We took the FANAC scanning station to Corflu FIAWOL last weekend, and scanned 3500-4000 pages (the count is not complete yet). We received material to scan and help from many Corfluvians, and are getting the scans up on line. So far, we have a little over 1,800 of those pages online. They’re marked in the index pages as “scanned at Corflu 2019”. Fanzines scanned at Corflu include Terry Carr’s Innuendo, John D. Berry’s Hot Shit, Charles Lee Riddle’s Peon, Ron Bennett’s Ploy, some of Forry Ackerman and Morojo’s Voice of the Imagi-Nation, and lots more. At Corflu, we also received scans from Rob Hansen’s OCR project. There are some gems there too. Watch the “What’s New” on the Fanac.org page to get details on what’s been put online.
— from Pixel Scroll May 13th, file770, “(4) FIELD REPORT. Joe Siclari’s FANAC Flash summarises their accomplishments at Corflu 2019.”
We thought we’d look at the Hugo nominees for Best Novella over the next few meetings.
Here are the suggested readings:
July Binti: The Night Masquerade, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing) The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing) Bonus: *Proof of Concept of Gwyneth Jones Note: the Binti novella is the third of the series; you might wish to read the first two to get the full story.
August Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, by Kelly Robson (Tor.com Publishing) The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean Press /
JABberwocky Literary Agency) Bonus: *Time Was by Ian McDonald
Note that the bonus novellas (*) are three of five featured in Tor Editorial Spotlight #5, edited by Australia’s own Jonathan Strahan. The collection also includesThe Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson and Agents of Dreamland by Caitlin R. Kiernan. 705pp for 5 novellas, around $15 as an ebook. More details at tor.com publishing
The “bonus” novella is just if you want to read some more, recent novellas.
Note: if you are a member of the Dublin worldcon, the hugo voter’s packet contains the full text of most of the nominees (see file770 ). [ Supporting membership is 40 euros, which is approximately $AUS 65. Pretty good value for the packet contents.]
I’m no longer convinced it’s a radical idea to believe that there are no heroes and that humanity can be reduced to its very worst impulses. It’s not particularly exciting or edgy to insist we’re all going to blow ourselves to bits, or war against our neighbors in some libertarian apocalypse scenario where readers of Ayn Rand are poisoning their food supplies to keep the remnants of humanity from stealing their stuff.
Humanity didn’t survive this long because of its worst impulses. We survived this long because, despite all of that, we learned how to work together. Being grim and nihilistic is boring.
Being grim isn’t how you create the future. Being grim means rejecting the idea of a future altogether. I would rather seek to understand why some people choose to do the right thing even when it’s not popular, even when the world is collapsing all around them.
—Kameron Hurley. “The Future Is Intrinsically Hopeful”, Locus, April 2019
‘‘One of my best friends is a direct male-line descendent of Genghis Khan. She has the documentation to prove it. I got fascinated by the way Genghis Khan is portrayed, as opposed to the way Alexander the Great is portrayed. They both won! In Mongolia, Genghis Khan is a culture hero, still to this day. The stuff that he accomplished, on a technological level and on a social level, is astounding. The Mongol Empire had bankruptcy laws. The third time you declared bankruptcy, they executed you, but that might not be a bad thing for us – it might solve some of our Wall Street problems.”
— Elizabeth Bear, interview 2012, Locus
I think that the accepted definitions of what marks a book as a certain genre are too broad to be useful. SF does not necessarily involve ray-guns and time travel (although it might), fantasy does not have to feature goblins and spells (although it might) and Westerns do not particularly have to feature horses, gun-play and stetsons (although they might).
In the Jasper view of genre, Sirens of Titanis not SF but philosophy, anything by Terry Pratchett is not fantasy but satire, and True Grit is not a Western but a “coming of age/epic revenge/historical fiction”.
This year, we thought we’d challenge ourselves to pick the winner of the 2019 Hugo for best short story. So to prepare for the discussion, please read the following stories in time for the meeting, and be prepared to debate which one is “best”!
Chris Priest, in his awesome capacity as agent for the Sladek estate, is very pleased with the early proof copy he’s seen; I hope to have a big pile of trade paperbacks in good time for Easter. Paperbacks and ebooks will also be available for order online, from Lulu.com and Ansible Editions respectively.
Two pieces of interesting info: opposite Frances McDormand’s God will be a Satan voiced by none other than Benedict Cumberbatch; and the series premiere will be may 21st!
The Adelaide Fan Review 
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