Tag Archives: Ansible

Invisible Ansible

Posted on by

Cheryl Morgan’s indignant post “Now I’m Invisible” shamed Starship Sofa guest editorialist Jason Sanford into announcing that he would make a “correction” to identify Emerald City as the first winner of the Best Fanzine Hugo to be primarily published online, and not Electric Velocipede as he had said.

The problem is that neither fanzine with a dog in the fight is entitled to claim that distinction.

It belongs to Ansible.

I could get a copy of Ansible e-mailed to me at least as long ago as January 1995, before Emerald City ever started publishing. In time, Ansible also could be retrieved by FTP, read on newsgroups and accessed on the web.

Not that it’s clear to me the distinction “primarily published online” is worth losing any sleep over. All three fanzines are/were distributed in more than one medium and it’s rather arbitrary to pick one as being “primary.” Electric Velocipede (2009) and Emerald City (2004) were both (at the time they won) fanzines with paper and web editions. (It is beyond counting how many times Cheryl Morgan has scolded inkstained trufen not to forget the existence of those paper copies of Emerald City.) And while Ansible distributed large numbers of paper copies, the electronic version, relayed by a variety of technologies, became the predominant source of sf news for a large and ever-growing online readership.

But any glory in owning this title properly belongs to Ansible.

A Tangled Helix

Posted on by

I considered reporting the HelixSF controversy mainly because “pantiwadulous” could have been a great entry in This Week in Words. But playing it completely for laughs would have implied that the writers involved deserved no sympathy, and that wasn’t true. Going completely PC would have ruled out having any sense of humor about the story (I’ll bet I’m the first person ever to notice that). Indeed, the logical extrapolation of the PC approach would have ruled out repeating any of the deliciously offensive quotes at all. What I forgot is that we newzine editors are always allowed to titillate our readers with verbatim quotes of statements alleged to be unacceptably rude by the standards of all civilized peoples provided our reports affect a disapproving tone.

Chris Cooper Passes Away

Posted on by

Popular British fan Chris Cooper died July 4, according to an announcement by his family copied to the Smofs listserve.

The new July issue of Ansible reported at the time of publication that Cooper had been in ICU at a London hospital for the two previous weeks, comatose and on a ventilator, but doctors were uncertain why he had suddenly collapsed. Although Cooper had been fighting a major illness for over a year, reportedly that was not considered the direct cause of his final hospitalization.

Chris, a very tall fan (6’ 11”) sometimes referred to as the Jolly Green Giant, was an internationally-known sf convention runner who went to his first convention in 1977. Over the years he attended over 100 cons in 8 countries, including 18 in North America. In 2007, he worked on the Japanese Worldcon.

Chris once wrote about himself, “My real interests are SF, beer, malt whisky, fireworks (and the organisation of cons and beer festivals) but mostly I have to work as a Systems Programmer.” I remember him as a friendly and good-humored fellow, and am sorry I will not see him again.

The family announcement concludes, “We will pass on funeral arrangements once we know them. Many thanks for all the kind messages we have been receiving. Barbara and John Stewart & Kate and Andy Camroux.”