Lloyd Penney, Etobicoke , ON, Canada

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.

Mark Plummer

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.