Today we visit Oz, the Land Downunder and bring to you Bruce Gillespie’s multiple-award winning fanzine – SF Commentary.
Bruce joined Australian fandom in the late 60s and has since become a name that is synonymous with that movement.
Bruce is an essayist and critic, getting his start with three articles about Philip K. Dick submitted to Australian SF Review. From there he joined several regional amateur press associations, eventually bringing out his own fanzine – SF Commentary – in 1968.
Since then Mr. Gillespie has become a fannish institution; SF Commentary has been nominated for Best Fanzine three times; he’s won FIVE Ditmar awards for Best Fan Writer (Ditmar = Hugo in Australian), an A. Bertram Chandler award for lifetime achievement in Australian science fiction, a FAAN award, was the Fan Guest of Honor at the 57th Worldcon, Aussiecon 3 and is considered so influential and important to fandom in general that a bunch of folks put together the Bring Bruce Bayside project to fly him to the states. (Whether that’s an honor or not is a question one will need to ask Bruce.)
A force to be reckoned with, Mr. Gillespie is also the author of several books including Philip K. Dick: Electric Shepherd and The Really Incompleat Bruce Gillespie.
It’s truly an honor to be able to reproduce his work here on Amazing Stories. If you want to know what makes a fanzine an international success – read on.
You can read more about Bruce on Vicnet and on Efanzines.com (as well as taking a gander at some of his other publications.)
