...Always a Fan

Resnick Mike

Description

Mike Resnick's second collection of essays, anecdotes, speeches, and convention reports (not to mention lists and obituaries), written for science fiction fan magazines, includes topics as diverse as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Teddy Roosevelt, My Most Memorable Collecting Experience, Where Do You Get Those Crazy (Novel) Ideas?, Bathrooms I Have Known, and much more.

Sujets

• Worldcon
• Science fiction
• Fan
• Fandom

Informations

• Publié par: Wildside Press LLC
• Date de parution: 02 mars 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781434448149
• Langue: English

Extrait

Copyright Information
Copyright © 2009 by Mike Resnick.
All rights reserved.
Published in 2009 by Wildside Press, LLC.
All rights reserved.
Consider Mike Resnick, by Tony Lewis
Ah, but which Mike Resnick? There are many Mike Resnicks—all subsumed in the same person. I have no intention of writing a formal biography; you can find a good one at Mike’s website:
<http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/farmer/2/>
There is Mike Resnick the writer—SF, fantasy, detective, dogs, non-fiction, movie scripts . . .
There is Mike Resnick the editor—SF, Africa . . .
There is Mike Resnick the anthologizer—commissioning original SF . . .
There is Mike Resnick the former collie breeder and exhibitor . . .
There is Mike Resnick the doting husband and father . . .
There is Mike Resnick the convention fan . . .
There is Mike Resnick the Guest of Honor . . .
There is Mike Resnick the costuming fan . . .
There is Mike Resnick the fanzine fan . . .
There is Mike Resnick the good friend . . .
Are you starting to get some idea of what this man is like and what a wide range of interests and accomplishments he has. The annoying thing is that he does all of them so well.
Most of the science fiction world knows Mike as a professional writer. Or, as SF fans put it, a “filthy pro”—more a term of endearment and envy than derision. Not only a professional author but a damned good one and a damned successful one. A list of his novels, stories, and articles would be quite long. In fact, his bibliography page lists 126 novels, 2 screenplays, and an amazing 204 pieces of short fiction. This will be out of date when this book first sees print.
As an editor and anthologist, one of his major achievements has been encouraging and coercing good fiction from new writers—believe me, I know. Mike believes this is his moral obligation to “pay it forward” in honor of those who helped him; you can’t really pay it back.
Mike started going to conventions in the early 1960s as a fan. Now, as a world-recognized award-winning pro, he still considers himself to also be a fan and takes part in a number of fannish activities at the conventions; in this he follows in the footsteps of E.E. Smith, Gordon Dickson, and Hal Clement—and those are some footsteps to fill.
In addition to attending conventions as a fan, pro, and program participant, Mike’s been guest of honor, emcee, and toastmaster at a number of SF conventions—the most important of which, in my biased opinion, was Boskone 28 in 1991.
Mike—and his beautiful wife Carol—were active in costume fandom when it was first burgeoning. They’ve won awards at the World Science Fiction Convention masquerades. Mike made a point of capping the cost of their costumes; he believed—and still does—that imagination and humor will do more for you in the long run than money.
Now, this is how Mike loses money: he writes for fanzines. Fanzines don’t pay much. In fact, most pay nothing at all. In the past, some fanzines have even asked their authors to help collate and staple the zine. Of course, in today’s high-tech world, everything is done automatically by machine, or failing that, by hands-on work of fans. Every time Mike writes a fanzine article or essay, that time could have been spent earning fantastic amounts of money from books or screenplays. What the hell. Mike knows where he came from and is proud of it. It’s all family, after all.
Here, in this collection of essays—from convention reports to obituaries—you will mostly see Mike as fanzine fan but other aspects will pop up in subtle ways. Look for them; it will greatly increase your enjoyment—that’s what this book is all about.
Foreword, by Mike Resnick
Well, I did promise you a decade ago in Once a Fan… that if I was still around ten years later, I’d see you in the pages of …Always a Fan .
Not much has changed. I’ve written a bunch of novels and a bigger bunch of stories, I’ve won a few more awards and lost a lot more, I’ve gone blind in one eye (which, to the dismay of some critics, has not hindered my productivity), I’ve finally gotten a high-speed connection for my computer but I still steadfastly refuse to own a cell phone, I’ve signed a few Hollywood deals and have not yet seen a feature film based on my work (though there have been some short ones), I’ve collaborated with 12 more writers, I’ve been the science fiction consultant for a line of books (BenBella), I’ve been the executive editor for Jim Baen’s Universe , and I’ve attended about seventy conventions….which is to say, nothing much has changed. I still consider myself a fan who happens to make his livelihood by writing science fiction, I still support the fanzines and the small presses whenever I can, and I still feel like the luckiest man alive to have spent a life in science fiction and fandom.
And I am sure I’ll still feel that way ten years from now, when I collect another decade’s worth of fannish writing for Still a Fan .
Part I: Conventions
I don’t remember quite when I started writing up my Worldcon diaries, but they’ve become very popular. Most have appeared in Guy Lillian’s Challenger , and over the years I seem to have written up a few other cons as well, such as DragonCon and the Nebula Weekend.
Well, why not? The Worldcon is invariably the highlight of my year. I look forward to it like a kid to Christmas, and no matter how poorly it’s run (and some are run pretty poorly) I always manage to have a wonderful time, while simultaneously lining up my work for the coming year or two.
Chicon IV
Chicon IV, held in 1982, was the first of three Chicago Worldcons to use the Hyatt as its headquarters hotel. It was a wise decision; the Hyatt has proven to be the best Worldcon hotel on the circuit, capable of containing all the myriad of events and ceremonies within its friendly confines, and attached to a number of other venues by underground walkways.
The Guest of Honor was A. Bertram Chandler, and since he was an Australian this was the first chance many fans had to meet him. The always-popular Kelly Freas was the Artist Guest of Honor, the legendary Lee Hoffman was the Fan Guest of Honor, and Marta Randall was the Toastmaster (and did it so well that she was Toastmaster again for Chicon V.)
The masquerade was still a huge draw back then (they’ve gotten a lot smaller in the past couple of decades, in number of costumes if not the size of the audience), and the Hugos were well-attended and went off without a hitch. The Dealers’ Room was immense, close to 300 tables, and the art show featured almost all the major artists in the field. The multi-track programming wasn’t quite as fragmented and complex as it has become, the movies were well-chosen and very popular, and the party suites were filled every night. The famous fannish video, Faans , starring a bunch of Midwestern fans, was shot at various spots around the hotel; I especially remember one scene where a ton’s worth of fans did a song and dance on one of the Hyatt’s indoor balconies/walkways.
This was the first Chicon in 20 years, and a lot of fans who’d never been to the Windy City before got to sample its many wonderful restaurants, as well as visit the Field Museum, the Art Institute, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Lincoln Park and Brookfield Zoos, and the city’s plethora of used-book stores. Most fans arrived a few days early, and many stayed a day or two past Labor Day.
I had four or five books out in the previous year, and found myself on a number of panels, as well as being a masquerade judge. This was the last convention where I was able to spend any serious amount of time as a fan rather than a pro—these days Worldcons are almost about entirely business for me—and for that reasons I have very fond memories of it. You’d wake up, make your daily tour of the Dealer’s Room and the Art Show, attend a couple of selected panels, visit with friends, dine like a king, catch the Hugos or masquerade or whatever the evening’s main feature was, and party all night. Wasn’t anything wrong with that back in 1982; won’t be anything wrong with it at the next Chicon either.
ConJose Diary
Wednesday, August 28, 2002: Uneventful flight from Cincinnati to San Francisco, which is to say, I slept for all 5 hours of it. The ConJose web page had warned us that a door-to-door shuttle from the San Francisco airport to the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose was $34.00—but they never asked for the group rate, and it turned out that each extra member of a party was only $5.00, so while everyone else was avoiding the shuttle, we got there for less than half the price of a taxi. (Usually we get to Worldcon on a Monday or Tuesday to spend time with all our fannish friends, since once the con starts I’m a working pro, but because we were touring Monterey after the con with a bunch of them, we decided not to show up until Wednesday.)
We’d gotten a call the night before from Debbie Oakes, who was co-hosting the CFG suite, that it was in room 905, so naturally we asked for the 9th floor. And got it. In the new tower. Which meant that every time we wanted to go to the suite we had to take an elevator down to the ground or second floor, walk across to the old tower, and then take an elevator up to the 9th floor. On the other hand, there were no parties in the new tower and it was quiet as a tomb. Never a wait for elevators, either—until they started breaking down.
While Carol unpacked and took a nap (she doesn’t sleep on planes), I met Janis Ian and we registered and went over to the dealer’s room. It wasn’t open to the public until Thursday, but 39 years after my first Worldcon, I am not without my resources.
The convention center was a couple of blocks from the Fairmont. Not a terrible walk, but we’d packe