This evening, I've been exploring the contents of one of the boxes of material left to me by Bob Tucker, and I came across a plain brown envelope of mysterious nature. Flipping it over, I discovered a handwritten address to Bob Tucker at Box 702, Bloomington, Illinois. No zip code in those days, of course. A stamped return address in the upper ( Read more... )

ConQuest Science Fiction Convention, held in Kansas City on Memorial Weekend for these past 42 years, was particularly good in many ways this year. While the panel schedule turned chaotic, the panels themselves were good and well-attended. My personal favorite was the Vincent Price Birthday celebration, which I conceived and moderated. We had ( Read more... )

When I was a little kid, I was fascinated by all things space-related. I read anything related to space, space travel and the stars. I had a small refractor telescope, and spent many night with my best friend in the neighborhood park studying the moon and stars, wondering with him what life might be light "out there." The earliest science ( Read more... )

I've just spent a fascinating evening pouring through the first of about five large boxes of old fanzines. The paper kind. On mimeo and ditto. With staples. Okay, okay, there were a few offset productions, too. I haven't been through these boxes in some years, but they've been stacked over to one side of the garage, along with cartons and ( Read more... )

For the last time - I swear - I've just allowed myself to get sucked into a cesspool of idiotic debate over genre awards, this time about a genre award I've never even heard of before, something called the Gemmell. Named after British fantasy writer David Gemmell, it purports to be an award aimed at "Epic/heroic fantasy." Like sitting on a ( Read more... )

Okay, I confess it. This has long been one of my favorite old sf movies. It's a rollicking romp that far too many sf fans have ever seen. I accidentally stumbled across the trailer and discovered that the film is actually available on video. Wallet - watch out!

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Well, it's been a full day. I'm preparing for an interview tomorrow morning with a reporter for the London Guardian and Independent. That should be fun. It's required me to do a bit of background research into various old sf tropes. It's not the first time I've done interviews like this, and I always take the time to do my homework. But it's ( Read more... )

I got a little bit of writing done this afternoon, but most of the day has been spent with selecting and pricing many of the books and items I plan to take to the con. It's been a long time since I played "dealer." Or as I prefer, "huckster." I'd forgotten how much work it can be to get it all together. It'll be even more work to load ( Read more... )

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