Stardome Zeiss Telescope

If, like us, you have been following the fortunes of our friends at Stardome then you will know about the incident when their dome covering was stolen. So you will be delighted to hear that the Stardome Observatory & Planetarium reopened its EWB Zeiss Telescope to the public on Friday – you can make bookings on their site.

The usual assortment of space based activity is also available including a tribute show for Pink Floyd’s iconic album The Dark Side of the Moon’ which is hitting its 50th anniversary.

2024 SJV Awards – Less Than 2 Weeks Left to Nominate

The nomination period for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards will close at 11:59pm on 31st March 2024. That is less than 2 weeks away, so don’t let it drift – get your nominations in.

The SJV awards recognise excellence in science fiction, fantasy or horror works created by New Zealanders and/or New Zealand residents and first published or released in the 2023 calendar year. Anybody can make a nomination and it is free. To make a nomination, please see the form.

See the website for the categories. You can click through to the Rules and Criteria for the Awards and the Guidelines for nominations. The awards ceremony will be held later in the year at Continuity, full details to be announced closer to the time.

Asimov’s Annual Readers’ Awards Finalists

Major award ballots continue to come in. Another (i.e. not the same as the last ballot) Kiwi featuring in Asimov’s this time. Again, check out the link and play spot the Kiwi. Well done everybody.

GUFF Call for Nominations

2024 GUFF Call for Nominations Oceania to Europe

GUFF is the Get Up and Over (or Going Under) Fan Fund which transports SF fans from Oceania (Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia) to Europe (and vice versa).

Nominations in the race to send a fan Northbound to Worldcon in Glasgow, Scotland (8-12 August, 2024) are open to anyone who was active in fandom prior to January 2022. The winner could also travel to other parts of the UK and elsewhere in Europe to visit fans, as time permits. The winner will be expected to take over the administration of the fund for the next northbound and southbound races, and will ideally publish a report of their trip.

If you wish to stand, please contact us at the email addresses below. You will need three nominators from the southern hemisphere and two from Europe (who will each need to confirm their nominations), a platform of no more than 100 words to appear on the ballot, and a bond of AU$25/NZ$25 to guarantee attendance at the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow if you win. If you wish to stand and are unsure about how to go about getting any of these things, what the fund pays for or the duties of a GUFF delegate and administrator, then feel free to contact us in confidence.

Nominations are open from now until 23 March 2024. Candidates will be announced soon after, and voting will then run until 23:59 on 23 April 2024 (British Time – GMT + 1) with the winner announced online as soon as possible after voting has closed.

Nominations should be sent via email to NZ administrator Simon Litten at guff2020@ozfanfunds.com and UK administrator Alison Scott at guffeurope@gmail.com. The bond should be sent by PayPal to littenz@gmail.com.

Local SF Film Pitch

A local filmmaker reached out to us with the following…
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I’m writing to bring to your attention a new short film we shot in Auckland last year. It’s a quirky sci-fi called PleasureDora. It’s about a glitchy sex-bot at the end of her shelf life and her lonely final customer. Together they confront mortality, second chances, and what life on the scrap heap means for them.

It’s all shot and edited (we self-funded those parts) but we are currently crowdfunding to raise $10k for grading, sound design and music. I was wondering if you’d like to take a look. I think this could really vibe with local sci-fi fans who want to help create something.

There’s a video at the link below which gives you a flavour of what it will look and feel like.
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This is the link if you are curious – https://boosted.org.nz/projects/pleasuredora

Also a Facebook post with pictures relating to work with Jed Brophy on the film.

Australian Shadows Awards Open

The 2023 Australian Shadows Awards are also now open for submissions.

The Australian Shadows Awards celebrate the finest in horror and dark fiction published by an Australasian within the calendar year.

Entries are open across eight categories, for works written by an Australian or New Zealand writer.

Nominations for the 2024 SJV Awards open

Nominations for the 2024 Sir Julius Vogel awards are now being accepted. The nomination period will close at 11:59pm on 31st March 2024 The SJV awards recognise excellence in science fiction, fantasy, or horror works created by New Zealanders and New Zealand residents, and first published or released in the 2023 calendar year. Anyone can make a nomination and it is free!

All the details & links may be found on the main SFFANZ Site. (at the time of posting this, there are a couple of date typos on that site – no doubt they will be fixed, but you can probably work it out anyway)

Book Launch Event – Tim Jones

Tim Jones new climate fiction novel Emergency Weather is being launched at Unity Books on Wednesday 4 October and goes on sale that day too.

If you cannot make it, the book is now available for preorder at https://thecubapress.nz/shop/emergency-weather/, and will be available in independent bookshops from 4 October.

The launch is at Unity Books Wellington, 57 Willis St, from 6pm – feel free to share.

Here is the Facebook event to share.

Remember that we don’t advertise the release of books, but if you are having a publicly accessible launch event then we are happy to spread the word.

Sci Fi at Stardome is Back

Stardome is back up and running after their renovations. They have announced a new season of their “Sci Fi at Stardome” where they show a classic SF movie on their planetarium with popcorn included in the ticket price. Shows are every second Wednesday at 8pm starting with the original Men in Black on 26th July.

If you can’t read the attached graphic (click on it to enlarge), there is a calendar tool on the main Stardome homepage where you can see what is on. As well as the films, you might want to check out the Matariki open day and the school holiday programme.

Awardwatch : 2023 Hugo Finalists

The Chengdu Worldcon committee today posted the finalists for the 2023 Hugo Awards.

Here at SFFANZ News we only post international awards when Kiwis make it on to the ballot. And the Hugos are the biggest of all the awards. So it is the most significant of news when we congratulate Laya Rose and Tamsyn Muir (twice!!) for their nominations.

Congratulations to Laya and Tamsyn and to all the Hugo nominees.

2023 Sir Julius Vogel Award winners

SFFANZ is pleased to present the 2023 Sir Julius Vogel Award winners. These awards recognise works from the 2022 year. Congratulations to all our winners, and our thanks to the finalists for letting their works stand for nomination.

2023 SJV Awards – Less Than 2 Weeks Left to Nominate

The nomination period for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards will close at 11:59pm on 31st March 2023. That is less than 2 weeks away, so don’t let it drift – get your nominations in.

The SJV awards recognise excellence in science fiction, fantasy or horror works created by New Zealanders and/or New Zealand residents and first published or released in the 2022 calendar year. Anybody can make a nomination and it is free. To make a nomination, please see the form.

See the website for the categories. You can click through to the Rules and Criteria for the Awards and the Guidelines for nominations. The awards ceremony will be held later in the year, full details to be announced closer to the time.

Calling All Fans – Nominations Needed

So to set the mood for this call to action, I have just watched the opening credits for Stingray. If you don’t know it or just want to enjoy it again, here are the opening credits (in colour) for you – enjoy.

I hope that put you in the mood for action in the next half hour. The action we want is for all you fans of sf/f/h to get your SJV nominations in. Remember that the SJVs are a fan run award and so it absolutely relies on all you fans to nominate. If you have read or watched anything by a Kiwi creative in 2022 and you enjoyed it, then you should nominate it. Remember that the number of nominations for a work matters as that determines what gets on the final ballot.

Anybody can nominate, so there is nothing stopping you as all nominations count. Although, Fun fact, if you have paid the tiny membership fee for SFFANZ, not only do you get to vote in the final ballot, but your nominations carry an extra weighting. So why not join while you are contemplating who to nominate.

Here is the blurb about the nomination process from the last posting…

Nominations for the 2023 Sir Julius Vogel awards are now being accepted. The nomination period will close at 11:59pm on 31st March 2023. The SJV awards recognise excellence in science fiction, fantasy or horror works created by New Zealanders and/or New Zealand residents and first published or released in the 2022 calendar year. Anyone can make a nomination and it is free! To make a nomination, please see the form.

See the website for the categories and get busy reading NZ authors and watching NZ movies. You can click through to the Rules and Criteria for the Awards and the Guidelines for nominations. The awards ceremony will be held later in the year, full details to be announced.

2023 Sir Julius Vogel Awards Nominations Open

Happy New Year!!

Nominations for the 2023 Sir Julius Vogel awards are now being accepted. The nomination period will close at 11:59pm on 31st March 2023. The SJV awards recognise excellence in science fiction, fantasy or horror works created by New Zealanders and/or New Zealand residents and first published or released in the 2022 calendar year. Anyone can make a nomination and it is free! To make a nomination, please see the form.

See the website for the categories and get busy reading NZ authors and watching NZ movies. You can click through to the Rules and Criteria for the Awards and the Guidelines for nominations. The awards ceremony will be held later in the year, full details to be announced.

Classic SF Films at Stardome

Our friends at Stardome are back with another season of classic SF films. It kicks off 28 September and runs until mid December.

Films are shown against the night sky in the planetarium. Free popcorn with every ticket!

Dates and titles:
28 September 8pm: Moon
19 October 8pm: Close Encounters of the Third Kind
26 October 8pm: The Fly
2 November 8pm: Arrival
9 November 8pm: Ad Astra
16 November 8pm: Looper
30 November 8pm: Sunshine
7 December 8pm: The Terminator
14 December 8pm: Armageddon

Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for seniors/students. Half price for members.

SpecFicNZ AGM

The SpecFicNZ AGM is coming up in September and they are on the lookout for new core committee members for the coming year.

In case you don’t know, SpecFicNZ is an organisation for Kiwis who are or aspire to be a writer, creator, editor, or publisher of speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction and horror). SFFANZ and SpecFicNZ are complementary in nature, covering different aspects of the local scene. If you are into the creative side of things, SpecFicNZ may be for you.

NB – This news service tries to avoid posts which sit in SpecFicNZ’s sphere of interest. So if you are after writer resources, author bios or calls for submissions, you might want to check out their posts.

Costumiers’ Fantasy Masquerade Ball weekend

We only just heard about this and it starts tonight 15th July! (with a second part tomorrow)

In the interest of getting this posted quickly we won’t put the detail, but if this title interests you at all – here is the link to the main site. Click the link to the event.

Two things to note – you have to be in costume to attend and it is in Rotorua.

Zombie Apocalypse

More theatre in July. The Best Café In The World is being offered by Basement Theatre Auckland on 19 – 23 Jul.

This is the event spiel from the event entry on their web site – tickets are online only.
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It’s been 3 months since the zombie apocalypse began in New Zealand. Jayden, an optimistic young barista, tries to maintain a normal life, serving up his popular coffee to the remaining survivors. When a growing herd of dangerous zombies threatens to overrun the Café, Jayden and his friends are faced with a difficult decision – barricade themselves inside the cafe or abandon the cafe to join up with other survivors.

Beam Me Up

Covert Theatre in Ponsonby is running a Trek themed comedy show on July 21st / 28th.

This is the blurb from their web site:
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Calling all Trekkies. Come and enjoy the brand new show from the Covert Theatre. It’s time to boldly go on a comedy adventure that’s out of this world.

This show explores the final frontier of comedy and is highly illogical as it is highly hilarious. Book your seat now before you miss out!
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The site also mentions free entry if you come dressed in costume – you might want to check the conditions.

Auckland Writers Festival 2022

It’s worth repeating – we have an odd attitude towards the Writers Festival. Every year, covid notwithstanding, they put together a great programme of literary events. And every year, for this news blog, we scan through programme looking for genre items – any genre actually, not just ours. To be fair, we usually do find one or two, but it does always seem a bit token in nature.

However, the tokens are usually really high quality. For example, this year we have Elizabeth Knox and Lee Murray in event 86 Frankenstein’s Children.

Its a free event! Why don’t you head to the Aotea Centre on 18 Aug and support Lee and Elizabeth. It should be a fascinating discussion and if we get a good crowd along it will show the event organisers that genre based events are popular and there should be more of them!