Dr. Phil Plait, astronomer, lecturer, and author, was a popular guest of the Dragon*Con Space and Skeptic tracks in 2008, and he’s back with us for 2009! At the end of last year’s convention, he snuck with us into the Hilton’s VIP lounge for some questions and fawning. Phil talked to us about his new book, Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End…, astronomy both bad and awesome, his blog, and his new role at the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Read on.

John and Ian Lohr, a father-and-son publishing team from Wyoming, spoke at the Sunday afternoon panel “Pulp: the Foundations of the Forties and Fifties.” They shared their experiences working with the genre and invited the audience to participate in their literary rediscovery of science fiction classics.

The second annual Dragon*Con Academic Mini Conference, in collaboration with the Institute for Comics Studies, presented three panels featuring scholarly studies of comics and pop culture. On Sunday, a panel of three graduate students discussed their work. Sabrina Starnaman (University of California-San Diego) examined Jonathan Hickman’s The Nightly News for his commentary on the struggle for autonomy in an insidiously powerful state. Brian Curtis (Nashville State Community College) discussed how superheroes provide a vehicle for achieving a fully developed psyche. …

The Pern stories have been translated into more than 120 different languages. On Saturday, track director Charlotte Moore led a panel on the various forms one story took when translated into four languages. Panelists read several translations of a passage from Dragonflight, chosen for its difficult-to-translate poetic and “Pernese” contents. Thomas Edgar (German), Jacob Klunder (Danish), Joyce Lanterman (French), and Moore (Spanish) followed the reading with a discussion of how each version differed from the original.

On Sunday, Miss Klingon Empire 2007 will relinquish her crown to the contestant with the looks and the nerve to claim it from her.

Last year, VarkNa B’traughh (Valerie Rice) defeated her rivals with a Klingon interpretive hula dance. Donning a grass skirt and coconut bustier, she balanced the grace of Polynesia with the ferocity of Qo’noS.