Monday, June 11, 2007

Lloyd Penney, Etobicoke, ON, CANADA

First of all, congratulations on another Hugo nomination! This might be your year, you never know. I honestly expected to see a few Japanese names on that ballot, given that there should be more Japanese fans than American fans at the Worldcon this year. No matter; here's to seeing some new names on the final results. There's you, Chris Garcia, John Hertz, Joseph Major and his great book on Heinlein…fanzine fandom is making its mark on the Hugos once again.

Excellent Taral cover, especially for the colour. Colour always makes the front of the zine, and adds to expectations inside.

The Democrats have taken the Senate, but the White House is, IMHO, theirs for the taking. As you say, there are good candidates, but the Republicans, with their abuses of not only American documents of basic rights, but human rights through the Geneva convention, have left a very bad taste in the mouths of the American electorate and the world in general. Can Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama make America a friend to the world again? Or has Dubya ruined America's reputation as a paragon of rights and diplomacy? We won't find out for a while, but I don't think John McCain or Rudy Giuliani are what the US needs right now … people would expect more of the same, and they do not need that at all.

So many SF people we respect who are in their higher years … Ray Bradbury, 4SJ, and Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Only Isaac Asimov's books take up more space on our bookshelves. If only he was healthy enough to travel … we could give him the respect due him the way so many gave it to Bradbury and Ackerman at LAcon IV.

I trust you noted the Pulitzer Prize awarded Bradbury this past April. Not a Hugo, but nice.

Speaking of the L.A. Worldcon … I had hopes of finding out where the CFG suite was, but we never did find it. We ran into the Simses a few times, but we never did find it … no matter, there was parties by the dozen, and enough food to ruin your diet and send your blood sugar count through the ceiling. Greg Benford's article reminds me that lately, there's been articles in the papers and on television about cellphones not really interfering with the electronics in planes and in hospitals. It's just a case of spurious stories becoming fact through constant retelling, or someone being overly cautious about what might happen, maybe.

I never met Alfred Bester, but his memory lived on with his name being used for a Babylon 5 character. I've already told this story elsewhere … when fans raved about Walter Koenig's performance as PsiCop Alfred Bester on various episodes of Babylon 5 (as I did), one close female friend of mine wondered aloud where JMS got the name. I grabbed the Alfred Bester paperbacks I have off my bookshelf, and her eyes nearly fell out of her head. I explained all to her, and being mostly a media SF fan, she learned a lot that day. I have to admit, though, that not being a comics fan, I didn't know that Bester has written for comic books. There's someone else I wish could be around to see what his work has done for the field.

In this modern age, there are as always benefits and losses. One loss we suffer through is the loss of many good bookstores through the sterile big-box bookstores which offer some selection, but no adventure, which is what I found in independent bookstores and in the good used book places. The tall rows of shelves, the musty paper scent … they always offered some mystery. What shall we find? I have an account with a used book store to the south of us, but in Toronto, we are lucky that we still have a science fiction book store, Bakka-Phoenix.

The canals of Mars … such a romantic idea, signs of a civilization not far from us, an idea that revived the romance of exploration and travel to far lands. The attraction Mars had for us quickly left when the canals were revealed to be mere markings, faint ones that may never have been there. Sometimes, reality intrudes where it's not wanted.

Al Gore was in Toronto recently doing his Powerpoint presentation, A Inconvenient Truth, and it was the hottest ticket in town, sold out in minutes. So many Canadians are sick of our government ducking out of its commitments on the Kyoto Agreement, and for gladhanding about so-called serious pollution reductions. Look for David Suzuki on the net … he has become Canada's loudest and most intelligent voice on reducing pollution and global warming.

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