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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 10/23/92 -- Vol. 11, No. 17
MEETINGS UPCOMING:
Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon.
_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C
10/28 HO: Book Swap (HO 4N-509)
11/18 HO: DOOMSDAY BOOK by Connie Willis (Plagues) (HO 4N-509)
12/09 HO: A FIRE ON THE DEEP by Vernor Vinge (HO 4N-509)
_D_A_T_E _E_X_T_E_R_N_A_L _M_E_E_T_I_N_G_S/_C_O_N_V_E_N_T_I_O_N_S/_E_T_C.
11/14 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
11/21 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 908-834-1563 hocpb!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell HO 1D-505A 908-834-1267 hocpb!jrrt
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 908-949-7076 homxc!11366ns
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 908-576-3346 mtfme!lfl
MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 908-957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
1. Holmdel, in a desperate attempt to get the economy going again
before the election, and having little success in finding people
willing to read the books they have, has decided that the time has
come to give everyone a chance to read books that other people want
to get rid of, so they're having a book swap. This is an
opportunity to buy/sell/trade new and used books and other
material. Bring in those paperbacks that have been collecting
dust, those hardcovers you can bear to part with, that artwork that
doesn't go with you new decor, even records or commemorative
buttons. There will be ongoing discussions about books, movies,
and so forth, so your intellect, as well as your wallet, can be
stimulated! [-ecl/jrrt]
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper
THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK
MagiCon 1992
(Part 4 of 4)
Con report by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper
Panel: SSSSeeeevvvveeeennnn DDDDeeeeaaaaddddllllyyyy SSSSiiiinnnnssss ooooffff SSSSFFFF--------IIIInnnnvvvveeeennnntttt YYYYoooouuuurrrr OOOOwwwwnnnn
Sunday, 1 PM
Roger MacBride Allen (moderator), Pat Cadigan, Eileen Gunn,
Maureen F. McHugh, Connie Willis
This turned out to be the silly panel--or at least started that
way. Datlow showed a copy of her anthology _A_l_i_e_n _S_e_x and then said,
"If anyone wants it, they can come up to me or Pat [Cadigan] after
the panel." Willis again mentioned losing big at the Hugo Awards
ceremony. Cadigan, on the other hand, described herself as "Connie
Willis Lite," because she had lost two-thirds fewer Hugos that night
before.
But eventually the panel turned to the topic at hand, and it
was surprising how their rambling comments, when organized, tend to
match the traditional "Seven Deadly Sins."
For example, under the category of sloth would fall the sin of
leaving boring stuff boring. The panelists all said, "If it's
boring, rewrite it."
Gluttony? Here is the same sin mentioned in the "Alternate
History Stories" panel: putting all your research in the story.
Also attacked were long elvish names with no vowels and lots of
apostrophes, and just about every tavern scene found in a fantasy
series. (One panelist claimed all these, and the "Star Wars"
cantina sequence for that matter, are patterned after a sequence in
Samuel R. Delany's _J_e_w_e_l_s _o_f _A_p_t_o_r.)
Slander? People said wasting your time on GEnie or other
electronic bulletin boards trading gossip will quickly undermine
your writing.
Greed? In science fiction, it's called sequelitis.
Envy? The panelists decried "band-waggoning," by which I
assume they meant writing about something just because it's a hot
topic. An example not in the science fiction field would be the
enormous proliferation of high-tech thrillers after Tom Clancy hit
it big with _T_h_e _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r.
Pride? What about characters who read science fiction and can
cope better with whatever is going on because of it (the main flaw
of Harry Turtledove's _E_a_r_t_h_g_r_i_p, as I recall). McHugh said that her
experiences reading science fiction did not prepare her for living
in China for a year (nor vice versa, since she apparently caused a
MagiCon September 7, 1992 Page 2
bus accident when a bus driver who had never seen a Westerner before
got distracted watching her walk down the street and ran into a
car).
As far as lust, there were a lot of jokes about Cadigan, some
convention-goer clad only in a loincloth, and alien sex. There was
also the sin of having sex acts described in such a way as to make
the reader a voyeur rather than a participant.
Anger was not directly touched on, but undoubtedly with a
little effort one could come up with a sin for that. (How about
stories written only to preach the author's point of view?)
One major sin the panelists mentioned was underpopulating your
stories. You need characters your protagonists can talk to, argue
with, do things with, and so on. Raymond Chandler once said, "Never
have explication in a story except under heat." Never have your
characters thinking about something they could be talking to someone
about. Never tell when you can show. (On the other hand, don't
have scenes with two minor characters talking where the only purpose
is to inform the reader of something important.) And try to have
more than one thing going on in a scene. (And, by the way, stories
should have protagonists, not heroes, and villains should not be
undefeatable, especially if your protagonist is going to defeat
them.)
Not thinking about the logical consequences of everything was
another sin (also much discussed in the alternate history panels).
Padding, total honesty (as in the line "'No,' she lied."), false
pretenses for the book, future slang that doesn't work, not enough
research, and many other sins were also mentioned.
Starting the story too soon was another mistake beginners make.
The best lesson along these lines is to be learned from Frank
Capra's film _L_o_s_t _H_o_r_i_z_o_n. When shown in a test screening it did
rather poorly, so Capra threw out the first reel of set-up, started
the film with people fleeing to the airport in the midst of a civil
war, and made a classic.
One panelists said the sin that annoyed her the most was
thinking that plot and character are bourgeois inventions. Other
"hot buttons" included stories that turn out to be just a dream and
talking heads and disembodied voices. Someone's pet hate was
"HAITE," defined as a story that consists of "Here's An Idea. -The
End." But they said the worst sin of all was not breaking any of
the rules.
MagiCon September 7, 1992 Page 3
Panel: TTTThhhheeee AAAAlllltttteeeerrrrnnnnaaaatttteeee CCCCiiiivvvviiiillll WWWWaaaarrrr
Sunday, 2 PM
George Alec Effinger, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, S. M. Stirling
(moderator), Harry Turtledove, Walter Jon Williams
This is the third alternate history panel of the convention and
I'm beginning to wonder if Turtledove and Stirling are secretly
Siamese twins--I always see them together!
Turtledove again told the story of how his alternate Civil War
novel (_T_h_e _G_u_n_s _o_f _t_h_e _S_o_u_t_h) came to be written; see the "Build an
Alternate History" panel for details. Rusch's alternate Civil War
story was this year's Hugo nominee, "The Gallery of His Dreams,"
which is not alternate history, but time travel involving Matthew
Brady. Rusch has, however, written a couple of alternate history
stories ("The Best and the Brightest" and "Fighting Bob"), and has a
strong background in history. In fact, in college she was the only
woman in her "History of War" course, the rest of the students being
ROTC enrollees who _h_a_d to take it. Williams wrote "No Spot of
Ground," in which Poe becomes a general instead of an author, and
mentioned that he had also written an alternate Mary Shelley novel
published (or to be published) by Axolotl. Stirling's Drakka
trilogy has already been discussed for the "Build an Alternate
History" panel. Effinger (who wrote "Everything But Honor," in
which an African-American physicist uses a time machine to alter the
outcome of the Civil War) arrived late and couldn't even fit on the
dais. Note to future conventions: make sure the dais, table, or
whatever in each room is large enough for your largest panel in that
room! (We had this same problem at the "Hugos for Electronic
Fanac?" panel.)
One of the things the panelists emphasized is that if you
postulate an alternate Civil War in which the South wins, then you
need to rethink World Wars I and II, since their outcomes depended
very much on a unified United States. And the panelists reiterated
what was suggested at the alternate Civil War panel ("The North
Shall Rise Again") at Boskone last year: most people believe that
the South couldn't win the war, but the North could lose it.
Actually, the Boskone panelists thought that only even worse
Northern generals--hard to conceive of--would have made the war last
longer, and even then the North couldn't help but win by 1866 or
1867. Only with massive outside intervention did they think a
Southern victory possible, and they couldn't come up with a
reasonable scenario for such interference. But this certainly ties
in with the observation from the MagiCon panelists that often we
forget to look at the rest of the world for factors.
The panelists also thought that the argument about the North
having all the technology and industry and therefore having the edge
because of that was flawed; Turtledove noted that at the end of the
war, the South did not lack for guns or bullets or anything produced
MagiCon September 7, 1992 Page 4
by the technology. It was more the whole issue of states' rights
that caused them problems. Nothing could be decided without all the
states agreeing. As I commented about last year's Boskone panel,
many areas of the South actually supported the North, West Virginia
seceded from Virginia, and Texas almost seceded from the
Confederacy. This hardly contributed to a unified front. As
Stirling said, "War is a great centralizer": it is very difficult
for a loose confederation to win against a unified opponent.
Someone on the panel mentioned that the title didn't specify
_w_h_i_c_h Civil War, and this led to the suggestion of using the Taiping
Rebellion (1850-1864) as a basis for an alternate history. It was
the largest war between 1800 and 1935, costing 20,000,000 lives and
weakening the Manchu Dynasty enough to contribute to its downfall
fifty years later. It was started by Hong Xiuchuan, who claimed to
be the younger brother of Jesus. He swept through southeastern
China and eventually captured Nanjing in 1853, having raised over a
million supporters. Eventually he was defeated by Tseng Kuo-Fan, Li
Hung-Chang, and Charles George Gordon in 1864. One of the panelists
recommended George MacDonald Fraser's _F_l_a_s_h_m_a_n _a_n_d _t_h_e _D_r_a_g_o_n as
good historical fiction about this era.
A couple of alternate Civil War novels mentioned (and
criticized) were Harry Harrison's _A _R_e_b_e_l _i_n _T_i_m_e and Leonard
Skimin's _G_r_a_y _V_i_c_t_o_r_y. Panelists pointed out that in Harrison's
novel a black FBI agent is sent back to stop a Southern white
supremacist time traveler. First of all, they wouldn't send a black
agent back, and second, the Southerner had supposed never heard of
John Brown--a highly unlikely occurrence. In Skimin's book, the
people are all from the 20th Century--not literally, but they think
like 20th Century people, and talk like 20th Century people, and act
like 20th Century people. (It's what my husband Mark calls the
_H_a_p_p_y _D_a_y_s syndrome--the show was set in the 1960s, but everyone in
it was straight from the 1980s.)
As to the greater question of why alternate histories are
popular, three reasons were suggested. First of all, there is
perhaps more dissatisfaction with the present, so people are looking
to see how things could be better ("if only") or console themselves
that they aren't worse ("thank goodness"). Second, alternate
histories allow one to reduce very complex issues to one simple
change. They give people the feeling that they could actually
control their world. And lastly, more authors are historically
trained. Turtledove, for example, has a doctorate in Byzantine
history, but there is not a great market for Byzantine historians
right now, so he has become an author instead. And as an author, he
writes about what he knows best.
MagiCon September 7, 1992 Page 5
Panel: OOOOppppeeeerrrraaaa &&&& SSSSFFFF
Sunday, 4 PM
Thorarinn Gunnarsson, Evelyn C. Leeper, Mark R. Leeper (moderator),
Originally Lisa Barnett and Susan Shwartz were supposed to be
on this panel, but Barnett wasn't able to make it, and Shwartz was
so exhausted when she arrived at the Green Room that she decided to
skip it and try to get rested enough to judge the masquerade later
that evening. (I suspect it was also partially that Mark's idea of
what the panel should be about was too analytical for her.) Since I
had been the one who had suggested this panel initially, I agreed to
help fill in the gap.
Gunnarson was trained as an opera singer, so he had some actual
first-hand experience on this subject.
We got into a bit of a discussion at the beginning about
exactly what _i_s opera. For example, is Jeff Wayne's _W_a_r _o_f _t_h_e
_W_o_r_l_d_s opera? Technically not, since it has some narration, and
opera is defined (at least in some circles) as being entirely sung.
On the other hand, that definition excludes Bizet's _C_a_r_m_e_n
(generally considered an opera) and includes _L_e_s _M_i_s_e_r_a_b_l_e_s
(generally not considered an opera), so I suspect the best
definition of opera may be similar to Damon Knight's definition of
science fiction: "It's what I point to when I say it."
We also drifted off into a discussion of how opera (actually
music in general) fits in with the creative writing process. Some
writers say that listening to music while they are writing inspires
them; others avoid music at that time. ("While they are writing"
was used to mean, I believe, the period of time during which they
were working on something, not just the time they were sitting at
the typewriter or word processor.) Gunnarson claimed that Sterling
and Shiner fall in the latter category, though someone from the
audience said they had heard that these writers did listen to music.
The vagueness of what time periods specified may have led to the
confusion, but the basic idea--that music can affect what you write-
--remains.
And this led to a brief listing of books in which opera or
music play a role. Thomas M. Disch's _O_n _W_i_n_g_s _o_f _S_o_n_g is certainly
one that examines the power of music. Tom Holt's _E_x_p_e_c_t_i_n_g _S_o_m_e_o_n_e
_T_a_l_l_e_r is a humorous novel set in the world of Wagner's "Ring
Cycle." (And Shwartz said that one of Marion Zimmer Bradley's
novels is based on Verdi's "La Forza del Destino.") Jack Vance's
_S_p_a_c_e _O_p_e_r_a deals with a traveling opera company. These three
examples show the variety of ways in which a book can relate to
opera.
Speaking of Wagner's "Ring" led people to say they had seen the
Ring staged in all sorts of settings: mythological, Nineteenth
MagiCon September 7, 1992 Page 6
Century, and so on, but not in space. Then someone said they seemed
to remember having seen that!
Before coming up with possible science fiction operas, we
discussed the requirements for a successful opera in general. It
needs a limited cast (you can have a lot of extras, but three dozen
major characters will strain the resources of any opera company and
the memory of any opera goer). It must also have an emotional story
with a clear conclusion. The most difficult requirement is that it
not be "narrator-oriented." It turns out that many (most?) of the
popular science fiction novels are narrator-oriented, making them
unsuitable for opera.
I pointed out that there had been a plan to make an opera of
_S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k, but this failed, in large part because the planners had
very little knowledge of opera. The proposal was put to the New
York City Opera sometime late in 1990 (I believe), but the
requirement was that the opera open in 1991 for the 25th Anniversary
of the show. But an opera takes much longer than that to plan and
stage, and eventually Paramount (or whoever) withdrew the idea.
Other suggestions from the audience and panelists which were
not so time-constrained were Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations"
(well, it certainly has a limited cast), Mary Shelley's _F_r_a_n_k_e_n_s_t_e_i_n
(I'm surprised this hasn't been done already), _S_t_a_r _W_a_r_s (which has
been made into a ballet), Jules Verne's _T_w_e_n_t_y _T_h_o_u_s_a_n_d _L_e_a_g_u_e_s
_U_n_d_e_r _t_h_e _S_e_a, and any of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Gunnarson
has already scored _T_w_e_n_t_y _T_h_o_u_s_a_n_d _L_e_a_g_u_e_s _U_n_d_e_r _t_h_e _S_e_a. (He also
said he had written a diptych _E_r_e _U_n_t_o _D_e_a_t_h with each piece
patterned after the structure of a Beethoven symphony.) Someone
observed that _S_t_a_r _W_a_r_s meets all of Verdi's requirements. If
anyone can enlighten me as to what these requirements are, I would
be grateful.
Picking something to make an opera from is not as easy as it
may seem. It was observed that even Shakespeare's works, which
would seem like prime candidates, have not transitioned well: only
_M_a_c_b_e_t_h, _O_t_h_e_l_l_o, _R_o_m_e_o _a_n_d _J_u_l_i_e_t, and _T_h_e _M_e_r_r_y _W_i_v_e_s _o_f _W_i_n_d_s_o_r
of his thirty-seven plays have been made into operas.
Someone (Gunnarson, I believe) cited a study that claimed in
1991, more people attended opera than attended baseball games. (I
wonder if that is counting all baseball down through Little League,
or just major league games.)
Someone pointed out this panel was just like real opera: of the
fifteen people in the audience, three fell asleep for part of it.
When this panel was announced, I asked on the Net for examples
of science fiction operas; this is what I got:
MagiCon September 7, 1992 Page 7
Benford, David & LeGuin, Ursula K. "Rigel-9"
Benford, David "Star's End"
Blomdahl, Karl-Birger "Aniara"
Davis, Anthony & Atherton, Deborah "Under the Double Moon"
Dresher, Paul & Eckert, Rinded "Power Failure"
Glass, Philip "Einstein on the Beach"
Glass, Philip "1000 Airplanes on the Roof"
Glass, Philip "Hydrogen Jukebox"
Glass, Philip "Juniper Tree"
Glass, Philip & Lessing, Doris "The Making of the
Representative from Planet 8"
Haydn, J. "Il Mondo della Luna"
Janacek, H. "The Excursions of Mr Broucek"
Janacek, H. "The Macropoulous Affair"
Ligeti, G. "Le Grand Macabre"
Mackover, Todd "Valis"
Menotti, Giancarlo "A Bride from Pluto"
Menotti, Giancarlo "Help, Help the Globolinks!"
Monk, Meredith & Chong, Ping "The Games"
Offenbach, Jacques "Tales of Hoffman"
Offenbach, Jacques "Journey to the Moon"
Rice, Jeff "The War of the Worlds"
Swan, Donald "Perelandra"
? "A Wrinkle in Time"
? (Robert Anton Wilson's stuff)
An addition suggested during the panel was "The Voyages of
Edgar Allan Poe" (composer unknown).
MMMMaaaassssqqqquuuueeeerrrraaaaddddeeee
Sunday, 8:30 PM
Rick and Wolf Foss (masters of ceremonies)
The Masquerade began with an announcement that it was being
dedicated to the memory of Fritz Leiber, who died Saturday,
September 5.
Once again, Mark and I decided to avail ourselves of the
privileges accorded us because of our Press ribbons and chose to sit
in that section instead of waiting for the mad rush when the doors
opened.
Before the masquerade proper, there were the usual
announcements, including the one about no flash photography. This
was followed immediately by someone taking a flash photo, at which
point two guards ran over, grabbed the person, and carried her out.
(I suspect it was all staged. :-) )
There was no booklet listing the entrants, which would have
been a nice touch. I understand the difficulties in producing it,
though, since it can't really be done ahead of time, and finding the
facilities to produce it over Labor Day weekend may be difficult.
MagiCon September 7, 1992 Page 8
However, the committee did do something new which I think is a
great idea: in addition to the usual photography area, they arranged
for an area where the visually impaired could _f_e_e_l the costumes
(assuming this was okay with the entrants, one supposes--it's
conceivable that a costume could be so fragile as to preclude any
touching). I would be curious to know if anyone took advantage of
this arrangement.
As usual, the children's masquerade preceded the main section.
There were only three entries, so this went fairly quickly. There
were about fifty entries in the main masquerade, and everything had
been organized so that this section went smoothly, and the first
run-through was finished around 10:30 PM, which gave me plenty of
time to make the preview at 11:30. The quality of the costumes this
year was well above that of the preceding few years, and the spate
of fan-fold costumes that one seemed to be seeing all the time for a
while has given way to a more varied assortment. (For example,
"St. Alia of the Knife" used a stained-glass-window effect.)
However, there are still too many which are songs or skits rather
than costumes, though the number seems to be declining--I don't know
if this means that people have gotten the message, or that the
committee is actually weeding out the non-costumes. In general, I
was in agreement with the awards: "At the Ball" for Best of Class
(Novice), "Pumpkinhead" for Best of Class (Journeyman), "Ice
Spirits" for "Best in Class" (Master), "St. Alia of the Knife" for
Most Spectacular, and "Heroes" for Best of Show. (There were other
awards, but these were the major ones.)
I would like to point out that "Heroes," the Best in Show (and
most people's favorite to judge by the applause), was a Journeyman
entry. (There are three classes: Novice, Journeyman, and Master;
which category you are in depends on how many awards you have won in
previous contests.) This was an entry based on the works of Gordon
R. Dickson, and consisted of two large models of books. As the
covers were opened and the pages turned, characters in the
illustrations stepped out of the books and came to life, while the
voice-over narration described how the reader, a young boy, learned
about heroism, bravery, loyalty, and so on, from these books. I
hope Dickson was there to see it; if not, I hope someone sends him a
videotape of it.
(One of our friends missed the masquerade; he was paged before
it started and it turned out his son had broken his hand in the car
door.)
MagiCon September 7, 1992 Page 9
Preview: DDDDoooooooorrrrssss
Sunday, 11:30 PM
George R. R. Martin
This was the second showing of the sneak preview of the
Columbia Pictures/ABC pilot _D_o_o_r_s, and was somewhat sparsely
attended. I assume most of the people interested in it attended the
first show, but I didn't realize it was an alternate history show
until friends returning from the first showing told me so.
The title, by the way, will be changed. The studio thought
that there would be no confusion between this and the film _T_h_e _D_o_o_r_s
but Jim Morrison's estate thought otherwise, so the studio is
casting about for a new name. The most likely candidate at this
point seems to be _D_o_o_r_w_a_y_s.
This was the pilot for the series (six more scripts have been
ordered, each of which will be an hour long). This film was seventy
minutes long, designed to run in a ninety-minute time slot. (The
European version will be in a two-hour slot, with some additional
scenes.) This was a very rough cut, minus many of the special
effects, sound looping, and color timing. The music used was only
temporary and there were no credits. In particular, the special
effect of the Door itself is missing.
The show starts out in our world. An unidentified woman is
brought into the hospital. This turns out to be Cat, a fugitive
from some cyborg warriors who are chasing her through "doors" to
bring her back to their timeline under the orders of a "Dark Lord."
She escapes the hospital with Tom, the doctor who decides to help
her get to the door opening up in Colorado. They get there, have a
fight with the warriors, and Tom ends up going through the door with
her--at which point he finds out the doors are one-way only (or so
Cat thinks). This new world is one in which some bioengineering got
out of hand around 1978 and a bug ate all the oil in the world, and
in fact, all petroleum-based products. (This bug is apparently
still around, since in the longer version there is a scene in which
Tom's credit cards dissolve.) So we have what looks like almost a
standard post-holocaust society, with cars being pulled as wagons by
horses (shades of _T_h_i_n_g_s _t_o _C_o_m_e), and all sorts of mongrel
technology. The warriors have followed them through, however, and
even follow them to Denver when they arrange to have an injured man
flown there by U.S. Post Office hot-air balloon, in part because a
door is opening there soon. This door opens after Tom and Cat again
fight the warriors, and they jump through and almost fall down what
appears to be a giant cliff. Then the camera pulls back and we see
they're really standing on the top of a giant Mt. Rushmore-type
sculpture (in Colorado?--they've already said the doors don't change
your time or physical location) with the sculptured faces of
Benjamin Franklin, Davy Crockett, Victoria Woodhull, and an Iroquois
chief whose name I didn't catch.
MagiCon September 7, 1992 Page 10
The show is full of humor of the sort copied from Arnold
Schwarzenegger movies. In one scene, Tom says, "Of all the
emergency rooms in all the hospitals in all the world, why did you
have to come into mine?" There's a running gag about Cat biting
people's noses off. Mercifully, there were no jokes about "Tom and
Cat."
There were some minor flaws in the script, with characters
behaving in unlikely ways. My major complaint was that there was
too much in it. The parallel worlds would have been enough without
the warriors and the Dark Lords and all that stuff. But it _i_s
alternate history, so if and when it shows up, I'll be watching.
Whether it lasts is another story. As Martin said, "Our success
will be determined by how well we do."
Panel: LLLLoooosssstttt AAAArrrrtttt ooooffff tttthhhheeee NNNNeeeewwwwsssszzzziiiinnnneeee
Monday, 1 PM
Mike Glyer (moderator), Timothy Lane, Dick Lynch, Laurie Mann
The first thing I heard when I got to this panel was that Mike
Glyer is hoping I get my con report done early so he can use it to
help him write the con report for _F_i_l_e _7_7_0. Talk about ego-boo!
One reason proposed for the decline of the newszine was the
rise of electronic bulletin boards and electronic communications in
general. By the time any traditional fanzine can get out, almost
everyone has already heard what news there was. What the boards
don't cover, the semi-prozines do, and with more staff and money
than a fanzine can dedicate. And even a lot of clubzines have
started printing news of interest to their members as well.
Newszines have to be timely, and unless they're done electronically,
that's almost impossible these days. Of course, I pointed out that
Mark has said that between the death of live television in the 1950s
and the rise of electronic bulletin boards in the 1980s, there was
no real way to make a fool of yourself instantaneously around the
world. Now, once again, there is. And even newszines are not
immune, and make mistakes. Consider last year's Hugo nominees list
that appeared in _L_o_c_u_s: in an effort to scoop the competition, _L_o_c_u_s
printed up the first list Chicon V sent them. (Chicon was using
_L_o_c_u_s to verify the story lengths, so _L_o_c_u_s was in a privileged
position.) After it was typeset and almost ready to go to press,
Chicon released a longer list of nominees--the short list was due to
a misunderstanding of where the cut-off was to make the ballot. So
_L_o_c_u_s ran an addendum to their list of nominations with more
nominations. But the result was that nominees and voters knew
whether someone had been at the top of the nominations list, or
further down. A lot of finger-pointing went on, but I would say the
basic flaw is in giving one newszine a preference over the others by
releasing the names to them first. Surely the committees can find a
better way to validate nominations.
MagiCon September 7, 1992 Page 11
People who still produce newszines say that this timeliness
forces them to drop a lot of letters of comment to make room for
current news. Long convention reports also get cut. (Long
convention reports? No on writes those any more, do they? :-) )
On the other hand, there is still a need for a newszine that
interprets the facts, instead of just reporting them. (Consider the
parallel to the everyday world. We get our factual news from radio
or television, but many people still subscribe to a weekly "news
magazine" which gives us more of an interpretation and background
for the news than we can get from other, more immediate sources.)
Mike Glyer closed by reading the Hogu winners, which I do not
have handy, so I hope he saved his copy for _F_i_l_e _7_7_0.
Someone on the panel described this as a panel of heavyweights;
I don't think they were speaking entirely figuratively. :-)
Miscellaneous
All business passed on to the MagiCon WSFS Business Meeting
passed, including counting electronic fan writing toward Hugo fan
writer eligibility and restricting Hugo voting and business meeting
participation to natural persons only. (I guess this rules out
Data, right?) The electronic fan writing amendment contains a
reference to "generally available electronic media," which should
prove an interesting phrase when the issue of electronic fanzines
comes up, since WSFS has now recognized the concept that electronic
media _c_a_n be considered "generally available."
The hotel had an automatic check-out through the television,
and it was working, making check-out a breeze.
One more time, I'll list the Worldcons I've attended and rank
them, best to worst (the middle cluster are pretty close together,
and it's getting harder and harder to fit the new ones in, perhaps
because the cons of fifteen years ago are hard to remember in
detail):
Noreascon II
MagiCon
Noreascon III
Noreascon I
Midamericon
LACon
Chicon V
Discon II
Seacon
Confederation
Chicon IV
ConFiction
Conspiracy
MagiCon September 7, 1992 Page 12
Iguanacon
Suncon
Nolacon II
Constellation
I note in passing that this con report clocks in at about
20,000 words, my longest ever, which I would like to attribute to
the abundance of interesting programming rather than my own
verbosity. (At Chicon V last year I went to twelve panels; this
year at MagiCon I went to sixteen.)
In another hard-fought battle, Glasgow won the bid for 1995,
making 1994/1995 the first time the Worldcon has been out of the
United States for two years in a row. 2541 votes were cast, even
more than last year's heavy voting of 2108: 1310 for Glasgow and
1147 for Atlanta. The counting went much faster than last year,
because the ballots, mail-in _a_n_d on-site, were validated (verified
that each voter was a member of Magicon and had paid his or her
voting fee) as they arrived. Samuel R. Delany and Gerry Anderson
are the Guests of Honour; the Fan Guest of Honour will be announced
at ConFrancisco. The convention with be called Intersection and be
August 24 through 28, 1995. (Contact address in the United States
is Theresa Renner, Box 15430, Washington DC 20003.) In a very
lightly voted contest, Atlanta won the NASFIC: DragonCon, which will
be held July 12-16, 1995. (Note that this was not the same
committee that bid for the Worldcon.) It will be fascinating to see
what the unusual scheduling of the con does. Will there be more
fans who attend both? Will more students and teachers attend the
NASFIC? Stay tuned.
Next year in San Francisco!