In other news from the just-completed WorldCon, Aussiecon 4 was the unopposed winner of the 2010 World Science Fiction Convention, taking 658 of the 826 votes cast. The convention will be held 2-6 September 2010 at the new Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre. Guests of Honor will be Kim Stanley Robinson, Robin Johnson, and Shaun Tan. Perry Middlemiss and Rose Mitchell are the convention co-chairmen.
Membership rates (which are valid until 3 November 2008) are currently US$155/A$160/C$155/€100/£80 for attending; US$50/A$52/C$50/€35/£25 for supporting (with discounts for those who voted or pre-supported).
For more information, see the convention’s web site or its blog.
Three previous WorldCons have been held in Australia: 1975, 1985, and 1999. Aussiecon 4 will follow next year’s Anticipation, scheduled for 6-10 August 2009 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Following the first WorldCon (1939 in New York City), there have been 66 (Aussiecon will be the 68th). Aussiecon will be the 18th to be held outside the United States (the first was Torcon in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1948). And following Anticipation, this will be the second time that two consecutive WorldCons have been outside the US (the first was ConAdian in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 1994, and then Intersection in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1995).