Introduction

Another road issue, another explanation. This magazine has nothing to do with the City of Seattle, though I do think it is very kind of the Seattle Worldcon bid to advertise my 'zine on their t-shirts. Full explanation on my web site.

Of course the 'zine is being published in Seattle this issue, because I'll be handing out paper copies at Potlach 6 before I am able to do so at MSFC or BASFA. The email and web versions will go out earlier, of course, but, as I keep getting told, they are not "real" fanzines and so don't count. Collectors amongst you should therefore look out for the Potlach edition. The BASFA one the following Monday may or may not be a second printing.

Yes, that was heavy sarcasm. The reason for it is buried somewhere in the Boskone report.

In the meantime, if you do pick this up at Potlach, welcome. In view of the convention, I have stuffed the 'zine full of reviews of books by Australian authors. Janice Murray, Eric Lindsay and I will probably be running a micro-programme item on Aussie writers sometime during the con, and I will also have some copies of #12, which also features Australian writers, available.

In the meantime, because I know my regular readers are far more interested in my sordid personal life than in books, some travelogue.

In this issue

On the road again - California here I come

Of witches, ravens and dragons - Sue Isle breaks into novels

By George, he's briliant! - Australia's grand old man of SF

That Hugo time of year - The BASFA recommendations

Reflections on Australia - Beer - Is there anything better than Fosters?

Strange, but true - Dr. Who fanzine review

Powerful stuff - Tess Williams starts with a bang

On the Border - Leanne in book form at last

Fodor's Middle Earth - This year's big holiday destination

Lucy rides again - A literary detective novel

Footnote - The End

On the road again

Melbourne, Sunday 9^th

It is hot and sticky. Again. The weather forecast predicts yet another day of temperatures in excess of 30 C. Well at least it has come down from being in excess of 40. OK, I know this is Australia, but it is Melbourne. Weather like this might be the norm in Sydney, Adelaide and Perth, and a welcome cold snap in Darwin, but here it is unusual. About 5 C above average, in fact. Guess whose flat doesn't have air conditioning?

You see, Melbourne is one of those nice, balmy places where the weather is OK most of the time. It drizzles it bit much, and you get the odd few days of too hot or too cold, but serious weather catches us out.

When Giulia de Caesare and Steve Davies were in Australia, we had some pretty serious forest fires. Three people died, and a great fuss was made of the heroism of the volunteer fire fighters. Such things are great media events. In this past week, many people have died of heat-induced heart attacks. There were five in one day. The media hardly mentioned it. Funny how our priorities go, isn't it.

Boston, Thursday 13^th

Snow.

Well, I exaggerate a bit. There wasn't any snow in Boston. But flying here yesterday I found the northern US blanketed in a uniform, white carpet all the way from the Sierra Nevada to the east coast. And it was snowing in Pittsburgh when we stopped to refuel, so much so that we were an hour late leaving due to having to wait in line for the aircraft to be steam blasted free of ice and snow.

Anyway, it was cold.

Framingham, Friday 14^th

OK, today it snowed.

Massachusetts in winter reminds me rather of Pepperland under the Blue Meanies. The grey of the concrete malls blends seamlessly with the grey of the tarmac, the grey of the denuded trees, and the dirty white of the snow. There is no colour, save for the occasional false gleam of the infamous Golden Arches. And yet, deep in their concrete fastnesses, the people of Massachusetts manage to produce food of a quantity and quality that I had hitherto only associated with Melbourne and San Francisco. In search of a substantial lunch, Kevin and I found a branch of the Legal Seafood Company and dined splendidly on clam chowder ("as served at Presidential inaugurations") and a range of other fishy delights. Yum.

The Sheraton Tara, where Boskone is held, is a large hotel just off exit 12 of the Massachusetts Turnpike. It is awesome in its awfulness, managing an appalling mixture of sub-Camelot crenelations and carved wood, painted on Tudor half-timbering, and the very worst of cutesy peasant pseudo-authentic Irish nonsense, begorrah. Quite nauseating. But, it was warm and dry, which was just what the Australian and Californian delegations needed.

By the way, for those of you who don't know, Boskone is the annual convention of the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA). It is called Boskone rather than BosCon because Boskone is the name of the evil empire in E.E. Doc Smith's Lensman stories. This was to be their 34^th annual convention.

My first experience of a NESFA-run event was not encouraging. I arrived at registration to find that they had lost my membership. They did have my banquet ticket, which was kind of suspicious, and I did point out that I was hardly likely to have come all this way from Australia just to defraud them of a $30 convention fee. Nevertheless, the guy in charge was adamant: no membership, no convention, go away. So I did, at which point he had second thoughts and came rushing after me. I could, he said, come to the convention, provided that I bought a membership. By an extreme effort of will I managed to avoid eviscerating him on the spot.

Of course, none of this would have happened were it not for the fact that they didn't know me from Eve. Little did they know that they were dealing with the travelling companion of the great Kevin Standlee. A little later in the evening, a few words in the ear of Ben Yalow had everything sorted. Sometimes it is kind of useful to be able to pull strings.

That night Kevin and I, ably assisted by Kathryn Daugherty, ran a San Francisco in 2002 bid party. As Eric Lindsay and Martin Hoare did sterling work keeping me company on the door, we had a real international flavour to things. Some people even mistook us for an Aussiecon Three party. The event was very well attended, continued long into the early hours of the next morning, and seemed to be very successful. East coast fandom made a note in its collective consciousness that we had had the courtesy to turn up to their major event, but Seattle had not.

Framingham, Saturday 15th

The programme, when I finally got hold of a copy, was very interesting. The main streams appeared to be hard science, mythology and fannishness. Of particular interest was FanHistoricon, a sub-convention at which Old Fart Fans of all ages could gather together and bemoan the "fact" that Things Aren't What They Used To Be. There was, for example, a panel entitled "Where have all the fanzines gone", at which we concluded that there were now more of them than ever. Similarly the panel investigating why there were no more fannish musicals was forced to conclude that the tradition was alive and well.

A particular thing that annoys me about old time fanzine fans is their insistence that anything distributed electronically, or published on the Web, cannot be a fanzine, and that these evil technologies will bring the death of fannish writing. They seem to have forgotten the furore that took place when photocopying and lithography first became an economic possibility, and doubtless the earlier one when mimeo replaced spirit duplicators.

Surely these people, who pride themselves on their literary-ness, should concentrate on the content, not the medium. If something is well written, why does it matter how it is delivered to the reader? Admittedly the ease of reading is poor on a pure ASCII e-zine, but this is only a temporary technical problem. I pointed out that even now some of my readers were able to received a fully formatted version of Emerald City over email which they could print if they wished, only to be told that this would make it a second edition and therefore less valuable. Hopeless, they are.

That evening saw the convention banquet. After another brush with administrative incompetence, from which we were ably rescued by Lisa Hertel, Kevin and I found ourselves sharing a table with a bunch of local fans. It being a buffet meal, tables were called out to collect their food at random. As time passed, it became clear to us that we were going to be last, but the guy sat next to me insisted that we keep our spirits up as the people called last were always the winners. And so it turned out. When Gay Ellen Dennett finally called our table number, she announced that in view of our long wait we would be given a free bottle of wine. It was a lovely touch, and worked perfectly.

The food, which was a selection of Italian dishes, was excellent and plentiful, but it was as nothing to what came next. Boskone's author Guest of Honour, John M. Ford, is a man for whom filking is not just an hobby but an obsession. He had personally written a short musical on the subject of fantasy novels, and the convention found enough people with good voices to perform it.

Entitled Another Part of the Trilogy, the show opened with Fantasy Tonight, based on Sondheim's Comedy Tonight. This was followed by a range of numbers featuring various members of the fantasy novel cast. For example, a pastiche of Chain Gang gave us "That's the sound of the Dwarves, working down the gold mine". The villains encouraged us to Do 'Em Wrong to the tune of Cole Porter's Be a Clown, and the Monsters' March was set to the tune of Seventy-Six Trombones. By far the most impressive number of the night was based on Ya Got Troubles from The Music Man. This is really difficult to sing, and Larry Seiler managed magnificently. It was also very funny, being a warning to the people of Little Trollkin of the disasters that would befall them now that a dungeon had been discovered in their neighbourhood.

Ford, in wizard costume, narrated his own creation, and seem genuinely surprised and delighted at how well it was received. At the dead dog party I asked him if there were any plans to make the lyrics available. "Well", he said, "I am very grateful that people have been asking me this question every five minutes since the damn thing finished…" Con chair Davey Snyder added that NESFA was indeed considering publication, but as the piece was fairly short they might just stick it on their web page. Look out for it.

Framingham, Sunday 16^th

The Sunday was very quiet. The morning was spent trying to wake up after the previous night's partying, and the afternoon was taken up largely by dismantling things as the con was due to finish by 16:00. Nevertheless, Kevin and I managed to keep up a constant cycle of alternating bid table duties and panel attendance. By the end of the convention we had signed up 29 new pre-supporters for SF2002, which pleased us greatly.

The dead dog party began at the local John Harvard Brew Pub. Once again the food was excellent, and I have to say that those Poms and Aussies amongst you who turn your noses up at American beer because all you have seen is Budweiser should come over here and try some. I don't think that east coast beer is yet up to the standard we get in Portland and San Francisco, but Harvards do pretty well. I tried their sampler selection, and found a passable imitation of a British pale ale, and a Newcastle Brown impersonation that was better than the original (not, of course, a very difficult task). Their stout looked OK, but was rather thin, and the President's Ale was far too bitter for me, meaning that it would probably go down well with Poms.

The most contentious issue of the evening was the Raspberry Ale. Fan Guest of Honour, Rob Hansen, opined that they should have been taken out and shot for such heresy. Personally, however, I found it the best of the lot. It was half wheat beer, which I much prefer, and the addition of the fruit nicely took the edge off the bitterness. Resident beer expert, Martin Hoare, had stayed in the con suite where there was a range of interesting bottled beers, but he later assured me that putting fruit in beer is by no means unknown in Europe. I felt a lot less heretical then.

Overall it was a very enjoyable convention. I guess the only thing left to point out is that, whilst Boskone is supposed to be a serious lit fan convention, the best parts of it were undoubtably the cabaret and the art show.

San Jose, Tuesday 18^th

Trotted down to San Jose to get some tickets for Thursday night's Sharks game. Had lunch in a fast food joint called Rock 'n' Tacos. Anywhere which not only does passable burritos at good prices (US$4) and plays White Rabbit for you whilst you are eating is OK by me.

San Jose, Thursday 20^th

The Sharks were awful. They dominated much of they game, and at the end of the second period were ahead on every game statistic except the one that counts, on which they were behind 3-0. The final period started well (we had a 4 minute power play) but ended disastrously when a piece of appalling and unnecessary violence had one of the Sharks players expelled from the game. The final score was 6-1 to Vancouver. This is a shame, because much of the Sharks' play was very good. Unfortunately they are hopeless on front of goal. The way that they spent most of the game camped in their opponents' half standing round waiting for a miracle reminded me strongly of the English soccer team.

Santa Cruz, Saturday 22^nd

Take highway 85 south from Mountain View, hop onto highway 17, go through Los Gatos (meow!) and Scotts Valley (home of the rapidly dwindling Borland empire) and you come to The Seaside. In many ways, Santa Cruz is just like English seaside. It has the funfairs, the amusement arcades, the fish and chips, the mini golf, the hot dogs, the ice cream. All the usual stuff. OK, so the beach-front architecture looks suspiciously Spanish, and there are sea lions sleeping on the pier supports, but the average Pommie holidaymaker would have felt quite at home.

Well, except that we had clear blue skies and warm sunshine.

We had a great time. I beat Kevin at mini golf and pool, and he got his own back at pinball - even finding a Gilligan's Island machine on which to humiliate me. It would have been a lovely day out without the food. With it, well…

Today was the annual Santa Cruz Clam Chowder Festival. The concept of the cook-off seems to be a peculiarly American tradition, so some explanation is in order. In a cook-off, a range of professional and amateur chefs gather together to cook their version of a particular dish. There are official judges, but the general public also gets to sample the food and cast its own votes. For $5 you got a bowl, a spoon, five tickets for chowder samples, and a voting ticket. Between us, Kevin and I sampled 20 different versions of clam chowder (and were stuffed by the end), and we had less than half of what was on offer.

The basic rule of clam chowder is that there are two types: Manhattan includes tomatoes, New England does not. Other than that, it has clams and potatoes in it, and other stuff which is up to the chef. Kevin and I both happened to prefer the New England variety, which cut down the choice a bit. Even so, there was plenty of variety. In my opinion, one other essential ingredient is bacon. Without it the chowder lacks a lot of punch. From then on, it really gets into the realm of preference. I prefer it made with real cream, but worrying about calories and being allergic to dairy products are fashionable here. Adding Tabasco certainly gives it bite, but tends to swamp the flavours of the spices.

I can feel me getting boring, so I'll wrap up here. It was a great day. Shame I can't put samples on line.

Mountain View, Monday 24^th

BASFA has a trial meeting at Harry's Hofbrau, just over the road from Kevin's place. This is not bowing to some presidential whim, we are growing out of our present site and have been trying a range of places around the Valley. The food wasn't too hot - basically standard UK pub stodge, but they had a splendid array of beers, which only Dave Gallagher and I appeared to appreciate. I don't think we'll be back.

Much of the meeting was given over to discussion of our Hugo choices. More details of this later in the 'zine.

Mountain View, Tuesday 25^th

SF2002 Bid Committee meeting. Seven MSFC memberships sold. Happy club treasurer. People of San Francisco learn to fear Cheryl's Chili as much as Australians do, except here there are people who like that sort of thing.

Of witches, ravens and dragons

Back in issue 12 I reviewed a collection of short stories by women writers called She's Fantastical. One of those stories was A Sky Full of Ravens, by Sue Isle. I said at the time that there was a novel based on the story in the works. This is it.

Scale of Dragon, Tooth of Wolf, is published by Hodder Headline's young adult SF and fantasy line. It is, therefore, a fantasy novel aimed at teenage girls. It shows. Of course that doesn't make it a bad book, and Sue does her best to get her audience thinking, but at the same time she has to be careful not to bore or confuse them. I think that Garth Nix did a better job with Sabriel (also reviewed in #12), but for a first novel this is a good attempt.

The story is fairly standard stuff - young girl with exceptional magic powers has to learn to control them in a world where magic is increasingly frowned upon. It has a feminist twist: only women can do magic, and their oppression is part of a move from a dualistic to a patriarchal religion. There is a love interest in the shape of a young boy who just happens to be a member of the Inquisition. Very predictable.

The story, A Sky Full of Ravens, forms a single chapter of the book. As you may remember, my favourite part of the original was the surprise ending. Unfortunately the effects of that were so dramatic that they just had to go. It would have been very hard to carry on with the novel afterwards. I was hoping that Sue would keep some vestige of it, but no, we just headed off down the nice, predictable plot to the final chapter and…

Oh shit, she's done me again. Sue dear, I know it is set up for sequels, and I hope you get to write them, but please keep the endings as off the wall as this. I love 'em.