Happy New Year, one and all! Here’s what we can look forward to this coming first month of 2012 (and no, the end of the Mayan calendar is not on MY calendar).
If you’re going to Arisia, be sure to watch for book signings by local authors Jennifer Pelland (Machine) and Andrew Kirschbaum (Monday and the Murdered Man). 
Maine:
Jan 13-15: SnowConMaine 2012
Massachusetts:
Jan 13-16: Arisia 2012
Jan 13-19: Dead of Winter: Haunted Houses on Film
Jan 20-22: Hooked on Who
Jan 28: MIT’s 34th Annual Science Fiction Marathon
Jan 30: Science on Screen: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
The Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA, has another entry in its “Science on Screen” series coming up: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure paired with a discussion of time travel:
Join us before the film as Edward Farhi, a most excellent professor of physics at MIT and director of its Center for Theoretical Physics, unravels the oddities of time travel and weighs in on the question: Is travel through time physically possible? Dr. Farhi has studied the complexities of building a time machine, though not of the phone-booth variety.
Edward Farhi was trained as a theoretical particle physicist but has also worked on astrophysics, general relativity, and the foundations of quantum mechanics. His current interest is the theory of quantum computation. He was on the staff at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland before coming to MIT, where he joined the faculty in 1982. He has won three teaching awards at MIT and has presented his research at many of the world’s leading physics research centers.
Set your time machine’s chronometer for January 30th at 7:00pm. Learn more at http://www.coolidge.org/content/bill-teds-excellent-adventure.
The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA is hosting another “Hooked on Who” festival for Doctor Who fans!
We continue our sporadic series featuring everyone’s favorite time traveling alien, Doctor Who, with this edition of HOOKED ON WHO. On Friday and Saturday we offer a duo of stories featuring killer automatons and starring the 1980s incarnation of The Doctor, Tom Baker. On Sunday we feature the newest version of Doctor Who, Matt Smith, in a storyline that brings him to the United States for the first time – and into allegiance with Richard Nixon.
Friday, January 20: THE ROBOTS OF DEATH Featuring Tom Baker as The Doctor
Saturday, January 21: THE ANDROID INVASION Featuring Tom Baker as The Doctor
Sunday, January 22: THE IMPOSSIBLE ASTRONAUT and DAY OF THE MOON Featuring Matt Smith as The Doctor
All shows will be at 9:30pm. See http://brattlefilm.org/category/calendar-2/ for more information.
Back by popular demand, the New England Anime Society will once again run a marathon of anime selections during Boston’s First Night celebrations on December 31st. An exact schedule has not been posted yet, but you can keep an eye on http://schedule.firstnight.org/ for details.
The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA is hosting a film repertory series with the theme of “Dead of Winter: Haunted Houses on Film.”
We’re putting the chills back into wintertime with this series featuring some of the most iconic haunted houses ever committed to celluloid. From Robert Wise’s seminal THE HAUNTING to a sneak preview of the brand new haunted inn thriller, THE INNKEEPERS, there’s just something about a creepy, creaky old house that inspires fear. This series features homegrown American classics like the original AMITYVILLE HORROR, THE SHINING and POLTERGEIST alongside foreign titles like THE ORPHANAGE and the amazingly frightening JU-ON: THE GRUDGE, among others. And, to top it all off, the inspiration for this whole series: a rare, uncut 35mm print of Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci’s THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY which was, strangely, filmed in Massachusetts.
The various films will be screened January 13th through the 19th; see http://brattlefilm.org/category/calendar-2/repertory-series/dead-of-winter-haunted-houses-on-film/ for exact showtimes.
Harvard University’s own science fiction convention, Vericon, will return to campus the weekend of March 16-18, 2012. The guest of honor will be author Vernor Vinge; other authors are expected to attend, including Lev Grossman. Learn more at http://www.vericon.org/.
Quinni-Con is a free anime convention being run by the Quinnipiac University Anime Club in Hamden, CT the weekend of April 28-29. The guest of honor will be actress and voice artist Lisle Wilkerson.
Quinni-Con is a celebration of art, film, food, music, dance, and Japanese culture. There are many different events at the convention that range from a café to movie screenings and guest speakers to dances. The whole purpose of the convention is to bring people of all ages together to have a great time, make friends, and try something different!
Learn more at http://quinni-con.com/.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA will host its 34th Annual Science Fiction Marathon on January 28th. Movies will include Cowboys & Aliens, Inception, and The Thing (1982). Watch http://lsc.mit.edu/ for updates to the schedule.
Queen City Kamikaze is a one-day anime and video game convention being held in Manchester, NH on February 18, 2012. There will be game tournaments, cosplay, anime screenings, dances, and a number of special guests. Learn more at http://queencitykamikaze.com/.
Total Confusion (TotalCon 26) is a gaming convention being held in Mansfield, MA the weekend of February 23-26, 2012. The convention will feature board games, roleplaying games, card games, and more, plus a number of guests from the gaming industry. For more details see http://www.totalcon.com/.
MA, ME | nescifievents | 
December 31, 2011 9:26 pm | 
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