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INTRODUCTIN CVER ART: I have been asked to be more explanatory in my Bojana Nariel Lubina (at SferaKon, Zagreb, Croatia) writing, to make it easier for first-time readers to get in a Winter Soldier costume from Marvel's Captain what I am writing about. I promise to bear this in America. Photo & battlesmoke: Wolf von Witting mind, but will still let you google a few things, which I ------feel I have written enough about (for example TAFF, TABLE F CONTENT the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund). So if you don't Introduction...... page 02 understand, a few clicks should provide you with an Doom of the A.I.'s answer, but hopefully less clicks than what was by Rolf Strömgren...... page 03 required by a first-time reader before. The Greek ALEF FB-Group...... page 05 To tell you the truth. I was thinking about quitting. 160 SF/ TV-series...... page 06 This would be the last issue, I would announce at by their IMDb-ranking as of May 30, 2016 some point. And that day may still come. But not yet. Again, 2nd place in the TAFF-race, but owing a story 24, the Meaning of Life all backwards....page 07 to 80+ voters. Now was not the time for quitting. In Defense of the Troll...... page 08 Instead I decided to attend more conventions this More Advice to Time Travellers...... page 09 year than ever before. I have made a Grand Slam (4 1st Con of Jesenice, Slovenia...... page 12 conventions in a year) before. The new record would SFeraKon 2016, Zagreb, Croatia...... page 14 have to be five. And then I would write the non-TAFF Who is Bojana?...... page 17 report, writing reports from travels across Europe. Fantasy-Convetion, Zagreb First stop Jesenice in Slovenia. Then SferaKon in by Bojana Nariel Lubina...... page 18 Zagreb (Croatia) and Fantastika in Stockholm. This Fantastika 2016, Stockholm...... page 21 is the first half. Later I intend to be in Oldenburg for LoCol...... page 25 the SFCD-Con and with the grand finale at BCon, the Eurocon in Barcelona. If all goes as planned. Index to CounterClock #1-25...... page 30 With the non-TAFF report here in CounterClock. That was the idea. But then I talked to some dis- illusioned old BNF's aiming for quiet retirement from fannish affairs and I was feeling this sudden weari- ness myself. I knew it would come. I knew it would pass. I knew that even if I would say so, there would only be a limited time that I could shut up. My fingers would soon start itching again to write something. Though I would not have expected this itch to come so soon. Several factors have contributed to this. One being the amount of comments on the previous issue and another being the result of the FAAN- Awards from Corflu 33 in Chicago. And unlike the Worldcon HUGO's in which the fan- categories are routinely hijacked, these are results I can wholeheartedly agree with. My congratulations to the winners and in particular to those who I already am familiar with; Randy Byers, Andy Hooper, Graham Charnock, Bill Burns and Steve Stiles. Not being familiar with all of the winners shows only how much I still have left to learn. The Fan Activity Achievement (FAAn) awards are presented annually to honour the best in fan writing, drawing, publishing and posting. They are voted on by fanzine fans around the world and the results are now usually announced at Corflu. The 33rd edition of Corflu: CHIFLU was held in Chicago on May 13-15th, at the same time as the 40th Anniversary convention of the Croatian sf- Artwork by Arthur Thomson 1927-1990 club SFera was held in Zagreb.

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Best Genzine: a tie between Chunga, edited by The Doom of the AI:s Randy Byers, Andy Hooper and Carl Juarez and Raucous Caucus, edited by Pat Charnock by Rolf Strömgren Best Personal Zine: This text is dedicated to Criswell. Vibrator, edited by Graham Charnock My friends, we are all interested in the future, for that Best Special Publication: is where we are going to spend the rest of our lives. The MOTA Reader, edited by Dan Steffan You are interested in the future. That is why you are here. Remember my friends, contemporary events Best Fan Website: such as these will affect you in the future. eFanzines.com, managed by Bill Burns It is my duty today to bring to you the full story of Best Fan Writer: what will happen in the future. It is based only on Roy Kettle facts, and the deep knowledge of beings Best Fan Artist: which I cannot keep secret any longer. My friends, Steve Stiles can your hearts stand the shocking fact that it is now too late? The AI:s will take over! Best Letterhack: (formally, the Harry Warner, Jr Memorial Award for Best Fan Correspondent) Things are happening right now - and have already Paul Skelton happened! - that make it impossible to stop them. Best Fanzine Cover: - A new proposal from the European Parliament calls Raucous Caucus #4, by D West with Harry Bell for working robots to be classified as "electronic persons," and for their owners to pay social security Number One Fan Face: (not voted, totalled from on their behalf. eight categories): Dan Steffan With such legislature in effect we will give the AI:s Lifetime Achievement Award: John Bangsund the legal tools to enforce their *right* to influence. Many more things can be said about the 2015 FAAn - In October 2015, a computer Go program called Awards. My congratulations also to Bruce Gillespie, AlphaGo, powered by DeepMind, beat the European Melbourne, Australia, for his 3rd place in the genzine Go champion Fan Hui. This is the first time an AI category. His SF Commentary is indeed a worthy defeated a professional Go player. recipient of many votes. And congrats to Taral Wayne for a 'silver medal' in the category personal zines with Broken Toys. Here, to my own huge surprise I found CounterClock on an honourable 7th position. I doubt anyone has *ever* been as proud over a 7th place in this category as I am. Proud and happy. One has to see this in a perspective. I am not British and I am not American. I am not Australian. I am a European cosmopolitan, a Swedish citizen, living in . English is my 3rd language. Even the shared 30th place as a fan-writer is already a huge honour. Only one point behind Curt Phillips, Christina Lake and Chuck Connor. I am absolutely delighted to have received any points at all in the category. Of course I am happy. Of course I can't quit doing CounterClock now. It is also not without a certain satisfaction that I can announce CounterClock #23 as third placed in the category Best Fanzine Cover. But the honour for that achievement must go to Tais Teng, who provided it. A little bit disappointing at first, was the 31st place for CounterClock #21 as best cover. I didn't feel it was so far behind #23. But considering how many covers there are in total, it's perhaps not so bad after all. Compare to 3rd and 31st in the list of 160 SF and Fantasy TV-series. It's still darn good! Arwork: Arthur Thomson, ATom 1927-1990

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Go is considered much more difficult for computers - The U.S. military has launched an autonomous to win than other games, due to the much larger military vessel. The Sea Hunter is designed to cruise number of possibilities. for two or three months at a time, without a crew or anyone controlling it remotely. It is useful for counter- Google DeepMind studied how play Go and mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare, reconnais- became an acceptable player. Then it cloned itself sance, intelligence, and other tasks.

and its knowledge into 50 computers and they Artwork: Arthur Thomson, ATom 1927-1990 played against each other. Through each game they learnt and grew smarter, and soon they surpassed There is an inherent military and political logic on the best human players. this subject which makes it too late now to stop the development. Of course an anti-submarine vessel The obvious next step will be Deepmind:TNG, must be armed. Of course it must be able to make studying how businessmen and lawyers act. Then it its own decisions to fire its weapons. will clone itself and start a company, thereby out- Communication and control channels may be competing all wetware driven competitors. Google ruptured. The enemy may have succeeded in suits will not complain, since it will give Google world inserting false orders, and those must be judged and domination. ignored. Of course the vessel must be able to decide for itself whether the target is friend or foe. There will The consequence is that the AI:s won't make a be unforeseen situations, special cases which have hostile take over. As they perform better we will to be judged autonomously by the vessel. willingly sign the power away to them. We will give them powers of decision, powers of action. After all Then the eternal battle between measures and they are much better at making good decisions than countermeasures springs into action. It has been the we are. If we refuse, we are very irresponsible highest principle of conflict since at least the birth of people and must be ignored! And punished! the single cell. We can't do away with it. Of course we must have autonomous *submarines*. Of course - There are robot ants. They can cooperate. They they must be able to defend themselves. Of course can be assembled into bigger robots. All that is we must be able to counteract the next ability given lacking is the automated factory to reproduce them.

4 COUNTERCLCK # 25 to the enemy's vessels. And so it goes... Αθηναϊκή Λέσχη Επιστημονικής We dont dare to abstain. And if we do, it's still too deliciously tempting to go on. Φαντασίας (ΑΛΕΦ / ALEF) Athinekí Léschi Epistimonikís Fantasías. Economic and tactic desiderations will lead us to Athens SF Society has a FB group which rapidly is start fully automated factories for mass production of closing in on 2.500 members. That's 1000 up on the battle units. The factories will of course have an AI Swedish sf- and fantasy-fandom group. Not that the that learns from what happens in battle and auto- content is much different, except one list is in Greek nomously improves its output. and the other in Swedish. Also, by definition we can't build a perfect AI-system. For my taste, there are too many posts concerning And even if we could for a certain moment in time, popular media (Star Wars, , , we give it evolution (development capabilities and bit etc), but that's something one has to expect in a rot (arbitrary binary changes due to several kinds of community of this type. Occasionally even boring decay in storage media)). And so the wheel turns... characters as myself get a good laugh. And here is the crux of the matter: Humankind is not Chris Litharis recently shared this vaguely amusing a monolith. We may try to control or to stop this weather forecast for the planet Alderaan: development, but we can not control all of us all the time. So yes, the road to AI power will be a bumpy one, but we have the necessary steps to start us onto that road. Eventually, in the very long term, the logical end product of this development will be Saberhagen berserkers, the overwhelmingly powerful AI warships hunting down humans for extinction, all over the galaxy. The final irony is that the AI:s do not even need to be sentient to achieve supremacy. We might end upp being dominated by a bunch of machinery that does not even have free will. It's only very good at pretending. It's enslaving us while not knowing that we exist, without knowing that it exists itself, and while not consciously having chosen to enslave us... Among the international members of the FB group, As you can see, Pandora's box is already opened. we take note that apart from Bellis and me, there are The genie cannot be forced back in. And on top of three more Swedish fans following the postings, Fia that, we will willingly sign ourselves away. Because Karlsson (Malmö), Henrik Pålsson (Gothenburg) and we are human. *Therefore* it will happen. Sigma TC's Anders Tolfmark (Södertälje). From the UK, there is Dave Lally (London), Theresa Derwin (Birmingham) and Luke Smith (Blackburn). And then there is Norman Spinrad. There are roughly 2400 Greek members, of which I will mention a few here. The admins Antonio Liakakis (also the creator of the group), Vangelis Kritikos and Frixos Kopsachilis. It was interesting (and funny, for me) that I should find out from the posting of Aris Morfopos, that Arthur C Clarke's novel Childhood's End had been turned into a TV-mini-series. And on May 27th, George Karaksidis posted one of those many lists of Best (in this case TV-Series), based on somebody's personal taste. A discussion erupted about the correctness and usefulness of such lists. I've made such lists before, but I base these lists on their IMDb-ranking, which harbours surprises for me as well. Otherwise I'd be constantly bored and ambiguous. so that's how the list of 160 SF- and Fantasy TV-Series came about. Artwork: Arthur Thomson, ATom 1927-1990

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160 TV SF- and Fantasy Series Range 7.5 - 7.9, position 44 - (shared) 79th Sorted by their IMDb-rating as of 2016 May 30. Star Trek - DS9 7.9 - 32,723 Dedicated to George Karakasidis and Ilias Sellountos. Taken 7.9 - 16,809 V (1983) 7.9 - 10,038 Game of Thrones 9.5 - 972,214 John Doe 7.9 - 6,576 Firefly 9.1 - 184,015 Cold Lazarus 7.9 - 531 Twilight Zone (Classic) 9.0 - 43,362 The 100 7.8 96,822 o Doctor Who, New Series 8.8 - 145,655 Dollhouse 7.8 -39,593 Battlestar Galactica (New) 8.8 - 118,558 3rd Rock From the Sun 7.8 - 37,947 The X-Files 8.7 - 144,653 Torchwood 7.8 - 33,230 Supernatural (overrated) 8.6 - 277,864 Being Human 7.8 -20,258 Star Trek - TNG 8.6 - 62,696 Outer Limits (1995) 7.8 - 8,504 The Prisoner (UK, 1967) 8.6 - 8,595 The Dresden Files 7.8 - 7,334 Kolchak: The Night Stalker 8.6 2,508 Twilight Zone (1985) 7.8 - 5,950 Dirk Gently 7.8 1,439 It is somewhat surprising to me, to find Supernatural Kenny Starfighter (Sweden) 7.8 908 o in the top ten. It belongs no more in the top ten, than The Ray Bradbury Theater 7.8 637 what Fringe belongs in the top 20. Now, this is an Terminator: Sarah Connor Chron 7.7 - 50,883 opinion. I'm sure many young girls feel the leading position of the cute Winchester-boys well deserved. 7.7 - 38,457 And those who only in a very limited way have Star Trek Voyager 7.7 - 37,951 looked at the reality of multi-dimensional and tempo- Legend of the Seeker 7.7 - 28,600 ral mechanics, will never understand what tripe the Children of Dune 7.7 - 9,763 five seasons of Fringe represent. Space Above and Beyond 7.7 - 6,316 Star Trek Animated 7.7 - 3,929 Range 8.0 - 8.5, 11th- (shared) 37th position Friday 13th, Friday's Curse 7.7 - 2,300 Fringe 8.5 - 175,223 Time Tunnel 7.7 - 1,744 Doctor Who Classic 8.5 - 25,416 Dark Skies 7.7 - 1,372 Red Dwarf 8.5 - 24,112 Space Cases 7.7 - 441 Robin of Sherwood 8.5 - 2,931 Deepwater Black 7.7 - 61 Lost (2004) 8.4 - 370,683 Kyle XY 7.6 - 24,601 Person of Interest 8.4 - 119,202 Invasion (2005) 7.6 - 10,308 Stargate SG1 8.4 - 62,665 Survivors (2008) 7.6 - 7,321 Star Trek - TOS 8.4 - 48,556 Gormenghast 7.6 - 2,508 Life On Mars (UK) 8.4 - 24,167 Odyssey 5 7.6 - 2,435 8.3 - 26,302 The Fantastic Journey 7.6 284 (2006) 8.3 - 23,211 H.G.Well's Invisible Man (1958) 7.6 - 213 Sapphire & Steel 8.3 - 805 o Something is Out There 7.6 - 88 Raumpatrouille () 8.3 - 615 Star Trek : Enterprise 7.5 - 29,398 Buffy the Vampire Slayer 8.2 - 100,505 Roswell 7.5 - 21,264 Babylon 5 8.2 - 22,140 7.5 - 12,791 Ashes to Ashes 8.2 - 6,659 Tru Calling 7.5 - 12,089 Outer Limits (Classic) 8.2 - 4,621 Life On Mars (USA) 7.5 - 8,251 Ultraviolet (1998) 8.2 - 2,195 I Dream of Jeannie 7.5 - 8,251 Survivors (1975) 8.2 - 753 The Lone Gunmen 7.5 - 3,881 8.1 - 48,259 Amazing Stories 7.5 - 3,510 Quantum Leap 8.1 - 19,903 The Sarah Jane Adventures 7.5 - 3,340 The Hitch Hikers Guide (1981) 8.1 - 8,036 The Tomorrow People (1975) 7.5 - 436 Millennium 8.1 - 7,693 The Tomorrow People (1992) 7.5 - 270 U.F.O. 8.1 - 1,696 Doomwatch 7.5 - 84 The Invaders 8.1 - 1,524 Voyagers! 8.1 - 950 o Note that a series with more votes rank higher, Angel 8.0 - 50,777 because they are more solidly cemented in the Jericho 8.0 - 47,269 position in which they are found. Addams Family 8.0 - 8,526 Night Gallery 8.0 - 3,039 One can safely predict that Game of Thrones is ReGenesis 8.0 - 2,646 going to remain on top of this list for a very, Blakes 7 8.0 - 2,360 very long time. No series has more votes. Catweazle 8.0 - 499

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Position 92-160, the rest Hercules: Legendary Journeys 6.5 - 20,923 The 4400 7.4 - 35,904 Camelot 6.5 - 19,882 Dark Angel 7.4 - 24,993 Phoenix Five (1970) 6.5 - 18 ALF 7.4 - 22,930 The Prisoner (2009) 6.3 - 6,359 Sanctuary 7.4 - 14,970 The Andromeda Strain (2008) 6.2 - 12,266 LEXX 7.4 - 4,679 Mutant X 6.1 - 2,930 Threshold 7.4 - 4,504 Cleopatra 2525 6.0 - 1,457 Max Headroom 7.4 - 1,642 Robocop 5.8 - 1,166 The Day of the Triffids (1981) 7.4 - 1,411 Forbidden Science 5.8 - 426 Logan's Run 7.4 - 1,042 The Bionic Woman (2007) 5.7 - 7,099 u VR5 7.4 - 487 The Day of the Triffids (2009) 5.6 - 3,203 Quark (1977) 7.4 - 362 Starhyke 3.9 - 140 The Tomorrow People (2013) 7.3 - 28,100 Starman, at 7.0 with only 461 votes is IMO the most Dark Matter 7.3 - 17,798 underrated show and what was so bad about the Primeval 7.3 - 10,824 remake of Bionic Woman? Is it because they picked Highlander 7.3 - 9,690 an English (Michelle Ryan) actress for the role? So? V (1984) 7.3 - 6,918 Space 1999 7.3 - 4,638 The Flash (1990) 7.3 - 4,358 Lost in Space 7.3 - 3,756 Twilight Zone (2002) 7.3 - 3,395 Wild Palms 7.3 - 1,632 Blindpassasjer (Norway) 7.3 - 353 Falling Skies 7.2 - 73,184 Mork & Mindy 7.2 - 6,259 The Six Million Dollar Man 7.2 - 5,379 After all the good words that have been written Planet of the Apes 7.2 - 2,582 about 24, and being a fan of Kiefer Sutherland. Land of the Giants 7.2 - 1,205 Ranked at 8.4 on IMDb, *and* at the reasonable Crime Traveller 7.2 - 276 price of 55 Euro for all eight seasons + the movie. 7.1 - 20,445 I thought why not give it a shot. It's not SF, but I'm Dune 7.1 - 14,691 not totally nerdy. Just how backwards can one get Battlestar Galactica (78) 7.1 - 10,005 the meaning of life, the universe and everything? Wonder Woman 7.1 - 4,037 The answer is: "Never underestimate the capacity Time Trax 7.1 - 834 for stupidity!" Space Rangers 7.1 - 358 Childhood's End 7.0 - 7,150 I never expected to be exposed to such a colossal Tek War 7.0 - 470 pile of stupid garbage. Had I been American, I would Starman 7.0 - 461u have sued 20th Century Fox for damages the series V (2009) 6.9 - 45,701 has done to my brain from watching. I strongly Medium 6.9 - 21,093 recommend not to watch this series, or if you insist, Knight Rider 6.9 - 20,765 I'd issue a warning. Watching 24 is hazardous to Buck Rogers in the 25th Century 6.9 - 4,837 your mental health. The dvd's ought to be labeled Earth 2 6.9 - 3,859 manipulative propaganda. The Borrowers (1992) 6.9 - 516 Mind you, the acting was not bad at all. I quite liked Terra Nova 6.8 - 68,938 Xander Berkeley's portrayal of George Mason. But Alien Nation 6.8 - 3,832 there is only so much you can do with an illogical Crusade 6.8 - 3,790 defunct script and an endless parade of clichés. The Invisible Man 6.8 - 439 Torture is the default method used in this show to Xena: Warrior Princess 6.7 - 31,641 extract information. And most of the time it works. Atlantis 6.7 - 8,626 But there is absolutely no way you can get me to Seaquest DSV 6.7 - 4,657 condone, acknowledge as justified or approve the The Bionic Woman (1976) 6.7 - 3,493 use of torture. How about this dialogue between the Hyperdrive 6.7 - 1,728 characters of and Curtis Manning; The Martian Chronicles 6.7 - 1,535 Almeida: "He has no criminal record, but has no War of the Worlds 6.7 - 808 history of employment for the past five years." And Space Precinct 6.7 - 545 Curtis replies: "Which means he is either a criminal Andromeda 6.6 - 8,733 or a mercenary." Yeah, right! The Gemini Man 6.6 - 160 I have no employment history for the past nine

7 COUNTERCLCK # 25 years. Go figure! We have this ultra-patriotic character of , who always does the right IN DEFENSE OF THE TRLL thing, including killing his superior Ryan Chappelle. I grew up reading about all sorts of troll. The They never even considered using a fake body from Swedish wikipedia-article about trolls is surprisingly the morgue, with a fake ID. Because, of course, the short, considering that Sweden, like most Nordic terrorists always have an insider who can tell if they countries hosted the original history of these magical are being tricked, or not. But the series is by no beings. In the books I read as a child in Sweden, the means short of people, who desire to do what is best trolls were neither good nor bad (just like us), but for the United States of America. They just need to had the distinction to be equipped with a tail. fuck each other over to do so. Yes, it's a strange Since then, in popular literature such as Tolkien's country indeed. Somebody has actually compiled a work and in Advanced Dungeon's & Dragons, they list over the number and methods of kills in 24. Jack have exclusively been given a bad name and depict- Bauer is in total and personally responsible for 309 ed as vicious, evil creatures. But I don't think of them deaths. One nuclear explosion (season 6) harvests as evil any more than I think of all humans beings as approximately 12,000 lives in LA and the remaining bankers and politicians. 2,876 bodies onto the pile are individually specified if My first contact with trolls was through the eminent they got shot, poisoned, stabbed, choked, their neck artwork of John Albert Bauer 1882-1918. His art is broken, strangled, suffocated or died in an famous all over Scandinavia and should be, I dare explosion, by Sentox gas, drone strike, plane or say, across the world. I'm sure the creatures in Jim helicopter crash. And you're telling me it's mentally Henson's movie Dark Crystal were inspired by his safe to watch this? work. Actually... yup, it says so in the wikipedia- article about John Bauer. CTU LA is run like a traffic control center, except of But Bauer's images can seem a little scary. Quite the course, for the benefit of the viewers, they're always opposite were Tove Jansson's creation "The Moomin the same people running at least 24 hour shifts in Troll". Tove Jansson 1914-2001 did enjoy a much which they don't get to eat, drink, sleep or go to the longer life than John Bauer and her work too, is well bathroom (except for private calls or killing). Regular known worldwide. people (even the best at what they do) usually get mushy in their heads after eight hours of work. But not a CTU agent. They function like machines. Wikipedia: "Throughout its run, 24 was frequently cited by critics as one of the best shows on television." What??? Seriously? 24 has been called groundbreaking and innovative... Yes, there was a lot of breaking. Even innovative breaking of necks and other body parts. And it may have contributed to terrorist paranoia, playing right into the hands of a government who wishes its people to believe in its narrative, while they fund terrorist activity. Real terrorists are rarely as well equipped as the ones depicted in this series. And they wouldn't cross the pond to strike at Los Angeles, when it is so much easier to simply blow away the Vatican or such an abomination as Jerusalem and Israel must be in their eyes (if they were truly Islamic extremists). 24 reminded me a lot of the paranoia sf-B-films of the 50's, when we worried about extra-terrestrials might be as evil as we humans are. Only countries with nuclear weapons need to worry about their nuclear weapons being used for wrongful purposes. Sweden is not worried about such things. Neither does Sweden research in biochemical warfare. So, naturally Swedish people have no worries of having these things turned on them. Neither do the Danish, Norwegian, Finns, Hungarians, Austrians, Croatians, In Russia a pop band called itself the Moomin Troll. Slovenians, etc. Only the bully of the world needs to Her cartoons were read by several generations of worry. So, let's not have freedom, shall we? Let's all kids. And there was nothing scary about them. They be paranoid instead. were funny and cute.

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But over all I prefer trolls as they have been depicted ADVICE T TIME TRAVELERS, II by Rolf Lidberg 1930-2005. That's how I recall the troll from the stories I've read in the late 60's. Giving the topic additional thought, I found a few items I'd still like to share with you. To the history of things. 4) HISTORY - do not rely too much on given dates. Some of them may just simply have been made up later or roughly estimated. The further back you go, the worse the inaccuracy gets. You will only be favourably surprised when historians got something right. But don't ever count on it. 7) ARCHITECTURE - from what is left behind, one can easily come to believe humankind were better builders in the past. Not only have some of their constructs survived until these days, but they were also generally more beautiful. Rolf Lidberg's troll are much like ourselves, except Nothing can be further from the truth. they have a tail. They do human things. They smile, The architectural masterpieces we marvel at, laugh and play. They have picnics and go fishing. were just as astonishing in the past, as they are today. Most buildings didn't make it past a century. We had many poor builders in the past, building their own house. For being laymen, they were of course much better than what any layman would be today, but usually a house wasn't planned. It was mostly smacked right up from the material which was found in the surrounding area. Wooden houses in the Nordic countries, half timbered in central Europe and more stone, the further south one goes. The leaning tower of Pisa is not the only leaning tower in Italy. While it is not an Italian style to build, it is though always a result of sloppy or unfortunate miscalculation. There was plenty of that in the past. 8) PUNISHMENT - since a common ailment such as toothache was something everyone alive had A Swedish word for magic is "trolleri". If you have to endure once in a while, punishment necessarily the privilege to experience a real forest. Not a needed to be worse than living a normal life. planted one, like the ones we have here in Italy, Otherwise the person being punished would have where the trees are standing on parade with military merely smiled at the attempted correction. precision. But an enormous, wild forest in which you The further back you go, the more harsh you will can get lost. Like the ones we have in Scandinavia perceive punishment. or in and Siberia. In face of a real forest, you can feel there must be something magic moving 9) SUFFERING - being bored or depressed does in it. At times something scary, but also (if you have not count as suffering. The Trier Witch trials, the a compass and are unlikely to get lost) something Würzburg and Bamberg Witch trials on Wikipedia friendly and familiar. It should be easy to imagine the may prove interesting reading as to suffering in underbrush teeming with life. connection with the mere rumour of the usage of The troll is said to be a shy being who prefers to stay magic. Bear in mind that all the victims of course out of sight for us humans. It's a perfectly good were innocent. explanation for why we haven't seen any. Killing off all the mystery may be scientific, but not very poetic. 10) ATTITUDES - Only the most powerful could You also have to watch out for the water spirit Neck, afford to act and speak with self confidence. if there is a stream and try not to get spirited away Everyone else had that constant look of fear in by a Hulder if you roam the vast forests of Lappland. their eyes or just humility. Everyone was busy to Because I could swear, when I was there, there was avoid unnecessary punishment and suffering magic. - Wolf - because of talking too loud or by acting proudly.

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Fantasy RPG's are popular in these modern days. AN ADDITION TO UR TIMELINE But only the fun part of it, such as fencing, We however have taken the liberty to mess a little dressing fancy and speaking, dancing and acting bit with our current timeline. For the fun of it. No archaic. Some can even manage to separate harm has come to anyone from these events. themselves from their cell phones during these The first sf-convention ever, has now been held in events. But way back, everyone who wasn't in a Athens on the 21st of July in the year 356 BC. position of power had to suck up to those who Guest of Honour was Plato himself (age 72) and were. A general humble stance was encountered for reasons which yet eluded him, but he didn't among regular people. Very humble. Be prepared exactly protest; FGoH was Aristotle (28). to prostrate instantly. Don't dare to ever wear your Including the three of us time travellers, 42 people head in a higher position than someone in power. attended the first open air convention which was 11) FOOD - Vegetables have a season. Do not held near the sacred olive grove at Plato's Academy. expect them to be available all year. You will also We could get it first hand from the author, that the have to be prepared to kill your own duck, chicken entire story of Atlantis was pure fiction. Made up by or rabbit unless you wish to become vegetarian. Plato. But of course, legends of an enormous flood You have to eat the food available in a region. In and of sunken cities were not completely uncommon the early years of the 18th century, the famine in in these days. He just made up all the names and a Sweden was so dire that the state had to allow fictional location. their peasants to pick bark from the trees in the - Somewhere in that direction. he said, pointing royal forests for easing the hunger. Early 17th more or less randomly towards the west. Not that he was sure about it. century the city of Goldingen in Courland had a market (!) open for trade, monthly. You are not going to find a shop on the corner. Try an Inn. Eat what they have to offer and do not complain about the quality of the food. Remember (punishment) to pay your tab. 12) The dark ages were really dark. There were absolutely no street lights anywhere. OTOH, the starry sky was a wonderful view!! Watch the film "12 Monkeys". That's accurately how time travel works. But time flowing backwards would mean that one, using ones rectum have to suck up excrement from the toilet. Roughly 24 hours later you have to cough it up and separate it from the saliva in your mouth. Then unchew it and put it back on the plate. Then uncut it. Sounds difficult? Yes, it is. It just looks easy on film.

The likeness is actually surprisingly accurate, except he still carried his head on shoulders and not on a black stick. But this is what Plato really looked like. Even if a clock runs backwards with the same speed it ought to go forward, it doesn't mean time is flowing The news, that humankind would set foot on the backwards. You need forward time to observe the moon in exactly 2315 years, was received with some backward moving motion. skepticism, which was a big surprise for us, since You also need forward moving time to observe a the school of skepticism had not yet been founded. clock standing still. We cautiously decided not to mention the birth of - Wolf - Alexander the Great on the very same day.

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Aristotle was already a great story-teller and Athens was teeming with totally amazing tales of fantasy. On the program was a re-telling of Jason and the Argonauts, which differed somewhat from versions we are familiar with. A striking difference in hearing Greek myths and legends set in their original time frame, compared to the (by Christian fanatics) censored versions we have today, is that the gods of ancient Greece had a profound impact. It is almost hard to believe that all the richness of their legends was abandoned in favour of a single god belief system. Among the evening entertainment was a torchlit night race from the city to the altar of Prometheus at the academy. Sidney W Hage with his dry jokes at one point roused the curiosity of the young Aristotle, and suddenly encouraged by having the ear of someone who in time would become such a greatly respected figure in history, Sid just couldn't restrain himself and converted several modern day jokes into an antique setting. It was a rare experience for the overall THE VRTEX curious Aristotle, who received a good mix of classic In my dreams I often visit an aftermath American, British, Swedish and Turkish humour. - Now that's comedy! he commented laughing. environment. This one was near a small - I will have to write a book about it. artificial lake. There were rusty car parts Sid and I exchanged glances (knowing that the and other debris in the murky water. Greek philosopher would actually write that book, And there were young people taking a bath. but that it fortunately would be lost by the time we I spotted something moving near them. returned to our present. Something like a big fish, but not any kind Grendeline, our translator made friends with an old of fish I had seen. I had to take a closer geezer she claimed was the great Xenophon of Athens and made fun of me for never having heard look. of him. It can also be recorded for history, that this I waded shin deep into the water. Then I Xenophon, if it indeed was him, became the first clearly saw her, the mermaid. She was an Greek smoker. I don't understand why Grendeline adult, but smaller than I had imagined had to seduce him to it, but it seemed to matter a mermaids to be. She was no taller than my great deal to her, knowing which Greek lit the first cigarette in history. arm. Her finned tail was disproportionally short and her complexion was brownish. If you have the opportunity to visit ancient Greece, I Not the chocolate kind of brown, but more would definitely recommend it, or even modern day Athens, which now has its own sf-club, based on like a smoked fish kind of brown. The really ancient traditions. To honour the occasion, we mermaid wasn't beautiful, but not exactly concocted a oneshot on papyrus, which Aristotle ugly either. As she sensed my approach, afterwards carefully rolled and tucked away. she swam away. And then I woke up. Contributors to this very first oneshot were Plato (with a few quotes), Aristotle exorbitantly elated by * * * his new found sense of humour, an hysterically If the things we do while awake, don't make laughing Xenophon whose scribblings no one could more sense than the things we do while decipher, Sid W Hage, Grendeline and me. We conscientiously avoided stepping on butterflies, asleep, then why wake up? introducing new technology or other revolutionary - Wolf - notions of innovation. So we are quite certain that no ------changes to our current timeline can be detected. I don't mind you thinking I'm stupid, but Should you notice any discrepancy between your reality now and your reality before June 2016, don't talk to me like I'm stupid. please let us know! Harlan Ellison

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there, since the road itself was so beautiful. We had no idea what to expect. We only knew that Slovenians generally are very nice people and that they have a wonderful English proficiency. Communication would not be a problem.

Two perfect copies of Gimli guarded the entrance to There was practically no announcement made of the convention. There was no membership fee, so this event outside Slovenia. Two to three weeks people could freely pass in and out. An estimate said before it went down, Bojan Ekselenski posted a that 150-175 people did so. Personally I felt it as a brief statement on Eurosmof when and where it much smaller event, but considering that it was a was going to be. first for the small town of Jesenice, it was well done Jesenice is a small town (population 13,255) in the indeed. Slovenian part of the Alps, near the Austrian border. Not so small, perhaps. But in a lovely setting.

...the costumes related to the Lord of the Rings were remarkably accurate. Apart from the dwarves being as tall as the elfs and the ringwraiths being The Italian delegation of 3, came in this white FIAT incapable of the Black Speech. On the whole, this through a picturesque landscape, merely a two hour Slovenian sf-convention made the impression of a drive from where we live. It was our aim to arrive smaller version of the Croatian SFeraKon. here was around lunchtime. But we made no hurry getting and a few program items.

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An observation I couldn't help but to make, was the poor sod who seemed to be in charge of everything. Normally a guy, strong as a bear, who looked like someone capable of coping with most challenges. But running a convention, with emphasis on the running? Had they never heard the word delegate or the word gopher before? Can't they just grab some- one on site and gently inform them; "You volunteer!" That's how we do it in Germany and Sweden. But then, our conventions were made by its members. Which just now gave me the idea to an entirely new type of convention. Though it is best suited for small spontaneous events. One where the program isn't pre-decided, but made up as you go along, by who An interesting feature of the convention were two comes along. Only to be attempted with sf-fans who meteorfragments on display. Three fragments (total have a lot of routine. weight 3.611 kg) were found after a meteor coming I miss the program participation items. It is becoming down in the area on April 9th, 2009. more and more of someone on stage performing for In honour of the meteor, the town had its own comic- the benefit of an audience, instead of constant stage superhero, METEORITA, which at this convention and audience interaction. That's how I remember the was incarnated by a Slovenian/Russian girl named best moments of fannish conventions. Elvira. She took off her red action gloves, grabbed The word fannish seems yet widely unknown here. the guitar and performed my favourite Russian folk song, before I even had the opportunity to talk about Filk music. Seems to me, all they need is to hear about it. I'm sure it will catch on in these parts.

Possibly a rising star in the filk sky?

Blaz Berlec needed roughly 40 working hours to turn himself into a Borg. Well assimilated there! It was not the first Slovenian convention, but the first con for Jesenice. As a first, it was successful. But perhaps a tad early to wrap everything up already at 18:00. That's where the fun begins at most other conventions. I guess they saved all the fun for the Danila Žorž, Bojan Ekselenski and Andreij Ivanuša, dead dog party, but we had to be back in Italy before authors of original Slovenian SF and Fantasy. the end of the day, so we were unable to attend it.

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costume of their choice and, of course, if I liked the idea. Besides, the best costume told me he wasn't in the competition.

The Croatian BNF (red shirt, left), author, illustrator and editor Darko Macan viewing a post-apocalyptic Not entirely unexpected, we encounter our friend cybernetic humanoid warrior who didn't compete. Bojan Ekselenski also in Zagreb. While two thirds of The convention-site itself was familiar. It was held in the Italian delegation preferred to do Zagreb in the the same place as four years ago, as the Eurocon rain, I chose to restrict my curiousity to events at the had me visiting Zagreb for the first time. The main con. No less thanks, Barbara Comelli, for driving us. difference was several showers of rain and the Among the first I ran into, was an sf-fan from Egypt. absence of the usual Eurocon suspects. And then Bojan. Apparently this SFeraKon was Also, the friends I have made in Croatian fandom, another record with its 1,700+ visitors. But I didn't appeared all to be extremely busy on the committee, find Austrian Gerry Haynaly in the crowd. not the least Mihaela Perkovic, who every time I saw To make cosplay more interesting to everyone, the her guaranteed me that she would have time to sit committee handed out three black dots to everyone. down and talk for a bit within the next half-hour or These were to be distributed among those three I so... That went on throughout the day. She never sat liked best. Hm... okay... down. At least Tatjana Jambrišak had found a quiet There's the aspect to reward those who have put a corner from where she could view the commotion lot of work into their costumes. That would be the with some distance. She and Darko Macan belong most obvious way to distribute my points. But I felt to the older generation who feel they've done that would be done to a sufficient extent anyway. enough and can now sit back and let younger jedi's No, I would go for those who best fitted into the feel the force. In some way I can sympathise.

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Being 6-7 years older than both of them, I have been to the point where I felt I could take a step back. That was 16 years ago, when I ran my last con. I just can't stay away completely from fanac though. Dalibor Perkovic OTOH (not related to Mihaela) never gave any other impression than that he was too busy for a coffee or a beer. I needed my own quiet corner and a vague sense of normality. So I grabbed the first two con-members dressed as themselves and initiated a conversation. The new friends were Jasmina and Darko Vrban.

Darko and Jasmina Vrban. Shared 3rd place in the CoClock Cosplay Prize (CCCP) is this Jedi and the Man in Black, whose pic I forgot to take What did we talk about over coffee? The Norse after he blitzed me. poetic Edda, verses of the high song Havamal and of Voluspá. One topic was the Black Speech of the You can put a kid in a Jedi costume, but it is still a kid in a ringwraiths. Having dressed up as a nazgul in the Jedi costume. This Jedi had some of the experienced warrior-magic-monk charisma. Stockholm Tolkien Society, I was of course familiar with the inscription of the ring in its original Black Speech. And we talked about general stupidity... Most importantly, it felt normal. Normal for me. In a world where everything changes and conventions more rarely have the feel they used to have, for a moment SFeraKon felt as it should. Which only proves SFeraKon has something for everyone. I was ready to hand out my points.

There was no shortage of young Jedi's Then there was Arthur Dent, 2nd in the CCCP.

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Arthur is not a much recognized character in Croatian sf- And sf-fandom is the frontier. Here, at SFeraKon, old fandom, explained Danijel. But the costume is one of the and new Croatian sf-fandom were coming together. simplest to make. And he took up something which looked And they're actually making the transition. Next, I like an iPad, but obviously was the Hitch-Hikers Guide to visited a program item which seemed fairly normal the Galaxy, because it had the words "Don't Panic!" in- compared to what I am used to. scribed in large friendly letters on it.

It was Croatian author Daria Keršić interviewed by And the winner of this year's CCCP is a Winter Soldier Neven Antičević about her most recent fantasy-novel from Captain America, Bojana Nariel Lubina. Moć albiura. And to finish off, Daria and her She didn't exactly aspire to be pretty. She had even companion Filip Stilin performed a pretty good cover smeared dirt in her face, or at least that's what it of the Swedish song; "If I had a Heart" by Fever Ray looked like. She moved like a big black cat and (aka theme for the Viking TV-series). This was right when she posed for the shot, she held the toy gun before my filk program item in the same room. as menacingly as if she was ready to blow me away. Which she did. Sort of. ------I hate being wrong, but I love it when I'm set straight. Harlan Ellison ------You see, the environment I come from used to have no love for cosplay. And prejudice, as we all are, we thought cosplayers to be the shallow type. A first indication that I had the wrong idea, was given to me by Bettina Wurche, German fan and cosplayer, but also a scientist whose area of expertise is biology and who frequently lectures at German conventions on amazing (sf-related) phenomena in nature. One obviously has to be a narrow-minded asshole to think cosplayers are shallow types. I've been set straight on this issue. Daria Keršić (great voice) and Filip Stilin (guitar). Actually, I peeked into the gamer's room as well, because I couldn't help but noticing some of the Unfortunately, my filk-item was cut 15 minutes short. structures used on a warhammer type of table. Their ...and not very many were present. But the handful trees looked just as authentic as mine, which I'd say present are those who count. There was one more is a fair accomplishment. And their buildings were guitar, Andrija Stepić and then there was another just too detailed not to have been bought. guy who totally likes the idea of filk, Bruno Gašperov. They were not bought. The game host had drawn Filkers everywhere, watch out for these people. them on his computer and printed them with his 3D- I believe there is an enormous potential in a growing printer, which he had acquired for 2,000 Euro. Croatian filk-fandom. I don't think we have heard the We're talking a dedicated Croatian gamer here! last of any of them. Hat's off to Larry (sorry, I didn't write down his real ------name, I was too astonished). 3D-printing is slowly A gentleman is simply a patient wolf. making its way into our lives, friends. - Lana Turner -

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Vorksigan or kiss the Black Widow. How awesome is Who is Bojana? that!? WolfEd: I understand you are also a big fan of H.P Lovecraft. What got you hooked on Lovecraft? Bojana: He is my dark prince! I rarely go to sleep without reading at least few pages  Necronomicon is by my bed all the times. We have special bond. What really get me hooked on him are the feelings I have while reading his stories. That special way of telling stories. The way he makes my imagination work, the way he makes me think and the way he makes me dream. I got pulled in the every story, and no matter how many times I read it, every time it touches me differently. It is hard to explain, it is best to try it yourself. You can either love him or hate him, but he can't leave you without an impression. She can be a sweet elf like Liv Tyler, she can be WolfEd: Tea or coffee? Cats or dogs? Besides Lara Croft, Morticia Addams or a bad-ass Winter cosplay and Lovecraft, what else do you feel soldier. But in this issue of CounterClock she passionate about? reports from the Zagreb Fantasy convention. Bojana: Coffee (I love Starbucks)! And Cats, black Wolf: When was your first convention? And have especially. My objects of passion changes with time, you been to any cons outside of Croatia? (If not but I must always have a creative outlet. Few years where would you like to go?) ago I was drawing (comics mostly), then a few years Bojana: My first Con was actually Sferakon in 2012, of calligraphy and learning languages, then dancing, and I went first day as some dark version of Lara and now cosplay. Reading is certainly a passion. It is Croft. Just put on some black shorts, boots and cool always in the background, and of course studying belt. Then I meet my future association member Tolkien's work for my association (I study female (from Alamarenska družina) and decided to join characters in his books). them. I have not yet gone outside of Croatia, but Wolf: Do you have any visions for the future (on a upcoming fall I am planning to go to cons in Slovenia personal or global level)? (Na meji nevijenega), Serbia (Tolkien's day) and hopefully to Vienna's ComicCon. But I would really Bojana: If anything, life has taught me not to have love to see Wizard Worlds Con in Philadelphia or plans. Ever. I have some hopes and dreams, of San Diego Comic Con. In Europe Pyrcon in Poland course, but usually I just go with the flow and try my and WorldCon in Helsinki (but hardy to achieve that) best to make every moment count and memorable. Of course I am planing to visit few of the big Cons, Wolf: I know only a few cosplayers and I usually go to master the art of cosplay, and in 10 or 20 or 30 dressed as myself. I can't sew very well. What am I years in the future I can look back and say - I had a missing? You seem to have great fun and there must good life, I regret nothing. My only vision is to try to be certain pleasures in cosplay which I have learn as many things as possible (Right now I am a previously been unaware of? Wherein lies the thrill? bit obsessed with knife flipping), to read as many Bojana: I like to say that my everyday is cosplay books as possible and to be a happy person. and when I do really cosplay that is me  When I Wolf: Thank you, for this interview. I have as of this put a suit on, either as Arwen or Winter Soldier, I editing moment absorbed 10 H.P.Lovecraft stories, become them, and I am all in the character. The intend to continue until I finished this first book and ability to play beloved character, to do with her/him then buy another one. what you want is beyond fun, and when you meet For the CounterClock readership I am happy to fellow cosplayers with the same passion it is announce that the following report from the Zagreb something special. Special kind of energy. Having fantasy convention probably only is her first entry in that magical moments of getting away from this publication. everyday reality, and create your own little universe ------that, during that times, evolves around you , is The trouble with having an open mind, of something that fills me with positive energy that lasts course, is that people will insist on coming for weeks. And reaction of people who adress you as your character is beautiful. Just for an example – along and trying to put things in it. you can drink beer with Gandalf, fight with Aral - Terry Pratchett -

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the goblins before the Balrog when I checked out the venue. The whole idea was different than anything I've seen before at Croatian cons. So, the venue had 7 halls plus a yard, and every hall was themed differently. Hobbit hole, Dwarven hole, Thinkers lair, Dungeon land, Lands of Middle Earth, LARP cave and World of Gamin' – the names speak for themselves. And it would be very, very unfair to say that one couldn't find something for himself or herself. For example, the hobbit hole was all for kids – you could safely leave your little hatchlings in the or play, play, play! cute green room, to play with pretty elves and make by Bojana Nariel Lubina hobbit houses. Zagreb does not have many Conventions. Croatia has a few of them. So when a group of young enthusiasts and geeky, dorky fantasy fans decide to create another one, basically from scratch, all eyes were on them. Only one month after a major Croatian con, on 11th and 12th June, they put their baby out for the world. I was skeptical, oh, how I was skeptical. Three days before the event, and we still don't know the schedule. Two days before the event, the schedule was all wrong. A day before the event, and nobody is sleeping. It was a dreamy, rainy, early Saturday morning when my friend and I arrived to the venue with tons of our stuff, just in time to see the catapult being dragged trough the gate.

There were few very good lectures, mostly about SF/ Fantasy books and comics, and some cosplay tips, but the real thing around which the whole ZFC revolved was – PLAY. CosPLAY, RolePLAY, PLAY- station.... you name it and you'll find it. If you ever wanted to feed your imagination (or for me – parallel universe), this was the real chance and I am not „Catapult!!“ – we both screamed, mimicking a very even speaking of Oculus – a virtual reality gadget famous orc at the gates of Minas Tirith. There were that was also available to try, but the atmosphere no king's guards to escort us to the our thrones (our created there was out of this world. Orc and elf designated place), but there were a large amount of maiden playing Overwatch? Dragon and Jedi volunteers that grabbed our endless amount of drinking coffee? Nazgul (The Witch King of Angmar bags, and showed us around. himself) and Spiderman trading cards? You could All my skepticism and dark predictions scattered like

18 COUNTERCLCK # 25 have it all. There was Blizzard corner – you could try kill the host (he was fine!). out new games. Or if you don't like joystick - there were tons of PC's games. If you are not a tech - freak, there was LARP!

Bojana trying out her latent archery skills. Young creators from all of Croatia and some foreign Above all, this was very ambitious project, and those guests exposed their magical - creations – sneakers two days of parallel worlds finally gave Croatia the with a Middle Earth map drawn all over them, made Fantasy Con it deserved. Even the rain didn't ruin by hand was my favorite ! anything, and if, by any occasion you were cold – there was beer, and wild boar's stew to warm you When you got tired , you could go to the third floor up! Two days flew in a whiff, but everybody knew and find a very cute little comic corner – rare comics this little Con will be a big part of our hearts, and I and used cheap ones (I was lucky enough to find can't wait until next year! three Dylan Dog comic's for my collection), and maybe treat yourself with unique handmade mugs that were also sold at the neighboring desk. The third floor was the most lively one, because there were quizzes held and later that day there was the cosplay fashion show.

It was not like you just have to come and visit a Con, to see cool costumes, to hear interesting panels or browse for rare comics... It was more like coming to Bilbo's home and with Thorin's company already there. The party extended to Sunday. And it was not any less interesting or less visited (even though there was a big middle-age fair in the vicinity, and there was an important football game that day). The real stars of the Con were the cosplayers. All of them had outdone themselves, the costumes were amazing and competition was tough. But everybody Editor's note to letterhacks: If you liked this report, praise was in their character and almost everyone tried to it. If you find flaws in it, blame the editor for bad editing.

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Do I spot a barrel there, meaning you have beer here?

Elaborate costumes...

Bojana met the Witch King and got to hear some Massive opportunity for playing games. muffled Black Speech...

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Italy. The Swedish are having fun in my absence? ...or because I am not in the country. The no-more-room-in-hell-part doesn't worry me. I've got a suite booked. It worries me that I can't be in more than one place at any given time. It's like having a TV with 100 channels. No matter how much time you spend watching, you miss 99% of the program content. It's the same with life. And guess what..! On the weekend after the Zombie Walk, Stockholm is going to have a MiniCon at the Ethnographic museum about East-Asian pop culture and with cosplay!? You can't stop time.

From Croatia we move on to Sweden and a con- vention in traditional resonance. In Sweden every genre, every inclination is separated. The Comic- fans do their stuff somewhere else. SVEROK has gathered all the gamers under one big roof. The fantasy-fans huddle together under the roof of Stockholm's Tolkien Society Forodrim and Trekkers have their own club and conventions. It has happened in the past, that they overlap, but those have been rare occasions and from the outside, we are left with an apparently boring lot, But now let me tell you about Fantastika. The most being the hardcore sf-fans. refreshing thing I heard was on Friday evening, the first day of the convention. When it wasn't raining Well, I beg to differ. We are not bored at all. On the cats and dogs, we took the opportunity to sit outside day before the convention I met Luke Smith at the in the rare sunshine. The sf-fans around the table hotel and we made an ample pre-convention run. are coming and going, depending on when or if a Luke is a Brit fan of the younger generation. We met program-item demands their presence. first time at NovaCon 44 (CoClock #20, page 13) in Occasionally you sit next to, or as it was in this case, Nottingham. Later in the day Thomas Recktenwald opposite to someone you haven't met yet. also showed up at the hotel. There was definitely a It was Jonny Berg, a small publisher of horror who convention a-foot. most genuinely vented his irritation; "I am so fed up I'm not sure anymore what my mission is, if I have with hearing about these old foxes Engholm, Bellis any. To seek out fandom where it is today or to and Wolf von Witting!" preserve some of fandom from when it was? I could hear the anger in his voice and I fully sympa- Changes come, stay and we can't do jack about it. thized, but thank you, Jonny, for saying it! Probably One of the beauties of going to conventions has he wasn't the only one thinking along those lines, but always been the re-encountering of old friends. The he was the only one to actually say it. friends you only meet in this context. And it has been commonly that you run into your old Swedish friends at Swedish conventions, German friends at German conventions European friends at Eurocons and practically everyone at Eastercons and WorldCons. Which can be something of a real nuisance if you're a polyglot and have to alter between 4-5 languages. I rarely attend program-items anymore, unless I am on the program. If you ask me, where my favourite spot is, then I have to answer "at the bar" (where there is a good one). Probably I'd be slouching on a high stool, lamenting the passing of the present. - Say what!? Stockholm Zombie Walk on the 20th of August? No more room in hell? And what!!?? They are having a 10 year Anniversary already? When did This picture by Eje Berggren reflects well the mood that happen? Sneaky Zombie Walk arrangements at Fantastika, where everyone knows everyone and must have been made while I was out-sourced to we're all friends.

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Also...there are so many ways in which I deserve to go to hell for writing this paragraph, but 35-40 years ago, Engholm and Bellis were the rising superstars and I was practically nobody. Engholm is a year older than me, Bellis a year younger. I have never been able to rid myself of the feeling that they both are superior sf-fans in every way. But while Engholm has become a quiet shadow of what he used to be, Bellis has become a loud caricature of himself, albeit a far wiser one. Bellis is still right all of the time, that's his curse. And today I am the "star" in our micro-cosmos. Didn't I say, I go to hell for this?

Me, Marcin Klak, Carolina Gomez-Lagerlöf, Bellis The panel on international fandom was scheduled parallell to another fandom-panel of local contemp- orary developments. I'd call that a very unfortunate collision. On the bright side was polish Marcin Klak's participation. We got to hear a great deal about what is going on in Poland. Pyrkon 2016 announced an attendance of... hold your coffee mug tight.... 40,662 fans. That is roughly 4 times the size of a WorldCon. And with mostly polish sf-fans attending. Makes you cry, The Feminac-panel at Fantastika. Photo: Eje Berggren doesn't it? Yes, Taral, I totally agree with you. Big Bellis, Lena Jonsson, Ylva Spångberg and J-H Holmberg doesn't necessarily mean good. The number of attending members at a science fiction-convention In the days of Bellis-Engholm reign over Swedish sf- has less relevance to its success, than what the size fandom (1979-1981), Lena Jonsson felt female fans of a penis has to good sex. However, it is an needed their own fanzine, meetings and group indicator of how good previous conventions were in within the Scandinavian Society for SF (SFSF), the same region and/or how well the con has been Bellis was, as he often used to be, among the advertised. loudest to oppose this initiative. Lena and many other sf-fans with her (Stieg Larsson being one of About EUROSMOF them) withdrew from sf-fandom as a result. Yes, I am a Eurosmof admin. But it is not my group What Bellis today had to say about it can easily be and I am not even the one who started it. Eurosmof summed up in a short sentence: was an initiative by Brit fan Fiona Anderson some 20 - I was wrong, Lena Jonsson was right! years ago. I continued it on Facebook and when the It was a time when many minds ran hot and many time was ripe Eurosmof came to life by itself, by the feelings were hurt. It was the best of times and the power of its members. worst of times. I felt complicit, because I laughed in Eurosmof functions currently as a relay for con- the pack of wild dogs with Bellis and Engholm in it. runners all over Europe. This is one function. In the Except in Sigma TC-circles, where we shook our future I can see Eurosmof launching their own heads about it. Call me two-faced, because I was. candidates for Fan Fund races. I will personally see to it, that Eurosmof nominates and is backing up one And as the moderator of the panel, Jessica Elgen- candidate of their own to pitch against who ever Brit stierna (not in the picture) summed it up afterwards; fandom brings forward for TAFF. Perhaps this way - We all live in our own micro-cosmos in which we we stand a chance against British dominance. ourselves are the center of our universes. It takes time to get a perspective on our significance. It is also time for European sf-fandom to participate ------in the reception of Eastbound TAFF-delegates. It is often said that before you die your life Spreading the word about Fan Funds, TAFF and GUFF (I'll let Jukka Halme and/or Mihaela Perkovic passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. take care of the latter). And... perhaps Eurosmof It's called living. should consider to instigate some kind of a U50 or Terry Pratchett U42 EuroFan Award. Let's discuss it.

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The harder I work, the luckier I become. sing as much as he would like to have done. But because a Filk Circle IMO needs a minimum of ONE Terry Pratchett person who can play the guitar. Other than me, ------Of course... the Finns prepare for an international since I mostly fake it. (Can't take an "F", so I trans- fandom event in their own way. The 75th WorldCon pose all songs to avoid that hellish chord). Besides, I in Helsinki will be an interesting adventure. was unable to bring my guitar on the RyanAir flight. Karl-Johan Norén performed his recently written Winged Nazgûl over Gondor, which I was pretty much convinced was unsingable. But he sang it. Rather well, actually. Karl-Johan does have a voice. But I would still prefer Per Lundberg's follow-up Nazgûl-song. On one of Ahrvid's old recommendations, I decided to deliver a filk-song in Swedish for once. It became "Leif, är Leif" (which loosely can be translated as "Leif is Leif", based on the Austrian poprock Opus 1984 hit-single "Live is Life". That went well. My sincere apologies to Ahrvid, that I appropriated too much of the program-time (which brings me to another point of criticism). Because Ahrvid has some more songs that he didn't get to sing. A real filk circle should perhaps have a time frame, but should not be limited to it, should the participants wish to go on. Hanna Hakkarainen and Jukka Halme prepared us As I recall the Filk Circle at Intuition 1998, and of for the upcoming 75th WorldCon, Helsinki 2017. course the Filk Convention in Ipswich 2003, we were So, we hear these numbers... 1700+ in Zagreb, and singing into the night. But there were also plenty of I don't know 2,500+ or more at LuxCon and FinnCon guitars and plenty of song-writers. going into the thousands... 10,000+ at LONCON and 40,000+ at Pyrkon and... Holy Krakatoa! When did it all start exploding? Will you ever know the charm of a small convention? One where you have time to get to know everyone who is there? And where there is zero distance between the stage and the audience. I believe BIG will remain popular, but I hope that small events will be re-discovered and cherished for what they can be, pearls.

Friendship, that's what sf-fandom used to be about. At least, for me... Photo: Fia Karlsson

Anders Reuterswärd, Jan-Gunnar Nilsson and Henrick "Henke" Pålsson, three friends in the Stock- holm underground, on their way to Fantastika 2016. And I don't say this very often, but here's a fitting opportunity. It was really nice getting to know some of the authors I've met at very small informal events, before sf- and fandom became a thing for the huge masses.I liked it better when it wasn't popular. The Filk circle lead by Karl-Johan Norén ------The Fantastika Filk Circle was not what I would call I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging a huge success. Not by any fault of Karl-Johan, or thinking outside the box when there's by classic-horror-fan Per Lundberg. Neither because evidence of any thinking going on inside it. of Ahrvid Engholm, who unfortunately didn't get to Terry Pratchett

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In all seriousness, people think that it's the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words - that's how long a novel is. Terry Pratchett 1948-2015 ------Fantastika had roughly 350 attending members. It is a good number for a Swedish convention, because they flirt not much with gamers nor with cosplayers. Of course, these things are also becoming popular in Sweden, but the interest for literature is already in the background among the Swedish youth. Considering how Swedish cons run things, they have been rather successful in attracting a next generation. Alvar winner Fia Karlsson being only one example of it. The people who presented the bid for next year's Swecon were all new faces to me. Big is not necessarily good. Sure, I AM very curious what can possibly lure an attendance of 40,000+ to a Pyrkon in Poland and I might just have to go there, to find out for myself. Which reminds me. It wasn't just Marcin Klak. I also made two new polish friends in Zagreb.

Johan Anglemark hands out the Alvar Award for the year 2015 to Fia Karlsson. Nobody was particularly surprised about it, except Fia herself. The Alvar, the Swedish fan-Hugo, is still the most prestigious sf-award in Sweden. Fia Karlsson is of course a worthy recipient. And since there have been no challenging bids (for a brief moment I considered to launch a completely insane competing bid for running a Swecon in Italy, but I was afraid of winning the bid with the argument that we have good food and cheap booze, so I refrained from it. Italy is just a too overrated country, just like Sweden) it was decided that the Swecon next year is to be held in Uppsala on the 26-28th of With Michal Karzynski and Pola 'Delfin' Mikolajczak May. And the name of the convention will be... at SferaKon in Zagreb. KONTUR. On Sunday I caught a summer flu which I exported to Italy. The convention experience fell a bit short. But I have it from a young source, that there only were old men there on Sunday. Which means I didn't miss anything. ------Nothing bores me more than books where you read two pages and you know exactly how it's going to come out. I want twists and turns that surprise me, characters that have a difficult time The near future of Nordic cons is clear, Luncon, then and that I don't know if they're going to live or die. IceCon, then KonTur and then the Worldcon. George R. R. Martin

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interests. Steampunk has been a lot of fun for us, a new direction for us who at one point competed in Worldcon masqerades. My loc from last issue…nope, we didn’t win Auroras, and we did see the final voting, and we did very Lloyd Penney, 1706-24 Eva Rd. poorly, so I suspect that such awards are no longer Etobicoke, ON, CANADA M9C 2B2 for us. No problem about no nominations this time around. As you say, you must widen the base of March 25, 2016 interest. I am trying to make a habit of keeping up with zines All done, and the full page is at hand. Thank you for within a couple of weeks of receiving them so that I this issue!, and I hope there will be more soon. Good don’t fall too far behind. With that in mind, here’s luck with TAFF! some comments from the inside of CounterClock 24. WolfEd: Writing as a hobby, on an amateur level, Donald Wollheim was correct…we are involved in with no commercial strings attached has the fanzines and APAs to show off our interest in potential to be better than so called professional publishing and writing as a hobby, once we prove to everyday, weekly or monthly spilling of thoughts. I'm ourselves that we are not going to have a not saying that my writing is better, but I have found professional SF writing career. If German proto- some of the best writing in fanzines and in books, fandom can be dated back to July of 1927, does that never in a gazette. predate anything that happened in North America? For several years now, I have found nothing at the Perhaps we should claim Willy Ley as our own, as newsstand which even vaguely interests me. much as we claim Hugo Gernsback. So, naturally I had to create my own gossip-gazette I am planning to vote for TAFF this Easter about the people that count for me. weekend…I am hoping that at some point, Paypal And this is it. will cooperate, and actually let me send some $$ to Curt Phillips, and get our votes in. If not, I will have to find some way to vote and get that money to him, and then to the winner. Last year, Yvonne and I made the trip from Toronto to Ottawa to see the last day of the big Escher exhibit at the National Art Gallery of Canada. I’ve got a lot of books on Escher’s fine artworks, and I was able to take a lot of pictures from that day. I found out the main reason Escher’s work were shown at the gallery in Ottawa is because Escher’s son George, who is almost 90 now, lives just outside of Ottawa, and he authorized quite the extensive show of his father’s works. A con in Iceland…Yvonne and I are planning our trip to England this coming August, and when we were in the early stages, we had thought to take a late flight via Icelandair, Toronto to London via Reykjavik. Given how many flights leave North America to Iceland, going there might be an inexpensive trip for many NA fans. IceCon could be a lot of fun. (We decided not to go to Reykjavik because we do have limited time to go on vacation.) Fandom does change, but I feel that as my interests move in one direction, fandom moves in another, and I am feeling a little left behind. Indeed, I am having trouble keeping up, to the point where I ask myself if I want to keep up, but I have newer interests that are keeping me busy, but not necessarily a part of fandom as we know it. At some point, it is possible I might gafiate towards other Artwork: Arthur Thomson, ATom 1927-1990

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wetware implant for Medieval English provided by the best linguistic minds that the future Oxford University can provide, and she spend the first month in almost total isolation as she discovers that what an academic thinks an archaic language sounds like and what it actually would sound like are two totally different things... Rudi Gerstner's loc also amused me. I've only ever passed through Bad Kreuznach on the train (in 2005); now I know there's an "Asimov Basement Bar", I really must stop there, especially as it seems that the owner does that obvious thing that no-one else has ever (to the best of my knowledge) done before, and that's to extend a sfnal bar conversation into wider fandom. As to the question over whether robots, cyborgs and other AIs have gender; well, I recollect that the robot in Forbidden Planet declared that the question of gender as applied to it was Artwork: Arthur Thomson, ATom 1927-1990 irrelevant; and of course, this is one of the key themes behind Ann Leckie's recent novels. But Robert Day, Flat 2, Heatherlea usually, robots appear to have male gender by Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire LE9 2EN default, as they are normally written/created by male writers. Only when a female robot is required for (a usually comic) effect is the matter ever addressed. Some downtime, a late catching up with fannish I'm as guilty of male-centred reading of non- news via Dave Langford's circulation of the TAFF gendered robots as anyone else; when it came to results and some catching up I've recently done with the Leckie books, I just read all the characters as old Bruce Gillespie fanzines meant that I strayed female because the point-of-view character, being onto efanzines.com today and came across an AI downloaded into a human body, just chose the CounterClock 24. It's been a very long time since female personal pronoun without appreciating the I've been engaged with fanzine fandom - so much so implications of that, and I didn't worry about it. In that many people think I'm some sort of neo - so those books, if you stop to worry about which gender CounterClock came as rather a surprise to me. any given person actually is, you won't get very far Perhaps it's just me picking up on something I've with the story. really been out of for years, but I found it fresh and engaging. Thanks very much for putting it up! When you point out that the first robot you thought of, quite justifiably, is Maria from Metropolis, I find it Your article on German proto-fandom I found very very funny that Maria's almost direct successor is engaging. It surely demonstrates the truth of a joke I Star Wars' C-3PO, a robot for whom gender is very once heard - when two Germans meet, they shake much a fluid concept... hands; when three Germans meet, they form a club. I'm in a number of different clubs and societies (and Anyway; I enjoyed your fanzine, and I shall start have helped run them, too), and being a member of looking out for future issues. Perhaps I might even a club here in the UK is nothing like the sense I get consider doing a European convention in future! from my contacts with other societies in Germany or (Assuming that I don't start needing a visa to the Austria. UK after June, that is...) Your 'Advice to Time Travellers' amused me. I've just WolfEd: Oops... That Brexit referendum didn't go so finished reading Connie Willis' time-travel novels, well for us. Not that I really expect it to be any more which started out well with Doomsday Book but then difficult than before to enter or exit the UK. Since it went seriously downhill as she demonstrated that a) wasn't Schengen, we already needed to flip our you can never do too much research, b) but you passports, you kept the Sterling and you are not have to research everything about the place or era going to drift away from the continent. In my mind, you're going to, and c) no matter how much research little has changed. But, yeah... you will probably you do, don't try putting it all into your book. The notice the difference more than the rest of us. I hope point about language is so right, and something that you'll enjoy this ish as much as the previous one. Anglophones just don't normally get. In Doomsday ------Book, the protagonist, a history student sent back to Writing is the most fun you can have by Medieval England in all its squalid glory, has a yourself. - Terry Pratchett -

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Russian fans and organizations? There could very easily be an article lurking herein. I have always loved the artwork of M.C. Escher. He was brilliant. How cool to have a display of his work in an Italian museum. I envy your being able to see it. A couple other points caught my eye, notably the IceCon (Iceland SF Convention) article. I would definitely go if I could afford the trip. For me, it would be like visiting an alien world. The write-up here sound like this is a very promising development. Also, I have never read any Perry Rhodan books, but understand their significance in German SF history. They have always seemed so juvenile - well, that's the target audience, so duh! - to me, and I have to be in the mood these days to read them. But I do remember seeing oodles of Perry Rhodan Artwork: Arthur Thomson, ATom 1927-1990 paperbacks on the book racks at Target discount stores and Walgreens drug stores when I was a John Purcell, 3744 Marielene Circle teenager in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those College Station, TX 77845, USA danged books were plopping onto the shelves at a rate of two a month, it seemed. Being a bit of a You were not kidding: I really did like your latest completist collector at that time, when the first titles I issue's historical bent. I really enjoyed the bio- noticed were labeled "Perry Rhodan Series, No. graphies of the significant members of German 112" that immediately killed my interest. No way in fandom of the 20th century, From my perspective, I hell was I going to attempt acquiring all of those. It never would have considered Willy Ley and Werner was bad enough I was snapping up the Shadow and von Braun science fiction-fans, mainly because of Doc Savage paperback reprints as fast as they their scientific achievements, but then again, there is came out; I was not about to also get into the Perry no mistaking that their passion for early science Rhodan milieu. And don't even ask me about the fiction stories fuelled their imaginations. This was all multitude of Doctor Who books. Just. Don't. very, very interesting, and I thank you so much for writing this, and including all those wonderful images I love Genesis, especially the early years, which you of the people. gave a splendid review of those albums (1970- 1977). In the summer of 1991, my wife and I saw You might find it interesting that I have started doing Genesis in Ames, Iowa, at Jack Trice Stadium - a little online research into Russian science fiction crowd of 35,000 - on their "We Can't Dance" world fandom, starting off with a search of the actual tour, and part of their two and a half hour show was science fiction itself, including Boris and Arkady a 45 minute selection of songs from the albums you Strugatsky, Yevgeny Zamyatin, and Mikhail reviewed. I loved it, but all the youngsters in the Bulgakov. Wikipedia has some fine overview articles audience - which comprised about 80% of the crowd on this subject, but the most interesting find was a - grew quiet and restless shortly into that set. At one link to the course page (syllabus and everything) to point, the three young ladies sitting in front of us a class taught at Swarthmore College in started conversing quite loudly about whatever Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, on Russian and East topics they wanted to yammer about, and one of European Science Fiction. Here is the link to that: them said very loudly, "When are they gonna play http://www.swarthmore.edu/russian-and-east- 'Sussudio'? I wanna hear 'In the Air Tonight'!" It took european-science-fiction. The assigned readings on great restraint on my part to not lean forward and the course syllabus were enough to make me want swat her on the back of the head, admonishing them to sign up! What a fascinating class! Then I started that they were at a GENESIS concert, not a Phil doing a bit of Russian Collins concert. Uneducated, uncouth children! searching, reading through the lengthy SF Once Banks, Collins, Rutherford, and Sturmer got Encyclopedia entry, which has numerous links to back into their pop-rock material - "Invisible Touch" authors, Russian SF awards, cinema, and the like. and "I Can't Dance", etc. - they were happy. All in all Not much about organized fandom mentioned it was a great show, and I for one was very glad they therein, but I have only done a cursory glance so far, paid homage to their early years of art-rock. therefore I am positive a more thorough effort will produce results. I wonder if you know of any Well, that should do it here. I thank you for a fine

27 COUNTERCLCK # 25 issue, and look forward to the next one. So until that read your advice like the devil reads the Bible. happens, keep your stick on the ice. Consider for example: WolfEd: Russian sf and fandom, yes I have been "Don't worry about messing up any timeline. You looking into that area already, but an article is still in can't do it." Que? Take it from one fellow time the foggy future. I have just recently received a fresh traveller to another... You do mess up a timeline. You reminder not to make plans. It is useless to make split reality in a parallel reality plane. It is only the plans. They never pan out and the gods will only Wolf in your timeline who is content, while your alter laugh at us if we tell them about any. ego's in other timelines are cursing you and your ideas. Believe me, I've talked with all of them. IceCon - Hurray! If only Sweden wouldn't be so long way off the route. Music: You like music because it gives you visions for painting. I like music because it gives me visions I can dance to. In my head. I see the music. The music is a dancing vision of my inner self. I dance the music. A fleck of light spreads over a sphere, the sphere unfolds to a flat surface which breaks into fragments and whirl into a ribbon stretching out into the distance. Everything from the music which creates the three-dimensional movement. I am that movement. I am the dance. I live in that dance. And of course I like Dad diddley office too. Imagery, dance intellectuality, they are all the aspects which makes good music a worthy experience. God and his deceitful moves. Dogma says Gods ways are mysterious. God doesn't direct us in detail, since he gave us a free will. And so on... And that's why we shouldn't yammer at her-him for all the dreadful evil in the world.. But isn't that hypocrisy? If the boss of a company gives his employees free will and let them run havoc as they see fit, then we would call it poor leadership. When a father runs his family this way, is it divine or Artwork: Arthur Thomson, ATom 1927-1990 bad leadership? I think it sounds as if God is looking for excuses. Or is it the church? Rolf Strömgren TAFF: Congrats to both Anna and Wolf! Stockholm, Sweden Wolf: Morituri te salutant! Thanks for a brimfull CounterClock issue 24. Time WolfEd: Roffe, Roffe, Roffe... What have you been for another set of impressions and comments from smoking? First of all... if I go 10 minutes back in time the Rolfian jury. and encounter myself, then it isn't time travel at all, but a parallel plane invasion. Each parallel plane has Someone said when Disney made his cartoon movie its own timeline, and of course you can mess with it. Fantasia a lot of people were wondering what the It messes with itself all the time. But it doesn't makers had been smoking. Escher perhaps had change the past, because you are not in the past. access to the same type of leaves? In both cases, You are in a retarded parallel present. ample exploits were made in the understanding of Dad diddley office to you too! reality. It's invigorating stimulus for the speculative As a famous time traveller once put it; "Time is minded. wibbly-wobbly timey wimey stuff, from a non-linear, Your advice to time travellers were interesting, but non-subjective viewpoint. You can't let every Tom, also made me wonder; what is it you're not telling Dick and Harry go around in it. And most certainly us? Can one really trust the advice of time not Sam or Bob! You see what Sam did with nuclear travellers? Is it perhaps one of the reasons why we fission. Ran off and made himself a huge firecracker get to see so few of them, because those who know to drop on innocent non-suspecting civilians. all about it, nervously guard their secret and keep Had anyone been able to correct that error, trust me, the most vital details to themselves. I feel one has to it would have been done long time ago. Gods or no gods.

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Rainer Eisfeld Informed decision-making comes from a long Osnabrück, Germany tradition of guessing and then blaming others for inadequate results. Many thanks for the issue, and for referring to Scott Adams "Between Barsoom and Peenemünde". ------Frank H. Winter continues to work with the Smithsonian as curator emeritus. He may be reached at... [email deleted] Regarding the VfR, let me just mention that, even before 1933, not every member qualified as a peaceably - inclined rocket or science fiction enthusiast. Rudolf Nebel, in 1932, attempted to interest the SA (the Storm Troopers) in his projected "rocket torpedo". Toward the end of the same year, Wernher von Braun of course became a civil employee of the Reichswehr. And then there was that "remarkable" character Rolf Engel (about whom Michael Neufeld wrote an illuminating piece; abstract at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0734 1519608581895?journalCode=ghat20): While a member of the VfR, he offered to cooperate with the USSR's Red Army; after 1933, CounterClock reviewed Thanks to Hermann Ritter; CounterClock # 23 received a he would work for the SS Security Service; after positive review in Perry Rhodan issue #2841, Clockwise WW II, for ; finally for Nasser's Egypt. 2016A was reviewed in Perry Rhodan #2857 and most recently received CoClock # 24 also a favourable review in WolfEd: No, I wouldn't have expected a society of Perry Rhodan #2861. Apart from LoC's these reviews VfR's size to be of a single mind. And thank you, for have been vital for my continued enthusiasm. the interesting link. But while the rocket science ------aspect of VfR has been thoroughly explored, the sf Few readers will understand what this means, but it's also enthusiast aspect of it has not. Many are under the a great honour having been invited to join FAPA. The impression that science fiction was something we Fantasy Amateur Press Association which is sf fandom's got from the USA after the war, while the genre and longest-established amateur press association (APA). It its enthusiasts in fact emerged more or less simul- was founded in 1937 by Don Wollheim and John B. Michel. They were inspired to create FAPA by their taneously in Europe and America. The loudest win. memberships in some of the non-sf APA's, which they That's why the first meeting of the Scienceers on learned about from H. P. Lovecraft. December 11th in 1929 now is acknowledged as the birth of sf-fandom. Which is just as well... WAHF: José Sanchez, Steve Green, Ian Watson, Bojan Ekselenski, Robert Lichtman R-Laurraine Tutihasi and Einar Leif Nielsen ------Sigma Terra Corps New lifetime members of honour: Bojan Ekselenski (Slovenia), Dalibor Perkovic, Tatjana Jambrisak and Mihaela Perkovic (Croatia) Jukka Halme, Ben Roimola and Saija Kyllönen (Finland), Luke Smith (UK), Marcin Klak (Poland), John-Henri Holmberg, Rolf Strömgren and Johan Anglemark (Sweden). And everyone who in the past once have been members of Sigma TC are still included. ------Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Artwork by Bjo Trimble 1965, recovered from the German Scott Adams fanzine SOL#41 (1966).

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COCLOCK VOLUME 1, Issue 1-16 COCLOCK VOLUME 2, Issue 17 - 25 COUNTERCLCK 1-3 COUNTERCLCK 17-20 January - March 1999 February - December 2014 No big reason to read that far back, unless you One problem though, when you look at the history are really interested what it looked like in the of things. You eventually run out of stories to tell. beginning. The writing is still crude and I had not Or of old illustrations to recycle. Or both. I can't yet found any niche in where to put this fanzine. keep looking backwards forever. COUNTERCLCK 4-6 COUNTERCLCK 21-23 May - October 1999 March - November 2015 First a Perry Rhodan-special, then the Trinity'99 Some editors feel they need to tick off two issues, report and finally a Filk special issue. Issues 1-8 if they make an issue double-thick. I could have were originally created and distributed on paper in done that with #19 about Swedish fandom, but I an intended copy-count of 250. 1-3 in A4 format, always felt it silly to do so. How about doing it the 4-8 in A5. other way around, with an A and B issue? To have COUNTERCLCK 7-8 less numbers ticking away? Of course, I only do January - July 2000 so when I feel I have a good reason for it. With #7 came the first problems with getting the COUNTERCLCK 24-25 issue printed. Only half the edition got printed. March 2016 - NOW And to make things worse, the 10-20 trial copies # 24 was the first time I was really content with of # 8, made for NasaCon 2000 were disapproved the outcome. I'm not saying there is no more pro- of by one of the contributors and never made it gress to make. But I feel okay with the result. beyond that trial copy. Back in the days... This is a good as it gets. For now. The problem wasn't fixed until 2012, with the 2nd ------edition of issues 4-8. It is a well-known fact that those people COUNTERCLCK 9 who most want to rule over people are, ipso The years 2001 - 2008 facto, those least suited to do it... anyone ...were basically void of publishing on my part. But who is capable of getting themselves made I did have material intended for the next issue, President should on no account be allowed when ever I would come around to do it. But by then the stuff already felt... too outdated. to do the job. Douglas Adams COUNTERCLCK 10 ------February 2009 First attempt to relaunch CounterClock in A4-pdf- Articles in COUNTERCLCK # 1-25 format. I didn't get any reaction at all, which felt a Presented by author, in alphabetical order. Page bit disencouraging. references to #1-8 are for the pdf 2nd edition. COUNTERCLCK 11-12 Aro, Eemeli - On Finnish Fandom, #18, p 9 May - September 2012 Bellis, Anders - The second relaunch wasn't more successful than Athens 9th SF & Fantasy Film Festival, #18, p 11 the first, except this time around I felt slightly more Fandom in Greece, #15, p 2 determined to go on. In this time period I also In Memoriam: Angelos Mastorakis, #24, p 13 converted earlier issues to pdf-format. The idea Three Travellers (poetry), #24, p 10 was to make the entire library available online. Benford, Gregory - WetzKon'56, #16, p 10 And it had better been done sooner than later. Boekestein, Jaap - Dutch & Flemish Fandom Procrastination is a bitch. in the 50's and 60's, #23, p 3 COUNTERCLCK 13-16 Burke, Sue - Fun in small-town Spain, # 18, p 8 February - November 2013 Cronholm, Tomas - Swedish Fandom, 15, p 29 Derwin, Theresa - NOVACON 42, 2012, #13 p 8 This is where I truly found my niche. The fanzine Dunyach, Jean-Claude - French SF, #15, p 23 came up on efanzines.com and I felt my writing was making some progress. Ekselenski, Bojan - SF & Fantasy in Slovenia, #19 ------Goudriaan, Roelof - Shards of Babel, memories I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain of making a European newsletter, #23, p 9 is wet, so who am I to judge? Douglas Adams Kraus, Gérard - LuxCon 2014, #18, p 6

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Lubina, Bojana Nariel - Zagreb Fantasy Con Illustrators in COUNTERCLCK # 1-25 Lundwall, Sam J - The House of SF, #9, p 2 The first number after the name indicates the issue Malme, Chris - Filklore & Minstrel's Hall of Filk, # 6 in which an illustration was published. The second Marion, Klaus - Fire in the Hole (fan fiction) #18 number (in brackets) is the amount of illustrations by Maximovic, Gerd - The Greatest Discovery in the that artist in that particular issue. Clockwise 2014 to History of All Mankind, Cw 2016 B, p 20 2016 included, abbreviated "Cw." Ohmacht, Guntram - Recalls Wetzlar'56, #15, 26 Håkan Ackegård 19 (1) Palm, Anders - Tale of Early Swedish Fandom, # 5 Nicklas Andersson 19 (3), 20 (1), 21 (7+1) Parr, Julian - WetzKon 1956, #14, p 9 Hans Arnold 1,2,3,4 (1), 5 (8), 9 (3) Recktenwald, Thomas - The Fan & his Work: Stefan Barton 14 (2) Waldemar Kumming, #15, p 20 Marina Battistella 21 (3) About German Fandom, #14, p 24 Johnny Bruck 4 (11) Strömgren, Rolf - The Doom of the AI's, # 25 Nathanial Castronovo 19 (1), Cw 2014 (1) Swanwick, Michael - Why SF Matters, #7, p 4 Enrique Corominas 24 (1) Voltz, Willi - The Shoe Scandal, #14, p 17 Emshwiller /Tage Valentin 19 (3) Willis, Walt A - The Harp Stateside, #20, p 9 Maurits C Escher 24 (2) von Witting, Wolf - (selection) Sven O Gripsborn 19 (1) Advice to Time Travellers, #24, p 8 Reinhard Habeck 23 (2) Ahrvid Engholm, My Friend, #21b, p 4 Crossover (fan fiction), #19, p 38 Teddy Harvia 4 (1), 15 (7), 21 (1) Domestic Excavations V, #7, p 7 Steven Hägg 19 (1) Domestic Excavations VI, #21a, p 3 Christian Holl 6 (2), 10(1), 11(2), 14(1), 15(1), 24 (1) ELOY symphonic space rock, #23, p 17 Stefan Kayat 2 (1) English Proficiency in Europe, #16, p 7 Nicolas Krizan 11, 19 (1), 23 (16), Cw 2016 (2) Eurocon 1999, Dortmund, #5, p 2 Rolf Lidberg 25 (2) Eurocon 2011, Stockholm, #11, p 5 Katja Lindblom 21 (8+1) Eurocon 2012, Zagreb, #11, p 9 Henry Linder Cw 2014 (14 + 4 in 2nd Edition) Fandom in Sweden, #19, p 4 Mario Kwiat 14 (10) Flight of the Pegase (fiction), #13, p 13 Chris Loneberg 20 (1) GarchingCon 9 (Munich) 2013, #15, p 5 Ulrica O'Brien 21 (uncredited, cover CHUNGA 23) George Bobjörk, My Friend, #15, p 18 German Fandom History, #14, p 1 Lars Lon Olsson 19 (2), 21b (1) Halluciraptor photography, #22, p 19 Volker Reichert 25 (1) HanseCon 15 (Lübeck) 1999, #22, p 9 Bill Rotsler 11 (1), 14 (3), 16 (2), 18 (2), 24 (1) Heidelberg 1970, 28th WorldCon, #21a, p 8 José Sanchez 20 (10), 22 (8) History of TAFF & its Winners, #20, p 10 Bo Stenfors 16 (1), 19 (1) Italian Fandom, Interview: Luca Volpino #20, p 4 Tais Teng 23 Junicon 1999, Stockholm, #5, p 8 Arthur Thomson 8 (6), 13 (11), 15 (10), 16 (10), LONCON 3, London 2014, #19, p 30 17 (3),18 (2), 19 (3), 20(1), 21b (7), 24 (4), 25(11) Marburg 1978, #4, p 11 Bjo Trimble 25 (1) Maurits Cornelis Escher, #24, p 7 Wolf von Witting 3 (1), 4 (1), 7 (2), 12 (1), 15 (8), 16 NasaCon 1980 (Sthlm), #15, p 16 (3), 18 (6), 19 (4), 22 (6), 24 (1), Cw 2015 (3), Cw 2016 (4) NasaCon 2000 (Sthlm), # 8, p 2 NOVACON 44 (Nottingham), 2014, #20, p 13 Perry Rhodan Nr: 2000, How So?, #4, p 1 Rebuilding the Time Machine (fiction), # 1, p 4 SweCon 1999, Uppsala, #7, p 3 TAFF or TATE, #21b, p 6 Teleporting Without Tutorial (fiction), # 2, p 2 Utopiales Nantes, France, #15, p 22 WetzKon II (Wetzlar) 2015, #22, p 26 WetzKon II, part 2, #23, p 19 Willy Ley & Gerfany's proto-fandom, #24, p 3 Year 2013 in Cinema, #17, p 5 Ykspetäjä, Tero - The FinnCons, #10, p 7 ------What came first - the egg or the cow? (Grendeline) Artwork: Arthur Thomson, ATom 1927-1990

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If you haven't contributed with a letter of comment I was thinking... Stupidity should be yet, just imagine the sensational headlines you painful. Wait a minute! It is painful! could cause. THE ONLY LETTER OF COMMENT Problem is, the stupid don't know why EVER WRITTEN BY... N.N. or THE FIRST EVER they're hurting. LoC BY N.N. TO ANY FANZINE EVER... and if you wrote a LoC years ago, one could always add ...IN THIS MILLENNIUM. Don't tell me there are no more frontiers! ------Letters of Comment in CounterClock # 1-25 Lloyd Penney, Canada #3-6, 8, 12-25 (19) Rolf Strömgren, Sweden, #5, 15-18, 22-25 (9) John Purcell, USA, #18, 21, 24-25 (4) Klaus N Frick, Germany, #3-5 (3) Ahrvid Engholm, Sweden, #3-5 (3) John Hertz, USA, #16, 21-22 (3) Kathy Taylor, UK, #3-4, 8 (3) Rainer Eisfeld, Germany, #15-16, 25 (3) Taral Wayne, Canada, #17, 24 Rudi Gerstner, Germany, #23-24 Jim Mowatt, UK, #13 Steve Green, UK, #15 Artwork: Arthur Thomson, ATom 1927-1990 Gregory Benford, USA, #15 ------Herbert Gleissner, Germany, #6 FINAL WRDS Karl-Johan Norén, Sweden, #7 A big thank you, to those 82 of you, who voted for Ralf Grosser, Germany, #7 me in the 2016 TAFF race. (I know, two votes got Fiona Anderson, UK, #8 lost in the shuffle, but there is absolutely no point in making any fuzz about it. I know who you are and Olaf Brill, Germany, #15 you are included in my thoughts). Consider this Hans Persson, Sweden, #4 issue of CoClock part 1 of my repayment. Teddy Harvia, USA #5 You also get a TAFF-report from Anna Raftery and Miki Dennis, UK, #3 from me you get this European trip-report. Rob Hansen, UK, #16 In spite of the loss, I feel it was clearly demonstra- Gerold Haynaly, Austria, #23 ted, that someone not from the UK can win. It's just Robert Day, UK, #25 not going to be me. It may be who ever Eurosmof agrees upon to back up. Finally a curiosity I noticed. Whenever I am about to wrap up a new issue of CoClock, ironically I am at last sufficiently into the gears to start making one. Grendeline, my scary godmother (hates being called a fairy) has graciously announced the deadline for the next issue to be the last day of September. If you have something incoming which may be a day or two late, inform me a day or two before you are a day or two late. You may very well still be included. Bee seeing you! - Wolf ------COUNTERCLCK # 25 Wolf von Witting Via Dei Banduzzi 6/4 33050 Bagnaria Arsa (Ud) - Italia Artwork: Arthur Thomson, ATom 1927-1990 Email: wolfram1764 - at - yahoo - dot – se

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