Trekcon 5: An Anniversary Celebration!

 Last Saturday I went to a mini con, which was celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Austrek, the Victorian Star Trek fan club. I was a member soon after it began in 1976, but haven’t been a member for some time. 

The club was founded by Geoff Allshorn, who was a schoolkid at the time. Some months ago, Geoff asked old members to write something for a book that was going with the convention; I wrote two short items. Quite a few others also did, so it was book length. 

When I got to the Northcote Town Hall, I saw a lot of familiar faces, as well as newer members. It was a nice surprise. I didn’t get there till about 1.00 pm, so missed the morning’s events. Apparently my name was mentioned as a fan writer for the club’s fanzine, SPOCK, who had become a professional. 

I did still get to see plenty. Someone had put together a lot of old photos to project on to a big screen, including a few of me. We did a lot of things together back then, and were shown in costumes. I was not much of a costumer, but did make a few simple things by hand. One thing we did was go to Nero’s Fiddle, a theatre restaurant on a Roman theme, so we all went in Roman costume. After the show, we were invited up on stage to show our costumes and asked if we had made them ourselves(we had). The MC said he had seen the first episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, which had just begun at the time, so afterwards we all crowded him to ask for details. There were a couple of photos of us dressed Roman in the screening.

This was followed by a fan film made by the club, City On The Edge Of The Yarra. Many people, even of our generation, hadn’t seen it. I had, but not for a long time. In it, Kirk and Spock go through the Guardian of Forever and turn up in Melbourne in our time. There, they stumble into a Star Trek convention. When they go back to the ship, the whole convention follows them. That was followed by a documentary I still don’t remember being made, but I was in it, being interviewed! There I was, wearing a cardigan I still have.

There was a costume parade in which the woman who won was dressed as Nona from the episode “A Private Little War”. (Nona was played by Nancy Kovack, who was Medea in Jason And The Argonauts .)She had done a good job. In the old days that would have been a hall costume, worn outside the panels, but it was something she had made herself, unlike two of the others. 

After that, I watched, intrigued, as people bid on various items in the auction. There were prints, knick knacks such as a Guardian Of Forever and model characters from the show, books. Nobody bid over about $70 on anything, but they bid on more than one item, so spent a lot anyway. I remember a Blake’s 7 convention I attended in England where someone bought a pair of sunglasses worn by the actor Paul Darrow in the play Are You Lonesome Tonight? for £275! Not dollars, pounds!  I mean, a pair of sunglasses! Even if the buyer wore them, who would know what they were unless she bragged? Of course, she was American, so perhaps took them home and sold them for far more at a US convention. 

I didn’t bid on anything, as I already have enough goodies. But it was fun to watch. 

After the auction,  the anniversary cake was cut and I went home. There were a couple more events, but the lady sitting next to me was going to a house right near where I live and invited me to go with her in an Uber. How could I resist? 

I got a copy of the anniversary book and have been reading and remembering. What memories! 

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On Re Reading Two Comfort Novels By Controversial Authors

 I’m reading a lot of books at present, but re reading two comfort novels in ebook. Both are by authors who are controversial at the moment, for different reasons. Fevre Dream is by George R. R Martin, best known for the series A Song Of Ice And Fire, unfinished after many years. 

He wouldn’t be the only one. Aussie YA novelist Isobelle Carmody wrote two volumes of a supposed trilogy, ending on a cliffhanger. Kids have been born and grown up since Book 2 came out. Like Mr Martin, she has written a lot of other stuff since then, but not the one her fans were waiting for. She did tell me, when we met some years ago, that she was 400 pages into the final novel, but if she has done any more since then, I haven’t heard of it.

When Fevre Dream came out, nobody had heard of George R. R. Martin outside of SF fandom. We couldn’t afford him now, but he did attend a convention at a small hotel in St Kilda. There were about 150 attendees, including me, about all the room there was in that tiny hotel. I think he was working on the novel at the time, but he talked about it. I bought a copy when it came out and loved it. In fact, I like it better than ASOIAF, which I consider a soap opera with dragons. 

So, what is it about? The title is the name of the steam boat on which most of the action takes place, set in the 1850s. Abner Marsh, who had had several boats, has lost all but one and that one is old and shabby. He is approached to build a fabulous river boat by Joshua York, a very, very rich man who only comes out at night. And yes, he is what you think - a vampire. But he is a decent vampire, who wants to stop biting people and has come up with a way to do it. There are others who also want to quit the habit, who join him. In this novel, vampires are not undead, they are a race. 

There is also a villain, of course, Damon Julian, who is not interested in giving up biting people. I’ll let you read the book and discover him for yourself.

The other bit of comfort re reading I am doing right now is American Gods by Neil Gaiman, who is currently in much bigger trouble than annoying fans for not finishing a book or two. You have probably heard about that. I haven’t heard of anyone who has burned their Gaiman collection as they have their Harry Potter books for a much lesser sin, of what the author said instead of what they did, but a lot of fans are very angry with him - or disappointed, as I am.

I haven’t bought any new Gaiman books in a long time, but I have this in ebook and loved it when I first read it. And I’m loving it just as much now. I saw the first season of the TV series, which was fairly faithful to the book, and some of the second season, but decided to hang out and wait until the novel was finished… which it never was, even after three seasons, and they sacked the actor who played Mr Nancy aka Anansi the spider god. By the way, if you want to read a novel set in this universe, Anansi Boys was brilliant and funny. There is an audiobook of the radio play and another of the novel, read by Lenny Henry. It’s about Mr Nancy’s two sons, one of whom got his powers and is the cool one of the pair, the other of whom is not remotely cool. 

So, what is American Gods about? It’s literally about gods in America. The old gods, who came to America with immigrants, in their heads, are having to deal with the new gods of technology, who were born in the US. The old gods are led by Odin. Instead of an eye patch, he has a glass eye. Early in the novel he picks up Shadow Moon, a newly released convict whose wife was killed in a car crash, offering him a job as his sidekick. As she was with his best friend, who would have given him a job after his release, he reluctantly agrees. The whole novel is a road trip through the US. There are individual chapters titled “  Coming To America” which tell us how the various gods came there. Two of the gods who have settled down quite comfortably in America are Thoth and Anubis, who run a “family” funeral parlour together,where Shadow Moon gets a job for a while.  Thoth, called Mr Ibis, is writing accounts of how his fellow gods got there.  In the TV series, though not in the novel, Mr Jacquel( Anubis) is a kind, smiling black man who helps the newly dead before they go to the underworld. One elderly woman, who dies when she falls off a chair, regrets that nobody will taste her stew now. Anubis tastes it for her and assures her it is good. 

I’m about a third of the way through my re read and still enjoying it.

If you are disappointed with the author, perhaps you might consider borrowing it from the library. My local library has a very good spec fic collection. Possibly yours has too.