9th World Science Fiction Convention

The 9th World Science Fiction Convention, also known as Nolacon I, was held 1–3 September 1951 at the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. The chairman was Harry B. Moore. The guest of honor was Fritz Leiber. Total attendance was approximately 190. The at-the-door membership price was US$1, the same price charged from the 1st through the 12th Worldcon.

Notable events included world premiere screenings of The Day The Earth Stood Still and When Worlds Collide, plus a continuous two-day long party in Room 770 at the St. Charles Hotel that became legendary following the convention. Mike Glyer's long-running newszine File 770, named in commemoration of this party, has won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine a number of times.

Hugo Awards were not presented at this Worldcon as the awards were not proposed until 1952, with the first Hugos actually presented in 1953 at the 11th World Science Fiction Convention. However, in 2001 at the 59th World Science Fiction Convention held in Philadelphia, a set of Retro Hugo Awards were presented to honor work that would have been Hugo-eligible had the award existed in 1951.

Read more about 9th World Science Fiction Convention:  In Science Fiction Culture

Famous quotes containing the words world, science, fiction and/or convention:

    A great while ago the world begun,
    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
    But that’s all one, our play is done,
    And we’ll strive to please you every day.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    For us necessity is not as of old an image without us, with whom we can do warfare; it is a magic web woven through and through us, like that magnetic system of which modern science speaks, penetrating us with a network subtler than our subtlest nerves, yet bearing in it the central forces of the world.
    Walter Pater (1839–1894)

    Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.
    Doris Lessing (b. 1919)

    “We’ll encounter opposition, won’t we, if we give women the same education that we give to men,” Socrates says to Galucon. “For then we’d have to let women ... exercise in the company of men. And we know how ridiculous that would seem.” ... Convention and habit are women’s enemies here, and reason their ally.
    Martha Nussbaum (b. 1947)