Boring old history can be checked in detail by those who are sufficiently interested. The salient facts are these: in 1926, Hugo Gernsback started publishing the world’s first science fiction magazine.
Along with the launch of “a new kind of magazine”, Hugo also planted the seeds for science fiction fandom. He was no stranger to social networking – his actions to bring about a community of like-minded individuals interested in and supportive of the new genre was deliberate.
He carried that interest with him to the world’s second science fiction magazine, Science Wonder Stories. That magazine would eventually launch The Science Fiction League which both lent support to a handful of existing SF clubs and helped create numerous others around the world.
In later years, Amazing Stories would once again return to support of fandom with the introduction of the Club House, a regular feature that offered up news of fannish personalities, conventions and fanzine reviews, a tradition which has continued with this current iteration.
Amazing Stories is now reviving another tradition, harkening back to the days of the Science Fiction League: support for clubs and conventions, although that support takes a turn that would itself have been science fictional back in the early days. Amazing Stories is hosting a weekly blog for the WIndycon convention, Chicago’s longest, continuously running traditional con.
This year, WIndycon happens to be chaired by Steven H Silver, long time contributor here as well as maintainer of the SF Site and comitter of serial fanac, making our support of that convention doublly pleasurable. It really does feel good to be able to give something back!
This year’s Windycon is themed as The HItchhiker’s Guide To Windycon, which means that a lot of attention is being paid to author Douglas Adams and his radio play/novels/television series/movie – The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy.
The blog itself will be featuring interviews with former Guests of Honor, posts by the same, review and commentary on every episode of THHGTTG radio play, posts related to Windycon history and more.
Not going to Windycon? Besides suggesting that you ought to, we still think you’ll find plenty of interesting posts on its blog. Give it a look.
