Lichtenberg Praises Shenandoah Spy

I’ve been following Francis Hamit’s self-published Civil War novel to learn firsthand about contemporary marketing. It’s interesting to see his efforts bear fruit, the latest success being Jacqueline Lichtenberg’s enthusiastic review in her column “Science Fiction & the Art of Storytelling” for the June Lightworks:

The Shenandoah Spy by Francis Hamit is a well researched, factual account of the life and times of Belle Boyd, a woman of the South during the Civil War. This is not alternate history, and does not impute attitudes and actions to women that in fact did not happen during the era. This woman really existed and really did these things.

The novelization of pure history is difficult, and Hamit pulls it off with grace and style, filling in and smoothing over until it reads like the very best historical fiction.

A Quarter Century of Snapshots

Snapshots #25 presents fifteen developments of interest to fans.

(1) Paired heroes and villains selected from the American Film Institute’s 50 Top Heroes and Villains are matched in a fight to the death! Batman vs. Hans Gruber. Lassie vs. Cruella de Ville. Marge Gunderson vs. Count Dracula! Did good or evil win over all?

(2) Bill Warren of the Dawn Patrol has written a filk song about Wilson “Bob” Tucker. Bill’s tribute is posted at YouTube.

(3) Steve Silver’s Art of the Con theme issue of Argentus includes articles on con-running by James Bacon, Chris Garcia, Lisa Hertel, Randy Kaempen, Mary Kay Kare, Deb Kosiba, Priscilla Olson, Baron DavE Romm, Bill Roper, Sabel Schechter, Susan Shwartz, Steven H Silver, Kevin Standlee, Ann Totusek, Patty Wells, and Ben Yalow.

(4) “When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news. His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.”

(5) Web Urbanist has a list of 173 Radical Retrofuturistic Directions in Design & Technology, ranging from vehicles to clothing to the apocalypse.

(6) HarperCollins’ earnings decreased 20% for the quarter ending March 31. The two disparate books doing the most to keep the company afloat during the quarter were  Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

(7) Drew Shiel at Quilldragon analyzed all five Best Novel nominees and determined… they all deserve a Hugo. Well, that’s better than the alternative. (No, the alternative is not that they would all deserve the Nebula.)

(8) An unknown Scottish actress has been cast as new Doctor Who Matt Smith’s companion.

(9) Every website wrestles with rowdy commenters. But I don’t know if an sf blogger would dare imitate the way Dave from BlazersEdge lays down the law to his fellow basketball fans: “If you call someone a moron or uninformed you will be banned. If you say a post is a waste of space or time you will be banned. If your post includes the words, ‘You must not watch much basketball’ you will be banned. If you say, ‘This should be a fanshot’ you will be banned. If you snidely correct someone’s grammar you will be banned.” My gosh, if sf blogs banned everyone who snidely corrected other fans’ grammar, there woule be no one left to read the posts.

(10) Learn more about the inner workings of the Wikipedia and the Church of Scientology in this Guardian article:

In an unprecedented effort to crack down on self-serving edits, the Wikipedia supreme court has banned contributions from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates. Closing out the longest-running court case in Wikiland history, the site’s Arbitration Committee voted 10 to 0 (with one abstention) in favor of the move, which takes effect immediately.

(11) A Tintin museum will open in Belgium.

(12) Angelique Trouvere’s ancient Star Trek convention photos made it into Newsweek.

(13) James D. Keeline compiled a spreadsheet listing of 3,200 time travel novels, stories, and children’s books, and in 2000 he built a searchable database of this material. He says, “Had I the time, I could probably add another 1,000 titles but perhaps it will be useful to someone…”

(14) Tom Swift Conventions in Hammondsport, NY (2009) and San Diego (2010)

(15) Following the death of Tom Deitz, a fan has set up a Deitz tribute website.

[Thanks go to Andrew Porter, David Klaus, Roger Tener, Francis Hamit James Hay and Michael J. Walsh for some of the links included in this post.]

Update 6/14/2009: Corrected country where Tintin museum is located. And it’s not even Tuesday.

Grand Theft Slipper

The theft of a pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, having occurred in 2005, is less a news story than an invitation to explore the subset of the film’s fans who venerated these artifacts.

“Who Stole the Ruby Slippers?” in the March 2009 issue of Minnesota Monthly focuses on the ruby slippers owned by Michael Shaw – one of four pairs known to remain from the filming of The Wizard of Oz. They were burglarized from a display case in the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota and have remained missing since August 28, 2005.

The author, after surveying the fascinating personalities of several Oz collectors, concludes:

Yet in their new status as stolen property, the slippers feel more real than they have in years. They are mere objects again, to be lost or found, and perhaps this is for the best…

[Thanks to David Klaus for the story.]

Mundane Fanfic?

How remarkable. It took this column by John Sutherland in the London Evening Standard to open my eyes to the existence of mundane slash fiction. But he mentions one example that intersects with sf in a surprising way:

Things get trickier in that subgenre of fanfic called Real Person Slash. Go to fictioncircus.com and you’ll find a gladiatorial “slash contest” between (imaginary) JD Salinger and American science-fiction writer Orson Scott Card. It’s libellous but creepily fascinating.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the link.]

Jury Convicts Clark Rockefeller

Christian Gerhartsreiter, aka Clark Rockefeller, has been sentenced to four to five years in a Massachusetts prison after being found guilty of kidnapping his daughter.

The jury returned its verdict on Friday, June 12, ending 26-1/2 hours of deliberations over five days. The jury also found him guilty of assault and battery with a deadly weapon on a social worker. They rejected his insanity defense, but found him not guilty on two lesser charges.

After the conclusion of the hearing, the jurors returned and gave a joint statement:

“This was a complicated case, and not as clear-cut as it might have seemed to those who followed it in the media,” the jurors’ statement said.

“We are confident that our verdict is fair and just, and based only on the information we were legally allowed to consider,” it continued. “Our verdict is a unanimous one, as the law requires, and all of us stand by the verdict completely. “

The jurors said the terse statement was their final word on the case. They did not take questions.

When Gerhartsreiter completes his sentence, he faces removal from the country by immigration authorities.

A grand jury in Los Angeles is continuing to investigate his possible role in the 1985 disappearance and deaths of John and Linda Sohus, two LASFS members. The LA Times had speculated that if Gerhartsreiter was found not guilty of kidnapping, local authorities might be forced to file charges before he could be deported. Now LA authorities will not be compelled to take urgent action.

Dues and Don’ts

The first reason more clubs don’t own their own clubhouses is that they can’t come up with the price of the building. So they never confront the second reason, which is that it costs a lot to maintain a place to meet.  Membership dues, alone, don’t come close to covering what the NESFA and LASFS require to keep their clubhouses operating year after year.

The New England Science Fiction Association analyzed its finances in Instant Message #819, revealing that it had taken around $100,000 to deal with the clubhouse oil tank line. The club had the accumulated resources to do this. On the other hand, the report concludes, “The NESFA Press pays the bills. The non-Press activities of the club show a $30K annual deficit.”

The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society’s activities are on a comparatively modest financial footing (their Form 990s on Guidestar show LASFS’ revenue is about one-quarter of NESFA’s), so it still hurt when they had to approve $5,000 for new asphalt on the driveway last year.

LASFS does not run its annual financial reports in the club’s newzine, but I know from my years on the Board of Directors that LASFS depends on the Loscon surplus in the same way that NESFA depends on its book publishing surplus.

At LASFS, They Mean It

LASFS’ unofficial membership policy is, “Death will not release you – even if you die.” And yes, they’re serious.

Someone suggested the late Forry Ackerman’s name ought to be removed from the list of advisors to the LASFS Board of Directors because he is, er, late. Another director was shocked at the idea. According to the minutes of the March 2009 board meeting:

Christian McGuire brought a motion that Forry Ackerman should not be removed as an advisor to the board: though he is dead death shall not release him, he just won’t be coming to coming to the BOD meetings and the Board can’t communicate to him but still he should remain an advisor.  Motion passed 8-2-0

Believe me, if they get any advice from him at this point they ought to listen!

Designer Label Vampires

What kind of fiction is tracked on the Urbanfantasyland site?

Glad you asked. Urban fantasy looks like our modern world, except for the creatures. You might walk into a department store and find vampires, werewolves, faeries, demons, zombies, ghosts and ghouls, where you would find other shoppers or clerks. Or you might be the only one who sees them. Sometimes the creatures are openly part of the world, and sometimes they are hidden. There’s not always a romantic story, but when there is, it doesn’t end happily. [Happily Ever Afters are considered Paranormal Romance.]

And is business thriving? The site reports there are plenty of new books. Yet there’s also an item quoting from Stacia Kane’s LJ post about sameness in the UF genre:

“So, lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts and comments and discussions online relating to the idea that ALL urban fantasy has become samey and dull. That it’s all circling the were-vamp drain, full of designer labels, with the same worlds and characters and plot devices.”

[Via James Hay.]

Nippon 2017 Will Party at Anticipation

Peggy Rae Sapienza has shared an e-mail from Japanese fan Tamie Inoue announcing there will be a party at Anticipation to promote the Nippon 2017 Worldcon bid:

Peggy Rae-san,

I inform on joyous news to you.

Some number of Nippon2007 staff will start a new convention beginning next year.

And, they think that they will hold Worldcon again in Japan on the future. Shibano-san is very pleased with this news.

Kodama-san [Tomoki Kodama] and Saori-san [Saori Yamamoto] are the center of new convention’s committee.

Of course, Hiroaki [Inoue] and I are members of the committee.

I am very happy to the influence of Nippon2007 on such an activity.

Tamie Inoue

Hiroaki Inoue, of course, chaired Nippon 2007, and Tomoki Kodama (together with John Harold) ran Operations for the con.

The Nippon2017 placeholder website evidently has been online since February 14, says a small note on the site.