The Science Fiction and Fantasy and Horror Fan Resource Book
| Zine | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Science Fiction and Fantasy and Horror Fan Resource Book |
| Publisher: | Ali Kayn and Associates for Concinnity 95, Melbourne |
| Editor(s): | Ali Kayn |
| Date(s): | December 1994 |
| Series?: | ISSN 1323-3947 |
| Medium: | print zine |
| Size: | 184 pages |
| Genre: | |
| Fandom: | science fiction, fantasy, horror, many others |
| Language: | English |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Science Fiction and Fantasy and Horror Fan Resource Book is a collection of resources and articles written a variety of authors, club representatives, and others. The publication was 154-pages long with an additional 30 pages of contents and index notes.
The resource book was edited by Ali Kayn, who was also the convenor of Concinnity 95.
Proceeds from the sale of this book (and from the convention) were donated to UNICEF.
As the name Concinnity suggests, the convention was designed to represent a harmony of disparate fandoms and interests coming together; this resource book had a similar aim in a literary sense.
Artists/Photography
Art was supplied by Mary Stacy MacDonald, Ian Gunn, Phil Wlodarczyk, Betty Franklin, Greg Franklin, Berke Breathed, B. J. Stevens, Salli Gilbert, Ali Kayn, and Robert Jan.
Principal photographer was Richard Hryckiewicz.
From the Editor's Foreword
Welcome!Concinnity the convention was conceived as a forum for science fiction fans and professionals to meet and party and explore the different media available in the late twentieth century to play with science fictional ideas.
This book replaces the usual programme book distributed at conventions. Thanks to our contributors and advertisers we offer a peek at the richness of science fiction and fantasy (and horror) as they are practised by fans as well as professionals.The so-called Speculative Fictions explore all the possibilities of life. (Ali Kayn, Welcome", p. ii).
Contents
Contents included:
The Variety of Science Fiction
Speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy and horror) fulfill many purposes in our lives. They enable us to examine our own society safely by setting stories in a different place, time or universe. We can explore the nature of what it is to be human, the interactions between people, sexes, races, age groups, between humans and animals, humans and their environment and humans and their constructions.These explorations of humanity can be more bold, more exciting, more thought-provoking and more dangerous than any exploration of space or the sea.(Author unknown, p. 2).
A Curious Profession
Why should we read the stuff? I'll give a dogmatic answer here: because some of the most striking, most original and most entertaining writers in the world choose to work in the field, and because it shakes you up, encouraging your mind to settle into interestingly new configurations as you read it. (Peter Nicholls, p. 5).
Robert O'Reilly
"Robert O'Reilly's the invited Guest of Honour at Concinnity."
"Who?"
"Gowron, Supreme Commander of the Klingons"
[...]As to why the Klingons are so popular Robert Jan believes they appeal on a variety of levels. The literature put out by A.U.R.O.R.A. Robert O'Reilly's fan club emphasises the notions of duty and honour which frequently come forward in Trek. Our Mr Jan (who has been seen in Klingon costume more frequently than Robert O'Reilly) believes that the Klingons, especially as they are written in ST:The Next Generation (STTNG) with their4 conflict between barbarism and civilisation, appeal to the nineties' generation as love versus logic appeal to the Sixties. (Ali Kayn, p. 7.)
Science Fiction Writing: A view from Australia
A fan is a reader who is so interested in science fiction and fantasy that he or she makes contact with other fans and takes an active interest in the field. He or she may publish magazines about his or her favourite reading matter. That' what I do. Many fans concentrate on organising and attending conventions. Some, as I have done, set up non-profit companies to publish science fiction books that might otherwise be neglected. Many fans collect books... In recent years, a new group of fans has become prominent: 'media fans': people who are interested in all the TV, video and cinema varieties of science fiction. Science fiction fans, in other words, form a group that is symbiotic upon science fiction itself, but also forms its own world. We call this world 'fandom'. It is worldwide, multilingual and totally anarchic, and also still basically unsuspected by the rest of the world. (Bruce Gillespie, p. 17.)
Where, you might wonder, do Australia's women SF writers fit into this pattern? When I became an SF fan in 1968, the only women who were sighted at SF conventions were wives or girlfriends of fans. During the early 1970s, a few unattached women became part of fandom, often beginning as fans of Star Trek. In 1975, many applicants for the Ursula Le Guin Writers' Workshop were women, and many others became involved because of the World Convention in that year. In the early 1970s, Locus, the newspaper of the American SF field, surveyed its readers, finding that 80 percent of them were male. Since then the percentage has slipped to about 70 percent, but the predominance of men in the field is still fairly daunting for women who want a career in SF. Luckily, since the early 1970s there has been an influx of women writers in the overseas SF markets. Many, such as Ursula Le Guin and Joanna Russ, are known for being among the most adventurous writers in the field. At Australian SF conventions in the 1980s and 1990s, the percentage of females to males have swung much more towards 50/50, rather than 80/20, although many female fans admit that they are media fans rather than, as they call us, 'lit' fans. Many of the fans, of course, are trying to break into professional writing fields. (Bruce Gillespie, p. 116).
Fiction of Tomorrow
Styles in science fiction change. Ever wondered what people will be reading in fifty years? In a hundred years? Or, while we're in wondering mode, what would Captain Jean-Luc Picard read, listen to, or look at while relaxing in his stateroom on the starship Enterprise, in star date 25095 or whenever?
Whatever it is, or however it is transmitted or displayed, I think it's a safe bet that a large proportion of it will be classifiable as SF, whether you take the acronym to mean "science fiction" or "speculative fiction", or whatever new marketing label is applied to it in that era...Throughout history - yes, and through what we can know as pre-history - changing methods of transmitting information from one individual to another have left an identifiable mark on the thought processes of the human race.(Wynne Whiteford, pp. 25 & 26
What's a good book, miss?
One question I can be sure of being asked regularly, in my capacity as a school librarian is, "What's a good book, miss?"... [...]
Fortunately science fiction and fantasy readers tend to enjoy reading in general. The most popular genres, apart from science fiction, are romances... and horror.... [...]I've found science fiction and fantasy readers are intelligent and mature. Many of them are reading adult stuff by the time they get to high school.(Sue Bursztynski, p. 28.)
The lady from Dragonhold
Anne McCaffrey's Talents tread the dangerous ground between luxurious, necessary privileges, and socialism in the over-crowded world of near-future Earth. Her characters deal with child abuse, rape, itinerancy, prejudice and political intrigue. Hardly the stuff of Fantasy?[...]
Indeed, when the subject turned to the portrayal of women in McCaffrey stories, she was adamant that even the recent downplaying of adventures in her female characters' past is "the way the story wrote". She denies that this is a conscious pattern. "Not every woman wants to rule outright, or even 'rule' men! Both (Lessa of Pern and the Talent Rowan) work in cooperation with their men." Wherever her stories may take her, there will be many glad to follow this teller of stories. (Ali Kayn, p. 32).
The big leap forward: Publishing Science Fiction in Australia
Now the term 'vanity Press' isn't pleasing to the ear. Certainly the first thing acquisitions librarians think of when tey see a self-published book is that it must be inferior. It's an obvious deduction. If the book was any good a major publisher would've taken it on.Although this theory holds water, it is forever becoming more apparent that there are fewer publishers to handle an increasing fraternity of writers. And some of these up and coming authors are quite good but they're faced with a bloated market and no chance of acquiring an agent because most agents have closed their books to new clients. Quite a few publishers overseas won't even read your manuscript unless it comes from an agent. The proverbial Catch-22. (Paul Collins, p. 37).
Part of the Legacy: an interview with Majel Barrett Roddenberry
Gene Roddenberry gave the world a universe. It was not his alone, a television, film, and literary production becomes the collaborative effort of all the people who worked on it, and who continue to add their mark...
The woman who lived beside him in the last decades of his life, Majel Barrett, continues to work in his universe, travelling to conventions, selling merchandise and acting in his universe...
Majel Barrett tells the story of how Gene Roddenberry came home one day and declared, "I have the perfect role for you - - you don't even have to act," and, Majel says, "The mother from hell was born." As Lwaxanna Troi, Majel Barrett and the Star Trek writers have explored the issues of ageing and loneliness in our own increasingly ageing society.Visiting Melbourne in 1994, Majel said, "That's the big thing in Los Angeles, if anybody ever recognises me it's usually a woman over forty. One of them yell;ed across a market, another one came over to me in a parking lot and said to me, "You have done more for women in America over forty... everyone thinks that they are dead, they are dormant and that they don't live... and it's a great image. And you know who else goes for the character?" she continued, "Young men. They see something about the character in her that they like, although she is the mother from hell. But there is something that is tolerable about her. (Ali Kayn, pp. 42 & 43).
Pardon me while I kiss the sky: the influence of Science Fiction and Fantasy on Music
Both music making and creating Science Fiction are uniquely human activities, as far as we know. Music is an abstract art of associating sounds together in patterns. Science Fiction is usually a representational art of telling what if/speculative stories. They are two very different arts. What I am interested in here is where they meet and overlap.(James Allen, p. 46).
Ballbusters in Science Fiction
At the first Science Fiction convention I attended, a panel of women led a discussion of how females were portrayed in science fiction. Years later I set up a panel to discuss how women portrayed women in science fiction. Sadly too many women and girls take their (imposed) limitations into the future with them. They want to be Spock's little sister, or girlfriend, or the one who makes Jim Kirk change his ways. (Ali Kayn, p. 52).
Coming up in Film & TV
Mae Jemison (astronaut) says she has gotten more attention from appearing for about 30 seconds on Star Trek than for her other accomplishments. "Sometimes the things you think are important are not necessarily what others think are important." (Bjo Trimble, Editor of Space-Time Continuum, p. 57).
Australian Science Fiction
Professional commercial SF is one of the most international of literary forms. Although much of it has internationalised distinctive US values, its strength in in imaginative extrapolation rather than in the depiction of any translation and readily available, has tended be sufficient to meet the needs of Australian SF readers, and the indigenous SF industry has never achieved critical mass in Australia in the way that it has in other countries.(Russell Blackford, p. 64).
Scare Me! A Fascination with Horror
So why have Horror at what is essentially a Science Fiction convention?The simple answer is that you'll have Horror at the convention even if we weren't asked to participate, for horror is a large part of SF. In fact, almost all of SF, except for that syrupy sweet nice SF,couldn't (and wouldn't) exist without using some horror. It is the added frissson that horror provides that can make the difference between a great or just merely adequate story or film. In fact I challenge anyone reading this to give me an example of a good SF story or film that doesn't depend on some element of horror to make it work. (Chris A. Masters, p. 84).
The State of the Australian Horror Fiction Magazine
"I'm afraid there just isn't much demand for [horror] fiction in in Australia." So stated a rejection letter from a prominent literary journal to a young Australian horror story writer.
The year was 1983.
This was apparently true. Sadly, there had never been an Australian Weird Tales or Unknown. Yet magazines from the USA like Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone and Night Cry were readily available on the newsstands and Stephen King had already published eighteen books (if you count the Bachman volumes). Australia relied almost solely on imports for its chills and nightmares...[...]
Despite all the hard work and achievements of the various editors and publishers, no Australian horror magazine has truly managed to overcome the problem of distribution. It has been the stumbling block of almost every venture. (Stephen Paulsen, pp. 87 & 93).
Role Your Own: Role Playing and other Gaming explained
Role playing for those that have never tried it, is a hobby that fits together neatly with Fandom. It allows its players to be characters they have seen in movies, just as much as new characters of their own creation...Role Playing or Gaming as it is known, has been around for a lot longer than most people realise. In its lifetime, the hobby has changed and grown to become a varied and widespread pastime. Gamers, being the population of gaming, can be found in almost all corners of the world...
[...]
On a slightly different tack, one of the areas where Fandom and gaming cross over seamlessly is costumes. Many fans like to wear their costumes to their club meetings, or to the latest movie release. In the same vein, many gamers like to wear costumes to their games. Not just the Live Role Playing or the Freeforming. Many people wear costumes to Tabletop Warfare Role Playing games as well. (Jim Vinton, pp. 95 &98).
Virtually here
Picture this: You choose your computer interactive programme, enter the holo-room and instantly feel transported to a white sandy beach, the sea rolling gently in at your feet, seagulls wheeling overhead. You pick a ripe banana from a convenient bunch, and eat it as the sun warms you in its gentle glow. Seem a bit far-fetched? A little too Star Trek - The Next Gen? Well, just at this point in time it is. Virtual reality, where you interact in an artificial reality created and maintained by a computer system, is only in its very infancy and has a very, very long way to go before it is anything like the Enterprise holodeck! But the computer science of virtual reality is not just a flavour-of-the-month for computer science...
[...]With time and money, VR will develop further, but I doubt that it will take the place of reality for a very long time to come. Virtual reality still exists at the fringes of computer science and is really only looking in. It will be interesting to see the next move. (KRin Pender-Gunn, pp. 95 & 100).
Are you a victim of Multiple Book Stress?
Once upon a time SF by and large came in the form of short stories which were published in magazines. If you had published a number of short stories your magazine editor might suggest you try something a bit longer. This was serialised over a number of issues and then, if you were lucky, a publisher might actually put the whole thing out in a book. This gave you a little bit of fame and something to give to your relatives for Christmas. If you were really lucky the book sold well and made enough money for you to write full-time and live in poverty. If you were lucky you died young with broken dreams and forty years later your novel was released as "a classic masterpiece" and someone else got rich...[...]
As the years passed this began to change as more authors discovered the Herbert Principle: The only thing better than a good thick book is three thick books...
[...]What can be done about Multi Book Stress? Well, you can't do anything about the series that you are already buying, since sheer curiosity ensures that you haver to know what happens, but changes to your book buying habits can prevent further affliction. Some specialists suggest a change of genre, but this is not as easy as it sounds. Detective novels are worse than SF, with rows of Mike Hammers and Mickey Spillanes ready to beat the resistance out of you while Poirots and Marples slowly poison you with mysteries by the metre. Westerns also tend to gather in herds and even thrillers have been known to last beyond the final page.(Paul Ewins, pp.106 & 107)
A Fannish Childhood
Since 1978 fandom has changed dramatically - new people, new life, new style. Being there at that time and seeing how everything is now, you can't help comparing the fandoms of yesterday with that of today...
As the years go on the average age of fans is decreasing phenomenally: no longer is everyone over the age of 20.There are 11 year olds joining Doctor Who and Star Trek fan clubs. Even the committee members are getting younger and younger - definitely the 'new age' of fandom had begun. Unfortunately they're not producing much more fun as they have been promising. If anything, things seem to be more stressful between members and clubs than they were ten years ago. Granted, there are many more clubs and more members in each and the general fan wants to do more for fandom - sometimes to the detriment of the friendships formed within...
Fandom is, however, still very much like one large family, growing rapidly each year. Of course, there's going to be many love interests within - some following on to marriage and the odd baby along thew way. Though even this comes and goes in spurts of excitement. There are no weddings for several years and very suddenly many couples are getting married and again, soon after, it comes to a halt.Then comes the onslaught of the next generation... (Kelly Hryckiewicz, pp. 118-119).
Fandom is Pun: An Extract from Fen. A Study of the Science Fiction Fan
One of the most important of these distinguishing characteristics which serve to identify the animal as a specific and unique species is the predilection of its members for the delivery of puns. The universal fondness of Homo Fen Essef for the pun is a documented fact. This common interest has irrefutably proven the law that birds of a feather flock together except in the case of exceptions to the rule. (Cordwainer Cat, p. 128).