The Newsletter of the British Columbia Science Fiction Association #435 $3.00/Issue August 2009 In This Issue: This Month in BCSFA................................................................0 Letters of Comment...................................................................1 Calendar......................................................................................3 News-Like Matter.......................................................................6 Something Funny I Wrote.......................................................12 Upcoming Nifty Film Projects................................................14 Media File..................................................................................15 Zines Received.........................................................................16 About BCSFA...........................................................................17 Hank Watches Television.......................................................17 Why You Got This....................................................................18 BCSFAzine © August 2009, Volume 37, #8, Issue #435 is the monthly club newslet- ter published by the British Columbia Science Fiction Association, a social organiza- tion. ISSN 1490-6406. Please send comments, suggestions, and/or submissions to Felicity Walker (the editor), at felicity4711@ gmail .com or #209–3851 Francis Road, Richmond, BC, Canada, V7C 1J6. BCSFAzine solicits electronic submissions and black-and-white line illustrations in JPG, GIF, BMP, or PSD format, and offers printed contributor’s copies as long as the club budget allows. BCSFAzine is distributed monthly at White Dwarf Books, 3715 West 10th Aven- ue, Vancouver, BC, V6R 2G5; telephone 604-228-8223; e-mail whitedwarf@ deadwrite .com . Single copies C$3.00/US$2.00 each. This Month in BCSFA Sunday 2 August @ 8 p.m.: Discordian / Royal Swiss Navy / Garth Spencer’s Evil Mad Scientist Conspiracy meeting at the Grind Gallery and Café, 4124 Main Street and King Edward in Vancouver. Bring your favourite crank theories and pet prank projects. Mention forehead veins. Thursday 13 August @ 7 p.m.: July book discussion at the Grind Gallery & Café. Book to be discussed will be The Travel- er by John Twelve Hawks. Friday 14 August: ‘BCSFAzine’ deadline—see Felicity’s con- tact information in the indicia above. Saturday 15 August @ 7 p.m.: BCSFA meeting/party—at Joe, Fruvous, Ryan, Jenn, and Felicity’s place—#209–3851 Francis Road, Richmond. Phone 604-448-8814 for directions. Friday 28 August: ‘BCSFAzine’ production. Art Credits Sheryl Birkhead.................................................Masthead; Pages 1, 5, 6 Brad Foster....................................................................................Cover Taral Wayne.................................................................................Page 3 Jade Mobeus...............................................................................Page 15 Michael Bertrand & Felicity Walker..........................................Page 17 Letters of Comment [Editor’s responses in brackets.] From: Sheryl Birkhead 1 May–28 June 2009 25509 Jonnie Court, Gaithersburg, MD 20882 USA Hi all, Just when I thought I was making inroads on the zine stack—and here are two more BCSFAzines—also with cover illos by Brad Foster—the guy is ghood and gets around! I miss the progress reports—with nominating ballots and then voting bal- lots—looks as if a supporting membership in the Worldcon will allow for voting, but if one is out on the edges of things electronic this may be moot. Hm—in the past, a supporting membership got you the progress reports (nominating and voting) and a packet of various stuff from the con itself. Maybe now all it will mean is an e-mail— with results? At any rate, congratulations to all on the Hugo ballot—an honor no matter how it is tallied! It will be interesting to see (well…I won’t but…) how big the unabridged electronic versions will be. I realize that niftier things can be done electronically. Someday I’ll figure this out and have the ability to open files, but for now, that is not going to happen. I got an envelope from the Worldcon with two paper progress reports, so it appears I will be able to vote! Unfortunately, I have not been able to read the packet of nominations that they have available electronically (see previous paragraphs). The mailed-out progress reports over the past few years seem a bit smaller than those a bit further back. I have no idea if the tremendous increases in postage had anything to do with that or not—just interesting to note. Somewhere along the line I forgot about the conversion formula—and how it keeps a cap on the membership rate for those who have a supporting membership. [Please explain further. I see from the Anticipation FAQ that a supporting membership entitles you to receive convention publications and vote in the Hugos and future site selection, but I couldn’t find anything online about the conversion formula or how it keeps a cap on the membership rate.] Yeah, it’s a shame that Seattle had to withdraw their Worldcon bid. Maybe next time! Thanks for a bit of discussion of the genre (in this case “comics”) movies. Since I just add anything up- coming that looks as if it might be of any interest at all, I just have to wait well beyond the prime big screen time. One way or another, I usually get the chance to see them. I have not seen Watchmen yet and am totally unfamiliar 1 with the comic book. Um…at least that means I won’t have any preconceived no- tions! Hope Lloyd is now comfortably ensconced in employment. It’s always nice to have a paycheck every now and then. I add my thanks to Lloyd’s to Felicity—taking on the editorship may be a job that few acknowledge—so thank you for all the work. [Thanks!] Wow, now that’s a calendar! For what my opinion is worth—I like the Arial font in the titles thish. Ah yes, small steps—utilize one at a time and see how each goes over. Sheryl From: Lloyd Penney Saturday 25 July 2009 1706–24 Eva Rd., Etobicoke, ON M9C 2B2 [email protected] Dear Felicity: Sorry it’s taken a while to respond to this issue; the Montréal Worldcon is upon us in about ten days, and as we scramble to get everything prepared for our trip up the 401, I have bits of time in which I can write letters of comment, like this one on BCSFAzine 434. Man, I am way past deadline…I have both the .PDF and the paper copy, and many thanks for that. If ever the budget doesn’t allow, you know what to do. [Speaking of deadlines, I hope the copies of this issue I plan to send to An- ticipation’s fanzine lounge make it in time! There’ll only be five business days for them to arrive.] From what I’ve heard, Twitter has been called Facebook Lite. It’s got the message line at the top without the cross-referencing messages and those irritating games and diversions. Perhaps I’d be better with Twitter, but I think it’s already be- ing dumped as being even more ephemeral than Facebook or LiveJournal or other social media. Facebook and LJ are fine for me right now; let’s see what else arrives in the next few years. [The social media population is nomadic; by the time the late-adopters have joined the last thing, the new thing is somewhere else. Supposedly, LiveJournal is dead, at least for those who used it for social climbing and self-promotion. I’m glad MySpace is passé; MySpace pages crash my computer. Now the problem is that taking any action on Twitter causes an unresponsive script error that slows my com- puter down until I can stop the script…a solution that only lasts until the next action I have to take on Twitter. I’m only able to use Twitter on Windows computers with a newer version of Firefox. [Speaking of networking sites, Garth Spencer has started a professional network on LinkedIn.] My LOC…Polaris 23 was a good time. We did some sales, we found a few goodies in the dealers’ room, and we ran into a lot of old friends. The convention 2 was more people-friendly than in past years, but their con suite leaves something to be desired. Guess I’m just showing my age. [What’s in a good con suite?] Two new conventions are coming up in the Toronto area in 2010. Alex von Thorn and Marah Searle- Kovacevic, both veterans of many Worldcon bids, are launching a new literary convention in Toronto called SFCONtario in the fall, and local furry fans are staging Furnal Equinox in the spring. Guess we get to see what happens, and some new local cons will be welcomed. No set dates have yet been announced for either convention. [I’ve added links to their websites above, in case dates are selected by the time this issue is pub- lished.] VCon…Tanya Huff’s a sweetie! And you will have a very good time with Lar deSouza. A big guy, and we’ve known him a long time. We were at Lar and Christie’s wedding. [Last week, the customer ahead of me in line at Imperial Hobbies seemed particularly excited about Lar deSouza & Ryan Sohmer when given a VCon flyer.] I never did get to vote for CUFF. We nominated LeAmber Kensley, but our computer broke down around the beginning of June. By the time we got it back, the voting period was over, and no one had told me about it in person, and never saw a paper ballot. Shows you just how much fanac is online these days. All done, and the catch-up continues. I know I’m too late for next issue, but bring them on, and I’ll reply. See you soon. Many thanks for this issue, Felicity, and I read the calendar…happy birthday on the 29th! [Thanks! For what it’s worth, my birthday’s on the 31st. “Felicity’s Birth- day (Observed)” will probably be on Sunday 2 August 2009.] Yours, Lloyd Penney Calendar Note to print readers: underlined events have an associated URL. Links included in the PDF version at http://www.efanzines.com/ BCSFA/ . August 2009 6–10 August 2009: Anticipation (67th Worldcon), Palais des congrès de Montreal, Montreal, Canada.