Chain Reactions

From Fanlore
Jump to navigation Jump to search

You may be looking for Chain Reaction, a different Quantum Leap anthology.

Zine
Title: Chain Reactions
Publisher: Buffalo Chip Press
Editor(s): Miriam Ferziger
Date(s): 1993
Series?:
Medium: print
Size:
Genre: gen
Fandom: Quantum Leap
Language: English
External Links:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.
Chainreactions.jpg

Chain Reactions is a gen 90-page Quantum Leap anthology.

The art is by Rebecca Giner, Ellen Primack, and Sherlock.

Some of the content are round robin stories, which in this zine, are referred to as "chains," hence the title.

For Some, An Introduction to the Internet

The editor explained:

...everything but the artwork was originated on the Internet. Internet is an international computer network that allows users on many different types of computers to communicate via electronic mail. Through it, many Leapers communicate, and although we might not have met each other, consider many of our correspondents friends.

About the Cover

Explained in "Boring Stuff That Only Technogeeks Would Read":

Cover designed by Tom and Rebecca Griner. Lettering by Ken Barton. Two photographs, one of Scott Bakula and one of subatomic particle traces were scanned using an HP ScanJet IIc color flatbed scanner. The photo of Scott Bakula was taken by Miriam Ferziger on February 29, 1992. The photo of the subatomic particle traces was taken at CERN (A European Nuclear Physics Center) by Loiez and is available from the Science Photo Library (wherever that is). The images were joined and blended on a Macintosh Quadra 700 using Adobe Photoshop. The image was then transferred to a Sun workstation, converted to PostScript and printed on a Calcomp Colormaster thermal transfer printer.

About the zine: This publication was created using several Macintoshes, most recently a Ilci running system 7.0.1 and Microsoft Word v 5.0. It consists of one 504 k Word file with 55 sections, 22 style sheets and three scanned images. However, graphics were (gasp!) hand-pasted into the document.

From the Editorial: "Why is This Zine Different from All Other Zines?"

It all started when a time travel experiment... oops, wrong prologue!

All editors claim that their zine is unique. While that is probably true, I would like to claim that my is more different (even I know you can’t modify “unique”) than any I have seen.

So, why is Chain Reactions different? (I feel like I should be conducting a seder!) Because about 1/2 of the stories have two or more authors. The only other Leap chain publication I know of is Julie Barrett’s chain novel. Her method was to have one person write the leap in and another completed the story. The chain stories here have from two to five authors which does something very interesting: the story often gets much more complex (or is that convoluted?) than a single-author stoiy because someone tosses in an aside or red herring that another author runs with. Chain stories don’t always work. A companion to “Faith, Hope, and Lust” was written, but unfortunately it mutated into a life form that barely resembled a story, much less a Leap story. (If you are a masochist, send $2.00 to [address redacted] and I’ll send you a copy.)

Amazingly, that one story was the only failure of the batch and the were deemed publishable. Except for “Clear as Mud,” the chain stories were written sequentially (author a, b, c, etc. or a, b, a...), and the authors are listed in the order they wrote. The change in author is indicated by the symbol “[6 undecipherable characters]”.

The other unique feature of Chain Reactions is that everything but the artwork was originated on the Internet. Internet is an international computer network that allows users on many different types of computers to communicate via electronic mail. Through it, many Leapers communicate, and although we might not have met each other, consider many of our correspondents friends. To while away the time at work or between classes, we have produced volumes of electronic mail. In between our musings about the show, we have occasionally written fiction, poems, top 10 lists, and even messages from Ziggy. Since this zine would not have been possible with out Internet, I have included an item to share “net.culture” with the world at large.

Welcome to an E-Mail World

In case you’re wondering, all these funny-looking strings of characters (for instance: [email protected]) are computer addresses. If you have an account on a mainframe computer, but don’t know how to send mail, ask your systems administrator. If you don’t have any idea what we’re talking about, don’t worry about it. If you want to get a hold of the editor, write her at: [snail mail address redacted].

Not Edited So Much As It was Cosmetically Improved

From the editorial:

One of the best things about collecting fanzine submissions electronically is that, except for my own original work, I have not had to type a single word! (Okay, I’m bragging and some zine editor reading this is probably going to look me up and hurt me and I’ll probably deserve it, but I don’t care!) On the other hand, as a dedicated computer abuser, I have spent more time that I care to admit formatting, reformatting, and otherwise tinkering with the look of "Chain Reactions"

Contents

  • Boring Stuff That Only Technogeeks Would Read (1)
  • Editorial (ii)
  • Faith, Hope and Lust, fiction by Miriam Ferziger, Christine Gregory, Mary Allison, Warren Madden, and Katriena Knights (1)
  • Here’s Mud In Your Eye, fiction by Miriam Ferziger and Katriena Knights (11)
  • 10 Signs That Your Husband Has Been Leaped (21)
  • Clear As Mud, fiction by Katriena Knights, Jason E. Dzembo, and Scott Laliberte (22)
  • Evil "Leaper" on the Loose (29)
  • Fun and Games (30)
    • Quantum Leap: The Drinking Game by Mary E. Allison, assisted by Shari Feldman, Miriam Ferziger, Dara Golden, Caren Levine, and Paul Woodard
    • Mad Scientist Libs by Miriam Ferziger
  • A Visit from St. Beckett, poem by Jason E. Dzembo (35)
  • Teasing Tina ("In this day and age it is considered bad manners to tell jokes about ethnic minorities or handicapped persons. In an effort to be humorous without being politically incorrect, we offer these “Tina” jokes.") (39)
  • Al Be Back, fiction by Jason Dzembo, Christine White, Jim Hall, and Miriam Ferziger (41)
  • Quantum Leap Smiley Dictionary, some Quantum Leap emoticons, by Ailsa Jenkins, (51)
  • Doubleback, fiction by Jason E. Dzembo (52)
  • Back to the Quantum Future, fiction by Miriam Ferziger (script form: "ZIGGY'S VOICE The Bay Area Quantum Leaper's Association presents: Back to the Quantum Future. November 12, 1955, 10:03 p.m. Hill Valley, CA.") (63)
  • Leaptrek, fiction by Katriena Knights (crossover with Star Trek: TNG, "This is chapter one of the novella Leaptrek, which will be published later this year — written by Katriena Knights, edited by Miriam Ferziger, published by Buffalo Chip Press.") (67)
  • The Culprits (about the contributors) (89)

Sample Interior

References