OtherRealms A Fanzine for the Non-Fan "Where FIJAGH Becomes a Way of Life" Part 3 Editorial: The Past Through Tomorrow Chuq Von Rospach Editor of OtherRealms One of the things I feel very strongly about is that OtherRealms should be a showcase for new authors, the names that will be famous tomorrow. Asimov and Clarke certainly don't need any more publicity, and I would much rather see the magazine look towards the stars of tomorrow rather than fan the flames of yesterday. The only problem with this is that getting information about new authors is difficult to do -- first books rarely get advertising; if they did, I wouldn't be pushing them as hard as I do. I finally went to the publishers for help, and the early responses have been encouraging, to say the least. Because of this, I'm rather proud to spotlight an author most of us have probably not read, Ben Bova. This, of course, needs some explaining. Few people will let me get away with claiming that Bova is a new author -- his first published story was in 1959, replaced John Campbell as editor in 1971, and has been writing and publishing ever since. Bova has recently agreed to edit a new line of books, Ben Bova's Discoveries, for Beth Meacham at Tor, and since this line is aimed at the newer authors, I wrote him a letter. Bova, being a writer as well as an editor, wrote back asking about reviews of HIS works. Since OtherRealms is still relatively new, there aren't any, so I went to my library to see what books of his I had. None, which really surprised me. It is obvious that we have an image problem here. He was a great editor at Analog, but his life didn't end when he went back to writing. I went out and grabbed some of his books. I've been reading a lot of Fantasy recently and Bova's work was a breath of fresh air. It is solid SF, the kind that has always been the Analog trademark. His latest, Voyagers II: The Alien Within, is a good, solid political intrigue written in the near future. It isn't perfect, but it's a LOT better than most of the stuff I've been reading recently. So OtherRealms is still looking for the stars of tomorrow, but there is a lesson here for all of us. Some of these stars are new, burning fiercely over the horizon and just out of sight. Others have been left behind, peeking out through the mists of time and waiting to be re-discovered. There is definitely a place here for both the new authors and the old authors that deserve to be read more. There is a lot of good OLD SF out there, too, and I'm going to try to not forget that in the future. You should, too. ----- Copyright 1986 by Chuq Von Rospach OtherRealms Letters Dear Mister Chuq Von Rospach: In your otherwise excellent article about conventions, you omitted any mention of "filksinging". For this lapse, I shall commission Mrs. Juanita Coulson to sneak up behind you to give you a forte-fortissimo "SHRIEK!" as only she can do, which shall either (a) induce permanent impairment in your hearing, (b) stop your heart, or (c) both. Herewith my attempt to define this category of activity, in case your sudden, tragic demise should prevent you from doing so yourself: Filksinging: the origin of the term is somewhat obscure. The best explanation so far presented is that it originated as a typogarphical error in an mid-1960s convention program book. The best definition of "filksing" is "a haphazard aggregation of filksingers and audience which gathers to perform and listen to filksongs". As the best definition of "filksinger" is "one who performs filksongs at filksings", and the best definition of "filksong" is "a song performed at filksings by filksingers", we may observe a nicely mutually-recursive set of definitions, but we are lead into something of a quandary, and must perforce use less-than-optimal definitions. It is usually perilous to offer generalizations about any topic, so I shall attempt to eschew them. Filksings usually begin at approximately eight PM local time, and usually continue until "dawn" (n., "the time when men of reason go to bed"); thus, filksingers are usually the only convention attendees who observe the rising of the solar luminary. At a filksing, there are usually five to fifteen filksingers, usually in a "bardic circle" or "bardic semicircle", who usually take sequential turns at singing filksongs. Each filksinger is usually armed with a guitar; she usually sings the verses solo, although she may, at her discretion, invite the accompaniment of the audience on choruses. The aforementioned audience is usually grouped in the general proximity of the filksinger aggregrate. Filksongs may be: (a) published texts set to music ("The Queen of Air and Darkness", "Danny Deaver"); (b) songs based on published SF or fantasy works (the Dorsai cycle is perhaps the most popular for such purposes; e.g. "I Am the Destroyer", from "Soldier, Ask Not"); (c) original songs with an SF or fantastic flavor (by far the most common category); (d) none of the above; (e) parodies of categories (a) through (d) (greatly popular; e.g. "I Am the Cheap Lawyer"). Filksongs are usually classified into two categories: non-ose and ose (adj., der. fr. cry "ose, ose, and more ose!"). Your correspondent is, most unfortunately, resident in the Midwest, and is, therefore, limited in his knowledge of filksingers. However, the following may be recommended: Leslie Fish, Frank Hayes, Bill "of Many Instruments" Maraschiello, Juanita Coulson, et cetera. (Mrs. Coulson, in addition to an excellent singing voice, has the ability to project her voice throughout an -- alas! too often -- noisy filk room, whether it be an average room or Grand Central Station at rush hour. One person, intending to record a filksing, was informed by Mrs. Coulson that it would be prudent if he would, during her turn, reduce the recording intensity of his device. The miscreant neglected to do so; reportedly, the microphone emitted a puff of smoke at the beginning of Mrs. Coulson's first song, the said microphone having been irreparably damaged by the said singer. It is suggested that acquaintances of Mr. von Rospach say their farewells to him now; in any event, he will be unable to hear them hereafter.) Much more could be written about filksinging, of heresies, of Frank Hayes Disease, and of many other topics, but many would now say that this letter (guided missal?) has continued altogether too long already. I shall close by inviting those whom this letter has interested to examine filksinging more closely at their next con; I Remain Y'r Humble and Obedient Serpent Timothy A. McDaniel, Esq. Arpa: mcdaniel@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu Csnet: mcdaniel%uicsrd@uiuc.csnet Usenet: ...{pur-ee|ihnp4|convex}!uiucdcs!uicsrd!mcdaniel Dear Chuq, I enjoyed your article on the attractions at conventions, but note that you left out one of my favorite things: Gaming. Most SF cons I've seen will have a small area set aside for gamers (usually for roleplaying games, e.g. Dungeons & Dragons, Champions, Call of Cthulhu), some go so far as to organize tournaments. The best thing about gaming at conventions is getting to see how others do it, and try different "styles." The best game I've ever played in was at a convention; so was the worst. I realize you were primarily pointing out the convention features a SF reader would be interested in, but since most rolegamers are SF/fantasy readers, I thought I'd point this out. --Carl Rigney USENET: {ihnp4,allegra!cbosgd}!okstate!uokvax!cdrigney ----- Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of TSR, Inc. Champions is a trademark of Hero Games. Call of Cthulhu is a trademark of Chaosium. Chuq; I enjoyed reading your 'Introduction to Cons' very much. It gives a very good intro to the 'feel' of being at a Con. The bigger cons are generally just bigger and things run later. I think that some fen would disagree with your relative ranking of panels and parties. The parties come first for most, and many never attend more than one or two panels. Some advice for first-time con-goers: - Read people's name badges. You might be sitting next to someone you've always wanted to meet, but you don't know what they look like. - Don't be afraid to talk to someone famous. Larry Niven and Isaac Asimov have to go the supermarket for their groceries just like everyone else. It's usually safe to corner someone at a party. - On the other hand, don't be obnoxious. Try to insert yourself gracefully into a conversation. - If there is a party and the door is open, it is an open party. Join in! If the door is closed, it is a closed party. Don't go in unless you have an invitation (or are with someone who does). - Don't be intimidated just because everyone seems to know everyone else (except for you). Many of them have just met. Also, everyone had a first Con. - Go to the meet the guests reception (every Con has one) and try and meet as many people as you can. Then you can act like you know them all the next year 8-). Other Matters: I thought that Spider Robinson was a very good choice for BayCon's Writer Guest of Honor. He was much more accessible than most (he talked for quite a while after the Meet the Guests Reception). We are currently deep in the process of selecting/approaching the GoHs for 1987. We will have flyers at Westercon with the names of any confirmed guests. John R Blaker Logistics and Transportation BayCon '87 UUCP: ...!sun!wdl1!jrb (jrb@wdl1.uucp) ARPA: jrb@FORD-WDL1.ARPA blaker@FORD-WDL2.ARPA Chuq, Finally, I find myself with time to write a loc to OtherRealms. Since I have a lot to cover, I left a few things by the wayside, but here are some things that demand comment. I must confess that I'm a tad perplexed by Richard Loken's "pico review" of _Pet Sematary_ in OR #3. When he says, "King has some real writing skills which he uses to write schlock, I couldn't stand the subject and never finished the book. Classic Stephen King," one can infer that Loken doesn't like horror fiction in general and/or King in particular. Which makes me wonder why he read _Pet Sematary_ at all, even to relieve boredom. Regardless, while I hesitate to do so, I venture to say that Mr. Loken didn't understand what King was trying to say in the book. The story was about the inability to let go of loved ones who've died; how even the most rational of people have a hard time accepting the finality of death. Despite a corny ending that I didn't think resolved the story very well, King did a very good job of bringing this point across. The book wasn't scary or gross; what it was was *disturbing* and *uneasy*, as it should have been. I could empathize with Lou Creed's actions. I read the book on a weekend trip to Maine (coincidentally, very close to the setting of the book). The day after I got back home, I went over to my parents' house and learned that one of my mother's cats had died just before the weekend. Pasha (who, again coincidentally --- I'm serious! --- looked very much like the cat on the cover painting of the book) was my favorite of all the cats I'd known before or since, and I was quite depressed about his death. My mind immediately started asking the obvious question: If I had access to a Pet Sematary as existed in King's novel, would I use it to bring Pasha back, knowing the consequences? The disturbing answer was that if I decided against it, it would only be after long consideration. And to add to the feeling of despair, my father passed away two weeks later. I can't say that my experiences didn't color my perception of the book, even though they happened *after* I read the book (except that I did know for a long time beforehand that my father was dying ). Still, King knew exactly what nerves to strike and I think he did so with unerring skill. re: "Callahan's Barred" I haven't read _Callahan's Secret_ yet, nor, I confess, the magazine appearances of the stories therein. Yet still, I understand your feelings about the matter, because I felt similarly at the end of the first Callahan's collection. I'd been a faithful reader of Robinson's stories as they appeared in ANALOG, and I welcomed the chance to read them again, all together, when the collection came out (not to mention the couple of new stories). The last story in that book, _The Wonderful Conspiracy_ left a bad taste in my mouth. Part of the whole positive feeling of the Callahan's series was the *humanity* in it, that it was, at the heart, people helping people. That we find out, as did Jake, in _Wonderful_ that there was far more to Callahan than we'd known previously, I felt a small betrayal. While it wasn't really a *deux ex machina*, it seemed to me to be damned close. It changed the whole complexion of the series. I read the next one or two stories in the series when they appeared in ANALOG, but they just didn't seem the same to me. It was like running into and old friend after some time has passed and realizing that your friend has changed somehow, in a direction that makes you feel distinctly uncomfortable. re: Horror as an offshoot of Fantasy It was an interesting point you made in your April Survey Report about the dearth of Horror in the survey results. I suspect that a majority of fans just *don't* consider Horror as a part of Fantasy, perhaps due to an attitude of "I like Fantasy, but I don't like Horror". In fact, the impression I got from a couple of the folks behind the Fourth Street Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis was that one of the ostensible reasons behind that convention's existence was because the World Fantasy Convention seemed to be oriented to Horror rather than Fantasy. On one hand, I tend to agree with them. I, personally, like Science Fiction and Horror, but very little Fantasy, and I tend to separate them into distinct categories. On the other hand, in practice, I tend not to distinguish any of the three. I usually think of the three being a single entity that I call Fantastic Literature and let it go at that. One other person here at DEC has come up with a rather elegant system in which he considers Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror as different species in the genus Fantastic Literature. Part of the problem in trying to distinguish one species from another is that there is, as you point out, a lot of interbreeding. Is _Alien_ science fiction or horror? How about Whitley Strieber's novels (_The Wolfen_, _The Hunger_, _The Night Church_)? He takes the standard concepts of horror --- werewolves, vampires, and demons --- and treats them as science fiction. As does George Martin in _Fevre Dream_. And the list goes on and on. Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror are useful labels for dealing with the material, but they cannot be hard and fast. While I would be fairly comfortable about shelving my SF/F/H separately from my mysteries or historical novels or whatever (even though I don't do so), I'd never consider trying to separate the SF from the F from the H. It's like trying to decide if I should file my Jeff Beck albums under Rock'n'Roll or Jazz/Blues. re: Articles/reviews of "non-sf" material in OR Again, I'm somewhat divided. I feel that some "non-sf" material has a place here. Something that fosters an understanding of science or writing or similar bases for the discussion of SF belongs, as long as its connection with SF is clearly established and is the point of the article. Reviewing such just for its own sake doesn't really tell us anything with respect to our common interest. If there was a problem with Barb Jernigan's review of Golden Bough, it was that it read as no more nor less than a review of a folk music group. Until Barb's reply to Matt's letter, I had no idea that the group did any fantasy songs because she didn't specify this. While I like folk music (and, thanks to Barb, I will probably look this group up), unless its connection to The Field is clearly established, it's just as well to leave it out. And by the way, as long as we're on the subject of fantasy folk music, I want to recommend another Kicking Mule record called BORDERLANDS, by a duo Chris Caswell and Danny Carnahan (under the collaborative by-line Caswell Carnahan). The title song was written by them and is very definitely fantasy, and one of the other songs is a traditional tune called "The Farmer's Cursed Wife". Jerry Boyajian UUCP: ...!{decwrl|decuac}!akov68.dec.com!boyajian or ...!decvax!akov68::boyajian ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM OtherRealms -- The Movie Well, not really, but now that I have your attention I thought I'd take this time to announce the latest offshoot of OtherRealms. OtherRealms is now available on a subscription basis in hardcopy. Why, you might ask, is an electronic Fanzine being printed out and mailed? Primarily because I realized I was doing it anyway. Every month, OtherRealms goes to editors, publishers, authors, and other random interested parties -- anywhere from 5 to 15 copies a month through the mails to people who don't have E-mail access. Since I'm sending them out, I might as well do it right. Thanks to the wonders of the Macintosh, it is possible to put together a good looking printed product rather quickly; without, in fact, much extra work than it takes to get OtherRealms out to the networks. I'm also starting to strain my morality at the company copy machine, so this is the first issue to go to a copy shop instead, and will also be printed up double sided to help save on postage. The electronic OtherRealms is about as good as it is going to get with current technology. I think it is a big step forward from where we were at the beginning of the year, but taking a critical look at it on paper makes me feel that the best electronic look doesn't do very well on paper, so it makes sense to split them and deal with them as separate entities. As long as I'm going to do it anyway, I might as well make the magazine generally available. It will (I hope) make the material more accessible to the rest of the world as well as bring outside material. To date, all of the material published has come from my prime network, the USENET|ARPA|BITNET|CSNET interconnect. We've been exporting our words to other places, but haven't been nearly as successful in getting it back in. Hopefully these new options will change this. For now, charter subscriptions are set for $15/year. The idea of this is simply cover postage and copying costs. I'm going to monitor things for a few months, and if I'm too high, I'll add a couple of issues to the subscription to make it up. If I'm too low, I'll eat it (sounds fair?). Why subscribe to the hard copy? For someone reading it online, not a lot of reason since the same words will be in both places. I'm going to start using some art (as it gets submitted) in the hardcopy version, and I think the print will be much more pleasant to read. I don't plan to print material that won't also go to the networks, so there is no pressure to pay any money -- the point is to put the best face on the words in whatever format they are seen -- besides, typography and layout are fascinating and I expect I'll have just as much fun learning how to do it in print as I did online. Who knows? It could be the start of a whole new career... Masthead This issue is Copyright 1986, by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights reserved One time rights only have been acquired from the signed or credited contributors. All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors. Reproduction rights: Permission is given to reproduce or duplicate OtherRealms in its entirety for non-commercial uses. Re-use, reproduction, reprinting or republication of an individual article in any way or on any media, printed or electronic, is forbidden without permission of the author. OtherRealms is edited and Published on a monthly schedule by: Chuq Von Rospach 160 Pasito Terrace #712 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USENET: {major_node}!sun!chuq ARPA: chuq@sun.COM CompuServe: 73317,635 Submission Policy OtherRealms publishes material on Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror literature with an emphasis on reviews. Please, no media articles. I am very interested in the newer and lesser known authors -- all those hard working and under paid people we haven't heard about yet. You can read an Asimov review anywhere -- OtherRealms wants to review the next Asimov. Articles about authors, series, and anything of interest to the serious reader of the genre is welcome. My preferred submission format is electronic. If you can E-mail it to me, or put it in a format my Macintosh can read, it saves me a lot of work. If not, I'm a fast typer. Pico reviews are welcome from everyone. Duplicate the format used in this issue and limit your comments to one paragraph. Please include enough information to allow someone to buy the book, such as Publisher and price. If it is not a paperback, or is from the Science Fiction Book Club, please note that as well. Submissions of publishable art for the hardcopy version of OtherRealms is solicited. No Vulcans or other media, please. A writers guide is available. If you want to write for OtherRealms, please ask for a copy, including SASE as appropriate. Submissions should include both an E-mail address (where applicable) and a U.S.Mail address. Your address is for your contributor copy -- it will not be published unless you request it. Letters should be mailed to the above address. All letters will be considered for publication unless requested otherwise. Subscriptions OtherRealms is available in two forms: electronic and paper. The electronic OtherRealms is available through the newsgroup "mod.mag.otherrealms" on the USENET network. For those on the UUCP, ARPANET, BITNET and CSNET computer networks without access to this group, a mailing list subscription is available. Send mail to the appropriate address above to be placed on the mailing list. OtherRealms can be found as part of Online Visions (GO SCI-4) on CompuServe. OtherRealms is also available through the following bulletin boards: SCI-FIDO, (415) 655-0667. The Terraboard, Fidonet number 14/341, (612)721-8967. Dim_Sum Fido, Fidonet number 146/5, (503) 644-6129 Other BBS systems or computer networks are welcome to make OtherRealms available on their systems. Either copy it from an available location or contact me to make arrangements. If you do make it available, I would appreciate hearing about where it is being distributed. The paper OtherRealms is available from the above address for $15 for 12 issues, sent first class in a wrapper. Fanzine trading rules also apply: if your article is printed in OtherRealms or you send me a Fanzine you get a free copy. Please make checks payable to "Chuq Von Rospach."