Social meetings are on Thursday evenings, in New Hall bar. If this is unavailable at short notice, social meetings will move to the Castle Inn. Likewise, social meetings may be held in the Castle Inn outside Full Term.
Jómslunch: a buffet lunch is held each Sunday during Full Term, in conjunction with the Cambridge Tolkien Society. Food is typically available between 12.30pm and 2pm, and the cost is £1.60 a head. The venue is usually 6 Trumpington Street, room 6. Please mail soc-cusfs at lists dot cam dot ac dot uk if you would like to take part, so that we know how much food to buy.
| Sunday 20 January | Discussion: Aliens in SF | 46 Lensfield Road, room 3 | ||
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| Which SF authors do good aliens? What do you like about them? Is it a problem if the aliens are just people with crinkly foreheads? Come and plug your favourite alien races, and discuss xenobiology, xenopsychology and other long words starting with x. | ||||
| Thursday 24 January 8pm showing (meet at 7.40pm) |
Cinema outing: The Fellowship of the Ring | Warner Village Cinema, Grafton Centre | ||
| The first instalment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is the film everyone is talking about. So whether you haven't seen it yet or whether this will be your seventh viewing, come and join us at the cinema. This is a joint event with the Cambridge Tolkien Society. | ||||
| Sunday 27 January | Discussion: J. R. R. Tolkien | 46 Lensfield Road, room 7 | ||
| Unless you have been very lucky, or living in Mongolia for the last year and a bit, you cannot fail to have noticed that J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings has just been made into a major film trilogy. Having recently had the opportunity to see the film with CUSFS, now come along and say you loved it, hated it, couldn't see what the hype was about, or wish stuffy Oxford dons wrote things that interesting all the time. We may drift on to Tolkien's other works too, in case you read The Hobbit and thought LoTR to be just too long to bother with. | ||||
| Thursday 31 January | Reading (and social meeting) | New Hall bar | ||
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Bring along a favourite short piece of Science Fiction and Fantasy
Literature. Share your tastes with the company, whether it's
something obscure that you want other people to hear, or something
popular you just think is a perfect example of the writer's art, or if
it's just funny or horribly bad! Alternatively, come to listen to what others have brought to read, and be enlightened, amused, horrified, or just confused. |
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| Friday 1 February mid-evening onwards |
Jómsborg Wake for the old year | 155 Gilbert Road | ||
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And so another year of Jómsborg the New ends. The Reeve, Companions
and all true Jómsvikingar purify themselves by staying up throughout
the night, helped along by a selection of games, reading, sparkling
conversation, and anything else that comes to mind. Oh, and probably a fair
amount of coffee. And then in the morning... |
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| Saturday 2 February dawn |
The Afmaelisdagr | Castle Mound | ||
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The host of the Jómsvikingar march, as one, to the hub of the Universe
(known simply to mortal folk as the Castle Mound). There, the Reeve, assisted
by the assembled throng, raises the Sun, and sets it circling for another year. Breakfast will be organised for those interested (and still awake!) after the Afmaelisdagr. NB. As all true Jómsvikingar know, the Afmaelisdagr falls on 31 January, the first day of Jómsborg's year. And so it will this year too. For complex and arcane reasons, the relevant period has fallen out of the normal temporal sequence this year. |
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| Sunday 3 February | Discussion: Ray Bradbury | 6 Trumpington Street, room 6 | ||
| Ray Bradbury has published some 500 works, the best known of which include The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. So come and discuss this prolific author, and see what others think. | ||||
| Saturday 9 February | Picocon trip | Imperial College Students' Union | ||
|
Picocon
is a one-day SF convention, run by ICSF, the Imperial College SF and
fantasy society. The guests of honour this year are Anne Gay, China
Mieville, Stan Nicholls and Geoff Ryman - each of them has a slot in the
programme where they will talk about something that interests them, and take
questions from the audience. There will also (almost certainly) be a
dealers' room, with more second-hand books than the mind can safely
comprehend. Entrance costs £5.00 for students (with ID!) and £8.00 for others. A CUSFS group will be going to Picocon, by train, travelling on the 09:15 to King's Cross. If you're interested, please join us at the railway station (look for the orange scarves) by 9am - this should allow enough time for buying tickets. The recommended ticket is the One-Day Travelcard (about £15), which includes a day return to London and unlimited travel on the Underground. Discounts are available with Young Person's and Network Railcards. Railways and Underground permitting, we should be at South Kensington Underground station at about 10:40, to reach the IC Students' Union in good time for the start of the programme at 11:00. |
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| Sunday 10 February | Discussion: Battle and Bloodshed in Fantasy | 6 Trumpington Street, room 6 | ||
| Huge swords, vast battles, and the hewing of enemies put the hack into hack fantasy. Should there be a place for such bloodthirstiness in fantasy, or do you find it distasteful and unnecessary? Come along to discuss battle and bloodshed in fantasy and your favourite gory weaponry. Leave axes at the door. | ||||
| Sunday 17 February | AGM and Games Evening | Trinity College, New Court, room H2 | ||
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Bring games. Play them. Enough said. Election of new committee members will also be taking place. The posts of Chairbeing, Secretary, Treasurer, Membership Secretary, Librarian and TTBA Editor are available, so if you think you might be interested, contact soc-cusfs at lists dot cam dot ac dot uk. for more information, or the individual current officer. Some details of the committee posts are also in the constitution. |
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| Thursday 21 February 8.30pm |
Curry Evening | The Maharajah, Castle Street | ||
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The Curry Evening is a new event for CUSFS - join us for a curry and and
meet other members, this could be the perfect antidote to the term wearing
on. We will be booking a table, so if you want to come along, please email soc-cusfs at lists dot cam dot ac dot uk. before Tuesday the 19th. |
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| Sunday 24 February | Discussion: Star Trek | 46 Lensfield Road, room 3 | ||
| Whether you love it, loathe it, or simply don't think about it very much, Star Trek has influenced people's views of Sci-Fi over the last thirty years. So come and talk about the series, the films, the spin-offs, the aliens, the characters, the acting, the politics, and anything else you can think of. Was it the first exposure you had to Sci-Fi which turned you on to the genre, or do you think that the world of Sci-Fi would be better if Trek had never existed? | ||||
| Sunday 3 March | Discussion: Juliet McKenna | 51 Barton Road | ||
|
Juliet E. McKenna is a relative newcomer to the fantasy scene, with
The Warrior's Bond, the fourth book in her five-book series "The
Tales of Einarinn", published towards the end of 2001. Are the tales of
Livak, the gambler and thief who gets caught up in the affairs of
Archmages and princes and Ryshad the sworn man examples of the best in
new fantasy fiction, or just novel re-cycling of the usual genre
tropes? Juliet came to speak to the Society in the recent past about the trials and tribulations of getting one's fantasy fiction published as a new author. Come and discuss the fruits of her labours, whether you've read all four books or none - this could be a contemporary author you want to read more of! |
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| Sunday 10 March | Discussion: Octavia E. Butler | 11 Ashworth Park, Barton Road | ||
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Octavia Butler is an author who deserves to be better known. Her books are
hard to put down; and, once finished, they are hard to forget. Her themes
explore the boundaries of what it is to be human, both biologically and
psychologically. Her characters are frequently forced to endure moral
dilemmas and savage treatment. For all this, her writing is clear and
expressive - the reader is carried along by the flow, but high-pressure
action is not used to give an artificial sense of tension. The people, and
how they interact, are what matter. Come along and share this author - or discover her if you haven't already. |
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Last recorded update: 24 June 2004, by Mark Waller
Status: up to date with all available missives
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