Welcome

The Upper Hutt Science Fiction and Fantasy Club is the oldest existing Sci-Fi club in New Zealand. It began in 1980, meeting then at the Library. We meet one or two Tuesdays a month. Details can be found on the 'About us' page. 

Note: This site is getting out of date. It has been transferred to the Upper Hutt Community Net because Wellington City Council will end funding for WCN as of JUly 2010.

Link here to the Upper Hutt Science Fiction Club site.

New on the site

More opinionated reviews. See index lower left.  As you know, 'opinionated' means zero flight feathers. (o = zero; pinion = flight feather. It's a logical language.) Whilst that is not the Webster-Oxford definition, they pride themselves on being unbiased. Boring fools. Just ask yourself - in a given week, more flighty, featherless Lotto balls are studied than dictionaries. Which is not to say that the kiwi couldn't fly if it wanted to. I'm sure the genes are all there, just methylated to render them inactive. A little less meths and they could be winging it like a flight of Concords. At which stage their poor eyesight would make them a hazard to safety, and get them listed as a Weapon of Meth Destruction.

The topic for November  (Tuesday 2nd) is "I Hate That Good Guy"

There will be no formal presentation. Just come armed with prejudice and example. The object is to pick on a hero that you personally do not like. It may kick off with a comment that Captain Kirk isn't fit to command a large Navy space ship, an opinion that has been aired before, and has a regrettable aura of truth about it. However, the ship in question is the USS Enterprise, and espoused freedom, so the contrary opinion that Free Enterprise is run by confident cowboys should be arguable, possibly with more logic than sincerity.

No drifting off topic to extol a Bad Guy. We'll leave that even larger topic for another day. You are allowed to doft (drift off topic) say to discuss why the screen writers originally chose the name "Kirk". Just no defense attorney stuff for the Bad Guys.

What is Science Fiction?

Science Fiction is a genre - that is, a grouping of books, movies and the like that seem to fit into a group. It is more correctly called Science Fiction and Fantasy. So called 'hard' SF is supposed to be scientifically exact, and is usually set in the future, to explore the implications of technology. Fantasy on the other hand, makes no pretense to science at all. It allows any society at all to be generated, especially one that sells lots of books and makes the writer rich.

It is not really about describing the future, or other planets. Rather, authors create worlds and societies to comment freely on how people interact, and how this affects societies.  The original Star Trek series were televised in the three years before the first moon landing. They also occurred as the US became increasingly disenchanted with the Vietnam War. It was set in the future, but really dealt with how late sixties America was creating its future.

Over the 40 years since Star Trek, the trend has been away from science into fantasy. Similarly, the function of a computer has become not to compute, but to entertain.  Is Western culture abandoning reality? A novel on that theme would be science fiction. For it to be successful, it would have to be well written. The core question is not 'Is it good science?' but 'Is it a good read?'

We like it for its variety. We also differ in our likes. The monthly meetings cover the variety, and introduce us to new authors and areas of interest.
 
Enjoy the website, and you are welcome at our meetings.

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