Odd Con III Guests of Honor.

Harry Turtledove is a best selling author, who attracted many new readers to SF and fantasy, and enthused long time SF fans with his exciting and intelligent fiction. He began publishing stories in 1979, and since 1991, he worked full-time as a writer. He won the Hugo in 1994, along with many other awards and nominations.

Harry Turtledove is best known as the leading writer of alternative history. His novels include The Guns of the South, in which the South wins the Civil War, and The Two Georges written with the actor Richard Dreyfuss, in which America remains a British colony in the 20th Century. In addition to science fiction, Harry Turtledove writes fantasy including the Videssos series. Additionally, he has also published under the pen names of Eric G. Iverson and Mark Gordion, and has published historical novels set in ancient Greece as H.N. Turteltaub. Recently, his dry wit won him the position of Toast Master at World Con in Chicago in 2000. This will be his first appearance at a Convention in Wisconsin. Harry Turtledove lives in Los Angeles with his wife the mystery writer Laura Frankos.

Catherine Asaro, after the varied careers of ballet dancer and research physicist tried her hand at science fiction writing. In 1995, her first novel in the The Saga of the Skolian Empire series, Primary Inversion was a success, and The Quantum Rose, won the Nebula Award for best novel of 2001. Her most recent novel in the series is Moon Shadow that will be in bookstores in February 2003.

Catherine Asaro received her PhD in Chemical Physics and MA in Physics, both from Harvard, and a BS with Highest Honors in Chemistry from UCLA. Her research involves using quantum theory to describe the behavior of atoms and molecules. She was a physics professor until 1990, when she established Molecudyne Research, which she currently runs. In the 1980's she was principal dancer and artistic director of the Mainly Jazz Dancers and the Harvard University Ballet. Catherine Asaro still teaches ballet in Maryland.

Many of you may remember Catherine Asaro on panels at WisCon. She lives in Maryland with her husband, John Kendall Cannizzo, an astrophysicist at NASA. They have one daughter, a young ballet dancer who loves math. Catherine Asaro is a favorite panelist at many conventions.

For our third guest of honor we could not decide on whether to get a fan, a publisher, an artist, or a game creator, so we got all four in John Kovalic. A native of Manchester England, John Kovalic created the comic strip Wild Life while attending the University of Wisconsin in the 1980s. Wild Life, which went on to newspaper syndication, was followed by Dork Tower the hysterical parody of fans and gamers.

He has many more comic projects both in-print and online at kovalic.com. In partnership with gaming creator Steve Jackson he has illustrated many successful games, including award winning Munchkins and Apples to Apples. His comic book publishing company, Dork Storm Press, has in only a few years, become one of the country's largest independent comic publishers. A long time resident of Madison, John Kovlic, appears every year at many comic and SF conventions around the country.

Other Panelists

Returning to Odyssey Con III are award winning Science Fiction and Fantasy writer Joan D. Vinge, best known for her novels Snow Queen and Summer Queen, and Jim Frenkel - Tor Books editor for writers including Vernor Vinge and Terry Goodkind. Also, returning are film aficionados Richard Russell and Eric Larson, and many other panelists to be announced.