The Chorus Lines

Challenger #30

2009-08-08T01:24:00.001-05:00

We also heard from Jeff Boman, "one who will not be named", and Ms. Kathrine Jack, Staff Attorney of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, about the case behind my article "The Best Speech I Never Gave" in Challenger #21 -- and the article itself.

Recall that my client had delivered a premature baby at home, which passed away immediately, and then disposed of the body. She was accused of second-degree murder, a charge I got reduced to a misdemeanor.

Ms. Jack wrote to inform me of her group's existence (since I had trouble contacting NOW) and enclosed a copy of Jeanne Flavin's book Our Bodies, Our Crimes (New York University Press, 2009), which mentions my case (page 84). She paid me an enormous compliment: "We recognize that your zealous advocacy made the difference in getting the murder charge dropped.

"I congratulate you for seeking the truth in Ms. -----'s medical records. So often, we see that women are blamed for bad birth outcomes when neither medicine nor science supports such conclusions."

How about that? Guy Lillian, feminist champion.

Joy V. Smith, Lakeland FL

2009-08-08T01:17:00.001-05:00

Another magnificently full Challenger! And with a beautiful and fun cover. I usually enjoy theme zines and anthologies, but this one has a sports theme. I confess that the most sports I watch are during the Olympics, but I enjoyed it (Dear Editor, I knew I would!). I especially liked Mike Resnick's piece on the forgotten basketball player, Bevo; Rose-Marie's article on Quidditch (thank you!); the cricket background; the illos with the Footy piece; and the other background articles. I learned a lot, including about tennis, which I've never paid much attention to, and I'm sorry that Jerry Seegers never got to see a World Series. (A bird in the hand...)

Speaking of birds, I enjoyed The Story of Edgar Allen Crow. (I like critter tales.) Back to sports, one of the best values of cable is replaying old TV shows -- and classic baseball games. Who'd have thought it! And I see that Scotland is a really scenic site for playing golf. I loved Gary R. Robe's piece on hosting minor league players. Opportunities like that can be a lot of fun.

I enjoyed Richard Dengrove's article on Nicholas Cusa; that was very interesting. ('Course I've learned a lot over the years from Richard. Yes, from other zine writers too. There's a quote about that I read recently...) Thanks to Mike Resnick for the WorldCon report. I've never been to a WorldCon and probably never will go, but I love reading about them.

Excellent article by Warren Buff on fandom. Btw, there were two TV series episodes recently that took place at SF conventions. I missed the one on CSI, and I forget the other one, but I wish writers would get over the stereotypes and cliches!

More background and critter tales in The Chorus Lines. Thanks to Curt Phillips for sharing his story of Muffy and Smudge. (Been there, cried, and once said Damn in front of the vet when my last dog was put to sleep.)

Well, I was about to sign off, but I have to thank Nicki Lynch for telling us about her tour to Italy. (I will try to avoid going there in summer!) Oh, what an apropos back cover! And a good feeling of speed.

Thanks for The Zine Dump also. I'm happy to see so many good zines out there, and Janeen's News was full of interesting items I'd like to know more about. Btw, the first I heard about Star Trek fragrances was here and probably in Challenger too. (I know there were at least two mentions.)

Robert Kennedy, Camarillo CA

2009-08-08T01:15:00.000-05:00

Thank you for #29. An outstanding issue.

"The Story of Edgar Allen Crow" by Shelby Vick; "Bravo Bevo!" by Mike Resnick about Clarence "Bevo" Francis; and Steven H Silver's story concerning the Chicago Cubs and Jerry Seeger were all very much enjoyed.

Rose-Marie's explaining the why and wherefore of Quidditch was enlightening.

Then there is your excellent commentary about Jimmy Connors.

Mustn't leave out the first-rate report on their Italy trip by Nicki Lynch.

Joseph Major: Does the "crazy complainant" actually have a BA or is it an AA from a Junior College? With all her problems I find it hard to believe that she could complete college courses.

My thanks for the copy of your Denvention 3 Trip Report. It was very much enjoyed.

You drove 725 miles for 14 1/2 hours? The best I ever did when much younger was 550 miles. Well, you had Rosy's help. Still, that many miles was incredible.

Driving solo, I've popped 800 en route to Confrancisco, after doing over 700 the day before. It helped to be traveling unfamiliar and picturesque roads.

Yes, you are correct that the WorldCon was lost in the huge Colorado Convention Center.

Personally, I was planning to vote for Seattle. Well, they dropped out and Reno is ok and I'll try to make it. I'm not getting any younger and it is getting harder for me to travel. But, Reno isn't that far.

It's also beautiful country. Lake Tahoe is right there.

Referring to me as "LOCmaster" is a stretch. I receive and LOC five fanzines. That's not a lot and my LOCs are not always that good. But, my thanks.

The Fan-Eds' lunch (that included supporters) was most enjoyable.

I agree with you about Dave Langford and the Best Fan Writer Hugo. It was good to see someone else win.

Yes, and that's no slight to Dave, a princely fellow -- but his two-decade domination of the Fan Writer category was bad for the Hugo and bad for fandom. John Scalzi's victory -- and his call for us to "Spread the wealth" in the fan categories -- was utterly righteous.

My niece Sheilah Kennedy and her husband Brad Cozzens (who live in Idaho) attended their first ever SF convention at Denvention 3. I should also mention Margaret H. "Maggie" Bonham who is married to my second cousin Larry Bonham. Maggie has attended a number of SF conventions. But, I believe that Denvention 3 was her first WorldCon. We have never met Larry and this was our first meeting with Maggie. It was a great pleasure. (Larry was recovering from an operation and could not attend.) They live in Montana. Maggie is the author of some 30 books. Most of them about dogs, some about cats, and several fantasy novels. She was on a number of panels. Maggie can be checked out at http://www.shadowhelm.com, or do a Google search on her name, and also check Amazon.com.

May you finally obtain a well deserved HUGO. Perhaps I should not mention it since at Denvention 3 I told you that you were going to win and you didn't.

Fortunes of war, but nice to hear, and thanks.

Joseph T Major, Louisville, Kentucky

2009-08-08T00:48:00.006-05:00

http://members.iglou.com/jtmajor
http://www.efanzines.com/Alexiad/index.htm

"Merritt Green 1952-2008": My condolences to Rosy, Anni, and Joe on the loss of their brother, husband, and son.

A quality that sometimes gets us through challenge is not one that is greatly heralded, or made a Positive Influence. I've seen it referred to as sheer bloody-minded bulling through. Some might say it was Asperger's, if not outright autism.
One Saturday, Lisa and I were having lunch at a Denny's near the University of Louisville. We ordered, they had just brought our meal when ... a woman at a nearby table collapsed. The EMT were called, they came, moved tables around, treated her on the floor, and eventually shipped her out to the hospital. Lisa watched the obituaries for the next few days and there was nothing about her dying.

But, it seemed, she was dining with a granddaughter and infant great-grandchild. The granddaughter was really in a bad state; for example, grandmother was driving. All I could do was sit there, numb, and let her hold my hand. She was terrified.
They let her and the baby have a ride to the hospital in the ambulance, and presumably someone would come and get them. Then they thanked me. I'd been reassuring.

Breaking down wouldn't have done anyone any good, me least of all. There wasn't anything else I could have done.

However, we have never eaten at that restaurant since.

"Bravo Bevo!": And it seems Bevo Francis has never been nominated to the National Collegiate Hall of Fame, either. This sounds like "Nobody Bothers Gus".

"Cricket for Novel Readers": And in P. G. Wodehouse's The Swoop!, his attempt to deconstruct the England Invaded novel, the news of the invasion of England was buried in the stop press items, amid the cricket results.

"I Call It Loyalty": You do realize that one of the other admirers of the Billy Goat Tavern was Mike Royko, who put in his columns many references to the Siannises and their establishment.
"Golf in the Con-Dom": It was Carson Napier who commented on golf, and he said, "Golf is a mental disorder." Lost on Venus (1932). I seem to be the only man in the family who doesn't like it. My brother plays with his son and son-in-law. The cousins who run the florists' greenhouses won a cancer-charity tournament, but then Mack is a cancer survivor. Cousin Dick down in Houston has been finding it easier to shoot his age of late.

"The Stars My Consternation": And Disch passed along from Samuel Delany a reference to a scene on a nonexistent page of Starship Troopers. The page might exist if Chip had been reading a Large Print Edition, but there is no scene such as he describes (Rico checking his makeup in a mirror).

What killed so much of the New Wave, as I understand Darrell Schweitzer to say, was not what was in it but what wasn't. So much of it was "non-functional word patterns"; things that looked nice but didn't say anything. This is the sort of thing that goes over very well in the Semotics of Deconstruction 325 class.

"Denvention 3 Diary": Alas, Larry Smith won't be in Montreal. Something about the difficulty of getting his stock through Douane Canada Customs. So the belly dancing will have to be somewhere else.

"The Chorus Lines": Me: Well, Curlin made the Breeders' Cup and Big Brown didn't. So much for my predictive abilities. On the other hand, in January we went to see Curlin, and he let us pat him.

An event charmingly described in that month's Alexiad.

John Purcell: Wondering "Which should I want most: a long life or a good pizza?" Since I don't like pizza, the question is a non-starter for me.

Curt Phillips: Shopping on-line is great if you know what you want already and the problem is how to get it. I don't think, for example, that I've ever seen Lord Mountevans' South with Scott in any bookstore anywhere. (Hint: he was the last surviving person to have seen Scott alive for the last time.) But if I want to look, there's no telling what I could find. The bookstore in Chambersburg that had The Log of "Bob" Bartlett for example . . ."Just Here for the Gelato": Now Nicki's gone and done it. The WWF will be doing "The Twilight of the Gods", complete with losing wrestlers being burned on a funeral pyre right in the middle of the ring. She HAD to suggest it!

Leonardo liked to experiment and innovate. This is why the "Last Supper" is in such bad shape; it was painted using a technique that he had devised and understandably has not been used again. InnovaTion is not always for the best.

Ned Brooks, Lilburn GA

2009-08-08T00:42:00.001-05:00

Thanks for the massive zine. How did you come up with the notion that a sports-themed issue was needed? I have nothing against sports in particular, but I know almost nothing about them either - I am about as sports-challenged as I am fashion-challenged. I hope you are not planning a fashion issue.... The only sport I ever enjoyed at all was pool (but not in River City) and I wasn't much good at that. I never got anything out of watching sporting events.

Great story [from Shelby Vick] about Edgar Allan Crow. I never had a pet either, but at least I can understand the appeal. Nephew Joe, who was at several DSCs, now has a large hairy Akita that he calls "Chicken", and my mother and sister have dog-sat several beasts for friends -- I have occasionally walked one of these.

Frank Buck lives!

I thought NASCAR was a religion rather than a sport....

Rose-Marie is right about the physical problems of actually riding on a broom. In many old illustrations, the witch rides "sidesaddle", that is, with both legs on the same side of the broom handle. But it still wouldn't be very comfortable if your entire weight actually rests on such a narrow support. However, as a broom flying is pure fantasy, perhaps the magical broom confers some degree of weightlessness on the rider -- that would make the acrobatics of Quidditch more plausible. I'm told that the oldest pictures of witches riding a broom have the brushy part in front, perhaps as an analog of a horse's head -- the change to having the brush behind might have been inspired by some aerodynamic understanding that it would serve as a stabilizing tail surface. Either way however, the magical propulsion properties of the broom must also aid the rider in staying with the thing. Cartoons and video simulations of broom-riding seem to imply that the propulsive force is normally along the direction of the handle.

Interesting article about cover art. I probably pay more attention to the dramatic implications of the title words than to the art, though there is bound to be a strong subconscious effect of the artwork -- and I have learned that neither is much of a guide to whether I would actually enjoy reading the book. The covers that Mervyn Peake and Edward Gorey did for their own books are quite relevant, but of course in general the author is not an artist and may not have any say at all in what art goes on the book -- I can't imagine that Evangeline Walton was much taken with the dust-jacket of her 1936 The Virgin and the Swine, a novel based on the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion.

Take a look opposite, readers; judge for yourselves.

Cathy Palmer-Lister

2009-08-08T00:38:00.001-05:00

http://www.conceptsff.ca

http://www.monsffa.com

Hi, Guy! Thanks for Challenger! Cool cover, made me laugh.

First, please convey to Rosy my condolences on the passing of her brother. I suffered a huge shock when I lost a parent, I can't imagine losing a sibling. The poem you inscribed into the memory book is Requiem, by Robert Louis Stevenson, and it's one of my favourites. The final lines were indeed engraved on his tomb in Samoa.

Re "The Story of Edgar Allen Crow" --what a great name for a pet crow! And how wonderful that he lived to the ripe old age of 28. We don't have fish crows here, I had never heard of the species before, but lots of their cousins inhabit the area. I once saw an astonishing number of crows, at least a dozen, in a neighbour's maple tree and learned why a group of crows is called a murder. Glad I wasn't trying to sleep through the ruckus. I'm not superstitious, but it was sort of spooky.

Sports -- I was always a bookworm, and not much into physical exercise. When I wasn't reading, I was listening to music. Or eating, another reason I wasn't keen on sports. I had some interest in hockey, being Canadian after all! but gradually lost interest in watching it as the league expanded beyond the stage where I could recognize all the players, and then the fighting really turned me off completely. Our international woman's team is doing well, though. I wish I had seen the game against Finland, but I was doing some running around that afternoon. I got hooked on football (soccer, that is) years ago during the time of the NASL when the Manic played in Montreal. Then I got my husband hooked on the sport, and now he lives and breathes soccer to the point of watching every single EPL match, all the Champion's League matches, Euro Cup -- well, you get the picture. Just as Rich Lynch discovered the all-baseball TV channel, we discovered the all-soccer (and sometimes rugby) channel.

In "Cover Judgment", James Bacon describes Foyle's Bookstore. I was there in '05, having extended my Glasgow WC holiday to include a week in London. I'm so jealous of Londoners, they have all the best shops! Foyle's had some of the most delightful books for kids, too, and if I hadn't already retired from teaching, I would have been shipping crates of books home. But returning to book covers, I have bought books based on covers. One of them was Game of Thrones by George RR Martin. Great-looking guy on a black horse, black crow, white snow, huge wolf, burning fortress... I wanted the picture, but found the book was one of the best I had read in many years and became a devoted GRRM fan. Covers are important to me. Have you noticed how boring cover art is becoming these days? At a convention panel, I asked why this was, and was told publishers want to make covers less overtly SFF to attract a wider audience. Even the GRRM covers have become mundane, though still done by Stephen Youll, one of my favourite artists.

Fascinating article from Gregory Benford. I note that it dates back to 1998. I think some things have gotten worse since then, and it's not just the covers. I find that novels, whether SF or fantasy, tend more and more to fall into either utopian or dystopian world views, and I dislike both extremes. Neither magic swords nor very big spaceships can be counted on to save humanity, and why would I want to spend my time reading about cruelty and ugliness? I resent the amount of space bookstores "waste" on media tie-ins, too. I have read a few good ones, but had to go through a lot of drivel to find them, so I don't read them anymore.

Being very involved in running a con and publishing a clubzine, I am always interested in articles like Warren Buff's "Against the Graying of Fandom". In my experience, I have to agree with Warren that there are young fans, they are attending cons though the grey-headed lot aren't much interested in those cons, and they are indeed starting their own conventions. In fact, every time I get good people on my concom, they take off to start their own, and I'm back to pleading for volunteers. It's not so good for me, but it's good for fandom in Montreal. We are now several cons richer than we were a few years back. The kids are OK, they just have different priorities.

I dream of visiting Italy, especially Florence and Venice, but good gelato is available in Montreal if you know where to look. We have a huge Italian population. Just Google for Gelato in Montreal.

Jerry Kaufman, Seattle, WA

2009-08-08T00:36:00.000-05:00

Thanks for the paper version of Challenger 29 -- it helped pass the time on our recent flight to Denver. We were at last using the tickets we'd bought last year for our (cancelled) trip to Worldcon. (This visit was purely vacation - visiting with my sister and bro-in-law, and sightseeing.)

Earlier this year, we decided to keep our out-of-town travel to a minimum, so we're not going to Montreal. That saved us a bundle, which immediately disappeared as our furnace died and was replaced in March. I hope you guys have a fine Fanzine Feast despite our absence. Once again you'll probably lack a significant portion of Corflu attendees - I think most of us who go to Corflu can't really afford too many trips to big cons, and we'll be hoarding our nickels in hopes of getting to the UK next spring for Rob Jackson's Corflu.

I'm afraid much of this issue of Chall did not excite me, as I'm not a sports fan. I tried a paragraph here and there, but even the articles on baseball (the sport I know the most about) didn't grab me.

That's why there was other stuff in the issue! Nothing appeals to everybody, but with a variety of subjects in one's zine, you've got a better chance of catching your audience's fancy.

I'll guess that you ran Greg's review of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of because of Tom Disch's recent death. Disch's conclusions, as reported by Greg, and his decline and death, add up to one very sad summary of a life. It seems as though Disch decided that his life had long passed its high point and not only was the future not worth staying around for, the past may have lost its value, too. Disch was far from being a comforting writer, and the message of his death is also discomforting. (This may be cheap analysis on my part, but I understand the feelings, having had them myself from time to time.)

I greatly enjoyed Nicki Lynch on her and Rich's trip to Italy - it's a destination that's long been on my own list of places to see. I was amused by Kurt Erichsen's drawings of them - Rich is much taller than Nicki in life, but Kurt has shown them of about equal height. This reminds me of the cover drawing Ross Chamberlain did for an issue of our '70s fanzine The Spanish Inquisition. We conceived a scene in which I was torturing Mike Glicksohn by waving a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale under his nose while he was manacled to a dungeon wall. Ross had never met Mike (who is around my height, about five and a half feet tall), so drew what most people took for the six footer Bill Bowers, albeit wearing Mike's signature Aussie hat.

And that's the digression for this letter, which will now draw to an appreciative close.

P.S. If you're interested in reading Suzie's TAFF trip report, it's now available for $7 postpaid.

John Thiel, Lafayette IN

2009-08-08T00:35:00.002-05:00

What a splendid cover on the December issue. The glistening robot on his surfboard with its jet propulsion, or even rocket propulsion, in a comic realism and in a style that reminds me of Leger, but is inimitably a work of creative and original SF art. It made the fanzine a pleasure to receive.

John Purcell, College Station TX

2009-08-08T00:35:00.001-05:00

Holy Hannah, Guy! Another mailbox-rupturing issue! Not only large, but chock full of fine articles. A stellar effort, sir. Will you have another one out before Fencon VI in September? My wife and I are planning to be there; after all, Warren Buff is the Fan GoH, and there is that unsanctioned Hearts tournament lined up for that weekend during the con. The groundwork for this was laid out in the Southern Fandom listserv, and the last I knew contestants included you, me, Warren, and Dean Sweatman. There may have been a couple more, but I'm not sure. Should be fun no matter what.

Jiminy Christmas, I don't know where to start in LOCcing this issue. First off, my condolences to Rosie and you on the loss of Merritt Green. Too damn young, if you ask me. That picture of him on page 2 is a great one. Thank you for sharing this with us.

So we have here a sports issue of Challenger. I didn't have the time to get something to you, but it appears you had no trouble finding material. Lessee: basketball, baseball, golf, cricket, Australian Rules football, tennis, Quidditch, NASCAR ("they're making another left turn!"), but no hockey. That would have been my contribution. Or soccer. I coached my son's soccer team for a couple years,and in the Spring 2008 season the team won its division in College Station. I have the team picture in my office at Blinn College, so when we report back next week (preparation for summer classes) I will make it a point to scan the photo and send it to you.

Steven Silver's article on the futility of the Chicago Cubs is probably my favorite selection from this entire massive issue, which has a ton of great material. I can certainly identify with Steven; I am a life-long Minnesota Twins fan, and have suffered through some really terrible years when the team just couldn't seem to do anything right. Unlike the Cubs, the Twins have won two of their three World Series appearances (1987 and 1991; in 1965 they lost to the Dodgers in seven games, which had Koufax and Drysdale at their peaks), so we're not championship-frustrated like Cubs fans. Even so, the Cubs have a really good team this year (again) and they're in a very difficult division: the NL Central, which boasts two other very good teams, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers. Good luck to the Cubs! I'm pulling for you, Steven.

James Bacon's article about the various covers to Philip K. Dick's award winning novel The Man in the High Castle (and other books, too) was very interesting. The cover scans were helpful in matching up to the text, and James' commentary proved insightful. I have never been one to really sit down and analyze cover art; about the only thing I care about is that the cover be directly related to a key scene or theme in the book, and it definitely appears that most of these covers do this job well. The cover scan on page 28 doesn't do much for me, though; it doth not compute. Some year I must reread The Man in the High Castle. Dick is one of those authors that bears re-reading from time to time, he was that good.

Interesting to read something by David Schlosser in Challenger. I haven't seen David since the mid-80s when I lived in Los Angeles with my first wife (who shall forever remain nameless, so don't ask). A very nice fellow, and I never knew David golfed. If he's still in it, he is one of the longest-serving members of LASFAPA, which I joined for a couple years (~1979-80). Now you've got me wondering what else he's up to these days. I may have to contact him and say hello.

Another good article in here is Gary Robe's account of housing minor league ballplayers. That would have been interesting. I am such a baseball nut that I would have enjoyed it. Here in Bryan-College Station, Texas, we have one of college baseball's best teams, the Texas A&M Aggies, and their games are the best buy in town: $6 per person (beats out the football team's exorbitant $55 fee for the cheap seats), and Olsen Field has great sightlines and seats 6,000. Our next door neighbor is the head groundskeeper for TAMU athletic facilities, Leo Gertz. Heckuva nice guy. We talk sports all the time. Getting back to baseball, there is a semi-pro team in the area, too, the Brazos Bombers. This is basically a conglomeration of college and former-college/pro players who form one of the 6 teams in a semi-pro Texas league. Good prices there, too: $14 gets you into the game and buys you a couple hotdogs and a soft drink. Not bad.

I also really enjoyed your article about Jimmy Connors, Guy. Well done. I never really cared for Connors as a person -- he seemed so full of himself and angry all the time - but as a tennis player, he was one of the all-time greats and I respected his abilities. You told a great story about meeting him and acting all bubbly-headed at the time. Yes, this was a fun article.

Finally, Curt Phillips made me blush in his LOC. Thank you, Curt. Now let's see if you can get the third issue of Smoooooth out in less than 23 years. This new-fangled technology tends to speed things up a bit, I have noticed.

Great final article by Nicki Lynch. Man, I haven't seen her positively years! I really liked this trip report. She made me so jealous; Italy is one of those countries Valerie and I would like to visit some year, probably after I retire from teaching. So that makes it 10 to 15 years from now. Yeah. Italy should still be there, I hope

Fine issue, Guy. Good luck with the Hugo voting this year. For your information, Challenger is my choice this year. Then again, my record as a fannish prognosticator is not the greatest, but I thought you might like to know how I feel about your zine. It is one of my favorites currently being pubbed. Bon chance, mon ami.

Martin Morse Wooster, Silver Spring MD

2009-08-08T00:32:00.000-05:00

Many thanks for Challenger 29. I was very happy to read all the articles about the great game of baseball. Anyone who wants to read my thoughts about my team, the Baltimore Orioles, can log on to National Review Online -- put down that barf bag, Guy, this isn't political! -- and find a fine symposium where fans of every team said "Why I Love the (My Team)". Being the Orioles fan I got to go first!

I think I've been to even more dead stadiums than Rich Lynch has, and can tie in many of those trips to fandom. I went to Exhibition Stadium in Toronto and the Kingdome with Alan Rosenthal, who moved from Toronto to Seattle and changed his nationality in the process. (I also took him to RFK Stadium before the Nationals moved.) Like Rich, I saw Candlestick Park at the 1993 worldcon.

But my favorite dead stadium story concerns former Midwest fan Ed Zdrojewski, who asked me to be his best man at his first marriage in 1991. (It was a pagan wedding. The bride was a witch -- and the groom was too.) Ed said he needed a bachelor party, so we went to County Stadium and ended up in the fantasy broadcasting booth in the 4^th inning of a Brewers-Angels game. We decided the game would be better with some special effects, so we threw in an earthquake, a tidal wave, and plenty of gratuitous cheese eating. The Brewers scored two or three runs, and the Angels had five or six, so we had 45 minutes to rant. Dave Parker was an Angel then, so in his honor when the Angels had batted a round, we sang a horrifically off-key falsetto version of "We Are Family" in honor of Parker's appearance for the '79 Pirates. It was a great day.

Gary Robe's piece about Kingsport was really fun to read, and gave a lot of insight into minor league baseball. But Lastings Milledge's name is spelled that way (not "Millage"). I saw him play a doubleheader in Denver during the worldcon. He hit a couple of home runs and made some great plays in center field. Coors Field is a very nice stadium, by the way; they have a mountain landscape in center field, and whenever the Rockies hit a home run, the waterfall erupts. Plus there's a brewpub inside the stadium -- which makes some very good beer.

Mike Resnick's worldcon report was, as always, entertaining. I don't think the lack of hotels was a problem; I ended up staying at a Knights Inn a couple of miles away that was dilapidated (the shower didn't work, and the "continental breakfast" was stale pastry) but was only $48 a night. My guess is that the economy was partially responsible, but it's also true that Denver is an expensive flight from either coast -- particularly in high season.

We stayed at a Motel 6 a few miles from the convention center -- also for economy -- and had early problems parking, which was also expensive.

Mark Plummer, Croydon, Surrey, U.K.

2009-08-08T00:31:00.000-05:00

Ironically, I read James Bacon's somewhat breathless perambulation through the science fiction section of Foyles [Book Store] and the associated paean of praise for The Man in the High Castle shortly after I got back from the British Eastercon (co-chaired by James) where a panel comparing old and new SF found that of the three older titles under consideration TMITHC was the least resilient to a twenty-first century reading.

I never used to be that enthusiastic or troubled by book cover artwork or design, or at least that's what I would always have said -- but if I think about it for more than a moment I can see that of course cover artwork has been an important influence. Even now, I'm significantly more likely to buy an old fifties paperback with a Richard Powers cover than a comparable edition decorated by some other artist. My perception of science fiction as an adult literary form was absolutely shaped by the Chris Foss spaceships which seemed to dominate UK SF paperback covers in my formative years, long before I ever read any of those books and learned that the covers weren't necessarily even faintly associated with the texts. The Penguin branding was also an important influence on my reading in my late teens -- this would be in the early eighties -- with the simple, clean Ionicus covers for P G Wodehouse and the almost childlike bright colours of Christopher Corr that adorned George Orwell. I could never understand why Penguin abandoned those distinctive orange spines. It seemed such an odd decision given that it was such a strong brand. Penguin books were virtually a genre in themselves, something that I'm sure contributed to my long-standing sense that John Wyndham isn't really an SF writer because he's so obviously a Penguin writer.

The variety of covers on different editions of TMITHC are, as James speculates, "a revenue-making thing" in as much as that's the purpose of all book covers: to sell the book. Presumably if you or I or James want to buy a copy of TMITHC in a real-life bookshop, and so long as that bookshop files its stock in some sort of coherent fashion (which, I should add, once upon a time Foyles didn't, at least from a customer viewpoint), then it doesn't much matter what's on the cover when it comes to getting us to pick the book up. The cover art or design is there to encourage somebody to pick up the book who's never heard of it or possibly even of its author. There's a perception that different cover designs potentially reach different target audiences, hence the "rounded edge" version of The Forever War that James mentions, which was, I believe, part of an attempt to market a number of solidly genre titles to a mainstream audience by stripping out the external genre trappings in favour of (hopefully striking) simple images and an unconventional profile -- although playing with the shape of the book is itself a quintessentially science-fictional piece of imagery. Gollancz have tried a number of initiatives over here in the last few years, most recently with a series of "Future Classics" which were notable for innovative design and putting neither author nor title on the front cover, and now a series of space operas in monochrome livery which eschew any trace of a space ship. I've no idea whether it works, but the battle seems to be to get the bookshops to file such editions somewhere other than in the "science fiction and fantasy" section and my personal experience is that it's been a lost fight -- setting aside one Croydon bookstore which may be undertaking an experiment of its own by filing Chris Priest's The Separation in its "History" section.

I had a look online at the plain white cover for the Penguin Essentials TMITHC James so decries, and sure, I don't think it's as evocative as the swastikas-and-stripes version of the Penguin Classic you use to illustrate the article. It is in fact damn near invisible on Penguin's own webpage. But I can see how the minimalist design would stand out in a bookshop and Dick's name combined with a pull quote from Rolling Stone probably does have an appeal for a market segment that wouldn't have bought the Bladerunner-esque edition of the same book from the mid-Eighties or the similarly overtly science-fictional Chris Moore-adorned Roc paperback from the nineties that I have in front of me right now.

The same thing is presumably at play with the various editions of Dune that are currently available. For James, the classic Schoenherr cover on the Gollancz SF Masterwork clearly works whereas the Hodder paperback by isitdesign doesn't, and if I didn't already have the book and wanted a copy I'd go for the former too. But the Schoenherr does look old-fashioned which isn't a problem for me -- quite the opposite, in fact -- and the more contemporary starry image used by Hodder may work for an audience less immersed in classic genre imagery.

I generally prefer Schoenherr's interior line art to his covers, but his Dune paintings are his best work, all-time. Great artist -- a shame he won but one Hugo, but at least he got that.

And in answer to James question, "I wonder how much input the author genuinely has into the cover," I'd refer him to Charles Stross's blog post at:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2008/04/preemptive_alert.html

which was provoked by the US hardcover edition of Saturn's Children. If you've seen that book you'll understand why Charlie felt moved to comment on the matter.

I was "moved" by that cover, too -- and by the book itself, which I call "Good Friday".

Henry L. Welch, Editor, The Knarley Knews

2009-08-08T00:30:00.000-05:00

http://tkk.welchcastle.com/

Thanks for the latest Challenger.

My condolences on Merritt's death.

I've long tired of the "core fandom" view of many fanzine fans that Warren Buff comments on. I've been trashed for not worshiping faanish history and my attempts to carve my own path. This has done much to alienate me.

And for more on this topic ...

Alexis Gilliland, Arlington VA

2009-08-08T00:28:00.002-05:00

Thank you for the hard copy of Challenger #29, very elegantly turned out as usual. It should be counted a failing of mine that I have been unable to focus on e-fanzines, which is where a lot of the action is, and which may be in contention to be the wave of the future. In spite of your kind solicitation, I regret that I had nothing sports-related to submit, except for a brief account of my career as captain of the GWU chess team. We played in the DC Chess League, and while chess hardly qualifies as a sport, it might perhaps be of interest that after I got rid of the GW students, we took first once, tied for first once, and came in second three times. (You think that is a long time to be team captain? I was in grad school, going at night, but that would be an explanation not an excuse.) The sports connection would be the inverse relationship between the players being students and their excellence at any given sport, a relationship especially noticed in sports where the players can make a lot of money.

Alan White's cover is well executed and unexpectedly witty. Good for him. Regarding the print version of this issue, you mention that the print was a bit light on some copies. Not to the point of illegibility, of course, but Brad Foster's work does suffer a bit.

And considering the generosity fan artists like Brad -- and you -- show to fan-eds, that was unforgivable. My printer was herself very generous -- giving me more copies than I paid for! -- but I'm considering alternatives.

On the graying of fandom, it would appear that the new prospects coming up (or on-line in the case of the internet) tend to have new idea and new interests to the extent that many of the older fans are unable or unwilling to connect with them. Which means that "fandom" is here defined generationally, as to some extent it has always been. (First Fandom was originally defined as those who had been active prior to January 1, 1938, for example.) So it appears that some clubs and conventions tend to be unwelcoming to newcomers, in part because the newcomers are seen as heretics, and in part as a desire of the good, gray fans to cling to their hard-won social status. Where you find such clubs, there you will find fannish graying since the average age goes up year after year because they aren't recruiting new members.

And more ...

Milt Stevens. Simi Valley, CA

2009-08-08T00:28:00.001-05:00

In Challenger #29, the opinions in Warren Buff's article on the graying of fandom sound awfully familiar. Someone has said all of this before. They may even have said it a number of times. Of course, it's hard to remember at my age. You know you're getting older when your dandruff suffers from malnutrition.

There is a difference between Fandom and fandom. I didn't always make this distinction, but I now believe it to be necessary. When I say Fandom I mean the science fiction and fantasy thing we've been associated with in the past. It's basically an intentional group for people who have some association with science fiction and fantasy. In the early days, Fandom was a universal state something like the Roman Empire. We still use the terminology of that long gone universal state. By now, Fandom is more like the Holy Roman Empire. We're really a loose confederation of feuding principalities. I suspect this was an inevitable evolution. There is probably a maximum size that any intentional group can reach before it starts breaking up into smaller groups.

When I say fandom I mean any intentional group. I can talk about comics fandom, mystery fandom, SCA fandom, gaming fandom, or anime fandom, and I believe I'm making sense. When I was in college my father joined the Horseless Carriage Club of Southern California. I started referring to it as old car fandom. After awhile, so did he. All intentional groups have some similarities. This even includes groups that are ostensibly political or religious. In the large anonymous cities of today, our only real communities are intentional groups.

There are thousands of fandoms. Some of them resemble us even though they aren't really us. There have been a whole bunch of Creation Cons in Southern California. They are devoted to things like Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Xena. I've thought about attending one of them, but I've never done it. At times, they've done things that might be interpreted as unfriendly. They have scheduled cons the week before one of our cons and in the same hotel. That's how we discovered that they have no impact on us at all.

Thinking about recruiting people into Fandom, I'm reminded of the movie Dogma. In that movie, a Catholic cardinal is trying to increase the attendance of his church. First, he gets rid of the statuary of the crucified Jesus, because that creeps people out. He replaces it with the OK Jesus who sort of looks like Bob's Big Boy with a beard. Then he made a special offer of forgiveness for all sins whatsoever for everyone who entered the church on a particular date. Even people who are not religious should realize there is something wrong here. We should be careful not to do something similar to what the cardinal was doing. We don't want to sacrifice our essential nature for the sake of expansion. That would be counterproductive.

Naturally, there are some things going on in the general culture that influence us. The Bowling Alone syndrome is one of them. Maybe because of the internet and maybe because of other reasons, people are not gathering together to socialize as much as they did in earlier decades. It seems unlikely that this will be a permanent situation. By nature, we are social beings.

It is generally assumed that the internet is attracting many of the teenagers who would have been attracted to fandom in times past. That seems to be true. Another thing that slows our recruitment of younger people is the fear of pedophilia. I think back to how things were years ago. In 1970, Craig Miller and I lived a couple of miles from each other on the west side of Los Angeles. We both were members of LASFS. I was in my late twenties, and Craig was in high school. At the time, I didn't think anything about having Craig drop by my apartment. If a similar situation were to happen today, the neighbors would start watching me if they didn't call the police. These days, you have to be a little more careful about being friends with teenagers. Even with older people, it isn't a good idea to be overly friendly. People will start suspecting your motives. When you think about it you realize one of the worst things about the evangelicals is their oozing friendliness. We don't really want to be like them.

And yet more ...

Dale Speirs, Calgary AL ,Canada

2009-08-08T00:26:00.000-05:00

Challenger #29 is on hand, many thanks. Rose-Marie's article on the game Quidditch reminded me of another game-that-never-was, Mad magazine's famous "23-man Squamish" from back in the 1960s. The rules of that game were ridiculously complicated, with strange and undefined playing implements and player positions. One or two college teams were started up to play it, but for some reason it never became a professional sport.

Warren Buff mentioned the attempt by a Las Vegas fan to declare his tiny little segment of fanzine fandom to be Core Fandom. I have never agreed to this idea because both zinedom and fandom are reticulated networks, neither of which has a genuine centre. Zinedom is a network of nodes where each zine is a node and had a unique mailing list, usually overlapping with other zines but not exactly. SF fans, even back in the 1930s or 1950s, had different connections with other fans, again many in common but not exactly. Your zine is at a node with other SF zines both paper and electronic. My zine shares some of the same connections on the Papernet but not your connections on the Internet, just as you do not get the mail-art zines I do, and they do not trade for SF fanzines.

In like manner, there is no Core Fandom and never has been. The 1950s SF clubs in Britain or Canada may have known about the American clubs but did not consider them as the centre. Canadian fandom in particular, despite the efforts of the late Chester Cuthbert (1912-2009), never had a centre, but was only ever a network of cities with just the thinnest vertices connecting them. The term I use for fandom today is Atomized Fandom. Not only are fans disconnected in time and space, but even within the same city the Firefly crowd has nothing to say to the gray-haired Trekkies. If it isn't Sailor Moon or Ranma 1 / 2, the anime fans don't want to know about it. Things fall apart, and the centre did not hold.

My feeling on the question of fandom's generations ... Each of us is brought into the SF community by enjoyment of the aspect of the genre current when we discover sensawunda. So science fiction for me resonates of the comics, of Andre Norton, Forbidden Planet, Philip K. Dick, The Twilight Zone, Poul Anderson and Analog. Fandom for me naturally involved meeting people who shared my love of such stuff. Older fans recall the pulps and Captain Future and their ghetto days in fanzining and see trufandom as enjoying that. Fans getting into the genre now would treasure Harry Potter, gaming and the slew of video SF, the second incarnation of Battlestar Galactica and Stargate and so forth -- and fandom for them would mean celebrating those loves. Like seeks like; it's only natural.

As people delve more deeply into the community of fandom, they encounter its history and the stuff that brought earlier generations into the fold. If they want to get the most of fandom, they'll learn to appreciate those things as well -- much as music aficionados who love rock learn to understand jazz.

But it's fatuous to expect people to embrace the whole picture from Jump Street. Fatuous, unfair, and as I found when I joined fanzine fandom, ugly.

The divisions you speak of are normal, inevitable, and tolerable. I feel we must let people follow their loves, and I would hope fans of whatever generation would show humor and tolerance and enjoy one another's fannishness even if the source of that affection isn't the same as theirs. In other words, I can enjoy cute kids running around in homemade Stargate uniforms and can hope they'll learn to understand why I prefer fanzines to blogs Likewise, I can enjoy reading Warhoon ... and have the right to expect that my right to my fandom is respected.

Science fiction is the ultimate Big Tent. .No one has the singular and unique right to call himself a fan and others phonies. No one. As for "Core Fandom", it's just a name. Like I say, I think the movie was a complete waste of Hilary Swank.

Camille Cazedessus

2009-08-08T00:25:00.000-05:00

An article on fandom that does not mention FIAWOL? A gross omission! I wuz a fan, am a fan, and will die a fan...been that way since the late 1950's.

Happy to remind your readers that, yes indeed, "Fandom is a way of life" and that Pulpdom, Son of ERB-dom, lives!

I've just pubbed Pulpdom #54 and am at work on #55. #53 contained a never before reprinted short story by Otis A. Kline, "The Fang of Amm Jemel" (Argosy,1935)

R. Laurraine Tutihasi, Oro Valley AZ

2009-08-08T00:23:00.000-05:00

Thanks for mailing me the zine. I can understand why you can't afford to mail out too many copies. That's quite a book.

My condolences to you and Rosy on the loss of Merritt. Also to his widow -- must be rough.

I don't have a lot to say about the sports articles, since none of them covered my favourites -- figure skating and equestrian events such as dressage and show jumping.

Strange you should mentioned dressage as I'm renewing my acquaintanceship with Charles deKunffy, onetime GHLIII teacher and equestrian authority. (See my editorial.)

So you need a storage unit -- not enough room in your house for your vast fanzine collection? Our new house should be large enough for all our thousands of books. I'm thinking of thinning out the collection after we move (right now they're still mostly in boxes from our previous move), but we keep buying new ones.

Us too. Our storage unit holds all kinds of crap, but mostly, books -- and we got rid of 25 boxes when we left New Orleans!

Thanks for the heads up on Doc Rat -- looks good.

I much enjoyed Warren Buff's article, "Against the Graying of Fandom". He made a lot of good points. I have a number of younger fan friends, so I know there are a few younger fans entering all the time.

I'm probably just showing my ignorance, but I'm puzzled by his LoC. Do you mean to say that there are actually laws that make lynching legal? Sorry, I grew up in the northeast. I really would like to know. I didn't get very far searching on the Internet -- just more confused.

I greatly enjoyed the Lynchi trip report about Italy. I was there in 1970 but mostly only saw Rome. My parents have seen more, but I haven't been back since. I think one of their trips involved driving themselves around, but I could be misremembering. I recall another fan saying that Italians drove like maniacs and didn't bothering observing any traffic laws, but that
was quite a while ago. I do recall that being a pedestrian in Rome was pretty tricky. Someone made the remark that the safest way to cross a street in Rome was to find a group of nuns. I couldn't tell exactly when the Lynchi made the trip, but I assume it was in the last year or two. I winced every time they talked about food. Since discovering that I'm gluten-intolerant, it's become nearly impossible for me to have any Italian food unless I make it myself. There's actually a pizzeria in Phoenix that makes gluten-free pizza. It's good, but of course it's not the same. There aren't any in Tucson that I know of, but I plan to attend a gluten-free faire next weekend.

When my mother and I were in Rome, nearly everyone was on strike -- taxi drivers, hotel workers, etc. We found a driver to take us around; they're a cross between tour guides and taxi drivers. We went to Villa D'Este, which is outside of Rome. It's a beautiful place with lots and lots of fountains. We were supposed to go to Pompeii, but that didn't come off. There are certainly many reasons to go back to Italy one of these years.

I remember being at the Vatican but don't really remember much about the museum except that we were there. I recall not being able to take photos in the Sistine Chapel. I bought a bunch of slides of the place; it was quite cheap to do.

Susan Jones, Shrewsbury, U.K.

2009-08-08T00:22:00.001-05:00

www.tortoiseloft.com

Fine cover for Challenger 29: that's one very happy robot!

I've been reading Challenger 29 -- not got right through it yet, and I've sort-of-skimmed a lot of the sports stuff (sorry), but I enjoyed learning about Nicholas of Cusa, and I found James Bacon's musings on High Castle covers the most interesting article of the issue. (Mine's that derivative, 1987 Bladerunneresque one, but I can live with that.) Rather than a cover that shouts about the political situation in the books or shows any of the more visually dramatic moments, I would have like to see some of the Edfrank jewelry arranged on a table, with hints of the situation shown in the items it is displayed with.

Susan recently announced that she's suffering from thyroid problems -- as do I, as do many. We wish her good health, and a quick return of Tortoise.

David Schlosser, Eureka CA

2009-08-08T00:20:00.001-05:00

It was lovely seeing my words in print but I do need to make a correction, whether the mistake was mine or thine. The other golfer that I know of around fandom is not Howard Ackerman, but rather Howard ~~Marshall~~ Rosenblatt. Knowing his wife longer than I've known him is no excuse for shanking that shot.

I share your embarrassment; as editor I should've caught the goof. Howard, by the way, is a real lawyer and an invaluable source of financial advice.

Challenger #29 - Sports Issue

2009-01-31T13:39:00.002-06:00

Lisa Major, Louisville KY

2009-01-29T18:14:00.002-06:00

At worldcon an Australian fan passed out samples of a candy called Tim Tam. It brought to mind a horse of that name, who won the 1958 Derby and Preakness. At the top of the Belmont stretch he looked like a Triple Crown winner. Halfway down the stretch a fragile leg snapped. He finished the race on three legs and a heart, which wasn't enough to hold off the fast Cavan. Fortunately, the vets saved him, and he lived several years after his disastrous last race.

Lisa handed me the above comment at Denvention's Fan-Eds' panel – composed on the spot. That was a first, so it is our first.

Joseph Major, Louisville, Kentucky

2009-01-29T18:04:00.001-06:00

http://members.iglou.com/jtmajor

[Comments on] The Altitudinous Route: I see you felt about Kansas about what we did. Kansas rest stops in particular are minimal. In Kentucky, in Indiana, we are used to finding a substantial building, with brochures describing local and not so local sights, computerized maps of the weather, even a friendly attendant. In Kansas, except for the first stop after the border, there was nothing. The building had only restrooms. And the soft drink machines were behind bars!

I think it was during WWII that somebody distributed replicas of the Liberty Bell, to inspire patriotism and national spirit. Kentucky's is at the Old Capitol building, a place I know well from my days in Frankfort. (I knew the New Capitol building even better, having played in it many times.) We saw one other replica at the Truman Museum.

The Richthofen Castle is at 7020 East Twelfth Avenue.

[Comments on] Challenger 28

Editorial addition: And for Yowler the cat, who shouted and mewled beneath our windows, annoying us, until we got our wish, and wished we had never wished it. Worse yet, two days before the big storm, someone came along and helped himself to Tim Lane's and Elizabeth Garrott's cat Shadow, who was on a leash in front of their house. Their other cat, Neville, is noting the vacancy. Shadow used to jump up in my lap.

Want a few more cats? Our gift!

Critters Sheryl Birkhead Has Known and Loved: For some reason, one of my grandmother's chickens used to chase me away from the barn. Lisa's sister had a similar conflict with one of her great-grandmother's hens. Ma Hat took a hatchet and dealt out the supreme measure of punishment, then had chicken soup for little Esther's soul.

Lisa has her stories of Digger and Shaggy. I had issues with Mother's poodles, which never seemed quite to get used to the idea that I lived there too.

Resnick: At this writing, it looks as if Curlin will skip the Breeders' Cup. In the unlikely event that Lisa doesn't mention it, she was dubious about Big Brown all along, because of those quarter cracks in his hooves. In fact, she was worried that he would through a fluke do well, and then those bad feet would be bred into the next generation.

Right now, she is seeking out pictures of Bernadini foals, noting their resemblance to the sire, and thinking with joy of 2010 and 2011 and ...We may try to go see him again at Darley, in Lexington, on Martin Luther King Day. Last time it was 20 degrees before wind chill.

SF Entering the Great Divide: In further defense of Green's thesis, I note that a greater proportion of SF/F works these days are marketed as romances. Perhaps because interstellar stories work down to Wars of Incomprehensibly Powerful Beings, and planetary stories are The Cyberpunk Kid ... neither of which holds at least this reader's interest. Then you have alternate histories, which are all over. One (a particularly unlikely and politically and ethnically biased one) won all the awards this year.

Between the Candle and the Star: I would point out that fanzine panels are always scheduled during the opening ceremonies, just before the closing ceremonies, against the GOH reading, during the Masquerade ... small wonder that fanzine fans feel shut out.

New Dog ... Old Tricks: I don't think I could ever live with a dog again (see above about my mother's poodle) but Pepper looks so darned cute!

The Future Is Almost Here: All one has to do to see the misguided optimism of Kurtzweil's thesis (and hence of Singularity predictions) is to watch 2001. We do not have regular spaceflights to the Moon. Bob Tucker was disappointed, as we all well know. Benford pointing out how people won't all fall in line, but will think differently, is a needed corrective that few seem to consider. Indeed, citing Blade Runner is apropos. It's used as an example of the two-tier society, the grand glorious futurians hovering above a crowded underclass. I thought of this when reading about Hong Kong.

Edison's Conquest of Mars: Which was one of the first examples of fan fiction. Serviss was also one of Edison's assistants, so this might also be one of the first Mary Sues. (Also, I get the impression that it was based on a pirated edition of War of the Worlds which set the invasion in New Jersey, forty years before Orson Welles.)

From Fan to Filthy Pro, in Ten Easy Steps: It hasn't worked for me.

Lord of the (Show) Rings: There is a Dog Show Channel! There is! I'd come into the bedroom and Lisa would have the television on, showing a dog show. I said "You've got it on the Dog Show Channel again." She'd say, "There's nothing else on," and then, "There's no Dog Show Channel!" If there isn't a Dog Show Channel, how come you can find a dog show on 24/7?

The Pride of Lions: And my cousin Bob married for the fifth time at the age of 65, to a woman younger than his own daughter. Eight years later, they had a son.

What took him so long? Never mind. I know.

"Gangway! Hot Organ!": The story of an effort so superlatively overwhelming that it overcomes the ability to compensate. What were the responses in SFPA 101 like? The thought boggles the mind!

A Hideous Confession: They're still doing those sorts of books. Now, they're sold in mainstream bookstores, with fabulous publicity campaigns, richly textured covers, and no shame. They're called Romances.

The Chorus Lines: Brad W. Foster: I get the impression that Comic-Con is a giant bazaar for popular-culture items of which comics are a small and declining part. One consumes, not participates.

Bob Kennedy: And now the "crazy complainant" has a college degree. To many people the Duke Lacrosse Team case was more about class than about race, since the stripper was also attending the local community college, which put her at odds with the students at an elite university.

Me: Truman Capote was born Truman Streckfus Persons. Ohhhh I am sooo sorrrry ..

Lloyd Penney: Yes, you are specifically invited to the Fan-eds' Feast. We want to celebrate you!

Not only fan editors but contributors and members of the Chorus are invited. Look for an announcement of the site and date of the next Fan-eds' Feast in a Zine Dump RSN.

Milt Stevens: When Clarke introduced Asimov at the Mensa meeting in London, taking regard to Asimov's aversion to flying which led him to take a liner from New York to London, he said that he had scheduled a special showing of "A Night to Remember" for Asimov, and afterwards they would discuss fun things to do in lifeboats. Do they show Titanic on those Caribbean cruises (like the one my nephew took to his wedding, and his wife left him two months later), and if they do, do they post security guards forward to keep dim-bulb couples from standing on the bow shouting "I'm flying, Jack!"?

Liz Copeland interview: RiverCon '75 was maybe my second or third con. Maybe we ran into each other. Or maybe not, that was when I drank a pint of wine and couldn't get Tim Lane, Grant McCormick, and Bruce Gardner to believe I had seen Poul Anderson. Even though he was there.

Martin Morse Wooster, Silver Spring MD

2009-01-29T17:58:00.001-06:00

Laura Haywood-Cory makes many valid arguments. In the age of the Internet, people; come to fandom in all sorts of ways, and we ought to allow lots of fandoms at our cons, as long as groups are quiet and don't try to drown out or intimidate people. But I prefer to spend time with people who read a lot. I don't have very much in common with the avid filker or costumer. And it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that reading and writing ids the center of what our fandom does, and we ought to give precedence as fan guests of honor to fen who do a lot of reading and writing.

Joseph Green makes some interesting points, but I don't think he can extrapolate from a list of who won the Hugo for best novel to reach the conclusion that "SF writers are pulling back from the vastness and openness of interstellar space to return to Earth." Individual Hugo races have their own quirks. Lots of fans have read Harry Potter, for example, but I think the reaction to J.K. Rowling's indifference to winning the Hugo (for what IMHO is her weakest book) ensured that none of her other novels would even be nominated. Similarly, Michael Chabon's Hugo win does not seem a forerunner of a string of victories for alternate universe Jewish dystopias. Green would have made a stronger case if he addressed Geoff Ryman's movement for Mundane SF, which calls for realistic near-future stories that don't involve space travel or time travel.

I enjoyed the many animal stories, with the best pieces being those by Sheryl Birkhead and Mike Resnick. The smartest dog I ever knew was Jefe (or, as his owner called him, "Jeffy").

Lloyd Penney, Etobicoke , ON, Canada

2009-01-29T17:53:00.001-06:00

Thank you kindly for The Zine Dump 21. I could do the motley crew joke, but I won't ... now that I've reminded you of it...

Remind me again.

Great cover on the front ... wonder what Chris Garcia does when he sees a video camera? He can't point like that all the time. And now [Warp editor] Cathy Palmer-Lister has met Chris ... I never got a chance to ask her what this dinner was like when we were at Con*cept in October. I hope to join the fan-eds' dinner for the first time in Montreal next year.

As Joe Major says earlier, you're more than welcome.

I am stumbling along with my own fanzine reviews in John Purcell's Askance ... I've never felt that KTF reviews inform or instruct. Most fanzines I enjoy as they are, and those I do critique, I try to provide constructive criticism. Still working on my technique, but there's time yet.

Your Alexiad review ... did John Scalzi ask Worldcon Hugo voters to honour a different fan writer every year? Great idea. I hope I might have a chance in Montreal. I figured that if the Seattle Corflu is going to issue their progress report fanzine-style, I can respond to it the same way. I wrote a loc, and fired it off to them. I later sent some dead presidents. We can't attend, but we can at least have supporting memberships.

Guy, you will have a great time in Montreal ... come up sooner if you can, and enjoy a multicultural city with lots of French and English mixed in. Montreal is one of the oldest cities on the continent, and most Anglophones don't know about it.

Current plan is to drive to Montreal from the Niagara Falls area, and a visit with my nevvies!

We purchased the DVD of Wall-E the other day...we rarely do that. The animation was great, as were the characters and story line. We're suckers for a love story, and this is a unique one. There's lots of pertinent commentary about how we are treating our planet, and optimism about how we can fix it, plus commentary about how our consumer society is turning us into flesh balloons, and how our dependence on capitalism may be our undoing. Worth the purchase; hope people get the message.

I hope Wall*E gets the Hugo! Only other flicks on my ballot: Cloverfield, Iron Man, and the brilliant Swedish vampire film, Let the Right One In..

Exactly right, congratulations to Mike Glyer for his latest Hugo ... the only thing that would have made things sweeter would have been for Diana Glyer to win a Hugo for her book on Tolkien, Lewis and the Inklings.

The Zine Dump serves as a shopping list. Ooooh, I'd like that one, and that one, and that one, too. I get a lot of zines, but there's always more I'd like to receive, if people would be good enough to send them to me, paper, electronic or otherwise. I'd send a loc, just like this one. I promise letters of comment because I can't promise cookies. Many thanks, Guy, and we will party in Montreal.

Like it was ten years ago … "1999," that is.

John Parcell, College Station, TX

2009-01-29T17:45:00.003-06:00

Good gravy, Guy; I thought our mailbox was going to rupture when trying to extract the envelope containing Challenger 28. Fortunately, both zine and mailbox are fine. A full recovery is expected for both.

I may not fully recover from reading this huge zine for awhile, though. That is one monster of a zine, reminding me of those Days of Yore when mammoth twill-tone fanzines used to fill the mailbox. Those were the days, weren't they? Good to see you're trying to fill that void, and doing it quite admirably too, I might add.

So sorry to hear of your latest Best Fanzine Hugo setback. Too bad; I like both Challenger and File 770, so if you were to lose out to someone, Mike Glyer's a good fellow. I suspect that this year's 30th Anniversary issue of File 770 may have had something to do with the results, but who knows? Both are wonderful zines, and from what I have read in LJ's and all, the final results took a while to compute. It must have a very close vote.

I can't tell all that I know, but I can say that I'm again encouraged. But as I said in my trip report, at the time all I felt was ridiculous – itself a ridiculous way to feel.

But, I really need to address the most important issue that you raise in this latest, err, issue of your zine. Of course, I refer to that question you raised on page 86: "Which should I want most: a long life or a good pizza?" This is exactly like that age-old conundrum, which came first: the chicken or the egg? A harder question to answer has rarely been raised, and in this day and age when health is a major concern of everyone, you would think that a long life is tantamount to personal fulfillment. On the other hand, I know of precious few worldly goods as personally fulfilling as a good pizza. So maybe we should look at this question existentially: since we're all going to die eventually, you might as well go for that good pizza. Extra mushrooms and black olives, of course, but hold the anchovies.

Olives?!?

Since I am back in the letter column, allow me to echo Jerry Kaufman's sentiments about Taral Wayne being selected as Fan Artist GoH at Anticipation. Taral is indeed an excellent choice for any convention anywhere. He has had a long career providing art and articles to fan-eds, his style is distinctive, and I think Taral is a fine choice. Congratulations to Taral!

The artist whom you have honored in this particular issue, Sheryl Birkhead, likewise has a long fannish pedigree. (You likee the pun?) For years Sheryl has supplied the fannish press with her distinctive style, and I am glad you have given here a place of honor in Challenger . Good show, Guy. Her opening article was a delight to read, and gives us a much better appreciation of her background and longevity in fandom. A fun cover illo, too, I might add.

As for comments on any particular contents of this Brobdingnagian tome, I feel rather overwhelmed. Suffice to say that I finally finished reading this sucker a couple nights ago (10 Aug 08), and my favorite pieces were Mike Resnick's insights into being a dog show handler (my personal favorite breed is the border collie), "Birth of a Notion", Rich Dengrove's article about Edison's Conquest of Mars, and your story behind SFPA 100. I can't even begin to imagine plowing through a 1,748 page apa disty [1,750! Remember, I miscounted.]; sometimes I find SNAPS a bit much lately, and that's usually between 60 and 90 pages long. What a story you told! Even better: you all survived. Now that says something.

Ah, me. Take care, and thank you again for a wonderful issue. I can't wait to see the sports issue. Maybe I can write up something for it about coaching my son's soccer team. That might fit. In the meantime, relax and enjoy the coffee.

Warren Buff, Raleigh, NC

2009-01-29T17:38:00.004-06:00

Greetings, Guy!

Let's start with the Sheryl Birkhead cover. I've been enjoying her little critter drawings in a number of zines for a while now, and this full-sized piece is the same quality she's been producing, just bigger. And in glorious full color. There are several pieces in here I first read in SFPA, which I appreciate – I love that some of the members are getting out into genzines, and hope that a little bit of that effort flows back. Anyone interested, just ask Guy for the contact info for Dave Schlosser, the current OE.

Speaking of SFPA, I see that there's a glorious tribute to the 100^th disty, from 1981, way back before I was even born (two years later). Your reminiscences about the condition of the South back in the early 60s, when SFPA was born, remind me of Randy Newman's wonderful "Rednecks", which is one of the few truly epigrammatic songs I know (the other prominent one being "He Stopped Loving Her Today"). And with your references to early Southern fandom, let's not forget that Charlotte had a burgeoning scene in the mid-50s, centered around the recently arrived (and soon to depart) Bob Madle, who wrote up a lot of those days in Mimosa, a fact I only discovered a few months after I called him to ask about the Charlotte days. They'd connected with Atlanta to run a couple of cons, SECON I & II, which were sort of precursors to DSC. Overall, I'm delighted to hear about the glory days of SFPA, and hope we can attain such heights (or even approach them) for SFPA 300 in a few years. I'm still trying to win over young fans.

I'm also glad to see Toni's DSC GoH speech in print, as I'd been ordered by the conchair to take a nap, and had to miss it. She mocked me for not showing up when she name-checked me, and rightly so – I'd been scheduled to be there for the speeches, and when I didn't show up to introduce folks, no one rightly knew what to do. Such are the perils of three hours of sleep.

Of the longer pieces, I was rather thoroughly enlightened to the world of dog shows by Mike Resnick's piece, but what really caught my eye was your retrospective on your time in NC – "Birth of a Notion." The Klan-Nazi trial has been a source of shame for North Carolinians since the verdict came down, but thankfully, it's not the sort of shame that sits in the dark and broods.

I suppose the best way to illustrate this is a story about my roommate's Uncle. See, Uncle B. was a klansman. He was also half-Cherokee, and married a black woman, which interferes with the popular image of the Klan as a purely racist organization. That wasn't quite it. In its second incarnation (the one following the War Between the States), the Klan started out with the intention of preventing poor people from voting, which led to the eventual retaking of the South by the Democratic party. The crazy bastards conducted their meetings in Greek, and it was generally a case of the local elites fighting the national elites to see who could better control the local plebes. The local elites won. As time went on, the Klan definitely picked up a racist tone, but not quite the one it uses today. After all, they took Uncle B. He was even given a leadership position, and when the local sheriff thought that somebody had escaped justice, Uncle B. would get the word, ambush the guy, drag him to death behind his truck, and feed the body to a brood of lynxes which he had captured and raised himself. Not exactly a gentle, loveable fellow, but something a little different from the Klan's modern image.

In those days, the Klan was a social order beyond the law, reminiscent of the Mafia's role in the Son of Sam case (they essentially asked the local law to get out of a section of town, and at the end of the night, told them they wouldn't have to worry about the serial killer any more – it's likely that the guy who went to trial was a copycat). In that regard, the Klan-Nazi trial broke their power. Sure, they still had enough to get out of any convictions, but they no longer had the clout they'd needed to operate as the order beyond the law. It turns out that killing unarmed doctors in the street, on camera, tends to turn public opinion rather decidedly against you. It was no longer an organization with which elites could be associated.

They may have won the trial for their freedom, but lost in the court of public opinion. I can report that when the Klan and Nazis last assembled at the NC State Capital Building, not a single North Carolinian was among them. One person I knew to be a Nazi was skulking down Fayetteville Street, watching the proceedings from a safe distance, but the composition of the day was approximately a dozen fuggheads on the Capital lawn with a little amplifier and microphones, one hundred police forming a barricade, complete with mounted officers, snipers on the roof, and riot gear, and six hundred counter-protesters, who at various times could have been riled up into a lynch mob against the Klan (and the bitter irony remains that North Carolina has not yet stricken its lynch laws from the books).

An old hippie lady recognized my powerful set of lungs, and handed me a sheet of chants to lead. I didn't mind that one bit, as it allowed me to control the message of about a hundred of us as we drowned out the amplifiers with the sheer power of our lungs. My build (heavy), attire (heavy sport coat, tie, and fedora), and enthusiasm made me a favorite place for the rooftop snipers to aim. There were a few small squabbles as protesters tried to leave the designated area set aside for us (we weren't allowed to surround them, after all), and some high school anarchist set off a smoke bomb, but overall, it was an orderly, firm denunciation of the Klan and their message. I hope that's enough anecdotes to redeem my state's honor.

No need – North Carolina's charming and decent people long ago redeemed it of the reek of the Klan, and its vote for Obama in the election helped redeem the whole nation. It's a new state in a new country in a new world.

When I let Glug read the ish, his first comment was on the juxtaposition of the piece on the Klan with the piece on the Matt Harding novel – "This issue is all about Guy's formative experiences – how he became a public defender, and how he became a dirty old man."

Well, I wasn't old at the time.

On a final note, I'd like to reply here to a comment you made in SFPA – you'd said that when a supporter consoled you on your Hugo loss with, "Don't worry Guy, we'll get you one sooner or later," you'd felt that this wasn't quite the right sentiment – that you wanted to earn one. How about this, then? I feel the same way about your desert of a Hugo, but when I say it, I'll mean this: I will continue to submit the sort of articles that I feel are worthy of a Hugo-nominated fanzine, and encourage my friends to read Challenger.

Sounds good to me!

Curt Phillips, Abingdon , VA

2009-01-29T17:23:00.003-06:00

I know people who don't like dogs. Just honestly and sincerely don't like them. I don't *understand* such people, and certainly I don't really trust their judgment or their character, but I do know some. (I offer no apologies to anyone reading this who also doesn't like dogs; there's something wrong with people like that.) I always feel very sorry for them in the same way that I feel sorry for the 98% of the population who say they don't read books for pleasure. Anyone who shuts themselves off from the best of what life here on planet Earth has to offer just isn't fulfilling the promise of their own humanity, and books and dogs are certainly two of those best things. There are others, but your editorial in Challenger 28 reminded me of the several dogs I've known since I was a young child and whose ghosts still walk companionably beside me each day. Liz and I have been incredibly lucky to have had some truly great dogs in our lives, and they always seem to choose us instead of the other way around.

Our current dog is a large mixed-breed named Smudge. We found her at the local animal shelter here in Abingdon a few years ago – or rather Liz found her there. I was still in denial about needing a dog in my life after the death the previous year of our small terrier named Muffy, who at the age of 12 suffered a stroke and lingered about a week. On her final day I had stayed home from work and took care of her while I tried to convince myself that she might yet recover. But she had stopped eating and drinking, and was having great difficulty in responding to anything. After a few hours of struggle with myself, I accepted with great difficulty that I was going to have to let her go, and I called the vet to make an appointment that day to have her put to sleep. I hung up the phone, went back to my bedroom where Muffy was waiting on the bed I'd made for her, and I picked up my dog and just held her and silently cried. About half an hour later Muffy managed to lick my face once, and then she had another stroke and died there in my arms. Liz found us there later when she got home from work. Late that evening, I took Muffy out to my parents' farm and buried her under a tree. I thought then that I'd never have another dog.

More than two years later, Liz brought Smudge home from the pound. It was a complete surprise to me. She said that some impulse just made her go and look at the dogs in the shelter that day, and in the midst of about 40 loud, yapping, snarling dogs, one small, skinny bedraggled mess of black fur just sat there in the middle of its cage and looked at her. It was love at first sight and she brought the dog home. The dog was hard to look at. It had evidently been neglected as it was about 10 months old and emaciated. It had patches of fur missing, motor oil on its back from sleeping under cars somewhere, and she smelled terrible. We cleaned up most of the mess that night and tried to start her on some soft food, but soon realized that Smudge was sick and a trip to the veterinarian the next afternoon confirmed my suspicion. Smudge had Parvo virus; a debilitating condition and in her already weakened condition, almost certainly a fatal condition. The veterinarian told us "no promises" but that with IV antibiotics she might be able to save the dog. The cost? $600. We'd only had this pound puppy for a bit more than 24 hours and the *reasonable* thing to do would have been to have her put to sleep right then, and if I'd been there alone that day I'm afraid that I might have done the reasonable thing. We were – at that time – still recovering financially from the loss of my 19 year job from a plant closure a few years earlier followed by going back to school to become an RN while working in a lumber yard to put food on the table, and at that moment I didn't have $600 in the bank. I would have *wanted* to save the dog if I could, but as I said, if I'd had to make that decision alone I'm afraid I couldn't have justified spending the money that my family needed on saving that sad, sick dog.

Fortunately – thank God – Liz was with me. She didn't say a word and if I'd told the veterinarian to put Smudge to sleep, she probably would never have said anything to me about it, ever. But she looked at me, and I could see that she needed – not a miracle, exactly, but she needed me to make a leap of faith for that dog. And then I looked at Smudge and saw that Smudge was looking to me for something... heroic. Laugh in you want to reader; but I know what I saw in my dog's eyes that afternoon. So I took Smudge's head in my hands, looked deep into her eyes, and said, "OK Smudge; I won't give up on you, so don't you ever give up on us."

We started the antibiotics, I found the money to pay the bill somehow, and Smudge slowly recovered. Today she's a healthy full grown dog with a beautiful black coat tinged with a few gray hairs, and is the calmest companion, the best watchdog, and the most loyal friend I've ever had. Sometimes when I'm sitting in the living room reading a book, she'll come in, jump on the couch with me, and lean against my shoulder, and the look I see in her eyes then reminds me once again that spending that $600 was the best investment I've ever made.

A great dawg story! Pepper sends Smudge a friendly sniff.

Sheryl Birkhead's article on the farm critters of her youth certainly brought back my own memories of my grandparent's farm with its dairy cows, hogs, and 100+ chickens. I well understand her battle with laying hens that will enthusiastically attack with beak and talon any small child who ventures too near their nest, and I learned the hard way that the only way to deal with chickens is to show them who's boss. If you show any fear around chickens that *will* gang up on you and attack. Been there, done that. My Grandfather Poe never had any trouble with the chickens because if one tried to peck at him he'd swat it with his old straw hat. The chicken – outraged – would run squawking off to tell all the other chickens about her ill-treatment, and Grandfather would quickly collect the eggs and leave before the hens could organize a counter-attack. Grandfather lived to be 89 and no chickens were involved with his death, so I guess he was right about them all along.

I had no idea until I read it in Challenger 28 that Sheryl is a veterinarian. That was my first career ambition when I was 14 and doing the Veterinary Science project in the 4-H club. There are times when I still wish I'd gone ahead and tried to follow that dream, but I let myself become distracted. And I'm tickled to learn that Sheryl went to school at Virginia Tech, just about 80 miles up the road from where I live. I spent a lot of summers there with various 4-H camps and Congresses. It's a great school and a great community.

Warren Buff's article on Animal Companions and Empathy is well written but since I've not read any of Philip Pullman's books I had trouble following the explanation of his themes. I found myself wondering if Warren has read Clifford Simak's classic novel City with its evolved and very empathic dogs? If not I'd very much like to read an expanded article from Warren someday that incorporates his commentary about that work too. Simak was clearly a dog man anyway. His Hugo-winning Way Station included (if I'm remembering correctly) a dog character that figured prominently in the story. I must read Simak again very soon.

I greatly enjoyed reading Joseph Green's article "Science Fiction: Entering the Great Divide" and was particularly intrigued with his comment "With a little vision on the part of coming American administrations, new and perhaps highly beneficial discoveries await us (in space)." This must have been written early in 2008, long before most of us let ourselves believe that the next American administration would be one led by Barack Obama, a man who seems to be "one of us" in his belief that science is a good and powerful tool that can be used to enhance the lives of everyone on the planet. The previous administration seems to have had rather less faith and considerably less understanding of the wisdom of scientific inquiry in solving the challenges of the 21^st century. Even standing here in the ashes of late-2008 America I'm more hopeful about the future now than I've been in several years – but I digress...

Joe's observation of Earth-based vs. space-based SF hadn't particularly occurred to me before but I see his points. I've been more concerned with the trend towards outright fantasy works being nominated for and winning the Hugo awards for the past few years, a point that Joe also touches on. But I'd not considered his observation that the trends in Hugo and Nebula award choices might reflect the way that the SF reading public innately sees the future unfolding within our own lifetimes. Could be, but I would have thought that it was more a case of there being fewer writers willing to tackle vast space epics anymore. After "Doc" Smith started his career in the late 20's by throwing whole galaxies around like beanbags, what does a new SF writer do to top that? Some are certainly holding up the tradition today – and I'm thinking of Alistair Reynolds, Charles Stross, Ken Macleod, and others of that school – both by looking outward as well as looking inward in the ongoing SF exploration of human destiny (*there's* a phrase for you...) and even though the ever shrinking pool of SF *readers* seems to generally prefer fairly basic Sci-Fi mind-candy to actual ground-breaking SF, there are still writers and readers who thrive on the good stuff.

Just not that many of us, really. I worry greatly for the future of the remaining SF magazines as each year their circulation numbers creep lower and lower. I hope they all rebound and thrive for decades yet to come, but it's harder and harder to see how they can continue to publish for many more years. And with the economy on life-support (thanks for that, Pres. Bush...) here in late 2008, bookstores across the country – as well as many other marginal businesses – are starting to close their doors. The B. Dalton's store in Bristol – a bookshop I've shopped at since 1973 – is closing at the end of January. I stopped in there today after work to find them in the middle of a "half-price Going-Out-Of-Business" sale. Very depressing. I'm not sure where I'll go to shop for new SF now. I suppose the computer generation will happily adapt to shopping for books and most other things on-line, but being old-fashioned, I like to hold a book in my hands and let it speak to me before I buy. But then, I'm just odd like that.

I can't agree with Laura Haywood-Cory that there is a "profound generational gap" that divides fandom. Generation gaps have little or nothing to do with the issue, in my opinion. Fandom *does* certainly have many subgroups, as Laura points out, and it is *that* fact which accounts for the division that afflicts fandom. "Trufandom" (not "true fandom") is the group that traces it's roots back to the very beginning of organized Fandom in 1929 and which still practices the same traditional fan activities that the first fans did; fanzines, correspondence with other fans, and actually *reading* SF. I'm a member of that group and like my fellow Trufen I secretly consider *my* fandom to be *the* fandom. The real thing, the big kahuna, and so forth. The problem is, *every* fannish group can likewise trace their lineage back to 1929 – and some (pulp fandom, for instance) to decades before that – and all of them (as far as I know) also secretly consider *their* fandom to the *the* fandom.

And actually, that in itself is really no problem at all. Just because I like to read old pulp magazines, write for fanzines, and hang out with other fans who enjoy talking about Bob Tucker and Walt Willis and exploring fannish history doesn't mean that people who like to do other things and call it "fannish" are any less a part of Fandom than I am. I have to admit that some of the activities that pass for fannish today confuse me greatly; gaming fandom, for example. I just don't see the point or the attraction. Comics, filking, and a few other activities all leave me likewise unimpressed. But that's just me, and I know there are some people active in fandom who think my fascination with collecting old pulp magazines is a silly waste of time. But *I* like it, and I have a few friends who also enjoy the same hobby so I have someone to talk with about it. What more can I ask from a hobby?

The real problem – or so it seems to me – is a matter of definitions. Fandom long ago began fracturing into splinter interest groups. That's a very natural thing for human beings to do with their interests, but we somehow all allowed ourselves to fall into the trap of looking at the other fan activities and snobbishly thinking – or even saying – "my fandom's better than yours". Heck, I did it myself in the paragraph above with my off-handed snub of the gamers. Am I going to take it back? Heck no, because I really *do* think that my fandom is better than *their* fandom. That's why I'm *in* my fandom rather than theirs. We all select the interests that we want to pursue in life and we all tend to gather in herds with others who more or less share our particular collection of interests. And if the gamers want to call me up and say, "Curt, we think *your* fannish interests are just as silly as you think ours is," I'll have to admit that they have a perfectly valid point. Now, I'm not ready to put on a Star Wars storm trooper costume and march in the Rose Bowl parade, but none of this should really matter to any of us so long as we can admit to ourselves that we're all equally silly and equally majestic in our very human explorations of the intellect. We could all stand to show a little more tolerance and respect for the other areas of fandom that whirl madly about the fannish cosmos. All are fueled by our passions and all have the potential to illuminate our lives.

Except, of course, for the furries. They're just honking weird...

I enjoyed Greg Benford's review of Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near. Of all the science fictional concepts to emerge in the past 30 years, the Singularity is one of the most compelling to consider. Largely because although it arose from SF, it's a concept that looms staggeringly above us all like a Sword of Damocles ready to lop off our heads at the first false move. Or maybe it's really the Lamp of Diogenes, offering illumination to the destination we should all be striving for. I dunno which one yet. Stick around a bit and we'll all see for ourselves soon enough. I think Benford is all too correct in his implication that we all need to successfully achieve and survive a social Singularity before we start rending our garments over the pending technological Singularity. Having new tools is one thing; having the wisdom to use them without exterminating ourselves is quite another.

Your "Birth of a Notion" was compelling reading. I have a deep loathing of the Ku Klux Klan both for the usual reasons (that they foster racism and incubate murderers, etc.) as well as for the lesser reason that as a white southerner and the descendent of Confederate soldiers (as well as a couple of Union soldiers) the Klan drags a part of my heritage through the same muck that they proudly march in. They continue to illegitimately appropriate our common southern heritage to serve their monstrous goals and in so doing they shame us all. They are the principal reason that southerners still have to apologetically explain their own culture here in the 21^st century. They are the final festering wound of the American Civil War and the very embodiment of the true evil of American racism.

I enjoyed Rich Dengrove's review of Edison's Conquest of Mars, but then as a devotee of antique STF I'm predisposed to like that sort of thing. Thanks for printing T.K.F.Weisskopf Reinhardt (heck, I'm just gonna call her "Toni"...) DSC GOH speech. I deeply wish I could have been there to hear it presented live but reading it in Challenger is a nice consolation for not having attended the convention myself. Chall 28 had the first bit of fan fiction I've ever read by Mike Glyer and though I'm not a Flashman fan, Mike's piece is pretty good and the jokes still work even though I probably missed a few references. I enjoyed Kurt Erichsen and John Widmer's trip report since a well written trip report is a joy all by itself even if I don't know the places they mention. For the same reason I greatly enjoyed reading James Bacon's "Truman in Trouble", (great photos, James) though I'm forced to add, "Too close to the Cheetahs James." "Too close to the LIONS, James." "TOO CLOSE TO THE BULL ELEPHANT, JAMES!" Somehow, I think I'd not enjoy a trip to a South African game preserve quite as much as just reading about such a trip in Challenger...

I knew that Mike and Carol Resnick had been involved in breeding Collies but I didn't know how deeply they'd been involved in the dog show world. This was a fascinating look at how that business works, but it convinces me that I could never be involved in anything like that. I'd make pets of them all and would have 20 dogs living in the house with us. Not with Collies, perhaps, but I could see having that many West Highlands White Terriers around the house. Lots of work, but fun if you like that sort of thing.

I'd heard the story of the SFPA 100 collation before from others who were there, but you seem to have a lot more meat on the bones of that story. I actually have a copy of that mailing even though I wasn't a member of SFPA at the time (My sojourn in SFPA came much later.) It came to me through Lynn Hickman when his family gave me his fanzine collection after his death in 1996. I never have completely reassembled the mailing but I do have more than half of it all together and I assume the rest of it is there, scattered among the 15 or 16 assorted boxes of fanzines still occupying my library. I'm sort of hoping that you and Rosy will visit us here in Abingdon someday since I *know* that if I show you that heap of fanzines and the partially assembled SFPA 100 mailing, you'll creep back down there after I've retired for the night and you'll spend the rest of the night reassembling it. I know you, Guy; you won't be able to fall asleep until you've finished it. I'll waken the next morning all bright and well-rested and will find you sitting bleary-eyed and haggard at the kitchen table waiting for me. "Here!" you'll growl as you push that great stack of paper towards me. "Make sure you keep it together from now on. I'll be back someday to make sure you've taken care of it!" And only then will you stumble off to sleep the sleep of the Just and Untroubled.

Challenger 28 had an excellent lettercol and I could easily write a LOC as long again as this one *just* in responding to your letter writers. Many good comment hooks there, and I'm tempted to recount my own trip to Atlanta in 1986 for Confederation, but maybe I can get an article out of that Worldcon trip someday... Very good article by John Purcell – one of my favorite fanzine publishers. (All you folks out there ought to be reading John's Askance. It's good solid zine, "full of whole-wheat words and other uplift", as Albert Alligator once said of some other fanzine...) That photo of the swimming kitty un-nerves me somewhat. I know that cats are hiding Many Things from us, but the thought that they may be secretly planning to take over the Olympics is more than I can grok.

That bacover illo by Liz Copeland is a *quilt*? Wow! My old grandmother would be so jealous...

Get back to work Guy, and pub us another stunning fanzine. Fandom needs what you got, buddy. Now more than ever before!

Brad W. Foster, Irving TX

2009-01-29T17:12:00.004-06:00

http://www.jabberwockygraphix/com
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Quadrant/1956/

Greetings Guy~

Woo, always amazed at the sheet bulk of each new issue of Challenger, a rare thing to arrive in the mailbox these days.

I could particularly agree this week with your editorial comment of "Critters give so much, and ask so little." I started feeling kind of "off" about two weeks ago, got progressively worse, thought it was some kind of cold/flu thing. Ended up going to the doctor a few days ago and finding out I had bronchitis, verging on pneumonia. Got the right meds in me now, and working back out of it. But that entire time both of our little furries Duffy and Sable have been almost constant companions, just being nearby while I was awake and working at my desk, or sleeping pressed up tight to me while I was in bed. Feeding me their healing purrs is how I came to feel about it.

Glad to hear of the addition of Pepper to the household!

As usual, the highlight of the issue was your own writing on your legal career. Interesting to be able to trace your path like that, and actually be aware of turning point moments.

Your comments at the end about the attorneys having blown the case in the "voir dire" also struck home for me. Had my latest jury call come up a couple of months back, and was actually part of a group to be interviewed for a case. While we were seated in the hallway waiting to go into the courtroom for the first time, a bailiff from another court walked by and joked that I should hide the book I was reading, as if any of the lawyers saw me reading, I'd be struck right off the list. We all laughed, though I had to wonder, was that old chestnut true, that if you showed any sign of "being smart" it was already one strike against you?

Once inside, attorneys for both sides made comments on the case and asked us questions. I was a bit confused on one point and asked for more info. Other people also had questions. Then we were sent out for a bit, and back in to have the eight folks selected, which didn't include me. It wasn't until I was standing waiting for the elevator to leave the building that I realized all the other people standing around me, also not selected, had made some sort of comment or asked a question during the interviews. Another scary cliché' come true: if you ask any questions, you will be struck because you "think for yourself". Tell me I'm being too paranoid Guy!

Personally, I like smart jurors – less likely to blindly follow the lead of the DA's perceived authority. I can't speak for all defense lawyers, but seems to me that the more independent and intelligent the juror, the better.

Finally, Cindy and I were lucky enough to get to attend the huge Houston International Quilt that Liz mentions in her interview. We were only there for one day, and spent almost that entire time walking up and down row after row of the most amazing pieces of artwork you'll ever see. Be prepared to toss out every idea of what you think a quilt "should" be, this was simply mind-blowing in range and skills. We're lucky that such a large show is actually in our neck of the woods, rather than out on either coast, and hoping to get back to see it again one day.

2008-07-09T21:57:00.003-05:00

Mea maxima culpa -- I didn't keep track of the WAHF entries this time. Looking over the LOCs to Challenger #27, I'm pleased that "Zenkitty"'s editorial on dating received so much comment. She hit us where we live!

Ruth Judkowitz c/o Challenger

2008-07-09T21:55:00.003-05:00

I so appreciated being your Chall #27 honoree -- and being an honoree for a second time! -- and glowed yet again upon reading your kind words . . . but I just have to let you know that a fact or two was incorrect. Firstly, I've never been to a Mardi Gras; I usually showed up in New Orleans for JazzFest -- well, it's music related after all. As for exploring "harmonic therapy," that doesn't quite give the whole picture: I'm currently a practicing, nationally board-certified Music Therapist.

A great fanzine, as usual.

By "being an honoree for a second time" I suppose you refer to the SFPAzine I dedicated to you after our first meeting, since no lady will ever be subjected to two Chall tributes. What's a Music Therapist do?

Taral Wayne

2008-07-09T21:51:00.003-05:00

I must have missed where Greg Benford said the U.S. was underpopulated. Surely he knew it was the third most heavily populated country in the world, after China, and India, and nosing out Indonesia (4th.) by over seventy million people!!!

I suppose he makes the mistake of thinking that because there are some empty spaces and you don't stand on tiny squares of a few square feet to call your own, that a country is not crowded. But I'm surprised that the author of so many hard science stories would not have a subtler grasp of what an environment can sustain. Granted, you can swing a cat in many parts of the continental United States, but the true measure of how crowded it is involves waste management, air quality, the water table, climate change, energy use, exhaustion of agricultural land and the need for artificial fertilizers, and numerous other issues that indicate to me that the U.S. is probably near or even past its long term sustainable population.

Granted, many of these measures can be recalibrated by technological advances. Better energy use or creation, superior waste management, water purification or re-cycling, improved agricultural practices might all re-set the number upward. Assuming that unlimited growth of population is a good thing. I assume that in the long run if we don't want our individual footprints on this earth to stop growing and begin shrinking, we had better rethink our attitude to population, soon, If not some decades ago. If we ever want that luxurious Star Trek life with energy to spare for transporters, FTL travel, replicators and all the rest of it, we're never likely to accomplish it with 6.7 billion inhabitants on the planet, let alone the 9 or more billion expected by mid-century, all clamouring for diminishing resources.

Brad W Foster, Irving, TX

2008-07-09T21:49:00.002-05:00

http://www.jabberwockygraphix.com

Wow, a heavy-weight print zine in the mail. You are almost single handedly keeping the spirit of the massive genzine alive. Glad I was able to be a small part of it this issue.

That photo on the inside back cover came as something of a ... well, let's just say "unpleasant" surprise. Had no idea I manage to convey that particular goofy air when I should be cultivating the sophisticated ar-teest aura to make some sales. Then I realized, what you actually captured there was the exact moment that the stress of sweating through those 100+ hours of sitting in the heat of the Red River Revel this year burst open in my brain, and set off the count down for the attack of shingles that hit me just a week later. So, that shot will probably end up in all the medical journals one day: "If you see this, the patient should be immediately hidden from view of everyone else until the crisis passes."

You're not kidding about the heat. Shreveport's Revel is good fun, but the riverside humidity is exhausting.

Sorry again to hear about the passing of sweet little Jesse, but I think never has a pet had such love for all their life.

Jesse has been succeeded by Pepper, but not replaced.

Congrats to Taral on the GoH gig for Worldcon. He certainly deserves the honor for just about any and every reason I can think of -- artistically, fannishly, even geographically! As for his final comment about " wish I could hold a party, but everyone is out of town..." He might not have been able to get a group together at that specific moment, but he'll be right at the heart of an even bigger party as one of a select group of folks in 2009!

Cracked up reading Chris Garcia's article on trying to indoctrinate young Evelyn into the cult of SF. I made similar, though less energetic efforts with my niece and nephew over the years. However, reading for pleasure has never been anything they expressed much interest in, so I've given up on dropping off the books. sigh Turned out okay young adults, but too bad they don't care for books.

"Books? Aren't they those things that used to be made out of what was it? Paper! That's it. " Sigh The only paper today's young know about comes in rolls.

Also laughed at Julia's "Arms" article and art. I sometimes like to wiggle the flesh under my arms and brag of my "Bulgarian Grandmama genes".

Most interesting part of the Comic-Con review for me was the very little amount of actual comic-book related things that were mentioned.

The end of your article recounting the "making of" Nolacon II just reminded me of how many people have told me how poorly that con went. I was there, and had a wonderful time, so I've never understood what everyone else was having such a problem with. So there!

Chris Garcia

2008-07-09T21:45:00.005-05:00

Challenger #27 came to my hands as if called my merciful angels wishing to spare me from another afternoon of actual work. Here I am ready to LoC one of my favourite zines without fear

Zenkitty brings up an interesting take on the dating matter of buying dinner. When I was dating Jen, the first girl I've dated since breaking up with Gen who is the mother of Evelyn mentioned in the article later in the issue, she was an old-fashioned Southern kind of girl who expected guys, i.e. me, to pay for dinner and such. This was a slight problem, since she made considerably more than me (though I've yet to meet many people who are salaried and make less than I do in Silicon Valley) and I only managed by smart movement of stuff from my various collections into the hands of other collectors who were willing to pay to have said stuff. Luckily, we didn't last. My current flame started out thinking that we should always go dutch, though things really changed to the point where whoever can pay will pay and so on. Luckily it all works out and neither of us is paying too high a percentage and neither of us is getting a free ride. Plus, we stay in a lot and that saves some bread too.

Congrats to Taral on his Fan GoHship! I've just put up an issue of The Drink Tank where Frank Wu does an interview with Taral about his life and career as a fan and fan artist. I like Taral's work a lot, I've seen it numerous places over the years but only became conversant with it after acquiring a full-run of Gallery. I'd love to see him on the Hugo ballot and to have him walk away with the Rocket. Him and Dan Steffan. They could tie.

And Marc Schirmeister and Kurt Erichsen and Charlie Williams and Randy Cleary and Alan White and and and But at least we've got Taral on the Denvention ballot.

I'm not much of a Clarke fan. It's a tough thing to admit, even to myself. Yes, "The Nine Billion Names of God" is magnificent stuff, fueling my love of extremely short fiction, but too often I've tried to read him and felt like I was reading a scientific paper turned into a story and not a story with science in it. I couldn't make it through Childhood's End nor 2001, though I believe the movie is a dead-on science fiction masterpiece. Maybe I should give him another shot.

I've had an interesting experience with Clarke's oeuvre. I was too young to "get" Childhood's End, but loved The Deep Range and "The Nine Billion Names of God" -- I cheered for Rendezvous with Rama in its Hugo bid -- and came to believe he deserved a Nobel Prize for his influence on the genre and the genre's impact on the world. For the comfort of his presence alone, he will be missed: our Greatest.

Fat arms. I recently had a lovely chat with a friend who has fat arms. In fact, that painting included with the article could well of been of my friend Myra, only she's Filipino and doesn't wear glasses. She once said that despite her jowls, she's had only one problem: pulling a sweater over her head. She has claimed it's added minutes on to her dressing time during the winter. Such problems don't happen to me. I've merely got this giant belly that allows me to play Santa Claus without bulky padding, to hit the crash bar on doors without having to put my hands on them and to provide ample warmth when the heating goes out. Sometimes I feel as if Eskimos are following me waiting for the right moment to harpoon and flense me, using the oil they find to heat their little igloos.

Rosy's big diet thing these days is carbs, which -- she's convinced, which means we're convinced -- affect the human body more significantly than calories. We do battle regularly over the issue. I mean, which should I want most: a long life or a good pizza?

I've never made it to Comic-Con, and this year was going to be the year I went. Instead, I'm going to England for Eastercon and time and money won't allow me to make the trip. And when a report talks about Stone Cold Steve Austin (one of my all-time favourite 'rasslers), I'm always pleased. I love the eye-candy at Comic-Con. The reports on sites like FanboyPlanet.com always show off lovely ladies in skin-tight outfits. This year, since 300 was so popular, the ladies had oiled abs and such to ogle themselves.

[Brad Foster's] "Shriner Shuffle" piece made me think to mention how interesting your artwork for this issue is. There's been a big change in fan art over the last couple of years. Brad Foster's color work has gussied up many covers and interiors (like The Drink Tank and Askance from John Purcell) and others have slowly started to rise up. I really think that folks like J. Kathryn Feinberg, Espana Sheriff and Aldrich will be the next generation of fan artist and they're just starting to see the light of day. Really must make sure I get more from those folks.

Fan art is just one of the areas where zines have it all over blogs. I'd much rather read excellent text with a nice drawing than excellent text without.

Robert Rankin sounds like a hoot of a writer. Too bad I'm so far backlogged on books that I can't fit him in until at least 2009. The funny thing is that I've created soundtracks for reading books over the years. I just load up MP3s on my Real Jukebox playlist and let her roll. The only one I remember with extreme clarity is the one I did for Perdido Street Station. Opens with "Haus der Luge" from Einsterzende Neubauten, followed by "My Little Shirtwaist Fire" by Rasputina, "Terror Couple Kill Colonel" and "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus, ""Turkish Song of the Damned from The Pogues, "Prophet of Disease" by Goatsnake, "Let Me Entertain You" by All About Eve, a bunch of Sisters of Mercy and The Swans, Red Right Hand, Do You Love Me and Wild Rose from Nick Cave and an entire Tigerlillies album. Good for setting the right mood.

I've met Slash. I saw him in LA when I was down there in 1998 or so, saw him walking around and said "howdy" as he walked by. He responded with "hey." And walked on by. I've had that same conversation with a lot of celebrities over the years.

Alan Moore looks even crazier than I'd imagined. He's an amazing writer. I'd put anything he's written in the last decade up against anyone else writing in the same timeframe and I'd say that Moore would win except maybe when compared to Mieville (who certainly has a similar feeling to Moore's work) and Stross. Other than those two, and maybe Iain Banks, he's the best!

He is indeed, but what I like best about Moore is his understanding of what comics/graphic novels are all about: visuals. Take a look at Rorsharch's battle with the SWAT team in Watchmen -- it shows that the guy knows action. I really look forward to that movie, though I don't like the look they've given Ozymandias.

I've loved musicals since I was a kid, but my family didn't have much money to go to New York or even SF to see them too often and I often had to rely on cast recordings and AmDram to get my fixes. I did see a bunch of them during college though, the plus of going to a performing arts school. To me, the perfect American Musical is City of Angels. It's the best piece of post-modern theatre ever created. You've got a truly American detective concept, mingling with a tale of a writer selling out and some of the best music you'll ever hear. It's a magnificent combination and it blends fantasy and reality flawlessly, showing how one both enforces and counteracts the other. A masterpiece. I also love Assassins, though it's only slightly in the category of the Fantastic. Brigadoon is another favourite of mine, mostly for the dances that every version of it I've ever seen feature. There was a musical version of Rip Van Winkle that I enjoyed when I was much younger. It's good to see Forever Plaid up there. I saw that show at least 3 times and always loved it. Sondheim's Into the Woods was another great one for a kid of 12 to see on American Masters from PBS. I've always loved Sondheim (I used to sing songs from Company to myself on the swings as a kid) and that was his most fantastical musical at the time. I'm currently working on writing a musical myself. It's not fantasy, but a screwball-ish comedy about three guys trying to make their fill for the rest of the year during the last night before Prohibition sets in.

Nolacon. I wish I had been there. It sounds like one of those times when I'd find the most interesting little nugget of joy and spin it around until I had cotton candy

You've put out an issue that puts anything I'll ever do to shame. Well-played, Mr. Lillian. Well-played indeed

With two Hugo nominations this year, you've played this game pretty well yourself. Thanks for the nice egoboo towards Chall in your "Hugo Handicapping" issue!

William Huckabee, New Orleans LA

2008-07-09T21:41:00.005-05:00

It's been many years since I've so much as seen a fanzine, but now here's Challenger #27. In many ways it marks a return to thrilling days of yesteryear, when I was an active SFer attending NOSFA meetings and trying my hand at zines for the club apa, George.

I note from Ken Mitcheroney's signature on his cover art that the piece was drawn in 1980-something. Despite its age, I imagine no one had any trouble recognizing Ripley and the Alien. Does anyone agree with me that the third movie in that series must be the most disappointing sequel of all time?

Not just disappointing, but offensive. Alien3 did its best to destroy the series and drown everything that went before in nihilism and bile. I consider it one of the worst movies ever made.

Is the coincidence fortunate or unfortunate that brings Joseph L. Green's "Janus" article to publication so close to Arthur C. Clarke's demise? Clarke's death was noted on CBS Sunday Morning, and they not only mentioned 2001: A Space Odyssey, but also showed clips from the network's moon landing coverage. Clarke, Walter Cronkite, and Wally Schirra were a great broadcast team. I was glad that they didn't show Clarke's quasi-debate on the value of space exploration with Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut compared people in favor of the space program to stamp collectors! I also recall that Robert A. Heinlein gave an interview on that program in which he suggested that future calendars would be dated from the landing. It's very sad the way things worked out. I doubt more than 1% of today's population could even tell you why July 20^th is a significant date.

Aside from being the date of the first moon landing, July 20th also the day von Stauffenberg tried to kill Hitler, the date of the fall of the bridge at San Luis Rey, and the birthdate of Diana Rigg, Sir Edmund Hilary and your humble obedient editor! Obviously, 7/20 should be a national holiday!

I curse my gafia over the past several years. It caused me to miss Ruth Judkowitz when she visited New Orleans in the past. Might she soon return?

In our dreams.

Alan Moore looks like he needs to get both a shave and more sleep. Mike Resnick's [and Laura Turtledove's] listing of fantasy-oriented musicals is awe-inspiring.

Your account of Confederation, and the bid for the 1988 worldcon, is an important piece of fan history. You deserve kudos for printing the story of the who-won-the-worldcon hoax, despite your being the butt of the joke. [Fame is fame is fame.] You mention some of the fans who have passed on since 1986. Others have disappeared. I wish I knew where Charlie and Cheryl DuVal were now. Their PanOptiCon was one of the best media conventions I've ever attended, and Cheryl was a fine cartoonist. I have an original of one of her portraits of Dr. Who.

The call goes out to fandom. Where are the DuVals?

I really liked your note on the passing of the actor, George Grizzard. Apparently his Twilight Zone episode made a difference to you. Is that the one where he turns out to be a robot?

Grizzard brilliantly played a dual role in "In His Image", a malfunctioning android and his neurotic creator. Great show, quite moving, inspiring hope in my adolescent self that happiness might be possible in this world. Grizzard also starred in a very funny TZ called "The Chaser".

Jerry Kaufman, Seattle WA

2008-07-09T21:37:00.005-05:00

Now that I've read a great deal of the monster that is issue #27, I find myself with just a few things to add.

We here at Littlebrook don't do theme issues except as an afterthought. Several issues ago I noticed we had a couple of articles that related to travel, so I pretended all the articles were travel-related, whether actual physical travel or mental travel. The most recent issue's theme of Popular Culture was also selected after I realized that most of the articles could be characterized as such.

Taral's point of view about US voters and Worldcon site selection is very different from my perception. I think that, given the choice between a US bid and a viable foreign bid, the Worldcon has nearly always gone to the foreign site. "Viable" is a key word -- I don't think Zagreb could have won because few in the US thought it could really work. However, I've done no research to find out what bids opposed all those Canadian, British, Australian, etc. winning worldcons, so my perceptions could simply be self-serving.

I also doubt that Japanese voters had anything to do with Montreal's win, but maybe Taral was being tongue-in-cheek, and it's pointless for me to argue about it. (If you sent Chall to Kevin Standlee, I'm sure he will not be able to resist responding to Taral in depth on this and other points.)

Having said that, I will also say that Taral's a deserving choice, considering not only all the art he's done over the years, but also his writing, his fanzines (including, for instance, the provocative DNQ), and his other publishing projects. It's especially appropriate for a Canadian Worldcon to recognize him, but I think such an honor would not have been amiss if a US Worldcon had given it to him.

I enjoyed Joseph Green's overview of Clarke's work, but would have enjoyed it more if it had more about the mystic side of Clarke (something which I've noticed myself), and if Joe had shown more how the two sides of Clarke's writerly personality relate to one another. (Perhaps he's done this somewhere else?)

The late Sir Arthur's work is susceptible to many critical perspectives. Challenger is open to hearing all, hint-hint-hint.

I liked Julia Morgan-Scott's illustrations for her article.

The illos preceded the article. I asked Julia to write it after seeing them.

Warren Buff's article on science fiction rock reminded me that in Seattle we have a band called Bloodhag (there are umlauts over each "o" but I can't add them in AOL) that writes heavy metal songs about science fiction writers and has been known to toss copies of paperbacks by their song subjects into the audience. Greg and Astrid Bear love them but as I'm not a heavy metal fan (I believe what they do is better characterized as speed metal, but hey) and can't understand a word they sing, I avoid them. (You however, may like them, so seek out www.bloodhag.com and listen for yourself.)

And that really is that.

Robert Kennedy, Camarillo CA

2008-07-09T21:31:00.006-05:00

[Re issue #26:]

Cold Case Files (A&E) presented the Michael Crowe case for at least the fourth and fifth times on April 27 and May 17. Then, also in May, I saw another case where police were so sure that the brother had killed his younger sister that they didn't bother looking into a much more obvious suspect. They couldn't prove the brother did it so the case went cold. Many years later another police officer looked into the case and read the girl's diary. What do you know? The most obvious suspect was the girl's boyfriend who treated her badly and apparently their relationship was unknown to the family. To make the story short, the boyfriend (now a Navy petty officer) was the killer. He claimed it was an accident. But, the evidence said otherwise and he was found guilty of murder. Of course, over the years the brother's life had been made miserable. The police apparently call situations like these to be tunnel vision. I call it incompetence. The Cold Case Files on A&E are the real thing, unlike on CBS.

There is a newly issued book on the Duke Lacrosse Case Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case by Stuart Taylor, Jr. and K C Johnson. Mike Nifong the scumbag Durham County (North Carolina) District Attorney involved in the phony rape case involving the Duke University lacrosse players resigned and has been disbarred. He may face lawsuits. I would think lawsuits against Durham County and Duke University itself might be in order. Nifong got what he deserved. But, what about the lacrosse players he tried to railroad? Of course Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton jumped in early and played the Race Card. (The case rather reminds me of Sharpton and Tawana Brawley. Either Sharpton has learned nothing or doesn't give a damn. Probably both.) Then there's the New York Times who had the boys pictures on its front page, but put Nifong's disbarment on page 16. What about the 88 Duke University faculty members who took out an ad denouncing and threatening the boys?

Knee-jerk political correctness is always stupid. I'm delighted that Duke has reinstated its lacrosse program, and I hope the mistreated students soak both county and university for long, long green.

Apparently, Nifong finally issued an apology. Better late than never I guess, but it's meaningless. (Isn't it interesting how so many people apologize and say that they are sorry for their actionsafter they get caught [witness Michael Vick]?) It was reported (September 1) that Nifong was sentenced to one day in jail having been found in "criminal contempt for lying to a judge when pursuing charges against" the Duke Lacrosse players. (He could have received 30 days. Lucky man and he isn't even a young Hollywood so-called celebrity. He should have received several years in prison for his actions.) I wonder if the other people and the New York Times will now render an apology. I also wonder if they all will offer to help reimburse the boys and their families for their legal expenses that I understand are in excess of $1 million. I will not hold my breath.

As a free-press nut I wouldn't chide the NYT too much -- the accusations against the lacrosse teams made for an attention-worthy news story. But those who automatically believed the crazy complainant for whatever reason -- because she was black, because she was female, because the accused were male, white, jocks, whatever -- did violence to all basic concepts of fair play. Contributing to the guys' legal expenses seems to me to be a fine way of doing penance (said the money-grubbing attorney).

Then there is the recent case of the two 13-year old boys in McMinnville, Oregon who were charged with sexual harassment, felony sex abuse and anything else the prosecutors could think of for slapping some girls on the butt. Basically, the students at their school had a slap the butt day so most everyone was slapping butts. (I know that sounds a bit silly. But, these were only 13-year olds.) For some reason the Assistant Principal called the police on these two boys. The boys were interrogated by a police officer, arrested, hauled off in handcuffs, strip-searched, and placed in juvenile jail for five days. If convicted they would be required to register as sex offenders for a lifetime. Like Nifong, the District Attorney Bradley Berry keep saying wait until you see the evidence. Each time they came into court another charge was dropped. The girls involved said they wanted all charges dropped. Finally all charges were dropped and the judge dismissed the case. Apparently the boys will have to go through some of the usual therapy crap. The Assistant District Attorney said that under the same circumstances they would bring the same charges. The Assistant Principal, District Attorney Berry, and the Assistant District Attorney are well deserving of the Nifong Award. The Assistant Principal should be fired. District Attorney Berry and the Assistant District Attorney should be fired and disbarred, just like the punishment of Nifong.

It would be interesting if a Nifong Award could be established. No limit on the number of awards that could be given in a year. The first award should go to Nifong himself. Awards could be given for the past and the prosecutors and therapists involved in the McMartin case should receive the award. Joe Major should be able to come up with an excellent list of other possible recipients of the Nifong Award.

The Nifong Award seems a great concept to me! Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, my old stompin' grounds, recently provided an astounding example of prosecutorial misconduct, one so egregious that even our increasingly right-radical Supreme Court was disgusted. The A.D.A. in the Allen Snyder case -- whom I won't name, since he's a friend -- excluded blacks without cause from Snyder's jury and openly invoked O.J. Simpson in his closing arguments. The Supremes bawled out the A.D.A., the trial court judge, and the Louisiana high court in such disparaging terms that the courtroom rocked with laughter. Ooh. I'm on the other side and that hurt me.

Judge Roy L. Pearson sued cleaners for $54 million because he claimed they lost a pair of his suit pants. The suit apparently went on for some two years. Finally, in June a judge decided the suit was frivolous, that Pearson was not entitled to any money, and that he owed the Chung family (the cleaners) some $1,000 in costs. Finally, a good outcome. Judge Pearson should be removed from office and disbarred.

" The suit was frivolous"?!? But what could be less frivolous than a suit without pants? Do people want judges to go around without trousers? I'm confused.

OK -- Enough of the rants.

As for #26, I did send a copy of "How I Escaped My Peruvian Kidnappers" by Gary Robe to a friend whose wife is from Peru.

[On to #27]

Another outstanding issue and may you finally win a HUGO. I read all 95 pages of it.

Especially enjoyed were "My World Tour with Guns 'n Roses -- Mexico City" by Gary Robe and "Music(als) of the Spheres" by Mike Resnick.

Mike Resnick: Incredible, you list some 63 shows. In your fine article you make mention of Carousel. I've seen the movie and despite my admiration and love for Shirley Jones I did not care for the movie. Magnificent songs, but the movie didn't do a thing for me. Then, Laura Turtledove (a.k.a. Frankos) added another some 47 bringing the total to 110.

Guy Lillian: Good point at the end of Mary Ann van Hartesveldt's letter"Creationism, whatever its faults, doesn't kill people."

Chris Garcia: If a friend of yours is being railroaded for a crime he didn't commit by a DA who is also a friend of yours, why does the DA remain a friend? I first saw Mort Sahl at the Hungry I in San Francisco and sat through two shows. Also, I remember when Bart Litton (then the owner of Litton Savings & Loan which is long defunct) sponsored Mort Sahl on TV during the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Sahl said that John F. Kennedy would be the presidential nominee because it was foretold in the Bible -- "A little child shall lead them." That so enraged Bart Litton (who, if I recall correctly, had ½ vote as a delegate) that he stormed onto the set and berated Sahl.

Joseph T. Major, Louisville, Kentucky

2008-07-09T21:29:00.003-05:00

http://members.iglou.com/jtmajor

"Theme Dream": "Don't step on my blue suede tentacle sheaths." "Elvis has left the Dome.

" Our condolences on the loss of Jesse.

"You Heard It Here" First: A ghastly thought; that a day may come when the only way a traditional fan can afford to attend the conglomeration of pros, performers, and media-kiddies that bears the name of "WorldCon" will be as invited (and costs-covered!) guest. Alas, I fell under the second category of people Taral couldn't notify, being at a reunion of my wife's family.

"To Build a Fan": "'He's almost as good as Austin Powers!'" We don't expect adult judgment from children, that's why the separate categories exist. However, one wonders about Chris's judgment: Perdido Street Station was next. What the hell was I thinking." What were you going to do next, Philip Jose Farmer's A Feast Unknown?

"Let he who would know Africa, eat lion sperm."

"Cooking With Fats": One imagines, as the elders sat in their shambolic huts thrown up on the verges of the new great and now empty ocean, they spoke yet of the high civilization and memorable wonders of Atlantis, trying desperately to evoke some pleasant memories of the joyous times before the Downfall.

We live in a modified shotgun house a partial second floor was added, which contains Lisa's and my bedroom and my office. The house itself was originally built around 1903 (when my stepcousin, the WWI vet here in Louisville, was two years old) and was not flooded in 1937.

"An Astronomical Note": Thanks to the wonders of Google Maps, I have determined that the facilities of my cousin Ed's florist greenhouses in Hopkinsville will have less than one second less of totality from the maximum for the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017. This eclipse will be part of Saros 45, which began in 1639 and will end in 3009. The previous eclipse in this saros was in 1999 and was reported on in Plokta. Therefore, I will keep in good standing with Ed and his sons Lee and John (who help him run the greenhouses), and with any luck will have access to a site of reasonable comfort from which to view the eclipse.

Thanks for teaching me a new word. I thought "Saros" was Willie, the fan from Texas.

"My World Tour with Guns 'n Roses": "How does it feel that you're going to have to live the rest of your life knowing that your dad is cooler than you?" Ah yes, we may be going into an era of Metamucil and AARP, but we have the warm cuddly feeling of knowing that those young whippersnappers of Gen X and Gen Y can never be as cool as we are.

Nor as cold as we soon will be.

"Music(als) of the Spheres": I think this shows that SF & F are very hard to transfer to the stage, even more so given the mindset of the performing arts community. "Wake up and Smell the Coffin!": While The Boat inspired a classic early graphic novel, Phil Foglio's The Capture, it really wasn't viable as a con bid; more intriguing to imagine than to actually carry out. Especially these days, when there is so much one-day business.

Nevertheless, the Boat came in second in the 1988 bidding, with almost half as many first-place votes as New Orleans. Whether this was because fans thought a worldcon on a cruise ship was a cool idea or wanted to exclude the impecunious from their number is a question for someone who voted that way.

You get one ophthalmic migraine a year? Only one? Lucky you! (I get them irregularly but far more than you do.)

I bruise my knuckles knocking on wood, but my migraines don't hurt as much as they used to. When I was a kid they nauseated me for hours.

Such is the way of the world; one of Lisa's best friends at Assumption Greek Orthodox is the partner of Cliff Amos. And she had the news that Cliff had had to go into the hospital for some work on his pacemaker. However, he seems to be out and around all right.

We shall not see their like again. Those times have receded into the mists, gone in the haze of golden memories. We sit in the ramshackle huts near the beach and tell tales of the glories of downfallen Atlantis.

The Chorus Lines: And, the Heinlein Circle has cruised resolutely on, ignoring the lapses both historical and current (i.e., the memory book that was supposed to be available at the Centennial and still isn't). We can endure this sort of behavior in subfandoms. But for the Great Progenitor of our own center of being?

Earl has described the solution explained by Zeb Jones to John Lyle; be guilty of something, but a lesser something than they want to get you for. I said RAH was the Great Progenitor.

I got Capote on DVD, and picked up a second copy at ConGlomeration to give to my brother, the literature professor. Capote did so well with In Cold Blood because they were his sort of people; though he was part of the New York literary circle, he didn't disdain the people of Kansas. Or Perry Smith, though that was his problem. He only mentions himself once in the book, and yet he pervades it. And yes, Capote displays the terrible contradictions of the case that tore Capote apart.

Did you know, by the way, that Truman Streckfus (his original name) taught himself to read at age two and a half? I knew there was something interesting about the man.

My only complaint with the film Capote was that they didn't take more care to duplicate the actual murder scene, the Clutter house -- familiar from the film of In Cold Blood.

It's well known (see Bill Patterson's The Martian Named Smith) that Stranger in a Strange Land began as an afterthought on "Gulf", Heinlein's story for the "Trick Issue" of Astounding. But Patterson, and Patterson alone apparently, claims that Heinlein, not Campbell, had the idea for that issue. Is Patterson's biography of Heinlein needing so much editing because Patterson used Heinlein's own sources, and not enough of anyone else's?

Lloyd Penney, Etobicoke, ON, Canada

2008-07-09T21:25:00.003-05:00

A big slab of fanzine came in the mail a while ago ... Challenger 27. A big zine deserves a big LOC ... let's see if I can write one.

Front cover [Ripley and the Alien]... Isn't that sweet, their first date! I don't want to know where they went for dinner, or what they had ...

As I type, I am reminded by one of the daily newspapers here that this day, January 28, is the 22nd anniversary of the Challenger shuttle disaster. A complete coincidence, I assure you...

I've seen Warren Buff's name only a couple of times elsewhere in other zines, and after reading the latest SFC Bulletin, he may soon be the SFC's new president. If indeed he's a newcomer, then good for him for jumping into the fray with both feet.

Warren won the presidency of the Southern Fandom Confederation, and is also involved with Raleigh's NASFiC bid for 2010.

Condolences on the loss of Jesse. Pets have so much to teach us on love, care and grief, valuable lessons for all of us. Do you think you'll get yourselves another little companion of the canine variety? Looks like little Whistler provides some companionship. Yvonne and I have never had pets, but we were all set to bring a kitty home when Yvonne had her allergies tested, and felus cattus was near the top of the list. So, no Momcat for us, and I miss her.

Rosy's allergic to cats, too, but that hasn't prevented her from adopting Whistler and DaVinci and rescuing every feral kitten she can. For her, I think, the worst sights of our post-Katrina tour of New Orleans were the starving strays wandering the ruined streets.

I don't envy Zenkitty's predicament. [Dating] truly is a mating dance, to know what to do and when to do it. Once you've either figured it out, or faked your way through, or did it right through sheer dumb luck, you should be able to develop a long-term relationship with someone. Yvonne and I celebrate 25 years of marriage this coming May 28, so I get the feeling we did it right. (This is the sheer dumb luck part, on my part, IMHO.)

Once again, congrats to Taral on his FanGoHship. Yvonne and I have come out of con management retirement, so to speak, and have offered our services to the Anticipation committee. Yvonne is now working with British fan David Clement and others to put together an exciting space, science and technology programming track, and she should also be working in Finance. I offered to run their fanzine lounge, and after putting forth a detailed business case...

Well, I ran into Murray Moore on the Toronto subway a few days ago. He congratulated me. Oh what?, I asked. You got it, he said. Got what? The Montréal fanzine lounge, you got it. News to me!, I said. Murray replied that it was on the Anticipation website, and I confirmed it when I got home. I have all the paperwork and notes from the lounge Yvonne and I ran in Winnipeg in 1994, and given that fanzines are mostly electronic, I think this lounge will be much more relaxation- and programming-oriented than sales-oriented. I hope that soon, I will have an idea of what my budget will be, what kind of space I will have, and what I can do in it.

I've always wanted to visit Montreal and am wild about Warp, the local club's genzine. Indeed, we hope to see you there.

Why do I get the feeling that big-kid Chris Garcia might make a great dad? He knows the difference between childish and child-like, to know that children have a natural sense of wonder, the awe of so many new things and neat things in the new-to-them world around them. Good for Chris and Evelyn in finding the common ground, to go WOW! in all the right places, and to know almost instinctively that the best way to enjoy that goshwow feeling is to have someone to share it with. Yvonne and I used to bring our niece Nicole to conventions, and we got her to one Worldcon (Orlando 1992), and she got to meet her favorite author at the time, Ben Bova, and she also enjoyed time with everyone's grand-dad, the wonderful late Hal Clement. But reality intruded, she has a little one to look after, she barely remembers those days, and we are just her weird aunt and uncle again. Almost ...

I would still like to meet Sir Arthur C. Clarke. [Too late, alas.] Like Heinlein, people in the space industry claim Clarke as one of their own, and I suspect that if Clarke does have a tinge of transcendence in his writing, perhaps he expects that should humanity rise to a certain level of technology and/or knowledge, we might be able to transcend ourselves and our world in a way as yet unknown to us. Maybe we'll glow brightly and transform into shining beings of pure thought and light. Who knows? Sufficient level of technology being indistinguishable from magic, and all that.

Julia Morgan-Scott, don't worry about fat arms. Recently, on-line discussions have been about how it sucks to grow old. We may stay relatively young between the ears, but our bodies (heard them called meatcases) suffer the ravages of time. Expanding waistlines, male pattern baldness, wonky joints, flat feet, retinal separations, cataracts, macular degeneration, partial deafness, etc., etc. ... Used to be we'd brag to each other about all-nighters in the consuite. Now, it's a game of one-ups-manship on whose maladies are worse than others. Fat arms also hug real good, so don't worry ...

My doctor recently let me know that I have a mild case of arthritis on my spine. Great! Something to look forward to in ten years.

Some years ago, Morley Safer (a good Canadian journalist who should have known better) did a story on 60 Minutes on what he referred to as one of the weirdest shows on British television, The Antiques Roadshow. It showed the hidden treasures owned the average Briton, and how much experts thought those treasures could be worth. Safer referred to the show as typical TV for the average mad Englishman, but now, we know better. I think the most popular part of the show is the reaction of the treasure owners who gape in amazement when they learn that the ugly vase Aunt Harriet willed to them might be worth at least £20,000 or so. The BBC's Antiques Roadshow has gone on for more than 25 years now, and traveled to Australia, New Zealand and Canada. They had two major shows in Toronto at our Case Loma. The show has spawned the American version that can be seen on PS, and there was also a Canadian Antiques Roadshow that ran for two seasons on the CBC. Perhaps we don't have as many old treasures in our attics.

I admit, I didn't even know that Fats Domino was still alive; but then, his music is not mine. How old is Fats Domino these days? [He turned 80 on February 26, 2008.] I am more the Rush fan Warren Buff refers to. There are so nerdy SF-oriented bands out there, and I've tried to listen to them, but ... well, it's embarrassing, and I usually tune to something else. Perhaps the only exception is Jimi Hendrix's Watchtower. One thing I can add to this ... right now Patty Page is on a cross-Canada tour, giving concerts everywhere, and I didn't know she was still alive, either.

Amazing at how these rock gods are so cool, and then you actually meet them, and they are everyday folks, which for me, is even cooler. Ozzy likes a cuppa tea, Alice Cooper is calm and collected, and Rod Stewart has his own toy train empire in his basement. Not cool for some, but very cool for me.

The most popular musical playing in Toronto right now is called Evil Dead: The Musical. Sells out each night, apparently. Not sure of the plot, but I think the title itself attracts a lot of people. A lot of people hated the movie Xanadu (except for Evelyn Nelson and us), but now it is being turned into a musical, and I expect it will show up in Toronto shortly.

I wish my own Worldcon bid memories were as positive as yours were. We staged some pretty good parties for the Toronto in 2003 bid, as did Alex von Thorn and Marah Searle-Kovacevic. Two good teams held many good parties, and Yvonne and I got to stage the final three parties at Chicon 2000. Such a good time, and so many people came to the fore and excelled for the masses. And literally six months later, we were off the committee, not wanted by the Torcon 3 BoD chairman, and he tried to get rid of Alex and Marah, too. The BoD eventually got rid of their chairman, but the damage was done. We had a very good time working with the L.A. in '06 people instead, and helped out with L.A.Con IV, too. And while we did not assist with the Montréal in '09 bid at all, we are making up for it by being on the committee.

Yvonne and I were in Atlanta, and we voted for New Orleans in '88, if I recall. Atlanta was our last year in masquerades, and while we did not go to the '87 Worldcon in Britain, Nolacon II in 1988 was a great time. We hit the riverboat, went shopping for party supplies with Kees van Toorn (we split the beer he found), learned to make gumbo, roux and pralines at the Jax Brewery, enjoyed lots of panels and other special events and parties, and never did find the fanzine lounge, if I recall.

I miss Ellen Vartanoff. Always cheerful and smiling and elfin, the last I saw was in Toronto, as she was staying with friends in the east end of the city, and she was attending a paper show here. I also remember watching BoSh MC the Hugos on television as we were setting up a room party in Atlanta.

I never went much for autographs, with a few exceptions. I got a pile of Tim Zahn's books autographed, all published by the long-lamented Bluejay Books. Zahn himself said he didn't have some of those editions. However, my best autograph experience was with Robert Sheckley. Sheckley was at a convention full of media fans when I came up to him and asked him to sign five paperbacks of his novels. That smile would have melted icebergs.

[Re The Zine Dump #19:]

Being a GoH at a convention is great fun, and lots of work, but well worth the resulting egoboo. Yvonne and I have guested at about a dozen cons around the Great Lakes, plus one in Vancouver. I could easily do it all again. Fan GoH for rent, cheap, and housebroken, too!

You do deserve the Hugo-based egoboo, and although Yvonne and I do not have votes to put in the box for Denvention, you have our moral support. I'd like to see the silver rockets scattered about, as should be the egoboo. There are lots of folks who should have that thrill.

Mention of Alexiad reminds me that the last Canadian was actually an American, until he recently had his Canadian citizenship restored. Also, Big Brown has two legs of the Triple Crown, and is favored to win the big prize. The final Arthur C. Clarke was co-written with Fred Pohl; I look forward to seeing it, and finding out what's inside.

I do not watch late night television because I'd rather sleep than be bored. I know who Colin Ferguson is, and I know he spoke at the Press Club correspondents' dinner, but know nothing of his politics. Perhaps it's just as well. Looks like it might be Obama versus Old Grandad in the presidential sweepstakes. McCain is not a typical Republican, and his daughter lives in Toronto, but still, the Democrats will probably win, and they have their work cut out for them, to restore America's standing in the world, and to apologize to countries who were close friends once.

Corflu Silver was a great time!. Las Vegas is a place we'd like to go to again and enjoy the Strip. I've enjoyed the Virtual Fan Lounge, and I hope to take part in more of these electronic bull sessions.

Arnie Katz is showing us a fandom of the future through the VFL. I am consistently in awe of the great work coming out of Vegas.

John Purcell, College Station TX

2008-07-09T21:16:00.002-05:00

Whatever happened to Kenny Mitchroney? He gave me a wonderful piece of art that I've used a couple times over the years (a Star Wars parody featuring Sylvester the cat and his son), and he used to be quite prevalent back around 1980 or so. Then he disappeared. What happened to him? He was a fine artist, as this cover on your latest Challenger attests.

Googling Kenny's name shows that he was in the art department of several creative TV ventures in the past, but I can find nothing current. Anyone help?

Music is a wonderful basis to form a fanzine upon, since there are so many musically inclined fans lurking about. Fifteen or so years ago I was a card-carrying AFM (American Federation of Musicians) member while playing in jazz bands up in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. Those were fun years, for sure, and I could easily have written about that for you. In fact, back in And Furthermore #26 (Jan., 2007) I did indeed write about that time as I completed my musical autobiography. My tale wasn't as nutty as spending a night partying with Guns 'n Roses in Mexico, but it was still fun.

Speaking of musical tales, I had no idea that there were so many science fiction and fantasy based musicals. Mike Resnick's extensive listing and capsule summations really was an eye-opener, but I guess the fantasy-based musicals shouldn't be surprising since, after all, many of those story lines are definitely pure fantasy. There are definitely some wonderful shows listed, too: Brigadoon, Peter Pan, Dr. Dolittle, Lion King, Camelot, Aladdin, Carousel, and others. Great shows all. The masochist in me -- well, the part of me that enjoys making fun of trashy movies -- wants to see some of the real clunkers listed just for the hell of it. This listing is way beyond what I would have thought possible in terms of stfnal or fantasy links in stage musicals. I am suitably impressed. Either that or stunned.

I was very sad to hear of Hank Reinhardt's passing. I corresponded with him briefly during my first swing through fandom back in the 70s and 80s; he was on the mailing list for This House, and I seem to recall receiving the occasional LOC from Hank. Unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of meeting him. He shall be missed.

Immeasurably.

Same thing for Calvin "Biff" Demmon. Unlike Hank, I never corresponded with Biff, but read some of his work here and there. Again, a sad loss for fandom.

I am likewise quite impressed by your recollection of Confederation and the quest for NolaCon II. Your recollections are remarkably lucid about an event that happened mumble-dy mumble years ago. Oh! and thank you so much for interspersing your tale with the various Nolacon II advert illos. Great stuff throughout.

I'd like to claim a photographic memory, but my article about Confederation, like that about SFPA 100 in this issue, was based on my contemporary report. Of course, I didn't know in 1986 that I'd marry Rose-Marie 15 years later, but I wish I had: those years would have certainly passed more quickly.

Milt Stevens, Simi Valley, CA

2008-07-09T21:14:00.003-05:00

In Challenger #27, Zenkitty has done an article that is sure to get lots of comments. Since we frown on arranged marriages, dating is one of the most basic activities in our culture. However, things have changed quite a bit over a mere couple of generations. For instance, Zenkitty mentions the expectation of having sex on the first date. I don't think most of us males who started dating back in the fifties expected to have sex on the first date. You had to sort of organize a campaign to get anywhere. There was also the consideration that if it was too easy, it was too dangerous. Venereal disease before AIDS may not have been quite as final, but it still wasn't good news.

Only one female in my experience insisted on going dutch treat. I felt insulted by that. Since she seemed like the oblivious sort, I don't know whether she even noticed that I withdrew the invitation and never made it again. It may have been a way of giving me the brush-off, but there are better and more effective ways of doing that. A woman saying she is currently dating someone else may be a lie, but it gets the job done without any hard feelings.

Dating gave me an opportunity to do things I wouldn't do by myself. I have always eaten out a lot. For years on end, I would eat out every night of the week. I've always known of many reasonably priced restaurants that had good food. For a date, I wanted to go somewhere flashy and expensive. Going dutch treat wouldn't allow me to do that. Without looking over the woman's tax returns before a date, I'd have to choose a moderately priced restaurant instead. I never felt like doing that.

I think some women really believe that all men want is sex. We would be very easy to understand if that were true. Actually, we have all sorts of motivations, and most of them have nothing to do with sex. Women can get really pissed off if you're dating them, and they realize you aren't interested in them sexually. I recall a situation back when I was in high school. There was a girl who was socially acceptable to me and the people I hung out with. She wasn't tremendously fat, but she was plump enough so I would never be sexually attracted to her. We dated some and hung out some. We actually got along pretty well. After a few months, it began to dawn on her that I wasn't being restrained. I was just plain disinterested. Talk about Hell having no fury. If she knew where I was today, she probably still wouldn't be speaking to me. Oh well.

If I was capable of going out for the sake of going out, I reasoned that females were probably doing the same thing. When you want to go out every weekend you probable will date some women you don't find particularly attractive or even interesting. Which doesn't mean you might not have sex with some of them. Unfortunately, adding sex to nothing still leaves you with nothing.

I very much enjoyed your account of the 1986 worldcon. I recall it as the time I spent a week inside the Krell computer. The atrium in the Marriott Marquis was quite something. I recall one time I entered an elevator at about the 40th floor. I was sharing the elevator with a very large, very slovenly excuse for a homo sapien. The excuse wondered if he could cause the brakes on the elevator to fail if he jumped up and down. He proceeded to jump up and down. I realized this guy was just as dumb as he looked. Somehow, I calmly suggested to him that he shouldn't do that, and he stopped doing it. I didn't even have to kill him.

On the plane trip to and from Atlanta, I took the opportunity to read John Varley's novel Millennium. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's about time travelers from the future snatching people from doomed airliners. OK, so I've always had an odd sense of humor. Today, I wouldn't dare do such a thing. They may have a list of books which are not to be read on airline flights. I don't think I want to find out what might be on the list. I'll just watch the movie instead.

Airport? Airplane? The High and the Mighty?

Although I didn't know it at the time of the 1986 worldcon, I wouldn't be to another worldcon for ten years. My next worldcon would be Los Angeles in 1996. I noticed a funny thing about this ten-year gap in my worldcon attendance. Nobody noticed it. Worldcons are so large that people assumed they just hadn't encountered me. They didn't assume I hadn't been there.

Martin Morse Wooster, Silver Spring, Maryland

2008-07-09T21:08:00.004-05:00

I understand the fanboy imperative to impulsively collect writers' autographs. I've pruned a lot of the SF books I bought in the 1970s, but I've kept all the ones that I had signed, including at least two Gordy Dickson books where Dickson and Sandra Miesel sat at the same table and Dickson signed as the author and Miesel signed as the critic (she wrote the introductions). I still go to book signings and get books signed -- just not as many as I did when I was 19 and thought a signed paperback was Way Cool.

We don't have enough information to know whether or not Robert Anton Wilson was being rude to Reece Moorhead. Wilson was nice to me in correspondence and the one time I met him. Maybe Moorhead caught Wilson at the end of a long day or maybe Wilson was tired and wanted to take a nap. Of course writers should be courteous and professional to their fans, but readers shouldn't expect authors to be "on" all the time.

About your Atlanta Worldcon report: I'm glad you reprinted it, and sometime you should tell us how you segued ftom having an MFA into being a lawyer. [Behold the story in this issue.] Do we know what happened to Judy-Lynn Del Rey's Hugo? Has anyone else ever refused a Hugo? I fully understand why Lester Del Rey refused his wife's award, but there should have been a more gracious way of refusing the prize than what Del Rey did.

I agree, and had an argument after the ceremony with Del Rey's representative on that very topic. I also told Ben Bova, who had encouraged fans to vote for Judy-Lynn, that fans appreciated what he had tried to do even if his fellow editor did not.

Mike Resnick (and Laura Turtledove's) piece on musicals was, like most of Resnick's pieces for you, very entertaining. I can imagine the pitch meeting for Carrie. "The Phantom of /the Opera has a chandelier crashing every night -- we'll flood the stage with gallons of fake blood!" I also find it very hard to believe that anyone would pay money to see a musical version of The Iliad called Home Sweet Homer. As for Monty Python's Spamalot, it's popular enough that it's about to play Washington for a second tour. I wanted to see it the first time it was in town, but the run was sold out.

As for Gary Robe's piece, at first glance the line "I know how they put the sealing wax on a bottle of Maker's Mark" is one of the least likely pickup lines ever. But it makes perfect sense, and I cheer the fellow who makes a nice living making sealing wax.

I also enjoyed Charles Mohapel's ComiCon report. I can't imagine having fun at any convention with 125,000 (!!) people, even if many of them are photogenic babes. But it looks like if you went to the less attended panels, you might have a good time -- and come home with far better swag than SF cons give away.

#27 - Random Thoughts

2008-05-01T18:27:00.003-05:00

Guy:

I liked the issue, more often than not. (The "not" includes, of course, obituaries, whether I knew the person or not.)
I did enjoy the multi-phase article about bidding for Nolacon II; to quote, "Can it be that it was all so simple then?"
The closest I came to be on a Worldcon bidding committee was when two of my fanfriends here in Detroit came up with a scheme to bid Detroit for 2009, I think it was; the WSFS Constitution had not done away with the West-Central-East rotation at that time. Being the one who had inlaws with contacts at the Metro Detroit Convention & Visitors Bureau at the time, and not being as sane as I have had to become since, we actually considered it.
For a time.
A short time.
***
I hope you will be successful in finally winning a Hugo; since I no longer am financially stable enough to countenance spending all that filthy lucre for the privilege of attending, I remain pretty well out of the loop.

Please give Megan's and my best to Rosy and anyone else to whom it should go.
Cheers!
Al Bouchard

2008-01-16T00:23:00.000-06:00

From the
Mike Resnick
listserv:

John Teehan

2008-01-15T00:19:00.000-06:00

I just stumbled upon an interesting bit of trivia. While doing some preliminary research on a short article on superhero names, I discovered a claim on Wikipedia that Guy Gardner, the Green Lantern of Earth (late 80s to early 90s) was named after our own Guy Lillian III and Gardner Fox. This may be old news to some, but new to me. Seems kind of big to me to have a comic book superhero named after oneself-even one as flaky as GG.

Guy, have you ever written anything about this? Or care to make some comments?

Julie Schwartz, under whose editorial guidance the Silver Age Green Lantern came to be, never told me Guy Gardner was named after me and Mr. Fox, but then he never told me he wasn't, either. So ... Sure he was!

And let's not forget Lex Luthor's late mother on Smallville ...

Now, about Challenger #26 ...

Earl Kemp

2008-01-14T23:55:00.000-06:00

It's really a heavy, impressive zine. It's really crammed full of The Good Stuff! It's not only informative; it's enjoyable and a real keeper.

The Benfords' "Asia Emerging" was a very good read, at times almost making me want to have been going along with them on their fantastic trip. I have visited a few of the places they stopped at, but never Sri Lanka. I first met Arthur Clarke in 1952, I believe it was, at Beastley's on the Lake (a.k.a. Midwestcon) in Ohio. Our paths crossed a few times after that and, once he moved to Ceylon, we continued corresponding for a while. Hard to believe he's 90...and I'm still sooooo young. Great Charlie Williams artwork too.

"When Funny Got More Laughs Than Dirty," by Michael Resnick, was also a good read. I liked it better than "Homes Away From Home."

Your "A Show of Hands" was the most impressive piece in the whole issue for me. It was extremely well written...an example of what reporting should be like ... carrying all kinds of subtle undertones along with the narrative. I liked especially your comments about Alexei Panshin, both in the article and in the LoCs. To my way of thinking, Panshin is The No. 1 Authority on Heinlein, regardless of Heinlein's opinion. Besides, his doesn't count any more and mine does.

Alexei has done more than any single person to enshrine RAH as a master scribe ... only he made the mistake of being honest about it. Honesty is the one thing that RAH could never handle. Even now he's probably rolling around in his grave demanding total control. Such a pathetic person.

Alexei, Joseph Major, and I are currently having a bit of fun about the upcoming RAH major celebration for several days in two major big-time hotels. Going through the program book we're looking for things relating to RAH the man and find almost nothing...only things related to praising him as some sort of made-up mythical figure created by ass-kissers who have nothing better to do.

Of the entire list of names of people allegedly attending or participating, only three are recognizably old-line SF Related ... Arthur Clarke, Fred Pohl, and David Gerrold. I seriously doubt if Clarke will make the event and Pohl might not know why he's there ... leaving only one possibility and David's always there, pen in hand, ready to sign most anything...

Not one name known to be an authority on RAH and his works is visible anywhere.

It's sure to be a wonderful affair.

Something tells me you don't really mean that. The Heinlein Centennial is past, now. Anyone attend? How'd it go?

Gary Robe's "How I Escaped My Peruvian Kidnappers" was a delightful read, even though obviously tense for him at times. Fortunately he was ready to do physical battle if necessary. Something I was not able to contemplate when I was scooped up by the Dreaded Peruvian Secret Police (I'd rather face them any day than street hoods) in Lima airport awaiting departure, hustled into a bare interrogation room, searched and quizzed on the subject of why I had too much money on me.

Too much? I never knew there was such a thing, especially on a month long leisurely vacation. It actually involved much the same a Robe's problems, an inability to use Soles (Peruvian currency) any where except within Peru. It has no value internationally.

And I was leaving and I had my pockets full of Soles and going through the airport shops just buying things to get rid of it. That's when I was picked up and taken away.

After about an hour of that third degree, with the airplane waiting, loaded on the runway for me, the pilot and chief stewardess (Argentine Airlines by the way) came to the secret police interrogation room, pounded on the door and demanded either my immediate release or lock me up because the plane would wait no longer.

At the time I was loaded down not only with Soles, but with illegal pre-Columbian art (all erotic), pockets stuffed with cocaine leaves...and a money belt ... and a bunch of bills ... all legal and all mine. The police let me go and I grabbed up my stuff and ran, hand in hand with the pilot and stewardess to the plane, onto the plane, amid loud cheers from the irritated, waiting passengers, and it took off immediately.

With the Soles that I couldn't use at all anywhere else, I bought all the wine on the plane and had it passed out to the passengers.

It is not possible to not like Curt Phillips' "A Tucker Story ... and A Tucker Story." It is not possible to not like Bob Tucker.

What can I say except that you made my day?

Alexei Panshin

2008-01-13T23:43:00.000-06:00

Thanks for the followup on your Shootout piece.

Tom Collins sent me his account, which you saw on stencil, in the form of a limited circulation fanzine, Transient 31, dated 29 May 1974. He also sent me your account in Transient 34, no date, but clearly done shortly afterward. The two mimeographed versions, now beginning to flake at the corners, have been in my Heinlein folder ever since.

I don't agree with everything you've written. Particularly, you characterize my actions and motivations in ways that I wouldn't. For instance, in the original - which is the account I think at this moment that I'd prefer to follow precisely because it was closer to the event - you say: "Panshin left with Collins." That is what happened. Heinlein repeated, "Good day, sir." It was clear he didn't intend to talk with me, and I saw no point in argument, so I left with my wife and Tom. In the new version, you change this to: "Panshin fled. There is no other word for it." Dear me - fled, did I? And there are other things you say in this version that seem like projections to me -- how you think you would have felt, but not necessarily how I did feel.

But I don't want to "correct" you. I simply want to post what various people who were there had to say about the event at the time. To the extent that my own home movie goes differently, that will be expressed in my own account.

As Tom Collins said after publishing what you wrote: "As often happens with conflicting versions of an event, the truth is likely not either, but some combination of both. Reconciling our differences, and determining whether Guy's account supports or undermines some of my own conclusions, is left as an exercise for the indefatigable reader should there be any so inclined."

The incident from 1974 was still being discussed at the last L.A.Con. Your understanding is generous. Speaking of Tom Collins, I hope he won't mind my saying how much I've valued his friendship since our days at UC Berkeley.

Joseph T, Major, Louisville, Kentucky, USA

2008-01-12T23:26:00.000-06:00

http://members.iglou.com/jtmajor

I've been beginning to wonder about the Bowling Alone thesis. Robert Putnam was discussing the erosion of "social capital" -- how the neighborhood is eroding, so to speak. The network of social groups that cushioned the family and directed it -- the "village" that it takes to raise a child, so to speak, and I bet you recognize that -- has been eroded away.

The Internet, far from providing a global village, has turned out to be a dividing, or perhaps fracturing feature. To veer off on a tangent, consider the problem of anorexia. Previously, while a girl might be faced with skinny models, she would also have not only a family but school organizations, social groups, and other local organizations that would say, "You don't look well." Now, she retreats to her room, logs on to her anorexia chat room, checks out the anorexia vlogs, surfs from anorexia site to anorexia site, and is confirmed in her belief that having all her bones visible is a step in the right direction.

And so, while heretofore Cho Seng-hui would have dealt face to face with other people, now he could be Ismail Ax, the coolest player in Second Life. One is all image, with no there there beneath; and eventually the image will collide with reality.

It is particularly poignant for us because it did touch us. Once we had dreams of altering the world. There were the political ones, the Michelists who would forge a new future. There were the scientific ones. Now, we realize we can't even change the community. Perhaps that encourages retreating into manufactured dreams.

I can't say much against any of the trip reports here. But I do remember that Lan's Lantern declined when it got into running nothing but long trip reports, with little if anything to do with SF.

Resnick could mention a really good example of his thesis about "When Funny Got More Laughs Than Dirty" -- the movie The Aristocrats, a number of comedians (add quotes if you like) all telling their own versions of the same joke about a vaudeville performance of gross sexual acts, done by a team calling itself "The Aristocrats".

There's a website devoted to that gag-worthy gag.

"A Show of Hands": I think the operative relationship here was power. If you had to have something from RAH, he could graciously grant it. If RAH wanted something from you, that was an imperative. Writers should be read, and not met, as Will Cuppy said.

Unfortunately, the adulators are still around, mostly talking to one another and thinking they are an entire universe. Their response to Earl Kemp's recounting of his nightmarish experiences was that these were old fogies who didn't matter. Not one bothered to respond to Earl.

Fred Lerner: I bet you were at MidAmeriCon, too. I was reminded of how much things have changed when I ran across their lavish Program Book (hardback! Unique!) [all hail Tom Reamy!] and saw that there was basically one and a half program tracks. L.A.con had over 1000 program items.

But then how little we knew. The big thing at MidAmeriCon was their play. That preview room for that flick called "The Star Wars" hardly got mentioned ...

I sat two or three rows behind the Heinleins at that play -- "Sails of Moonlight, Eyes of Dusk" -- and noticed that RAH's head sank onto his chest in the second act. I agreed; I liked the first segment (Twig) and the costumes, but staggered out stupefied before the curtain. As for the panel on "The Star Wars", I attended and met Mark Hamill -- terrific dude.

Thank you for the [Hugo nomination] congratulations. And congratulations to you yourself for your like accomplishment.

We'll get

'em next year.

In re To Kill a Mockingbird: do you prefer Catherine Keener (Capote) or Sandra Bullock (Infamous)?

Keener and Capote. Though she and Seymour Hoffman didn't physically resemble Harper Lee and Truman Capote as well as did Bullock -- great nose -- and Toby Jones, their performances were much, much stronger. When their characters shared a screen I nearly wept, seeing so much talent in one place. Capote has it all over Infamous, anyway: one is about the terrible demands of the writing art, the other an insipid gay love story; one is an invaluable companion piece to In Cold Blood, the other barely watchable.

Hugo nomination pins: Evelyn Leeper used to attach all of hers to her badge, until it got to the point where her badge was being pulled off.

John Purcell: Someday in the course of moving books around the house I will find the Pohl collection with the story about the ultimate euphoric. It was a drug that was easy to make, utterly soothing, and totally non-addictive. As a result, no one ever got off it, since they could at any moment. (There is physical addiction and psychological addiction.) So, with the technological advances available these days it is so easy to do a knock-'em-dead fanzine that everyone is going to do one RealSoonNow.

Mary Ann van Hartesveldt, Fort Valley GA, USA

2008-01-11T23:17:00.000-06:00

Thank you so much for printing my article on Scientology in issue #25. I got an enormous charge out of the positive comments from your readers. Thanks also for running my self portrait in issue #26. It's nice to remember that I once looked like that.

I didn't

know you drew that yourself! And I could have sworn it was done from life just this year...

Greg Benford, for whom I have a lot of respect, cannot have meant to say that America is "an underpopulated country." No one who has driven across Atlanta in rush hour could believe such a thing. In the last 200 years we have lost 50% of our wetlands, 90% of our northwestern old-growth forests, and 99% of our tall grass prairie. Every day about nine square miles of rural land is lost to development. Georgia, Florida, and Alabama are battling over dwindling water resources and that conflict is repeated all over the country. We may not be as overpopulated as some Asian nations, but we are a long, long way from being underpopulated.

I must take exception to Jeffrey Copeland's idea that mental health service providers should be held responsible when those whom they treat commit crimes. The result of such a policy would be that there simply would be no mental health services available at all. Want to see what that is like? Visit Georgia. For the bulk of the population, whose insurance coverage for mental health treatment is severely limited or nonexistent, there might as well be no psychiatric clinics. The result is enormous suffering by people with serious brain disorders and their family members.

I greatly enjoyed Greg Benford's article on Carl Sagan. The man was such a voice of reason. I thought of him a few weeks ago, when there was a tragic case in the headlines in Georgia. A couple was charged with murder in the death by starvation of their infant son. The father had screwball ideas about nutrition, and when relatives urged the couple to take the baby to a doctor, the father refused. He didn't believe in doctors. The jury sent both parents to prison. In effect, they said, "No, you can't ignore scientific facts and make up your own fantasies about medicine and science, and enforce them on others." But how many of those jurors support teaching creationism in the public schools? We have had free, compulsory public education in the South for almost a century, but you wouldn't know it from reading the paper.

Martin Morse Wooster, Silver Spring MD, USA

2008-01-10T21:30:00.000-06:00

Many thanks for Challenger #26. Mike Resnick says that Writers Guild members summoned to Los Angeles to meet with producers have to by contract, "be flown first class, driven by limo, all meals paid for, and stay in five-star hotels." Gee, how can I get a contract like that? I'm lucky if someone pays me to stay in a Motel 6! But I do like Resnick's stories of the high life, and I hope he has many more of them to share with Challenger readers.

As for your comments about "the only duty of an artist is to tell the truth" - well, again, artists shouldn't kowtow to a finicky public or ham-handed editors. But reasonable editing and reasonable requests from fans ought to be taken in stride. Of course fen can sometimes be swill; I remember in the great documentary Trekkies DeForest Kelley recalling how someone asked him for a blood sample "for my collection." (Apparently, the doofus made the request more than once.)

I'd like to know who had contributed to that collection.

But writers shouldn't be like Anthony Burgess, who, I was told, would take any book sent to him for a signature and sell it. I just read a profile of Sir Paul McCartney in The New Yorker where McCartney explained that he'll happily sign anything admirers bring him, but he won't allow any photos. That seems fair to me.

You interviewed Robert A. Heinlein! Can I touch you? [No!] But seriously, "A Show of Hands" was a good piece, and I'm glad you dusted it off. I'm sure you'll hear from Heinlein fans about it - and I hope you don't hear from those who think their hero was flawless. (And do you still just collect the autographs of Hugo winners, or have your tastes changed?)

If you ever read Challenger #1, you'll read how I wasted much of my first worldcon-- in 1969 -- bugging writers to sign their books. A fan could spend the whole con doing that.
So now that I have better things to do at a convention, I only go out of my way to get autographs on award winners... or classics... or first novels...

or anything else that catches my eye.
FAN BOY FOREVER!

I'm sure many of the comedians Mike Resnick speaks of were really funny. (I know the names of at least half of them.) But where is someone who is interested in these comedians going to hear their work? How many radio stations broadcast comedy? Many record stores have cut their comedy sections to a bare minimum. So it's perfectly understandable that no one under the age of 60 has ever heard the work of Severn Darden or Mina Kolb.

Greg Benford is right that no one has really replaced Carl Sagan, and that Sagan did more good than harm. But isn't the reason there's no Sagan successor the natural reluctance of professors to popularize their work? Britain has many "TV dons" who are good at popularizing history. We certainly need more scientists who are good at explaining science to the public.

Best I've ever seen, Jacob Bronouski of The Ascent of Man, but even he couldn't compete with the magnificent "Mr. Wizard", Don Herbert, just this season passed beyond the physical world to the place where all things are known.

Chris Garcia

2008-01-09T21:18:00.000-06:00

Susan Russell’s piece on the cover is a big switch from Taral’s cover for the last issue. Each works wonderfully in totally opposite areas. It’s a great cover and one that stuck with me. It reminded me, probably intentionally, of the drawings from the 16th Century that ships would bring back of things they saw … or thought they saw. A beast with a man’s head would fit right in on that scene.

One of the first books my Dad let me destroy from over-reading when I was a kid was the image books from Pioneer Saturn and Venus. There were some many impressive photos, and since my dad was 14 years, 11 months to the dad when Man came to the Moon, he was always a giant space buff. I read those books over and over, and on Space Mountain in Disneyland, I’d always stay behind because on the way out there were photos from those books on the wall and I’d just stare at them over and over. I’ve never managed to see much in the skies myself, but I love being areas where I actually can see a blanket of stars. It’s one of the reasons I like driving to and from Vegas in the dark hours of the morning.

There’s a strange collision of my worlds that has recently raised its head. A fannish friend of mine’s being railroaded for a crime he didn’t commit by a DA who is a friend of mine from a Film Festival I work with. It’s rough, especially since I know he’s innocent of the crimes because he was at a Con, but no amount of evidence seems to be enough. He’s been sitting in jail, waiting for his trial for almost five months now.

I must know details.

I had to explain Virginia Tech to The Little One, who was just in preparation for her 8th Birthday Party. Not an easy task for a girl who knows almost nothing of human death yet. It wasn’t easy, but I got her to the point of understanding that I suspect she’ll try and find out more as she grows. She also recently asked about the IRA and I had to explain that to her. That was harder. It’s easy for a kid to understand a single gunman full of rage shooting people than to grasp the political fortunes of two countries and their people.

That’s a great illustration with the Benford piece. I love stuff like that! It sounds like a wonderful visit and it’s another thing I’m fairly certain I’ll never get to do. I’m not a good flyer and even something as simple as getting to St. Louis by air, which I’ll be doing in a couple of months, requires a lot of mental prep. I gotta agree with ACC about one thing: We should be building a space elevator instead of fighting with each other.

Well put. As you know from reading The Antipodal Route, my DUFF report, I too am a lousy air traveler, and look forward to hearing how you handle transatlantic travel after you win TAFF.

Mike Resnick talks about something that I know a lot about: comedians. Mort Sahl was hilarious and a deep wit, but it’s comedy that has aged poorly. Lenny Bruce still holds up. Far better than anyone else on the list with the possible exception of Tom Lehrer. A few folks at my college wrote a musical using various Lehrer songs and Tom blessed it. I’ve never gotten to meet him despite his nearness to me both when I was living in Boston and out here in the BArea. I never had much use for Mike Nichols or Elaine May. Ernie Kovacs and Sid Caeser were OK, but both were ground-breaking TV. Jonathan Winters changed comedy forever. Without him, there’s no Robin Williams and most likely no Steve Wright or Mitch Hedberg, both of whom are modern geniuses. Woody Allen was a great stand-up and there’s a recording of his time at the hungry i out there that’s fantastic. Sadly, Mike leaves out my three faves of the 1950/60s: Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby and Freddy Roman. They wrote their own jokes and can still knock a guy on his ass on CD. I did a little stand-up and some improv in my day, but I always liked the idea of the Algonquin Round Table: be funny when you’re with your friends. Laughter around a dinner table is equal to all the performances you could ever give. There are still great comics. Mitch was one, and Steven Lynch, a musician and comic, is another. If you’ve never seen Dan Lustrum you’re missing out as he’s one of the greatest political wits ever. Plus you’ve got Louis Black and Maria Bamford too.

I must figure out how to get Julia Morgan-Scott to do some art for me. That piece with “Salad for Breakfast” is brilliant. Eve’s article is really great too. I’ve always wanted to go to Israel, but again that whole flying thing. It’s nothing but trouble, I tell you. I really keep kosher, though once in a while I make it a week or two, but my Grandparents have in the past forced it on us for various periods of time. These things happen.

I’ve only met Astrid Anderson Bear a few times. Nice woman. I’ve got one of her old fanzines in my traveling collection. The illo of the Bat and the Bitten was a great one too. I’ve seen the photo of it so often, but that’s a much better interpretation. [All hail Charlie Williams.]

Also a shoutout to the Little Men. We’re having the first Little Men meeting in years at Westercon in a few weeks.

It’s not easy being a guy who has never been able to fully appreciate Bobby Heinlein. I don’t know why, but I can’t get into him.

Carl Sagan was an important figure for making science that was honestly beyond most people seem like something everyday and understandable. Greene is the closest thing we have today. Nova is still on PBS, promoting science as a popular distraction and sometimes succeeding. There is a need for a new scientist to come forward and try and make particular areas of science interesting. For a large portion of Sagan’s life, he had Dr. Asimov also speaking and publishing popular science-type books. Wolfram was doing the same for math, Ted Nelson for computers. There was a backbone of popular science types and now there are few. We’re cutting the chances of another great pure scientist coming up by not having enough of the Big Name Scientists around.

I’m not the kind of guy who could keep his head on straight in a situation like being kidnapped in Peru. I could barely keep my head on when there’s a traffic jam in Mountain View. That was also a great illo from Kurt. I’ve been lucky enough to get a few pieces from Mr. Erichsen and he’s on my list for every major award for next year. It’s weird that every year a long-standing fan artist seems to change slightly and makes a solid impact. Last year was Brad Foster and this year it seems to be Kurt. I’m not sure how, I’d have a hard time pinpointing it, but it really seems like his stuff is different of late and we’re all the better for it!

So let’s get him – and Alan White, and Marc Schirmeister, and Charlie Williams, and Randy Cleary, and and and – a Hugo nomination next year!

The best hotel I’ve ever stayed at is the Hollywood Roosevelt. I’ve stayed at the Beverly Hills hotels of every stripe, mostly in suites (they put you up in them, four or five to a room, when you’re working on movies) the Presidential at the Four Seasons, St. Francis and Palace in SF and the Millennium Broadway and Caeser’s Private floor in Vegas, and nowhere comes close to the Roosevelt. I absolutely fell in love with the place. I stay there whenever I can.

Again another amazing illo for a great article. People’s Park is still there. Now it’s the hangout for drug dealers and has been a favorite place for sex pushers of all stripes. It’s a shame, but everytime any agency tries to clean the place up, the aging hippy community that has claimed “spiritual ownership” of the park rises up and thwarts it. They let it get as bad as it’s gotten.

Great issue, Guy! I can’t wait for the next one!

John Purcell, College Station, TX, USA

2008-01-08T20:57:00.000-06:00

I could easily go on forever with a loc about your latest issue. There is so much to comment on!

When I first heard of the Virginia Tech tragedy, everyone on the campus where I teach was shocked and stunned. Almost immediately our college administrators were examining school policies toward student behavioral issues and the appropriate responses. Then I heard that Jamie Bishop was one of the victims. Now, I had never met Jamie, but had

Now that I have a chance to meet, relax, and talk with Greg Benford, reading his travelogue was a fascinating look into the various cultures of Asia that he and Elisabeth visited. It still blows me away to think that they were sitting on the beach of Sri Lanka with Sir Arthur C. Clarke. If that had been me there instead of Greg, I would have been so tongue-tied it would have been pathetic.

The other Benford piece in here reminds me that my next door neighbor when I was a kid, Ron Keith, attended Cornell College as an astrophysics major and Carl Sagan was Ron's doctoral advisor. When my dad learned this, he asked Ron if his doctoral dissertation was a ten-minute spot on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Also, I just double-checked: Dr. Keith is an Associate Professor of Physics at Emporia State University in Kansas. Good to see that he's doing well.

One other thing I'd like to say - even though, as mentioned, there is so much good stuff in this issue – is that I agree with Mike Resnick that modern stand-ups don't really make me laugh that much. Having a foul mouth does not equate for funny, unless the comic uses it judiciously for great effect. The best example I can think of is when I was watching a Bill Cosby HBO special with my folks at their Utah home back in the mid-80s, and Cosby was doing a bit about smoking marijuana. Someone had told him that smoking dope enhanced your natural self, and Cosby responded with, "But what if your natural self is an asshole?" It killed the audience, plus it was the only bad language that he used during the entire hour-long show. Well, there may have been an occasional "damn" or "hell," but Cosby made his mark by telling very funny stories about his family and friends. Great material that just isn't covered anymore, and I miss that kind of humor.

I get your point, and Mike’s, but I must confess to hapless lust for Sarah Silverman and to enjoying Kathy Griffin’s potty-mouthed flailings from the D-list.

Finally, thank you for reprinting that Tucker article, "How Dull Was My Weekend." It serves to beautifully illustrate how Tucker wrote with such wonderful humorous effect. Keeping Lee Hoffman's illustrations with it was a perfect touch, too. This was greatly appreciated. Thank you, Guy.

Brad W Foster, Irving, TX , USA

2008-01-07T20:50:00.000-06:00

http://www.jabberwockygraphix.com

Looking through Challenger #26, (and so much nicer for us old-school zinesters to flip through a copy than try to scroll a screen. I am so old!), I hit Taral's letter. Teddy Harvia started up a fantastic site to track all nominations and wins for all categories of the Hugo awards, though he has not up-dated it for the last year or two. Still, a great source of info. Titled "Hugo History at a Glance". We need to get a campaign going of people writing to Teddy to get him to update the thing!

The core of Mike Resnick's problem with comics being remembered or forgotten seems to revolve around anyone who performs in an unrecorded medium. There is brilliant stuff being done all the time, now as well as back then, but if it is not recorded in some way for people to see/hear it later, of course those people will be forgotten over time. Sad but true. I knew just about every name on all of his lists.

There were also a lot of bad comics back when those great ones were performing. There are also a lot of great comics today, not just the couple of examples he gives of how bad things are. But then, I am a fan of funny, often leaving the Comedy Central channel on in the background while I am working in my studio, and when they do a day of stand-ups, treated to hundreds of clever observations along with some of the poor ones. Many of those great comics I have seen/heard only in that one recorded performance that showed up. Movie stars are remembered more than theater actors because we can watch them again and again. It's the only reason some people have ongoing fame, and some are forgotten.

Mark Plummer

2008-01-06T20:34:00.000-06:00

This is something of an iron/striking/hot response to Challenger – or specifically to Taral's letter in “The Chorus Line”. He says:

“At the moment I lag far behind Stu's record – six nominations and losses – but so far as I know that's as bad as it gets. Of course, plenty of fan editors, writers, and artists have had more nominations, but I think one or more wins as well. Does any of your readers have enough time on their hands to ransack their own program books to compile actual stats?”

Well, personally, no, but the good folk at Locus online have already done the work for us.

This puts Stanley Schmidt at the top of the list of never-winners (29), but in the fan categories the questionable laurels are shared between Arthur Hlavaty and Evelyn C Leeper with 12 nominations. I was surprised to see that the biggest (so to speak) loser is actually Mike Glyer, although he does have eight rockets to balance his 39 non-winning nominations. Even more remarkably, Dave Langford is joint sixth on this list, having lost almost as many Hugos as he's won.

It's good to have something to aim for, isn't it?

As of Nippon, I’ve lost TEN. Look out, Arthur, I'm right behind you!

And in regards to my DUFF report, The Antipodal Route …

I'm a big fan of substantial trip reports, whether as a result of fan fund or otherwise, but I have a special affection for accounts of journeys through Australian fandom.

We've been to Australia four times now, most recently this June, and I'd certainly second Naomi Fisher's praise for Adelaide as both a city to visit and a fine fannish centre. But as you suggest, there's just so much of the country and so many places and people to see that you can only cover a small fraction unless you're in a position to take one of these epic multi-month trips of which most of us can only dream. Thus, for instance, we've never made it across to Perth or anything else in WA, something I particularly regret as Perth fandom seems to be such a distinct entity. Maybe one day, although we usually try to coincide our trips with conventions – get to see the maximum number of fans that way – and Swancons tend to be at Easter which means they clash with our own national convention.

And on the latest issue of The Zine Dump …

Now just a small gripe, in the nicest possible way. Please can you update our address in whatever records you keep. This bundle of stuff went to Claire’s old house which hasn't been her mailing address since 2004. As you can tell, it still reached us – the current occupant is a friend – but if it had gone to my old address it would probably have vanished forever as my post office forwarding has long since run out. Thing is, I have mentioned this before, at least once and possibly twice in response to you kind notices in The Zine Dump. God, even Rodney Leighton has noticed that you haven't noticed – his review of The Zine Dump in the last Knarley Knews – and he's not even on our mailing list.

Mea maxima culpa … my last Zine Dump was based on an obsolete template which held your old address. It has been changed.

Reece Morehead

2008-01-05T20:26:00.000-06:00

I just finished reading your interview with Alfred Bester in Challenger 25. I'm envious. I got to meet him at MidAmeriCon, too, for the first and only time. Alas, my experience was not a happy one. After hearing him at a panel discussion, I went up and asked if he would autograph my program book.

His response devastated me. He did sign it for me, so I supposed I can't really kick – unfortunately, he was so unpleasant that I was very taken aback. I was as polite to him as I was to any author/pro whose autograph I wanted; he acted as if I had just ordered him to give me a blow job there in front of hundreds of people. After he signed my book, I thanked him, then got away from him as fast as possible. I'm completely mystified three decades later as to why he behaved that way. He had been one of my most respected sf writers. I can't fathom his reaction to my request.

It was even worse than the time at the 1996 Dragoncon when I asked my favorite writer, Robert Anton Wilson, to autograph some of his books for me. I had gone to the convention specifically to see and hear him and get one or more of his books autographed by him. When I spoke to him outside an elevator, he flatly refused. My wife, Susie, was so upset that she berated him for not autographing any of his books I had so lovingly brought with me. He still wouldn't.

C'est la vie. She badmouthed him for the rest of her life and practically spat his name every time I mentioned him. Most exceedingly strange, both times.

Bester was charming in his public appearances at MAC and polite to me. No way to know why he seemed offended when you saw him; perhaps it was nothing more than a bad moment. In any event. I hope talking/writing about this incident releases some of your confusion and hurt.

As for Wilson, I don't know him, so am not qualified to comment on the seeming childishness and arrogance of his attitude. Whatever reason he had for denying you an autograph, he certainly owed you an explanation for refusing such a simple, harmless, and complimentary favor. Any SF writer who accepts the hospitality of a convention and then refuses to interact with fans should quit the arena.

Shelby Vick, Florida, USA

2008-01-04T20:08:00.000-06:00

shelvy20012000@yahoo.com

It's obvious why Challenger has been nominated for and won so many awards. Number 26 is just another step in the same direction.

Understanding Virginia Tech and its like … well, we just can't! It's not just that there's an irrational mind behind it (I can get pretty irrational myself, at times, as I imagine all of us can) but something beyond irrational.

Greg and Elisabeth Benford and Arthur C. Clarke and moving Sri Lanka five degrees; hey, that's quite a feat for Clarke to pull off! (One of the advantages of being a successful author!)

Mike Resnick got it square-on about Funny. I think there are many so-called “humorists” who'd be out of business if it wasn't for smut and filth. Of course, I'm old-fashioned; I still think Jack Benny is/was funny. Or, for that matter, Walt Willis.

And, speaking of humor, you reprinted that classic Tucker piece, “How Dull Was My Weekend”. Great! … But I must correct one item: Paul Cox and I did not pass out!

Lloyd Penney, Etobicoke, ON, Canada

2008-01-03T19:41:00.000-06:00

A nice, big slab of paper labeled Challenger 26 arrived about a week or so ago…I guess Canada Post had to sniff it good to make sure nothing bad was arriving before handing it on to me.

Great cover … I agree that there’s nothing as wonderful to see as deep space photos, usually courtesy of the Hubble telescope. We see the depth of creation, and our increasing understanding of what’s out there. And yes, we also see the depth of human beings, and how low some of them can go. There’s been times I’d happily change my species, for I’m quite fed up with my current one. Why did we call it common sense when it seems to be so uncommon? We’re just too eager to kill each other, too happy to massacre others because we’re angry or unhappy or frustrated, yet we consider life sacred. How hypocritical we are.

Arthur C. Clarke is someone I would like to meet. I know the deck is stacked against me, but still, it’s good to know that while aged, he is still doing well. I had hoped to see at least one of the Benford brothers at the International Space Development Conference in Dallas…perhaps the next one we go to, which will probably be in Orlando in 2009. Carl Sagan is someone I’d wanted to meet, too. Popular scientists like Bill Nye, and in Canada David Suzuki, make science fun, accessible and understandable. Sagan did that, too, but got little reward for his efforts.

I disagree about that, unless world fame and the opportunity not only to create Cosmos and Contact but the Pioneer and Voyager plaques are considered "little reward."

The feature on Astrid Bear reminds me of our own costuming days. Yvonne and I competed in Worldcon masquerades in the early to mid-80s. The Spirits of Fire, Young King Neptune and Pet, and our award-winning Royal Canadian Mounted StarFleet. We had a good time, but it soured quickly when some of the people we competed against forgot that the competition was supposed to be friendly. We left masquerade in the late 80s entirely because of backstabbing and people screaming in our faces, and all the fun was gone.

Tom Feller’s article on insurance in post-K NoLa is timely … I’ve so much footage of wide-spread flooding in England. There may be the opportunity to learn something here.

All award systems are flawed in that no matter when happens some measure of bias can creep in. They are inherently subjective. So, any complaints about the Hugos or FAAns or Auroras or any other award should be taken with a grain of salt. Fan programming is also subjective, but many Worldcons are almost unaware of what fan programming consists of. IIRC, Torcon 3 had almost no fan programming, and a fanzine lounge I didn’t find until the third day of the convention. There was some measure of fan programming at L.A.con IV, and Milt Stevens’ great fanzine lounge.

Speaking of whom …

Milt Stevens, Simi Valley, CA, USA

2008-01-02T19:29:00.000-06:00

The cover on Challenger #26 is quite impressive and definitely in keeping with the Yeats poem. That certainly looks like a rough beast, and gloating seems to be an appropriate emotion. While that particular poem was written about Hitler, it always seems to be current. It’s as if all of history has a sense of impending doom attached to it. Or at least, most of it.

I looked at The Atlas of the Universe. Wow! That’s enough to make just about anyone feel tiny and insignificant. The universe is so much bigger than it used to be. Cosmology has proven to be a goshwow growth industry. If only you could invest in it…

Back in the early eighties, my then wife was taking Astronomy 1 at a local junior college. She asked me for some help on the course. I told her I’d like to help, but half of what was known about astronomy in 1980 hadn’t been known when I took the course in 1960. What is known about astronomy now has probably doubled or tripled again since 1980.

I agree that looking at the night sky is always calming. When I was in the Navy out west I used to go up to primary air defense and look at the stars at night. I regularly took the 0330 to 0730 watch in main communications, so I’d usually go up there around 0300. We were usually running with a minimum of light which made for good observation. Sometimes we were conducting air ops at that time, and observation conditions weren’t as good. Wars will come and wars will go, but the stars will outlast all of them.

My regard for Robert Heinlein was similar to yours. When I was a kid I thought writers and editors were godlike entities who resided in far off New York. After joining fandom, I discovered writers and editors were just as mortal as the rest of us and had just as many flaws. Even with that realization, Heinlein and Campbell still retained a certain godlike quality. Most mythic figures don’t survive encounters with reality, but there can be exceptions.

Greg Benford’s revelation about Carl Sagan not being admitted to the National Academy of Sciences was interesting in a strange way. Of course, I’ve heard of Carl Sagan. However, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the National Academy of Sciences before. I thought the French were the people who had national academies.

Robert Kennedy, Camarillo, CA, USA

2008-01-01T18:22:00.000-06:00

Thank you for #26.

So, Mike Nifong the scumbag Durham County (North Carolina) District Attorney involved in the phony rape case involving the Duke University lacrosse players resigned and has been disbarred. He may face lawsuits. I would think lawsuits against Durham County and Duke University itself might be in order. Nifong got what he deserved. But, what about the lacrosse players he tried to railroad? Of course Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton jumped in early and played the Race Card. (The case rather reminds me of Sharpton and Tawana Brawley. Either Sharpton has learned nothing or doesn't give a damn. Probably both.) Then there's the New York Times who had the boys' pictures on its front page, but put Nifong's disbarment on page 16. What about the 88 Duke University faculty members who took out an ad denouncing and threatening the boys? Apparently, Nifong finally issued an apology. Better late than never I guess, but it's meaningless. (Isn't it interesting how so many people apologize and say that they are sorry for their actions--after they get caught [witness Michael Vick]?) It was reported (September 1) that Nifong was sentenced to one day in jail having been found in "criminal contempt " for lying to a judge when pursuing charges against" the Duke Lacrosse players. (He could have received 30 days. Lucky man and he isn't even a young Hollywood so-called celebrity. He should have received several years in prison for his actions.) I wonder if the other people and the New York Times will now render an apology. I also wonder if they all will offer to help reimburse the boys and their families for their legal expenses that I understand are in excess of $1 million. I will not hold my breath.

It would be interesting if a Nifong Award could be established. No limit on the number of awards that could be given in a year. The first award should go to Nifong himself. Awards could be given for the past and the prosecutors and therapists involved in the McMartin case should receive the award.

Then there is the recent case of the two 13-year-old boys in McMinnville, Oregon who were charged with sexual harassment, felony sex abuse and anything else the prosecutors could think of for slapping some girls on the butt. Basically, the students at their school had a slap the butt day so most everyone was slapping butts. (I know that sounds a bit silly. But, these were only 13-year-olds.) For some reason the Assistant Principal called the police on these two boys. The boys were interrogated by a police officer, arrested, hauled off in handcuffs, strip-searched, and placed in juvenile jail for five days. If convicted they would be required to register as sex offenders for a lifetime. Like Nifong, the District Attorney Bradley Berry keep saying wait until you see the evidence. Each time they came into court another charge was dropped. The girls involved said they wanted all charges dropped. Finally all charges were dropped and the judge dismissed the case. Apparently the boys will have to go through some of the usual therapy crap. The Assistant District Attorney said that under the same circumstances they would bring the same charges. The Assistant Principal, District Attorney Berry, and the Assistant District Attorney are well deserving of the Nifong Award. The Assistant Principal should be fired. District Attorney Berry and the Assistant District Attorney should be fired and disbarred, just like the punishment of Nifong.

Joe Major should be able to come up with an excellent list of other possible recipients of the Nifong Award.

It has just been learned that there is a newly issued book on the Duke Lacrosse Case--Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case by Stuart Taylor, Jr. and K C Johnson. I will either be purchasing the book or obtaining it from the library.

Judge Roy L. Pearson sued cleaners for $54 million because he claimed they lost a pair of his suit pants. The suit apparently went on for some two years. Finally, in June a judge decided the suit was frivolous, that Pearson was not entitled to any money, and that he owed the Chung family (the cleaners) some $1,000 in costs. Finally, a good outcome. Judge Pearson should be removed from office and disbarred.

OK Enough of the rants.

As for #26, another excellent issue that was thoroughly enjoyed. I just don't seem to have much to say about it. I did send a copy of "How I Escaped My Peruvian Kidnappers" by Gary Robe to a friend whose wife is from Peru.

2007-06-11T17:23:00.000-05:00

Further to the articles you published on Robert E. Howard. I attach a scan of a commemorative postmark issued by the USPS in his honor.

Unfortunately the writing on the sheet of paper in the typewritwer is too blurred in my copy of the postmark to make out but is probably a list of characters and titles from Howard's writing.

Courtesy Dale Speirs, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

For this first letter, a note of explanation: Diane
Hughes, a psychotherapist, was a frequent
attendee of many Southern conventions in the '80s
and '90s, and a great friend. When I recently
chanced upon her e-dress I asked her to read
Challenger #23 -- and my closing tribute to my pal
and neighbor, Cynthia Snowden.

Diane Hughes

2007-06-11T16:35:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading the piece about Cynthia and I have tears in my eyes. You did a wonderful job of capturing the essence of a very special person and the senseless tragedy of her death that occurred at least partially because of the lack of responsibility of those who should have been more careful in providing for her care in a crisis, and I certainly don't mean you.

It was beautifully written and very moving, and I wish you my condolences for your loss. It sounds as if what you had with her was an utterly irreplaceable relationship. My sympathies.

I'm delighted to hear you are married. I commend you for being a public defender which as I know is poorly paid and difficult work.

It's good to be in touch again.

In 1984, when I was at one of my lowest points, ever, a lovely lady approached me at a convention and drew me into talking about my pain, the first step towards finding balance and hope and peace of mind. She was not only a fan, but a psychologist, not only a psychologist, but a friend. You were that lady. It's been too many years.

Susan R. Higgins

2007-06-11T16:34:00.000-05:00

Thanks again for yet another outstanding issue of Challenger. I love every breath of it.

Shelby Vick, Panama City Beach FL

2007-06-11T16:32:00.000-05:00

Many compliments, Guy Chall 25 is to me! a big success. Great in appearance, stupendous in content. I particularly liked Curt Phillips' adulation of Bob Tucker and agree with it all. (For a different aspect, check out www.planetarystories.com where our sixth issue is dedicated to Bob.)

I also immensely enjoyed Mary Ann van Hartesveldt's analysis of Scientology. I remember when the first edition of Dianetics came out, remember reading it, remember wanting to believe things were so simple ... and then, I remember when Realization Hit. It isn't science-fiction; Scientology is fantasy!

Also enjoyed the interview with Bester. Science fiction authors had a lot to do with the comics field, just as the field had its effect on science fiction.

In short, great issue!

Henry L. Welch

2007-06-11T16:30:00.000-05:00

Editor, The Knarley Knews
http ://people.msoe.edu/~welch/tkk.html

Thanks for the latest Challenger. As always, a fine issue.

The Watts Towers seem like a manifestation of some kind of insanity. I am generally too practical to even think of attempting a similar endeavor on almost any scale.

I'm not certain if Greg Benford is aware, but the TV show Myth Busters did some experimenting on the airline crash position. They were able to determine that the extent of your injuries would be greatly reduced in that position relative to sitting upright. The picture wasn't pretty either way and the certainly didn't address the likelihood of fire or roll-over during a crash.

Fred Lerner, White River Junction VT

2007-06-11T16:28:00.000-05:00

Thanks for Challenger #25, which came in today's mail, along with the latest issue of Extrapolation. I read Chall in one sitting, but I have yet to open Extrap, and I suspect I'll never read that issue. It's devoted to Ursula K. Le Guin, and I think my time would be better spent reading her than reading about her. The nice thing about Challenger is that I can both read you and read about you at the same time.

Jeeze, pass that Extrapolation on to me! Any good critical writing about LeGuin is worth reading.

By far the most interesting piece in this issue was "Hebrews 13:3". I'm fond of quoting Kipling's line from Captains Courageous: "The most interesting thing in the world is to find out how the next man gets his vittles." When someone not only tells you how he makes his living, but conveys the passion that led him into that work and sustains him through the disappointment and despair that are built into it, you can see how absolutely right Kipling was. From "Hebrews 13:3" I learned something about Louisiana's criminal justice system, something about the miscreants who find their way into its clutches, and a good deal about who Guy Lillian is and what makes him tick. These are all things well worth knowing - especially the last.

Your piece on your interview with Alfie Bester was fascinating. I well remember Heinlein's appearance at the 92nd Street YM/YWHA (not the YWCA) in Manhattan. He didn't give a speech, but rather selected written questions from the audience and gave his answers to them. Afterwards, when he sat signing autographs, I was standing nearby when Alexei Panshin walked up and tried to introduce himself. Heinlein refused to shake hands with him, on the grounds that Panshin had read letters that Heinlein had written privately. That was the only occasion on which I saw Heinlein in person; the experience didn't cause me to wish to repeat the experience.

As you can see from "A Show of Hands" this issue, I was there too! You should've found me and mentioned that we'd be exchanging fanzines in thirty years.

I was glad to see your pictures of the Watts Towers, which do indeed remind me of the whimsically embellished architecture of Antonio Gaudíí. He, too, used scraps and shards as decorative elements in his constructions; and he, too, worked Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. Of all the arts, architecture is the one that most compels my interest, I think because it reveals more than any other endeavor the assumptions of the architect and the society in which he works. The painter and the composer may create the most elaborate of structures: but they need not worry about them falling down! That danger imbues architecture, even at its most whimsical, with a seriousness that is sometimes lacking in the other arts.

Joseph Major, Louisville, Kentucky

2007-06-11T16:26:00.000-05:00

http://members.iglou.com/jtmajor

It would be interesting to compare The City and the Stars with its first draft, Against the Fall of Night. This is a strange case indeed, of a book that was seriously revised and yet the first draft is still considered an independent, worthwhile work. The broad theme remains the same (in some ways, Against the Fall of Night is as much a thematic follow-o John W. Campbell's stories "Twilight" and "Night") but there is a wealth of comparison to be made of the differences.

Clarke is one of the few writers who considers the universe as it stands beautiful and mysterious, who can evoke the wonder of reality. Sometimes this is in an entire book, and sometimes the wonder can stem from a single, wondrously suggestive line: "I do not think we will have to wait for long."

As I've said before, one of the most moving scenes in The Whole Wide World is the one where Novalyne Price hears a sound coming from the back of the Howard house, and following it, finds Robert bashing out a Conan story, bellowing the words out as he types them. How often do movies show the creative impulse so vividly? (I wrote an outline for a story where REH writes a letter asking for help with derivations of words, from which much contact, change, and cross-fertilization occurs.)

The recent fire in Cross Plains, which stopped just short of the Howard House, is proof that Crom is not as totally uncaring as some would like you to think.

The guy at the Space Cadets signing who had the wrong idea: I've read about similar cases. A few years ago, when the wondrous glow of JMS was still lighting the sky of fandom, after Babylon Five had gone off the air, JMS and the stars of his new show, Crusade, were guests at a con. People noticed that the actors went around in a group and never talked to anyone outside their official appearances. Did they think they were at a Creation*Con?

Now that the 70k limit is a thing of the past, why hasn't someone striven for a "Restored" edition of The Demolished Man, with the prologue restored? It works for others. But then, even with the Prologue restored, TDM would still be too short for today's book business.

The deleted sequence is printed and discussed in Redemolished, a book of Bester's essays.

Referring to the Hugo Awards as a "failed system" leaves the question of what else to do. The FAAN Awards are hardly that much different, just smaller. So what does Frohvet see as the failure, and what does he think should be done?

Langford, as said, has a voting bloc. It isn't like that nomination of that book; these people genuinely think him the best fan writer they read. Or only. Wherein lies the problem. Can we make people go out and read a broader spectrum of writers?

Campbell often argued as a contrarian. Christopher Hitchens might take a lesson from his works.

"Worldcons lately have been ghettoizing fan-related programming." Tell me about it! Items put up against the Opening Ceremonies. Or on the last day of the con, an hour before closing ceremonies. San Antonio (and doesn't that go back a ways) had the best fan program, but even there one could see the harbingers of decline.

Louisville's own Sue Grafton is running into a P is for Problem with her L is for Letter series of mysteries. It may be necessary for her to buy and take to heart Dr. Seuss's On Beyond Zebra!

"SNEE is for Sneedle
A terrible kind of ferocious mos-keedle
Whose hum-dinger stinger is sharp as a needle"

Guy and Bob: Thank you for your kind wishes.

Wishes that worked! Congratulations on your Hugo nomination for Heinlein's Children!

I will say that Chris Garcia is a very enthusiastic recipient & LoChack of Alexiad. It's obvious that he lives in a dimension where there are 200k+ seconds in the day, and at least eight days a week (Beatles reference, y'know).

George Romney had only been elected governor of Michigan in 1962 and in those days that was not sufficient time in office to consider a candidate qualified for the Presidency. Also, he was born in Mexico, which some people might have thought a problem then.

I believe Burton's last words were actually "My God, I am a dead man!" See To Your Scattered Bodies Go.

There is a thread on James Randi's website forum about Ted Gunderson. Ted was assigned to supervise the digging up of the site of the McMartin Preschool. He and the diggers produced a report which showed that the cunning molestors had managed to fill in the tunnels so that they were indistinguishable from the undisturbed soil. Thus invalidating several hundred years of archaeological experience and practice.

And now Tucker.

He wasn't supposed to die. He wasn't supposed to die! That was the whole point of those reports so long ago. He couldn't die.

Life goes on, but it will never be the same.

Mark Plummer, Croydon, Surrey, UK

2007-06-11T16:23:00.000-05:00

Thanks for sending me that link to the new Challenger. I confess that of late since you went electronic, essentially I've not given your publication the attention it undoubtedly deserves. This is mainly because until relatively recently we've been existing on a dial-up internet connection which isn't exactly conducive to reading this kind of online fanzine.

Actually, I was mildly surprised to discover that you were able to tell us of Challenger's existence before James Bacon did so, and then secretly rather pleased that I was able to tell James about it myself. This last year or so I've noticed that we've moved on from us telling James things to him telling us, popping round of an evening to brief us on the latest developments in Worldcon politics or future plans for the British Eastercon or whatever. I fear sometimes that we may be subsiding into eminence, consigned to the sidelines and reduced to shaking our heads at ''these young fans today'' while James storms on towards world fandom domination.

And to think that I remember him from that first UK convention he describes in his article. You will be unsurprised to hear that the cling-film is rather an enduring imagine...

But yes, it's a very ... Jamesian piece. It starts off going in one direction, then suddenly changes tack, shooting off at an angle, forking, looping, doubling back on itself. I get the impression that he's developing a style which will ultimately enable him to embrace all themes and subjects in a kind of unified theory of everything, the James Bacon article to end all James Bacon articles in which he will explain what fandom is and what it's for, and exactly who did saw Courtney's Boat, as well as setting out an agenda to end world poverty and provide free energy across the globe, and all wrapped up in an absolutely killer recipe for chicken chasseur. Oh, and cling-film, of course.

I was thinking about the bookshop thing at lunchtime today while I was poking about in the local-to-my-office branch of leading UK book chain Waterstone's. It's actually next to the London School of Economics and so the stock has more than a slight preponderance of books about, well, economics, but it also has an eclectic selection of remainders and I guess there's some entertainment value to be gained from looking at the fiction titles they expect to be able to sell to student economists. But for some reason it occurred to me that I'm probably one of the few people I know who's never bought a book from Amazon, and that's partly been because of the lack of a decent internet connection but more it's because I actually like the bookshop experience so much. And the Fantasy Centre shop that James describes is indeed one of the best.

It was not ever thus, mind. That gives a slightly false impression because it's always been a really good second-hand science fiction and fantasy bookshop or at the very least so long as I've known about it but it hasn't always been quite as welcoming as James describes. When I first encountered it, before present-day co-owner Erik came on board, I think they were altogether more cautious about their clientele. The traditional greeting, usually uttered within a couple of minutes of a customer entering the shop was, ''You do know it's all science fiction, don't you?'' There was some justification for this as to this day people wander in, scan the shelves for ten or fifteen minutes, and then ask whether there's a section for books on tree surgery or Uzbek detective stories in Urdu translation, but if you did know that it was a science fiction specialist store then this approach didn't exactly make you feel at home.

And then there was the collectors' section at the back of the shop where the pulp magazines are on James's plan and if you strayed into that there would be yet more questions. ''Umm, you do know this is the collectors' section, don't you?'' would come first and if you replied that, yes, you did, and you didn't immediately flee back to the cheap Fred Pohl paperbacks, you'd get as a follow-up, "Umm, some of these are quite expensive.'' I don't know, maybe it wasn't so bad if you looked as if you might be prepared to shell out two or three quid on a 1950s US Galaxy, and maybe I didn't and that was the problem, but somehow I rather got the impression that any purchase I actually managed to make was something of a victory.

It's not like that any more, and as James say, it's a friendly store where the proprietors will offer you a coffee and talk books and science fiction and, yes, sometimes fandom too. Erik has passed on several good items of fan material that come their way, items that they can't really sell but which they know have value to the right people and which they want to pass on to those people. It's still pretty quiet much of the time, it being the kind of shop that's almost certainly suffered with the rise of the internet, but other days I'll be in there and UK anthologist Steve Jones will drop in, and then Andy Porter, and then a long-term customer from France... and then that bloke that nobody knows who pokes about a bit for half an hour and then leaves with a dozen paperbacks or maybe asks if they have any books on sheet-metal working.

They used to have good parties too. Typically it'd be a Friday evening after the shop had technically shut. There would be beer and genial company and maybe the odd passing celebrity too. It was remarkably convivial atmosphere, not least because the conversation would inevitably turn to sf and if it did and you ever got into a disagreement you would almost certainly be able to find the text that you needed to settle the dispute. And then dark fantasy writer Gerald Suster would show up, and we would have the same conversation we had every time where he asked me who my favourite author was and I said I didn't know, 'cos I didn't really have a favourite, and then I'd make something up a different person each time and Gerald would try to light a cigarette rather ineptly and I would wonder again about the wisdom of allowing uncoordinated people to have matches around so much pulp paper, and then Claire and I and Pat McMurray and a few others would go and have dinner at the Korean restaurant up the road. Funs days.

You know, I don't think I've been to the Fantasy Centre for a while. Maybe I'll go tomorrow.

Martin Morse Wooster, Silver Spring MD

2007-06-11T16:22:00.000-05:00

Many thanks for Challenger #25. I always like reading Mike Resnick's diaries, and the account of his adventures in Los Angeles was, as always enjoyable. I've never seen the downtown Disney in Orlando, but I thought the one in Anaheim was pretty one glance at those flowers told me I wasn't on the East Coast anymore but synthetic. (When I go shopping, I really don't want to have a pop soundtrack undergirding my purchases, this grumpy baby boomer said.) As for Marie Callender's (not "Callendar's"), we used to have them out here, but the one I went to turned into a Brazilian churruscaria (that's Portuguese for "Bring me some meat!") place years ago. The pies were indeed quite good.

I'm glad you reprinted your Alfred Bester interview. I remember very little of the one conversation I had with Bester, except that the man was a professional. And one of the duties of being a professional writer is being nice to your fans. Of course fuggheads should be dismissed, but being a pro means being polite to everyone. Bester certainly knew that; so do Fredrik Pohl, Gene Wolfe, Brian Aldiss, and Terry Pratchett. It's the insecure minor writers who impose unreasonable demands on con committees and are rude and obnoxious in general. These temper tantrums are one reason they're minor writers.

In our genre, maybe, but that judgment could be due to their violating the social expectations of the science fiction community. Only a very few SF writers can act like snobs and get away with it. However, I've seen major mainstream writers Saul Bellow, for instance behave petulantly and impatiently towards readers. That I ascribe to the distance imposed by genius; Bellow, after all, won the Nobel Prize. No, I must disagree here: the only duty of a writer is to write the only duty of an artist is to tell the truth.

I also enjoyed your stories from your work as a public defender. Why did you get into this line of work? What do you enjoy the most about your job? I bet your workload is horrendous and that many of the people you represent are indeed scum. But I also bet you get a great deal of pleasure out of helping poor people who have indeed been shafted by the system or by overzealous prosecutors.

I picked up my interest in criminal law from To Kill a Mockingbird providentially, on the tube as I write and The Defenders, the great TV drama of the early sixties. My main satisfaction from the work comes from helping normal people who have blundered into trouble fallen into addiction or written bad checks or engaged in petty larceny because they're broke. It's also enlightening and perversely diverting to deal with sociopaths. How better to appreciate normality than by comprehending aberration and how better to appreciate the oneness of humanity than by seeing how little aberration deviates from the norm? "There's only one make of man, not two "

Curt Phillips delivered a worthy tribute to Bob Tucker. I remember Tucker from the period in the late 1970s when I was a Midwest fan and took part in a few "Smoooths!" at a Chambanacon or a Windycon. I've read some of Tucker's fan writing, and have a copy of the Incompleat Bob Tucker. Phillips is right that Tucker's fannish legacy is reminding us that there's far more to being a fan than writing letters to prozines complaining about authors with PhD's who don't know the correct melting point for busbars. But the wrong lesson to learn from Tucker's writing is that it's not fannish to be serious or passionate about SF or science. We should all try to be good writers and witty ones, but we should also realize that there's far more to writing than contemplative navel-gazing.

Rich Dengrove, Alexandria VA

2007-06-11T16:19:00.000-05:00

I just read the product of your DUFF trip, The Antipodal Route. I enjoyed it. I thought I knew something about Australia, but I obviously don't.

RUNNING TO AUSTRALIA. Guy, just think: now you're world famous. OK, so they don't know too much about you in Bhutan or Tanna Tuva, but many do know you in Australia. If you take the right positive attitude, you can see yourself as being well-known as Bush, Jr. Of course, if Bush, Jr. were in the limo, I doubt anyone would say: "Who's that in there with Guy."

NO PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK. It's not exactly true that a stranger wouldn't help you in the U.S. if you needed it. I live in an apartment house, a living arrangement not conducive to friendship. What makes it worse is that it is inhabited by every nationality known to man. The place is a veritable United Nations.

I am on talking terms with only two of my neighbors, and passably friendly with only one other. However, when some trouble happens, everyone closes ranks and tries to help. When a fire happens, when the roof caves in, people are trying to help one another. I would imagine, given the dangers of something like a Hanging Rock, Americans would be helpful there too. It's friendliness in between emergencies that would be the problem in the States.

THE FAR SIDE OF THE EARTH. Ah, Hurricanes for the Australians. Those Nawlinian drinks are pretty powerful. When I was in New Orleans in the early '80s, I went to Pat O'Brien's Bar [where the Hurricane was created]. I could have gotten $2 back for the glass if I had been sufficiently sober to hand it back to the waiter. However, I wasn't. I bet others weren't either. That is why so many households have them as mementos. Hurricanes are so strong they remind me of the drink Old Factory Whistle. One shot and you're through for the day.

THE EASTER BILBY. My wife has seen marsupials on TV and, as an old horse woman, she doesn't trust them. While they are exotic and you like to look at them, she thinks they are prone to being temperamental. Maybe that's why you weren't able to report about anyone who has trained marsupials to do tricks.

Didn't you read about 'Ron Jeremy'?

FOOTY. Footy a family game? That the women decided to shop rather than see it says it all. It sounds like Soccer (Footy?) in England, which, as we all know, gets violent. I know the rules prohibit violence to such an extent that you would presume it had been eliminated. However, I am always dubious about the extent to which rules are practiced. By comparison, I bet, our football players are wimps; they wear scads of protective gear.

BELLO CAMILLO. So your Australian friends are friends with Maoris, who come ultimately from New Zealand. The Australians were only a relatively short time ago supposed to be a racially and ethnically centered people. It was impossible for an oriental to immigrate to Australia. Now, Australia is very racially and ethnically tolerant. Of course, I doubt Australia is as tolerant as the U.S. Once the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) ruled the U.S. Now, a friend has cued me there was a sea change when no one was looking. She says that there is a new racial, ethnic elite that rules America; and she's part of it. She pointed out she is Welsh, Scottish, Jewish, English, Irish, Italian and German. The new elite, she says, is not the WASP, but the All-American MUTT.

It will prob-ably take a little longer for Australia to be ruled by the All-Australian MUTT.

BLUE MOUNTAINS. Having seen pictures of Normal Lindsay's nudes, I have to agree they have flesh on them, unlike the nudes we are used to. Also, they are more athletic and graceful. I don't know about their intelligence or their depth, however.

Taral Wayne, Toronto, Ont, Canada

2007-06-11T16:18:00.000-05:00

Lost Causes... I think I must be the current record holder for Fan Hugo losses. It used to be Stu Shiffman, with nine non-consecutive nominations and loss es, but then either the ninth or tenth time he came in with the largest number of ballots for once. Curiously, it was rather a while after Stu had started to drift away from SF fandom, when his art didn't seem to be much in evidence.

At the moment I lag far behind Stu's record six nominations and losses but so far as I know that's as bad as it gets. Of course, plenty of fan editors, writers, and artists have had more nominations, but I think one or more wins as well. Does any of your readers have enough time on their hands to ransack their own program books to compile actual stats?

As for the perqs of a "mere" nomination. Well... the pin is nifty. I have nowhere to wear them mind you. Nobody outside of fannish circles knows what they are, and anyone in fannish circles locally would probably think me terribly stuck up if I appeared with a rank of pins stuck to my shirt collar like military awards on Herman Goering's uniform.

I keep mine on a wicker cowboy hat with a button collection.

This leads me to the second perq mentioned. The terrific parties. I've never been to one, sorry. I can't afford travel, hotel bills, and worldcon memberships, so I've missed all those terrific parties where I might be able to rub shoulders with the Fabulous and talk about their next two book contracts.

Nor have I ever sat in an award ceremony. To be honest, I have to ask myself if I'd want to. From what I've heard of the awards they sound absolutely hideous -- like the Oscars, an exercise in self-love and time-wastingly obvious statements. For those who love such attention, it may be worth it when in due course you mount the podium to thank all the little people who made this possible, and when you have your photograph taken with other winners, but why are the other couple of thousand people there? Do fans like being toadies?

I think I'd rather have my Hugo mailed to me, and that all the flattery be in print.

The fact is, nominees are pretty much forgotten by the end of the worldcon. You never see their names in print again. Unlike the winners, you can't look them up in each and every worldcon's program book, you have to have last year's. And every year's. Otherwise, fame is fleeting.

As for reforming the system. I can't be done as long as the Hugos are voted by the membership of the worldcon. The damn fools are science fiction fans, if you can believe it! Nine-tenths have probably never seen a fanzine unless we count Locus or Ansible. From the results of recent years I have to assume that for most of the voters, fan art is what you see in convention art shows by artists who hope to become pro and are practicing doing Analog covers. I suppose a fan writer to your average worldcon member is whoever's name you see most often, which is not surprisingly the editor of the newsletter you're reading -- the only fanzine you likely do read.

I don't advocate a peer system to replace the Hugos. That's been tried, with no great success it seems to me. The FAAn awards from years ago were a brave try, but simply never managed the cachet of the Hugos, for obvious reasons. The more recent attempt to revive the FAAns has run up against the ugly truth that fanzine fandom has grown too old, too tired, and its small numbers diminished by division into very tiny cliques. As I see it, the FAAns aren't meant to be taken seriously and shouldn't be, which is fine. People have fun with them. But the Hugos they aren't and can't be.

The Hugos are with us and we can't be rid of them like Oscars, like American Idol, and like presidential elections. They don't work but the have acquired a life of their own. We learn to serve them in hope they will serve us if we are lucky.

Lloyd Penney, Etobicoke, ON, CANADA

2007-06-11T16:16:00.000-05:00

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 Heinleinfanzine 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.

Milt Stevens, Simi Valley, CA

2007-06-11T16:14:00.000-05:00

Your courtroom vignettes were the best item In Challenger #25. Your courtroom stories usually are the best item in any given issue. Even though your venue is a long way from Southern California in a number of ways, things seem to be pretty much the same all over. The same problems at a different address.

Again I marvel at your visits to Watts Towers. I was the analytical officer for that area of Los Angeles back in 1970-71, and I've never been there. South-Central Los Angeles was pretty bad back then, and Watts was the worst part of South-Central. Things have undoubtedly changed since then. The endless stream of Hispanics have been moving into South-Central and forcing the Blacks out. The Blacks have the choice of either leaving under their own power or feet first. Politicians have noticed and decried all this hostility between Hispanics and Blacks. Which doesn't change a darned thing. These two groups just plain don't like each other.

Mike Resnick's "L.A.con IV Diary" gives a glimpse of life in the pro lane. Not surprisingly, I was never anywhere near Mike Resnick during the entire course of the convention. After reading Mike's account of the convention, I am now aware of another reason why I would never make it as a pro writer. I couldn't eat that much no matter what. I only eat two meals a day, and usually they aren't terribly large meals. The only reason I ever ate lunch was because they gave a lunch break at work. My ex-wife once commented that I eat like I'm fueling a machine. As long as I get about the right number of calories at about the right times, I don't much care what I eat. That's more-or-less true, since there are some foods I definitely don't like. Aside from that, I am fueling a machine.

As Greg Benford points out, there are definite risks out there in the real world, and we can't possibly avoid all of them. Personally, I fly much less than I once did. It isn't the possibility of terrorists I fear but rather the certainty of homeland security. I figure I'm a very small target on a very big planet. Terrorists might get me, but the odds are against it. Other people could get me as well. I could be walking down a street and a stray bullet from a robbery or a drive-by shooting could kill me dead. A driver could lose control of his vehicle and run me down on the sidewalk. I could probably worry about such things night and day if I wanted to worry about something. Such thoughts occur to me, but I don't really worry about them. I figure there is no point to worrying about things I can't possibly prevent. What me worry?

Robert Kennedy, Camarillo CA

2007-06-11T16:13:00.000-05:00

Thank you for #25.

Cold Case Files (A&E) presented the Michael Crowe case for the third time on January 7, 2007. If you haven't seen it and they do it again, try not to miss it.

Richard Dengrove's review of Joe Major's Heinlein's Children: The Juveniles also was excellent. If there is any justice the book will win the HUGO. So, hopefully you and anyone else voting for the HUGOs will vote for it as #1 for Best Related Book.

"What Scientologist's Believe About mental Health and Why You Should Care" by Mary Ann van Hartesveldt was outstanding.

Your continuing photos from your trip are very much appreciated. This time the Watts Towers. I lived in Pasadena (Los Angeles County) for 47 years before moving to Camarillo (Ventura County). But, I've never been to the Watts Towers. Heck, it took my then wife to get me to the Huntington Library in San Marino and it was only a few miles from where we lived. Any more pictures from the WorldCon itself?

Your continuing reports on your life as a Public Defender are also very much appreciated. I'm going to copy the latest (Hebrews 13.3 Three Stories from Court) and send them to two or three friends with full credit to you and an explanation about Challenger. Well, I will not have to explain very much as they know about Science Fiction Fanzines (even if they are not SF Fans as such) and about my writing letters to them.

Concerning the case of "The Empty Man" I found Challenger #14 and reread your commentary. I am unable to make a judgment about the interrogation as I don't have enough information concerning the case. How about furnishing more information? What was the final outcome, if there has been one? Was the dramatization on A&E on one of their Cold Case Files, or was it a separate program?

I understand the Empty Man has been granted a new trial.

Another fine issue and one of these years you will have a HUGO.

John Purcell

2007-06-11T15:03:00.000-05:00

Congratulations on another Best Fanzine Hugo nod, Guy. After reading this issue and perusing past issues on-line, I can understand why. You are producing a top-notch zine with fine art (lovely cover by Taral, by the by) and photos to accompany the articles, which are many and varied. Lots of interesting material herein. Overall, a splendid issue.

This is such a huge zine that it took me quite a bit of time to read it. Most fanzines lately seem to hover in the 30-page range, and then you clock in with this 76-page monster, which is a throwback to those days of yore when massive fanzines were produced on a regular/semi-regular basis. When Challenger #25 put a new dent in my mailbox, memories came banging back about those huge issues of the Haskell-era Runes, plus Energumen,
Mota, Granfalloon, Mimosa, Mainstream, and others that regularly exceeded 50 or 60 pages an issue. I wonder if the smaller average size of modern-day zines is not only a reflection of the smaller number of people producing zines, but is in addition to the technology factor that makes fanzine production easier and faster. It probably is; still, it makes me wonder. This sounds kind of like a fanzine article to me...

My wife and older daughter are Criminal Justice majors over at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, and so your article "Hebrews 13:3" piqued their interest when I told them you were a public defender in real life. Penny – the 22 year old – is a victim studies major, and your third story about the Aggravated Incest case grabbed her interest. If not this semester – since it's almost over – but maybe next year, maybe you could provide an interview or additional material for papers they will have to produce for classes. Of course, it all depends on which courses they will be in, but this might be a Good Idea for primary source material. No rush on this one, but I figured I'd mention it since your article jarred this idea loose in my brain. It certainly sounds good to me.

Great interview with Alfred Bester. As you know, I re-read The Stars My Destination during the Holiday break this past year, and thoroughly enjoyed it again. It is simply just one well-told, thoroughly entertaining novel. I forget off-hand where I read this - not sure if it was in the latest SNAPS distribution, and Joyce Katz wrote about it, or was it Robert Sabella in his fanzine? gotta double-check – but 2006 was the 50th Anniversary of the publication of The Stars My Destination. It would have been very appropriate for a special edition with retrospective commentary by various authors to be published. This book consistently pops up on fans' lists of favorite all-time sf novels. It is one crackling good read.

Now I'm getting the urge to re-read The Demolished Man. Maybe over the summer. That may have to wait, though, since I just checked out four Alastair Reynolds books out of the TAMU circulating library to read, and I've started with Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days, which is a lot of fun. The other books I checked out were from his Revelation Space
series, so I'm looking forward to reading them. This is my first exposure to Reynolds. So far, I am not disappointed.

Back to the zine. James Bacon's "The Greatest Bookshop of Them All" made me nostalgic for the used bookstore runs Lee Pelton, Steve Glennon and I used to do once a month back in Minneapolis-St. Paul in the mid-70s. I love used bookstores. Of course, my interests are more eclectic nowadays, but I always check out the science fiction and fantasy shelves first. There aren't many used bookstores in College Station-Bryan, I am afraid; Carousel Books closed down recently (it was in a shitty little strip mall over by Post Oak Mall), and that was the only other used bookstore in College Station besides Half-Price Books, which is a wonderful place to spend an evening and 50-bucks at a drop. Good stuff there, though. Up in Bryan, there are only two used bookstores: BCS Books & Comics and Cavitt Corner Used Books & Collectibles. Most of the "bookstores" in these "Twin Cities" (ick! they are not! especially not to this Minn-stf boy) cater to this college town, with four chains carrying texts, supplies, and TAMU bric-a-brac and clothing. *sigh* Such is life in a college town.

Speaking of books, John Hertz reviewed one of my favorite Arthur C. Clarke books, The City and the Stars. That novel is full of those *ghosh-whow* moments that simply make me stop,
put down the book for a minute, and soak in or digest what I had just read. Clarke can paint such a vivid picture and infuse it with an energy that is still poetic, which is probably why he
is one of my favorite SF writers of all time. Such an incredibly talented writer, and such an incredible output over time. Love his work.

Funny thing, glancing at Rich Dengrove's review of Heinlein's Children, I never was a big fan of Heinlein. His shorter fiction was fine, and some of his books are definitely fun to read - the juveniles, of course - but I never cared for his huge, sprawling tomes from the late 1960s through the 1970s. Oh, well. Everybody has their own reading tastes.

I think I'll call it a wrap by thanking Curt Phillips and Charlie Williams for the tribute to our dear friend, Bob Tucker. Even though Bob passed away seven months ago now - has it really been that long? – the thought of his loss still gives me pause. Our fannish heritage is so much richer thanks to Bob's efforts, and for that we thank him, and we'll miss him. The upcoming NASFiC has been dedicated and renamed in his honor. That is a fitting tribute, too, but I think Bob would have been very amused by the gesture. He was one cool fella. I hoist my coffee mug in a non-alcoholic Smooooth to his memory.

Grand zine, Guy. Thank you much, and I look forward to the next one.

Richard Dengrove, Alexandria, VA, USA

2007-06-10T23:33:00.000-05:00

I loved Challenger 25. Of course, I loved most my article "The Rise and Fall of the Canals of Mars." It was a great masterpiece if I don't say so myself – modestly.

On the other hand, my article "Heinlein's Children: a Review" was a great travesty. It would have been no big deal if, once, I had confused Heinlein's novel Tunnel in the Sky with Time for the Stars; if, once, I had written it Tunnel for the Stars. That could have been forgiven. The problem is that I did it five times and then got it right once. When someone criticized me for making the mistake, I argued that my ideas remain valid. However, that was before I realized how often I had gotten the title wrong.

Also, I got wrong that Farmer in the Sky was set in the asteroid belt. No, it was obviously set on the Moon of Jupiter Ganymede. This should teach me to re-check my facts and spelling.

Not even the cyberpunk novelists of the ‘80s made as glaring a mistake. They did make a big one. Joe Major, in the "Cyber-Punks," is right that they extrapolated from technology current in its time without even extrapolating new technology.

Yet they would have done one good thing for science fiction if only other writers had carried the ball. I suspect regular science fiction has concerned itself too much with elites, military men and other movers and shakers of the future; and has ignored the rest of the population. Cyberpunk gave the future an Underbelly; something needed for a more complete society. Maybe someone could give science fiction a Middle Class as well.

The Cyberpunks may have been wrong; but, in his diary of LA Con, I don't think Mike Resnick made any mistake when he went to the Gene Autry museum. The Western is a part of us that has been lost. I remember, during the ‘50s, when the Western was popular. In fact, I remember a time when the majority of TV shows were Westerns. The past had a myth then as well as facts.

However, no longer. Periodically, there are attempts at Westerns, but they don't come off right. Part of the problem is that the real Western is un-p.c. Even when, as I remember, one hero was an Apache with pre-Hippy long hair.

The big problem, though, is that we don't want to deal with our feelings about the past. We did in the ‘40s through the ‘60s. Costume dramas were big then. The Civil War as a hobby was bigger then. Now poof.

As Mike Resnick is right about the Western, Mary Ann van Hartesveldt is spot on about Scientology. I suspect the reason it opposes psychiatry is that psychiatrists gave ammo for L. Ron Hubbard's second wife, Sara Northrup, to divorce him. I will have to re-read Martin Gardner's Fads and Fallacies; but if I remember correctly, they considered him "hopelessly insane."

Alex Slate is right that there are several variants on the Yiddish word for dust collector. I am sure his "tschotschke" is one of them. I have often seen it written as "tsotske." However, my father always pronounced it "chotchka."

OTHER CORRESPONDENTS INCLUDED

2007-06-10T23:18:00.000-05:00

Sheryl Birkhead and Lawrence Zeilinger

Challenger #25

2007-02-16T17:47:00.000-06:00

The correspondents quoted below comment on a number of GHLIII zines – Challenger #23 and #24, The Antipodal Route, my DUFF report, The Fantastic Route, my zine about the ’06 worldcon, and The Zine Dump #13, my zine about … zines.

FROM ALSO HEARD DID WE:

Fred Argoff, James Bacon, Greg Bridges, Randy Byers, Naomi Fisher, Brad Foster, Bruce Gillespie, Mike Glyer, John Hertz, Barry Hunter, Ben Indick, Sue Jones, Ruth Judkowitz, Arnie Katz, Mike Kennedy, Alan Stewart, Geri Sullivan, Mary Ann van Hartesveldt, Alan White, Doug Wirth, Lawrence Zeilinger, Michelle Zellich.

Alex R. Slate

2007-02-16T17:37:00.000-06:00

[Re the proper spelling of an impossible word meaning “knick-knack”:] You almost got it right the first time, just add a "k" -- it's “tschotschke” -- actually there are a couple other variants as well.

Susan R. Higgins (a.k.a. Sunshine)

2007-02-16T17:35:00.000-06:00

Thanks to [Challenger and] The Zine Dump, I can keep up on the world of fantasy and such where I love to live in my mind, heart, body and soul. May we all have a real life made out of our dreams, that become reality, filled with love, hope and good health. Love to all you guys and gals who made my adventures at past conventions (where we have met) some of the most enjoyable experiences ever.

2007-02-16T17:33:00.000-06:00

Julie Dalia

2007-02-16T17:25:00.000-06:00

I am sitting at my desk after having read the story of your friend Cindy. It made me cry. The whole fanzine is heart-wrenching.

The John Guidry pictures made me really really want to come home. Period.

Julie is a singer, artist, and New Orleans native.

E.B. Frohvet, Ellicott City, MD, USA

2007-02-16T17:23:00.000-06:00

Congratulations on your 1000^th fan publication. And likewise on being overlooked again for the Lost Causes. [Eeb means, the fan Hugos.] I’m beginning to think that not getting a Hugo is more of a distinction than receiving one from the blind fools who vote them. This appears an apt moment to raise again the notion of refusing a nomination. Publically, loudly, with one’s reasons on full display. I know you would like to have have one, but at this point, you’re merely propping up a failed system by participating.

Not surprisingly, I disagree. Aside from the old saw that being nominated is itself an honor, being nominated also carries substantial benefits – a cool rocket pin, great seating at the ceremony and access to two of the best parties at worldcon, the pre-Hugo reception and the post-Hugo nominees’ bash. I’ve put a lot into Challenger and consider such company part of the reward. I love being a nominee and hope I continue to be one ... and eventually that I get a trophy to take home. Perhaps when the Bird of Paradise flies out of my ass.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that I’m blind to the eye-piercing faults with the fan awards, most obviously the fact that inertia is the strongest factor in determining most winners and has overcome deservedness time and time and time again. And yes, I mean the L.A. Con IV winners, all of whom are nifty and talented people and none of whom merited this year’s awards.

So a final yes, there are myriad injustices with the fan Hugos. But quit the game? No way. I live and I’ll die hoping to feel that Bird of Paradise flappin’.

As long as we’re on politics, I decline to be the voice of contradiction for Challenger, for much the same reason I refused to be the voice of reason for Fosfax. Tim Lane once called me a “leftist”; I look forward to seeing what creative insult you can heap on me.

Sorry, but I think you’re an okay guy.

Jeffrey Copeland: Since we’re on a roll, the 84-year-old incumbent Comptroller of Maryland, running for another four year term, lost in the Democratic primary to a candidate who billed himself as “the real Democrat.” It did not help that the incumbent, long noted for putting his mouth in gear with engaging his brain, had in recent years insulted women, immigrants, the Korean-American population, did I mention women?

Chris Barkley: It’s possible, in the days before Political Correctness, that Campbell argued in favor of slavery just for the sake of being contrary. The late Robert Adams once started a panel by declaring that the human race deserved to die off, because we had polluted our gene pool by preserving “non-survival” types. Donald Kingsbury received a Hugo nomination, back in the day when it actually meant something, with a novel in which cannibalism was the chief source of protein.

Perhaps we should re-word Dr. Benford’s aphorism as “You shouldn’t write anything unless you enjoy the process of writing it.” It’s that treacherous word “fun” I have a problem with. Great literature, or even great SF, can be stimulating or compelling without being “fun.” Silverberg’s Dying Inside is not jolly reading.

Peggy Ranson: May I recommend pigeon pie? There must be someplace locally that will sell you a .410 shotgun. I doubt anyone is enforcing the local game laws …

Terry Jeeves: Actually the constant-flush straddle toilet is a very old form, dating back centuries. All it requires is gravity and a water source.

Thanks for sharing.

So, dude, how did you like the U.S. Open [Tennis Championships]? I picked both singles winners, though picking Roger Federer took no great leap of imagination.

I was very pleased that Andy Roddick fought his way to the finals and gave Federer a decent run for the roses. After all, James Scott Connors, King of Earth and Master of All Magnetic Forces, was his coach. Apparently he taught Roddick that you’re only as great as you think you are, a lesson for the ages, and the right to say “shit” is the right to play tennis!

They say Maria Sharapova is “arrogant” and doesn’t have any friends on tour. The great ones don’t need friends, they can buy as many friends as needed. I rather like her, and not just because she’s tall and blonde and pretty. She can whack a tennis ball.

Great athletes, like great artists or great writers or great anything, often seem arrogant, because they are so focused on their craft. Pretenders to greatness often are arrogant, because they think that appearing great is the same as being great. Anyway, I like Sharapova too, because she’s tall – 6’3”, right? – and blonde and pretty, and I love the squeak she makes when she drills that ball across the net.

Michael Bishop c/o Challenger

2007-02-16T17:15:00.000-06:00

(A letter to Joe Green)

I never met or even sold a story or article to John W. Campbell, but I always regarded him as an eminence within the SF field and aspired both to meet and to sell to him, and so I want to thank you for your clearly observed, recalled, and written memoir of the five days that you hosted him in your home on his trip to Cocoa Beach in 1970, not too long after I published my first sale in Galaxy (not, alas, Analog).

You’ve painted a memorable portrait of the man and one that I will therefore remember for a good while. I was shocked, by the way, to learn that Campbell – John, as you by rights refer to him – died shortly after turning 61. When he died, I was only about 25 myself and viewed him with some awe as a person of great and venerable age, and probably imagined him at least in his late seventies and probably even 85 or so.

It’s chastening, to say the least, to report to you that I turned 61 in November and still foolishly think of myself as at the doorstep of old age rather than well over its threshold. In any case, it was good of you to look back upon this episode and to share it with the readers of The Bulletin, many of whom, I’m sure, will read it with the same bittersweet pleasure that I did.

Joe’s piece on Campbell was reprinted in The SFWA Bulletin

2007-02-16T17:06:00.000-06:00

Martin Morse Wooster, Silver Spring, MD, USA

2007-02-16T17:02:00.000-06:00

I read The Antipodal Route and thought you did a good job. Three comments:

* I know what you mean about preserving the noises of Australia. I spent a spare day in Adelaide going to a nearby national park, where I walked around listening to birds and relaxing. I stopped in the local branch of the Australian Wilderness Society and said that I wanted to buy a CD with birds on it but I did not want New Age music or guitars. Well, what happened when I got home but I got a CD with...guitars! I don't think I've heard this CD twice.

* As for flying, I'm not scared of it like you are but dislike it and try to take the train when I can. However, when I flew to Australia crammed into my economy class seat, I couldn't sleep because the woman next to me decided to spend the whole 16 hours reading. I didn't mind her reading a Bujold novel. But having to stay awake while she read slash fiction was a little too much...

Especially if she read it aloud …

* All right, why don't Australians root for their sports teams? Does this mean Something Dirty?

To quote Family Guy, “that means it’s good.”

2007-02-16T16:59:00.000-06:00

Anthony Lewis

2007-02-16T16:53:00.000-06:00

If you'd like to see our trip report …

Sue Jones

2007-02-16T16:51:00.000-06:00

Thanks for the photo of the Watts Towers, Guy [e-sent along with The Fantastic Route] – I'd seen pictures of them before, but with you in the shot I got a better sense of scale. (They're BIG!)

Rusty Burke

2007-02-16T16:49:00.000-06:00

Glad you folks got a chance to visit the Howard House. We just celebrated the 20th anniversary of our trip this year -- along with Howard's Centennial. I'll be going to the World Fantasy Con in November in Austin, and leading a bus tour to Cross Plains.