OtherRealms A Fanzine for the Non-Fan "Where FIJAGH Becomes a Way of Life" Volume 1, Number 6 July, 1986 Part Three Editorial -- Pros and Cons By Chuq Von Rospach Editor of OtherRealms I spent Memorial Day at BayCon, the annual San Francisco Bay Area Science Fiction Convention. Cons are a unique and fascinating part of Science Fiction. Since most readers have never been to a Con I'll try to explain what they are and help you decide whether or not to try it. The first thing that you should know is that Cons have very little in common with Fandom. A Con is a place where all the facets of SF come together for a few days. Conventions vary greatly, but these are the most common activities: o Art: There is always an art show. Most of the art is for sale; some of it is good, some of it is horrible. There is usually an Artist Guest of Honor (also known as an AGOH). There are also a number of other artists talking on panels and selling their work. This year, the AGOH at BayCon was comics oriented (BayCon has a strong emphasis on Comic Books as well as SF and Fantasy). Because of this there wasn't as a strong Pro presence as usual, and I found it somewhat disappointing. o Authors: Authors love Cons. Big authors come to the Con to talk to other authors, publishers, sign autographs and go to parties. Lesser known authors sit on panels, sign autographs, and talk you into buying their books. Every Con has an author designated as a Guest of Honor (or GOH) who is the Big Name. A second author, not quite so big, is named Toastmaster (TM). The TM's job is to keep the crowds from getting restless when the Costume Contest runs two hours late and to show up the GOH by being funnier, friendlier and more accessible. The GOH is recognizable by the mob of security guards protecting them from their numerous fans. o Costumes: Convention goes love costumes. They'll spend months on a something they will wear once. Costumes come in two flavors: hall costumes designed to wear during the day and show costumes that are reserved for the Costume Contest on Saturday night. o Films: When things get boring, you go watch movies. In the Good Old Days, these were normally 16MM wonders like _The Assassination Bureau_ or _Logan's Run_. Now, with the wonders of videotape you get to see lots of really good movies, sometimes 24 hours a day. A recent fad in cons is Japanese Animation. Great stuff, especially compared to the bilge America puts out on Saturday morning. o Hucksters: Otherwise known as the memorabilia room. This is the place where your savings goes to die. You want it, you can get it -- for a price. The hucksters sell a wide range of material, from that ancient autographed first printing of _The Martian Chronicles_ that you can't afford through T-shirts, movie posters, art, jewelery, comics and toy robots to things like armor, daggers, and SCA gear. o Mundanes: These are all the people in the hotel who don't have a clue what is happening. They see five Stormtroopers in full gear and wonder if the Russians have landed. Much fun is taken at a Con watching all the mundanes try to pretend they aren't staring. o Panels: The main attraction of a Con, this is where groups of authors, artists, and other invited guests sit down in front of the audience and discuss (and sometimes argue) with each other and the audience. The topics range from very serious discussions to silly and trivial ones. Baycon had a large number of good panels; from serious discussions on marketing SF and writing techniques to discussions of Religion and Magic in Science Fiction and Fantasy. There are great places to hear authors put their works in perspective and to pick up new areas of interest and information. o Parties: When you get up at 8AM, sit in on panels all day, go to the Costume show in the evening, and generally run around until the early hours, what do you do? You go to a party. Sleep is optional at Cons. They are places to meet interesting people. They are sometimes the only places you'll see the authors that are at the Con. o The Society for Creative Anachronism: This is a group that is peripherally attached to SF. They get together and pretend they are living in ancient England by wearing period costumes, donning armor and bashing each other over the heads with wooden swords out on the grass in front of the Hotel. Cons are great fun, and I don't get to enough of them. You can sit down and talk with people who have the same interests and level of intelligence, who understand SF, and who aren't judgmental about reading material. It is a place to learn about new things in the industry and in the world. For aspiring writers, the information content in the panels is as critical as the contacts you can form by talking to authors, agents, and publishers. There are a few rules to remember when you go to Cons. First, everything starts late. Everything also finishes later. The only exception to this is when you are running late; then everything runs smoothly. A good trend I've seen is switching to an hour and a half for a panel. You simply can't get a good discussion going in 50 minutes, and the good cons (like Baycon) are scheduling panels to go an hour but giving them an extra half hour before the next panel starts. This keeps people from getting rushed around, and keeps things on schedule -- Baycon had very few things start late, which is quite amazing. This is a trend I hope becomes a tradition. Second, never expect to see the Guest of Honor. The GOH usually hides in the Con suite unless they are on a panel. When they are out there are usually a number of stern looking people between you and them. This is because everyone else is expecting to see the GOH, to ask them to read a story, have their baby, or autograph their underwear and it is considered bad form to have a GOH trampled by a mob. This is a necessary evil, and if you realize it before going you won't be disappointed. I've found that the other authors are a lot of fun. I met a number of wonderful people at Baycon this year -- Ray Feist (_Magician_) was utterly charming and more than happy to go into great detail about how I misread a couple of interesting points in his book. Dave Smeds (_The Sorcery Within_) and Clare Bell (_Clan Ground_) were both fascinating people; Stephen Goldin and Jon DeCles (a co-founder of the SCA) are also high on my list of people I'm looking forward to seeing again. Sydney J. Van Scyoc is about as close to your grandmother as you'll ever find. One thing that used to bother me was meeting an author and having to admit that you haven't read their book yet. I've found that they don't mind, and I've discovered a number of good books after meeting the author in person. If you limit yourself to the 'known authors, you're cutting yourself off from a lot of really interesting people. The highlight of Baycon for me was meeting a God. Larry Niven attended Baycon this year. Long time readers of the net will realize that Niven is one of my favorite authors; his work turned me into the serious SF reader I am today. It was a real thrill for me to finally screw up the courage to go up, shake his hand, and watch my brain turn to guacamole. Believe it or not, I was speechless, making such wonderful comments as 'Gee, I liked your last book', 'Gleeble Blurp', and the infamous 'Shit! I sound just like a fan!' I am, and Larry smiled his way though the entire awkward encounter. I hope he enjoyed it as much as I did. Next time I'll try English. Only in SF can you meet the people who are so important in your lives. You don't run into TV stars in the supermarket, you don't get to sit down and discuss his latest book with Gore Vidal, and you don't see Sly Stallone holding court in the lobby of a Hotel and swapping dirty jokes. SF is a unique genre and the most amazing part is the accessibility of the people. If you write to an SF author, chances are they'll write you back. At Cons, you can talk to an author and they will talk back, person to person. There is probably a Convention in your area. Most SF magazines carry Convention listings -- the most complete is in _Locus_. If you are in the SF Bay Area, I recommend Baycon highly. Every year it gets better and better. If you can get to a Con, you should -- until you do, you don't know what you're missing. OtherRealms Lettercol -- July 1986 Chuq, Recently I saw a copy of OtherRealms (Vol. 1, No. 4). This particular copy had been sent to R.A. MacAvoy because it contained a pair of reviews of her Damiano trilogy. She read the reviews and asked my opinion. I read the reviews (as well as the rest of the zine) and felt sufficiently moved (more like compelled) to write this response. The reviews were written by Dave Berry. Each was about a page long, but I was no further than the first paragraph in each before it became apparent that both were going to be ugly little bits of fluff. I don't intend to critique the reviews point by point -- there was little enough content in them to allow a handhold. But there was a sour feeling in my stomach regarding SF in general when I finished them, and I can at least examine that. First, Dave Berry is not a critic. I cannot apply that honorific to the person who generated those reviews. Nor is he a reviewer, really, because I don't feel he sufficiently described the feelings or plots of the books. If he really wants to be a critic, I recommend that he study this worthy art for awhile first. Learning literary criticism is a bit like learning the violin or bagpipes. It is best done in private for awhile, lest you lose your life to an annoyed neighbor. At its best, a violin can pierce one's soul. At its worst, it holes one's eardrum. At its best, literary criticism can distill the essence of a story and rekindle the fire of the original as well point out interesting connections. At its worst ... well, that's why I'm writing this. In a nutshell, I feel the reviews were inadequately researched, badly written, and calculated to sting the authors while illuminating Mr. Berry. They were also transparent in their failings. Mr. Berry criticizes Ms. MacAvoy for not adequately portraying the "shittiness" of the world. Mein Gott, Herr Berry, are you so jaded that your fundamental assumption is that the world is by nature shitty? If so, then I am even more firmly of the mind that you have nothing to say in your reviews that I care to hear. For me, the world is a spectrum of all things, and though one cannot always have the best, one CAN have it occasionally. If the world is anything at all, it is balance. And one CAN explicitly choose what to read, what to talk about, and who to count as friends. So in that way, one really can choose the kind of world in which one wants to live. If the world seems shitty, maybe you have sat too long on a dung heap. No? But I am writing this response for 2 reasons, Chuq, and have only just covered the first. The second are 2 questions I direct to you. Why did you print it? And why did you send Ms. MacAvoy a copy? I realize you sent this issue to Ms. MacAvoy as a courtesy to keep the writer informed. That sounds like responsible journalism. But consider the whole picture, and ask yourself whether you would have appreciated being on the receiving end. Imagine that some stranger solicits (or receives unsolicited) a very ugly review of something you did. This stranger graces that review with publication so that many people can see that review, and then sends this thing to your door so that you can't help but see it yourself. Does not that sound vaguely like prying open someone's mouth to pour in medicine on the grounds that "it's good for you?" I was recently told that any advice or criticism (or any unsolicited information) must fit into at least 2 of the following 3 categories: (1) True (2) Kind (3) Necessary Certainly, reviews cannot, strictly speaking, be true or false So by these guidelines, the issue you sent her should have been both kind and necessary. It was neither. Ron Cain Cain@SRI-AI.ARPA [This is just one of a number of letters I received on the double set of reviews I published in Vol 1 #4. It was a difficult decision whether or not to publish those reviews. On one side, they didn't conform to the OtherRealms review standards (see "How to Write a Review" in V1 #2 or the OtherRealms Writers Guide). On the other side, they portrayed a viewpoint that was very different than mine. I enjoyed the _Damiano_ trilogy and am quite enthusiastic about MacAvoy's work. Because of this, I was unsure whether my unhappiness with the review was because of the viewpoint or because of the writing. Since I'm trying to create a magazine where people speak their mind (as opposed to mimicing what I would want them to say) I want to be very careful about censoring opposing viewpoints. The end result was that I published the articles because I wanted to see what the readers felt -- I needed the guidance on whether that flavor of material was appropriate. Very clearly it isn't. The mail and the Pico reviews that followed those publications shows that most readers disagreed with Dave's views and, more importantly, with how he said it. The fault, though, isn't with Dave, but with me. I should have enforced the standards, and I should have requested rewrites of all the reviews. Because I didn't, I published a bad issue with #4. It is VERY important that reviewers take a close look at their words. Not just because the author involved is going to see it, but because all of the readers are going to see it. The readership of OtherRealms is somewhere around 2,500 and growing. To put that in perspective, Amazing Stories has around 10,000 subscribers, so the words you write have a large audience. With visibility comes responsibility, both on your part and on mine, to turn out a professional product. In this situation I blew it. My review standards are not there to be arbitrary, they have been developed out of my experience writing reviews (and my occasional hack job) as a guide for inexperienced writers around the pitfalls of writing a review. Reviews are hard work. I plan to be more vigilant about the tone of reviews in the future; you are welcome to disagree with me, but be prepared to back up your opinions. -- chuq] Chuq; The June 1986 issue of OtherRealms contained a Pico Review of Harlan Ellison's _Deathbird Stories_ by Alan Wexelblat. Wexelblat spent the first two thirds of his review making the point that _Deathbird Stories_ couldn't be a high quality collection because of the sense of utter depression conveyed by the contained stories. I find the idea of anyone holding such a notion utterly fascinating. While the nature of "good" writing is of course highly subjective, it seems to me that one reasonable heuristic for determining the quality of a given piece of writing is to examine how well the writing achieves the author's goals. Since Ellison six times prior to the first story explicitly stated that the contained stories where meant to be very depressing, I submit that Wexelblat's review is a self-contradiction! Kevin LaRue kevin%logic.dec@decwrl.dec.com Chuq, In Other Realms Vol 1, # 4, you gave the results of suggestions that people gave you for books to use in a fantasy course. You said that you were surprised that no horror was included, as horror was a subgrouping of fantasy. I feel that for a significant portion of fantasy, the reverse is true. Both fantasy and horror have a common source: mythology. The line between the two is very frequently murky, so perhaps it would be a good idea to look at the history of both genre. There have been horror magazines around since the beginning of the century, and the first "modern" works of fantasy (Conan) etc. were printed in these magazines. Barring children's fantasy (which I tend to prefer) and the works of Tolkien and his clones (I like Tolkien, but have liked very little that other people have put out in this vein.), fantasy is stylistically identical to most modern horror. You can see this in the works of Fritz Leiber, and it is impossible to miss in the works of Karl Edward Wagner. I understand that this is a sort of "chicken-egg" argument, but when one examines horror and fantasy stylistically and historically, it is plain to see that a significant portion of fantasy is derived from horror. I do understand that there is a signifigant body of thought that all horror (Dracula, etc.) is fantasy, but this is a literal interpretation of the WORD fantasy, not a stylistic interpretation of the genre Fantasy. Matthew Saroff SAROFF@UMASS.BITNET [It can be argued that SF, Fantasy and Horror are all the same genre. From the point of view of bookstores that lump them all together it is certainly true. On the other hand the three forms are distinct in that few authors cross over from one to another. Using a very broad set of definitions, I tend to see SF deals mainly with Things, Fantasy with Motivations, and Horror with Fears. Many things straddle these lines. Ben Bova once claimed the SF was anything that he pointed at and called SF. I tend to agree. Genres are useful only to the uninformed who need to pigeonhole things they don't understand. --chuq] Dear Chuq, I noted a number of omissions in Allen's bibliography. The one glaring omission was the fifth, final Demon Prince novel, _The Book of Dreams_. So, I hied to my bookshelf, and discovered the following: The Book of Dreams 1981 DAW To Live Forever 1956 Ballantine Maske: Thaery 1976 Berkeley Best of Jack Vance 1976 Pocket Monsters in Orbit 1965 (1952) (Ace Double with _The World Between_) _The Moon Moth_ was placed in the _SF Hall of Fame, Vol 1_, by SWFA. While I do not disagree with Gary's recommendations for which books to read, I find the lack of any mention of what makes Vance's works special dismaying. How can someone discuss Vance's works without mentioning his footnotes? One reads Heinlein for a world to live in. Hal Clement, Larry Niven, or James Hogan delivers hard science. E. E. 'Doc' Smith, Edmund Hamilton, or early John Campbell smash galaxies. A similar broad stereotype of Jack Vance is that he writes a travelogue in which the male protagonist overcomes adversity by using his brains and sometimes his fists. The excellence in Vance's writing is due to the poetry of his descriptions. His footnotes are an integral part, giving the reader a brief glimpse into the fast world backing up his stories. I, too, am failing to give a explanation of the fascination Vance's writing have for me. I also disagree with Gary's appraisal of _Lyonesse_. While it is totally unlike *all* of his other works it is not half as bad as the schlock coming out of the paperback houses. Carl Hommel {allegra, bellcore, cbosgd, decvax, gatech, ihnp4, seismo, tektronix}!masscomp!carlton Chuq; ==>On "The Care and Feeding of Journals" by Barb Jernigan: I don't generally keep a journal, but Mark and I always keep them when we travel. Even more than pictures, they help capture the way you feel. In this case, though, they *are* for "publication," or at least for handing out to family and friends who ask "How was your trip?" The only problem one might have is if one is traveling in a country where negative journals might be confiscated on the way out. Some extra tips: if you're traveling, stay away from felt-tip pens. The ink will run if the journal gets wet. Something that will fit in a back pocket works well--a spiral notebook is not suitable for this. I agree on the "blank books"--too much like writing in a "real" book, and somehow I feel I would have to be profound to do justice to it. ==>On "The Chronicles of St. Germain" by Chuq Von Rospach: My feeling was that there was perhaps an over-emphasis on period costume to the detriment of the rest of the novel (at least in HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA). Another historical period series that might interest readers is by Les Daniels and comprises of THE BLACK CASTLE, THE SILVER SKULL, and CITIZEN VAMPIRE. ==>Comments on "Pico-Reviews": "GALAPAGOS": Strong disagreement with Chuq. I liked it, and *enjoyed* it. I even nominated it for a Hugo. "THE POSTMAN": Strange, I found this Brin's *worst* (rather than best) novel to date. Well, so it goes. "TIK-TOK": One quibble with Dave Taylor--John Sladek is hardly a "new" British author, having had books published in this country fifteen years ago. Evelyn C. Leeper ...ihnp4!mtgzy!ecl (or ihnp4!mtgzz!ecl) Notes and Comments on OtherRealms by Chuq Von Rospach Editor of OtherRealms OtherRealms has mutated further. What I'm trying to do is find the tradeoff between readability, accessibility and the drudgery of putting all of this together. The more pieces I use for OtherRealms, the easier it is to find any single article. At the same time, splitting things up creates complications for some of the networks; it creates Copyright problems; it makes it harder to create a hard copy of OtherRealms and it makes putting an issue together more complicated. I've decided to try the three part format. The first part will contain the articles, the second part will contain Pico reviews and perhaps one article, and the third part will contain the editorial, letters and associated administrivia. The idea is to simply keep things small enough that you can skip through the material you aren't interested in without being overwhelmed. Please tell me what you think. I recently went back to check something in the first issue. Needless to say, I'm glad the magazine is where it is instead of where it was. * * * A couple of comments on my St. Germain piece from last month. First, I got two books backwards: _Hotel Transylvania_ was the first book, _The Palace_ was the second. Also, I somehow neglected to mention the FULL name of the author: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. I got a number of requests for information on availability. The bad news is that most of the works seem to be out of press at the current time. The good news is that they ARE available from the Science Fiction Book Club. Also, All of the books (except _Tempting Fate_, which is still owned by NAL) have been sold to Beth Meacham at Tor books. Yarbro has also been contracted for three more books using Olivia as the main character. The first, _A Flame in Byzantium_ is based in the 6th century and is due to go to the publisher in August. The other two are to be about the time of Richard the Lion-Hearted and Louis the XIII of France. * * * Two issues keep popping up in my mail, and since I'm chronically short of time, I'd like to put them to rest here. First is the "problem" of formfeeds in OtherRealms. I seem to get two or three letters an issue on this. OtherRealms is formatted for three distinct reading environments: hardcopy is one, because I want OtherRealms to look as good on paper as it does on a screen. I send copies of OtherRealms to featured authors and to various interested parties. Many readers print it out for reading and their bookshelves. The other two programs are "rn" and Berkeley "Mail," both of which use the "more" program to handle screen pagination. "More" does the intelligent thing when it finds a formfeed. It stops. If your system doesn't, I suggest you fix it. Most readers I've talked to are happy with the way things are. So am I, and I don't plan on changing this. Formfeeds are a feature, not a bug. The other question that comes up is whether to split each item in OtherRealms into a separate posting for mod.mag.otherrealms. The answer to this is no. Why? From a philosophical standpoint OtherRealms wouldn't be a magazine any more. It would be a moderated group and it would have to be handled differently. It would be significantly different from the real OtherRealms, both in flavor and format. From a legal point of view, it creates problems with Copyright. From an administrative view, it would be a royal pain for me because I'd be supporting two magazines with the same material. I'd rather support two magazines with different material. I also think, that the old formats, while familiar, don't work. OtherRealms is a magazine about SF and Fantasy, but it is also an experiment in new technologies. I try things, and they work or they fail. Either way we learn something. Perhaps what we learn here will be useful to the network at large. I think it is a great improvement on what we used to do. * * * This issue of OtherRealms has the first guest editorial. Leigh Ann Hussey, a SF and Fantasy writer from the Berkeley area, talks to us about a very important bill now before Congress. I urge you to get involved and help kill this affront to the Bill of Rights. This is part of a concerted attack on our personal freedoms by a small group of Fundamentalist types who firmly believe it is their right to tell us what to think. The bill is clearly unconstitutional, but it could create havoc for many before it is proved so. You don't need to be involved in witchcraft or support it to be against the bill -- the way it is worded, it is quite possible for the Catholic Church to fall victim, as it performs exorcisms and other acts involving demons. It is poorly worded, poorly thought out, and a waste of taxpayers money. It is the first step towards a state religion, where you are allowed to believe in only what They deem is acceptable. This was tried before, with very bad results. If you don't believe me, look up the Inquisition. Or Salem. OtherRealms is always looking for people to write a point of view that is of interest to its readers. I'm glad Leigh Ann took me up on it, and I hope she won't be the last. Masthead for OtherRealms Volume 1, Number 6 July, 1986 This issue is Copyright 1986, by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights reserved OtherRealms is edited and published on a monthly schedule by: Chuq Von Rospach 160 Pasito Terrace #712 Sunnyvale, CA 84086 USENET: {major_node}!sun!plaid!fanzine ARPA: fanzine%plaid@sun.COM Fidonet: 125/84, user chuq vonrospach CompuServe: 73317,635 Associate Editor: Laurie Sefton (lsefton@sun.COM) Submissions: Submissions are welcomed at any of the above addresses. Electronic mail is preferred, Macintosh format disks through U.S. Mail will allow me to publish your work MUCH faster (returned with SASE). Hard copy is accepted but will get keyed into the system when I get time. A writers guide is available. If you want to write for OtherRealms, please ask for a copy. Pico reviews are welcome from everyone. Duplicate the format used in this issue and limit your comments to one paragraph. If you are on a BBS or other system that does not have access to the above electronic addresses, contact your SYSOP about making arrangements. Letters to the Letter column should be mailed to the above address. Letters to an author should be mailed directly to the author where possible. All letters will be considered for publication unless requested otherwise. This magazine is Copyright 1986 by Chuq Von Rospach. 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. Subscriptions: 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. Subscriptions are not yet available on CompuServe. Please write me for the latest status. 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.