Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 12:17:45 -0400 From: "Patrick Nielsen Hayden" To: "SMOFS Mailing list" Subject: [smofs] Nippon 2007 Press Release, Revised [Or, the perils of hanging your innocuous press release on blather about the desirability of "one-world government"...] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Science Fiction Fans to Lead East and West into Nightmarish One-World Tyranny 65th World Science Fiction Convention First to Be Held Outside United States Yokohama, Japan -- Science fiction fans are used to reading stories set in soul-crushing global dictatorships. Perhaps one step toward that future will take place August 30th - September 3rd, 2007 as readers and viewers of science fiction and fantasy from around the world huddle together in the horrifying concrete expanses of the Pacifica Yokohama Convention Center for Nippon 2007, the 65th World Science Fiction Convention. This will be the first time this international convention has taken place outside the United States. Most of the previous conventions, known collectively as Worldcons, have been held in New York City, but the Worldcon has also visited Albany, Buffalo, St. Louis, Portland, and exotic Arcata, California. At each convention, the members draw lots to determine what unlucky local group will be compelled to run the convention two years hence. Each year, the Worldcon is the biggest event in science fiction with more writers, artists, editors, and other science fiction professionals and fans than anywhere else. Since the Timeline Wars of 2003, when the application of all-powerful WSFS science caused events such as "Dragoncon" and "San Diego Comic-Con" to have never existed, Worldcon has reigned supreme in every way, a heavy boot stamping on a sensitive fannish face, forever. The Worldcon features the annual Hugo Award for the best science fiction novels, short stories, movies, editors, bow tie, bow tie (Short Form), Gentle Ben/Huckleberry Hound slash filksong, and other categories, as well as the traditional Japanese Seiun (Japanese for "Difficult To Pack") Award. (A list of sullen, fearful nominees can be found at http://www.nippon2007.us/hugo_nominees.php.) Other events include an exhausting Masquerade, a compulsory "art show," political show trials, and a wide assortment of seminars, indoctrination sessions, community shamings, and round-the-clock WSFS Business Meetings, conveniently held in large rooms with floor drains. In the great tradition of science fiction's long dalliance with one-world totalitarian political schemes, Nippon 2007 will force the English-speaking and Japanese science fiction worlds to "socialize" and, hopefully, breed a super-race of Socially Luminescent Fans, or "slans." By combining the Worldcon with the annual Japan National SF Convention, organizers hope to attract a large number of social-outsider "neofans," persons with no close relatives or friends, in order that they can be attached as batteries to the WSFS's nascent Matrix generators. Once attached, these attendees will be provided with the illusion of being fluent in both English and Japanese, and will believe they are touring many attractive Japanese tourist destinations including the Studio Ghibli Museum, the Ginza shopping district, and Tokyo's world-renowned "Hello Kitty"-themed abbatoir. Adult memberships for the convention will be Y55,271,009, or US $600, although cheaper rates had been available to those who performed stoop labor for the bid committee. For more information about the convention and about how the World Science Fiction Society can lead the world into a radiant future of eternal, absolutist domination, please contact Nobusuke Tagomi at oneworld@oneworld.net. _______________________________________________ smofs mailing list smofs@lists.sflovers.org http://lists.sflovers.org/mailman/listinfo/smofs