The Melbourne Science Fiction Club Inc. (Also known as the M.S.F.C. or colloquially "the club") was founded in May 1952 by

Race Mathews Charles Race Thorson Mathews (born 27 March 1935
) is an Australian science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

club in the world, after the

Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, Inc., or LASFS, is a science fiction and fantasy fan society that meets in the Los Angeles area. The current meeting place can be found on thLASFS website LASFS is the oldest continuously operating scienc ...

. It meets once a month in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. Members of the MSFC were instrumental in organising and running three

World Science Fiction Convention Worldcon, or more formally the World Science Fiction Convention, the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), is a science fiction convention. It has been held each year since 1939 (except for the years 1942 to 1945, during ...

s in Australia: Aussiecon in 1975; Aussiecon Two in 1985; and Aussiecon 3 in 1999. Current members were involved in the

Aussiecon 4 The 68th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as Aussiecon Four, was held on 2–6 September 2010 in the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The co-chairs were Perry Middlemiss and R ...

Worldcon in 2010. Members have also been involved in running many of the annual versions of the

Australian National Science Fiction Convention The Australian National Science Fiction Convention or Natcon is an annual science fiction convention. Each convention is run by a different committee unaffiliated with any national fannish body. Bids for running the Natcon are voted on by attende ...

s and other regional conventions in and around Melbourne, Australia. Many members of Australian

Science fiction fandom Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or fandom of people interested in science fiction in contact with one another based upon that interest. SF fandom has a life of its own, but not much in the way of formal organization (although ...

have been members of the MSFC. Notable members/past-members of the MSFC include Merv Binns (SF fan, editor, fanzine publisher and proprietor of Australia's first specialist SF bookshop, Space Age Books) Ian Gunn, (Past president and club fanzine editor) winner of the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist 1999,

Lee Harding Lee Harding (born 8 June 1983) is an Australian singer from Frankston, Victoria. He is best known for placing third in the third season of ''Australian Idol'' in 2005. Career Bedrock Prior to competing in ''Australian Idol'', Harding was a me ...

Damien Broderick Damien Francis Broderick (born 22 April 1944) is an Australian science fiction and popular science writer and editor of some 74 books. His science fiction novel ''The Dreaming Dragons'' (1980) introduced the trope of the generation time machine ...

, Alan Stewart (secretary for 16 years and Ditmar Award winner),

Cheryl Morgan Cheryl Morgan is a British science fiction critic and publisher. She has won Hugo Awards for her work on the fanzine ''Emerald City'' from 1995 to 2006, and as non-fiction editor of ''Clarkesworld'' magazine from 2009 to 2011. Morgan was the f ...

(editor of the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine winning fanzine, ''

Emerald City The Emerald City (sometimes called the City of Emeralds) is the capital city of the fictional Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's Oz books, first described in ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900). Fictional description Located in the center of the La ...

''), Phil Wlodarczyk, Martin James Ditmar ("Dick") Jenssen (after whom the Ditmar Award is named),

Bruce Gillespie Bruce Gillespie (born 1947) is a prominent Australian science fiction fan best known for his long-running sf fanzine ''SF Commentary''. Along with Carey Handfield and Rob Gerrand, he was a founding editor of Norstrilia Press, which published G ...

(Fan Guest of Honour at the 1999 World Science Fiction Convention Aussiecon 3),

John Bangsund John Bangsund (21 April 1939 – 22 August 2020) was a prominent Australian science fiction fan in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. He was a major force, with Andrew I. Porter, behind Australia winning the right to host the 1975 Aussiecon, and he ...

and

Race Mathews Charles Race Thorson Mathews (born 27 March 1935
) is an Australian fanzine A fanzine (blend word, blend of ''fan (person), fan'' and ''magazine'' or ''-zine'') is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by fan (person), enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) ...

s including the 1950s newszine ''Etherline''. Late in the sixties came the ''Somerset Gazette'', until at least January 1971. After Somerset Gazette there was no official club

zine A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to writ ...

in the seventies. Since 1985 the MSFC has published ''Ethel the Aardvark'', a newszine which has won the Ditmar Award – several times under editors including Alan Stewart, Ian Gunn, and Paul Ewins – and the Chronos Award. As of October 2022, issues 1–14 and 185–216, published 1985–87 and 2017 to present, have been reprinted online.

References

External links

* {{official website Science fiction organizations Science fiction fandom Organizations established in 1952 1952 establishments in Australia