Noreascon 4 Hugo Nominee Stats

Noreascon 4’s Hugo Administrator, Rick Katze, has posted the top 15 vote-getters in each category on the Worldcon’s Hugo nomination details page. Here’s the chance to satisfy your morbid curiosity — how close did you came to making the final ballot? (Finalists already know how far from winning they were, because Katze unveiled the 2004 Hugo final results on the night of the awards.) This is everyone else’s chance to rise up in righteous indignation and declaim the nonentities standing between our friends and the finalists. (Hangin’s too good for ‘em!) And if all you’re interested in is the fan Hugo categories, we’ve got the stats and a list of their links just a click away …

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Note: The names above the dashed line were finalists.
Best Fan Writer (260 people nominated)
John L. Flynn

— 55
Jeff Berkwits

— 45
Bob Devney — 42
Dave Langford

— 39

Cheryl Morgan — 35

Lloyd Penney

— 25
John Hertz

— 18
Evelyn Leeper

— 17
Teresa Nielsen Hayden

— 16
Guy H. Lillian III

— 13
Steven Silver

— 13
Daniel Kimmel

— 12
Bruce Gillespie

— 11
Karen Bennett

— 10
Ernest Lilley

— 10

Best Fanzine (211 people nominated)
Emerald City

— 48
Challenger

— 41
Plokta

— 39
Mimosa

— 26
File 770

— 25

SFRevu

— 20
Devniad — 19
Bento

— 17
Voyageur

— 17
Science Fiction Commentary

— 16
Chunga

— 12
Fortean Bureau

— 12
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet

— 9
Alexiad — 9
MT Void

— 9
Trap Door— 9

Best Fan Artist (190 people nominated)
Frank Wu

— 75
Sue Mason

— 33
Teddy Harvia

— 32
Brad Foster

— 26
Steve Stiles

— 20

Taral Wayne

— 15
Bill Neville— 15
Alexis Gilliland — 14
Sheryl Birkhead

— 10
Kurt Erichsen

— 10
Marc Schirmeister — 10
Dan Steffan — 10
Alan White

— 9
Mel Vavaroutsos

— 8
Stu Shiffman

— 7

The links are included as a public service to anyone whose shouting “Who in hell is that?” is more than a rhetorical question. The list is incomplete, unfortunately. Joe Major’s Alexiad and John Hertz don’t have websites. Also, if Alexis Gilliland, Sue Mason, Marc Schirmeister, Dan Steffan or Steve Stiles keep up a website we didn’t find it, though we added a representative link in a couple of instances anyway. A Google search on the fanartists’ names also will lead to numerous individual examples of their art.

You are right if you suspect two of the top 15 fanzine nominees are obvious semiprozines getting votes from people confused about the categories. The Fortean Bureau is a magazine of speculative fiction. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet actually got nominations for both semiprozine and fanzine, but reveals online it is a market for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and black and white art.

The administrator explains, “We validated the eligibility and names/titles of all nominees who might have affected the final ballot, but did not attempt to validate nominees who received fewer nominations.”

Water Brothers on Mars by 2024?

People could land on Mars in the next 20 to 30 years provided scientists can find water on the red planet, the head of NASA’s surface exploration mission told reporters on September 15. I can’t even find water service at the head table when I’m on a panel at the Worldcon, so I have no idea why they expect to find it on Mars. Yet NASA is busy checking for it with two Mars Exploration Rovers. The rovers have looked everywhere within 3 miles of where they landed without finding any sign so far, rather reminiscent of the way fans were forced to search for Noreascon 4 registration. Perhaps they will eventually luck out. I did.

Astronauts need Martian water to drink, because they can’t haul along enough bottles of Dasani no matter how eager the Coca Cola company might be to paint its logo on the side of first manned spacecraft to Mars (though wouldn’t that make Delos Harriman proud?) More surprisingly, NASA says they’ll need the water to make the fuel needed for the return flight.

Martian life was an obsession of science fiction writers until unmanned probes revealed the hostile conditions of the planet’s surface. It still is, the scientific discoveries have simply changed the rules that inventors of new Martian civilizations must play by. Larry Niven wrote his own stories about underground Martians and their murderous ways, and how Protector-instigated genocide put an end to them. Other writers would crash those water-bearing comets and asteroids onto Mars to start life, like Bruce Sterling (“Cicada Queen”). Still others hope all the water you need is just under the surface, like Kim Stanley Robinson.

Whatever way the writers want to go, fans will always have a soft spot in our hearts for a good yarn about the planet Mars. After all, didn’t War of the Worlds and Marvin the Martian just finish 1-2 for the Best Dramatic Retro Hugo?

Warner’s Colossus Strides Anew

Tired of fanhistoricist bullies kicking sand in your face? Want to impress femmefans at parties? Change your life today and strengthen your mind! Start by lifting a copy of Harry Warner’s All Our Yesterdays, newly reissued by the NESFA Press. Let fandom’s leading historian be your coach and soon your cerebellum will be rippling with revelations of fanac in times of old!

With extra vitality injected by editor Joe Siclari, this powerful classic is harnessed by Steve Stiles’s cover art in a dust jacket designed by Alice Lewis. All Our Yesterdays is the late Harry Warner’s history of SF fandom up to 1950, first published in 1969 by Advent:Publishers but long out of print.

The new NESFA Press version is studded with additional photos that were not in the Advent edition. NESFA Press also boasts the book has a more muscular index. It must be quite fine, George Price’s original index was extravagantly praised by Warner himself. Presumbly, no one dared tamper with Wilson “Bob” Tucker’s original Introduction as long as any Olympian lightning bolts remained in the Bloomington arsenal.

Warner explained in “Most of My Days Before Yesterday” (Pelf 7, April 1969) how dissatisfied he was with the major fan histories that had been created up to then: “They had all emphasized fandom as a power struggle and this seemed wrong to me. Fandom, of all places, is a field where nobody can wield power over more than a fistful of local acolytes, at best.” In particular, Warner saw his history as an antidote to Sam Moskowitz’ epic, The Immortal Storm. He dryly remarked about the rival work: “If read directly after a history of World War II, it does not seem like an anticlimax.” (John Trimble campaigned for Warner’s book to be called “The Immortal Calm.”)

The origins of many kinds of fanac, from fanzines and apas to clubs and costuming, are traced in All Our Yesterdays. Conventions, especially Worldcons, are prominently featured in his chronicle although he didn’t go to them even when they were close to home. He made an exception for Noreascon I, the 1971 Worldcon, where he was fan guest of honor.

Harry Warner, Jr. was born in 1922 and died in 2003. He had been an active science fiction fan since 1936. Through the years he gained fame in the science fiction world variously as a fanzine publisher, correspondent, fan writer, and historian. His fanzine Horizons had been a mainstay of the Fantasy Amateur Press Association since 1939, and his correspondence appeared in the letter columns of seemingly every science fiction fanzine title published since the 1930s. He won the Best Fanwriter Hugo in 1969 and 1972, and A Wealth of Fable garnered him another Hugo in 1993 for Best Non-Fiction Book.

Wingding Planned for Tucker’s 90th

Wilson Tucker is turning 90 on November 23, 2004 – and you’re invited to come help the Dawn Patrol throw him a party!

The party will actually happen Saturday, November 27, during the weekend of Chambanacon 34. The party will take place in Tucker’s hometown of Bloomington, Illinois, a few miles away from the convention in Springfield. The Dawn Patrol is a far-flung crew of fans who read and contribute to Roger Tener’s, Chronicles of the Dawn Patrol (distributed weekdays by e-mail).

Tucker needs no introduction to readers of Trufen.net. But if we give him none, too many great links will be left on the cutting-room floor, so… Wilson “Bob” Tucker is a long-time pillar of fandom, known for his classic fanzines Le Zombie and eZombie. His fan and pro writing have been acclaimed. He won the Best Fan Writer Hugo in 1970, and collected a 2004 Retro Hugo
as Best Fan Writer of 1953. As an sf writer, he created such stories as the Hugo-nominated novel Year of the Quiet Sun (1976).

Anyone interested in attending should email Roger Tener or Keith Stokes ASAP, since the number coming will have a big impact in how much they are going to arrange. The party will be centerpiece of any number of Tucker celebrations that probably will include small group dinners at local restaurants, and a hospitality suite on Saturday evening.