Letter from the Editor / Newsbits / Contact! Adventures in Fandom - I-Con '99 |
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I was attacked by droids on the way home this evening. In the last week, Star Wars has assumed Christmas sized proportions, with life sized store displays and kiosks full of "collectable" toys. The CD store was full of Episode I sound tracks…and I swear that the music of John Williams followed me around the mall. All this scene needs is a Yoda-claus for kids to line up to. Unless you count the lines already forming at movie theaters. Well, Lucas still has to come up with a Star Wars tree to hang all those miniature action figures on and array wrapped boxes under. All waiting for Star Wars Day. I wasn’t going to do a lot of Star Wars stuff this issue. Lucas isn't making it easy for webzines to get access, in fact we're pretty much on the outside looking in. Except that it seems that he's forgetting the people who've rooted for him all these years I don't really care. It's normal to forget your friends when you make it big. Ask any of the people I've snubbed since I've become famous. Besides, SFRevu's mission is to promote SF to a broader audience. Star Wars doesn't need our help there. Still, the world's most fabulous publicist, Del Rey's cosmopolitan Eleanor Lang, pointed out that I wouldn't get a copy of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace unless I asked for it in writing, per Lucas rules. Well, ink's cheap, so I dropped off a request, and last Monday the book showed up at my office. My Orson Scott Card interview was running late and here was all this Terry Brooks stuff included, so I said; what the heck, and read it that night. Now it's the focus piece. With any luck the Star Wars focus will draw people to the greater SF universe, which you'll also find in this issue. On a barely SF note, I heard a group called The Red Elvises. I urge everyone to cough up some kopecks to buy a copy of their CD: I Wanna See You Bellydance. The lead track, "Rocketman" is a definitely the last thing I want to hear before final ignition on my next trip into orbit. These Russian x-pat's music is half Telstar Surfer, half Rockabilly, and half Rockin' Ruskie. Which adds up to one overstuffed formerly Soviet bikini full of fun. In the future, everyone will listen to Red Elvises! We are joined this month by several new SFRevu crew members. Wendy Mitchell, aka "the girl in shiny pants" from Lunacon, is covering the SF Art scene. Wendy knows art from both sides, as artist and model and kicks things off with a super job interviewing one of SF's top talents: Bob Eggleton. John Klima, who was working at Asimov's when we met him at Lunacon, is now at Tor, and reviewing for us in his spare time. This month he starts with a piece on the upcoming Analog. We can look forward to his report on the Nebula ceremonies as well as a review of Brute Orbits in the next issue. John Possidente (this is starting to sound like the cast of Buckaroo Banzai) came to us pretty much out of the ether, and brings us his view of Far Horizons, a great concept anthology where a number of noted authors went back to their created universes and added a short story to fill in a few missing details. The usual suspects, McClure, Giguere, and Sawicki, have done their usual fine job checking out the latest fiction and video, and I went to see The Mummy, which looks much better in the trailer than in the flesh. The final run time for The Mummy is only 1 hour 30 minutes, though the screening seemed a lot longer. The good news is that there probably was a good 1:30 film in there, and maybe it got tightened up. Well, off to the issue we go…remember, if you see only one Science Fiction film this month…you'll probably be behind me on line at Star Wars. Ernest Lilley - Publisher/Editor SFRevu
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 NewsBits - Just as soon as I put out a call for NewsBits, my
email index crashed. Still, some hardy NewsBits made it through. Contributor's names in
parenthesis. THE FEAR OF GOD,
now in bookstores (BA CHEPAITIS) The Thousand Names of Bob…( Bob Mayer) The Sparrow Movie: more nipples, less religion, and a 30
point IQ drop (Mary Russell) GODZILLA 2000 - The Return of Retro-zilla (Bob
Eggleton) Factoring Humanity the "Most Collectible SF Book of
1998" (Robert J. Sawyer) Canadian Launch Site Announced! (David G. Hartwell) NORTHERN SUNS is an anthology of Canadian Science Fiction, edited by David G. Hartwell and Glenn Grant, THE DRAGON'S EYE, by Joel Champetier, is the author's first novel to be translated into English. It is about "a secret agent on the planet New China, whose mission is to bring back a turncoat from deep in the territory of an unfriendly colonial settlement-or at least as much of him as possible.", VIOLENT STARS by Toronto's grande-dame Phyllis Gotlieb is the sequel to her 1998 novel, Flesh and Gold. The undercover agent from the previous novel is called back into service to continue the bottle to bring the slave-creating inter-planetary corporation to trial and justice. FLASHFORWARD, by Robert J. Sawyer, is set in the near future. "An experiment goes awry at CERN, the European Center for particle physics, causing the consciousness of everyone on earth to jump ahead 21 years for a period of two minutes." Lastly, STARFISH is the first novel by Peter Watts. It is about "a bunch of sexually-abused cyborg bikers living on the edge of an underwater volcano." Society Info: peterhal@pathcom.com or visit www.salmar.com/nsffs And don't forget…my new Year's Best SF 4 is just out in paperback from Harper Prism. - David G. Hartwell Sidewise Award Nominations (Steven H Silver) Chesleys Nominees Announced: (ASFA) The Chesleys, named for the great astronomical artist, Chesley Bonestell, began in 1985 as a means for the Science Fiction and Fantasy art community to recognize individual works and achievements during a given year. This year's awards are for works and achievements in the period from January 1 to December 31, 1998. The awards will be presented at ceremonies held at Conucopia, the 1999 North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC) in Anaheim California 26-29 August 1999 (http://www.99.nasfic.org).
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| I-Con 18 I-Con Photos © 1999 Ernest Lilley 1. I-Con @ Stonybrook 4/10/99 2. Friends of Lucy - Marc Wikofsky 3. Comic Book Crusaders - The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund will be ten in 2000. Chris Bleistein - asst dir Christopher Oarr - exec dir Jeff Macey- cannon fodder 4. Comic book villians 5. Fandom never looked better - The Leather Goddess and Gypsy 6. Blaine of I-Con - SFRevu thanks go to Organizer Blaine Atkins. 7. The Ira Donewitz - Lunacon Chair Candidate 2001 if elected - more hard core... science and software. 8. The Harlan Ellison - auctions for the CBDF. 9. Starfleet Covert Ops - team prepares to beam back to their ship. (Or: Bibliobytes guy Glenn trades palm pilot tricorder software with a fan. www.bibliobytes.com) 10. Relaxing in 10-Forward StarFleet Capt Peter Grimm and Karen Quick of StarFleet Marines 11. Looney Boy and Moon Goddess - Ian Randal Strock and the Lovely Kit. 12. Terry and the Pictures - Terry McGarry 13. Tom Kidd - Artist 14. Dr. Who? Sylvester McCoy (penultimate Who) "it's not a Dr. Who scarf...it's a Sylsveter McCoy scarf." 15. Ern and James Hogan 16. John Clute - Author of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction - SF God - not a bad fellow. 17. SciFiTalk meets R2D2 - Tony Tellado and Kenny Baker - "I had the most comfortable costume in the film. They just opened it up, and dropped me in." Link to Tony's interview. 18. Luckiest Hologram - attempts to look humble after telling us that his character on Voyager gets to have a romantic episode with Seven of Nine. 19. SRO at S(tar) W(ars) Panel 20. Men and Swords - Compensation or What? 21. Fans of Steel - Not the bunch of fans you want to pick on.Cheryl, Greg, Sunday, Scott and Russ 22. Array of Arms - Cheryl displays her considerable charms and arms. 23. Feelthy Hucksterdom 24. Picardo packs em in |
Contact! Adventures in Fandom: I-Con 18
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