a textile trader in North Africa to a colleague in Baghdad, and catch a snippet of Arabic news about riots in Old Cairo. Suddenly we are speaking with a Wandering Jew – a woman who calls herself Rachel Bein – but she’s far too cautious to say much about the present-day fate of her former country folk, and I learn nothing new. Gabrielle boasts that he has cut TAPE to a secret Old South African system in Azania and seen documentation relating to a CRS-like virus being developed in the late 1990s as a bioweapon in the Inter-Racial war, but it’s quite possible he’s merely recounting something he’s read in the speculative press. The world flashes by on his giant wall-panel and I am drunk with it.

The truth of the matter is that Gabrielle and hundreds like him are part of the great technological mousecage Australia. They are experimental animals; cheap R&D tools for the huge Japanese and Taiwanese TechnoCorps. This last year, Gabrielle has lost two friends to VR and Net accidents. Three more have suffered significant damage to their vision or hearing. Another is in hospital in a deep coma and Gabrielle himself suffers pre-Parkinsonian symptoms as a result of an experimental cortical-tap that simply didn’t work. Yet he will not stop; he’s got nothing else to live for.

We often ask the question: Would we be better without Japan and without the huge inrush of Hong Kong money at the end of last century? Would we be better if America still existed as we new her, or if Fortress Europe cared? The answer isn’t clear, but I can’t say I think so. It’s been said that failure to shift our economy into the post-industrial world did this to us. It’s been claimed we sold what we had and never made what we could have. It’s been charged that we were lazy, that we were over governed, that we were ripe for the plucking. I look at Gabrielle and others like him, and I think I see the truth. We were simply alone; self-interested and unwilling to involve ourselves with the world. And now we’ve lost our chance. Our euro-Australian middle class is generally unemployed, unemployable, unhappy and ignored in their inner-city housing units. Our youth are aimless, barely able to raise a cry of protest, so deep is their despondency. We are a colony that’s no longer even a nice place to visit, and we’ve got to live here. This is our Home.

16 – The Cityscape Dec 10 2019

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Swancon 17 – July 1991 Progress Report – Dreamers in the Net (part I)

Posted on 5 February, 2019 by australian sf-history

Being page 13 of the SwanCon 17 July 1991 Progress Report. Part II will be posted in the near future.

This page features a faux newspaper clipping about ‘The Urban Outback’ (which requires a bit of a content warning for being icky – this is cyberpunk after all). It includes two columns of text, part of an advert that encourages the reader to “Come … New America” and mentions “PanAm Tours Christmas Special”. The bottom quarter of the page includes the details of the “Dreamers in the Net” tournament.

The Urban Outback by Gerry Cornell

Part 1: All God’s Children?
Roger Castumis was a fourth generation Australian. He lived with his seventy year old grandmother, his father – for six years a bedridden cripple following an industrial accident – and his five year old brother Yiani, a congenital CRS sufferer. Roger’s meagre income, gained principally from selling his body in the streets and Jolt in the Vinyl Clubs of Colworth Avenue, barely kept hunger at bay and the bailiffs from their door. At half-past eleven on Tuesday Night, Roger’s body washed up on the foreshore at Lindsay, a single massive wound obliterating his face and his severed left thumb jammed down his throat. To anyone familiar with Polis’ social underbelly, Roger’s death means one thing: he had fallen foul of the drug culture he had been forced to serve.

Sixty five percent of the urban unemployed between the ages of fifteen and thirty five are regular or occasional users of the opiate-derived drugs that include Cocaine, Crack, Morphine, Jolt, Endo and Heroin. Ninety Six percent of all raw and processed opium that entered Polis in the past three years came from poppies grown under the Sun that warms the roofs of the great cathedrals of the South American Apostolic Union. Estimates of the value of this enormously stable commodity exceed A¥600million per annum, and it can hardly be doubted that a percentage of this money ends up in the coffers of the Papal See in Rio DeJaniro.

Last year alone over seven hundred missionaries from the Apostolic Union entered this state, and government and corporate funding has helped establish no less than eighteen hundred Urban Missions in Polis itself in the last four years. We are constantly being told of the good works of the Liberation Catholic missionaries in our community, amongst the poor and the homeless. No doubt most of these men and women are fine people, dedicated to their faith and those they serve, but their leadership in Rio, and our government in Canberra, have a different set of priorities.

Tonight, Yiani will sleep in a cot in the Mission of the Immaculate Conception in Argrave Place. He will cry for his brother, but Roger will not come. We live in a world where the cross and the needle are made in the same Brazilian factory, and it’s difficult to discern the will of God in this cold truth of political expediency.

108 – The Cityscape – Dec 03 2019


“DREAMERS IN THE NET”
The world is in a mess. The Soviet Empire has Shattered like a Glas Goblin,
The USA has closed its borders during a period of radical economic change,
Fortress Europe grinds away by itself 
while Post-Second Cultural Revolution China dies noisily.
The New Nationalist Australian government has sold itself to the Japanese
and the Multi-Function Polises sprawl across the coastal landscape.
In Polis, the biggest of them all, it’s cold, it rains all the time, everyone’s sick
and it’s Christmas time again. 

Dreamers in the Net is a roleplaying tournament for everyone. Inexperienced newcomer or hardened gaming wizard, this strange world of 2019 will challenge, surprise, perhaps bewilder, but above all entertain.

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SwanCon 17: July 1991 PR – PARSEC

Posted on 15 January, 2019 by australian sf-history

Pages 12 through 15 of the SwanCon 17 July 1991 progress report are a detailed presentation on ‘PARSEC – The Perth and Regional Simulation Entertainments Convention’. This post attempts to transcribe the text, and summarise the visual elements, which might get Rather Long. Page 13 contains Part I of the ‘Dreamers in the Net’ touting will be in a separate post, as will Part II, which features in November 1991 progress report. All typos and most formatting idiosyncrasies faithfully transcribed, but we draw the line at all caps; we’ve replaced those with genuine heading styles.

p12

At SwanCon 17 gaming will feature 24-hour access to a large, single venue in the Main Programming Facility (ie. not a Hotel Suite), and will have organised, exclusive use of the Main Programming rooms for the period from 10:00pm through 8:00am. We’ll have programmed items throughout the daylight hours and a number of “gaming” events which will appeal to a wider-than-normal audience.

A strong possibility exists, at this stage, that there will be a Gaming Guest for SwanCon 17. Paul Kidd, game designer (and “Furry Fandom” afficionado) will quite possibly attend the Con. Nothing is definite at this stage, but we’re hoping.

Panels, Presentations and Discussions –

See Conference Programme. Note that all such events will be “Anecdote Free” (except The Anecdote Panel), and anyone who forgets this rule will be gonged.

Tournaments, Competitions & Demonstrations –

There will be three Major tournaments (Roleplaying-related) and several Minor competitions (principally board-game related). Prizes are under negotiation.

The “Rail Baron” Tournament
To the left of the text advertising this tournament there is a line drawing of a train in rather odd perspective
This long-running, highly regarded event will occur again next year and will hold a prominent place at PARSEC. The perpetual trophy, that Amazing, Magical Growing Train, will be awarded to the winner, providing it can be found in time! Anyone knowing the whereabouts of this important part of WA Fannish tradition, please contact the committee.

Ancients Wargaming Demonstration
The Napoleonic Wargaming Society will be holding a demonstration session of Ancients Wargaming. This is sure to be fascinating and informative.

Miniature Figure Painting Competition
We will be holding a Figure Painting Competition and display at SwanCon 17. Categories will include Fantasy (single), Fantasy (Group), SF (Single), SF (Group) and Best Overall. Details and prizes in later Progress Reports, but start painting now!

The “Warhammer 40,000” Tournament
This ever-popular game of a strong and distant future will be featured prominently at SwanCon 17. Please Note: this will be a strictly Bring Your Own Figures event.

The “Star-Fleet Battles” Tournament
To the right of this section, is a solid silhouette of a Klingon Bird of Prey, all of 2cm across
This tournament, now three years old and growing ever more popular, will be held again in 1992. A shield with the winner’s name inscribed and some monetary prize yet to be determined will be awarded to the winner.

p13 – this consists entirely of information on ‘Dreamers in the Net’, which will be featured in a future post

p14 – The majority of this page is taken up by a black rectangle with text and line drawings in relief. Text includes:

In the tradition of Indiana Jones & Errol Flynn and Tim Powers’ “on Stranger Tides” comes …

PARSEC and The Festival of the Imagination present
Blood Magic
A LACE & STEEL Adventure

The Seventeenth Century Will Never Be The Same

Blood Magic is a Fantasy roleplaying tournament adventure for a group of Five experienced players
Based on the Lace & Steel system designed by Paul Kidd.

This white-on-black text (and some more nearly unreadably small below) surrounds a rapier with the basket hilt at the top of the image and the point nearly to the bottom of the space; this is crossed by a many petalled rose with leaf and long stem

The last 3-4cm of the page have

“BLOOD MAGIC”
Written for the Featured System “LACE & STEEL”, Blood Magic will be a fabulous romp through the world of 1610, from Eastern Europe to the New World, with the fell of Tim Powers’ On Stranger Tides and all the courtly intrigue you could want.

The Tournament will require organised groups of 4-6 players, and may be partially games-mastered by its inventor, Paul Kidd (see above).

p15 – starts continuing on with the details from page 12

“The Tendered Tournament”
The third role-playing tournament to be run at the convention will use the “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Second Edition” rules, and will use a module designed by the winner of a design competition open to all Australians. The competition will be promoted as widely as possible throughout the country and closes on Friday October 4, 1991. The winner will receive a $50.00 cash prize, have his or her module used as the Official AD&D Tournament Module at the Con, and will be awarded free membership to help “DM” the module. Guidelines as follows:

System: Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Second Edition. (Some slight deviation from these rules is acceptable, but must be exhaustively explained in the “Notes to the DM” section).
Characters: Party of 5-7, of 4th to 7th level (your choice on exact figures). Characters must be pre-generated and included in the module.
Time: Two sessions of 4-5 hours (the sessions must be clearly distinct and self-contained – suitable for Tournament Play).
Presentation: Texts must be typed or printed with wide margins. Availability in computer form (IBM, Macintosh, Amiga) is an advantage. All maps must be provided in a form which is usable without modification; neat and well-ruled with wide margins; preferably with all writing, labelling etc. on a separate sheet or overlay.
Style: Emphasis on thinking and roleplaying is encouraged, but past-paced and enjoyable play is essential

All manuscripts etc. must be include Name, Address, Phone Number, and Age, and must be disposable (ie. no submission will be returned). The Con reserves the right not to award a prize (in which case we’ll have to design the module ourselves!)

FREEFORM: Shadows on the Sun –

Murder, mayhem and mystery in the Court of the Sun King. Based on the works of Alexander Dumas, this Freeform will last for five hours and will be an intense total-involvement event testing wit, organisation, deductive skill and role-playing ability. Participants will probably be costumed. Freeforms are a new feature of SwanCons, similar to Live Rolesplaying, which has been around for many years. SwanCon 16 featured a new style, brought to us from the Sydney Conventions: The Freeform. Emphasis is on acting, self-motivation and autonomous effort. It’s fun, highly involving and a perfect way to “get away from it all” at a Con. Try it at 17.

Beer and Pretzels

Because programmed gaming events can be a bore at times, because variety is the spice of life, because the social events might not live up to their promise, and just because you feel like it, the Convention will offer facilities for casual gaming in a semi-organised environment. Thus: “Beer and Pretzels”. Every night of the Convention, half of the Main Gaming Area in the convention facility will be devoted to casual gaming with nibbles and drinks available at very reasonable prices. Games to be made available will include:

Shogun, Cosmic Encounter, Titan, Blood Bowl, Diplomacy

The Sunday Night of “Beer and Pretzels” will be a theme evening; “Silly Old Games”. It will feature demonstration games of such ancient and hoary classics as “Boot Hill” “Metamorphosis Alpha”, “Tunnels and Trolls” etc.

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The Festival of the Imagination Progress Report January 1992 p15

Posted on 8 January, 2019 by australian sf-history

I think this is the last page of this progress report that needs transcribing, so I’m going to do at least part of it so we can cross it off. Page 15 is an ad for a thing called ORION. A brief google does not turn up any sign of its actual existence, but it’s an interesting look at what was being attempted at the time.

A new venture from a desktop publisher, realising a life-long interest in science fiction and fantasy…

Published quarterly, or as material permits, ORION is planned as a high-quality illustrated book of around 150pp: large format, with computer graphics, half tone art, compacted type, book-bound in astonishing covers. A lot of reading for your dollar!

The first volume is complete but we are very interested in seeing your work for future issues. […] ORION is semi-pro, with a combination of cash-reimbursement for one-time rights for brief material, and payment in one or more copies for longer pieces.

In the premier issue is a fine collection of fiction:

blah blah blah

The pricetag of ORION will be in the region of $17.95, but please send no money now. A SASE will enter you to the mailing list. We hope to publish in June 1992, and in April/May will be seeking firm reservations or subscriptions before we go to press. […]

ORION

JJ Adamson/Editor, PO Box XXX   Brighton   SA   5XXX

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SwanCon 17: Progress Report July 1991, p19

Posted on 25 December, 2018 by australian sf-history

page 19 of the Swancon 17 July 1991 progress report has two text sections, being ‘Education Seminar: Science Fiction in Education’ and ‘The Short Story Competition’. As ever, all typos faithfully reproduced, including the completely bewildering dating system in use for the summary of the either upcoming or post-dated Education Seminar.

Education Seminar

Science Fiction in Education

Seminar 1992

The Festival organisers are currently engaged in the planning of a Seminar on Teaching Science Fiction and Fantasy, aimed specifically at professional educators. It’s our intention to hold a one-day seminar on December 4th 1990 at the Ascot Inn (the best venue we’ve come across in WA). It will comprise a series of presentations, discussions and lectures coordinated by professional educators and will be open to the general teaching community. The organisers will be commissioning professionals to produce Teachers’ Notes and other relevant literature for use by the Seminar attendees. This material will be published and presented in as professional a manner as possible, allowing it to be used by the attending teachers on return to the classroom, and will comprise a very important part of the event itself.

Advertising of the Seminar will take place in Ministry of Education publications and we’ll probably also advertise by some form of direct mailing to the target audience. It should be noted that the Seminar will be funded and run as an event totally separate from the SwanCon 17 component of the Festival, and is likely to provide extra funds for the Con itself. Due to the fact that the event is still in the planning stage, all of the above information is subject to change. For further information on the Seminar, contact Richard Scriven or Mark Bivens

The Short Story Competition

The short story competition traditionally associated with SwanCon may be run slightly differently next year. As a separate Festival Event, it is hoped that the competition will be run as a State-Wide Competition through the Secondary School system (much like the Young Writers’ Competition). It’s envisaged that entries will be divided into two divisions (Secondary – for High School Students of years 8 through 10 – and Open – for all persons from year 11 upwards, including University Students and people no longer in the eco nation system) or perhaps three (separating the year 11 and 12 students from the others in the Open Category), with prizes being awarded in each. Commercial sponsorship or grant funding be sought, to provide money for advertising, administration and prizes.

Details are yet to be resolved, except the Open Division, which is currently accepting entries:

Genre Fiction up to 8,000 words, any subject. Post to the Festival Address.

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SwanCon 17 – Valhalla & M A R S

Posted on 18 December, 2018 by australian sf-history

The SwanCon 17 July 1991 progress report has two unnumbered pages between pages 12 and 13. The first of these is a full page advert for Doug Thorp’s Valhalla Games and Hobbies, while the second is a full page advert for M A R S*

While as ever, we the transcribers are committed to faithfully transcribing all the typos we can bring ourselves to duplicate, there is no such dedication to replicating idiosyncratic layouts from before the dawn of HTML formatting. Ditto replicating out of date phone numbers and opening hours.

The top quarter or so of the Valhalla advert has a partial grid of tessellated hexagons, with ‘Doug Thorp’s’ in one section of white space and ‘Valhalla Games and Hobbies’ in the other. Immediately below that is ‘(brought to you by the founder of the original Simulations 1976-85)’. Other than a teeny tiny mud-map squeezed into a barely large enough space, the rest of the page contains text, text, and more text. To whit:

Yes, it’s Doug Thorp back again!!
We’re rebuilding Perth’s best Games and Hobbies Shop, and we invite all interested to join us. We’re a little hard to find at the moment (being Phase 1), but we should soon be in bigger and better premises. Games Days are already held on Saturdays (soon Sundays too), and Games Weekends are coming up!!

Come and see Perth’s largest range of games!!

Wellington Buildings (second floor)
158 William St. (cnr Wellington St.) Perth
(entry from William St. diagonally opposite the bus station)**

Ed: phone numbers and opening hours are detailed here

Wargames   Fantasy-SF   RPGs   Figures   Kits   Books
Paints   Kites   Jigsaws   Software   Secondhand

DISCOUNTS
Subscribers to our monthly newsletter “Thundergod Previews”
get discount on everything, Christmas bonus and a monthly bonus!!

School holidays hours
Our shop is open earlier during school holidays

Photography and Video Services
We can provide photography and video services for weddings, parties, balls, anything!!

The MARS advert has a nice double line border around the whole page, and a watermark so carefully faded to not obscure the text that we are only mostly sure that it is the MARS logo of the time. It should not be surprising that the advert for a university geek club is even more wordy than that for a shop catering to their more wealthy friends and acquaintances.

M A R S
MARS stands for “Murdoch Alternative Reality Society”. We are an affliliate society to the Murdoch University Guild of Students and our main objective is the promotion of the genre (science fiction, horror and fantasy) through a variety of media.

The club was formed in February 1988 and is currently one of the most active clubs of its kind in WA. Some of our past and present activities include:

  • The holding of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons tournaments
  • Cheap Video Nights with movies ranging from “Danger Mouse” to “Star Trek: The Next Generation”
  • The production of “Phantasmagoria”, the club’s fanzine/annual
  • Discount group movie bookings to such movies as “Batman” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”
  • Subsidised membership to Swancon (we knew that would catch your attention!)
  • Compilation of surveys on the popularity of various RPGs in Perth’s gaming community
  • The holding of thrice-weekly gaming nights

In addition, the club has probably the most substantial games library in WA, with a wide variety of RPGs, boardgames, wargames and magazines. Club members also receive a 10% discount at Tactics, Simulations, Valhalla Games, A Touch of Strange (games only) and Quality Comics (for purchases over $20.00).

Althought the club is a Guild affiliated society, membership is not restricted to Murdoch students. Annual Membership is $5.00 for Murdoch Guild Members and $10.00 for non-Guild Members. Interested?

Then Contact
Anthony Anderson (1991 Club Secretary ) on xxx xxxx
or Write to MARS
c\- Guild of Students Murdoch University, South St, Murdoch 6150

* Ed: yes, it probably says ‘MARS’, but the spacing is so dramatic that it just looks better this way
** Ed:The one they keep moving.

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SwanCon 17: July 1991 PR p9

Posted on 11 December, 2018 by australian sf-history

page 9 of the SwanCon 17 July 1991 progress report has two text sections, being ‘General Features’ and ‘Hotel Video System’. The white space left over is filled with a drawing of the eponymous character of My Neighbour Totoro. It isn’t obvious at first glance, but this is actually the second page of the information on the ‘Video Stream with a Japanese Flavour’ (see here for the first half). As ever, all typos faithfully reproduced.

General Features

The philosophy we’re using in the selection of the General Features for 17’s Video Stream is: significance, rarity and popularity. Though we’ll play what be believe is rarely seen and has been overlooked, if it’s not also likely to entertain, we won’t show it. Some of the things you can expect to see are:

Comic Book Confidential – the best and most entertaining comics doco ever made.
Earth vs the Flying Saucers – 1954 (and proud of it).
The Plague Dogs – Richard Adams’ classic adapted & animated ala Watershed Down.
Destroy all Monsters – Party Down with Godzilla and friends.
Forbidden Planet – The rare, uncut version.
Spike and Mike’s Festival of Animation – short gems, including “Bambi vs Godzilla”.
The Films of George A. Romero – a doco on Night of the Living Dead‘s director.
Meet the Feebles – Come and be amazed.
Thunderbirds Are Go! – by popular demand. FAB!
The Hobbit – NBC’s animated version of Tolkien’s groundbreaking fantasy.
Rocket Man – The original 1940s serial.
A Selection of the Best Sci-Fi Trailers ever assembled on one tape.
Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland – Forry’s reminiscences on popular SF, featuring interviews including Ray Bradbury.
Shada – The unfinished Dr. Who story by Douglas Adams that became Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
Star Trek: The Next Generation – choice new-season episodes.

Hotel Video System –

There are 72 hours available here – we have complete access to the hotel’s in-house system (there is a TV in every room). We plan to program mini-festivals and marathons, special features to complement room parties and off-beat features which will naturally attract a smaller audience. Some of our ideas are:

Twin Peaks – David Lynch’s bizarre and disturbing counter-soap.
Red Dwarf – Popular British Hitchhiker Rip-off (including 3rd & 4th season!)
Black Adder – Stunningly amusing depiction of History as it should have been.
The Prisoner – Arguably the only cult series that deserves to be a cult series.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus – No comment required (spang).
A TV Dante – Peter Greenaway’s weird adaptation (Anyone got a good copy of this?)
Blake’s Seven – Arguably the only cult series that has truly cult followers.

British Comedy Series – The Young Ones, Ripping Yarns, Comic Strip Present etc.
Gerry Anderson Series – Wooden Men in Plastic Spaceships – UFO, Space 1999 etc.
Flash Gordon through the Ages – 1930s to 1980s (Flesh Gordon may appear).
Surrealist Oz SF – Razorback, Gremlins of the Clouds, Incident at Ravensgate etc.
Humorous Horror – House, Evil Dead I&II, Return of the Living Dead etc.

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