The Devniad Book 65E Un Zine De Bob Devney 25 Johnson Street, North Attleboro, MA 02760 U.S.A
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The Devniad Book 65e un zine de Bob Devney 25 Johnson Street, North Attleboro, MA 02760 U.S.A. e-mail: [email protected] For APA:NESFA #363 August 2000 copyright 2000 by Robert E. Devney Orbita Dicta I just heard about a new one. The all- Heard in the Halls of you-can-afford sushi diet. Readercon 12 at the (curiously named) [Hope has hot news from Fanzineconalanda] Burlington Marriot Burlington Corflu will be in the Boston or (guess where?) Burlington, Providence area in March or May 2001. Bob Massachusetts, U.S.A. Webber hasn't decided which yet. July 21-21, 3000 [At her reading, vastly underrated fantasist You know the drill. Here’s where I delve into Elizabeth Willey gives a glimpse of things to what was said over a long weekend at a recent come] and most distinguished science fiction I'll read from something not published readers/writers convention. yet, The Scholar's Pursuit. It's a fantasy set in For those Devniad readers drawn here more the early 19th century, but emphatically not by friendship than science fiction, better luck a Regency … Perhaps a Regency without next month. Unless you’ve got a shred of beaus. scientific interest in your heads, in which case dive in and observe the interactions of that [In the panel on genre ghettoization in the U.S. strange and wonderful species H. fantasticus. vs. the U.K., co-guest of honor Michael Or is that fanaticus? Moorcock, like many pros, blames the profs] Many thanks to faithful spies like my sister Writers of imaginative literature get Darcy Devney, Dan Kimmel, Paula Lieberman, increasingly ghettoized as a result of politics and perhaps others I’m too discreet or forgetful to — because academics, to hang onto their mention. Note: if they, I, or our Presidential jobs, need John Updike to the top guy rather candidates aren’t all hung up on the accuracy than Thomas M. Disch's being the top guy. thing, why should you be? [Writer Robert Sawyer just flew in from the North Coast with some sad and surprising [Friday afternoon in my office as I escape to the tidings] con, designer Steve Rebello explains my weekend None of Canada's SF writers are speculative fiction conference plans to a published by the major publishers in colleague] Canada … we’re published either by small Hey, I saw Galaxy Quest … He's going to presses, or in the U.S. go where they wear these big pointy ears. [Is Tor editor Jim Minz spouting the partei [A few minutes later, at a bank kiosk in line?] Norwood, Massachusetts, fan Mark Bartlett, also Luckily at Tor we work for the good Rcon-bound, confuses me with some dazzling Germans. They don't micromanage what we star of the SF firmament] do, for the most part. Aren't you Bob Devney? [An audience member wants out] [At dinner in the hotel restaurant, Toronto fan I'm asking you to define what science Hope Leibowitz dishes diets] fiction would be if it wasn't ghettoized — The Devniad, Book 65 Page 2 of 18 [But writer Barry Malzberg drags us all back in] — It wouldn't be science fiction. The Devniad, Book 65 Page 3 of 18 [Moorcock contributes a sign of the times — the [Writer/fan Brett Cox teases your ever-flirting- Times of London, that is] with-danger reporter] Some time ago the Sunday Times called I want that calendar you thought up: The me to ask which science fiction author to Babes of Science Fiction. interview, and I said, how about Terry Pratchett. And she asked, "Who's that?" [In the middle of grandmaster Samuel R. Well, I told her, if you look in the back Delany's 18-minute reading of a paper on of your book section, at the top of the list “definitions” vs. “descriptions” to introduce you'll see Terry Pratchett has the top three (and I fear contradict) the panel on The Pleasures slots … of Pedagogy — when Delany utters the phrase He's getting a little better known now. "Gothic or post-Gothic," fellow grandmaster Hal Clement wrinkles his brow several times; [Minz minces words] eloquently … There's no quote here, just thought Ghettoization is really a term I take issue you might enjoy the moment] with … It's really all about trying to find the people who are looking for these books. [Later, when the discussion finally begins, Clement marks out verbal boundaries] [Moorcock blames the media] The trouble with definitions is, there are What happened was, essentially, George far more physical objects in the universe Lucas … It's knocked out the likes of John than there are short noise packets … [And Sladek. later, when someone attempts yet another cryptic definition] I need more noise. [Malzberg sees giant statues toppled in the sands] [Delany has a horrifying historical note from The most disturbing thing I've Analog in the supposedly enlightened 60s] encountered recently was that Robert John Campbell rejected Nova. He said Sheckley has a novel that he cannot get his audience could not relate to a black published … If Robert Sheckley cannot sell a central character. novel at age 72, after having been a working science fiction writer at the top of the field [Co-guest of honor Suzy McKee Charnas has since 1952 … been there, been done to like that] When you write science fiction that asks [Minz tries to make a case for “in with the new”] questions that people don't want to deal The field is still receptive to newer with, you get defined out of the form … writers of quality, like Mary Doria Russell You get told, that's not SF, it's a polemic, it's — radical feminism, and so on. [Which Malzberg won’t buy] [Editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden demonstrates — The publishing logic is, Robert definitions can deflate] Sheckley is a proven failure. Mary Doria A lot of supposedly “hard science Russell is the Robert Sheckley of tomorrow. fiction” is just talking tough about She's three books away from being a proven engineering. failure too. [When I ask from the audience if it's ever decent [In the bookshop, dealer Michael Walsh hefts for a work of fiction to contain equations, Nielsen over a trade paperback of the hot new Brit space Hayden is equal to the task] opera Revelation Space — plus news of its The equations in Cryptonomicon work author] because they’re charming equations. Alistair Reynolds will be coming to Worldcon next year, in Philadelphia. The Devniad, Book 65 Page 4 of 18 [As a schoolboy, writer Allen Steele found incalculable value in Delany’s 1966 trilogy The [Devoted dealer Chris Logan Edwards chats up Fall of the Towers] two outstanding comix] You had characters speaking to each Have you ever read the comic Cerebus? It other by means of sine waves, just when I started back in the late 70s, and will end in had to study the damn things in school. I about 4 years. The guy doing it said from passed that course because of your book. the start that it would be a 300-issue series, and everybody laughed … [Nielsen Hayden recalls Damon Knight's famous His name is Dave Sim. He’s always self- definition/description of SF, which goes published. Because he says no company will something like “Science fiction is what I point at ever pay you enough to sue them. when I say science fiction”] … You should also take a look at The Thousands of people are worrying how League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. By Alan we're going to define science fiction after Moore, who did Watchmen and Swamp Damon dies. Thing. It’s set at the end of the 19th century, and it has all these fictional characters from [After the panel, fan James Daly talks to Steele re books in it, but usually you have to figure Hugo Gernsback's word for it, "scientifiction”] out who they are by yourself. There’s The field would be called "sty-fi"— Captain Nemo and Allan Quatermain and The Invisible Man, and more. [Steele, delightedly] — No, “stiffy”! We'd all be stiffy fiction [Mark Olson recounts the stuff of NESFAnnish writers! Of course, some of us have written legend in re Tony Lewis and wife Suford] a little porno already … There’s a good story there. Shortly after Tony and Sue got married, Sue took her car [In the lobby, Nielsen Hayden points out a new and ran it into a bridge abutment — MacLeod on the horizon] Ken MacLeod has a fifth novel, [Churlish wisecrack from this reporter] Cosmonaut Keep, not part of any other series. — Who can blame her? — It's coming out from Orbit in Britain in November. I'm trying to buy it right now for [Olson rightly ignores this cheap, anything-for- Tor; we'd probably come out in May next a-laugh slur on his old friend and valued year. colleague] — And her face got really banged up … [At the Meet the Pros party, magnificent yet So Tony went to the hospital, and modest fantasist Patrick O'Leary has more great ascertained that she was really OK. news] Then he called her parents and asked for Gene Wolfe told me this morning he's a refund. agreed to write the introduction. Gene Wolfe has agreed to write the introduction! Of my [Born-again testimony from fan Joe Petronio] book of poems and stories and essays, Guy Gavriel Kay was the man who got coming out from Fairwood Press in October.