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Fable ly that he was somehow in the Future. All his time of constant anticipation Mark Wheatley had been misspent. He realized that he had only needed to look at what was going on around himself to find the seeds of the Utopia he sought. And he reali­ zed as well that he had to help shape his There once was a man who thought place within the Slipstream if it was of the Future as a space-borne city­ going to match his own desires. traveling in a Slipstream of Time. And in this Slipstream of Time he saw him­ self as a passenger in a Lifeboat that never gained on the City of the Future From that time onward he worked but merely matched its pace. And lo, he to improve the Quality of the world he was sad. He was sad because he could lived in. Everything he touched he put only imagine all that the Future might forth his best effort to improve. He hold. He could only dream of all those worked to build a better Foundation wonderful Tomorrows. He could only upon which all who followed might anticipate the Quality of Life in distant, have a sturdy base from which to misty Utopias. expand. Thus he cut his power and landed his Lifeboat on the slopes of an underpopu­ lated world in a galaxy called Now. Of course, all did not proceed with­ And on the Planet of Today he ignored out resistance. All those other passen­ the Slipstream of Time. He spent every gers within the Slipstream of Time who moment laboring to build a small per­ piloted their Lifeboats in vain, ever sonal Utopia; a Kingdom of Self. And seeking and never reaching the City of he was very sucessful. The Kingdom the Future, would only look far ahead prospered and grew and the Quality of to that distant misty beacon. They had Life expanded ever outward. Until one not become aware that the Future Was day when the Kingdom reached its most Now and that everything they could do distant boundaries and covered the to make it happen was at hand. So he planet. Then he knew that it must pass would call out to them as they raced the limits of Self to grow. So he return­ blindly past. He would attempt to dock ed to his Lifeboat and the Slipstream of with them, but was often fired upon Time. and warned away. Fortunately there were those who were of the same revel­ ation as he and these travelers along the He guided the Lifeboat into the rush­ the Slipstream of Time joined with him ing currents expecting to once again to build a Kingdom of their own. And take up the fruitless pursuit of the in this Kingdom they labored to con­ City of the Future. But before he could struct Tomorrow Today. In this they do that he was overwhelmed with the were largely successful so they named sights and sounds of all that surrounded their Kingdom. And the name they him within the Slipstream. chose was Quality. Everywhere he looked he saw the Future. All the things of the Slipstream were amazing and new. The technology So there they live to this very day, in had advanced and the people were the Slipstream of Time, in the Galaxy of strange and different. Yet they did not Now, occasionally pausing in their match his dreams. In the short time happy work to give a moment’s thought, that he had been building his Kingdom to wonder when the Rock of Eternity of Self on the Planet of Today, Slip­ will pop up or if the Winds of Change stream of Time had rushed on so quick- will ever cease to blow. 2 Baiticon XV Table of Committee Contents Michael Walsh—Chair. Edie Williams—Vice-Chair, Night Headquarters page manager. A FABLE Written and illustrated by Mark Wheatley...............................................2 Sue Wheeler—Day Headquarters JOHN VARLEY: THE MAN WITH THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION manager. Elaine Mandell—Treasurer, by Rickey L. Shanklin, Gregory N. Krolczyk, and James L. Hershey/ Illustrated by Freff......................................................................................................... 4 Pre-convention HOME IS THE HORIZON by Mark Wheatley............................................................ 9 registartion. THE FUTURE IS EXIT 19 ON BALTIMORE’S BELTWAY by Tony Calabrese Jul Ochs—Pre-convention /Illustrated by Marc Hempel........................................................................................ 10 registration. REFLECTIONS ON COMPTON CROOK AND STEPHEN TALL by James L. Bill Ochs . Hershey...........................................................................................................................13 Martin Deutch _At-convention THE WEEKEND WHO’S WHO....................................................................................14 D. Shirley Avery registration. CAPTAIN J UDIKAH by Ron Miller..................................................................... 16 FROM FANTASY TO FILM IN BACKLOT: BALTIMORE Mark Owings—Programming. by Rickey L. Shanklin.................................................................................................. 18 Gary Svehla—Films. Pat Kelly—Baltibus, Science Pro­ AIR-AGE by Marc Hempel....................................................................................... 23 gramming, alternate THE CHILD IS THE FATHER OF THE MAN by Joe Haldeman/ illustrated by programming with help Hank Caruso.................................................................................................................26 from Dr. Harold Bob, CARTOON MAN HAS A SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURE by Marc Hempel..3O Phil Cox, The Apple BLACK MAGIC by Vicki Wyman.............................................................................31 Club. Marty Gear—Masquerade. Kathy Sands—Huckster Room. Joe Mayhew—Art Show. SPECIAL THANKS FROM MIKE WALSH: FRONT COVER In addition to the above, I “Fantasy Girl” (1979) Steve Hickman would like to thank both BSFS, SOUVENIR BOOK Inc. and WSFA for putting up oil on canvas with me, a tip o’ the hat to Sue 23” x 33V2” Wheeler (who asks questions). And Mark Wheatley for helping to pick up the pieces special thanks to Elaine Mandell, Rickey L. Shanklin Marc Hempel Jul Ochs, and Mark Wheatley. BACK COVER “Many Colors of Saruman” typesetting: Eva C. Whitley Harold Jig oil and acrylic on canvas 36” x 38” BALTICON 1981 SOUVENIR BOOK is published as a hand-out for BALTICON 15/The Baltimore Science Fantasy Con­ ference. The entire contents are copyright © 1981 by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, Inc. for the individual creators of this book. Nothing may be reproduced in whole or in part without the 'express permission of the individual creator. In­ quiries may be addressed to Baltimore Science Fiction Society, Inc./Box 686/Baltimore, MD/21203 3 John Varley: The ManWith the Persistence of Vision by Rickey L. Shanklin, Gregory N. Krolczyk, & James L. Hershey “Where do you get your ideas?” Probably the question most often asked of science fiction writers. They must get sick of hearing it, and some have been known to fabricate totally ludicrous answers simply to appease the questioner. Those that do answer seri­ ously usually say their ideas just come to them from out of the blue, or spon­ taneously while typing, which is generally the way it does happen. But with some of John Varley’s story ideas (and titles!) you really have to wonder. John Varley (who goes by his mid­ dle name, Herb) was born in Austin, Texas in 1947 (he witholds the exact date because astrology freaks really irk him). He wrote stories as a kid growing up in a small Texas town, and moved around the state before graduating from high school in Nederland. At Michigan State he started out as a physics major and switched to English because he was going to be a film script writer. His original intention was to become a phy­ sicist, his second choice: being an astro­ nomer. After about a year he dropped out and roamed around the country a bit before going to San Francisco to be­ come a hippie, during which time he didn’t write at all or read much. John Varley started writing in 1973 because of financial difficulties. He and his wife, Anet Mconel, live in Oregon now, along with their three boys: Mau­ rice, Roger, and Stefan. Writing, as anyone who has ever tried knows, is a lonely, frustrating ex­ perience. Rejection slip after rejection slip tend to put a damper on anyone’s enthusiasm. This problem John Varley had only once, with his first novel, Gas Giant, which he admits is terribly written and anti-climatic. Everything else he has written has been published. In this respect, he considers himself lucky. To illustrate this, he points out that after he started selling his stories on a regular basis, he began to think about obtaining an agent. Unfortunate­ ly he didn’t know where to start, or who to contact. The very next day he 4 Freffs Wizard In 1978 Dave Hartwell gave me a hell of a challenge, and a lot of pleasure, by assigning me the job of illustrating TITAN. That was both satisfying and dissatisfying. Satis­ fying because I got to tackle some challenging design problems in col­ received a letter from Kirby McCauley. “Eight Worlds” stories. The novel which contains the earliest material laboration with that rarity of rari­ It is also due to this luck that one ties, a visual author. Dissatisfying, day he received a phone call from Hol­ concerning the events has never seen because I didn’t do half as good a lywood. Would he be interested in print, but most of the information is job as the book deserved. having one of his short stories (“Air piecemealed throughout subsequent That’s why I was eager to make Raid”) made into a movie...directed by stories as a given. Gas Giant concerns up by doing a dynamite job with Doug Trumbull? He accepted, and the the invasion of Earth by the intelli­ TITAN’s sequel, WIZARD, when it first part of this year was spent doing gences of the universe, creatures from a was assigned to me in the early fall the movie novelization. Trumbull sug­ giant gas planet resembling Jupiter of 1979.

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