Today is Friday the 13th, so we’ll play it safe and host our October MonSFFA Halloween Meeting Tomorrow!

We’ll gather, then, on Saturday afternoon, October 14, at about 12:30PM; programming will get underway at 1:00PM.

The meeting will take place both live and in-person at the Lachine Legion, as well as online via ZOOM at: www.MonSFFA.ca

Please Note:

Any MonSFFen choosing to attend in costume are advised that their get-up must not include a hat, mask, or headgear of any kind. As a general guideline, if you’re not sure, don’t!

This restriction is necessary in order to remain in compliance with the traditions of our hosts, the Lachine branch of the Royal Canadian Legion.

Note that headgear is not to be worn within any Legion hall as a sign of respect for those servicemen and -women who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

MonSFFA honours this tradition; please keep that in mind when selecting your costume.

Our agenda includes, of course, Halloween fare, and more; here’s a few words about each of our two principal presentations:

Horror 101

Offering examples and advice from genre professionals, we will explore Stephen King’s “Three Levels of Horror, ” and augment his list with a few entries of our own, as we learn how horror writers and filmmakers manufacture the scares!

The Solar System Ain’t What it Used To Be!

From the earliest days of science fiction, space travellers went to the Moon, to Mars, to Venus, and to the other planets of the solar system as they were discovered. Early science fiction—prior to the late 19th century—treated the planets simply as different versions of Earth.

Science fictional tropes from the late 19th century right up until the Space Age declared Mercury to be an oven on the sun-facing side and a freezer on the other. Venus was a planet of swamps, jungles, and dinosaurs. And Mars was a cool desert planet, with all its water contained in the canals.

Then, science had its say. Starting in the early 1960s, the first interplanetary probes knocked down those tropes. Or, as T.H. Huxley (1825-1895) put it, “The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”

But there were plenty of other ways to look at the planets, and more planets to look at!

So We’ll See You Tomorrow, Saturday, October 14th!