By Vincent Docherty: The traditional Q&A was held at SMOFcon 41 on Saturday in the DoubleTree by Hilton Seattle Airport, site of a number of previous conventions, including Westercon.
The Q&A was hosted by Vincent Docherty and Theresa (TR) Renner, and featured presentations by and questions for future SMOFcon bids, the upcoming seated Worldcons and future Worldcon bids, now including an exploratory bid for Maastricht in the Netherlands for 2032. Several of these had completed questionnaires in advance.
FUTURE SMOFCONS. SMOFcon 42 will be held in Stockholm, Sweden, 5-7 Dec 2025. It will be chaired by Carolina Gómez Lagerlöf, who presented the bid, which was unopposed and voted in by acclamation. The convention website is live including the membership registration page. Hotel booking will open in January.
Expressions of interest for future SMOFcons were presented, including:
DC/MD/VA (run by BWAWA and chaired by Cathy Green) in 2026
A 2027 LA, CA to Mexico cruise ship based SMOFcon bid led by Ron Oakes
A 2027 European SMOFcon bid, site tbc, (likely in a ‘warmer country’), presented by Tammy Coxen on behalf of various interested groups
GLASGOW 2024 PASS-ALONG FUNDS REPORT. The Q&A then heard a brief message from Glasgow 2024, confirming that Pass-along-funds of £20,000 each has been given to the 2025 and 2026 Worldcons and similar will be given to the selected 2027 Worldcon.
SEATED WORLDCONS. The seated 2025 and 2026 Worldcons then gave presentations.
Joyce Lloyd, chair of the recently selected 2026 Worldcon LAcon V, spoke about how the convention is progressing, and introduced the convention mascot ‘Fuzzy’, in honor of the late Marilyn “Fuzzy Pink” Niven.
FUTURE WORLDCON BIDS. The Q&A then focused on bids and expressions of intent for Worldcons in later years, covering 2027-2032.
2027. The two bids for the 2027 Worldcon provided important updates.
The chair of the Montréal in 2027 bid, Terry Fong, and other committee members, responded to a number of questions from Q&A attendees, and announced that they have filed officially with the site selection administrator of Seattle 2025, which will host the 2027 vote.
The Tel Aviv 2027 Worldcon bid sent a message to the Q&A. Bid chair Guy Kovel wrote: “Regrettably, due to the situation in Israel, we would have to push our bid to a later year, we have not yet made an announcement as we are still in internal discussions as to what year we would be able to bid for.”
As a result, Montreal in 2027 is the only currently active bid for the 2027 Worldcon.
2028. The two bids for the 2028 Worldcon, were unable to attend in person, and sent messages and materials for the Q&A session.
Brisbane, Australia in 2028, bid chair Random Jones, sent a message which was read out by the Q&A hosts, including that the date of the proposed convention has been changed to be closer to the solar eclipse of 22nd July 2028 which will be visible from Sydney. The bid provided materials to be shared: ”the shiny brochure that the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre put together with us for Worldcon Glasgow. It’s too big to include in the mailing list, so it can be found here. It’s slightly out of date, so here are the updated answers to the questionnaire.”
The Q&A then heard from later bids and expressions of interest.
2029. Dublin in 2029 bid co-chair Brian Nisbet, provided greetings from co-chair Marguerite Smith and the latest news from the bid, including their intent to use the Convention Centre, Dublin (CCD), used by the 2019 Dublin Worldcon, along with the nearby National College of Ireland (NCI) facility. Further details in their completed questionnaire.
2030. Olav Rokne, representing the Edmonton in 2030 bid, presented initial details of their recently announced bid, supported by a questionnaire.
2031. A representative of the Texas in 2031 bid reiterated their intent, and that work is ongoing to build the team and to select a suitable city and venue.
2032. Q&A host Vincent Docherty announced information about an emerging group of fans and conrunners in the Netherlands, who are investigating the possibility of a Dutch worldcon in 2032. They are looking at the MECC facility in Maastricht as a potential venue. The bid team indicated that if it goes on, they will announce the bid probably in Seattle.
BEYOND. The host then reminded the audience that with bids now extending to 2032, it is germane to consider the upcoming centenary/centennial in 2039 of the very first Worldcon, in 1939, (Wikipedia link), which was held in New York.
In 2025 there will be further opportunities for the bids to provide updates at various conventions, in particular at Seattle 2025 and SMOFcon 42.
By Tammy Coxen: The Worldcon has been trying to define how to categorize and recognize artwork of various kinds since the 1950s. In 2024 the latest attempt to do so received first passage at Glasgow. Immediately upon passage many fan artists began objecting to the wording as passed, once again debating how these categories should or should not be defined. This document was created to inform that debate and show how we have arrived at the category definitions that we have now. And as long as it is (and it is LONG) it STILL does not cover all the attempts that have been made to adjust these categories through the years. Prior to 2018 it only includes amendments that actually made their way into the constitution. From 2018 on, it also includes proposals that did not actually pass, because these provide needed context for understanding the most recent decisions.
SUMMARY & THOUGHTS. In its earliest iterations, the Fan Artist category (first awarded in 1967) is about context — it’s art that appears in amateur magazines (later redefined into fanzines and semiprozines). But over the years there’s a gradual expansion of that context. The earliest of these came in 1974 with the addition of “other public display.” Sadly, there are no detailed business meeting minutes to say why that was added (although there is speculation, see below). But it has certainly contributed to the muddiness of the category over the years, as the options for “other public display” grew.
Until relatively recently, none of the definitions of Fan Artist made any mention of whether the work in question had been paid for. The economic context of the work was implicit in the language defining, first, amateur magazines, and then, fanzines and semiprozines, where the art would be appearing. But in 2014 language was added to change “public display” to “non-professional public display” and to specify that this included display at conventions, with the argument being made that “selling fan art at a convention did not make it a professional sale”. So there is precedent to say that art “for sale” is not necessarily disqualified as Fan Art.
In 2019 (ratified in 2021) the definition was expanded further to include “posting on the internet, in online or print-on-demand shops, or in another setting not requiring a fee to see the image in full resolution.” For some, the inclusion of print-on-demand shops seems contradictory to “non-professional public display,” but others see this as no different than purchasing fan art in the context of a convention.
At the same time that the possibilities for public display were expanding (both definitionally and due to the Internet), the very definition of the phrase “Fan Art” was also changing – at least in the wider community. Outside of Worldcon and related fandom, the term “Fan Art” is akin to “fanfic” – art created in response to or inspired by a particular show, movie or written work.
And while the definition of Fan Artist has changed a lot over the decades, the Professional Artist category remained the same, retaining a narrow definition that includes only illustrators and works that are published in a professional publication.
All of this adds up to a world where, currently, a person who makes their living by posting full resolution images of their media-inspired art on a print-on-demand shop would qualify as a Fan Artist, but not a Professional Artist. And conversely, if the language passed in 2024 were to be ratified, then a person who creates art for their local convention to use for free and sells the originals in the art show in the same year would NOT qualify as a Fan Artist but would qualify as a Professional Artist, even if none of that art sells. And neither of these really make sense, which is why there have been so many attempts to clarify these categories through the years.
The thinking has been that Fan Art is a little like porn – you just know it when you see it. But given the existence of completely different definitions of the term “Fan Art,” this approach is definitely not working. Until we as a community agree on what Fan Art is, we won’t be able to agree on how to define it.
The lines have also gotten blurry about what it means to be a Professional Artist, now that we live in a world where individuals have the means to display their own work publicly and formal “publication” of art is no longer desirable or necessary for many who earn their living through art. And how do services such as Patreon fit in when considering if someone is a Professional Artist or not?
In my deep dive through the history of the categories, it seems clear that the change proposed and passed in 2024 was primarily about expanding the Professional Artist category, and really didn’t take into account the impact on, and particularly context of, the Fan Artist category. In particular, there’s a mismatch between the idea that Fan Art is only free and the historical precedent that selling Fan Art is not necessarily disqualifying.
I don’t claim to have the answers, but I’m hoping that this document will shed some light on how we got where we are, so that maybe we can figure out where we should go next!
HOW TO READ THIS DOCUMENT. I used (Fan) or (Pro) or (Both) next to the dates so it’s clear what I’m talking about when. (Context) is used when there is something not related to creating a new definition, but which is relevant. Category definition text in bold & italic was passed, ratified and used. Category definition text only in bold was introduced and may have received first passage, but has not yet been ratified or put into use.
By ATom
1953-1968 (Pro) – In the Beginning
The Hugos launch with two categories for art in 1953: Best Cover Artist and Best Interior Illustrator. Starting in 1955, the second time the Hugos were awarded, there was the single Best Professional Artist category which has continued to the present day except for Loncon in 1957 (which awarded only magazine Hugos) and Solacon in 1958 which called the category Outstanding Artist.
1967 (Fan) – Let There Be Fan Artist Hugos
Best Fan Artist is introduced, with no definition. Jack Gaughan won both Best Fan Artist and Best Pro Artist that year.
1968-2024 (Pro) – Refining the Definition
There are a variety of similar definitions in use during this time. I do not have exact start or end dates for them.
In 1968, the definition of Best Professional Artist was: “A professional artist whose work was presented in some form in the science fiction or fantasy field during the previous calendar year.”
By 1975, two changes had been introduced. It now specifies “illustrator” rather than artist, and puts the professional part on the publication rather than the individual. “An illustrator whose work has appeared in the field of professionally published science fiction or fantasy during the previous calendar year.”
By 1995, another change had been made, replacing “the field of professionally published SFF” with “a professional publication.” “An illustrator whose work has appeared in a professional publication in the field of science fiction or fantasy during the previous calendar year.”
While a couple of proposals were made to change the definition of Professional Artist (see below), none of them passed before 2024, and the 1995 definition remained in place until then.
1972 (Fan) – First Definition
First published definition of Best Fan Artist. “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared, during the previous calendar year, in magazines of the type defined under Article 2.08. Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the Professional Artist category will not be eligible for the Fan Artist award for that year.” 2:08 defined Best Amateur Magazine: “Any generally available non-professional magazine devoted to science fiction, fantasy, or related subjects, which has published four or more issues, at least one appearing in the previous calendar year.”
1974 (Fan) – Adding “Other Public Display”
The definition was updated to make work outside of those defined on the Amateur Magazines Hugo category eligible by adding the words “or through other public display.” So the definition became: “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared, during the previous calendar year, in magazines of the type defined under Article 2.08, or through other public display. Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the Professional Artist category will not be eligible for the Fan Artist award for that year.”
Sadly, I can’t find any minutes to say why that was added, or what they meant by it. However, Mike Glyer was an active fan at the time and offers this speculation:
“Tim Kirk mounted an exhibit of paintings he’d done for his masters degree at the 1972 Westercon. Although Kirk did illos for leading fanzines like Science Fiction Review, so had eligible work, I know we discussed at the time that people weren’t going to unsee this impressive unpublished work, and it seemed silly for it to have to be disregarded. (As if people would.) That could have lent impetus to the rules change.
1984 (Fan) – Adapting to Semiprozine
Best Amateur Magazine was split up into Best Fanzine and Best Semiprozine, and the Fan Artist category definition was adapted to match. “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public display during the previous calendar year. Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the Professional Artist category will not be eligible for the Fan Artist award for that year.”
By Marc Schirmeister
1990-1996 (Best Original Artwork Hugo) – Trying Another Way
A Hugo for Best Original Artwork was given as a special committee award in 1990. It was then added as a regular Hugo Award and awarded from 1992-1996. In 1995, an amendment to remove the category received first passage, and in 1996 it was ratified. The definition text was: “Any original piece of Science Fiction or Fantasy artwork first published during the previous calendar year.”
Commentary from Fancyclopedia:
The category was intended to honor individual pieces of art, whether or not published and whether or not cover art. (Best Professional Artist and Best Fan Artist honor the artist for a body of work, not an individual piece.)
The category ultimately failed for two reasons: First, there were too many potential, worthy, nominees and the nomination votes received tended to be wide and flat with many pieces each getting only a few nominations. As a consequence, which pieces that actually got onto the final ballot tended to be due mostly to chance. (Additionally, a category which requires few votes to put a work onto the final ballot is very sensitive to a group of friends getting together and bloc voting.) Secondly, in the pre-WWW era, it was difficult to give most Hugo voters an opportunity to see what they were voting for, since the art tended to be widely scattered in where it appeared.
2007-2008 (Fan) – Removing Restrictions
In 2007 an amendment was introduced to remove the restriction about not being able to appear on the ballot as both a fan and a pro. The proposal commentary includes: “This restriction goes against the basic model underlying fandom — that being a pro is not an attribute of a person that takes them outside of fandom, nor is fandom some sort of junior league that fan artists graduate from to become pro artists. Just as we don’t stop pros from running as fan writers, if that’s what they’re doing (and, in some cases, winning the Hugo for Best Fan Writer and a fiction Hugo in the same year), we should not impose that restriction on fan vs pro artists. If people are doing both (and there have been, and still are artists who are doing both kinds of work), then they should be eligible in both categories.”
The amendment is adopted with no debate in either year. The Fan Artist category definition is now “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public display during the previous calendar year.”
By Marc Schirmeister
2013 – 2014 (Fan) – Broadening and Defining
In 2013 the first proposal was submitted to the business meeting to expand the Fan Artist category to include other kinds of art by adding “working in any visual or performance medium.” This was not adopted, but other additions to the definition were. This included specifying that “other public display” had to be non-professional, and specifically calling out conventions as an example. This addition was made by Colin Harris who wanted the amendment to be clear that “selling fan art at a convention did not make it a professional sale.” Read more of the discussion here starting on page 6 here.
The 2013 amendment was ratified in 2014. The category definition was updated to: “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public, nonprofessional display (including at a convention or conventions), during the previous calendar year.”
2017 (Both) – Creating HASC
The Hugo Awards Study Committee (HASC) was created, and one of its remits was to look at the Art Categories. In fact, the original proposal by Nicholas Whyte and Kathryn Duval was for a committee that would look only at the Art categories, but this was broadened out to cover the Hugos as a whole.
2017 (Context) – Disqualifying Sculpture
Tomek Radziewicz, a sculptor, received enough nominations to be a finalist for Best Professional Artist, but was declared ineligible because, as a sculptor, his work did not appear in a professional publication. Nicholas Whyte was the administrator that year, and stands by his decision as being in accordance with the rules, but saw this as evidence that the categories were not working as intended and something should be done.
2018 (Both) – Attempting a Radical Rethinking
HASC brought a proposal to the business meeting. However, even among the committee it was heavily debated, and a second competing proposal was considered but not introduced.
The proposed new definitions were:
Best Professional Artist. An artist who has produced work related to science fiction or fantasy which has been published or publicly displayed for the first time during the previous calendar year, and which does not qualify as Fan Art under the Best Fan Artist category definition.
Best Fan Artist. An artist who has produced work related to science fiction or fantasy which has appeared in fanzines or other public, non-professional display for the first time during the previous calendar year, and for which the rights to reproduce that artwork have been given without direct compensation to one or more non-commercial publications or for use at or by non-profit science fiction or fantasy conventions. Art which has been made available for reproduction only for the purpose of advertising the artist or their work, including art provided to a convention by a Guest of Honor, is not eligible as fan art.
The commentary attached to the proposal really gets at why we’re STILL having this conversation now.
Historical Context
Fan Artist originally meant people who had their art published in fanzines and/or convention publications. Sometimes the originals of that art may also have been sold (typically in convention art shows), and some of it was produced by people who made their living selling SF/Fantasy art professionally but who also donated the right to use art to fannish causes – but only the donated artwork, and not the sold artwork, was considered for the eligibility of the fan artwork.
A person can be both a professional artist (for work being sold), and a fan artist (for work for which the right to reproduce is donated elsewhere for free). In past history, Jack Gaughan won both of the art Hugo Awards in the same year, for work in a year in which he both did a great deal of professional art (magazine and book covers and interior art) and fan art (many dozens of sketches that he donated to fanzines for them to use as interior art).
In recent years, Fan Artist nominations have spread to include artists whose material is visible on the web without direct payment to view. This has been welcomed by some as an expansion of the field but decried by others as not meeting the historical expectations of fan art – that the right to reproduce the art (and often, but not necessarily, the physical artwork) be donated for free to someone else, for use in the other person’s fan publications (including websites).
Philosophical Context:
Hugo voters want to recognize artists who create speculative art which mirrors, complements, and inspires the stories we read and watch.
Hugo voters want to recognize artists who make special charitable contributions of art for the furtherance of fannish activities such as fanzines and conventions.
Hugo voters have decided that these are two distinct forms of art, and have created two categories to recognize those forms of art.
Additional Commentary:
These two artist categories are not mutually exclusive, and it is possible for one artist to be eligible for both Professional and Fan categories in any given year.
No attempt will be made to define “professional artist” as opposed to “nonprofessional artist”. If works do not meet the eligibility requirements for Fan Art, then they are considered to be Professional Art.
Eligible work includes art in physical or digital form, including illustration, painting, book and magazine covers, photography, three-dimensional work such as sculpture, jewelry, mixed media work, and costumes, and other visual artwork such as website graphics, animated gifs, and game art.
“Public display” includes art shows, dealer tables, panel presentations, other convention display, websites, and any other type of display that is generally available to the public.
“Without direct compensation” means that the artist has not been compensated for the art in question, but does not disqualify them on the basis of compensation otherwise received (such as a discounted or free membership at the convention given on the basis of having served on multiple panels in line with standard policy for that convention).
Artwork which has been “given for free to one or more non-commercial publications” includes artwork which has been made freely available for use via a Creative Commons (or similar) license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_license.
This proposal was heavily debated in the business meeting, and ultimately referred back to a new committee which (spoiler) failed to act. I will not attempt to summarize the debate here, but I recommend you read it for yourself starting on page 22. https://www.wsfs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/2018-WSFS-Minutes.pdf
Ariela Housman was nominated as Best Fan Artist. One of the works she submitted to the Hugo Voter’s Packet was not allowed to appear because it was only exhibited online and not published or exhibited at a convention, as the definition requires. In her Hugo eligibility post for that year, she expresses frustration that “you can make a living entirely for years by selling your SF art directly to other people and still not be considered a Professional Artist” under the Hugo definitions. From my read, this blog post drives a lot of the direction of the changes made over the next few years, so it’s worth reviewing in its entirety. “2018 Hugo Eligibility Post: Best Fan Artist” — Geek Calligraphy.
2019 (Fan) – Defining Public Display
Ariela Housman and her business partner Terri Ash submitted an amendment to define “public, non-professional display” in the Fan Artist category by adding “posting on the internet, in online or print-on-demand shops, or in another setting not requiring a fee to see the image in full resolution.” An attempt was made to refer this to the HASC but failed. With little discussion on the actual amendment the motion passed and got sent on for ratification.
2019 (Both) – Passing it Back to HASC
The new committee created in 2018 to work on the art categories did not meet or submit a report. The topic was referred back to HASC by the 2019 Business Meeting.
2021 (Fan) – Debating Public Display
The 2019 ratification came up for amendment (due to ConNZealand in 2020 passing all business forward). Discussion against the amendment included:
The addition of “in online or print-on-demand shops” means art that is for sale. Just because you can see it for free doesn’t make it fan art. Saying that art that is for sale is eligible for the fan art Hugo Award goes against the spirit of what fan art is.
The traditional definition of fan art is art that is made available for fannish activities, such as fanzines and conventions. All art is professional. It’s making it available for use for fannish activity that makes it fan art and, thus, a fan artist.
Discussion in favor of the amendment included:
Fan art has always appeared in convention art shows, where it has always been for sale. You could see it at a convention, but if you wanted to keep it you had to pay. The same rule for art on the internet is fine and keeping with the spirit of fan art,
Fan art online, which is made by fans for fans to celebrate fannish things, needs to be celebrated with the Fan Artist Hugo Award.
The amendment ultimately passed, and the new definition was: “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public, non-professional, display (including at a convention or conventions, posting on the internet, in online or print-on-demand shops, or in another setting not requiring a fee to see the image in full-resolution), during the previous calendar year.”
2022 (Both) – Trying Again to Radically Rethink
The HASC submitted another amendment to resolve these categories. Having failed to define “fan” first and pro in opposition to that, they now tried to do it the other way around.
Best Professional Artist. One or more collaborators on a body of work first displayed during the previous calendar year and created as i) work for hire, ii) on paid commission, or iii) for sale (either directly or via a paywall-like structure).
Best Fan Artist. One or more collaborators on a body of work first displayed during the previous calendar year in a fashion that did not qualify for Best Professional Artist, i.e., neither work for hire, nor commissioned for pay, nor for sale.
In the commentary HASC says:
There was also a clear consensus that the pool of potential nominees in the Best Professional Artist category needs to be widened – the current definition effectively restricts eligibility to illustrators of magazines and book covers – but in a way that does not risk potential Best Fan Artist nominees discovering that they have been deemed to be professional by a quirk of the rules. Much fannish art is sold, after all.
The subcommittee discussed this dilemma at some length, and also touched on the inclusion of art other than images in Best Professional Artist, the requirement for artists to provide proof of eligibility to administrators (which under current rules applies to Best Professional Artist but not Best Fan Artist), and whether or not groups of artists should be eligible.
Ultimately the subcommittee decided that eligibility for both categories should be decided by the existence (or not) of a qualifying body of work by the creators in the previous year – i.e., someone who has produced sufficient professional art should be eligible in Best Professional Artist, and someone who has produced sufficient fannish art should be eligible in Best Fan Artist.
An attempt was made to amend the proposal to remove the words “for sale.” This was then, and remains today, at the heart of the matter. For example, both of these people were speaking on behalf of artists who sell their artwork, but one thought that should give them the right to be considered Professional Artists and the other thought that sales should not be considered germane to whether the art is Fan Art.
Ms. Ash then spoke in favor of F.6 and said the artist categories have been so fundamentally devoted to publishing for so long that the community of those considered professional artists is very small and does not reflect the current state of science fiction and fantasy art as it is currently exhibited, produced, and sold. She said “sold” was the operative word. Fan artists are not necessarily making fanzine covers or convention souvenir book covers. They are putting their work out in the world to sell it and make money. That means that they should be given the grace to have their art considered as professional, just like someone who has had the luck to get noticed by a publisher and have their work on a book cover or a magazine cover. DAW, for example, isn’t coming to the art show to find new people, and it is much harder to break into that market than it’s ever been.
Lisa Hertel (she/they) objected to the “for sale” portion of the motion. She supports herself as an artist, but even non-professional artists come to art shows and put their work up for sale. Their prices may not be very high; they certainly are not making a living by it. Even Ms. Hertel, a professional artist, isn’t making a living by her art.
The amendment to remove “for sale” failed, with the discussion including people noting that it would make obviously professional artists like Phil Foglio or John Picacio eligible for Fan Artist. After additional discussion (starting on page 70 here) the proposal was referred to a new committee (the HASC having been disbanded that same year). That committee has not done any work as of this writing.
2022 (Context) – Defining Pro vs Fan Everywhere
In addition to the proposal to define Pro vs Fan in the Hugo categories, the HASC also put forth a proposal to better define what is meant by the term professional globally, though this proposal was not supported by the majority of the HASC members and was proposed to the Business Meeting without their consent. The constitution already defined the concept of a “Professional Publication” since it was used in other existing categories, like Professional Artist. The existing description was:
A Professional Publication is one which meets at least one of the following two criteria: (1) it provided at least a quarter the income of any one person or, (2) was owned or published by any entity which provided at least a quarter the income of any of its staff and/or owner.
The proposal was to change that to:
A professional publication is a publication produced by professional activity. Any category including language pertaining to non-professional or professional activity will be understood to use the definitions in 3.2.X and 3.2.Y.
3.2.X: Professional activity shall be that which was undertaken with the expectation of sale or other direct profit (by the creator or any co-creators), or which can only be accessed after a payment is made (other than incidental fees, e.g., convention membership fees).
3.2.Y: Non-professional activity shall be that which was not undertaken with the expectation of sale or other direct profit (by the creator or any co-creators), and which can be accessed in a full and final version without any payment.
3.2.Z: All activity shall be considered either Professional or Non-Professional. In cases where there is some doubt as to which category applies to a given work or activity, the will of the nominators should be considered, as should the greater need to protect fan (non-professional) activity against professional activity than the reverse.
The proposal was referred to the new committee looking at the Artist categories with the following instructions:
(a) to consider NOT defining fan vs. pro based on an expectation that an item would be for sale or not for sale, but perhaps based on first usage or presentation;
(b) to consider whether a global definition of fan vs. pro is necessary or whether it is preferable to have a category-by-category definition;
(c) to consider that things have multiple uses over their life, such as fan art or fan writing, and later sales do not disqualify them from being fannish; things can be both fan and pro;
(d) to consider the distinction between collecting money for expenses related to the work vs. for the benefit of the creator, and
(e) to ensure that all activity be defined either fan and/or pro (i.e., all works be defined as fan, or pro, or both fan and pro, but that no work should be considered neither).
This section of the minutes also includes the following, which feels like an important point.
Kent Bloom made a motion against referring F5 to the F.6 committee. He said that many things had changed in the science fiction community since 1983, when we first started debating fan versus pro. Mr. Bloom felt that the internet has made the definition of fan vs. pro obsolete, and that things like Patreon had rendered it impossible to decide if someone was an amateur or professional (in terms of monetary remuneration). He thought we should wait a few years and see what comes out of the new artwork definition.
As previously noted, the committee tasked with both of these 2022 proposals did not do any work or submit a report.
2022 (Fan) – Old Words, New Meaning – Fan Art vs Fan Art
In the discussion about the 2022 proposal, for the first time in the recorded discussion a new issue gets raised. For many people, the term “Fan Art” has a specific meaning that is entirely different from the historic Hugo definition.
Diana Castillo (she/her) spoke in favor. She felt the previous speaker had an old understanding of what fan art is. Fan artists bring their own passion, but they have the reality of needing to pay their rent, food, supplies, etc. Eliminating the “for sale” acknowledges these realities and brings this motion into reality and makes it so that someone who might be creating fan art of their favorite show can offer prints for sale and still be seen as a fan artist and not be lumped into the professional artist category. She urged passage of the amendment.
Alex Acks (they/them) said this is a definition problem. Speaking as a millennial, they said their understanding of fan artist is “I make art of other people’s intellectual property (‘IP’).” But if we are shifting more to that focus on the understanding that fan art is art that you are making of somebody else’s IP, you are getting into a very sticky place because fan artists and fan writers of that definition live in a space where they are not supposed to be making money off it and can be sued or killed by the “Mouse assassins”. They added that it is dangerous to focus on people making money off others’ IP due to patent/trademark laws.
2024 (Both) – Rerunning 2022
A group of people including Terri Ash submitted an amendment with the same language which had come out of the HASC in 2022. Following discussion, it is amended to specify that it concerns artwork (rather than just work) and in the field of science fiction or fantasy. The amendment was passed on for ratification with the text below:
Best Professional Artist. One or more collaborators on a body of artwork in the field of science fiction or fantasy first displayed during the previous calendar year and created as i) work for hire, ii) on paid commission, or iii) for sale (either directly or via a paywall-like structure).
Best Fan Artist. One or more collaborators on a body of artwork in the field of science fiction or fantasy first displayed during the previous calendar year in a fashion that did not qualify for Best Professional Artist, i.e., neither work for hire, nor commissioned for pay, nor for sale.
The commentary continues the themes of the 2022, but also adds in an acknowledgement that the definition of “fan art” has changed in the public eye.
The current definitions are extremely narrow and focused almost entirely on 2-D art. They also ignore the entire vibrant field of “science fiction art for sale” that is not appearing in a print (or web) publication. Those artists with careers in SFF art who do not or cannot or do not want to appear in a “publication” still deserve recognition for their professional achievements.
The definition of “Fan Artist” maintains the tradition in the Worldcon community of defining “fan” works as those which are created and freely offered to the community, regardless of whether they are derivative or original works. While this is an older usage of the word “fan” in context, we believe that keeping this spirit of community contribution alive is important.
The language also makes it clearer that it is possible for the same artist(s) to appear in both categories in the same year (as in Fan Writer and the written work categories), and that it is allowable for a collaboration to be nominated as a single nominee. We have also added a requirement for Fan Artists to have a portfolio in the same way as professional artists.
The newly proposed language not only makes it clearer what to nominate in each category, but also opens up the “Professional Artist” category to a whole new generation of artists who are creating amazing works, and cannot currently qualify in either category.
As the proposer, Terri Ash’s speech makes it clear that the motivation for the change is mostly about expanding the Professional Artist category. She makes the following points:
The current state of the Professional Artist and Fan Artist categories currently relegates most artists who sell their work to Fan Artist, because of the requirement for publication.
This is not the state of science fiction and fantasy art today. Convention art shows are filled with people who make their livelihood from selling their art in ways other than book covers. They are Professional Artists and deserve to be recognized in that category.
While we call it Best Artist, the award refers to a portfolio of work in a given year. Adding body of work language positions it more like Best Novel and not Best Author.
The body of work language also means that someone can qualify in both categories, providing they produced work that is donated to the fan community and thus qualifies as Fan Art.
In the debate that follows (summarized below), it’s clear that there’s a mismatch between the idea that Fan Art should be free, and the historical precedent that selling fan art is not necessarily disqualifying.
Points against:
Do we really want to put people like Sara Felix into the same category as Bob Eggleton?
There are many fan artists who make some proceeds from the sale of Fan Art after publication in a convention publication, but they’re not making money on it, it’s just defraying costs
If you offer something for sale every day of the year, but never sell anything, are you Professional Artist?
If I make tote bags with rockets on them and sell them in the art show for $40, does that make me a Professional Artist? It makes no sense.
Points in favor:
There are many kinds of art beyond just book covers, including things like 3-D art. The current Professional Artist definition doesn’t do enough to reflect the breadth of the field.
The “body of work” distinctions, as proposed, should be enough to protect Fan Artists from being pushed into the Professional Artist category.
This is closer to right than what we currently have, we’ve been trying to get it right forever. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Someone trying to sell art and not succeeding is still a Professional Artist, they’re just not good at it.
By Brad Foster
Appendix: Just The Fan Artist Text Through the Years
1967 – category established, but no official definition
1972 – “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared, during the previous calendar year, in magazines of the type defined under Article 2.08. Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the professional Artist category will not be eligible for the fan artist award for that year.”
1974 – “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared, during the previous calendar year, in magazines of the type defined under Article 2.08, or through other public display. Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the professional Artist category will not be eligible for the fan artist award for that year.”
1984 – “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public display during the previous calendar year. Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the professional Artist category will not be eligible for the fan artist award for that year.”
2008 – “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public display during the previous calendar year.”
2014 – “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public, nonprofessional display (including at a convention or conventions), during the previous calendar year.”
2018 (proposed, did not pass) – “An artist who has produced work related to science fiction or fantasy which has appeared in fanzines or other public, non-professional display for the first time during the previous calendar year, and for which the rights to reproduce that artwork have been given without direct compensation to one or more non-commercial publications or for use at or by non-profit science fiction or fantasy conventions. Art which has been made available for reproduction only for the purpose of advertising the artist or their work, including art provided to a convention by a Guest of Honor, is not eligible as fan art.”
2021 – “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public, non-professional, display (including at a convention or conventions, posting on the internet, in online or print-on-demand shops, or in another setting not requiring a fee to see the image in full-resolution), during the previous calendar year.”
2022 (proposed, did not pass) – “One or more collaborators on a body of work first displayed during the previous calendar year in a fashion that did not qualify for Best Professional Artist, i.e., neither work for hire, nor commissioned for pay, nor for sale.”
2024 (passed on to be ratified) – “One or more collaborators on a body of artwork in the field of science fiction or fantasy first displayed during the previous calendar year in a fashion that did not qualify for Best Professional Artist, i.e., neither work for hire, nor commissioned for pay, nor for sale.”
Byline & Acknowledgements. Compiled and written by Tammy Coxen, with feedback and editing assistance from Nicholas Whyte, Colin Harris, Lisa Hertel, Sara Felix and Mike Glyer. Special thanks to Gary Farber for providing the inspiration by posting some prior definitions in a comment on JOFs. Also, thanks to the editors and contributors to my primary research sites, Fancyclopedia 3, fanac.org and wsfs.org.
By Rcade: At the 2021 Worldcon in Washington D.C., a sponsorship by Raytheon caused such a furious backlash that convention chair Mary Robinette Kowal apologized and announced that the con was donating an equal amount to an organization devoted to peace.
Two years later millions of dollars were spent on the Chengdu Worldcon by commercial and Chinese government sponsors, funding expenses that included event promotion, airfare and lodging for all Hugo Awards nominees and convention committee members, shuttles between the hotel and convention center, human translators at events and tourist excursions to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.
These sponsorships will not be accounted for in the convention’s financial report, Chengdu Worldcon co-chair Ben Yalow revealed during a panel discussion in December at Smofcon, a conference for convention planners. “None of that appears on our financial report because we didn’t get any money out of the deal. The convention never saw that money. What the convention saw was Hugo finalists who would show up and their plane ticket was taken care of and their hotel room was taken care of. It means that our financial report is completely accurate and totally misleading.”
The panel was titled “What Can We Learn from Chengdu?” and included three members of the convention’s committee: Yalow, advisor Helen Montgomery and business meeting chair Donald Eastlake III. The other panelists were Vincent Docherty, an advisor to the upcoming 2024 Glasgow Worldcon, and Marie Vibbert, a 2023 Hugo nominee who made the trip to China. The moderator was Tammy Coxen, chair of the 2014 Detroit NASFiC convention.
In late January, John S of Ersatz Culture called attention to the Smofcon panel as part of his ongoing reporting about problems with Chengdu. The discussion drew further scrutiny after Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford revealed last week that Chengdu Hugo Awards administrator Dave McCarty manipulated the nominations and final vote, excluding some top vote getters after his team investigated nominees for anything political in their work or life that might cause concerns in the host country.
The hour-long Smofcon panel was a discussion of how future Worldcons could potentially emulate Chengdu, where Yalow said “damn near everything” was funded by sponsors.
When the first audience question began with a comment that sponsor dollars bought “splashy” presentations but communications with members before the con would’ve also been nice, Coxen interjected before any panelists could respond. “What I wanted to focus this panel on was not the tearing down but the building up,” she said. “What can we take away, what can we learn.”
There was a lot of enthusiasm on the panel for Worldcons aggressively pitching their event to sponsors, tempered with the reality that opportunities would be far smaller than they were in China.
Yalow offered this advice: “When we went to sponsors and said are you interested in sponsoring it … the way you had to structure that pitch is not what benefits can the convention can get out of it. The way the pitches were always structured is what benefit does the sponsor — or the government in the case of government sponsorship — what benefit does that person or that organization get out of it. A pitch that says ‘Well we can do all of these really cool things’ is a failed pitch.”
Chengdu sponsors “were not particularly intrusive,” Yalow said, but the con could not change a sponsored panel’s scheduled time or panelists without consulting that sponsor. The only disclosure of the commercial arrangement was in the backdrop of the panel, not in any convention publications. “From the person on the other side of the table, the person sitting in the audience, it looked exactly the same,” he said.
There was one part of Chengdu that disallowed sponsors. “One of our ‘do not break this rule ever under any circumstance’ was no sponsorship in respect to the Hugos,” Yalow said.
The WSFS Constitution, which sets the rules of Worldcon, grants members the right to examine a Worldcon’s “financial records and books of account.”
As the panel was nearing its close, the issue of financial transparency was raised for the first time by a questioner in an online chat visible to the panelists and audience but not shown on video.
The moderator Coxen read the question aloud: “One of the objections to Raytheon as a sponsor for DC 3 was not just who they were but the perceived lack of transparency around it. How do you think we could reconcile that with the effective but relatively subtle sponsorship Chengdu had?”
She responded jocularly. “Nobody knew who the sponsors were, at least from the West, so nobody asked you hard questions about them from the West!”
Yalow dodged the question. “That’s a political question that is in a sense above my pay grade,” he said.
Helen Montgomery answered, “As the chairperson of Chicon 8, coming in right after the whole Raytheon thing at DisCon, we were like, OK here’s our sponsorship policy, which we’d been working on — we had to change it after Raytheon. … I can’t quite get my head around the words, I’m sorry. I think it’s a really tricky balance. The people who come to Worldcon want Worldcon to do more and more and more. And we’ve tried really hard to do the more and more and more. But we are at a point where we can’t do more unless we get more money. So do we charge attendees more so we can do more? We’re going to get all kinds of pushback around that. Our other alternative is sponsorship, right? And like I’m saying about the position Seattle is in. Boeing is right frickin’ there but Boeing does military stuff. That balance is just so hard and I don’t have a good answer to that question.”
In her apology for accepting the Raytheon donation, DisCon III chair Kowal offered three action items for future conrunners to avoid making the same mistake: “Developing a sponsorship policy for your organization that reflects the values and concerns of our community. Creating a robust plan for doing due diligence on potential sponsors. Creating a mission and value statement against which to measure actions.”
A final question at the Smofcon panel was about the Hugo nominee Vibbert, who revealed she was offered an honorarium and turned it down because of concerns about the sponsor. An audience member asked if she would share the company’s name.
By Tammy Coxen: It is time to remove the NASFiC from the WSFS constitution. But maybe something new and better can rise instead.
In 2014, I was chair of Detcon1, the highly acclaimed Detroit NASFiC. On the heels of that, I submitted a proposal to the business meeting to give Hugo nomination rights to NASFiC members, because I thought that creating a stronger and more supported NASFiC would ultimately help the Worldcon. Here’s what I wrote in 2014:
Because of its suitability for smaller markets that do not have the facilities or concentration of people necessary to bid for or run a Worldcon, NASFiCs have great potential to be a pathway for exposing new fans to WSFS, Worldcons, and international fandom. NASFiCs also play an important skill building role in running bids and in operating more complex organizational structures than many regional conventions. However, under the current model, there is limited formal connection to WSFS. Extending limited WSFS rights to NASFiC members would give those members a pathway for building engagement with WSFS and the Worldcon, ultimately strengthening the Worldcon.
At its best, everything I wrote about the NASFiC then is true. But since 2014, we have failed to see another NASFiC come close to living up to this potential.
Since then, both fandom and the world have changed dramatically. When the NASFiC was first proposed and selected, the vast majority of Worldcons were held within the United States. The vast majority of Worldcon attendees were American. International travel was more difficult and expensive. None of those things is true anymore.
In the last 10 years, fully half of Worldcons have been outside North America. Only two American locations have so far declared an intention to bid in the next 8 years. The largest Worldcons to-date have been held outside of North America. The Worldcon is international, and travel is more accessible for Americans than ever, so why is WSFS still carving out a special accommodation for North America? It’s unnecessary, and worse, perpetuates the idea that the Worldcon is really “an American thing” and Americans are most important to WSFS.
It is time to take the NASFiC out of the WSFS Constitution. One of the arguments made for keeping it in has been that if there was a US National Convention that ran annually, it would compete with the Worldcon. But I do not think Worldcon needs this protection.
I do think there is a role for an annual US National Convention. (Yes, that’s technically different from the NASFiC, but Canada already has a national convention, and the rest of North America was really only ever included as a technicality.) It could do many of the things I thought NASFiCs could do in 2014, like give people experience with bidding and running larger conventions, which American Worldcon bids could then draw on. But the current intermittent nature of the NASFiC does not help it build an audience of regular attendees and supporters.
So if you love the NASFiC, why not set it free and see if it can fly on its own?
Here’s what I’d like to see. Supporters of an American National Convention (let’s call it Americon for now) should come together and develop a plan for what future Americons should look like. I think a model where existing conventions bid to host the year’s Americon would be a great model, and help strengthen ties between US conrunning groups that have weakened considerably in the past decade. But it could also be a standalone convention, if the organization thinks that will have a better chance of success. I’m willing to be part of this group.
That group should bring a proposal to Glasgow in 2024 to remove NASFiC from the constitution and establish Americon. I’d envision it going like this:
2024 – first passage of constitutional amendment
2025 – ratification of constitutional amendment
2026 – The Worldcon (if in the US) or the NASFiC (if there is one) administers one last election to pick a site for the 2027 Americon
2027 – That site chooses locations for 2028 and 2029 (because if not tied to the Worldcon selection timing, a two-year lead makes more sense)
2029 onwards – each site runs site selection for the 2-year hence Americon
And then we see what happens. Hopefully we get a vibrant community forming around Americon, and getting excited by the new people it brings to their region. Hopefully we get US conrunning groups sharing best practices and learning from each other. Hopefully we get locations thinking “wow, it was really fun to have folks from around the country here, wouldn’t it be neat if we also had people from all over the world” and launching Worldcon bids. But WSFS isn’t needed for any of that, and it should get out of the way.
(With thanks to Michael Lee, on whose wall and with whose help a lot of these ideas were hammered out. And to Brian Nisbet, who says that that the timeline was his idea and I just don’t remember because there were cocktails at the time. Which is, you know, entirely plausible.)
Update 10/25/2023: Added new introductory paragraph.
People writing about the issues they care about is what keeps this community going. It’s a gift and privilege for me to be continually allowed to publish so many entertaining posts rich in creativity, humor, and shared adventures. Thanks to all of you who contributed to File 770 in 2022!
Stormm continued her humorous series about the misdirected emails she gets from Writer X throughout 2022, braiding together comedy, horror, and the pitfalls of being a writer.
…Thinking about Jules Verne, with the new TV version of Around the World in Eighty Days about to start, I just bought the Wesleyan edition of Five Weeks in a Balloon, translated by Frederick Paul Walter – after researching what the good modern translations of Verne are. Verne has been abysmally translated into English over the years, but there’s been a push to correct that….
… It was on FaceBook where I first saw friends’ posting about Opening Ceremonies. According to what was posted, some of the musical selections performed by students from the Duke Ellington School spotlighted the religious aspects of the Christmas holiday.
My immediate reaction was that this was not an appropriate part of Opening Ceremonies, especially since, as far as I know, the religious aspect of the performance was not contained in the descriptions in any convention publication. The online description of Opening Ceremonies says, in its entirety: “Welcome to the convention. We will present the First Fandom and Big Heart awards, as well as remarks from the Chair.” The December 9, 2021, news release about the choir’s participation did not mention that there would be a religious component to the performance….
Whew! We made it. We made it to Issue 100 of the Grantville Gazette. This is an incredible feat by a large group of stakeholders. Thank you, everyone.
I don’t think Eric Flint had any idea what he’d created when he sent Jim Baen the manuscript for 1632. In the intervening two-plus decades, the book he intended to be a one-shot novel has grown like the marshmallow man in Ghostbusters to encompass books from two publishing houses, a magazine (this one, that you are holding in your metaphorical hands) and allowed over 165 new authors to see their first published story in print. The Ring of Fire Universe, or the 1632 Universe, has more than twelve million words published….
This message was written by a fan in Moscow 48 hours ago. It is unsigned but was relayed by a trustworthy source who confirms the writer is happy for it to be published by File 770. It’s a fan’s perspective, a voice we may not hear much….
Right now, when I’m sitting at my desktop and writing this text, a cannonade nearby doesn’t stop. The previous night was scary in Kyiv. Evidently, Russians are going to start demolishing Ukrainian capital like they are doing with Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Mariupol.
The Ukrainian SFF Community joined the efforts to isolate Russia, the nazi-country of the 21st century, to force them to stop the war. The boycott by American authors we asked for is also doing the job. Many leading writers and artists of the great United States already joined the campaign.
We appealed to SFWA to also join the campaign, and here is what they replied…
Fortunately, comic-carrying newspapers are, of course, all (also or only) online these days, but even then, some require subscriptions (fair enough), and to get all the ones you want. For example, online, the Washington Post, has about 90, while the Boston Globe is just shy of a paltry one-score-and-ten. And (at least in Firefox), they don’t seem to be visible in all-on-one-page mode, much less customize-a-page-of.
So, for several years now, I’ve been going to the source — two “syndicates” that sell/redistribute many popular strips to newspapers….
There’s been a lot of excitement about Squid Game. Everybody’s talking about how clever, original, and utterly skiffy it is. I watched it, too, eagerly and faithfully. But I wasn’t as surprised by it as some. I expected it to be good. I’ve been watching Korean video for ten years, and have only grown more addicted every year. And yet I just can’t convince many people to watch it with me….
Let me tell you about my favorite building in Washington, D.C. It’s the staid old Arts and Industries Building, the second-oldest of all the Smithsonian Institution buildings, which dates back to the very early 1880s and owes its existence to the Smithsonian’s then urgent need for a place where parts of its collection could go on public display….
When we last left the Heinleins (“What the Heinleins Told the 1940 Census”), a woman answering the door at 8777 Lookout Mountain – Leslyn Heinlein, presumably — had just finished telling the 1940 census taker a breathtaking raft of misinformation. Including that her name was Sigred, her husband’s was Richard, that the couple had been born in Germany, and they had a young son named Rolf.
Ten years have passed since then, and the archives of the 1950 U.S. Census were opened to the public on April 1. There’s a new Mrs. Heinlein – Virginia. The 8777 Lookout Mountain house in L.A. has been sold. They’re living in Colorado Springs. What did the Heinleins tell the census taker this time?…
“In the future, there was a nuclear war. And because of all the radiation, cats developed the ability to shoot lasers out of their mouths.”
On this dubious premise, Laser Cats was founded. By its seventh and final episode, the great action stars and directors of the day had contributed their considerable talents to this highly entertaining, yet frankly ridiculous enterprise. From James Cameron to Lindsey Lohan, Josh Brolin to Steve Martin, Laser Cats attracted the best in the business.
Being part of Saturday Night Live undoubtedly helped….
The Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award For Disability In Speculative Fiction aims to award disability in speculative fiction in two ways. One, by awarding a writer of speculative fiction for their representation or portrayal of disability in a world of speculative fiction, whatever their health status; and two, by awarding a disabled writer for a work of speculative fiction in general, whatever the focus of the work may be….
Robert Osband, Florida fan, really loves space. All his life he has been learning about spaceflight. And reading stories about spaceflight, in science fiction.
So after NASA’s Apollo program was over, the company that made Apollo space suits held a garage sale, and Ozzie showed up. He bought a “training liner” from ILC Dover, a coverall-like portion of a pressure suit, with rings at the wrists and neck to attach gloves and helmet.
And another time, in 1976, when one of his favorite authors, Robert A. Heinlein, was going to be Guest of Honor at a World Science Fiction Convention, Mr. Osband journeyed to Kansas City.
In his suitcase was his copy of Heinlein’s Have Space Suit, Will Travel—a novel about a teenager who wins a secondhand space suit in a contest—and his ILC Dover suit.
Because if you wanted to get your copy of Have Space Suit, Will Travel autographed, and you happened to own a secondhand space suit, it would be a shame NOT to wear it, right?…
… I’m sure that our first face-to-face meeting was in 1979, when my job in industry took me from Chattanooga all the way out to Los Angeles for some much-needed training in electrochemistry. I didn’t really know anybody in L.A. fandom back then but I did know the address of the LASFS clubhouse, so on my next-to-last evening in town I dropped in on a meeting. And it was there that I found Bruce mostly surrounded by other fans while they all expounded on fandom as it existed back then and what it might be like a few years down the road. It was like a jazz jam session, but all words and no music. I settled back into the periphery, enjoying all the back-and-forth, and when there eventually came a lull in the conversations I took the opportunity to introduce myself. And then Bruce said something to me that I found very surprising: “Dick Lynch! I’ve heard of you!”…
It was back in 2014 that a student filmmaker at Stephen F. Austin State University, Ricky Kennedy, created an extraordinary short movie titled The History of Time Travel. Exploration of “what ifs” is central to good storytelling in the science fiction genre and this little production is one of the better examples of how to do it the right way.
For a long time, I’ve felt the Short Form Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation was not properly organized to give an award to the best “Television” SF of the previous year….
Lavie Tidhar’s Neom is a stunning return to his world of Central Station, twinning the fates of humans and robots alike at a futuristic city on the edge of the Red Sea….
… It is through Joy and Cassimer’s eyes we experience S.A. Tholin’s Iron Truth, a finalist of the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition. If there was ever a case of the cream rising to the top this book is one….
… A couple of odd things, though. He had $300 on him, that wasn’t stolen, and an unusual rosary, with what seems to be the wrong number of beads. It’s a puzzle….
In T. A. Bruno’s In the Orbit of Sirens, a Self-Published Science Fiction Competition finalist, the remnants of the human race have fled the solar system ahead of an alien culture that is assimilating everyone in reach. Loaded aboard a vast colony ship they’re headed for a distant refuge, prepared to pioneer a new world, but unprepared to meet new threats there to human survival that are as great as the ones they left behind.
On the morning of Carmen Grey’s sixth birthday an armed team arrives to take her from her parents and remove her to the underground facility where Clairvoyants — like her — are held captive and trained for years to access their abilities. So begins Monster of the Dark by K. T. Belt, a finalist in the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition….
G.M. Nair begins Duckett and Dyer: Dicks for Hire by making a surprising choice. His introductory scene explicitly reveals to readers the true nature of the mysterious events that the protagonists themselves uncover only very slowly throughout the first half of the book. The introduction might even be the penultimate scene in the book — which would make sense in a story that is partly about time travel loops. Good idea or bad idea?…
… What sounds like Firefly also describes the SPSFC finalist novel Captain Wu: Starship Nameless #1, a space opera by authors Patrice Fitzgerald and Jack Lyster. I love Firefly so it wasn’t a big leap to climb aboard this vessel….
…. It would be exceptionally embarrassing for a Worldcon to have to explain why a finalist would have won the Hugo except for — oops! — this bit of outdated fine print. The best course of action is to eliminate that fine print before such a circumstance arises….
The social media of the 30th century doesn’t seem so different: teenagers anonymously perform acts of civil disobedience and vandalism to score points and raise their ranking in an internet app. That’s where Aster Vale leads a secret life as the Wildflower, a street artist and tagger, in A Star Named Vega by Benjamin J. Roberts, a Self-Published Science Fiction competition finalist…..
R F Kuang’s Babel is an audacious and unrelenting look at colonialism, seen through the lens of an alternate 19th century Britain where translation is the key to magic. Kuang’s novel is as sharp and perceptive as it is well written, deep, and bears reflection upon, after reading, for today’s world….
Paul Weimer went to donate some books at Don Blyly’s new location for Uncle Hugo’s and Uncle Edgar’s bookstores. While he was inside Paul shot these photographs of the bookshelves being stocked and other work in progress.
… Another contributor to the Afrofuturist tradition is Nicole Mitchell, a noted avant-jazz composer and flutist. She chose to take on Octavia Butler’s most challenging works, the Xenogenesis Trilogy, and create the Xenogenesis Suite, a collection of dark and disturbing compositions that reflect the trilogy’s turbulent and complicated spirit….
Anna carefully arranged the necessary objects around her desktop computer into a pentagon: sharpened pencils, a legal pad, a half-empty coffee cup, and a copy of Science Without Sorcery, with the chair at the fifth point. This done, she intoned the spell that would open the channel to her muse for long enough to write the final pages of her work-in-progress. Then she could get ready for the convention….
… In the last five years, the [Hugo Awards Study Committee] [HASC] has changed precisely two words of the Constitution. (Since you asked: adding the words “or Comic” to the title of the “Best Graphic Story” category.) The HASC’s defenders will complain that we had two years of pandemic, and that the committee switched to Discord rather than email only this year, and that there are lots of proposals this year. But the fact remains that so far the practical impact has been slower than I imagined when I first proposed the Committee…..
In Michaele Jordan’s overview, she comments on the novellas by Aliette de Bodard, Becky Chambers, Alix E. Harrow, Seanan McGuire, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Catherynne M. Valente that are up for the 2022 Hugo.
… Once we had a lot of science fiction, little fantasy; lately we’ve had a lot of fantasy; so Powers’ writing fantasy does not seem particularly defiant.
His fantasy has generally been — to use a word which may provoke defiance — rigorous. Supernatural phenomena occur, may be predicted, aroused, avoided, as meticulously — a word whose root means fear — as we in our world start an automobile engine or put up an umbrella. Some say this has made his writing distinctive….
The day of reckoning is here for E Pluribus Hugo. The change in the way Hugo Awards nominations are counted was passed in 2015 and ratified in 2016 to counter how Sad and Rabid Puppies’ slates dictated most of finalists on the Hugo ballots in those years. It came with a 2022 sunset clause attached, and E Pluribus Hugo must be re-ratified this year in order to remain part of the WSFS Constitution….
… His name is Joel Nydahl, and back about the time of that Chicon he was a 14-year-old neofan who lived with his parents on a farm near Marquette, Michigan. He was an avid science fiction reader and at some point in 1952 decided to publish a fanzine. It was a good one….
… Abigail Kamara, younger cousin of police constable and apprentice wizard Peter Grant, has been left largely unsupervised while he’s off in the sticks on a case. This leaves Abigail making her own decisions when she notices that kids roughly her age are disappearing–but not staying missing long enough for the police to care….
Friends, let me tell you about one of my favorite TV shows. But I must admit to you up front that it’s not SF/F. Extraordinary Attorney Woo is, as I assume you’ve deduced from the title, a lawyer show. But it’s a KOREAN lawyer show, which should indicate that is NOT run of the mill….
Joseph Campbell was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College, and wrote extensively about comparative mythology. His “hero’s journey” theory has been extremely influential….
… The Phantom Empire, a twelve-chapter Mascot serial, was originally released in February, 1935. A strange concoction for a serial, it is at once science fiction film, a Western, and strangely enough, a musical. It was the first real science fiction sound serial and its popularity soon inspired other serials about fantastic worlds….
… I find myself explaining the changes to membership in the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) and the conditions for attending the World Science Fiction Convention that were ratified this year in Chicago (and thus are now in effect, because this was the second vote on the changes)…
Chicon 8’s Chicago Worldcon Community Fund (CWCF) program offered both memberships and financial stipends. It was established with the goal of helping defray the expenses of attending Chicon 8 for the following groups of people:
Non-white fans or program participants • LGBTQIA+ fans or program participants • Local Chicago area fans of limited means…
The London Underground has ghosts. Well, the London Underground always has ghosts, but usually they’re gentle, sad creatures. Lately there’s been an outbreak of more aggressive ghosts….
As environmental problems caused by industrialisation and post-industrialisation continue to increase, the public is looking for ecological solutions. As pandemics, economic crises, and wars plague our society in different ways, thoughts turn to the good old times. But were they really all that good? People are escaping increasingly into fantastical stories in order to find a quantum of solace. But at what point was there a utopia in our society. If so, at what or whose cost did it exist? Whether or not we ever experience living in a utopia, the idea of finally finding one drives us to continue seeking ideal living conditions….
… Capclave appeared to be equally star-crossed in its next iteration. It was held over the weekend of October 18-20, 2002, and once again the attendees were brought closer together by an event taking place in the outside world. The word had spread quickly through all the Saturday night room parties: “There’s been another shooting.” Another victim of the D.C. Sniper….
… In Fairy Tale, his newest novel, Stephen King delivers a, cough, grimm contemporary story, explicitly incorporating horror in the, cough, spirit of Lovecraft (King also explicitly namedrops, in the text, August Derleth, and Henry Kuttner), in which high-schooler Charlie Reade becomes involved in things — and challenges — that, as the book and plot progress, stray beyond the mundane….
The idea of an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories about the Beatles seems like a natural. I’ve been told the two editors, each unbeknownst to the other, both presented the idea to the publisher around the same time…
The Science Museum (that’s the world famous one in Kensington, London) has just launched a new exhibit on what Carl Sagan once mused (though not mentioned in the exhibit itself) science fiction and science’s ‘dance’. SF2 Concatenation reprographic supremo Tony Bailey and I were invited by the Museum to have a look on the exhibition’s first day. (The exhibition runs to Star Wars day 2023, May the Fourth.) Having braved Dalek extermination at the Museum’s entrance, we made our way to the exhibition’s foyer – decorated with adverts to travel to Gallifrey – to board our shuttle….
I was at the 2022 F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival in Rockville, MD today. If you’re wondering why the festival is there, that’s where Fitzgerald and his wife are buried. Now, I’d never read any of Fitzgerald`s writing, so I spent the evening before reading the first three chapters of The Great Gatsby (copyright having expired last year, it’s online). So far, I’ve yet to find anyone in it that I want to spend any time with, including the narrator.
However, the reason I attended was to see Kim Stanley Robinson, who was the special guest at the Festival. The end of the morning’s big event was a conversation between Stan and Richard Powers. Then there was lunch, and a keynote speaker, then Stan introducing Powers to receive an award from the society that throws the annual Festival….
A recent possible record could be the SF2 Concatenation’s website 2012 Eurocon Award voted on by those at the European SF Society’s convention which, that year, was held in Croatia….
Snuff is our narrator, here, and he’s a smart, interesting, likable dog. He’s the friend and partner of a man called Jack, and they are preparing for a major event….
…As a child, I kept a notebook filled with my favorite quotes. (How did I not know I was going to be an author?) The first quote? “Not all who wander are lost.” There was everything from 90s rom com lines to Wordsworth poems in that notebook, but Tolkien filled the most pages….
Louis Wu is 200 years old, and he’s bored. It’s his 200th birthday, and he’s using transfer booths to extend the celebration of it for a full twenty-four hours, and he’s really bored….
How can Halloween be over already? We barely had time to watch thirty horror movies –and those mostly classics, which are less than half our (horror) collection!
There is a fundamental implausibility to easy manned interstellar (or even interplanetary) space travel that nonetheless remains a seductive idea even in our wiser and more cynical and weary 21st century. …
Alif is a young man, a “gray hat” hacker, selling his skills to provide cybersecurity to anyone who needs that protection from the government. He lives in an unnamed city-state in the Middle East, referred to throughout simply as the City. He’s nonideological; he’ll sell his services to Islamists, communists, anyone….
Journalist, author, genre historian (and fan, certainly, from the 1940s and on!) Bertil Falk is acclaimed for performing the “impossible” task of translating Finnegans Wake to Swedish, the modernist classic by James Joyce, under the title Finnegans likvaka….
The protagonist of the first short novel in this omnibus — which is in fact Eye of Cat — is William Blackhorse Singer, a Navajo born in the 20th century, and still alive, and fit and healthy, almost two centuries later….
One fine Monday morning, Peter Grant is summoned to Baker Street Station on the London Underground, to assess whether there was anything “odd,” i.e., involving magic, about the death of a young man on the tracks….
…If you’re not a fan, then there’s a real chance you have no idea how much range animé encompasses. And I’m not even talking about the entire range of kid shows, sit-coms and drama. (I’m aware there may be limits to your tolerance. I’m talking about the range within SF/F. Let’s consider just three examples….
While I subscribe to the practice that, as a rule, reviews and review-like write-ups, if not intended as a piece of critical/criticism, should stick to books the reviewer feels are worth the readers reading, sometimes (I) want to, like Jerry Pournelle’s “We makes these mistakes and do this stuff so you dont have to” techno-wrangling Chaos Manor columns, give a maybe-not-your-cup-of-paint-remover head’s-up. This is one of those….
It’s been 30 years since the passing of my friend Roger Weddall. I doubt very many of you reading this had ever met him and I wouldn’t be surprised, actually, if most of you haven’t even heard of him. Thirty years is a long time and the demographics of fandom has changed a lot. So let me tell you a little bit about him….
I expect a lot of File 770’s readers watched, as we did, as the Orion capsule returned to Terra. I’m older than some of you, and it’s been decades since I watched a capsule re-entry and landing in the ocean. What had me in tears is that finally, after fifty years, we’re planning to go back… and stay….
Poul Anderson began writing his own “future history” in the 1950s, with its starting point being that there would be a limited nuclear war at some point in the 1950s. From that point would develop a secret effort to build a new social structure that could permanently prevent war….
…As with Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water is a visual feast. Unlike the first film, there aren’t long sweeping pans lingering over beautiful, otherworldly vistas. The “beautiful” and the “otherworldly” are still there, but we’re seeing them incorporated into the action and storytelling….
Today we celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of Harry Warner, Jr., who was perhaps the best-known stay-at-home science fiction fan of all time….
…But having learned that she can see and talk to ghosts, and that they all have unresolved problems they want to solve, she can’t always say no when they ask her for help….
…Xich Si is a tech scavenger, living in Triệu Hoà Port, and scavenging tech to sell and support herself and her daughter, when she’s captured by pirates. ….
… When I was growing up, children like myself were taught, no, more like indoctrinated, to think the United States was the BEST place to grow up, that our country was ALWAYS in the right and that our institutions were, for the most part, unassailable and impervious to criticism from anyone, especially foreigners.
I grew up in Ohio in the 1960’s and despite what I was being taught in a parochial Catholic grade school (at great expense, I might add, by my hard-working parents), certain things I was experiencing did not add up. News of the violence and casualties during the Vietnam War was inescapable. I remember watching the evening network news broadcasts and being horrified by the number of people (on all sides of the conflict) being wounded or killed on a daily basis.
As the years went on, it became harder to reconcile all of the violence, terrorism, public assassinations and the racism I was experiencing with the education I was receiving. The Pentagon Papers and the Watergate break-ins coincided with my high school years and the beginnings of my political awakening.
When I look back on those formative days of my life, I see myself as a small child, set out upon a sea of prejudice and whiteness, in a boat of hetero-normaltity, destination unknown….
… After I introduced myself to Mr. Weir and Mr. Bell, I said, “You and I have something in common.”
“Oh really? What’s that?”
“You and I are the only 2022 Hugo Award nominees within a hundred-mile radius of this bookstore.” (I stated that because I know that our fellow nominee, Jason Sanford, lives in Columbus, Ohio, hence the reference to the mileage.)…
Despite some very harsh comments from Dmitry Rogozin, the director general of Roscosmos, threatening that “If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled deorbit and fall into the United States or Europe?” spacefarers seem to have a different perspective and understanding of the importance of international cooperation, respect and solidarity. This appears to have been demonstrated today when three cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station….
Forty-five years ago or thereabouts, on February 26, 1977, the first ‘prog’ of 2000AD was released by IPC magazines. The second issue dated March 5 a week later saw the debut of Judge Dredd. Since then, Rogue Trooper, Nemesis the Warlock, Halo Jones, Sláine, Judge Anderson, Strontium Dog, Roxy and Skizz, The ABC Warriors, Bad Company and Proteus Vex are just some of the characters and stories that have emanated from the comic that was started by Pat Mills and John Wagner. Some have gone on to be in computer games, especially as the comic was purchased by Rebellion developments in 2000, and Judge Dredd has been brought to the silver screen twice.
Addictive and enjoyable stories of the fantastic, written and drawn by some of the greatest comic creators of the latter part of the 20th century, they often related to the current, utilizing Science Fiction to obscure issues about violence or subversiveness, but reflecting metaphorically about the now of the time….
“Fight With Art” is an exhibition of Ukrainian Contemporary Art created under exceptional circumstances taking place now in Kraków at the Manggha Museum until April 30.
We reached out to curator Artur Wabik to learn more of this topical exhibition…
Steve Vertlieb, William Shatner, and Erwin Vertlieb.
Traditionally, the start of a new year is a time when film critics begin assembling their lists of the best films, actors, writers, composers, and directors of the past year. What follows, then, while honoring that long-held tradition, is a comprehensive compilation and deeply personal look at the finest film scores of the past nearly one hundred years….
The frenzy of joyous controversy swirling over director Adam McKay’s new film Don’t Look Up has stirred a healthy, if frenetic debate over the meaning and symbology of this bonkers dramedy. On its surface a cautionary satire about the impending destruction of the planet, Don’t Look Up is a deceptively simplistic tale of moronic leadership refusing to accept a grim, unpleasant reality smacking it in its face.
What follows is truly one of the most personally heartfelt, poignant, and heartbreaking remembrances that I’ve ever felt compelled to write.
Veronica Carlson was a dear, close, cherished friend for over thirty years. I learned just now that this dear sweet soul passed away today. I am shocked and saddened beyond words. May God rest her beautiful soul.
After interviewing William Shatner for the British magazine L’Incroyable Cinema during the torrid Summer of 1969 at “The Playhouse In The Park,” just outside of Philadelphia, while Star Trek was still in the final days of its original network run on NBC, my old friend Allan Asherman, who joined my brother Erwin and I for this once-in-a-lifetime meeting with Captain James Tiberius Kirk, astutely commented that I had now met and befriended all three of our legendary boyhood “Captains,” which included Jim Kirk (William Shatner), Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers (Larry “Buster” Crabbe), and Buzz Corry (Edward Kemmer), Commander of the Space Patrol….
… The first of the most important music modernists, however, in the post war era and “Silver Age” of film composers was Elmer Bernstein who would, had he lived, be turning one hundred years old on April 4th, 2022. Although he would subsequently prove himself as able as classic “Golden Age” composers of writing traditional big screen symphonic scores, with his gloriously triumphant music for Cecil B De Mille’s 1956 extravaganza, The Ten Commandments….
… She was just four days into her maiden voyage from Southhampton to New York City when this “Unsinkable” vessel met disaster and finality, sailing into history, unspeakable tragedy, and maritime immortality. May God Rest Her Eternal Soul … the souls of the men, women, and children who sailed and perished during those nightmarish hours, and to all those who go courageously “Down to The Sea in Ships.” This horrifying remembrance remains among the most profoundly significant of my own seventy-six years….
… It is true that Seth MacFarlane, the veteran satirist who both created and stars in the science fiction series, originally envisioned [The Orville] as a semi-comedic tribute to Gene Roddenberry’s venerable Star Trek. However, the show grew more dramatic in its second season on Fox, while it became obvious that MacFarlane wished to grow outside the satirical box and expand his dimensional horizons and ambitions….
… I was born in the closing weeks of 1945, and grasped at my tentative surroundings with uncertain hands. It wasn’t until 1950 when I was four years old that my father purchased a strange magical box that would transform and define my life. The box sat in our living room and waited to come alive. Three letters seemed to identify its persona and bring definition to its existence. Its name appeared to be RCA, and its identity was known as television….
He was a kindly, gentle soul who lived among us for a seeming eternity. But even eternity is finite. He was justifiably numbered among the most influential writers of the twentieth century. Among the limitless vistas of science fiction and fantasy he was, perhaps, second only in literary significance to H.G. Wells who briefly shared the last century with him. Ray Bradbury was, above all else, the poet laureate of speculative fiction….
On June 11, 1982, America and the world received the joyous gift of one of the screen’s most beloved fantasy film classics and, during that memorable Summer, a young aspiring television film critic reviewed a new film from director Steven Spielberg called E.T….
…Before I realized it, tables and chairs were being moved and I felt the hands of paramedics lifting me to the floor of the restaurant. Les was attempting to perform CPR on me, and I was drifting off into unconciousness. I awoke to find myself in an ambulance with assorted paramedics pounding my chest, while attempting to verbally communicate with me. I was aware of their presence, but found myself unable to speak….
After nearly dying a little more than a decade ago during and just after major open heart surgery, I fulfilled one of the major dreams of my life…meeting the man who would become my last living life long hero. I’d adored him as far back as 1959 when first hearing the dramatic strains of the theme from Checkmate on CBS Television. That feeling solidified a year later in 1960 with the rich, sweet strains of ABC Television’s Alcoa Premiere, hosted by Fred Astaire, followed by Wide Country on NBC….
…When Jack Warner was casting the film version of the smash hit, he considered performers such as Cary Grant, James Cagney, or Frank Sinatra for the lead. Meredith Willson, the show’s composer, however, demanded that Robert Preston star in the movie version of his play, or he’d withdraw the contracts and licensing. The film version of The Music Man, produced for Warner Brothers, and starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones, opened to rave reviews on movie screens across the country in 1962. Robert Preston, like Rex Harrison in Lerner and Lowe’s My Fair Lady, had proven that older, seasoned film stars could propel both Broadway and big screen musicals to enormous artistic success….
On the evening of May 14, 1998, following the airing over NBC Television of the series finale of Seinfeld, the world and I received the terrible news of the passing of the most beloved entertainer of the twentieth century. It has been twenty-four years since he left this mortal realm, but the joy, the music, and the memories are as fresh and as vital today as when they were born….
I had the honor and distinct pleasure of both knowing and sharing correspondence with British actor Peter Cushing for several years during the late Sixties and early Seventies….
Very exciting news. The long awaited CD soundtrack release of 12 O’Clock High is now available for purchase through La-La Land Records and is a major restoration of precious original tracks from Quinn Martin’s beloved television series….
That terrible day in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 remains one of the most significantly traumatic days of my life. I was just seventeen years old. I was nearing the end of my high school classes at Northeast High School in Philadelphia when word started spreading through the hallways and corridors that JFK had been shot. I listened in disbelief, praying that it wasn’t true … but it was….
I recently watched a somber new three part documentary by film maker Ken Burns that is among the most sobering, heartbreaking, and horrifying indictments of humanity that I have ever encountered. It was extremely difficult to watch but, as an American Jew, I remain struck by the similarities between the rise in Fascism in the early nineteen thirties, leading to the beginnings of Nazism in Germany, and the attempted decimation of the Jewish people in Europe and throughout the world, with the repellant echoes of both racial and religious intolerance, and the mounting hatred and suspicion of the Jewish communities and population residing presently in my own country of birth, these United States….
I’ve read with interest some of the recent discussions concerning the measure of Hugo Friedhofer’s importance as a composer, and it set my memory sailing back to another time in a musical galaxy long ago and far away. I have always considered Maestro Friedhofer among the most important, if underrated, composers of Hollywood’s golden era….
…Steven Spielberg’s reverent semi-autobiographical story of youthful dreams and aspirations is, for me, the finest, most emotionally enriching film of the year, filled with photographic memories, and indelible recollections shared both by myself and by the film maker….
These photographs are of an annual Christmas tradition at American Heritage Federal Credit Union located at Red Lion and Jamison Roads in Northeast Philadelphia….
…This was the man who brought such incalculable joy and hope to so many millions of filmgoers with his quintessential Christmas classic, It’s A Wonderful Life. …
My friend Adam Spector tells me that when Ernest Lehman was asked to write the script for North by Northwest, he tried to turn out the most “Hotchcocky” script he could, with all of Hitchcock’s obsessions in one great motion picture.
Moonfall is the most “Emmerichian” film Roland Emmerich is made. Like his earlier films, it has flatulent melodrama interlaced with completely daft science. But everything here is much more intense than his earlier work. But the only sense of wonder you’ll get from this film is wondering why the script got greenlit….
… Having a long career in Hollywood is a lot harder than in other forms of publishing; you’ve got to have the relentless drive to pursue your vision and keep making sales. To an outsider, what is astonishing about J. Michael Straczynski’s career is that it has had a third act and may well be in the middle of a fourth. His career could have faded after Babylon 5. The roars that greeted him at the 1996 Los Angeles Worldcon (where, it seemed, every conversation had to include the words, “Where’s JMS?”) would have faded and he could have scratched out a living signing autographs at media conventions….
When I read in the Financial Times about how Britain’s National Theatre was adapting Sir Philip Pullman’s La Belle Sauvage, the first volume of his Book of Dust trilogy, I told myself, “That’s a play for me! I’ll just fly over to London and see it! OGH is made of money, and he’ll happily pay my expenses!”
Fortunately, I didn’t have to go to London, because the theatre came to me, with a screening of the National Theatre Live production playing at the American Film Institute. So, I spent a pleasant Saturday afternoon seeing it….
… Stories matter more in the theatre than in film because far more of a play is in our imagination than in a film. Stripped of CGI and rewrites by multiple people, what plays offer at their best is one person’s offering us something where, if it works, we tell ourselves, “Yes, that was a good evening in the theatre,” and if it doesn’t, we gnash our teeth and feel miserable until we get home…
As Anton Ego told us in Ratatouille, the goal of a critic today is to be the first person to offer praise to a rising artist. It’s not the tenth novel that deserves our attention but the first or second. In the theatre, the people who need the most attention are the ones who are being established, not the ones that build on earlier successes.
So I’m happy to report that Matthew Aldwin McGee, author, star, and chief puppeteer of Under the Sea with Dredgie McGee is a talented guy who has a great deal of potential. You should be watching him….
I once read an article about a guy who was determined to live life in 1912. He lived in a shack in the woods, bought a lot of old clothes, a Victrola, and a slew of old books and magazines. I don’t remember how he made a living, but the article made clear that he was happy….
By Tammy Coxen: Chicon 8’s Chicago Worldcon Community Fund (CWCF) program offered both memberships and financial stipends. It was established with the goal of helping defray the expenses of attending Chicon 8 for the following groups of people:
• Non-white fans or program participants • LGBTQIA+ fans or program participants • Local Chicago area fans of limited means
SUPPORT PROVIDED. Thanks to the generosity of the Worldcon community we were able to provide support to 101 people. This was made up of 68 program participants and 33 fans. The majority of people (58) only received a membership while 28 received a stipend and a membership and 15 only received a stipend. A detailed breakdown of support provided is available here.
Memberships for program participants were provided via a pool of complimentary attending and virtual memberships provided by Chicon 8. Memberships for fans were covered entirely thanks to donated memberships from fans who could not attend. The CWCF did not see the last minute rush of donated memberships that Dublin 2019 did in their Fantastic Dublin Fund, probably because people who could not attend in person chose to keep their memberships and attend virtually. However, in the end that was fine, since we were able to provide a membership to everyone who needed one.
CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED AND FUNDRAISING. Stipends were paid out of cash contributions made to the fund. In total, the fund received $23,604. Most of this money came from fans who responded to our calls for support. Nearly $15k was received from 76 donors, including 7 people who donated multiple times. Another $2k came from people who had some kind of payment error (double or overpayment) that could have resulted in a refund, but chose to donate that money to the fund instead. $873 came from the pay-what-you-can membership recipients themselves, with a minimum donation of $5 and a maximum of $75.
The remainder of the money in the fund came through other fundraising means — $2500 was a passalong from Discon III’s Capitalize fund, $2500 was raised by Chicon 8 through an auction and sale of pins at their table at Discon III, and an additional $1100 came from Discon III when they held a fundraiser for us at Balticon, giving leftover Discon III merchandise away in exchange for a contribution to the CWCF.
STIPENDS GIVEN. The program allowed applicants to specify both a minimum they needed to attend, and a maximum that would be ideal. We were able to grant all requests at the minimum amount, with a handful of people receiving more. The range of grants was very large, going from $50 to a virtual program participant for data costs to a max of $2300 for an in-person program participant, with an overall average grant of just over $500.
DECISIONS REMAINING TO BE MADE. The CWCF worked really hard to try to give away all the money we took in. However, in the end we were left with $1900 in the fund primarily due to last minute cancellations, including $1200 that was being held for Ugandan members who did not end up getting visas. We are still deciding what to do with the leftover funds.
Thank you to everyone who joined us in helping to make Worldcon more accessible.
(1) CHICON 8 MEMBERSHIP NUMBERS. Chicon 8 drew 3,574 warm bodies (494 at door). Another 947 watched at least one hour of virtual programming. There were ~6,500 total members of all types. (Numbers via KevinStandlee.)
(2) WORLDCON MASQUERADE PHOTOS. Chicon 8 posted a rich gallery of photos: “Masquerade! Astounding Faces on Parade!” Includes notes on the award winners, including Best in Show, Arwen’s Lament presented by Rae Lundquist and company. (Which also won “Excellence in Workmanship for Hobbit Feet”.)
(3) CLOSING CEREMONIES. Thanks to Kevin Standlee who encouraged me to run any of his posts and photos.
(4) HE WAS A WALKING WORLDCON HIGHLIGHT. Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki shared some general comments about being able to achieve his trip to Chicon 8, and the Hugo acceptance speech he didn’t get to give. Lots of photos, too! Thread starts here. (Full text of the speech is on Facebook.)
Perhaps subsequently I can have winning as a goal. But this day it was really as simple as just being seen here, in the flesh. As it is, I did get a Hugo, a rocket. Which is what the Hugo is supoosed to be. And what makes a rocket a rocket? The metal casing? Nope. pic.twitter.com/y54sAdNiGs
It would also have contained a rocket joke, which I told @AlanSmale. How does a rocket leave the earth, by shooting fire out of it's butt ????. I don't know if it's funny. Or even scientifically sound. But I know I can relate.
I wish that we did more, at prior times, for Walter Dinjos, @somto_Ihezue, @suyidavies, @rafeeeeta, & other African creatives who were shackled & grounded by discrimination. & Not just Africans but the disabled, LGBTQIA & all marginalized persons in the SFF community.
So that's it. That would have been my Hugo speech. More or less. And I figure I don't need to be on that one stage to give it. Cuz you all have given me the stage, anywhere I am. So there. ????????????????
And there’s a photo of another heartwarming moment on Lezli Robyn’s Facebook page here of Ekpeki being “gifted an iPad and keyboard, for all the future masterpieces he will write.” Robyn added in comments, “It was not from us! But I was the messenger/organizer.” So I don’t know who gave it to him.
(5) CONGRATULATIONS, HUGO WINNER. When Cora Buhlert sent these photos of her Hugo outfit last night she was about to practice her speech again. Now we know – the extra rehearsal was worth it!
(6) TODAY’S THING TO WORRY ABOUT. Lincoln Michel contests a recent meme: “No, Most Books Don’t Sell Only a Dozen Copies”. After dissecting the premises of how sales are measured, Michel offers some conclusions.
…In terms of the dozen copies statistic, I can’t evaluate it because it is unclear what it’s referring to. Fifty-eight thousand books is more books than PRH publishes in a given year, but far less than their entire backlist. Is 58k all new books published with an ISBN, including self-published books? Is it something else? I really don’t know and none of the publishing professionals I follow seem to know either. (Editing to add: Jane Friedman, who posted this number originally on Instagram, noted there was no source given in testimony. Friedman gives her own guess in the comments.)
In my experience, and with the data I’ve seen, most traditionally published novels that you see on bookstore shelves or reviewed in newspapers sell several hundred to a few thousand copies across formats. Many sell much more of course. I’ve seen some flops that sold only a couple hundred. And of course not all traditionally published novels appear in bookstores or reviewed in newspapers. Is it possible someone has published a Big 5 novel that sold only 12 copies over its lifetime? I suppose. But I don’t think it’s 5% much less 50%!…
Creative writing can be a lonely business. As writers, we inhabit whole worlds and characters that live only in our heads for days or years, as we deposit them on the page. This is particularly true for speculative fiction – an umbrella genre of stories that involve supernatural or futuristic elements, or settings that are not the real world.
This creative loneliness is why I’ve always admired the concept of a “shared world” – a fictional setting with its own set of rules where multiple authors can create stories. Some examples are Thieves’ World, edited by Robert Lynn Asprin, or George RR Martin’s Wild Cards (which spawned dozens of books, comics and games, and was optioned for film and TV).
Because writers use the same settings, characters and concepts of the shared world in a connected way, they are in conversation with each other, as a community in the act of creation.
As a speculative fiction author from Africa, where recognition for the genre is growing and community is an important part of the culture, I’ve long wanted to be able to do this with my contemporaries – create together. Not only with other African authors but with the greater African diaspora.
That’s why, working with Fabrice Guerrier, a Haitian-American author and founder of Syllble, a production house based in Los Angeles, and the Nigeria-based magazine Brittle Paper, I sought out a group of like-minded volunteer authors from five African countries to form the Sauúti Collective.
Together we have created Sauúti – a unique shared world for and by Africans and the African diaspora….
(8) MEMORY LANE.
1967 – [By Cat Eldridge.] Alan Garner’s The Owl Service (1967)
It all begins with the scratching in the ceiling. From the moment Alison discovers the dinner service in the attic, with its curious pattern of floral owls, a chain of events is set in progress that is to affect everybody’s lives. — Alan Garner’s The Own Service
Yes, I do have favorite novels as you already know and Alan Garner’s The Owl Service which came out fifty-five years ago is one of them. I think of it as an Autumnal work so it being September, I decided to take a look at it. So here we are.
The Owl Service is supposedly a young adult novel, however, it is much, much more than that. Set in modern Wales, it is an adaptation of the story of the Welsh myth concerning the woman Blodeuwed who becomes an owl — equally made of feathers and claws. It was, as Garner has said, an “expression of that myth”.
In his version, three teenagers visiting a Welsh estate find themselves re-enacting the story by the two boys both being bitter rivals for the girl who came with them to the estate. They awaken the legend by finding a dinner service with an owl pattern, hence the title of the novel.
It is a novel filled with myth come to life with characters, both the children and the adults, being fully realized. It wasn’t his first novel as he’d written three novels previously (The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Moon of Gomrath and Elidor) but of all works he’s done, it’s my favorite still. It’s not his most complex, that honor goes to Boneland which is a sequel to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath.
The Owl Service was made into a Granada Television series in 1969. If you live in the U.K., it’s available on DVD. It was BBC Radio 4 series in 2000.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born September 5, 1914 — Stuart Freeborn. If you’ve seen Yoda, and of course you have, this is the man who designed it, partly based on his own face. Besides being the makeup supervisor and creature design on the original Star Wars trilogy, he did makeup on The Omen, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey and all four of the Christopher Reeve-fronted Superman films. (Died 2013.)
Born September 5, 1936 — Rhae Andrece and Alyce Andrece. They played twin androids in I, Mudd, a classic Trek episode. (And really their only significant role.) Both appeared as policewomen in “Nora Clavicle and the Ladies’ Crime Club” on Batman. That’s their only genre other appearance. They appeared together in the same seven shows. (Died 2009 and 2005, respectively.)
Born September 5, 1939 — George Lazenby, 83. He is best remembered for being James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Genre wise, he also played Jor-El on Superboy and was a Bond like character named JB in the Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. film.
Born September 5, 1940 — Raquel Welch, 82. Fantastic Voyage was her first genre film, and her second was One Million Years B.C. (well, it wasn’t exactly a documentary) where she starred in a leather bikini, both released in 1966. She was charming in The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers. She has one-offs in Bewitched, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Muppet Show, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child and Mork & Mindy.
Born September 5, 1946 — Freddie Mercury. Now you know who he was and you’re saying that you don’t remember any genre roles by him. Well there weren’t alas. Oh, Queen had one magnificent role in the 1980 Flash Gordon film starring Sam J. Jones, a film that has a seventy percent rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes. But I digress as only cats can do. (Prrrr.) Queen provided the musical score featuring orchestral sections by Howard Blake. Most of Blake’s score was not used. Freddie also composed the music for the first Highlander film. And Freddie was a very serious SJW. He cared for at least ten cats throughout his life, including Delilah, Dorothy, Goliath, Jerry, Lily, Miko, Oscar, Romeo, Tiffany and Tom. He was adamantly against the inbreeding of cats and all of them except for Lily and Tiffany, both given to him as gifts, were adopted from the Blue Cross. (Died 1991.)
Born September 5, 1964 — Stephen Greenhorn, 58. Scriptwriter who has written two episodes for Doctor Who: “The Lazarus Experiment” and “The Doctor’s Daughter”, both Tenth Doctor stories. He wrote one episode of Around the World in 80 Days, reuniting him with David Tennant. He also wrote Marchlands, a supernatural series with Doctor Who’s Alex Kingston
Born September 5, 1973 — Rose McGowan, 49. Best known as Paige Matthews on Charmed. She played two different roles in the Grindhouse franchise, Cherry Darling in Planet Terror and Pam in Death Proof. She was Miss Kitty in Monkeybone, a very weird film indeed.
It’s hard to know exactly what to make of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power so far, for several reasons. The series has veered wildly in quality, with its second episode a vast improvement on its stunning but directionless pilot. It’s hard, too, to crosscheck with the source material, given that the entire shebang is cobbled together from a bunch of Tolkien’s appendices.
But the main reason why it’s difficult to form a consensus is the internet. Even more so than usual, it is being especially internetty about The Rings of Power, churning up no end of controversies about it in service to the discourse. Here’s a quick compendium of what we’ve all endured so far….
(13) HUGO LOSERS TROPHY. Camestros Felapton had an artificial intelligence art program help him gin up a trophy for those who didn’t win last night. Image at the link. “For those who need it today”.
(14) PHOTOS FROM JAMES BACON’S PRESENTATION AT CHICON 8. Including the badge ribbons distributed to support Ukraine fandom.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Rob Thornton, Nancy Sauer, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
(1) WITH THANKS. John Wiswell, Nebula winner for ”Open House on Haunted Hill,” has made his touching “Nebula Awards 2021 Acceptance Speech” a free post on his Patreon.
…Saying that, there’s one other author I cannot end this speech without thanking. It’s a little gauche, but I hope they’re listening.
Because my story, “Open House on Haunted Hill,” was rejected several times before Diabolical Plots gave it a chance. And in my career my various stories were rejected over 800 times before I won this award tonight. And that’s why I hope this author is listening.
You, who think you’re not a good enough writer because you don’t write like someone else.
You, who haven’t finished a draft because your project seems too quirky or too daunting.
You, who are dispirited after eating so many rejection emails.
You, who are going to write the things that will make me glad I’m alive to read them.
What the field needs is for you to be different, and to be true to your imagination….
Do you make a conscious effort to include LGBTQ material in your writing and if so, what do you want to portray?
Because my life as a lesbian/feminist of colour is my context I don’t have to remind myself to include Queer material. That’s where I begin. There are, of course, other types of characters in my writing but my experience is centralised. I have a Queer social and political circle and they are easily represented in my work. For so long women, lesbians and people of colour were told our stories weren’t important, other (white) people wouldn’t be interested in them. Now we know that was just another way to dominate our experience. I long for the day that non-Queer writers and non-Black writers feel sensitive enough to do the research and include authentic characters in their work who don’t look like them.
How does the old saying go? “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” It’s often true that the first encounter has an ineradicable effect, whether the meeting is with a person, a work of art, or a world. It’s certainly true in my case; I had my first and, in some ways, most decisive encounter with Middle-earth before I ever read a word of The Lord of the Rings. My first view of that magical place came through the paintings of Tim Kirk, in the 1975 J.R.R. Tolkien Calendar, and that gorgeous, pastel-colored vision of the Shire and its environs is the one that has stayed with me. Almost half a century later, Kirk’s interpretation still lies at the bottom of all my imaginings of Tolkien’s world.
(4) CASTING THE MCU. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] I listened to this podcast Leonard and Jessie Maltin did with casting director Sarah Finn – “Maltin on Movies: Sarah Finn” Finn has cast every role in every film and TV series on Disney+ in the MCU, so she has a lot of inside knowledge. Among her goals is to find actors who enjoy playing superheroes and like working with each other. She also discusses why it was a gamble to cast Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man and why Vin Diesel was cast as Groot because of his voice work in The Iron Giant.
She also reveals Dwayne Johnson’s secret for success: he is genuinely a nice guy who even volunteered to do the dishes after a casting call!
Finn also discusses her work as casting director on The Mandalorian and her work for Oliver Stone, including the gamble of having Eli Wallach play a substantial role at age 95 on Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
Elizabeth Olsen has weighed in on the future of WandaVision – and sadly, fans shouldn’t expect there to be a second season.
“No, that’s easy for me to answer. It is a limited series. It’s a fully beginning, middle, end, and that’s it kind of thing,” she told PEOPLE in January ahead of the Disney+ show’s premiere.
During a recent virtual chat with Kaley Cuoco for Variety‘s Actors on Actors series, Olsen once again echoed her comments about the series likely not returning for season 2….
(7) GRANTS AVAILABLE. The Ladies of Horror Fiction review site are offering nine 2021 LOHF Writers Grants. Applications must be submitted by August 31.
Nine recipients will receive the LOHF Writers Grant in the amount of $100. The Ladies of Horror Fiction team will announce the recipients of the LOHF Writers Grant on September 15, 2021.
The LOHF Writers Grant is inclusive to all women (cis and trans) and non-binary femmes who have reasonably demonstrated a commitment to writing in the horror genre. All grant provided funds must be used in a manner that will help develop the applicant’s career.
The grants are funded by Steve Stred, Laurel Hightower, Ben Walker, S.H. Cooper, Sonora Taylor, and several anonymous donors.
(8) TEN FOR THE PRICE OF FIVE. Two entries from James Davis Nicoll from the pages of Tor.com:
Science fiction and fantasy are rich in characters who deserve (and sometimes find) rewarding personal relationships. There are also characters that other characters should never, ever date. Ever. Here are five fictional characters from whom all prospective love interests should run screaming…
Few calamities sting like being driven from the land one once called home. Exile is therefore a rich source of plots for authors seeking some dramatic event to motivate their characters. You might want to consider the following five books, each of which features protagonists (not all of them human) forced to leave their homes….
…Unlike the two previous stories, “The God in the Bowl” remained unpublished during Howard’s lifetime and appeared for the first time in the September 1952 issue of the short-lived magazine Space Science Fiction. Why on Earth editor Lester del Rey decided that a Conan story was a good fit for a magazine that otherwise published such Astounding stalwarts as George O. Smith, Clifford D. Simak and Murray Leinster will probably forever remain a mystery.
As for why I decided to review this particular Conan story rather than some of the better known adventures of our favourite Cimmerian adventurer (which I may eventually do), part of the reason is that the story just came up in a conversation I had with Bobby Derie on Twitter. Besides, I have been reading my way through the Del Rey Robert E. Howard editions of late and realised that there are a lot of layers to those stories that I missed when I read them the first time around as a teenager.
Three Worldcon insiders, Tammy Coxen, Nicholas Whyte, and Vincent Docherty will join Gadi and Karen to discuss the Hugo, Astounding, and Lodestar awards, their history, and current trends.
Like last year, we will be interviewing category nominees in the next few months, with this show as the opening segment.
(11) GAME WRITING ARCHIVE. Eatonverse tweets highlights of the UC Riverside’s Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Today’s rarity is from Marc Laidlaw —
(12) HERE THEY COME AGAIN. Those pesky aliens.Invasion launches on October 22 on Apple TV+.
(13) MEMORY LANE.
1971 — Fifty years ago at Noreascon 1 which had Robert Silverberg as its Toastmaster, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction won the Hugo for Best Professional Magazine. It was its third such Hugo win in a row, and seventh to that date.
(14) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born June 9, 1911 – J. Francis McComas. With Raymond Healy (1907-1997) edited the pioneering and still excellent anthology Adventures in Time and Space – and got Random House to publish it. Thus although not having planted the crops, he knew to harvest: they also serve who only sit and edit. With Anthony Boucher (1911-1969) founded The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the best thing to happen among us since Astounding. Half a dozen stories of his own. Afterward his widow Annette (1911-1994) edited The Eureka Years; see it too. (Died 1978) [JH]
Born June 9, 1925 – Leo R. Summers. Twenty covers for Fantastic, eight for Amazing, six for Analog; six hundred interiors. Here is a Fantastic cover; here is one for Analog; here is an interior for H.B. Fyfe’s “Star Chamber” from Amazing. A fruitful career. (Died 1985) [JH]
Born June 9, 1925 — Keith Laumer. I remember his Bolo series fondly and read quite a bit of it. Can’t say which novels at this point though Bolo definitely and Last Command almost certainly. The Imperium and Retief series were also very enjoyable though the latter is the only one I’d re-read at this point. The usual suspects have decent though not complete ebooks listings for him, heavy on the Imperium and Retief series and they’ve just added a decent Bolo collection too. (Died 1993.) (CE)
Born June 9, 1930 — Lin Carter. He is best known for his work in the 1970s as editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. As a writer, His first professional publication was the short story “Masters of the Metropolis”, co-written with Randall Garrett, in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1957. He would be a prolific writer, average as much as six novels a year. In addition, he was influential as a critic of the fantasy genre and an early historian of the genre. He wrote far too much for me to say I’ve sampled everything he did but I’m fond of his Castillo, Great Imperium and Zarkon series. All great popcorn literature! (Died 1988.) (CE)
Born June 9, 1931 – Joanie Winston. Vital spark of Star Trek fandom; co-founder of the first Trek convention, got Gene Roddenberry to attend; co-organized the next four; became a sought-after guest herself. Reported in The Making of the Trek Conventions, or How to Throw a Party for 12,000 of Your Most Intimate Friends, got it published by Doubleday and Playboy. Appreciation by OGH here. Quite capable of playing poker at a 200-fan relaxacon rather than bask in glory at a Trek megacon the same weekend. (Died 2008) [JH]
Born June 9, 1934 — Donald Duck, 87. He made his first appearance in “The Wise Little Hen” on June 9th, 1934. In this cartoon as voiced by Clarence Nash, Donald and his friend, Peter Pig (also voiced by Nash), lie their way out of helping the titular little hen tend to her corn. Donald Duck was the joint creation of Dick Lundy, Fred Spencer, Carl Barks, Jack King and Jack Hannah though Walt Disney often would like you to forget that. You can watch it here. (CE)
Born June 9, 1943 – Joe Haldeman, age 78. Two dozen novels, eighty shorter stories; ninety published poems. Seven Hugos, five Nebulas; three Rhyslings; Tiptree (as it then was); Skylark. Edited Nebula Awards 17. Pegasus Award for Best Space Opera Song. SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) Grand Master. Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Guest of Honor at – among others – Windycon I and 20, Disclave 21, Beneluxcon 7, ConFiction the 48th Worldcon. Wide range has its virtues; he’s told how one story sold at a penny a word and five years later was adapted for television at five times as much; also “I don’t have to say Uh-oh, I’d better get back to that novel again; I can always write a poem or something.” [JH]
Born June 9, 1954 — Gregory Maguire, 67. He is the author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West based off of course the Oz Mythos, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister retelling the tale of Cinderella and Mirror, Mirror, a revisionist retelling of the Snow White tale which is really excellent. Well you get the idea. He’s damn good at this revisionist storytelling. (CE)
Born June 9, 1963 — David Koepp, 58. Screenwriter for some of the most successful SF films ever done: Jurassic Park (co-written with Michael Crichton), The Lost World: Jurassic Park,War of The Worlds and, yes, it made lots of money, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He won a Hugo for Jurassic Park which won Best Dramatic Presentation at ConAdian. (CE)
Born June 9, 1966 – Christian McGuire, age 55. Co-chaired eight Loscons. Chaired Westercon 63, Conucopia the 7th NASFiC (N. Am. SF Con, held when the Worldcon is overseas), L.A.con IV the 64th Worldcon. A founder of Gallifrey One; chaired or co-chaired its first 12 years. Fan Guest of Honor at Baycon 2002, Westercon 51, Capricon 29, Loscon 36. Evans-Freehafer Award (L.A. Science Fantasy Soc.; service). [JH]
Born June 9, 1967 – Dave McCarty, age 54. Chaired three Capricons. Chaired the 70th Worldcon, Chicon 7, which by our custom means the seventh Worldcon in the same town with continuity from the same community. No one else has managed this, or come close; the nearest have been Noreascon Four (62nd Worldcon), L.A.con IV (64th), and Aussiecon 4 (68th). Also served as Hugo Awards Administrator, and on the World SF Society’s Mark Protection Committee, two of our least conspicuous and most demanding tasks. Fan Guest of Honor at Windycon 28, Capricon 38. [JH]
Born June 9, 1981 — Natalie Portman, 40. Surprisingly her first genre role was as Taffy Dale in Mars Attacks!, not as Padme in The Phantom Menace. She’d repeat that role in Attack of The Clones and Revenge of The Sith. She’d next play Evey in V for Vendetta. And she played Jane Foster twice, first in Thor: The Dark World and then in Avengers: Endgame. She’ll reprise the role in Thor: Love and Thunder in which she’ll play both Jane Foster and Thor. That I’ve got to see. (CE)
The cast for the upcoming animated movie, DC League of Super-Pets, includes Dwayne Johnson as Krypto and Kevin Hart as Ace. The cast also features Kate McKinnon, John Krasinski, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, Diego Luna, and Keanu Reeves. The movie will be released May 20, 2022.
(16) LIGHTS ON LANGFORD. Cora Buhlert continues her Fanzine Spotlight by interviewing David Langford about his famed newzine: “Fanzine Spotlight: Ansible”.
Who are the people behind your site or zine?
In theory it’s just me. In practice I couldn’t keep going without all the correspondents who send obituaries, interesting news snippets, more obituaries, convention news, too many obituaries, and contributions to such regular departments as As Others See Us and Thog’s Masterclass. The first collects notably patronizing or ignorant comments on the SF genre from the mainstream media, with special attention to authors who write science fiction but prefer to pretend they don’t (Margaret Atwood once explained that SF was “talking squids in outer space” and since she didn’t write /that/ she had to be innocent of SF contamination). Thog’s Masterclass is for embarrassingly or comically bad sentences in published fiction, not always SF — as well as the usual genre suspects, the Masterclass has showcased such luminaries as Agatha Christie, Vladimir Nabokov and Sean Penn.
…Scheduled for May 17, 1966, Gemini 9 was supposed to be the first real all-up test of the two-seat spacecraft. Astronauts Tom Stafford (veteran of Gemini 6) and Gene Cernan would dock with an Agena and conduct a spacewalk. If successful, this would demonstrate all of the techniques and training necessary for a trip to the Moon.
The first bit of bad luck involved the Agena docking adapter. Shortly after liftoff on the 17th, one of the booster engines gimballed off center and propelled rocket and Agena into the Atlantic ocean. The two astronauts, bolted into their Gemini capsule for a launch intended for just a few minutes after, had to abort their mission.
Luckily, NASA had a back-up: the Augmented Target Docking Adapter (ADTA). The ADTA was basically an Agena without the engine. A Gemini could practice docking with it, but the ADTA can’t be used as an orbital booster for practice of the manuever that Apollo will employ when it breaks orbit to head for the Moon.
ADTA went up on June 1, no problem. But just seconds before launch, the Gemini 9 computer refused navigational updates from the Cape. The launch window was missed, and once again, Tom and Gene were forced to scrub. Stafford got the nickname “Prince of the Pad.”…
When I heard that the Swedish Chef from “The Muppet Show” was opening a Chelsea location of his celebrated bistro, Dorg Schnorfblorp Horganblorps, I was skeptical. I’m always hesitant to believe the hype surrounding celebrity chefs, especially when they’re made of felt. While the city was abuzz, calling Mr. Muppet the new Jean-Georges Vongerichten, I was certain that this newcomer was nothing more than a passing fad, a Swedish Salt Bae. But, after such a tough year for restaurants, I was curious about how this mustachioed madman’s gimmick had sustained its popularity. Eventually, I decided that I had to go see for myself—could the Swedish Chef’s bites ever live up to his bark, or bork?
Dorg Schnorfblorp Horganblorps has been open for only three months but already has a wait list that extends to the end of the year. I was amazed that anyone could get a reservation at all, considering that the restaurant’s Web site contains no helpful links or information, only a gif of a turkey being chased by the chef wielding a tennis racquet, captioned, “Birdy gerdy floopin.”…
It sounds like the plot from a cheese science fiction movie: Scientists unearth something that’s been buried in the frozen ground of the Arctic for tens of thousands of years and decide to warm it up a bit. The creature stirs as its cells slowly wake up from their long stasis. As time passes, the animal wakes up, having time-traveled 24,000 years thanks to its body’s ability to shut itself down once temperatures reached a certain low. It sounds too incredible to be true, but it is.
In a new paper published in Current Biology, researchers reveal their discovery of a microscopic animal frozen in the Arctic permafrost for an estimated 24,000 years. The creature, which would have lived in water during its previous life, was revived as the soil thawed. The discovery is incredibly important not just for the ongoing study of creatures found frozen in time here on Earth.
The tiny creature is called a bdelloid rotifer. These multicellular animals live in aquatic environments and have a reputation for being particularly hardy when it comes to frigid temperatures. They are obviously capable of surviving the process of being frozen and then thawed, and they’re not the only tiny animal to have this ability….
(20) HAVE AN APPLE, DEARIE. Atlas Obscura would like you to “Meet the Appalachian Apple Hunter Who Rescued 1,000 ‘Lost’ Varieties”. Daniel Dern sent the link with two comments: “1: I don’t know whether any of these are better at keeping doctor away. 2: Have they been tested for ‘putting people to deep-sleep’?”
AS TOM BROWN LEADS A pair of young, aspiring homesteaders through his home apple orchard in Clemmons, North Carolina, he gestures at clusters of maturing trees. A retired chemical engineer, the 79 year old lists varieties and pauses to tell occasional stories. Unfamiliar names such as Black Winesap, Candy Stripe, Royal Lemon, Rabun Bald, Yellow Bellflower, and Night Dropper pair with tales that seem plucked from pomological lore.
Take the Junaluska apple. Legend has it the variety was standardized by Cherokee Indians in the Smoky Mountains more than two centuries ago and named after its greatest patron, an early-19th-century chief. Old-time orchardists say the apple was once a Southern favorite, but disappeared around 1900. Brown started hunting for it in 2001 after discovering references in an Antebellum-era orchard catalog from Franklin, North Carolina….
From a calm socialite, she morphed into an unhinged puppy kidnapper and then a vindictive glamourpuss. Why don’t we hate her?
And for dessert, here’s a Cruella parody video.
(22) CAN YOU MAKE A WALL OF TEXT? The Lego Typewriter has some moving parts that simulate a real typewriter but, no, you can’t produce copy with it. At the link is a video of the assembled 2000+ piece project.
(23) BREAKING INTO THE MCU. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “The Marvel Character Tutorial” on Screen Rant, Ryan George plays Marvel screenwriter “Richard Lambo,” who says if you are trying to sell a screenplay to Marvel, make sure he or she has plenty of abs (four will do, but a six-pack is best) and leave plenty of room for snark!
(24) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “Honest Game Trailers: Returnal,” Fandom Games says that Sony’s new game puts you “in a Gigeresque sci-fi setting” where your goal is “to kill all the wildlife” in a game so depressing that Sony should “just throw away the game and have someone come over and kick you in the scrotum” to achieve the same painful effect. (Or “slamming your face into a brick wall” is mentioned at another place, if the first option isn’t available.)
[Thanks to John Hertz, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, James Davis Nicoll, Daniel Dern, Gadi Evron, Cora Buhlert, JJ, Michael Toman, John King Tarpinian, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Niall McAuley.]
Tammy Coxen, CoNZealand Hugo Adminstrator, reports a problem with online voting — and if you did not receive an email confirmation after voting you may be affected. Coxen explains:
We have discovered a bug in the Hugo voting interface that means a very few votes may not have been recorded. This mostly seems to happen when using the Safari browser on a Mac, but we have a couple of reports from other browser/device combinations.
If you received an email confirmation after voting, your votes have been entered into the system and you should not be concerned.
If you did NOT receive the email confirmation, please log back into the system and confirm that your votes have been recorded. If they have not, please try again using a different browser/device combination, preferably Chrome, as we have not had any reported problems from Chrome users. If you continue to have problems or need further assistance, please contact hugohelp@conzealand.nz
You may also vote by downloading the fillable PDF ballot, filling it in, and emailing it to hugo-ballot@conzealand.nz. Please note that a typed name is acceptable for the signature line – you do NOT need to print, sign and scan your ballot.
(1) THE CITY WITH TWO NAMES TWICE. N. K. Jemisin will join W. Kamau Bell, host of CNN series United Shades of America (and her cousin) on June 16 for a discussion of sci-fi, Afrofuturism, and her most recent novel The City We Became. The event is hosted by the New York Public Library. Hyperallergic has the story: “A POC-Centered Vision of NYC From NK Jemisin, Celebrated Sci-Fi Author”.
…Next Tuesday (June 16), Jemisin will join comedian W. Kamau Bell for a discussion of sci-fi, Afrofuturism, and her most recent novel, The City We Became, presented by the New York Public Library. The novel, which brings her unique brand of speculative fiction a little closer to earth, is set in a version of New York City where the future is threatened by an ancient evil that seeks to divide and destroy its community by capitalizing on its differences (sound familiar?). The City We Became imagines cities as living, sentient organisms that take shape as individual human avatars. New York and its five boroughs are embodied as mainly Black and brown folks (Staten Island and the nefarious Enemy that threatens the city are not insignificantly imagined as white women).
At a moment when New York City is slowly beginning to reopen amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, while simultaneously considering numerous pieces of legislation that could combat pervasive police brutality against Black people, Jemisin’s POC-centered speculations about the future of this city feel especially timely.
Also, I've made the price free on Kobo and have been trying to get Amazon to price-match but thus far they haven't. I've made the POD print editions priced so that they're the lowest possible (i.e., sold at cost).
— John Joseph Adams (Bluesky: @johnjosephadams.com) (@JohnJosephAdams) June 11, 2020
(3) THE HEART OF YOUR WEEKEND. Essence of Wonder with Gadi Evron will host several of the “Hugo Finalists for Best Novella and Best Novelette 2020” on its June 13 program, including Seanan McGuire, Sarah Gailey, Sarah Pinsker, Siobhan Carroll, and Amal El-Mohtar. Facilitating the discussions will be Vincent Docherty and Karen Castelletti.
The episode will also feature a Sara Felix Tiara Giveaway and “Tammy Coxen’s Mixology Show Corner.”
(4) STOKERCON UK: STRIKE TWO. StokerCon UK has postponed again, having decided its new August dates are no longer tenable. New dates forthcoming.
As per previous communications, like all of you we have been closely monitoring the NHS and UK Government guidelines as they have evolved over the past weeks and months, and the situation with regard to COVID-19 is still extremely changeable.
We have done everything we can to try to continue with StokerCon UK in August but, unfortunately, this is still a fast-changing situation and, with the worldwide situation and the current government guidelines as they stand now, we are left with no choice but to postpone the convention once again as we feel it would be irresponsible to push ahead and put anyone’s health at risk, apart from the obvious issues with social distancing, travel etc. Safety has to be the paramount concern for all involved.
We will advise new dates in the next week, as we’re currently finalising details of this with the hotels and will advise plans moving forward for everyone who has already signed-up to attend. We understand how disappointing this will be to many of you, and share that disappointment, but we want to make sure our members are safe, and postponing will be the best way to try and achieve that.
(5) THE SUN GIVES ABUSER PAGE ONE. Right after J.K. Rowling published an essay defending her views on gender and sex, in which she revealed she is the survivor of domestic abuse in her first marriage, UK tabloid The Sun tracked down her former husband for a front-page interview. The Guardian covered the response: “JK Rowling: UK domestic abuse adviser writes to Sun editor”.
The government’s lead adviser on domestic abuse has written to the editor of the Sun to condemn the newspaper’s decision to publish a front page interview with JK Rowling’s first husband, under the headline: “I slapped JK and I’m not sorry.”
In the letter seen by the Guardian, Nicole Jacobs, the independent domestic abuse commissioner, said it was “unacceptable that the Sun has chosen to repeat and magnify the voice of someone who openly admits to violence against a partner”.
Jacobs joined a chorus of voices speaking out against the newspaper, which described the remarks by Rowling’s ex as a “sick taunt” against the Harry Potter creator.
“The media can play a vital role in shining a light on this issue and bringing it out of the shadows, but articles such as this one instead feed the shame that so many survivors will feel every day, minimising their experiences and allowing perpetrators to continue to abuse without fear of consequence,” Jacobs wrote to Victoria Newton, who was appointed the Sun’s editor in February.
(6) WRITERS OFFERED INSURANCE PROGRAM. The Book Industry Health Insurance Partnership, a coalition of 10 organizations that includes SFWA, has partnered with Lighthouse Insurance Group Solutions to “provide its members with a choice of health insurance options, including ACA-compliant major medical, Medicare/supplements, short-term policies, vision, dental, critical care, supplemental coverage, as well as small group/Health Reimbursement Arrangements.”
The Authors Guild noted in a recent press release that the coalition also includes the American Booksellers Association, American Society for Indexing, Book Industry Study Group, Graphic Artists Guild, Independent Book Publishers Association, Novelists Inc., and Western Writers of America.
No, I hear you: Now doesn’t seem the ideal moment to Netflix-and-chill with an animated series about the last vestiges of humanity struggling to survive.
I mean, imagine the pitch meeting:
“The future.
“Cities lie in ruin.
“The surface of the earth is overgrown with plant life — and with overgrown animals: mutated beasts, 300 feet tall, that stomp across the land hunting for prey.
“Which is to say: for humans, who, now firmly at the bottom of the food chain, have retreated to vast underground burrows to protect themselves.”
It all sounds … pretty bleak, I get that. Depressing, even. Like if you mashed up The Walking Dead with the popular anime series Attack on Titan, in which gruesome giants gobble up humanity’s last survivors like so many chocolate-covered cherries.
And I haven’t even mentioned the violent gangs of mutant, human-sized animals who’ve staked out their own territories, making the Earth’s surface a deadly place for the few humans who still live there.
And yet?
Netflix’s Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts, which returns for a second season Friday, June 12, manages to be anything but bleak and depressing. It’s bright and sunny, colorful and funny, and … then, there are those tunes.
(8) O’NEIL OBIT. Comic book writer Denny O’Neil died June 11 at the age of 81. Games Radar’s tribute is here.
…O’Neil was best known for his work on Batman, which included writing Batman, Detective Comics, and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, as well as editing DC’s Batman titles from 1986 to 2000. He, editor Julius Schwartz, and artist Neal Adams are credited for guiding the Dark Knight back to his darker roots after a period of campiness brought on by the success of the 1960s Batman TV series….
(9) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
June 12, 1956 — X Minus One’s “If You Was A Moklin” was aired for the first time. Written by Murray Leinster (published in Galaxy, September 1951) who would win a number of Hugos in his career (L.A. Con III awarded him a Retro Hugo Novelette for “First Contact”, published in Astounding May 1945; NY Con II would give him Best Novelette for “Exploration Team”, published in Astounding March 1956; and he’s up this year for a Retro Hugo Novella for “Trog”, published in Astounding Science Fiction, June 1944.) This story is about a planet that has a strange imitative trait it shows in producing its offspring. Or so it seems. Adapted as usual by Ernest Kinoy. The cast was Joe Julian, Patricia Weil, Karl Weber and Ralph Camargo. You can listen to hear it here.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born June 12, 1856 – Georges Le Faure. Among a dozen popular swashbuckling novels, War Under Water against Germany; The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist (with Henry de Graffigny, 4 vols.; tr. in 2 vols. 2009) with an explosive that could destroy the world, a Space-ship faster than light, visits to other planets, aliens. Verne was first but not alone. (Died 1953) [JH]
Born June 12, 1914 – Frank Kelly. Two novels, half a dozen shorter stories, from this pioneer. “Light Bender” was in the June 1931 Wonder Stories – he was 15! Later a speechwriter for Harry Truman; vice-president, Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. “My Interplanetary Teens” in the June 1947 Atlantic. Fiction outside our field in The New Yorker and Esquire. First Fandom Hall of Fame. (Died 2010) [JH]
Born June 12, 1914 — William Lundigan. Col. Edward McCauley in the Fifties serial Men into Space which lasted for thirty-eight episodes. He really didn’t do any other SF acting other than showIng up once on Science Fiction Theater. (Died 1975.) (CE)
Born June 12, 1927 — Henry Slesar. He had but one genre novel,Twenty Million Miles to Earth, but starting in the Fifties and for nearly a half century, he would write one hundred sixty short stories of a genre nature, with his first short story, “The Brat” being published in Imaginative Tales in September 1955. He also wrote scripts for television — CBS Radio Mystery Theater (which, yes, did SF), Tales Of The Unexpected, the revival version of the Twilight Zone, Batman, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and genre adjacent, lots of scripts for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. (Died 2002.) (CE)
Born June 12, 1940 — Mary A. Turzillo, 80. She won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette for her “Mars is No Place for Children” story, published in Science Fiction Age. Her first novel, An Old Fashioned Martian Girl was serialized in Analog, and a revised version, Mars Girls was released. Her first collection to polish her SWJ creds is named Your cat & other space aliens. Mars Girls which I highly recommend is available from the usual digital suspects. (CE)
Born June 12, 1945 — James Stevens-Arce, 75. Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says that “James Stevens-Arce, is perhaps the first Puerto Rican to publish sf, and the most prolific.“ He has but one novel, Soulsaver which won thePremio UPC de Ciencia Ficción, and a double handful of short stories which do appear to have made to the digital realm.(CE)
Born June 12, 1946 – Sue Anderson. Fannish musicals with Mark Keller, performed at 1970s Boskones: Rivets, Rivets Redux, Mik Ado about Nothing (note Gilbert & Sullivan allusion), The Decomposers. George Flynn, Anne McCaffrey, Elliot Shorter are gone, but Chip Hitchcock was in some or all and I’m counting on him to explain what really happened. Three short stories (one posthumously in Dark Horizons 50), and this cover with Stevan Arnold for Vertex. (Died 2004) [JH]
Born June 12, 1948 – Etienne Sándorfi. Hungarian hyperrealist painter. It was said that he painted like an assassin; also that, working at night, he went to bed each day later than the day before, puzzling his daughters. Ten interiors for Omni. The Wayback Machine has this interview; see some of his paintings here (Madeleine), here (nature morte organes). (Died 2007) [JH]
Born June 12, 1948 — Len Wein. Writer and editor best known for co-creating (with Bernie Wrightson) Swamp Thing and co-creating Wolverine (with Roy Thomas and John Romita Sr.) and for helping revive the the X-Men. He edited Watchmen which must have been interesting. He’s a member of the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame. (Died 2017.) (CE)
Born June 12, 1955 — Stephen Pagel, 65. Editor with Nicola Griffith of the genre anthologies, Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction, Bending the Landscape: Fantasy, and Bending the Landscape: Horror. (CE)
Born June 12, 1963 – Franz Miklis. Austrian artist active for decades in fanart (see here and here) and otherwise (see here and here). His Website is here. [JH]
Born June 12, 1970 – Claudia Gray. A score of novels, some in the Star Wars universe; a few shorter stories; translated into Dutch, French, German, Portuguese. Her Website is here (“Bianca, Tess, Nadia, Skye, Marguerite, and Noemi aren’t that much like me. For example, they all have better hair”; also “Read as much as you can…. Read the stuff you love. Read the stuff you never thought you’d love”). [JH]
The Mouse Factory“The Mystery of Mickey’s Ears Revealed” Illustration by Ward Kimball Original Art (Walt Disney, c. 1970s). Walt Disney like to say, “I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.” Mickey’s trademark ears have been a source of conversation since the famous mouse was born in 1928. Created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, Mickey is characterized as a cheerful and mischievous “little guy” with ears that move strangely. In the early 1970s, Disney Legend Inductee and one of “Walt’s Nine Old Men”, Ward Kimball (1914 – 2002) attempted to clear up the matter and explain the mystery of Mickey’s ears on the television show, The Mouse Factory. In this lot is a rare illustration by Kimball showing Mickey in front and side views with an explanation on how his ears move independently as he moves his head.
(12) BE SEATED. In “Episode 29: Omphalistic Hugosity” of Two Chairs Talking (no relation to Arthur “Two Sheds” Jackson), former Aussiecon chairs David Grigg and Perry Middlemiss talk about the shorter fiction nominees for the 2020 Hugo Awards, and then take the Hugo Time Machine back to 1962, when Stranger in a Strange Land won Best Novel.
Loma Homes translated the magic of “Harry Potter” into an epic new rental just 30 minutes away from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando.
The Wizard’s Way villa has eight themed bedrooms with 10 beds, five bathrooms, and dozens of book and movie Easter eggs that fans of the franchise will love.
(14) AVATAR. [Item by Cliff.] This video demonstrates a digital avatar created by the company founded by an ex-colleague of mine.
This demo showcases a cutting edge end-to-end virtual assistant prototy[e developed by Pinscreen. The entire Avatar runs on the cloud and is streamed directly onto a web browser. This demo highlights a real-time facial AI-synthesis technology based on paGAN II, cutting edge NLP, voice recognition, and speech synthesis. None of the conversation is scripted.
(15) MURDER(BOT) SHE WROTE. Camestros Felapton has many kind (but non-spoilery) words to say about Martha Wells’ new novel: “Murderbot: Network Effect”.
I sort of gave up reviewing Murderbot a few novellas ago. There is a sense that actually the plot really doesn’t matter and the simplest explanation of an instalment is that its a Murderbot story and the reader either knows the formula or doesn’t and if they don’t then see earlier reviews. However, that belies how much I enjoy each and every one of Martha Wells’s brilliant episodes of Murderbot’s continuing adventures.
The essence of the formula is the juxtaposition of this incredibly vulnerable highly competent killing machine. Murderbot has been shot and blasted and zapped but the struggles with their own sense of self and connections with other people pulls you in….
On board the International Space Station since May 2018 is a mini-fridge-size facility called the Cold Atom Lab (CAL), capable of chilling atoms in a vacuum down to temperatures one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero. It is, for all intents and purposes, one of the coldest spots in the known universe. And according to a new study published in Nature, scientists have just used it to create a rare state of matter for the first time ever in space. From a report:
Bose-Einstein condensates, sometimes called the fifth state of matter, are gaseous clouds of atoms that stop behaving like individual atoms and start to behave like a collective. BECs, as they’re often called, were first predicted by Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose over 95 years ago, but they were first observed in the lab by scientists just 25 years ago. The general idea when making a BEC is to inject atoms (in the case of CAL, rubidium and potassium) into an ultra-cold chamber to slow them down. A magnetic trap is then created in the chamber with an electrified coil, which is used along with lasers and other tools to move the atoms into a dense cloud. At this point the atoms “kind of blur into one another,” says David Aveline, a physicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the lead author of the new study.
(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Creative Writing Advice From Neil Gaiman” on YouTube is a 2015 compiilation by Nicola Monaghan of excerpts from speeches Gaiman has given on writing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPN7vDu9Rsk
[Thanks to Cliff, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, John Hertz, Cat Eldridge, Daniel Dern, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Bill.]
