It's the day after the World Trade Centre disaster in New York City. We're all shocked and stunned, and many say it's like a movie, but it's all too real. Fiction has become fact, and we truly live in interesting times. I have read that many fans in NYC are safe; I'd be interested to know if anyone has been affected by this disaster, such as being stranded in an airport or in a foreign country. I've heard several times that the best way to handle this deep shock is to carry on with regular activities, to keep from walking like a zombie. So, in that spirit, here is a letter of comment on File 770 139. Bear with me, and I shall try to get back in the loccing spirit.
     Millennium Philcon has come and gone, and Yvonne and I enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. We had no commitments to a bid table or series of parties this year, so we were free to explore, and we did. As do most, I have my misgivings about the winners of the Hugos for Best Novel and Best  Dramatic Presentation, but I hope this will encourage more fans to nominate and vote to that SF novels and movies will the rockets. We'd been in touch with Craig Miller to distribute LA in 2006 flyers in Canada. We have a revision in mind, but as soon as all is resolved, we plan to distribute extensively.
     I would amend Fred Patten's assessment of the representative of the publisher he spoke to...an interesting example of a complete idiot and a damned fool. As usual, others are experts on Canadians, and Canadians are the last ones asked about these matters. Many thanks to Fred for knowing that Canada is a separate country with a separate culture and separate events. We are not a part of the United States; at least, not yet.
     I saw Shibano-san at a distance at Millennium Philcon, but did not see Sachiko. Most years, we run into them, bow deeply, and then hug the stuffings out of them. I hope all is all right with her. The idea of a Japanese Worldcon is intriguing, especially the part about how we're supposed to afford to go.
     Yvonne and I have to admit to sharing Ed Green's addiction. We often watch TLC (nicknamed by us The Disaster Channel), and tune in to see those myriad shows that detail messy car chases, especially in California. And yes, some of those chases involved a tank, a mobile home and a bus. I think most people have seen those shots by now. They are silly, and we watch them for fun, but I doubt I'd boot up the website to see more.
     Taral thought that Marcon was a travesty because it had a psychic fair as part of the convention, and a "never was" actor who played a Romulan? Good thing he didn't go to Toronto Trek this past July then...it had both. Nevertheless, a good time was had by us.

Thanks for File 770:139 - "The Intellectual Property Issue" and congratulations on the Hugo Award.
     I appreciated seeing the item on my patent even if I think the invention itself is rather lame. Everyone keeps telling me that it will get banned for contributing to road rage, etc. There will, alas, never be any money in it for me since I assigned all the rights to the co-inventor who paid me handsomely by the hour. I judged that there wasn't much money in the concept and opted for cash up front. A business has already started in New York City that uses a satellite to transmit location specific ads for displays on the top of taxicabs. Not in any way covered by my patent, but I'm sure it's covered by someone else's.
     In the second phase of intellectual property we see illuminating commentary on copy right for free lance writers. The internet has opened huge avenues of copy right abuse. Anyone with artwork is in danger of having it scanned and posted or worse. My wife's business is part of a consortium that in cooperation with the Library of Congress and the US Attorney's Office will be actively going after people who are scanning artwork and craft kits (artwork and instructions included) and posting them. There are sites on the web where you can find hundreds of such items and the violators don't think they are doing anything wrong.
     The only thing missing would be discussion somewhere about trade marks. Next time you should be more complete in your news coverage...

This issue arrived the same week that Marc Ortlieb announced that he was giving up on the Bullsheet. I am amazed that Marc managed to keep it going so long - which only makes your longevity with File 770 the
more remarkable. I used to get frustrated that it appeared so irregularly, but now that it is one of the few fanzines that has survived earlier eras I have to assume that it is all part of a Master Plan.
     The convention reports, though not up to the Glyer Standard, worked pretty well for me, though perhaps John Hertz's was a fair distance ahead of the others in content.

Simon Ounsley is quoted (from his fanzine Connection No. 3):  "I felt a bit uncomfortable planting a 'u' in all those 'favorites' of Robert [Lichtman]'s and realise I've never really thought before about the way I automatically anglise the letters I get from America.  But I mean you know he didn't write it that way, don't you? I guess I just think that the fanzine reads a bit better with uniform spelling. Do you agree?"
     Well, yes, I do -- and I feel the same way when I remove every "u" from the articles and letters by British writers in Trap Door (not to forget changing every appropriate "s" to a "z" as in "anglicize") for the same uniformity. 
     Let's think of what Simon and I are doing in the same way we view TAFF -- sort of a trans-Atlantic vowel movement.

I have it from a reliable source that File 770 received the Hugo Award for "Best Fanzine" this year. Congratulations! The contribution of File 770 to fandom is substantial and fairly recognized. I trust you will not feel yourself diminished, nor is that my intent, if I point out a few relevant statistics. Namely, during the entire period from 1970 to 2001, all of the 32 "Best Fanzine" Awards have gone to a total of 11 fanzines. Four of those were one-shots, arguably flukes (Energumen in 1973, Algol in 1974, Texas SF Inquirer in 1988, Mad 3 Party in 1990); leaving the remaining 28 awards distributed among a grand total of seven fanzines.
     [[Prior to 1984, zines published by Richard Geis and Charles N. Brown won 14 Hugos. Then, in the first nine years after semiprozines were removed from the category, six different zines won a Hugo for the first time. One of the six was File 770, however, it was also among the nominees defeated by each of the other winners. I expect the cycle will turn again, when Plokta, Challenger or Idea gets a well-deserved award. In the meantime, I'm certainly enjoying the response to File 770.]]
     End of rant. In fact, this seems an apt moment to remove myself from the Fan Hugo discussion. As you probably know, I (not without assistance) made a fool of myself by misunderstanding the eligibility requirements, and recklessly and unfairly insulted Richard Smith and Leah Zeldes Smith. I have apologized to them, and I do so again publicly.
     Personally, I still feel the Hugo nominating and voting process has clear flaws, and that term limits would solve some - not all - of those flaws. That is obviously not going to happen. Due to a combination of factors, right now I simply have enough with which to concern myself, to devote much thought to what appears to me to be a lost cause. Therefore, in the future, I will not be nominating or voting for the Hugo Awards.
     [[With your passion for the award, why does quitting make sense?]]
     Another item in #139 which prompts a brief observation from me is to agree with Marty Cantor concerning the state of book reviewing in fandom. I am one of the few faneds who run a regular book review column - and more often than not I wind up writing it myself. Bob Sabella does book reviews in Visions of Paradise, though often of mainstream books. Nova Express does book reviews, which somewhat overlap with a highly specialized area of sf. Beyond that? I suggest an article, or perhaps someone can use it for a panel topic: "Where Have All The Book Reviewers Gone? (Long Time Passing)." Or maybe no one cares about such a retro subject. Literacy, after all, is obsolete. Rod Serling, where are you when we need you?
     [[Maybe it looks that way if you don't look beyond paper fanzines -- though let's remember Fosfax, which prints more reviews than anyone. If you count reviews published on websites or in zines distributed  via e-mail, like Cheryl Morgan's Emerald City, more fan-written reviews are being published than anytime in the past 25 years. That's after the cream has been  skimmed by publications willing to pay the best reviewers.]]

Jack Harness was one of the most brilliant members of the four Writers' Workshops I attended, two of which were conducted at the LASFS.
     A Writers' Workshop brooks no prejudices and collects criticism and opinion from every quarter, sans emotional reactions. It is much like an art class: all members are peers, all at the same level, at learning and contributing. Those few who came in loaded with degrees, their Great American Novel and their Egos, took umbrage at criticism and vanished into thin air - fast. Those who really wanted to do something with their work and appreciated what was going on (like Dafydd ab Hugh, Jor Jennings, George Jumper etc.) got a lot out of it.
     I considered Jack Harness to be one of the most incisive and productive contributors. He had more talent than the three of us put together. I do not exaggerate when I say some of Jack's work ranged from the stature of Heinlein to that of Pablo Neruda.
     He never sent a story out.
     I cajoled, encouraged, and fought with him on that issue, but he just "never got around to that." Lots of fans are witness to the fact that Daffyd profited by it. I also got a number of short stories into various magazines and anthologies; one book was published.
     Jack is a loss to satirical fiction - and to literary fiction.
     I admire his talent and still do. I owe him; I will miss him.
     [[LASFS scribe Karl Lembke announces that the Jack Harness Memorial Page is on the Web at:
http://www.lasfs.org/lasfs/history/harness.html]]

I was saddened to hear that Boyd Raeburn died. I didn't recall seeing a mention of this on rec.arts.sf.fandom, which I consult now and then, and I am not a member of the truly fannish listservs, so it was news to me.  I remember him with great fondness from a few meetings at cons over the years, as he was a dry wit and good company.
     Boyd published a number of entertaining and worthy fanzines over the years; I believe his best generally available zines were don in the 1960s, and included A Bas.  The most wonderful thing Boyd contributed, to my knowledge, were items called "derogations." These were assemblages of quotations from different fanzines cobbled together to form new conversations between fans of different points of view, done with a satirical edge to them.  The most recent descendant of these was a piece in a Nielsen Hayden  zine in the early 80s, putting together things people had said during a Norwescon weekend, and making them seems as though they'd all been said during one room party.
     I hope you can get Ted White (to suggest one possibility) to do a real (and more accurate) appreciation of Boyd Raeburn.
     As John Hertz mentions, you were not introduced in Westercon's opening ceremonies. Neither was any other Guest of Honor; this was a bothersome lack and I think it was a failure to perform one of the important functions of such a ceremony. It was particularly odd, since the Not Ready for Sidereal Time Players always work such introductions into the playlets they do at Orycons.
     I think John is wrong when he says I was in the Fanzine Lounge on Sunday with all those other DUFF winners. I don't think I saw Lucy at all on Sunday, for instance.  I also remember the fannish funds auction being on Saturday.  So perhaps the whole paragraph should be moved back a page and attributed to that day. 
     John's report was carefully subheaded with the dates and location of the con. Not so Joy V. Smith's report on Oasis 14, and I am mildly curious where and when this con took place; I can't recall having heard of it before.
     In the letter column, Joseph T. Major says that Bill Warren won't have to worry about going back to the eathquaked Boeing plant in Renton.  Sorry, Joseph T., only Boeing's headquarters is moving to Chicago, which accounts for about 1000 employees. Many thousands more, along with the Renton and Everett plants, are staying here for the foreseeable future.
     To answer Joy V. Smith's question about Corflu's methods of choosing guests, yes, the Guest of Honor has always been chosen by throwing the names of all attendees into a hat, with one certain exception: here in Seattle, in 1988, we chose and announced our Guest of Honor in advance. That was Gary Farber (before he discovered the Internet, I believe). It was not considered to be in the true spirit of Corflu, and no other committee followed our example.

Among the  many obits, I was shocked to see that of Poul Anderson. I completely missed news  of his death or  even his illness.  He and his  wife were to be guests at Marcon last May but they didn't show up. I guess I know why now.
     I never knew the Andersons very well. I saw them at various conventions at a distance but I always tried to see them when they did come to a convention.
     In the early 80' s I was a member of a con committee at a convention in Northeast Ohio (which one is not important) We invited Poul and his wife as our guests of honor one year. He was originally  from Akron, Ohio and his mother and  brother (John was a professor at Kent State University) were still in the area. He and his wife arrived on Friday night and the con committee (including me) took the Andersons to dinner that night.  I remember it very well, a table full of geeky young people hanging on to everything they said. I think that they were more embarrassed by this hero worship than  pleased but he and his wife were great quests that weekend. The Andersons were also major  players in the founding of the Society for Creative Anachronism and the local chapter came out and did a demo in their honor. I had to miss that since I was watching the consuite that AM but from what I saw they both had a great time.
     I am sure they would never remember me but  I was looking forward to seeing them at Marcon 36. There was also a large turnout of the SCA type crowd. I was disappointed but  never dreamed that he was so ill that I would  be reading his obit a few months later.
     By the way, I did go to  Marcon and  the remarks by Taral are way off base. I planned to write a report but so much time past, I thought I would just put it aside. Taral's remarks however need to be answered and I will do so.  As editor, of course, you can do  with what you want with them.

I found Francis Hamit's analysis of the Tasini decision to be one-sided.  Like Hamit, I am a mundane freelance writer and editor, and many of my articles have appeared without compensation on various websites.  I have found, however, that this exposure has been very helpful to me; my best client came to me because he had seen my work on the web, and the fees he pays far outweigh the amount (and aggravation) I would have gotten had I hunted down the creators of websites and demanded money.
     And surely if Hamit's articles are worth preserving, there will be customers for a book of his.  I know of no one who, given the choice between printing and carrying around several hundred "free" pages and buying a book, would choose the exhaustive printout. If Hamit produces an attractive book (and not the usual computer-printed blodge) people will buy it, regardless of whether or not the material is on the web.   

[[On issue 138]] I can't blame Harlan Ellison for wanting to prevent stealing of his writing via the internet, since it is very apparent that once out there, it is hard to ever get payment from many. I've been collecting SF in digital form, now I lack the space to keep all the books I would like. But I must admit that re-reading a novel in digital form is a right pain in the eyeball.  It has been interesting to see Baen putting some novels up for free (as well as via their great $10 a month for 5 novels deal), and I downloaded a bunch of them.  However I still find myself reluctant to read a novel as an eBook if I don't already own the paper version - and I still haven't managed to get rid of any of the paper versions of the ones I downloaded - despite that being the point of the whole download exercise for me!  Interestingly, Mike Resnick asked when I was going to review another bunch of his books, and sent me copies as ASCII files by email.  I still haven't read them. Real Soon Now!
     Rose Mitchell is entirely incorrect in asserting that "all Australian cities now have purpose built convention centres." Many smaller cities do not. She means that almost all of the major cities now have decent facilities. Meanwhile, can I interest your readers in attending conventions here other than Worldcons? In the last weekend of May 2002, New Zealand has its National Convention. In the first weekend of June 2002, there is the Australian National Convention, celebrating 50 years of Australian conventions. Rose Mitchell is chairing it. The week after that, Jean Weber and I are running a relaxacon in our home town (not a city) of Airlie Beach. We will feature

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