The Futurian Society of Sydney
Auxiliary Page

This page provides links to some material I've written up for the The Futurian Society of Sydney. The Sydney Futurians are a quite ancient and modestly honourable science-fiction discussion group based in Sydney, Australia. Other material unrelated to the Futurians can be found on my home page.

• The Bells of Belampang, from Thailand;
• Atolladero, from Mexico?; and
• Die Rättin (in English, The She-Rat) from Germany

Five reviews of six public lectures given in Sydney:

• Building an International Space Station, a presentation of the AIAA.
• The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, by the legendary Frank Drake.
• Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia, by the equally respected (though somehow not legendary) Gregory Benford.
• The Next Species: Will We Get To Choose?, a Science in the Pub presentation.
• A combined report on two lectures:
  • Mars Direct: Humans to the Red Planet Within a Decade, by Robert Zubrin; and
  • Blue Sky Opportunities in Mining: Mining Asteroids and Comets, by Bill Zealey

• Sources for the history of the Numenorean Realms in Exile: argues that J.R.R. Tolkien based the history of Arnor and Gondor on the history of Rome and Byzantium.
• Possible points of divergence for alternate histories of Middle Earth.

• My impressions of AussieCon III, the 1999 World Science Fiction Convention held in Melbourne. In theory this was supposed to eventually get integrated into a cooperative report by the Futurians, but it never happened. It's also been published in an email fanzine by John Foyster.

One advertisement for the FreeCon program. FreeCon is an attempt to provide free science fiction conventions in the Sydney metropolitan area, with a view to eventually building up to being able to put on the Australian national SF convention or (in our dreams) bid for a WorldCon.

• A flyer for FreeCon 00, the first FreeCon.

• A guide to meetings of the Sydney Futurians

And records of several Futurian meetings: (basically, the ones where I carried the can as secretary, and didn't lose the notes or tape afterward). For meetings written up by other members see the Futurians' Home Page.

You can see from the dates that I haven't been doing this for several years. Which doesn't mean the Futurians have folded, just that I'm not writing up meetings any more.

• Secret Histories:
  • of the X-Files; and
  • of the Indus Valley Civilisation;
• as well as plenty of alternate history material.