As always, you can download the whole thing as a printable PDF by clicking here.

Research by Cyriaque Lamar. Design and layout by Stephanie Fox.

The "Urban Fantasy As Alternate History" panel at WFC 2009 made a compelling case that you can't introduce magical elements to a present-day world, or to the history of a present-day world, without all of the social institutions being rearranged. Besides Willingham and Grimwood, the panel included Paul Park, L.E. Modesitt, and Michael Swanwick. Among other things:

• If magic was real, it would be illegal. Or else, it would be regulated and taxed.
• If ghosts were real, as in Modesitt's novels, all sorts of institutions would change — women who died in childbirth would hang around, and the birth rate would probably go down.
• There would be civil rights movements for ghosts and the undead — and if they could vote, they would probably a majority.
• There would be whole new careers and economic sectors associated with magical and fantastical creatures.

Most of all, people in these "urban fantasy" worlds would take for granted many things that would shock us utterly. Says Willingham, "In my world, vampires are real, and they're just part of society." Adds Swanwick: "Gorillas used to be cryptobiology," until they became commonly known.

"There's kind of poignancy in the prosaic state," says Park.

Swanwick praised Rachel Pollack's Unquenchable Fire, in which shamanistic magic has pervaded "our" world, and now daily mouse sacrifices are required to keep your electricity on, and there are parades with bare-breasted cheerleaders with blood running down their faces. "It's prosaic and ordinary to everyone else, but absolutely strange to us, the reader."

Anticipate lots of weird legal questions if the supernatural became part of everday life — like, if a vampire "turns" you, is that murder? Or maybe a jury would rule that the vampire is actually giving the "victim" a gift: eternal life. Or maybe it's theft, because the vampire is robbing you of the promise of death. If you believe in Christianity, is the vampire robbing you of the possibility of salvation in the afterlife? Is a newly turned vampire a new person, with no existing property rights, or does he/she keep all the property from his/her life? The lawyers, as they say, would have a field day.

"Legal fictions are every bit as fantastic as magic, and yet they wield the same power," says Swanwick.

As always, you can download the whole thing as a printable PDF by clicking here.

This time around, we're not sticking an hyperlinks in the PDF version of this calendar, because that makes it way harder to make corrections to the calendar when people point out problems. Instead, here's a list of all the conventions in November, with URLs:

Friday the 6th:
Aki Con
Neko Con (thru Sun) Convention
Pacific Media Expo

Saturday the 7th:
Zenkaikon
King Con Brooklyn
Cincinnati Comic and Anime Convention

Sunday the 8th:
Seattle ComiCard Convention
Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention

Friday the 13th:
Dotcon
Izumicon
New England Fan Experience
Windycon

Friday the 20th:
Anime Crossroads
Anime USA
Another Anime Convention
Bishie Con
Daisho Con
Yule Con
Philcon
Zona Con

Saturday the 21st.:
Boston Super Megafest
Virginia Comic-Con

Friday the 27th.:

Tomodachi Fest
OryCon
Chicago Tardis 2009

Saturday the 28th.:
Atlanta Anime Day

Research by Cyriaque Lamar. Design by Stephanie Fox.

San Diego Comic Con:
where: San Diego, CA
next date: July 22-25, 2010.
how many attendees? 125,000, give or take — the event always sells out.
registration costs: $100, although the "preview night" on Wednesday is already sold out.
hotel costs: $300 and up per night... if you're lucky enough to get one. Plus food always seems to be ultra-pricey.
airport hub? Nope. Southwest Airlines flies there quite a bit.
celebrity stalking factor: Infinity. Peter Jackson and James Cameron geeked out about directing movies together this year. Sigourney Weaver mentored Zoe Saldana live on stage. You cannot touch the celebrities, but you will see the celebrities, off in the distance.
extracurricular activities: Costume ball. There was a Harry Potter dance thingy with The Remus Lupins this last year.



(Both Comic-Con pictures above, by ParkaBlogs.)

New York Comic Con:
where: New York, NY
next date: Oct. 8-10, 2010.
how many attendees? around 77,000.
registration costs: currently just $45.
hotel costs: $150-$200, according to this article. Plus of course NYC is the most expensive city in America.
airport hub? Yes
celebrity stalking factor: Medium high. A lot of TV stars and producers came to NYCC 2009, along with many comics pros. An October event will be early in the summer movie hype cycle, so it's unclear how many movie stars will show up.
extracurricular activities: Costumes, fan panels... can't find much else listed anywhere.

Fan Expo Canada
where: Toronto
next date: August 27-29, 2010.
how many attendees? 59,000
registration costs: CAN$49
hotel costs: CAN$135-CAN$189
airport hub? Yes.
celebrity stalking factor: Moderate. Leonard Nimoy, Linda Hamilton and Bruce Campbell were there this past time.
extracurricular activities: Since it includes Anime Expo and Gaming Expo along with Science Fiction Expo and Comic Book Expo, there's presumably a lot of gaming and anime acitvities. There are also "sketching duels" between artists, special effects workshops and, of course, masquerades.

Wondercon:
where: San Francisco, CA
next date: April 2-4, 2010.
how many attendees? around 34,000, up from 29,000 the year before.
registration costs: $30 in advance.
hotel costs: Orbitz says a hotel near Moscone Center will run you anywhere from $78 to $200 the weekend of Wondercon, although some of those hotels are in a sketchy neighborhood. And San Francisco is the fifth most expensive city in America, according to Forbes.
airport hub? Yes, for United Airlines.
celebrity stalking factor: Moderate to high. Moving to April should mean more summer movie promotion - and 2009 had way more movie stuff than 2008 did. The cast of Star Trek showed up en masse, with J.J. Abrams.
extracurricular activities: Pretty much just costumes and panels. I don't remember much else.

Wondercon photo by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid.

Dragon*Con:
where: Atlanta, GA
next date: Sept. 3-6, 2010.
how many attendees? around 35,000.
registration costs: currently just $60.
hotel costs: Bad news! Three of the four convention hotels are already sold out for 2010. The remaining one is $159 a night. Overflow hotels will run you $100 to $185.
airport hub? Yes, for Delta. And everyone flies there.
celebrity stalking factor: Medium high. Leonard Nimoy made the trek (sorry) in 2009. The good news is, a lot of your favorite writers and personalities are surprisingly accessible. A few years ago, I was in a tiny party with that guy from Farscape for like an hour.
extracurricular activities: This is where Dragon*Con shines. There's Dragon*Con TV in your hotel room, tons of costume stuff, BDSM demos, filking, writing workshops, charity auctions, autistic karaoke superhero performances, GWAR concerts (sometimes), a whole huge LARPing and RPG area, etc. Plus a humongous blood drive. You could have a great time at Dragon*Con and never even see a famous person.

Wizard World Chicago aka Chicago Comic-Con:
where: Chicago
next date: August 12-15, 2010.
how many attendees? 58,000 in 2006, although it's alllegedly declined since then.
registration costs: around $45.
hotel costs: Since the con takes place out by Chicago O'Hare in Rosemont, hotels are pretty easy. Orbitz says they'll run you $87 to $126 right now. Plus Chicago is the sixth most expensive city in America, according to Forbes.
airport hub? Yes. Everybody flies into Chicago non-stop.
celebrity stalking factor: Moderate. Some pretty well-known actors are showing up in 2010, including
Nichelle "Uhura" Nichols, Edward James Olmos, Michelle Rodriguez and Ray Park, plus some well-known comics pros. This con got the first look at The Dark Knight in 2007, and might get a sneak peek at the next Chicago-filmed Batman, if and when it happens.
extracurricular activities: Tons of gaming stuff.

Worldcon
where: Moves around
next date: Sept. 2-6, 2010.
how many attendees? 3,370 people in 2009, according to SFSite.
registration costs: $225.
hotel costs: According to this site, many nearby hotels are already sold out for those dates, and the remaining ones will cost between A$239 to A$275.
airport hub? Yes. Several airlines fly direct into Melbourne.
celebrity stalking factor: WorldCons 2008 and 2009 were jam-packed with some of your favorite authors, and tons of famous writers who were quite accessible. Fewer writers might make the voyage to Melbourne, but Reno in 2011 should be mobbed.
extracurricular activities: Filking, writing workshops, costume ball, artists exhibition.

Star Wars Celebration
where: Moves around
next date: Summer 2010.
how many attendees? 34,000 or so people showed up to the 2005 event.
registration costs: $110 for a four-day pass, in 2005.
hotel costs: Hard to say. A few cities are bidding to be the location for this event, timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Empire Strikes Back — including Orlando, which has tons and tons of cheap hotels.
airport hub? Again, it depends which city gets the event.
celebrity stalking factor: A lot of Star Wars castmembers, including Carrie Fisher, tend to show up to these things.
extracurricular activities: Cool exhibits, tons of costumes, trivia contests, etc.

Fantastic Fest
where: Austin, TX
next date: Sept. 25- Sept. 30, 2010
how many attendees? N/A — I couldn't find this number anywhere.
registration costs: $285, or $170 for a "film pass" that doesn't guarantee you entrance to all events.
hotel costs: The official hotel of the con charges $135 per night.
airport hub? Nope.
celebrity stalking factor: Pretty high, especially if you love indy movies. Film-makers show up to promote their films, like Paranormal Activity and Zombieland this year around. Stars like Bill Murray also show up.
extracurricular activities: Boxing! Also, "Fantastic Feud" trivia contest pitting you against horror experts and "100 best kills," where you share your favorite gory moments.

Did we leave out a mega-con that deserves to be on this list? And what are your favorite cons you've gone to? Let us know!

Sorry it took us so long to get a corrected version up — Stephanie is on the road, and I was too swamped this week to sit down and go through the calendar before it went up, as much as I shoudl have. Next month's calendar should go much, much more smoothly. We think.

As always, you can download the whole thing as a printable PDF - with hyperlinks to books and conventions - by clicking here.

Research by Alexis Brown. Design by Stephanie Fox.

The new ride - initially announced way back in 2005 - will replace the existing Star Tours attraction and feature HD 3D visuals, a new motion simulator and new locales including Tatooine pod-racing, as seen in the video below. The announcement came complete with a guest appearance from Darth Vader, who showed that Empire upper management is really focused on the details these days:

[YouTube] (Via)

As always, you can download the whole thing as a printable PDF - with hyperlinks to books and conventions - by clicking here.

Research by Alexis Brown. Design by Stephanie Fox.

As always, you can download the whole thing as a printable PDF - with hyperlinks to books and conventions - by clicking here. And I'll be making changes to it on the fly, so if there are any inaccuracies or omissions, please comment or ping me via email.

Research by Alexis Brown. Design by Stephanie Fox.

With the start of WorldCon coming this Thursday, we're ramping up to cover our second con in a few weeks. And io9 will be hosting a party with the awesome Cecilia Tan of Circlet Press on Friday night, in a yet-to-be-identified room.

Anticipation 2009 has been putting out tons of info — including a draft list of guests. And in addition to guest of honor Neil Gaiman, Nobel-winning economist Paul "I was right" Krugman will be there, giving a talk about his love of Asimov and holding a conversation with Charles Stross, whose Merchant Princes novels Krugman has waxed admiringly about before.

There's also info about the whopping ten awards that will be given out at this year's Con. The Hugo Awards are always given out at WorldCon, whose members vote on them, but this year you also get to see Cory Doctorow accept his Prometheus award as a libertarian hero for Little Brother, and you get to find out who's Canada's outstanding science fiction author, thanks to the Aurora Awards. And the artist-focused Chesley Awards. Not only that, but there's something called the Golden Duck Award, which sounds rude but is actually for children's SF lit.

Curious to see if the libertarians will play nice with Krugman? You can find out, without making a major commitment.

You can try out WorldCon with a "taster" membership and see if you can handle it in a realtime situation. You can show up and pay 75-95 Canadian dollars for a day membership, then wander around and drink in the sights. Go to a few panels, see if you can get Elizabeth Bear's autograph. Then if you decide that WorldCon isn't for you, you can go back and get refunded all but $20 of your day membership (or $10 for a child's membership).

We'll see you in Montreal! WorldCon "I, Robot" image by Changa Lion on Flickr.

As always, you can download the whole thing as a printable PDF - with hyperlinks to books and conventions - by clicking here. And welcome back Stephanie Fox on calendar design duties!

Research by Alexis Brown. Design by Stephanie Fox.

As always, you can download the whole thing as a printable PDF - with hyperlinks to books and conventions - by clicking here.

Research by Alasdair Wilkins. Design by Stephanie Fox. Layout by Charlie Jane Anders.

Plus, the excellent Tiptree Awards are handed out at Wiscon, which is mostly an excuse for everybody to get together in a big room and eat way too much dessert.

Charlie Jane and I will be at Wiscon all weekend, and are both speaking on a few panels. If you're in the area, stop by and say hello!

via Wiscon

There's always an element of time travel involved in the io9 calendar - we're bringing you the future of science fiction entertainment! - but this time around, you'll have to travel back in time to late April, when this calendar should have gone up. Blame computer problems that turned my Apple computer into an expensive brick, and left me having to reinstall every piece of software from scratch.

As always, you can download the whole thing as a printable PDF - now with hyperlinks for books and conventions - by clicking here.

Research by Alasdair Wilkins. Design by Stephanie Fox. Layout by Charlie Jane Anders.

The controversial video for most people looking at MTV's seven-video series seems to be this one, showing a bunch of young guys goofing around while playing card game Yu-Gi-Oh. Or this one, showing a cosplayer describing his Legend of Zelda costume, then playing his character's flute-like instrument.

I get why people think these clips could be construed as embarrassing, partly because their subjects are so unabashedly enjoying themselves. But to me these films seem pretty respectful. Unlike many vids I've seen on MTV, there are no sarcastic hipsters commenting on how ridiculous or repulsive geeks are - and there are no little popups zooming onto the screen that say "NERD!" We're seeing these gamers and anime lovers the way they are among each other, goofing around and geeking out over costumes.

In fact, if you watch the video I embedded above, from the same series, I think you get a flavor of what the videomakers were trying to convey. They show us an appealingly frenetic scene of people from all backgrounds getting together, dressing up, and having fun.

Sure the videos could have brought in an even more diverse group of otaku - sophisticated collectors, people who write about anime and manga professionally, academics, creators - but instead they capture only the regular fans. These are the people who make up the bulk of most conventions, and I like seeing them here, looking into the cameras, unashamed.

StarWars.com's Bonnie Burton writes from Japan to say:

It's the first time we've had an official convention here and the fans are going crazy for it. Not only are there stormtroopers and clone troopers galore, but we have a huge snow speeder for people to climb in, as well as a lifesize dewback to sit on and get their photos taken.

You can see Burton's amazing pictures of the event (including costumes) in her Flickr stream, or read all the coverage at StarWars.com. (Thanks, Bonnie!)

Special Note: We have tried to list as much as possible here, but there are always things that will get left out. If you want to know every single book coming out this season, check out Locus magazine's exhaustive and ever-expanding list. And if you want to know about more cons, check the user-generated list at ConFinder, as well as the Ansible Events List (mostly UK). If you know of sites that list European and Asian cons, let us know in comments so we can add it here.

Image above by Redandjonny.

April

Books
Karen Joy Fowler, Wit's End
Orson Scott Card, Keeper of Dreams
Jeanette Winterson, The Stone Gods
Walter Jon Williams, Implied Spaces

Movies and Television
April 4
Final Season of Battlestar Galactica begins

Conventions
April 4-6
I-CON 27 - Stony Brook, NY - $55 registration at the door
Odyssey Con VIII - Madison, WI - $45 registration at the door
WillyCon X-Treme - Wayne, NE - $20 registration at the door
April 11-13
CoastCon 31 - Biloxi, MS $40 registration at the door
April 18-20
Conglomeration 2008 - Louisville, KY - $40 registration at the door
EerieCon Ten - Niagara Falls, NY - $35 registration until April 8
New York Comic Con - New York, NY - $45 registration
Penguicon 6.0 - Troy, MI - $45 registration at the door
April 24-27
Nebula Awards Weekend - Austin, TX - $50 registration
April 25-27
RavenCon 2008 - Richmond, VA - $35 registration until
UberCon - Edison, NJ - $65 registration
Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention - Lombard, IL - $35 registration
April 26
Uni-Con 2008 - Rindge, NH - $25 registration at the door
April 26-27
Fantasticon 2008 - Copenhagen, Denmark - 15 euro

May

Books
Cory Doctorow, Little Brother
Ellen Datlow, The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy (stories)
Greg Egan, Incandescence
Nancy Kress, Nano Comes to Clifford Falls (stories)
Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, Steampunk (stories)

Movies and Television
May 2
Iron Man
May 9
Speed Racer
May 22
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Conventions
May 2-4
DemiCon 19 - Des Moines, IA - $45 registration
May 9-11
LepreCon 34 - Casa Grande, AZ - $40 registration through April 15
May 15-18
Eurocon-2008 - Moscow, Russia - $100 registration at the door
May 16-18
Chronicling Mars: The 2008 Eaton Science Fiction Conference - Riverside, CA - $110 registration until April 14
KeyCon 25 / CANvention 28 - Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada - 55 CAD before April 30
May 23-25
CONduit XVIII - Salt Lake City, UT - $35 registration until May 1
Oasis 21 - Orlando, FL - $30 registration until April 30
May 23-26
Balticon 42 - Baltimore, MD - $59 registration after April 1
Timegate: Regenerations - Atlanta, GA - $35 registration until April 30
WisCon 32 - Madison, WI - $45 registration through April 30
BayCon - Santa Clara, CA - $70 through May 10
May 30-June 1
ConCarolinas - Charlotte, NC - $25 registration until May 25

June

Books
Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Mercy
Stephen Baxter, Flood
Tanya Huff, Valor's Trial

Movies and Television
June 13
The Happening
The Incredible Hulk
June 27
Wanted
Wall-E

Conventions
June 13-15
DucKon 17 - Naperville, IL - $40 registration until May 1
June 26-29
Midwestcon 59 - Cincinnati, OH - $25 registration until May 25
June 27-29
ApolloCon 2008 - Houston, TX - $30 registration until May 1
June 28-29
ConRunner 2008 - Wolverhampton, West Midlands, United Kingdom - £35 registration until June 21

July

Books
Charles Stross, Saturn's Children
Greg Bear, City at the End of Time
David Louis Edelman, MultiReal

Movies and Television
July 2
Hancock
July 4
Love Story 2050
Jul 11
Meet Dave
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
Jul 18
The Dark Knight
Space Chimps
July 25
X-Files 2

Conventions
July 3-6
CONvergence 2008 - Bloomington, MN - $53.50 registration
Westercon 61: A Gathering of Fen in the Desert - Las Vegas, NV - $60 registration until April 28
July 10-13
Science Fiction Research Association 39th Annual Conference held jointly with the 2008 Campbell Conference: "Teaching, Reading and Creating Science Fiction" - Lawrence, KS - $140 registration until April 30
July 11-13
OSFest: The Omaha Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival - Omaha, NE - $40 registration until June 30
Polaris 22 - Toronto, Ontario, Canada - 50 CND registration until June 2
July 17-20
Readercon 19 with guests of honor Jonathan Lethem & James Patrick Kelly - Burlington, MA - $50 registration until June 30
July 18-20
Lazy Dragon Con - McKinney, TX - registration opens July 18
July 24-27
Dum Dum 2008 - Waterloo, IA - registration information available soon
San Diego International Comic-Con - San Diego, CA - daily registration from $20 to $35
July 25-27
Confluence 2008 - Pittsburgh, PA - $35 registration until early July (date TBA)
July 26-28
Finncon08 - Tampere, Finland - free
July 31-August 3
Oslo Science Fiction Festival - Oslo, Norway

August

Books
Ben Bova, Mars Life
Ken MacLeod, The Night Sessions
John Scalzi, Zoe's Tale
Tobias Buckell, Sly Mongoose
Judith Merril, Not Only a Woman (collection of four Merril novels, two co-authored with C.M. Kornbluth)

Movies and Television
Aug 15
Clone Wars TV series debut
Aug 29
Babylon A.D.

Conventions
August 1-3
Diversicon 16 - Minneapolis, MN - $30 registration until July 14
Fandemonium '08 - Nampa, ID - $30 registration until July 20
August 6-10
Denvention 3: The 66th World Science Fiction Convention - Denver, CO - $200 for full membership until July 10
August 15-17
Con-Version 24 - Calgary, Alberta, Canada - $60 registration
August 21-24
Gatecon - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - $135 registration
August 22-24
Bubonicon 40 - Albuquerque, NM - $30 registration until May 1
August 29-Sept. 1
Dragon*Con - Atlanta, GA - $65 registration until May 15, 2008

Additional reporting by Nivair H. Gabriel.

• The first official (American, anyhow) "World Science Fiction Convention" (now known as Worldcon) was held in 1939, and followed by conventions in Chicago and Denver in the following years. check out the photo above of some fans posing at Coney Island during that first convention, on the top row on the far left is Ray Bradbury.
• The first British convention in 1937 attracted 20 fans, including Eric Frank Russell and Arthur C. Clarke.
• The WorldCon conventions were suspended after 1941 due to World War II, but resumed in 1946.
• WonderCon was started by John Barrett in the San Francisco Bay area in 1987, but has since been adopted and is now part of the Comic-Con International family of Cons. Sort of like the Shazam family.
• Comic-Con itself began in San Diego as the Golden State Comic Book Convention in 1970, and attracted around 500 fans. Last year the Con (now the San Diego Comic-Con or just Comic-Con) had over 125,000 visitors.
• There are now regional cons including everything from Eurocon to DeepSouthCon to Westercon.
• There are even specific cons that cover one range of subjects, like BotCon (Transformers), Costume-Con (costumes, duh), and FilkOntario (filk music, folks music with a scifi/fantasy twist).
• That's not even mentioning all of the cons for specific shows and movies that have sprung up, like Star Trek, Farscape, Star Wars, and plenty of others. In fact, the movie GalaxyQuest is completely con-centric.
• Our favorite title? The Wrath of Con in North Florida. Either that or the Comic Book Guy's Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con. It's a toss up.