Where the Action Is

You can find frequent posts by me at File 770

The Answer is SF/SF 42

Jean Martin and Chris Garcia's latest issue of Science Fiction/San Francisco covers fan news the way it should be done. There’s all kinds of excellent story angles I plan to steal from admire in SF/SF #42.

The most valuable revelation in the issue is Chris Garcia's "Confessions of a Serial Fanzinista," the diary that explains how he manages to produce his sensational output and still hold a job, as well as his less successful but quite humorous attempts to interest his youngster Evelyn in fanzines and China Mieville.

Another regular treat in each issue are the BASFA meeting minutes. Here's where you learn that the president of the club, Trey Haddad, "reviewed '300' as the font of all manliness and those seeking historical accuracy need not apply [and there was much talk of rouged nipples] - but there were some neat scenes and worth - well, it’s a rental."

You’ll find every issue on eFanzines. Go. Go now!

Southern Fandom Awards to Chalker, Fisher

Jack L. Chalker posthumously won the 2005 Phoenix Award, presented at Xanadu 8 / DeepSouthCon 43 in Nashville on April 9. The Phoenix Award, accepted by Jack's wife, Eva Whitley, is given to the Science Fiction professional from the Southern part of the United States with the most respected work of the year.

The Rebel Award was also presented at the 2005 DeepSouthCon. Naomi Fisher received it in recognition of her special contributions to Southern Fandom.

Had he lived, Chalker would have had the pleasure of serving as toastmaster at this year’s DeepSouthCon. Eva Whitley wrote online, “I am grateful he won but you have no idea how much it would have meant to him to have gotten this award when he was alive (say, in 1996, which was the last time we came to a DeepSouthCon). But I appreciate the love that was behind this.”

Potential winners of the Phoenix Award are those science fiction or fantasy professionals who have, at some point, resided in the South; whose professional work reflects on the South in a positive way; or who have demonstrated friendship with Southern fandom through support of regional fan activities. It may be given posthumously.

By winning the Rebel Award, Naomi Fisher balances the family mantelpiece which already holds the 1993 Rebel Award won by husband G. Patrick Molloy. They have a tradition of matching fannish achievements, having also jointly won DUFF in 2001.

The first Rebel Award was given at the 1964 DeepSouthCon. Its history is retold by Guy Lillian III in a fine article available – here.

DeepSouthCon also hosted the presentation of the semi-satirical, semi-affectionate Rubble Award to its 2005 Target Judy Bemis, “For resigning as Southern Fandom Confederation treasurer.”

Electrocuting the Hugos

James Patrick Kelly, since you have so generously tried to give us a clue, it’s only fair to offer you three in return.

First

Don’t just sit home smiling at your own cleverness as you write condescending crap like:
“Is there anyone out there who considers the world wide web ‘an exceptional circumstance?’ In my twenty-first century, it has become as commonplace as sliced bread and infomercials.” This is the kind of blogly “argument” now presented everywhere in counterfeit of real political debate. Why waste time on the merits when there are straw men to set ablaze? Really, no active sf fan thinks the Web is anything less than one of the most important media distributing science fiction and fanac. Why even go there? You damage your credibility when you don’t write the truth.

Second

Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that somebody has to vote for the changes you want?

“While I agree in principle with the need for conservation of Hugos, my solution would be to cut some of the soon-to-be-obsolete print categories in order to make room for digital replacements.”

I’m guessing it won’t help to pass your rule changes to douse yourself with political gasoline by championing the elimination of Hugo categories regularly won by (a) the #1 trade magazine in the sf field and (b) fanzines that are popular with folks who actually show up to vote at Worldcon Business Meetings. If somebody has a problem with the number of categories, make them waste their political capital shortening the list. That’s a distraction from your real issue.

You also might want to reread your comments about Emerald City’s Fanzine Hugo – if you think the voters awarded the Hugo to a website (rather than a fanzine delivered by a website), why would you want to kill an example of a category that already delivers the result you want?

Third

“It is that the Hugo awards are now seriously flawed and will become increasingly irrelevant until they are regularly given for websites….

“If I were elected Supreme Being, I would decree that there be no less than five digital Hugos: Best Fiction Site, Best Non-Fiction Site, Best E-zine, Best Opinion Site, and Best Blog.”

Expanding the Hugos to cover web-delivered subject matter is the right thing to do, but your current proposal makes about as much sense as adding five magazine categories. The Web is just a delivery technology, like a household appliance. Nobody gives Hugos to radios, we give them to people whose stories inspire our imagination.

Harlan Ellison convinced the 1972 Business Meeting to put back the fourth fiction Hugo – at the time, Best Novella and Best Novellette were merged in the Best Short Fiction category. His most powerful argument was that fan recognition helped the careers of good writers. Because of the unique interaction of sf fans and writers, he wasn’t talking about being nice to strangers but asking us to help people who are part of our own sf community. He felt another Hugo would marginally improve their chances to make a living by increasing the recognition of their work. Years have passed since Harlan won that vote, but fans haven’t changed that much. Helping people is still the most potent argument you could make.

So what people are getting shortchanged because their web-delivered content doesn’t have its own Hugos?

Not fiction writers – you may not know that the verb used in the general rule for Hugos is “appearing,” not published:

“3.2.1: Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year.”

The four fiction categories are defined by word lengths alone, not by the medium used to deliver those words. And Worldcon committees already collaborate with story publishers to make Hugo nominated fiction from any medium available on the Web during the voting period.

Nonfiction, opinion and blog writers? You’re not going to want to hear this, but your column in Asimov’s is no different animal than what we call sercon fanwriting. The Best Fanwriter category is already open to people whose writing appeared “in generally available electronic media during the previous calendar year.” Congratulations -- you’re eligible to compete against Dave Langford! (Psst – I’ve tried it. It isn’t easy!)

Websites, then? Maybe, but is that all you’re really trying to reward? Fandom stopped giving Hugos exclusively to pro magazines when we realized we wanted to give Hugos to great fiction editors more than to a particular magazine or publisher. Since Best Prozine morphed into Best Professional Editor, the rule has included a minimum “press run,” but the existing category could easily be made web friendly by redefining it to cover anyone who edits any science fiction that appears in a year.

You probably would still want a Best Website Hugo, for some of the same reasons we created art and drama categories -- at least my own view is that websites are a mass artform. But see, you don’t need five webzine Hugos.

P.S.

Nobody can replace you in democratic processes. If you believe in a revolutionary approach to the Hugo Awards, simply walk into the Business Meeting and make the motion. It doesn’t take anything more than that. It also can’t be done any other way.

Hugo categories are not passed by Congress or announced by the Pope, Worldcon members vote them into the constitution of the World Science Fiction Society. They can be added, subtracted and changed by a vote at any year’s Worldcon business meeting (with changes taking effect after a ratifying vote at the following year’s meeting.) Business meetings are run by democratic process, like a town meeting. Any member can come and submit motions or cast a vote. And by virtue of the respect you enjoy as a leading writer in the field, your voice will find a receptive audience.

This does not mean your ideas will automatically be passed. Just don’t assume any resistance to website Hugos comes solely from traditionalists. There are also plenty of people who simply feel “We don’t need another Hugo to give to Locus every year....”

Clipping Service

A cherished – and perfectly true! – anecdote about the Golden Age of science fiction is that Cleve Cartmill’s description of an A-bomb in his 1944 story “Deadline” prompted a visit to editor John W. Campbell from a U.S. Army intelligence officer worried about leaks in the Manhattan Project.

Robert Silverberg sifted through the government’s file on the investigation and wrote a highly amusing two-part article that appeared last fall in Asimov’s.

If you’re as far behind in your web reading as I am, this still may be news to you… Here are the links:

Part I
Part II

Sith Happens

Denial was the first reaction of fans lined up outside the Chinese Theater when told the new Star Wars movie would be premiering down the street at the ArcLight. The fans said they were too smart to fall for that rumor, they'd heard misleading claims like that before the previous releases opened at the Chinese.

Anger followed when the media got all over the story and held the fans up to ridicule. Besides, huffed the fans, people can buy tickets to the ArcLight premiere over the web. It wouldn't mean anything to line up there.

Bargaining began as they declared they would stay right where they were, protesting that the premiere ought to be at the Chinese Theater.

Depression set in when Wil Wheaton and friends piled on, creating satirical t-shirts. (Wheaton's blog contains a hilarious account of his unintentional feud with the linestanders.)

Acceptance will occur no later than May 19, when Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith opens... down the street at the ArcLight.

Black Hole Hunter

Gamma ray bursts are the most powerful events in the universe, surpassed only by the energy discharged when Bob Eggleton leaps onstage to accept a Hugo and does That Thing With His Hair. Astronomers theorize collapsing stars produce black holes, sending gamma rays shooting across space. The bursts are short-lived, much like Arnie Katz’ fanzine titles, so it’s not easy for astronomers to react and make observations. Now NASA has sent the fastest-swiveling space science observatory ever built into orbit, launched November 20, to scan for the “birth screams” of black holes.

"Black hole" is a phrase coined by American John Wheeler in 1968 to describe an object with a gravitational force so powerful that not even light could escape its pull. (Fans who don’t know the difference between a black hole and a neutron star will see that date and be wondering how Larry Niven won a Hugo for something before scientists gave it a name.)

NASA’s new orbital observatory, named Swift for its speedy pivoting and pointing, finally made it off the pad after weeks of delays caused by hurricanes and a three-day postponement due to rocket trouble.

The concept of something like a black hole dates back to the 18th century, when the English and French rivaled each other for world leadership in science as well as war. Either England’s John Mitchell or France’s Laplace first thought of the notion. Historians know Mitchell used Isaac Newton’s theories of gravity and corpuscular light to calculate that a star 500 times larger than the sun would have enough gravity to prevent light from escaping.

Astronomers have never seen a black hole directly, but infer their existence the radiation created as material feeds the object, not unlike the way fans know Bob Tucker is present in a crowded room party, although blocked from view, after everyone suddenly calls out “ Smoooooth!”

In contrast to astronomers, who like to study these things from a safe distance, science fiction writers make their characters drive right up to the edge of black holes and fall in. Of course, for writers this is simply a word picture of their careers as they send manuscripts off to publishers whose interminable response times make it seem like their work has disappeared into a singularity with a New York zip code.

Stories are certainly the easiest way for people to visualize the experience of entering a black hole. Otherwise, what constitutes “falling in” can only be fully understood after years spent studying advanced equations (an unlikely choice among people squandering time by clicking on articles at Trufen.net.) How long does it take to fall in? Ted Bunn answers:

“Let's say you start at rest from a point whose distance from the singularity is ten times the black hole's radius. Then for a million-solar-mass black hole, it takes you about 8 minutes to reach the horizon. Once you've gotten that far, it takes you only another seven seconds to hit the singularity…. Once you've crossed the horizon, in your remaining seven seconds, you might panic and start to fire your rockets in a desperate attempt to avoid the singularity. Unfortunately, it's hopeless, since the singularity lies in your future, and there's no way to avoid your future. In fact, the harder you fire your rockets, the sooner you hit the singularity. It's best just to sit back and enjoy the ride.”

It’s just human nature to poke and prod and try to find out things man was not meant to know. So stubborn astronomers continue to learn all kinds of trivia about black holes. (1) The x-ray radiation emanating from black holes has two components. (2) The Hubble telescope
has detected the noise of gas being slurped into a black hole (and it bears no resemblance to Joe Haldeman slipping into that tub of lime jello; and most remarkable of all, (3) Stephen Hawking and Roger Ebert now agree that nothing escapes from a black hole.

NASA’s Swift observatory is a $250 million collaboration by NASA, Italy and Britain. Unless you think Santa is bringing you one for Christmas, you may have to settle for what you can afford and research black holes the old-fashioned way, by downloading the free board game based on the international Space Very Long Baseline Interferometry Program (SVLBI).

Neptune, But Not Soon

Science requires much more patience than science fiction. NBC never let Star Trek finish its five-year mission, yet NASA has two teams developing missions to Neptune that would take 12 to 20 years just to reach the planet and begin collecting data.

Each team proposes to use a different propulsion system and its own distinctive schemes for exploring Neptune and its unique moon, Triton.

John Newman commented in a 1958 science article for Nebula Science Fiction, “Curiously enough, we know less about the conditions on the surfaces of most of the planets of the System than we do about the surfaces of many of the stars… Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have so highly compressed and deep atmospheres that their true surfaces are invisible.”

Recent missions have explored the first two planets mentioned. Neptune is the favored target between the last two because of the oddities about its moon, Triton -- for example, it has a retrograde orbit, in the opposite direction of Neptune's rotation, a fact that encourages speculation Triton may be a Kuiper Belt object captured by planetary gravity.

NASA’s first Neptune team envisions something like the Cassini Mars mission that could use conventional rocket propulsion and gravity assists to reach the planet in 12 years. Orbit would be achieved through aerocapture , which puts the vehicle in orbit after one pass, in contrast to the aerobraking technique used for Cassini Mars which requires multiple orbits and repeated burns by a spacecraft's engine.

The second team’s plan would use a nuclear fission reactor and ion propulsion to arrive at Neptune in 20 years, because an ion engine takes time to build up enough thrust. However, an ion thruster is 10 times more efficient than a chemically powered engine. One has been powering the Deep Space 1 spacecraft since its launch on Oct. 24, 1998.

Both missions would land probes on Neptune, but deploy them in a different manner according to each team’s own ideas about probe survival and usefulness.

Neptune hasn’t attracted a lot of interest from sf writers. On the other hand, scientists have yet to learn enough about the place to disqualify the science used in what few stories are set there. Indeed, Sydney fans noticed in 1999 that the passage of time has actually been kind to one space opera, Edmund Hamilton's The Universe Wreckers, in which Neptunians terrorize the solar system. When the book was written, Pluto hadn't been discovered. But by the time the Sydney Futurian Society got around to discussing the story, in 1999, Neptune was further away than Pluto anyway.

Halloween Cheer for Trufen

A traditional American ending place is under a headstone in a grassy plot – how mundane! Remember, when you’re a fan, you’re a fan all the way. Why shouldn’t you go out like Spock or Captain Future? Which high-tech ending will you choose?

In the special of the day, Space Services, Inc. offers to orbit a gram of your ashes for $995. But perhaps a fiery ending is not for you. Then the cost is a little higher. Alcor Life Extension will deep-freeze your body for $120,000, or do a simple “neuropreservation ” for $50,000. Either way, you’ll be in distinguished company.

Well-known sf and space exploration figures were among the 25 people whose ashes were rocketed into orbit in 1997, including Gene Roddenberry, physicist Gerard O’Neill, rocket scientist Krafft Ehricke, and Timothy Leary. A lipstick-sized capsule of each person’s cremated remains circled the earth for six years, after which they fell back into the atmosphere and burned up. In 1999, a different, one-shot space burial delivered the ashes of astronomer Eugene Shoemaker all the way to the Moon aboard the Lunar Prospector.

The famous names of Alcor’s frozen “patients” are harder to come by, though it’s reported that pro baseball’s “Splendid Splinter,” Ted Williams, had his head and body preserved in separate tanks at the Foundation. You probably won’t find Walt Disney there. Rumors that he was frozen away someplace in hopes of future revival have been discredited.

Honestly, both alternatives – orbital burial and cryonic preservation -- lack the solemnity people associate with Spock’s burial in space while Scotty mournfully pipes “Amazing Grace,” or the romance of Ed Harris’ farewell to Mary Ann Mastroantonio in The Abyss.

High-tech endings also suffer from comparison with the traditional burial in that no one from the community can come and pay their respects afterwards. One fan, Forrest J Ackerman, reportedly isn’t willing to miss out on posthumous egoboo. He has selected a grave marker that not only shows his photo, it plays his recorded greeting!

Forry always makes clear he has no expectations about the afterlife. For those who do, well-known theologian Charles Platt encourages a kind of “Pascal’s Wager” attitude toward cryonics:

“When you are frozen, you are no longer alive. Therefore, if there is an afterlife, you should experience it. You can think of cryonics as hedging your bets just in case an afterlife turns out not to exist.”

Be that as it may, being stored head-down in frozen nitrogen still sounds too much like being deposited in the deepest circle of Dante’s hell.

Fans ultimately may be less interested in a fancy sendoff. What they really value is words and stories. Whitman wrote “the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse,” and many can rest assured they did that literally.

Virgin Galactic has promised that space travel is within your grasp – provided $200,000 is also within your grasp. No sooner did they announce the promise than bureaucrats began demanding that space traveling passengers be kept perfectly safe!

Space tourism in science fiction has never been safe. Delos Harriman evaded government restrictions and took his longed-for trip to the moon anyway. Hm, maybe the bureaucrats had a point after all – that trip ended Harriman’s life.

In real life, everybody wants to walk away from the ultimate thrill-ride, the way they did the old TWA rocket at Disneyland. That’s the goal, says Xcor’s Jeff Greason, president of a company whose own hopes of winning the X-Prize just went up in smoke. "The uninvolved public has to be held to a very high level of safety. There's no reason they should be exposed to a level of risk that's different than they see from any other aspect of industrial life.”

Naturally, passengers will feel a lot safer leaving the atmosphere aboard something that resembles an aircraft, and not a flying Rube Goldberg contraption like some of the lesser contenders for the X-Prize.

SpaceShipOne was just one of 65 entries registered in the X-Prize competition, which included a wild assortment of spaceflight schemes. As Richard Foss wrote in “Space Cowboys” (published in June 2004):

“Some X Prize entries use technology that is almost in the realm of science fiction, even by the standards of visionary aerospace professionals. They look like finned needles, disks, Lear Jets with rocket packs, or alien craft as envisioned by someone with a taste for psychedelics. The vehicles begin their ascent into space on gigantic rockets or tethered beneath the world’s largest helium balloons, piggybacked on aircraft or taking off as aircraft themselves. They come down dangling from parachutes or giant parasails, splashing into oceans or landing at conventional airports either as a glider or under their own power.”

When booking your own first trip into space, don't be deceived by superficial good looks. Science fiction warns tourism by passenger liner can be just as dangerous -- remember Fifth Element (which also discourages traveling by taxi).

Virgin Galactic’s $200,000 ticket quote sounds high, but no doubt the price is right for a company planning to stay in business. In 1969, the president of PanAm guessed a seat on one of those 2001 space station shuttles would cost $5,000 once the service got going -- and as we all know, his company didn’t make it to the 21st century.

Noreascon 4 Hugo Nominee Stats

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

Click Read and Comment for more of Migly's article

Note: The names above the dashed line were finalists.

Best Fan Writer (260 people nominated)

John L. Flynn
-- 55

Jeff Berkwits
-- 45

Bob Devney -- 42

Dave Langford
-- 39

Cheryl Morgan -- 35

---------------------------------------------------

Lloyd Penney
-- 25

John Hertz
-- 18

Evelyn Leeper
-- 17

Teresa Nielsen Hayden
-- 16

Guy H. Lillian III
-- 13

Steven Silver
-- 13

Daniel Kimmel
-- 12

Bruce Gillespie
-- 11

Karen Bennett
-- 10

Ernest Lilley
-- 10

Best Fanzine (211 people nominated)

Emerald City
-- 48

Challenger
-- 41

Plokta
-- 39

Mimosa
-- 26

File 770
-- 25

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SFRevu
-- 20

Devniad -- 19

Bento
-- 17

Voyageur
-- 17

Science Fiction Commentary
-- 16

Chunga
-- 12

Fortean Bureau
-- 12

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
-- 9

Alexiad -- 9

MT Void
-- 9

Trap Door-- 9

Best Fan Artist (190 people nominated)

Frank Wu
-- 75

Sue Mason
-- 33

Teddy Harvia
-- 32

Brad Foster
-- 26

Steve Stiles
-- 20

---------------------------------------------------

Taral Wayne
-- 15

Bill Neville-- 15

Alexis Gilliland -- 14

Sheryl Birkhead
-- 10

Kurt Erichsen
-- 10

Marc Schirmeister -- 10

Dan Steffan -- 10

Alan White
-- 9

Mel Vavaroutsos
-- 8

Stu Shiffman
-- 7

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

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

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