I’m going to cheat a little, and review a movie that’s not really a genre movie. Well, as far as I’m concerned it is, because the movie’s about magic—and many fans are very much interested in magic—and also because the underlying theme of the movie is very much “sense of wonder,”
Fan Fahnestalk takes us through dead tree ‘zines, ‘live pixel’ zines, IBM Selectrics, toner feel and more in this personal fan history.
I won’t say it’s the best SF film I’ve seen lately—it’s certainly one of the best-looking, however; but it’s deserving of a second look if you’ve been hoping for a moderately good science fiction film to watch this summer.
Fanzines, continued: Okay, Mr. Smartypants, what’s a “sercon” zine? Actually, I’m glad you asked that question. It’s another of those annoying (well, to an outsider) fannish neologisms and acronyms. In this case, we have “serious” and “constructive” all smashed together to form “sercon.” (If they were complete words, we’d have what Humpty Dumpty called “portmanteau” […]
Fanzines: What the heck is a ‘zine, anyhow? Well, ‘zine (usually abbreviated without the apostrophe) is short for fanzine, which should be self-explanatory. Unless I’m very much mistaken, SF fans were the first ones to publish zines as a regular thing; now all sorts of subcultures have them. In case “fanzine” is not self-explanatory, I’ll […]
Movie Review: “Cloud Atlas,” written and directed by Tom Twyker and the Wachowski siblings, Andy and Lana, from the book by David Mitchell. Before I start, let me reiterate that I don’t like “spoiler” reviews that reveal the end of a book or movie. Even so, it’s sometimes necessary to give away some details from […]
Let’s give cons a rest for a bit and talk about one of science fiction’s greatest writers. Terms like “greatest writers” are usually somewhat subjective, but in this case my opinion is backed by a lot of people. As I write this, it’s July 7, and the 106th birthday of Robert A. Heinlein, who died […]
And I’m still not done talking about cons! Continuing with our talk about cons that have grown out of the SF con, we have things like Steampunk and Anime cons. Steampunk arose from the idea that if science had been a bit more like today’s science in the 19th century, perhaps powered by steam instead […]
This blog is not a fan history, although I will cite some fan history. There are actual fanhistorians who guard our culture. If you want to read about early fan history, see the following books: The Futurians by Damon Knight, The Way the Future Was by Frederik Pohl, All Our Yesterdays by Harry Warner, Jr., and The Immortal […]
I’m going to assume that you are a science fiction reader of some kind, since you’re here at Amazing Stories magazine’s website. Are you a science fiction fan? (I’m going to abbreviate it “SF” to save time, and if not specifically mentioned, I include fantasy in that abbreviation.) What do I mean by “fan”? For […]