The August Issue of Kronos
The newsletter of
the Middle Tennessee Science Fiction Association

News Flash

Our juvenile delinquent emeritus Allen Steele
just won his second Hugo for his novella "Where Angels Fear To Tread".


Allen will be the GoH at this year's Windycon which takes place November 13 - 15.
Some of us are planning on showing up..

(wonder how much Allen will bribe us not to show up)

See below for the other Hugo results....

The next meeting will be August 12, 1998.

At the Green Hills Library which is located at Green Hills Mall but not in the Mall.

At Hillsboro Rd & Crestmoor ( a Krystal is on the corner)
Turn go down Crestmoor and the drive to the library is to
the left past F. Scott's.

Or call the library at: 615 - 862- 5863

Upcoming Conventions and other stuff to do...

August


14th Public star Party at Edwin Warner Park 8:30 to 10:30pm.
Co sponsored by the Barnard-Seyfert Astronomical Society, Sudekum Planetarium and the park staff.


28- 30 Tourney of the Foxes SCA event near Chattanooga


September

1st the preregistration rate goes up after today from $25 to $35 for Outside Con.
Send your money to Bob Embler now..
Bill needs it so he can precook some of the food, buy more groceries. Send money, cabin reservation info ect
to Bob Embler at POB 30695, Clarksville Tn. 37040

1st Preregistration for Context in Columbus ,Oh
goes up after today. The con is Oct 2-4.

3-6 Dragon Con in Atlanta, Ga. Memberships are $ 60 at the door.
Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison and the creators of South Park.

10th preregistration for Contact in Evansville, In.
Goes up from $ 20 to $ 25 at the door.

4-6 Black Rose sponsored by Shire of Crimson River at Energy Lake,
Land Between the Lakes, Cadiz, Ky.

11th preregistration for Constellation in Huntsville goes up from $30 to $ 35 at the door.
The convention is October 9 - 11.

11 - 13 Outside Con 11. Camp Marymount, Fairview Tn.
Some cabin space and tents are welcome.
There is a large hall where the fen gather plus separate video
building. No dealer fees.
Featuring Death by Chocalate Bake Off and UFO High Fly.


Special fan guest Jason Loveday. Special artist guest Steve Scherer.
Anyone under 18 must be accompanied by parent or legal guardian.
ID's will be checked, Tennessee laws will be enforced.

11-13 Coronation of Gareth and Sabine
as Meridian sovereign and consort.
Sponsored by Shires of Peregrine and Tal Mere
at the Woodmen of the World North Alabama Camp in Royal Alabama.
( I just have to mention this..the future King and Queen are currently living in Nashville)

15th preregistration for the Ohio Valley Filk Fest
goes up from $26 to $ 30 at the door.
The convention has changed its dates from the traditional Halloween weekend.
The new dates are October 9 - 11.

17th Public Night at Dyer Observatory

18th preregistration for FalCon in Bowling Green, Ky goes up from $ 15 to $ 20 at the door.

18-19 Tavern Brawl sponsored by Shire of the Rising Stone
at the Circle YI Camp in LaVergne, Tn.

25 - 27 Contact 16 in Evansville at the Holiday Inn-Airport.
Fred Pohl GoH.
Contact, POB 3894, Evansville In. 47737


The July Meeting

The last meeting mostly concerned the upcoming club picnic ( more on this later).

Dan bought some of the book he has been working on.
An excerpt of it will appear in the fanzine
(more on this later too)

Anita and Tom talked about attending the Sherlock Holmes meeting in July as a club outing.
They really enjoy the meetings there and Anita continually
reminds us how friendly the people are.

Lee Billings won an award for best DS9 fan fiction.

Lee went to Inconjunction where she had a lot of fun
except she also had major car trouble
and was stranded in Indy for several days.

Oh no...

I know I must have been feeling very bad during the meeting because I can't read part of my notes.
Oh no a bad brain night.

This is what I can decipher,
(Yes I can hear the snickers from the peanut gallery"go feed on some butter")

Pat made some type of an observation about,
" very intelligent drunks"
and below it I had noted something that may be stuff from fandom
and some other incomprehensible word after that. (sigh)

I then made a note about Lee and her guest but I can't read the name.
triple sigh.... this is going to the meeting with my blood sugar really low is not a good idea....

I mentioned that I am reading the new Greg Bear book Dinosaur Summer
which should be of interest to Conan Doyle fans since it is set in an alternate world were Professor Challenger
did discover the dinosaurs living in a valley.

Robert mentioned that West End games the manufacturer for some of the Star Wars games is going bankrupt.

There will be a Mid South Con and Chattacon in 1999.
Some people had wondered about Chattacon but they already have their new web page up.
There will not be another Rock Con until 2000 but there will be Pebble con this spring in Little Rock, Ar.

Allen Steele won another Locus award
and we are all pulling for our juvenile delinquent emeritus to win the Hugo.
(He did yeah..)

We notice that Allen will also be the guest of honor
at Windy Con
and some of us are actually thinking about making the trip to the convention because of this.
I went to Windy Con once and had a grand time
even thou I was a gopher( hmmm I wonder if they need any more gophers this year)

I fussed at Robert because he does not have an answering machine
and Pat said if I needed them to call her since not only doesn't Robert have an answering machine he is hardly ever home to answer the phone.

By the way Pat did find a notebook computer.

(At Rivercon I found out why Pat and Robert did not make the picnic.
Robert was having trouble with his truck.
Of course we should have gone on and called... by that fell victim to inertia just like going swimming.
Hopefully Robert will not have to feed the truck to the fishes.)

We also talked about the various movie theaters in town.

Fountain Square is cheaper on their snacks and movie prices
(our president Anita Feller and a couple of our other members like this)
but the maintenance of the theater has fallen under an all time low since the former AMC was taken over by Carmike.
During the past year the theater has displayed numerous s problems with film and sound quality.
They canceled movies even when people had phoned them earlier to see if the movie would be shown (this happened to Anastasia).
Some of the theaters felt as if the heater was going full blast. This last happened when we went to see Zorro. They moved Zorro to a different theater after a lot of people protested .
Just recently they canceled a showing of The Trouble With Mary.

Our current favorite is the Regal at 100 Oaks because of the big screens and great sound and projection system.

It is more expensive. Plus it is woefully understaffed.

On the weekend that Saving Private Ryan premiered the place was packed. (They were showing Ryan on three screens. all of them were selling out thirty minutes ahead of time for the show)
and only the front snack areas were open which of course had really long lines. And the theatre was dirty (but some one did come in to clean the theater up after we watched Mulan)
They really need someone going around checking the bathrooms. I went to report the problems with one and had to go all the way up front
Because the only person I saw was the ticket taker and he couldn't leave his post.

But even with the problems above the Regal is still the best place in town to see an epic or an effects film.

Oh yes I do need to mention this; the Watkins Belcourt
has been showing a lot of classic SF movies recently.
They are in Hillsboro Village and you should give them a call at 383 9140 for a copy of their latest schedule.

Fan news....

Dan now has his almost dream job as a programmer for a medical middle man type place.
Lee about the sametime also found a great programming position.
The bad part was that both of them had real nasty car trouble soon afterward... the good part was this was not a financial disaster due to their new positions.

While the fate of a the Jacksonian apartments is making the news due to their scheduled demolition
sometime next year to make way for a
Walgreens drug store no one is paying attention to what happens when a owner of a small apartment building dies..
the property passes on to the heirs who throw a little money into it and the jack up the rent so high the current tenants cannot afford the rent anymore.
This recently hapened to Susan and another local fan recently.
Susan has found a new place and will be moving soon.
She may need our help... will let everyone know more when I know something ( of course most of the time I know very little)

The Picnic

The picnic at Old Hickory Lake went well.
Of course the weather gods noticed we were having a picnic so they turned down the thermostat..
guess which was the coolest sunday in July. At least it wasn't freezing and raining like last August.
We have discussed renting ourselves out to any area experiencing a heat wave or drought.

One of the nicest things about the picnic was the appearance of two of our members who we dont get to see very often..
Ken Moore because he is either working constantly or playing with his yard.
And Mark Edwards who has been spending wednesday nights hosting or co hosting a jazz show on WRVU.

We also had a guest from the Sherlock Holmes group.

There was a lot of food including the return of Ray's ribs.
The only problem was that chocalate arrived fairly late ( Susan saved us with some cookies)

but all in all we had a great time.

The Fanzine

The fanzine will come out sometime this fall.
For several weeks bemscribes time has been spent on a web based interent business class.
Which turned into more work and research then I planned.
I am not going into how they closed the lab early at night. Plus the submissions are slow coming in.
I have stuff ready.. a sort of pookha fannish journal and a spoof of Babylon 5 Thirdspace. Let's just say I came up with a unique way to destroy the artifact.

Recent Passings...

Ann Chancellor filk singer, master costumer and friend to many in fandom died recently.
Also sometime before Rivercon the artist Paul Lehr passed away.
And we want to pass along our condolences to Irv Koch who lost his father recently.

This has been a sad spring and summer for fandom.
Another artist who had been a guest of honor at Kubla in the past Alex Schomburg passed away in April.
Midwestern fan Jackie Causegrove passed away in May.

.

Rivercon

I did get to Rivercon after all.
After a very insane month.
My mothers oldest brother died in a car wreck this month.
He was the first of my mom's brothers and sisters to die.
Considering they range in age from late 60's to early 80's this is pretty remarkable.
My mother was going to ride along with some other members of the family to the funeral in Tampa.
But they had a car wreck before reaching our house
(they were ok. the car was a little worse for wear)
. So it was decided that my mom would fly to Tampa.
Bless Southwest.

One of the best things that ever happened to Nashville was when American abandoned their hub,
which gave Southwest an opportunity to move in.
My mom was able to get a round trip flight to Tampa for $ 163, flying out the same day she made the reservation.

Southwest is flying most of the local fen to Baltimore for the worldcon.

I had a lot of fun at Rivercon even though I only went for Saturday afternoon and Sunday.
It really made up for not going to worldcon. Some of the programming looked very interesting and fun
(especially the oldywed game) but I never made my way to any of it (well except for one thing) because I kept on running into people to talk to.
Several people commented they saw people there they had not seen in years.
This may be due to there now only being two more Rivercons after this years.

There will be a Rivercon in 1999 and 2000 and then the con retires.

. Some people were on their way to worldcon and others were like myself.
Going to Rivercon because they could not make it to worldcon.
The convention is held in a very nice older hotel (the bedrooms are big and plus the airconditioners and elevators work)
near Six Flags over Kentucky.

There were over 800 fans at the con.

The gaming room was massive and busy.. they were having a grand time in there.

Did make it to the guest of honor presentations.
Harry Turtledove merrily told of how he has destroyed a variety of cities including
Louisville, Seattle and the state of Oklahoma and after doing the dirty deeds was subsequently invited to conventions at each place.
He concluded that the needed to do something horrible to Maui.

He also noted that even though he is in the south a lot and been a guest at several southern cons
he doubts he would ever be able to say y'all as one word.

He and the other guests of honor plus master of ceremonies Hal Clement were made Kentucky colonels.

Hal Clement spoke of a time when Fred Pohl was an editor he would buy paintings that he thought would make good covers,
send them to the writers and have them write stories to go along with the covers.
Hal Clement would change the meaning in his story to be one that no one would have considered being the meaning of the story.

Kevin Ward in making his GoH acceptance speech said
he would have been proud to have Hal Clement reinterpret one of his paintings.
He also noted the passing of Paul Lehr.

Julee Johnson Tate and Chris Tate then made separate Fen GoH speeches.
Chris noted they come to cons now more to see their friends than to see pro's.
He also mentioned they make sure they have vacation time to go to their favorite conventions.
And Chris is going to show off his Kentucky colonel to some big blue fans were he works.
(and why is colonel pronounced kurnel.. ?? )

Julee who used to be a manager of a B Dalton's told of her first con
which was the world con in Atlanta and that one of the first fen she ever met was Sue Francis
who promptly (of course) put her to work. The parties were on several different floors of the hotel so I started at the top
and made my way downstairs hitting different parties on the way down.
I almost regretted going out to eat since so many of the parties had food.
(and I am sorry I can not remember his last name but I would like to thank David for ferrying me, Anita and Tom plus Nancy Tucker Shaw to a really great place.. Like I said I almost regret eating out)
I believe the Marcon party had a small banquet. But several of the parties were strangely sparsely attended...
this mystery was solved when I arrived at the Boston at Orlando party.
Pink and flamingo's dominated but one of the major draws was this was a party catered by super caterer Naomi Fisher.
This is when we were mildly grumping that we needed room for cheesecake.
pooh Sigh...


The Hugo winners were announced at the Bucconeer World Con in Baltimore Friday night.
I got the results from the SCI fi wire a news service of the SCI fi channel.
at Sci Fi Wire

"The 45th Annual Hugo Awards were announced at the 56th World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore, Md.,
during a ceremony hosted by SF writer Charles Sheffield.
The awards were presented by a variety of SF celebrities, ranging from Connie Willis to George R.R. Martin.

This year's winners are:

Best Novel: Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
Best Novella: "...Where Angels Fear to Tread" by Allen Steele
Best Novelette: "We Will Drink A Fish Together..." by Bill Johnson
Best Short Story: "The 43 Antarean Dynasties" by Mike Resnick
Best Non-Fiction Book: The Encyclopedia of Fantasy by John Clute and John Grant
Best Dramatic Presentation: Contact
Best Professional Editor: Gardner Dozois
Best Professional Artist: Bob Eggleton
Best Semiprozine: Locus
Best Fanzine: Mimosa edited by Richard and Nicki Lynch two former Tennesseans.
Mimosa has been the dominate fanzine at the Hugo's for several years

Best Fan Writer: Dave Langford who also edits Ansible
Best Fan Artist: Joe Mayhew
John W. Campbell Award: Mary Doria Russell. Her first book was Sparrow a harrowing tale of first contact.

The world con was supposed to have a lot of live stuff posted to the net.
It started out well but they as of Saturday afternoon do not even have the Hugo results posted.
So far no tells of riots .
So I guess maybe all the room stuff was finally worked out
though I lost track of how often Frank & Millie plus Ken Moore and the other Nashville fen
did not have a suite,
had a suite,
lost the suite, maybe had a room and then possibly didn't and finally had a room.

All for now....send me news stuff at bemscribe_too@hotmail.com or bemscribe@yahoo.com Back to the Pookha's home page