Pixel Scroll 11/17/23 Walking My Sloth Named Thoth

(1) A TAFF GUIDE TO BEER. [Item by Geri Sullivan.] A TAFF Guide to Beer is now available in print on Amazon in the US and UK!

Claire Brialey & Mark Plummer published A TAFF Guide to Beer during the 2019 Eastbound TAFF race. It celebrates the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund and the ways in which in brings together and fosters connections between science fiction fans from across Europe and North America, seen through the lens of beer. It features contributions from over 3 dozen TAFF delegates as well as the 4 candidates in the 2019 race. We printed copies then, and it’s been available on Dave Langford’s splendid TAFF ebook page pretty much ever since.

When I started working on Idea #13 (being published shortly, a mere 23 years since Idea #12), Pat Virzi advised me to publish another, small project on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) since the first book you publish with them often takes a long time for them to process. 

Claire and Mark gave the go-ahead. I faffed around for longer than I like to admit, but finally figured out how to make room for the bar code on the back cover, and sent off for a proof copy. It arrived Tuesday. After I clicked the “publish” button, the fanzine spent a few days in KDP’s review process, but it’s now available for $10 or £8. TAFF will receive just over $1/£1 for each copy sold.

Note: KDP says it takes up to 3 days Amazon.com to show it in stock and up to 5 days in other marketplaces. These links are working for me tonight; you’re welcome to share them with fans who might be interested: 

And several other countries, too. 

(2) BOOKS FOR CREDENTIALS. [Item by Daniel Dern.] The Harvard Book Store was expecting a shipment of books. A pallet of boxes marked ‘haddock filets’ arrived instead — Warehouse workers panicked, but it was only a red herring.

The Boston Globe story is paywalled, so here’s an excerpt:

…Sitting before [the bookstore’s warehouse manager] were dozens of green-and-white cardboard packages that read, “FROZEN FISH” and “HADDOCK” in big block letters…but it turns out that the store’s regular distributor…simply had extra boxes lying around… [that] happened to be for a Florida-based seafood wholesaler called Beaver Street Fisheries, Inc.

The bookstore did an Instagram caption contest; entries included “Available in hardcover, paperback, and filet.”

(3) THIEVES LIKE US. “Lost Doctor Who episodes found – but owner is reluctant to hand them to BBC” reports the Guardian.

For Doctor Who-lovers they are the missing crown jewels: lost episodes of the first series of the TV sci-fi drama, shown in the 1960s. But now film recordings of not just one, but two of the early BBC adventures, both featuring the first doctor, William Hartnell, has been found in Britain by amateur sleuths.

The episodes, one featuring the Daleks, would offer viewers a chance to travel back in time without the use of a Tardis. But the Observer has learned that the owners of the rare, rediscovered footage are not prepared to hand it over to the BBC, even as the clock ticks down to the 60th anniversary of the show’s launch this month.

Veteran film collector John Franklin believes the answer is for the BBC to announce an immediate general amnesty on missing film footage.

This would reassure British amateur collectors that their private archives will not be confiscated if they come forward and that they will be safe from prosecution for having stored stolen BBC property, something several fear….

(4) EARLY JOANNA RUSS. “’It’s Not Shrill, It’s Ultrasonic’: Queer SF Pioneer Joanna Russ’s Feminist Awakening” at Library of America.

…“We started with the assumption that the woman’s problem is not a woman’s problem; it is a social problem,” [Sheila] Tobias wrote. “There is something wrong with a society that cannot find ways to make it possible for married women, single women, intelligent women, educated or uneducated, or welfare women, to achieve their full measure of reward.” Some two thousand people attended discussions on abortion, contraception, childcare, race, and sexuality. It was one of the first conferences in the United States to address sexism in an academic setting….

(5) HAND Q&A. “Elizabeth Hand on Playwriting, Haunted Houses, and Shirley Jackson” at CrimeReads.

[ELIZABETH HAND]: I just love haunted house stories. And The Haunting of Hill House is kind of the haunted house story, certainly for Americans. For me, it was just a matter of really following the template that [Jackson] created. Laurence sent me scans of the drawings that she had made, like the house plans for Hill House, some of which I think are reprinted in the Franklin bio. But I had them in like a bigger format. And so that was really cool—to see how she envisioned that space. And I had read the book multiple times over the years, and I reread it more than once when preparing to write this book [A Haunting on the Hill]. And during one of those three readings, I just went through with a highlighter to highlight all the references to doors and windows of the halls and just… spaces within it, because I thought, if I get anything wrong, people are going to call me on it! If I have the red room at the wrong end of the hallway, you know, no one’s going to let me get away with it!

(6) INVEST WISELY. Cat Rambo advises writers about “Making the Most of Your Con Budget” at the SFWA Blog.

…Decide who you want to connect with by a) looking at the guest or membership list, which is usually available online, b) joining/following the convention’s social media accounts to see who’s posting there, and c) asking among your friends, including online groups you belong to.

If the convention is non-genre-specific, find out what kind of presence your genre will have. What teachers or mentors are attending that you would like to meet? What agents are appearing and what genres do they represent? (You may need to go to their agencies’ websites to find this out.)

Look over the convention’s website and promotional materials to determine what the event’s strengths are—what does it offer that isn’t always available, such as a chance to pitch to multiple agents, or the Nebula Conference Mentorship Program that pairs newer conference attendees with experienced Nebula-goers?

Using all of the above, set your goals for the event….

(7) UNMANNERLY VISITORS. Recommended: “’The Earthlings’ by Matthew Olzmann” at Academy of American Poets.

(8) SHADES OF TRALFAMADORE. Sophie Kemp assures us “Kurt Vonnegut’s House Is Not Haunted” in The Paris Review.

… And as for me, I do not remember when I first registered that Kurt Vonnegut lived in Alplaus, a small hamlet in Schenectady County, named after the Dutch expression aal plaats, which means “a place of eels.” (There were no eels that I am aware of.) I think it was in high school. I think my hair was cut short. I think it was when I was a virgin. I think it was when I got a job as a bookseller at the Open Door on Jay. I think I was probably sixteen….

… They asked if we wanted to see inside. The thing about the house, they told us, is that it was not haunted, because ghosts are not real, but also a copy of Player Piano, sitting face out on a bookshelf, kept falling on the head of one of their kids and as a result the family had this inside joke about it being Kurt’s ghost. Obviously, I wanted to see the haunted bookshelf so they showed me the haunted bookshelf. It looked pretty normal. Also facing out was a stuffed animal gnome holding a coffee cup that said “Best Mom,” and a book about raising chickens. I cannot stress enough that the house of Kurt Vonnegut is now just a completely normal house where people live and is full of completely normal things that appear in completely normal houses. Which to me makes a lot of sense. Vonnegut in my opinion is a charming and scrappy weirdo. He is not the kind of person you think of as living on some kind of grand estate…. 

(9) THE FIRE THIS TIME. [Item by Dann.] Author and lecturer, Virginia Postrel, found herself aghast at a repeated misrepresentation of the myth of Prometheus.  The tale of Prometheus was presented as a cautionary tale about the risks of innovation and technology.  She responds by pointing out that Prometheus was a defender who loved humanity in “The Myth of Prometheus Is Not a Cautionary Tale”

…No. No. No. No.

Prometheus is punished for loving humankind. He stole fire to thwart Zeus’ plans to eliminate humanity and create a new subordinate species. He is a benefactor who sacrifices himself for our good. His punishment is an indicator not of the dangers of fire but of the tyranny of Zeus.

…The Greeks honored Prometheus. They celebrated technē. They appreciated the gifts of civilization.

The ancient myth of Prometheus is not a cautionary tale. It is a reminder that technē raises human beings above brutes. It is a myth founded in gratitude.

She points out that a similar anti-technology reading of Frankenstein is also flawed.

(10) ABANDON TWITTER ALL YE WHO EXIT HERE. Not at all trying to be a completist, but here are a few more authors who are leaving X.

Scott Edelman also wants Filers to know that he bailed from Twitter – except he did it two months ago.

Several advertisers are also applying the brakes. “Disney, Apple, Lionsgate Suspend X/Twitter Ads; White House Condemns Musk Post” according to Deadline.

Deadline has confirmed that Disney is the latest company to suspend its advertising on X/Twitter in the wake of owner Elon Musk‘s amplification of an anti-semitic post two days ago. Read more below.

…More companies are suspending advertising on X/Twitter in the wake of reports that the site has let spots run next to pro-Nazi content.

Apple has decided to pause advertising on the platform, according to a report from Axios, citing sources at the company. An Apple spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

A spokesperson for Lionsgate also confirmed a Bloomberg report that it, too, was suspending advertising on the platform.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born November 17, 1915 Raymond F. Jones. Writer who is best remembered for his novel This Island Earth, which was made into a movie which was then skewered in Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Movie. However, he produced a significant number of science fiction novels and short stories which were published in magazines such as Thrilling Wonder Stories, Astounding Stories, and Galaxy, including “Rat Race” and “Correspondence Course”, which respectively earned Hugo and Retro Hugo nominations. (Died 1994.)
  • Born November 17, 1932 Dennis McHaney. Writer and Critic. Pulp writers in particular seem to attract scholars, both amateur and professional. Robert E. Howard was not an exception. So I give you this individual who, between 1974 and 2008, published The Howard Review and The Robert E. Howard Newsletter. Oh, but that was hardly all he did, as he created reference works such as The Fiction of Robert E. Howard – A Pocket Checklist, Robert E. Howard in Oriental Stories, Magic Carpet and The Souk, and The Fiction of Robert E. Howard: A Quick Reference Guide. A listing of his essays and other works would take an entire page. It has intriguing entries such as Frazetta Trading CardsThe Short, Sweet Life and Slow Agonizing Death of a Fan’s Magazine, and The Films of Steve Reeves. Fascinating… (Died 2011.)
  • Born November 17, 1936 John Trimble, 87. Husband of Bjo Trimble. He has assisted her in almost all of her SF work, including Project Art Show. They were GoHs at ConJose. He’s a member of LASFS. He’s been involved in far too many fanzines and APAs to list here, some of which I’d loved to have read such as “Where No Fan Has Gone Before”,  a fanzine done in support of the Save Star Trek campaign which was edited by him and Bojo. You can read one of their late Fifties fanzines, which I choose because of its title, “Some Important Information Concerning Unicorn Productions”, here.
  • Born November 17, 1966 Ed Brubaker, 57. Comic book writer and artist. Sandman Presents: Dead Boy Detectives I’d consider his first genre work. Later work for DC and Marvel included The AuthorityBatmanCaptain AmericaDaredevilCatwoman and the Uncanny X-Men. If I may single out but one series, it’d be the one he did with writer Greg Rucka which was the Gotham Central series. It’s Gotham largely without Batman but with the villains so GPD has to deal with them by themselves. Grim and well done. In 2016, he joined the writing staff for the Westworld series where he co-wrote the episode “Dissonance Theory” with Jonathan Nolan.
  • Born November 17, 1983 Christopher Paolini, 40. He is the author of the most excellent Inheritance Cycle, which consists of the books EragonEldestBrisingr, and Inheritance. Several years ago, The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm, the first book in a series called Tales of Alagaësia, was published. A film version of the first novel came out sometime ago but I’ve not seen it. His SF Fractulverse series, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, and Fractal Noise, is quite well crafted.

(12) WHO FAN FROM THE BEGINNING. “Russell T Davies on secrets, sex and falling for Doctor Who: ‘Something clicked in my head: I love you’” in the Guardian.

…The turning point came at the age of 11 – a huge change for me and for the show. I went to comprehensive school; the Doctor became Tom Baker. I have a crucial memory of TV Comic’s weekly Doctor Who strip printing a gorgeous piece of artwork (drawn, I now know, by Gerry Haylock) showing Tom Baker in full hat, scarf and toothy grin. And something clicked in my head. Something clicked and has stayed clicked ever since. A simple thought which said: I love you.

It’s easy to draw a link between gayness and fandom. So easy, maybe it’s true. Because as those teenage years advanced, two things synced up. I was gay and went silent, watching all the parties and fancying boys at a remove instead of getting drunk on cider, scared of giving myself away. At exactly the same time, I watched TV fiercely. Both things became closeted. Doctor Who became the other love that dares not speak its name.

It lasts, the closet. Many years later, in my late 20s, when I’d moved to Manchester and worked in TV and went to Canal Street every weekend, I copped off with a nice lad who saw a book about Doctor Who on my shelf and said: “I was in that! I was a soldier in The Caves of Androzani.” And I lied, I lied to a man I’d just had sex with, I said: “No, that book’s from work, it’s someone else’s, I don’t really know what it is.” Sorry, soldier.

I wonder now why I fell in love so hard. Though can anyone ever answer that? Some of the secret exists in what the Doctor is not. He/she/they have never had a job or a boss or even parents, they never pay tax, never do homework. They never have to go home at night. Maybe you fall in love with the show when you’re a kid because the Doctor’s a big kid, too. I could never love Star Trek in the same way because they’re the navy; when I survive to the year 2266, they won’t allow me on board. I’ll be scrubbing the floor below decks, at best. But Doctor Who’s greatest idea is that the Tardis can land anywhere. I’d walk home from school wishing I could turn the corner and see that blue box and run inside to escape everything. I don’t think that wish has quite gone….

(13) WELL, HARDLY EVER. Black Nerd Problems’ Mikkel Snyder says, “To Watch ‘Pantheon,’ I Wouldn’t Ever Promote Piracy…”

… The central point of all of this is that studios are much more concerned with not paying residuals, and you know what, in the capitalist hellscape that we exist in, I can pretend that I can understand. However, as someone who loves media in all of its forms and is a proponent of media preservation, it’s exceedingly frustrating that works of art that I could see as seminal are subject to the whims of razor thin profit margins. And I’m willing to pay to get access to this media. I immediately purchased all four seasons of Infinity Train in a desperate bid to get access to one of my favorite animated series of 2020 and 2021. Even now, I’m aware that if Prime wanted to they could wipe my entire library, and I would have next to no recourse.

But let’s flash forward to early October when thanks to a friend, I caught wind that for some reason, the second season of Pantheon was in fact airing exclusively on Prime Australia and New Zealand and had no discernable release in the States.

Now, I wouldn’t ever promote piracy. Piracy hurts hard working creatives. It denies them of any direct revenue that is generated from purchases or views, and the only thing potentially worse is completely removing any evidence that it ever existed and preventing any legitimate means of acquisition…or you know, something like that.

And it would be a real shame if the second season of a phenomenal science fiction series that may or may not conclude its story as there is no way in hell a third season is ever going to exist. And it would be completely wild if access to the episodes would be entirely dependent on the random whims of a random Prime ANZ executive. But at least *someone* would get to watch it. And at least it would be online….

(14) JEOPARDY! Andrew Porter enjoyed this wrong reply on tonight’s episode of Jeopardy!

Final Jeopardy: Literary Characters

Answer: In his first appearance in 1902, he was described as “betwixt-and-between” a boy & a bird.

Wrong question: Who is Batman?

Right question: Who is Peter Pan?

(15) UPDATE TO THE ROBERT BLOCH OFFICIAL WEBSITE. Two updates to the Psycho page at the Robert Bloch Official Website.

  • A link to a video showing Psycho (film) locations and how they look today.
  • A nice behind-the-scenes shot with Hitchcock in front of the Bates home.

(16) KEEP CALM, ZACK FANS. “Both of Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon films will get their own R-rated director’s cut” says Entertainment Weekly.

For years after Zack Snyder departed Justice League in the midst of production, the filmmaker’s most passionate fans repeatedly pleaded their case: #ReleasetheSnyderCut. Eventually, they succeeded. In 2021, Warner Bros. brought the director back to their DC superhero roster one last time to complete Zack Snyder’s Justice League

That experience taught Snyder and his wife/producing partner Deborah that there is a significant subset of people who will always be interested in seeing his pure, uncut artistic vision. They took that lesson with them as they set out building their own new cinematic universe in the form of the two-part sci-fi epic Rebel Moon (which you can read all about in EW’s new cover story). 

Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire hits Netflix on Dec. 22, but that won’t be the only version of the film. At some undisclosed point in the future, a longer R-rated version will be added to the streaming platform, and the same will be true for next year’s Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver. But unlike the messy years-long experience with DC, these “director’s cuts” were planned from the beginning. During an hourlong Zoom interview with EW on Halloween about the making of the new films, Snyder said that Netflix producers brought up the idea very early on in the process….

(17) HISTORY FROM ANOTHER PLANET. StarWars.com reminds everyone about “The Origins of Life Day”.

Before you and your family gather your glowing orbs, don your ankle-length red smocks, and gather at the sacred tree to recite hallowed Shyriiwook verses in celebration of Life Day, let’s look back at the holiday’s origins. Not from within the Star Wars setting, mind you; rather, let’s examine its real-world history and evolution from an obscure TV source to an annual fan tradition.

The root of Life Day is found in The Star Wars Holiday Speciala star-studded 1978 prime time broadcast that aired on CBS once on November 17, 1978. After that broadcast, it was never to be (officially) seen again in the US and instead was relegated to bizarre cultural curiosity in the years that followed. The intent of the Holiday Special was to keep Star Wars in the public eye during the long three-year stretch between movies with new entertainment, using a tried-and-true television format of the 1970s: the variety special….

(18) STARSHIP HELD FOR QUICK FIX. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] SpaceX has announced it will delay the planned second launch of its “Starship“ rocket until Saturday to replace a failed or questionable grid fin actuator. The rocket has been unstacked at the launchpad to provide access for replacing the part. The four grid fins provide guidance/attitude control when returning the super heavy booster to a controlled landing. (In this case, a “land”ing in the ocean.) “SpaceX delays launch of its giant Starship rocket to swap out a part” at Ars Technica.

The launch of SpaceX’s second full-size Starship rocket from South Texas is now scheduled for Saturday, a day later than previously planned, according to company founder Elon Musk.

This 24-hour delay will allow time for SpaceX technicians at the company’s launch facility, known as Starbase, to replace a component on the rocket’s stainless steel Super Heavy booster. There is a 20-minute launch window on Saturday, opening at 7 am CST (13:00 UTC), shortly after sunrise in South Texas.

A delay at this point is unsurprising. Starship is a complex launch vehicle with a sum of 39 methane-burning engines, each producing roughly a half-million pounds of thrust, powering its booster stage and upper stage. And this is only the second test flight of SpaceX’s new full-scale, nearly 400-foot-tall (121-meter) rocket, the largest launch vehicle ever built…

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Steven French, Dann, Scott Edelman, Geri Sullivan, Rich Lynch, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Glasgow 2024 Wins, Announces Guests of Honor

The Glasgow 2024 Worldcon was officially seated after the announcement of site selection voting results this morning at Chicon 8.

The Glasgow bid ran unopposed. As reported by Alex Acks, there was a total of 802 site selection ballots expressing a preference: 776 votes for Glasgow, the others for write-ins. There were no ballots indicating none of the above.

Glasgow 2024, the 82nd World Science Fiction Convention, will be held in Glasgow, UK from August 8-12, 2024. The convention website, with current membership rates, is here. Their Twitter account is @Glasgowin2024.

The Guests of Honor will be Chris Baker (Fangorn), Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer, Ken MacLeod, Nnedi Okorafor, and Terri Windling.  Additional Special Guests and Toastpeople will be announced over the coming months.
  
Glasgow 2024 Chair, Esther MacCallum-Stewart said, “It’s a huge honor to host the Worldcon, and our team have worked incredibly hard to get us to this point. We can’t wait to bring our blend of Inclusion, Caring and Imagination to the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon, and to create an event that is both exciting and innovative. This really is a Worldcon for our Futures!”

Aileen Crawford, Head of Tourism and Conventions at Glasgow Life said: “Glasgow is delighted to welcome Worldcon fans back to our city in August 2024, following the previous events in 1995 and 2005. Congratulations to the hard working and dedicated UK Team who have worked tirelessly for years on the bid. Here’s to a fabulous return of the Worldcon community in 2024!”
 
About the Guests of Honour:

Chris Baker (Fangorn) is an acclaimed BSFA-winning artist whose work has graced the covers of many beloved SF and Fantasy novels including Robert Asprin’s Myth series, and the British and German editions of Redwall. He has also worked as a concept artist for such visionary film directors as Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, Alfonso Cuarón and Stanley Kubrick.

Chris Baker (Fangorn)

Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer have been pillars of the science fiction and fantasy fan community for years. Their exemplary work in organising and running fan conventions, as well as in fan-writing, fanzines, and fan-history, has enriched the lives of countless lovers of the genre.

  

Ken MacLeod is a celebrated Scottish SF writer who, over the course of his career, has written 18 novels and won multiple BSFA and Prometheus Awards, in addition to being shortlisted for the Hugos, Nebulas, Locus Awards, and more. Ken writes everything from dystopian SF to space opera, and is known for work that is as engaged with politics as it is with science.
  

Ken MacLeod

Nnedi Okorafor is an internationally award-winning author who explores her Nigerian heritage through her Africanfuturist and Africanjujuist novels and short works. She is also a comics writer who has written a number of popular series for Marvel’s Black Panther, along with her own Hugo and Eisner-Award-winning graphic novel, LaGuardia.
  

Nnedi Okorafor

Terri Windling is an American writer, editor, artist, and folklorist, who has lived in the UK for nearly 30 years. She has written over 40 books and received 10 World Fantasy Awards – and will receive the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement award this year. Terri has also won the Mythopoeic Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the SFWA Solstice Award, in addition to appearing on numerous prestigious shortlists. Her work ranges from the fictional to the academic, but always revolving around the magical and the fantastic.

Terri Windling

This tweet shows the membership rates.

LAUNCH VIDEO

2020 FAAn Awards

The 2020 FAAn Award winners were announced at Corflu 37 in College Station, TX on March 15. (Via Janice Hillman on Facebook.)

Best Over-all Fanzine

  • Banana Wings, ed. Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer

Best Genzine

(Tie)

  • Banana Wings, ed. Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
  • Chunga, ed. Andy Hooper, Randy Byers, and carl juarez

Best Personal Zine

  • This Here, ed. Nic Farey

Best Whatchamacallit Zine

(Tie)

  • Ansible, ed. David Langford
  • Lofgeornost, ed. Fred Lerner

Best Special Publication

  • Thy Life’s a Miracle, ed. Luke McGuff

Best Fan Writer

  • Mark Plummer

Best Letterhack

  • Stephen Jeffery

Best Online Achievement

  • Fanac.org

Best Fan Artist

  • Ulrika O’Brien

Best Fanzine Cover Art

  • Thy Life’s A Miracle cover, art by Ulrika O’Brien, calligraphy by Jae Leslie Adams, layout by carl juarez

fwa Lifetime Achievement Award

  • Robert Lichtman

fwa Past President, 2019 [fwa = fan writers of america]

  • Rob Jackson

2013 Nova Awards

The Nova Awards celebrate achievement in British and Irish science fiction fanzines. The 2013 winners were announced this weekend at Novacon 43 in Nottingham, UK.

Best Fanzine
Banana Wings

Best Fanwriter
Mike Meara

Best Fan Artist
D. West

This is Meara’s first win.

Banana Wings has won 8 Nova Awards, its first in 1996.

D. West has won 11 Nova Awards going back to 1984 – including one as Best Fanwriter.

Strange Horizons Fund Drive

Most people visit Strange Horizons to read the fiction, I’m sure, but since you’re among the select few who visit my blog the odds are if you go there it’s to read Mark Plummer’s column, just like I do.

Whatever your reason, now is the time to show appreciation by supporting the online magazine’s fundraiser.  

Founded over a decade ago by its first editor, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Strange Horizons is staffed by volunteers, and is unusual among professional sf magazines in being funded entirely by donations.

These days Niall Harrison is editor-in-chief, fiction is handled by senior editor Brit Mandelo and editors Julia Rios, An Owomoyela and Jed Hartman, and many others run departments and support the work.

The 2012 fund drive aims to raise $8,000, with stretch goals up to $11,000 — increasing pay rates for poetry (if $9,000 is raised), reviews ($10,000), and introducing fiction podcasts ($11,000) that would, like the rest of the magazine’s content, be freely available online.

All donors are entered into a prize draw which includes novels by Alaya Dawn Johnson, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Angelica Gorodischer, original artwork by Alastair Reynolds and Marge Simon, magazine subscriptions, and tarot readings. Prizes will be announced in batches throughout the month of October.

The full press release follows the jump.

Continue reading

Mark Plummer Is Not Impressed

File 770 typically needs a couple of years to catch up with an internet meme. Not in this case. Isn’t it easy to imagine Mark Plummer wearing McKayla Maroney’s silver-medalist scowl while drafting his column about Chris Garcia for Strange Horizons? The first paragraph derides Chris’ overuse of the word awesome. The second paragraph frowns upon his addiction to exclamation points and liking for extra capital letters (remember “ChiCon”?) Not impressed, okay — but what made this worth a column?

Just before my fuel gauge hit the point-of-no-return I found Mark’s lede in the third paragraph, crash-landed on a lonely desert island beside Amelia Earhart’s Electra: Mark disagrees with some points Chris made comparing blogs with fanzines in an article for Apex Magazine, “What It Is We Miss When We Don’t Read Fanzines”.

Mark has circled the blog v. fanzine topic before in his Strange Horizons column and I am as willing to listen to his views as Chris Garcia’s. If only Mark would state them affirmatively! Then it would be easier to tell who’s talking because it’s not as if Chris and Mark are any farther apart than “Tastes great!” “Less filling!” or “It’s a breath mint!” “It’s a candy mint!” For example, Mark writes —

And that, I think, is the key thing about Chris’s article: that it tries to identify differences between fanzines and blogs when it seems to me that there are really far more points of commonality.

And —

Bloggers, though, may be more firmly embedded in the broader fandom as it’s played out here in 2012 and so when Chris says, “Many bloggers have become that ranting commentator who never actually participates in the events they react to; a claim held often against many zine writers of earlier days” I suspect that’s true of some fanzine writers of the present day too.

Now that Chris has cracked open the door, if Mark is willing to step through and analyze the issues of power and privilege among fanwriters in all media, I’m ready to be part of his audience.

2012 FAAn Award Winners

The winners of the 2012 FAAn Awards were announced April 22 at Corflu Glitter. Here are the results posted by Geri Sullivan.

Best Website: eFanzines.com, hosted by Bill Burns

Harry Warner Jr. Memorial Award Best Letterhack; Robert Lichtman

Best Perzine: A Meara for Observers, ed. Mike Meara

Best Single Issue or Anthology: Alternative Pants,ed. Randy Byers

Best Fan Artist: Steve Stiles

Best Fan Writer: Mark Plummer

Best Genzine or Collaboration: Banana Wings, eds. Mark Plummer and Claire Brialey

#1 Fan Face: Mark Plummer

My Burning Ears

Mark Plummer’s new Paraphernalia column for Strange Horizons, Disclosing the Ancient Mysteries, arbitrates the controversy between rulesmakers and bloggers who want to be eligible for the Best Fanzine Hugo.

He uses my post Bleep My Dad Says About the Fan Hugos to lead into the topic, which I might take as a compliment but for the hints that I indulged in a wee bit of exaggeration about the number of bloggers who are upset by the situation:

I’m always slightly troubled by vague statements like this which lack any real citation or attribution. Just how widely held is this paraphrased opinion? Sufficiently that it could in any way be interpreted as a movement? Or is it just a couple of people? Or one? I don’t think I’d seen anything matching Mike’s characterisation myself…

Mark, permit me to be your Google research monkey.

Undoubtedly reaching the widest audience was George R.R. Martin’s Hugo Awards – Closing Comments on Not A Blog:

The Best Fanzine category is one of the oldest Hugo Awards, but it is currently embroiled in controversy. Traditional print fanzines are still around, though both their numbers and their readership are dwindling, and in recent years the fans have been nominating things like e-zines, blogs, and podcasts in this category. Last year at Reno, a rules change was enacted to exclude all those new forms of fanac from this category. If that change is ratified in Chicago, Best Fanzine will once again become the exclusive property of traditional fanzines. If you don’t own a mimeograph machine, you need not apply. However (1) the change needs to be ratified, if it is defeated at this year’s business meeting, it will not take effect, (2) it is NOT in effect this year, so this may be the last year when e-zines, blogs, and podcasts can be nominated. As I think you can tell by my sarcastic tone, I am opposed to the change. I think there are some great fannish blogs and e-zines and podcasts out there, I think they are the future, and I’m going to nominate a bunch of them.

George proceeded to list his nominees. When the final Hugo ballot comes out we will discover just how influential he is.

Aidan Moher amplified George’s case in Hey, GRRM agrees with me! (with links to Moher’s own posts on the same topic and his own set of recommendations).

Stefan Raets’ arguments for the eligibility of blogs in Love a Blog, Nominate It posted at Far Beyond Reality also proved quite popular, given a signal boost by Only the Best Sci-Fi (Bloggers and the Hugo Awards), Fantasy Café (Hugo Awards 2012: The Year of the Book Blogger?) and Moher again (An Aside | On Bloggers and the Hugo Awards).

I’ve helped engineer hoaxes now and then (remember the fake Cleveland apa, Elst?). Not this time. I did not make up the bloggers’ outrage about the Best Fanzine category..

I should also say that Mark’s transition from my post to his comments on Ian Mond’s Let’s Replace the Best Fanzine Category with Best Blog, which uses humor with mortal effectiveness to reinforce all the clichés about superannuated fanzine fans, may have left readers with the impression my views are opposite what they are – it’s not part of my mission to keep blogs out of the Best Fanzine category.

Rather, what I said irks me is the annual effort to generate a dogpile that produces a block vote for a representative Hugo nominee. It’s that need to artificially create a groundswell that turns me off. The annual blogger’s Occupy movement. I don’t object to blogs. I object to Hugo nomination campaigns.

I also question the beneficiaries of this energy. Have they been the kinds of blogs fans complain are being unjustly excluded? Of course not. Not in the Best Fanzine category. Steamrolling over the field in 2009 was a fiction zine, Electric Velocipede, and in 2010 a podcast, Starship Sofa.

No blogs.

The campaigns of 2009 and 2010 helped mobilize effective opposition and led to the rules change George R.R. Martin and others dislike. What if the fans supporting this trend had used their political capital to nominate the quality blogs they protest are being unjustly overlooked? Often it is wisest to start as you mean to go on. Had supporters of blog eligibility chosen to do so it would have been harder to characterize the results as a hack of the Hugo Awards that demanded a rules fix.

More Plummer on the Horizon

Attending Renovation inspired Mark Plummer to explore the history of the Trans-Atlantic Fan fund in his latest column for Strange Horizons, “Paraphernalia: Beyond the Enchanted Convention to the Enchanted Peter R. Weston Memorial Defibrillator Station” —

The roots of TAFF go back to at least 1941, when D. R. Smith suggested in the pages of the December 1941 issue of Futurian War Digest that after the war British fans should club together to bring leading American fan Forrest J Ackerman to the UK. It never came to anything, but Ackerman himself later initiated The Big Pond Fund which sought to bring British fan and New Worlds editor Ted Carnell to the US.

Once you’ve read Mark’s column you’ll know the answer to the question: “What TAFF delegate took the Queen Mary to America?” More importantly, you’ll learn why this is an enduring fan institution.

And if you appreciate Mark’s column, show it today is by participating in Strange Horizon’s annual fund drive:

For over a decade, Strange Horizons has pursued a number of goals: to encourage and support new writers of speculative fiction from diverse backgrounds; to provide a home for readers looking for fiction that expands the possibilities of sf, and discussions of the same; and to offer content free of change while still paying contributors professional rates, without being dependent on advertisers or corporate interests.

Niall Harrison reminds me, “We’re an all-volunteer outfit, and we run off reader donations, so this is pretty important for us!”