Melbourne SF pub meetup. Second Wednesday of every month Next meetup: Wednesday 13 August.
The second Wednesday pub meeting open to all Melbourne fans of SF, fantasy, and horror, announces a change of venue. The time is the same, 6pm every second Wednesday.
Now in Melbourne Central, 6pm. Lion Hotel, Level 3, Melbourne Central, 211 La Trobe St. It’s the big sports bar. Happy Hour is 4pm to 7pm, i.e. 3 hours duration.
The shift is temporary, something to do with AFL and quiz nights.
“Very sad news, which you may have heard by now: Tess Williams died on the morning of Tuesday July 15, in Fiona Stanley Hospital, Perth.
“Tess had just turned 70 and has two sons.
“She was the author of two novels – Map of Power (Random House, 1996) and Sea as Mirror (HarperCollins, 2000) – as well as the anthology Women of Other Worlds: Excursions Through Science Fiction and Feminism, co-edited with Helen Merrick (UWA Press, 1999).
“She suffered from kidney-failure during the 1990s, eventually receiving a transplanted kidney, but in recent years that kidney also began to fail and her life was increasingly hijacked by dialysis and other medical problems.
“Nevertheless, in the last 12-18 months she had made some progress toward writing All the Wild Children, the long-planned third novel in a thematic “trilogy”, and in a burst of renewed creativity she had produced the first few thousand words of an autobiography of herself as a cyborg. I’ve not seen anything of the new novel, but I have seen the earliest work on the autobiography and whilst it was still finding its voice and narrative rhythm, it involved some brilliantly intertextual “side-board” sequences.
“Having supervised her Masters degree and co-supervised her PhD (an as yet unpublished feminist approach to theories of evolution, with reference to several key sf novels), I can attest to Tess’s intellectual acumen, her amazing determination and commitment to her work, and her graciousness as a person. She was a friend and I will miss her greatly.”
Van Ikin, Perth, WA, July 2025.
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MSFC AGM results
Two Nova Mob members stepped down from their MSFC roles at last Friday 18 July’s AGM of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club. Alison Barton, President for 11 years – her second term in the role – had committed to staying on until the Club and its library found a new home. “It took longer than expected” she reported, revealing again her knack at understatement. LynC also stepped down from newsletter Editor. A tally reveals she is the longest-serving Editor of the club’s zine Ethel the Aardvark. The coming issue will be her last, for a total of 42. Craig Macbride was brief: “I have nothing new to report”. Report accepted.
This is a particularly well edited issue and well worth seeking out even if you are not a MSFC member.
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WorldCon Bid – Brisbane 2028
Real Soon Now. And so the bid needs funding. Last week the Australian Science Fiction Foundation arranged for several thousand dollars to go to the bid organisers. [Reported from Carey Handfield].
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Speculative Insight #19
Fresh from interviewing Adrian Tchaikovsky at Critical Mass, Alexandra Pierce delivers Speculative Insight 19 which “brings us back to Tansy Rayner Roberts’ essays about the men of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, and we are finally looking at Sam Vibes – one of my very favourite characters. How do you take a man who’s a functioning drunk (he’s not rich enough to be an alcoholic), who believes in his job but can’t do it properly and has little else to live for – and then turn him into a fascinating, human and humane character whose development is worth following? You need to be Terry Pratchett, I think.
“This essay is free to read: please share it with anyone who might be interested.”
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TheAdelaidean – Distant Objects in Soft Focus
“Genres: Ambient Electronic, Atmospheric, Drone, Electronic, LoFi At Bandcamp now & at all streaming and download sites Friday. Name Your Price download for a limited time, includes Free!
“Suspended in slow stasis with frequent pauses for reflection, Distant Objects in Soft Focus is theAdelaidean’s 13th Projekt release of fractalized ambient electronics. Inspired by recent experiences composing for the stage and screen, theAdelaidean (AKA bestselling Australian author Sean Williams) weaves an intricate series of conceptual narratives into an album of densely layered sound. DOiSF imagines the world as a series of half-forgotten moments by means of impressionistic pad washes, looping field recordings, fragmented melodies, and wordless voices. Each complex arrangement leads the listener through forests of lo-fi textures and subconscious resonances of stillness and personal reflection.
“Sean says, “About the ‘Distant Objects’ in my title: my albums are frequently about connecting with things far-off. Whether I’m composing with collaborators who live in different parts of the world, such as Steve Roach and Mirko of Deepspace [Parallels, antigravity], about places like Antarctica [Hyperaurea], or using old field recordings I made when I was young [Isolation], there’s an element held at a remove that I’m trying to engage with. Growing up in Australia, a place so far from the rest of the world, will encourage that. I feel there’s a lot of yearning in my music for something just out of reach.” Track List: 1 Old Water 2 Cryptid Chorus 3 Dawn Fades | Video at YouTube 4 Hide Awake 5 Day Dreamt 6 Melted Memory 7 Gravitic Lens 8 Notion Blur 9 Uncanny Instants 10 Distant Objects in Soft Focus 11 E
The Adelaide Fan Review 
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