Current event

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Types of Events

Monthly meetings

These usually occur on the afternoon of the third Saturday of the month, from 18h00 onwards and may take the form of presentations, regular speakers, bring and braai's (barbecues), an outing to the Planetarium and movie screening... R10 for members, R20 for non-members.

Film Club evenings

Held on the second Saturday evening of the month, at Franz and Simone's house. Here we watch the movie for the evening. Can vary from the ridiculous to the sublime, and is selected from our members' extensive personal libraries. We normally start at 19h30 and finish by about 23h00. Entrance is R30.

Mini-conventions

These include a midyear convention for the more serious fan - consisting of a day of talks, discussions, debates, quizzes and movie screenings - as well as speciality small conventions, such as a Star Trek minicon held in the first half of the year.

About Zoom

Zoom provides (free and paid-for) virtual meetings, conferences, webinars, etc. We experimented with a very successful meeting on 15 August 2020. To take part, you'll need to download the Zoom client. It is not necessary to do so in advance, because Zoom will automatically do it the first time you join a meeting. If you have not done so before, it is best to download it in advance of joining our first meeting, because the setup will take some time, and you might miss the best bits. Alternatively, click on the link well in advance of the meeting, allowing time to download the zoom client.

Events History

15 March 2025: Sun Ra and Afrofuturism: Space is the Place

Imagine a person who claimed he was not from Earth, but from Saturn. A jazz musician who saw music not just as sound, but as a force of liberation, an agent of cosmic change. That person was Sun Ra - a visionary, a philosopher, and the architect of Afrofuturism before the term even existed.

Leading his band, the Arkestra, in glittering robes and intergalactic headgear, Sun Ra turned every performance into a portal to another dimension. For him, music was a spaceship, carrying Black consciousness beyond history's limitations, beyond racism, and straight into the cosmos. The Earth itself? Just another vessel hurtling through space.

And then, in 1974, he took his vision even further with Space is the Place, a mind-bending, surreal SF film that makes 2001: A Space Odyssey look tame and predated Star Wars by three years.

Sun Ra was not just playing jazz; he was composing an alternate reality. He redefined the possible, fusing ancient Egyptian mysticism with electronic keyboards and big band swing with cosmic philosophy. Afrofuturism, which blends speculative fiction, African heritage, and technology, owes much to his influence.

Join me as I discuss Sun Ra’s legacy and give a broad introduction to Afrofuturism, followed by Robert Mugge’s 60-minute 1980 documentary, which captures the philosophy, performances, and daily life of Sun Ra and his Arkestra.

Remember: Space is not just the place – it is the future Sun Ra imagined, and in many ways, the one we are still catching up to. This captures the philosophy, performances, and daily life of Sun Ra and his Arkestra.

Speaker: Gerhard Hope

22 February 2025: AI and the Future of Humanity

This was a talk about the eight stages of AI, ranging from the narrow intelligence through to the superintelligence and beyond. Why the need for AI? How will AI enhance our lives? How to mitigate the existential risk? We are already in a sci-fi future this decade.

Thereafter we watched the movie “Superintelligence”, a 2020 American romantic action comedy film directed by Ben Falcone and written by Steve Mallory. The film stars Melissa McCarthy in her fourth collaboration with her husband, Falcone.

Speaker: Shanil Misra

15 June 2024: The Higgs Boson Zombies

A few introductory remarks on the plethora of fundamental particles which have been revealed in high-energy nuclear research, in places such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Europe and then onto the zzzzzzombiesssssss………

It will be followed by the movie “DECAY”.  This was made (as a joke) by some research students at CERN, and tells how the release of swarms of Higgs particles turned everybody there into zombies.

Speaker: Trevor Derry

18 May 2024: Becoming a Sci-Fi Author

This is about Shanil's journey towards becoming the traditionally published author of Simba Singh and the Tears of India.

Speaker: Shanil Misra

325MB 01:55:42 Download MP4

20 April 2024: A Short History of AI

Speaker: Philip Machanick

227MB 01:02:10 Download MP4

16 March 2024: Sci-Fi and Fantasy Movies: A Hundred Year Perspective

Cedric used the database of movies available from IMDB to compare SF/F movies against all movie genres. SF/F movies have had a greater influence on the movie industry than any other genre. He also discusses the influence of SF/F movies on games, and vice versa.

Speaker: Cedric Abrahams

188MB 00:57:03 Download MP4

16 September 2023: Powerpoint Presentation

305MB 01:16:31 Download MP4

19 August 2023: AI for All

Speaker: Arthur Goldstuck

334MB 01:36:26 Download MP4

17 June 2023: There and Back Again: The Evolution of Fantasy Novels

Speaker: Shameez Patel Papathanasiou

566MB 01:21:25 Download MP4

20 May 2023: Successful Failure: The Starship Test Launch

AL spoke about SpaceX's test launch of Starship. This caused a lot of damage. 

Simone posted two links in the chat:

There was an interesting toot on Mastodon. It referred to a topic which stated that "SpaceX's Texas Rocket is Going To Cause A Lot More Damage Than Anyone Thinks". Here is the linked deep dive itself, rather than just the toot..

Speaker: AL du Pisani

293MB 01:24:59 Download MP4

19 November 2022: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

Speaker: Digby Ricci

224MB 01:01:24 Download MP4

15 October 2022: Technology Readiness Level

AL explained the meaning of TRL (Technology Readiness Level), a type of measurement system developed by the USAF, and adapted by NASA, which is used to assess the maturity level of a particular technology. TRL 1 is the lowest and TRL 9 is the highest. It is used by NASA to help it make decisions with respect to their hundreds of programs. AL used this measurement system to examine the state of various technologies competing in the theatre of the energy crisis in South Africa. It is a sobering and concerning survey.

Speaker: AL du Pisani

87MB 00:45:34 Download MKV

20 August 2022: The Songs of the Heavenly Spheres

Phew! There is too much content in this talk to summarise properly. An accurate précis would take a few pages to describe. Chris began with a review of the Music of the Spheres, originally proposed by Pythagoreanism, further developed by Kepler, using the data of Brahe. This concept regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies as a form of music. But is does not stop there. The pulsating of stars extends this theme to the galaxy, and, from there, to the universe.

Embedded within the talk were a few fascinating videos. Unfortunately, the Zoom recording suffers a bit from network bandwidth.

Star Size Comparison 2 (revised by the author, morn1415) provides an awe-inspiring progression of star sizes.

The talk also referenced Mars et Avril, a vimeo movie (91 minutes) referred to as "Quebec's first true sci-fi film". It is the debut of Martin Villeneuve. In Montreal, in the near future, humanity is about to set foot on Mars. Jacob Obus, a charismatic musician, takes pride in slowing down time by playing instruments inspired by women's bodies, designed by his friend, Arthur. A love triangle develops when Jacob and Arthur both fall in love with Avril, a young photographer.

Speaker: Chris Engelbrecht

221MB 01:22:55 Download MKV

16 July 2022: IT and Ethics

Cedric spoke about Ethics in general, with particular emphasis on the way businesses use personal information for directed advertising purposes. He described the regulations in force in SA, Europe and the USA. Some businesses use questionable tactics to pay lip service to privacy concerns.

As the Zoom recording was made almost totally while sharing Cedric's screen, there are very few visual effects, other than the slide presentation. The audio is very interesting, and offers suggestions to reduce your vulnerability - or, at least, to be aware of what you are giving away while using "free" applications.

Speaker: Cedric Abrahams

115MB 01:04:03 Download MP4

18 June 2022: Meta and the New World

Grant gave us a talk on Meta and their proposed Metaverse, and contemplated how close we are with current technology.

Author Neal Stephenson coined the term metaverse in his 1992 science-fiction novel Snow Crash, which envisions a virtual reality-based successor to the internet. In the novel, people use digital avatars of themselves to explore the online world, often as a way of escaping a dystopian reality. Grant provided an overview of the current various incarnations of social media, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and the Chinese equivalents. He mentioned the insidious and gradual steps that the metaverse is encroaching on our daily lives, often by providing free information and services, while sneakily gathering and sharing all personal information. Some technology, particularly storage of data, has been replaced by cloud storage. Other advances in science bring the reality nearer, such as the current ability to grow human skin on a robotic finger.

He made it relevant to SF by taking us down memory lane, starting with possibly the only SF song, In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus), a 1969 hit song by the American pop-rock duo of Zager and Evans. He provided a chronological survey of various futures introduced by various SF writers. In the recording, after 26 minutes, Grant starts sharing his screen, so that the Zoom viewer can see what he was taking about.

Speaker: Grant Charlton

439MB 01:08:04 Download MKV

21 May 2022: It Doesn't Have To Be This Way

Alistair gave us a talk on his book, It Doesn't Have To Be This Way. You can find a synopsis at Goodreads.com

Speaker: Alistair Mackay

249MB 01:05:33 Download MP4

16 April 2022: SF and Mental Health

Nick (our own Meetings Organiser) talks about how Speculative Fiction can have a positive influence on our lives. SF in this context can even refer to "fairy tales", such as those collected by the Brothers Grimm, or the Kalevala, a Finnish national epic compiled from old Finnish ballads, lyrical songs, and incantations that were a part of Finnish oral tradition. Categories of SF include fiction used as a mirror, a key, a compass and as an escape.

Speaker: Nick Heynes

202MB 01:02:43 Download MKV

19 March 2022: Meerkat

James is an engineer working with radio astronomers on the Meerkat project. He explained how radio astronomers use interferometry to improve the accuracy of radio signals, by comparing the results of multiple satellite dishes. Meerkat measures radio signals in the L-band (frequency range of 850MHz to 1.7 GHz). James explained how these radio signals can be used to generate an optical image, and how data from visible light telescopes can be combined with data from radio telescopes to produce a consolidated image that neither source could do on their own.

He also placed Meerkat within the context of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project. He also mentioned NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, an interesting page that should be bookmarked as a favourite.

Following on from his talk, James has sent a link to an article describing the kinds of science which has benefited from the SKA-precursor instruments in both South Africa and Australia. They are not working together as such; each is making observations separately but, by making use of the strengths of each, you can get access to scientific data that would otherwise be unavailable.

Speaker: James Smith

148MB 01:01:37 Download MKV

19 February 2022: French French Science Fiction Comics

Colin taught Culture (or as the French call it, Civilization) at Alliance Francaise. Through Jules Verne, France contributed to creating speculative fiction as a genre in the nineteenth century. The francophone influence in the field is still significant. However, it is largely unacknowledged and shamelessly plagiarised. Colin gives us a glimpse on how France still inspires the world.

Speaker: Colin Voisin

321MB 01:36:27 Download MKV

20 November 2021: Return to Triangulum: An African Alien?

On 7 July 2021, Gerhard Hope gave SFFSA a talk that centred on Triangulum, a 2019 SF novel by Masande Ntshanga. Broadly, he used it as example of how contemporary South African SF is tackling issues of history, genre and intersectionality. In this talk, Prof Gerald Gaylard revisits Triangulum as a preview of a paper he is writing for a book on "the internationalisation of SF", edited by Gary Westfahl. Gerald concentrates on one section of Triangulum, the contact with aliens. A contemporary Black African woman receives a warning regarding the fate of the planet. The aliens tell her that only she, and her mother, have been able to hear them. They explain: "Humankind is host to an organism it has termed Evolution. It is benign and acts to preserve sentient life on earth. That is what we know. It is our understanding that it has intervened, but it is unclear, as our kind does not evolve. It is our understanding that the mother was the first to hear us, and she passed this on to the daughter. In those who are receptive, our voice provides them with both gifts and illness, but never comprehension." 

Gerald asks a number of questions raised by this extract:

• Can there be an African alien?

• What are African views on (extraterrestrial) aliens?

• Can there be anything specific to this continent, to our view, that is different from other countries?

• In other words, can we bring anything unique to the depiction of aliens?

Speaker: Gerald Gaylard

255MB 01:04:27 Download MP4

16 October 2021: Goldilocks planets, but where is Goldilocks?

Prof Carter explains the origin and meaning of the term Goldilocks Zone, that region surrounding a star which is considered essential for life to evolve. But he queries the assumption that life must be similar to our own, drawing upon numerous examples from Science Fiction of alien life forms, both benevolent and malevolent.

Speaker: John Carter

149MB 00:59:48 Download MKV

18 September 2021: Klara and the Sun

Deirdre and Gerhard present opposing views on the novel Klara and the Sun, by Nobel Prize-winning author, Kazuo Ishiguro. Wikipedia has an excellent synopsis for those who have not read the novel. This talk is a debate between Deirdre (who loved it) and Gerhard (who hated it). It takes the form of an interesting self-interview, where Deirdre and Gerhard pose a question, then take turns in presenting their respective answers. While the protagonist (as an unreliable narrator) is a robot, or AF ("Artificial Friend"), Ishiguro himself never actually claims the genre is SF. In fact, expecting a hardcore SF theme might leave the reader severely disappointed. But can a literary novel, set within an SF background, be enjoyed by SF enthusiasts? Download the MVK, listen to the debate, and form your own opinion.

Speaker: Deirdre Byrne & Gerhard Hope

393MB 01:15:58 Download MKV

21 August 2021: South African SF against the Backdrop Rise of African SF

Nick is a long time SFFSA member and British SF author. One of his short stories, Azania, was published in a fantastic anthology, AfroSF: Science Fiction by African Writers. Check out his website for his bibliography and other interesting items. His talk is a comprehensive survey of African speculative fiction. There are too many references to justify a summary, so download the recording and check them out for yourself. Alternatively, you can download the slide show of his talk (with clickable links) available in PDF (Adobe) or PPT (Powerpoint) format. There is enough material here to occupy the ardent AfroSF enthusiast for months.

Click here for a transcript of comments posted during the meeting.

Speaker: Nick Wood

165MB 01:08:08 Download MKV

17 July 2021: History, Genre and Time in Triangulum (2019) by Masande Ntshange: The Future of South African SF

Gerhard's talk centred on Triangulum, a 2019 SF novel by Masande Ntshanga. Broadly, he used it as example of how contemporary South African SF is tackling issues of history, genre and intersectionality.

The complete transcript will be printed in a future edition of Probe.

See a review on PEN SA for a synopsis of the novel.

Conrad sent a link to an aborted attempt to make Nkandla a "smart town", as well as a link to Chinese investment in Africa's tech infrastructure.

Speaker: Gerhard Hope

229MB 01:22:02 Download MKV

19 June 2021: The Midwich Cuckoos and Village of the Damned

Digby compares the classic John Wyndham novel The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) with the 1960 movie version, Village of the Damned. He defends Wyndham against "bizarre" attacks, such as "the master of middle-class catastrophe" (Christopher Priest), and "[The Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Awakes] were totally devoid of ideas but read smoothly, and thus reached a maximum audience, who enjoyed cosy disasters" (Brian Aldiss, Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction).

The Day of the Triffids (1962) is available on Youtube. It is so loosely based on the novel that I hesitate to mention it. Practically the only commonality is that people are blinded by a meteor shower, and that carnivorous, ambulatory plants called triffids feed on them.

Speaker: Digby Ricci

128MB 01:08:46 Download MKV

15 May 2021: Texas Tank Watchers

AL looks at a news ecosystem covering the activities of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) at their Boca Chica development location and launch site.

He provided a link to background info: "$200,000 streaming rigs and millions of views: inside the cottage industry popping up around SpaceX" (CNN)

Speaker: AL du Pisani

139MB 01:20:54 Download MKV

17 April 2021: Fake Science

Professor Philip Machanick, a Computer Science academic at Rhodes University, debunks Fake Science. He touches on propaganda, astroturfing, memes, and denials versus skeptism, especially with regard to Big Tech. The bulk of the talk is about "instant experts" in the fields of epidemiology and pharmacology. He analyses popular fallacies that are derived using "bad science". To do this, he describes how the pandemic spreads, explaining scientific concepts in easy-to-understand terms. He explains why small studies are not good by using a coin-tossing thought experiment. The post-talk discussion enthusiastically concentrated on the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccinations in South Africa.

Speaker: Philip Machanick

228MB 01:34:07 Download MP4

20 February 2021: Instant Messaging: Myths and Realities

Arthur talks about various Instant Messaging apps, including WhatsApp, Messenger, WeChat, QQ Mobile, Telegram, Snapchat and Signal. Under the umbrella the Facebook/WhatsApp controversy, he discusses the privacy war, and how long privacy issues have been abused.

Before the presentation, he provided a link (on youtube) to an interview he did on the topic, and a link to a MoneyWeb article (subscribers only):

• WhatsApp new privacy policy under the spotlight (Youtube)

• Updated policy results in mass exodus of WhatsApp users (MoneyWeb article)

He offered tips to improve your privacy under WhatsApp, by changing certain settings:

• Automatically save images and video

• Preview message text inside new message notifications

• Allow WhatsApp to access your location

• Last Seen (the two blue ticks)

• Auto backup

He stressed that the WhatsApp threat is just the "tip of the iceberg of the privacy apocalypse that we face". He described how to get a report on your WhatsApp account information and settings. He also spoke about the dangers of iCloud, Alexa, dashcam audio recording,

Speaker: Arthur Goldstuck

166MB 01:17:46 Download MKV

15 February 2020 <TBA>

Deirdre Byrne and Andrew Skinner gave us a talk at Nexus.

Events Archives