MT VOID 04/26/96 (Vol. 14, Number 43)

MT VOID 04/26/96 (Vol. 14, Number 43)


@@@@@ @   @ @@@@@    @     @ @@@@@@@   @       @  @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@
  @   @   @ @        @ @ @ @    @       @     @   @   @   @   @  @
  @   @@@@@ @@@@     @  @  @    @        @   @    @   @   @   @   @
  @   @   @ @        @     @    @         @ @     @   @   @   @  @
  @   @   @ @@@@@    @     @    @          @      @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@

Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 04/26/96 -- Vol. 14, No. 43

Table of Contents


Upcoming Meetings:

Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in the Middletown cafeteria Wednesdays at noon.

  DATE                    TOPIC

04/26   Special Activity: Dinner & Ice Cream, Fri, 7PM
                   Terri's/Scoop deVille, Ramsey, NJ
05/11   Author William McCay @ S.F.A.B.C. meeting.  Sat, 8PM
                   Saddle River Cultural Center,
                   Upper Saddle River, NJ
06/25   JEOPARDY (starring our own Rob Mitchell) (check local TV listings)

Outside events:
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call 201-933-2724 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society meets on the third Saturday of every month in Belleville; call 201-432-5965 for details.

MT Chair:        Mark Leeper   MT 3F-434  908-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
HO Chair:        John Jetzt    MT 2E-530  908-957-5087 jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian:    Nick Sauer    HO 4F-427  908-949-7076 njs@lucent.com
MT Librarian:    Mark Leeper   MT 3F-434  908-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
                 Rob Mitchell  MT 2D-536  908-957-6330 rlmitchell1@lucent.com
Factotum:        Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-337  908-957-2070 eleeper@lucent.com
Backissues available at http://www-gbcs.mt.lucent.com/~ecl/MTVOID/backissues.html
or http://sf.www.lysator.liu.se/sf_archive/sf-texts/MT_Void/.
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.

URL of the week:

http://sf.www.lysator.liu.se/sf_archive/sf_main.html. *The* basic SF site. Has *lots* of science fiction reference materials, lists of awards, author bibliographies, pointers to others sites, etc. Also has back issues of the MT VOID. [-ecl]


Hugo Comments:

The Hugo nominees for 1995 and 1945 (Retro-Hugos) have been announced and are included at the end of this issue. A few random observations:

William Rotsler was nominated for Best Fan Artist in both years. Isaac Asimov was also nominated for both years, giving him a total of three nominations this year.

Two "Captain Future" stories were nominated, one from 1945, one from 1995.

A talking pig story was nominated. It wasn't BABE.

One magazine's editors appeared on both lists. (Okay, it did have a name change in between.)

A Canadian and an Australian were nominated for each year. On the whole, however, the 1995 slate is almost as USA-centric as 1945, though it does have one Briton. (It does have more women, though, and more Jews.)

Of the 1945 fiction nominees, 3 are still alive (Clement, Tucker, and Van Vogt). Knock wood. [-ecl]


Martial Arts:

I had not intended to say more on martial arts after last week's comments, but I have given it more thought and realize that there is more to say.

At least initially, perhaps a child who knows martial arts has a degree of protection, but only initially. But place yourself in one of these schools. What is your reaction if you get into conflict with someone who is a trained martial artist? You can fight back, but that would be stupid since the people you would be fighting would be trained fighters and would have the edge. You would look for the quick solution to your problem and the quick answer may be simply to get a gun. And a certain percentage will do just that. The effect of making young people in school better able to fight is that it raises the standard and everybody has to be better able to fight in any way they can. Like it or not, a young person who learns to kick people is going to school armed and it naturally is going to make any other kids want to be armed one way or another. And some will do it by any means necessary, including the quick solution of bringing firearms to school. Perhaps not immediately and perhaps not in suburbs as fast as in inner cities, but it will happen. Security based on one mode of fighting tends to be short-lived. In 1945 it appeared to the US that that the world was a safer place because we had developed nuclear weapons, but by 1955 the common consensus was just the opposite. And isn't the same thing happening on a smaller scale in the schools?

We have to ask ourselves if this martial arts mania is only fueling violence in schools. When you send a young person to school armed with the ability to hurt someone else, you have to expect he will get into conflicts with other kids who are armed one way or another. Supposedly the martial arts schools and the NRA each teach their practitioners how to be responsible with the skills they advocate, but there is certainly some question in each case if the statistics back up the claims. Just like (in spite of claims of the NRA) that if you have a gun around the house you are much more likely to get shot yourself, sending a young person to school armed is much more likely to get him into an armed conflict. Aren't there better ways to teach children self-discipline than as a by-product of learning how to fight? It is unclear to me that there is anything useful to be gained from the discipline of learning a martial art that could not be gained from learning to play a musical instrument.

Robert A. Heinlein said: "An armed society is a polite society." And there are people who really think that way, most of whom have never visited real armed societies. (One suspects the only armed society Heinlein ever saw until late in his career was the military and that is certainly not typical. Armed societies are not polite, they are societies like the Old West in which there is constant struggle to establish the pecking order and there are a lot of people hurt establishing that order. I have visited armed societies I can tell you the standard of common politeness there is considerably lower and not higher than other parts of the world. An armed society is a dangerous society and not at all a polite one. And an armed society is not a good place to learn.

Training kids to fight only starts a small scale arms race in the schools and the next step is generally escalation. It certainly means that other kids are going to have to find some way to defend themselves in whatever way they can. Kids should be taught how to cooperate, to understand their opponent, and to get along in the face of disagreement--basic conflict avoidance skills. Teaching them how to fight may (or may not) give them some temporary confidence, but in the end they have less real security. It has the opposite effect from what was planned and it makes knowing how to fight an absolute necessity. It helps to protect the kids from the problem that it itself has created just like nuclear arms were absolutely necessary for protecting the country from the threat of other powers having nuclear arms. They give a little--and only a little--protection from the problems that they themselves caused. Just like rating systems of films do, which was where this whole discussion began. [-mrl]


More on Martial Arts:

As a counterpoint to this series of editorial, the following is contributed by Alan Gopin, himself a Black Belt:

I found your article to show a total lack of understanding of what the martial arts are supposed to be about. The martial arts are *not* about kicking the crap out of people. If all you know about the martial arts is what you see in the movies, I could understand how you could get that opinion, but particularly in your case, I would have expected better. Given the number of movies you have trashed for playing fast and loose with history or the facts, I would have thought that you know that movies play fast and loose with what the martial arts are supposed to be about.

What the martial arts are really about are inner peace, self discipline, and knowing your potential. In my school, every class starts with the students reciting the tenets of Taekwondo:

Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverence, Self Control, Indomitable Spirit.

Every class ends with the student oath:

I intend to develop myself in a positive manner and avoid anything that would reduce my mental growth or physical health. I intend to develop self-discipline in order to bring out the best in myself and others. I intend to use what I learn in class constructively and defensively, to help myself and others, and never to be abusive or offensive.

My department at work has three core values that we live by: Quality, Integrity, and Teamwork. At the dojang, we have the five tenets. The purpose of both of these is the same, and they get similar results. At work, we reinforce these values with organizational training and by the example everyone else sets. In the martial arts, we reinforce them with rituals, the way we address each other, and by the effort we put into our training. The people who honestly live by these values are better people for it.

The martial arts teach their practitioners another important lesson. You can do more than you ever imagined you could. Getting a black belt was one of the most important milestones in my life, at a level with getting married, being bar mitzvahed, or becoming a parent. The black belt test was the most difficult physical ordeal I have ever had to face. Training for it made me a better person physically. Surviving it changed my perspective on what's easy and what's difficult, and showed me that I was really living the tenets of Taekwondo.

Finally, anything can be abused, and I'm sure that there are people who have been taught fighting techniques who abuse that knowledge to hurt people. But they are not martial artists. It's called martial *arts* because it is an art form. Watch some of my instructors do forms and this will become obvious. They have all the grace of a dancer, a figure skater, or a gymnast. [-amg]

[I guess what I see happening is kids taking martial arts instead of going into something like the Cub Scouts. When I was in the Cub Scouts we tried to build the same virtues, but we did it in large part through community service of one form or another. I specifically remember running bingo games in a nursing home and collecting food for famine relief. With the possible exception of what is called above "indomitable spirit," I think it stressed the same virtues, plus the very important one of service to others. I would assume that bringing out the best in oneself would have a large component of unselfish activity. Maybe Alan or some other reader can comment on what martial arts classes do to instill the value of service to others. -mrl]


Disney Films

In response to comments on Usenet regarding the whether Disney will put a happy ending on their version of THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, and what their next "prettied-up" classic would be, Peter Reiher (reiher@wells.cs.ucla.edu) posted:

I've always felt that "Macbeth" is a natural for Disney. They could even re-use some songs from their previous films, with perhaps a few minor lyric alterations. For example Macbeth and his wife could sing "Be Our Guest" during the murder of Duncan -

             "Kill our guest,
              Kill our guest!
              Watch us stab
              Into your chest!
              We so sorry that we woke you,
              But it's truly for the best.

              Don't resist,
              Don't fight back,
              Just accept
              Another hack,
              Slump your body to the floor, so
              We can hack away your torso.

              Ravaged throat,
              Severed spine,
              Soon your kingdom
              Will be mine!
              Three weird sisters said so,
              Aren't you impressed?
              Who would have thought such gore
              From out of you could pour?
              So stab our guest,
              Hack our guest,
              Kill our guest!"

Malcolm could sing to his men "Can You Move the Wood Tonight," and Banquo's ghost could serenade Macbeth with "You've Never Killed a Friend Like Me."

Well, it might work better than "The Hunchback of Notre Dame Lite," at least. [-Peter Reiher]


COLD FEVER:

COLD FEVER (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):

Capsule: A young Japanese travels across Iceland to visit the site where his parents died seven years earlier in this US-Icelandic- German-Danish co-production. Masatoshi Nagase stars as the bewildered traveler who must figure out the rules of this strange land, often just to stay alive. This is a modest, unassuming little story co-written by the film's producer, Jim Stark and the film's director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson. It does for Iceland what Bill Forsyth films do for Scotland, present an affectionate if not entirely credible look at an eccentric but likable people. Rating: Low +2 (-4 to +4)

Atsushi Hirata is a stranger in a strange land. He wanted to spend his holiday in Hawaii, but his grandfather talked him into an unusual family responsibility. He has to trek across Iceland in the dead of winter to the remote spot where his parents died seven years before. There he must perform a traditional Japanese memorial ceremony. Any journey through unfamiliar territory can be a mixture of comedy and horrors and in the frozen Iceland of December the right (or wrong) error could prove fatal. (One ominous road sign asks in several languages "Does anyone know you are going this way?") In Jim Stark's and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson's screenplay characters time and again find they must put themselves in each other's hands or volunteer help to others. Sometimes it proves to be a wise thing to do; sometimes it is a mistake.

The most active character in the story is the landscape of Iceland, a colorless combination of fog, ice, snow, and black rock. Sometimes it looks dead only to come to life unpredictably spouting volcanic geysers of hot water into the air. In this mostly frozen world Atsushi is a fish out of water, trying to understand the strange Icelandic people and the rules they live by. Notable among the people he meets are a woman who claims to collect funerals (or rather pictures and recordings of them), a bar of Icelanders who consider themselves cowboys, and an incredibly rude and vulgar American couple. Sometimes Atsushi finds that going with the flow of the people around him is dangerous, but sometimes fighting the tide is worse.

Atsushi Hirata is played by Masatoshi Nagase, who seems to be specializing in the role of Japanese tourist abroad. He played a similar character in Jim Jarmusch's MYSTERY TRAIN. His character does not convey a lot of emotion that is obvious to a Western audience. And much of his character's appeal is in the empathy of what he must be feeling rather than his expressiveness. Fisher Stevens and Lili Taylor play the American couple whom Atsushi finds much more trouble helping than it seems worth. Much more appealing is the morbid but pleasant fan of funerals, Laura, played by Laura Hughes.

Not all that is in the script is original or even in good taste. To create artificially some visual excitement on the first scene of the frozen landscape of Iceland, Fridriksson borrows a touch from THE ROAD WARRIOR. There seem to be some scenes poking fun at the lack of appeal of Icelandic cuisine that seem a little over the top. The moral of the story and what Atsushi has learned from his experience is a line simply spoken at the end of the film and seems a bit pat and uninspiring. Except perhaps for its setting this film is not going to win any awards for originality or profundity or even for being highly articulate of its theme. But it is as amiable a film as many playing at local theaters and from time to time even manages a few surprises.

COLD FEVER is a likable if somewhat unoriginal road picture, even it may not have much to say other than to accept Icelanders however weird their customs are. One wonders if the beautiful but forbidding vistas of Icelandic landscapes, looking like views of another world, will help or hurt Iceland's tourist business. The film itself rates a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]


Hugo Nominations:

1996 Hugo Nominees & 1946 Retro Hugo Nominees:

1996 HUGO AWARD NOMINEES

  • BEST NOVEL
    • The Time Ships, by Stephen Baxter (HarperPrism)
    • Brightness Reef, by David Brin (Bantam)
    • The Terminal Experiment, by Robert J. Sawyer (HarperPrism; serialized as Hobson's Choice, Analog, Mid-December 1994-March 1995)
    • The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson (Bantam)
    • Remake, by Connie Willis (Bantam)
    • No Award
  • BEST NOVELLA
    • "Fault Lines", by Nancy Kress (Asimov's, August 1995)
    • "A Man of the People", by Ursula K. Le Guin (Asimov's, April 1995)
    • "A Woman's Liberation", by Ursula K. Le Guin (Asimov's, July 1995)
    • "Bibi", by Mike Resnick and Susan Shwartz (Asimov's, Mid-December 1995)
    • "The Death of Captain Future", by Allen Steele (Asimov's, October 1995)
    • No Award
  • BEST NOVELETTE
    • "Luminous", by Greg Egan (Asimov's, September 1995)
    • "TAP", by Greg Egan (Asimov's, November 1995)
    • "Think Like a Dinosaur", by James Kelly (Asimov's, June 1995)
    • "When the Old Gods Die", by Mike Resnick (Asimov's, April 1995)
    • "The Good Rat", by Allen Steele (Analog, Mid-December 1995)
    • "Must and Shall", by Harry Turtledove (Asimov's, November 1995)
    • No Award
  • BEST SHORT STORY
    • "TeleAbsence", by Michael A. Burstein (Analog, July 1995)
    • "Life on the Moon", by Tony Daniel (Asimov's, April 1995)
    • "A Birthday", by Esther M. Friesner (Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1995)
    • "The Lincoln Train", by Maureen F. McHugh (Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1995)
    • "Walking Out", by Michael Swanwick (Asimov's, February 1995)
    • No Award
  • BEST NON-FICTION BOOK
    • Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime of Letters, by Isaac Asimov, edited by Stanley Asimov (Doubleday)
    • Spectrum 2: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, edited by Cathy Burnett and Arnie Fenner (Underwood)
    • Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia, by John Clute (Dorling Kindersley)
    • Alien Horizons: The Fantastic Art of Bob Eggleton, by Bob Eggleton (Dragon's World/Paper Tiger)
    • To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction, by Joanna Russ (Indiana University Press)
    • No Award
  • BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION
    • Apollo 13 (Universal) Brian Grazer, producer; Ron Howard, director; William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert, screenplay
    • "The Coming of Shadows" (Babylon 5) (Warner Brothers) J. Michael Straczynski, Douglas Netter, John Copeland, producers; J. Michael Straczynski, screenplay; Janet Greek, director
    • "The Visitor" (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) (Paramount Television) Rick Berman and Ira Steven Behr, executive producers; Michael Taylor, screenplay; David Livingston, director
    • Toy Story (Buena Vista) Ralph Guggenheim and Bonnie Arnold, producers; John Lasseter, director; Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, and Alec Sokolow, screenplay
    • 12 Monkeys (Universal) Charles Roven, producer; Terry Gilliam, director; David and Janet Peoples, screenplay
    • No Award
  • BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR
    • Ellen Datlow
    • Gardner Dozois
    • Scott Edelman
    • Kristine Kathryn Rusch
    • Stanley Schmidt
    • No Award
  • BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST
    • Jim Burns
    • Thomas Canty
    • Bob Eggleton
    • Don Maitz
    • Michael Whelan
    • No Award
  • BEST ORIGINAL ARTWORK
    • Cover of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October-November 1995 (illustrating "Dankden" by Marc Laidlaw), by Bob Eggleton
    • Cover of Analog, January 1995 (illustrating "Tide of Stars" by Julia Ecklar), by Bob Eggleton
    • Dinotopia: The World Beneath, by James Gurney (Turner)
    • Cover of Analog, March 1995 (illustrating "Renascence" by Poul Anderson), by George H. Krauter
    • Cover of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1995 (illustrating "Tea and Hamsters" by Michael Coney), by Gary Lippincott
    • No Award
  • BEST SEMI-PROZINE
    • Crank!, edited by Bryan Cholfin
    • Interzone, edited by David Pringle
    • Locus, edited by Charles N. Brown
    • The New York Review of Science Fiction, edited by David Hartwell, Ariel Hameon, and Tad Dembinski
    • Science Fiction Chronicle, edited by Andrew Porter
    • No Award
  • BEST FANZINE
    • Ansible, edited by Dave Langford
    • Apparatchik, edited by Andrew Hooper and Victor Gonzalez
    • Attitude, edited by Michael Abbott, John Dallman, and Pam Wells
    • FOSFAX, edited by Timothy Lane and Elizabeth Garrott
    • Lan's Lantern, edited by George "Lan" Laskowski
    • Mimosa, edited by Richard and Nicki Lynch
    • No Award
  • BEST FAN WRITER
    • Sharon Farber
    • Andy Hooper
    • Dave Langford
    • Evelyn C. Leeper
    • Joseph T. Major
    • No Award
  • BEST FAN ARTIST
    • Ian Gunn
    • Teddy Harvia
    • Joe Mayhew
    • Peggy Ranson
    • William Rotsler
    • No Award
  • JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD For Best New Science Fiction Writer, sponsored by Dell Magazines
    • Michael A. Burstein (1st year of eligibility)
    • David Feintuch (2nd year of eligibility)
    • Felicity Savage (2nd year of eligibility)
    • Sharon Shinn (1st year of eligibility)
    • Tricia Sullivan (1st year of eligibility)
    • No Award
1946 RETRO-HUGO AWARD NOMINEES
  • BEST NOVEL
    • "The Mule", by Isaac Asimov (Astounding, November-December 1945; also published as Part II of Foundation and Empire)
    • "Red Sun of Danger", by Edmond Hamilton (writing as Brett Sterling) (Startling Stories, Spring 1945; also published as Danger Planet, by Brett Sterling)
    • That Hideous Strength, by C.S. Lewis (Bodley Head; Macmillan; etc.)
    • Destiny Times Three, by Fritz Leiber (Astounding, March-April 1945; Galaxy Novels; Dell)
    • The World of Null-A, by A.E. Van Vogt (Astounding, August-October 1945; revised for book publication by Simon and Schuster, etc.)
    • No Award
  • BEST NOVELLA
    • "Dead Hand", by Isaac Asimov (Astounding, April 1945; also published as Part I of Foundation and Empire)
    • "Giant Killer", by A. Bertram Chandler (Astounding, October 1945) (World of Wonder, ed. Fletcher Pratt, New York: Twayne, 1951; Great Short Novels of Science Fiction, ed. Robert Silverberg, Ballantine, 1970; The Astounding-Analog Reader, Volume One, ed. Harry Harrison & Brian W. Aldiss, Doubleday, 1972)
    • Animal Farm, by George Orwell (Secker and Warburg; Harcourt Brace; etc.)
    • I Remember Lemuria, by Richard S. Shaver (Amazing, March; Venture Books)
    • No Award
  • BEST NOVELETTE
    • "Pi in the Sky", by Fredric Brown (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Winter 1945) (Space on My Hands, Shasta, 1951; Daymares, Lancer, 1968; The Best of Fredric Brown, Nelson Doubleday, 1976)
    • "Into Thy Hands", by Lester del Rey (Astounding, August 1945) (Looking Forward, ed. Milton Lesser, Beechhurst Press, 1953; The Robot and the Man, ed. Martin Greenberg, Gnome, 1953; Robots and Changelings, Ballantine, 1957; Invasion of the Robots, ed. Roger Elwood, Paperback Library, 1965)
    • "First Contact", by Murray Leinster (Astounding, May 1945) (Best of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin, Crown, 1946; The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr., Simon & Schuster, 1952; Stories for Tomorrow, ed. William Sloane, Funk & Wagnalls, 1954; Best of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin, Crown, 1963; Contact, ed. Noel Keyes, Paperback Library, 1963; First Step Outward, ed. Robert Hoskins, Dell, 1969; Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume 1, ed. Robert Silverberg, Doubleday, 1970; First Contact, ed. Damon Knight, Pinnacle, 1971; The Astounding-Analog Reader, Volume One, ed. Harry Harrison & Brian W. Aldiss, Doubleday, 1972)
    • "The Piper's Son", by Lewis Padgett (Astounding, February 1945) (Best of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin, Crown, 1946; Children of Wonder, ed. William Tenn, Simon & Schuster, 1953; Mutant, Gnome, 1953)
    • "The Mixed Men", by A.E. van Vogt (Astounding, January 1945; revised for book publication in The Mixed Men (Gnome); cut version titled Mission to the Stars)
    • No Award
  • BEST SHORT STORY
    • "The Waveries", by Fredric Brown (Astounding, January 1945) (Invaders of Earth, ed. Groff Conklin, Vanguard, 1952; Angels and Spaceships, Dutton, 1954; Enemies in Space, ed. Groff Conklin, Digit, 1962; Invaders of Earth, ed. Groff Conklin, Tempo, 1962; Connoisseur's S.F., ed. Tom Boardman, Jr., Penguin, 1964; First Contact, ed. Damon Knight, Pinnacle, 1971; Above the Human Landscape, ed. Willis E. McNelly & Leon E. Stover, Pacific Palisades, CA: Goodyear Publishing, 1972; Speculations, ed. Thomas E. Sanders, Glencoe Press, 1973; Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow..., ed. Bonnie L. Heintz, Frank Herbert, Donald A. Joos & Jane Agorn McGee, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1974)
    • "Uncommon Sense", by Hal Clement (Astounding, September 1945) (Small Changes, Doubleday, 1969; The Old Masters, ed. Brian Davis, NEL, 1970)
    • "Correspondence Course", by Raymond F. Jones (Astounding, April 1945) (Adventures in Time and Space, ed. Raymond J. Healy & J. Francis McComas, Random House, 1946)
    • "The Ethical Equations", by Murray Leinster (Astounding, June 1945) (A Treasury of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin, Crown, 1948; Giants Unleashed, ed. Groff Conklin, Grosset & Dunlap, 1965; The Best of Murray Leinster, Corgi, 1976)
    • "What You Need", by Lewis Padgett (Astounding, October 1945) (A Gnome There Was, Simon & Schuster, 1950; Omnibus of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin, Crown, 1952; Line to Tomorrow and Other Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Bantam, 1954)
    • No Award
  • BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION
    • Blithe Spirit (United Artists) Noel Coward, producer; David Lean, director; Noel Coward, David Lean, and Anthony Havelock-Allan, screenplay
    • The Body Snatcher (RKO) Val Lewton, producer; Robert Wise, director; Philip MacDonald and Carlos Keith, screenplay
    • The Horn Blows at Midnight (Warner Brothers) Mark Hellinger, producer; Raoul Walsh, director; Sam Hellman and James V. Kern, screenplay
    • House of Dracula (Universal) Paul Malvern, producer; Erle C. Kenton, director; Edward T. Lowe, screenplay
    • The Picture of Dorian Gray (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) Pandro S. Berman, producer; Albert Lewin, director and screenplay
    • No Award
  • BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR
    • John W. Campbell, Jr. (Astounding Science Fiction)
    • Sam Merwin, Jr. (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Startling Stories)
    • Raymond A. Palmer (Amazing Stories)
    • Donald A. Wollheim (Portable Novels of Science)
    • No Award
  • BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST
    • Earle K. Bergey
    • Hannes Bok
    • Edd Cartier
    • Virgil Finlay
    • Frank R. Paul
    • No Award
  • BEST FANZINE
    • The Acolyte, edited by Francis Towner Laney
    • Chanticleer, edited by Walt Liebscher
    • Fantasy Commentator, edited by A. Langley Searles
    • Shangri L'Affaires, edited by Charles E. Burbee and Gerald Hewitt
    • Voice of the Imagi-Nation, edited by Forrest J Ackerman
    • No Award
  • BEST FAN WRITER
    • Forrest J Ackerman
    • Charles E. Burbee
    • Francis Towner Laney
    • Bob Tucker
    • Art Widner
    • No Award
  • BEST FAN ARTIST
    • Joe Gibson
    • Lou Goldstone, Jr.
    • Alva Rogers
    • William Rotsler
    • Jack Wiedenbeck
    • No Award

Plans are pending at press time to make as many nominees as possible available on L.A.con III's World Wide Web site, http://lacon3.worldcon.org/.


                                   Mark Leeper
                                   MT 3F-434 908-957-5619
                                   mleeper@lucent.com

Quote of the Week:

     School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole
     span of human existence.  They are full of dull,
     unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances,
     brutal violations of common sense and common decency.
                                   --H. L. Mencken