--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FADEAWAY #45 is a fanzine devoted to science fiction and related fields of interest, and is produced by Robert Jennings, 29 Whiting Rd., Oxford, MA 01540-2035, email [email protected]. Copies are available for a letter of comment, or a print fanzine in trade, or by subscription at a cost of $20.00 for six issues. Letters of comment are much preferred. Any person who has not previously received a copy of this fanzine may receive a sample copy of the current issue for free by sending me your name and address. Publication is bi-monthly. This is the June-July 2015 issue __________________________________________________________________________________________ YEAH, WE’RE LATE Months late, in fact. As I have mentioned on several past occasions, I never want to be one of those people who bores everyone to tears talking about his assorted medical or personal problems. I also don’t want to bore everybody talking about the past winter, the snowiest winter around here since records have been kept. There was a lot of snow, over 130 inches of the stuff, mostly all coming in the months of Jan thru early Mar, but now, in late May, everything is gone except the harsh memories. I didn’t slip and fall on the snow or ice, which happened to a lot of people around here, including a close friend, and altho a woman ran into the side of my car as I was driving thru an intersection, the damage and inconvenience was relatively minor compared to some of the horrendous accidents that have happened in the area. There was ice related roof damage at the warehouse which led to leakage/water problems including some ruined merchandise, but stuff happens, you have to go with the flow. Unfortunately arthritis pains are making my life miserable. I also have vision problems which I hope cataract surgery next month will help alleviate. This has all contributed to my not doing much writing or fanac of late. Fadeaway has been on a strict bi-monthly schedule since I restarted it five years ago, but it is off schedule. I skipped the Feb issue, and I skipped the April deadline as well. Part of this is due to the fact that of the six people who have promised to write articles for me not a single one of them has delivered anything yet. Some people have been working on their project for close to a year; longer than that for one individual. Somehow back when I restarted Fadeaway I never envisioned having to write almost everything except the letter column myself, but that is what has happened with this, the overdue issue #45. I plan to try and resume the bi-monthly schedule. I still have some articles and reviews I want to write, and I hope some of those folks who are working on articles for the zine will come thru. Time, of course, will tell. THE LATEST HUGO AWARDS INSANITY Several people have written to me asking my opinion on the current/latest controversy involving the Hugo Awards. Originally intended to be awards for the best science fiction and fantasy produced the previous year in many different forms and formats, the awards are given out annually at the World Science Fiction Convention. For a long time there has been quite a lot of controversy about the Hugo Awards and how relevant they might be. This year there are several groups of fans both semi-organized and otherwise, who have objected, strongly to what they believe is a bias on the past of Hugo voters for literature in both long and short form that happens to echo whatever hot-button ultra-liberal causes might be current at the time the ballots are cast. There are other groups semi-organized and otherwise who say this is nonsense, that people simply vote on what they happen to like, and they tend to vote for good writing, not social agendas. Another group, not organized in any way, has been saying for a long time that the Hugo Awards really have no relevance whatsoever about what is happening in the world of science fiction and fantasy, particularly in the areas of written material, because fewer and fewer fans every year are reading that many new novels, let alone following the myriad outlets for shorter fiction. Considering how much material is now scattered around the world from dozens of different publishers, many quite obscure, as well as magazines, books, and short fiction outlets available solely on-line via the internet, many of which do not advertise their presence very well, this seems to be a very valid opinion. I happen to support this particular opinion myself. 2 In addition, the only people who can nominate and vote on the Hugo Awards are people who have signed up for membership in the upcoming world science fiction convention each year. Voting is open to both individuals who purchase full attending membership, and those who do not plan to actually attend, but support the convention via associate memberships (currently $40 per person). In past decades those who attended and supported the yearly World Science Fiction Convention were the elite of SF fandom; the most involved, knowledgeable, articulate, and well read members of our little hobby. That concept has ceased to apply for quite a long time now. In modern times many of the people who attend the convention view it primarily as a social event to meet and interact with friends old and new. Their interest in the literature, or even the electronic side of it, movies, TV, podcasts and the like, is limited, for whatever reasons. In addition, the hard facts of life are that very few people who buy memberships to the convention bother to vote in either the nominating process, or the final balloting. Some people who do vote only fill in specific parts of the ballot. In these instances the electronic categories: the movies, the TV shows, podcasts and related areas such as graphic novels, usually draw much higher vote counts than the rest of the categories. This year there were only 2,122 nominating ballots cast all total. In the past I have noted that due to the peculiarities of the ballot system (the so-called “Australian Ballot” process), often people/titles that are initially the most popular do not win. In addition a lot of voters have no knowledge or interest in the specific fan related categories such as best fanzine, best fan artist, best fan writer, and if they even bother to vote, they often fill in the ballot for those categories in a random manner based on whether they have perhaps heard the name of a nominee rather than having actually encountered and experienced the work of the person/title they finally vote for. If you think I am exaggerating this, let me just make a couple of points here. In my opinion, and in the opinions of a large number of other people who read and reviews books, two of the very best SF novels which were published this past year were “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August” by Clair North (a pseudonym of Catherine Webb), and “The Martian” by Andy Weir. 3 “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August” is a remarkable tale of an immortal who lives, and when he dies, begins another life right back at the very point of his birth, but retains all the knowledge and experience he has picked up in his previous lives. In this case, the frustrations, perils, and “rules” of recycled immortality are tied with a bizarre mystery, and a race, a heroic effort, to somehow change the future as he lives it trying to prevent the world from being destroyed. This is a incredible tale, an extraordinary tour de force that not only displays astonishing plot depth but also delivers it with a remarkable writing style. This is a story that pulls the reader into the story and makes him a part of the adventure as Harry struggles against the bizarre odds, and against himself, trying to figure out how he can mend the future, solve the mystery, live with his own bizarre version of immortality, and satisfy the little girl who appeared by his deathbed at the end of his fifteenth life. This is one of the very best novels I have read in the past dozen years, and I’ve read a whole lot of SF/fantasy in the past decade or so. This novel is a work of near genius, and it is a book I recommend unhesitantly to every person who has even the slightest interest in science fiction. “The Martian” is the tale of an astronaut who has an accident on a Martian exploration voyage and is believed dead by his fellow crewmen. His body is left behind on Mars when the mission blasts off for the return trip to Earth. But the protagonist is alive and must figure out a way to survive in the hostile Martian environment, and somehow let his fellow humans know he is still alive. It is a fast moving, gripping tale of hard science, and adventure, both harrowing and genuinely scary in lots of places. It is the kind of book you cannot put down once you start reading because you want to see what is going to happen next. This is another book I can recommend without hesitation to any science fiction reader. Just allow yourself plenty of time to finish it all in one stretch, because you will not want to stop reading this novel once you start.