Continuum 11.

It's that time of year. Continuum 11 is on next weekend, and the program is looking great.

For those who have never heard of Continuum, here's the description from their website.

"Continuum is an annual Melbourne speculative fiction and pop culture fan convention celebrating creativity across genre and media. From hard-edge science fiction to high-flown fantasy, comic books to film noir, high culture to sub-culture … we sink our teeth into it all!

2015 marks our 11th convention, and we’re taking the time to celebrate Australia.  Not in a yellow-and-green-how-many-gold-medals-did-that-koala-get-in-the-sports way, but looking at Australia’s history and future, and also Australian genre and media, our fandom, and our people."

This will be my seventh Continuum. Unfortunately, due to other commitments, I won't be able to attend the entire weekend as I usually do. I'm even unsure of when I can manage to drop in, But I will definitely be there Saturday afternoon.

I'm only on one panel this time, Religions in Spec Fic, alongside David McDonald, RJ Anderson, Alexandra Pierce and Stephanie Lai. 

Religions are portrayed as good and bad forces in specfic, but in Western SF there are certain long-standing traditions. What are "neglected" religions? Has the way religion been portrayed changed along with its changing role in society? What are some of the mistakes writers make when incorporating religion?

Come along to Continuum. Check out the Religions panel. And if you're not even sure you want to go, Friday night of the program is a gold coin donation entry.

You can't get anything better for that price these days.