The May Edition of Kronos

The newsletter of the Middle Tennessee Science Fiction Society

Yep we are still here, thou a little worse than wear from the events of the past month. As most of the known world knows April 16^th Nashville made the national news ( including CNN and the BBC) when two tornadoes plowed through the city. There is a whole lot more about this at the end of the newsletter, but I would like to say some of the coverage was a little exagerated.

The downtown office buildings were not "blown apart" something I actually read on a CNN page. But rather they were blown through. .( This I Believe is the page: http://cnn.com/WEATHER/9804/17/storm.aftermath/index.html)

We were back at work in the Polk/ TPAC building by Monday.

We only had one casualty, a Vanderbilt/ROTC senior who was crushed by a tree in Centennial Park, who died this week of massive internal injuries. There is another man in critical condition at Baptist Hospital.

Most of the over 100 injuries were minor to slightly serious and were treated and released at local hospitals.

Parts of west , north and downtown were damaged, but the most severe damage was in East Nashville.

NES had power restored to the majority of it’s customers within a couple of days to a week.

They were able to restore power to most of downtown by Thursday night despite having their headquaters hit.

While several fen work downtown and where in the tornadoes path we are all ok.

The tow fen affected the most by the tornado were Charlie Williams and Dave Shockley.

Both of their houses in East Nashville were severally damaged by falling trees and the wind.

Charlie Williams can be reached at:

Dave Shockley can be reached at:

At this time I would like to thank all of the people who e mailed or called to see how we were.

And special thanks to Anita and Tom Feller, Dan Caldwell and Tom and Sherry Norris who helped me out personally in the aftermath when my mother and I didn’t have power for several days.

I want to especially thank Anita for loaning out the little portable tv and Sherry for taking me to their apartment were Tom let me use his computer to answer all the e mails and let everyone know we were all right and Nashville had not been blown to Oz.

We need to remember that is not just Nashville that has suffered in this season of the Tornado.

Kentucky and other parts of Tennesse were hit both by tornadoes and devasting hail on the same day the tornado hit Nashville. Kerry Gilley told me several of his barns were damaged. People were killed and

Western Kentucky University actually closed awhile due to hail damage to the student center and several dorms.

The next meeting is May 13 at the Green Hills Public Library

Call the library at : for directions

The social time is at 6pm. Business meeting is at 6:30pm

The program starts at 7pm and I have been told it will be some representatives of a local media con.

At the last meeting in April we had officer nominations.

Ray Jones is nominated for treasuer. Iam up for newsletter editor.

We decided to have a programming committee and Robert Edwards, Lee Billings and Dan Caldwell volunteered.

Anita Feller was nominated for president.

Some were about here my notes and brain goes fuzzy.

Tom Feller volunteered to do publicity.

Everyone at the meeting agreed they liked the idea of a greeter/social director.

Lee Billings nominated Pat James for the position.

There was some discussion about who would chair meeting when the president is absent.

Charlie Williams at one point volunteered to chair them.

We then talked about a bylaw were the president can appoint some one to run the meeting.

We had one of our smallest meetings as far as attendance. But it was held April 15 which was both tax night and a night full of tornado watches and scattered thunder storms.

Lee Billings did bring her friend Kevin to the meeting. Plus Tom Feller was in town for one of infrequent mid week stays.

We discussed our plans for the Parthecon party ( Anita mention something about killing me if I wasn’t there to help with the party).

A group of us went to see the "Lost in Space " movie. The general consensus seemed to be that it was better then they expected. I believed it was one of the better LoS episodes ever made. But you shouldn’t sit to close to the screen. The CGI effects look fuzzy up close and far better about midway in the theater.

There was a discussion about new banking rules and how all groups have to have a fin number.

A possible cause of concern has to do with how this will affect fundrasing.

Will we have problems with the IRS and other tax officials.

The fanzine is on and it has a July 1 deadline. The planned debut is at Rivercon.

Please send letters, very short fiction , articles and book & convention reviews to:

D A Hussey

115 38^th ave N.

Nashville, Tn. 37209

I have already have several loc’s for the fanzine.

Including one from Tim Gatewood chiding me for not recognizing the newsletter as a fanzine.

And then another one about what is a fanzine.

Also heard from Michael Banks who wants to contribute.

The big publishing news is that the last of David Brin’s "uplift " series is coming out in June. It is

" Heaven’s Reach" and it is supposed to answer all the questions and tie up all of the loose ends.

It is an Bantam Books and the ISBN number is: ISBN 0-553-10174-9

A lot of bad fannish news:

Besides the tornado this has been a bad month for fans.

Both Ray and Lynne Jones lost their fathers this month. Ray’s father died in Florida and was bought back to Nashville to be buried. Ray had been traveling back and forth to Florida for months to be with his father whenever things look grave. But the end came rather sudden and he wasn’t able to make it to his bedside in time.

Several of us including Ken Moore, Anita and Tom, myself and Vance Martin went by the funeral home.

Lynne’s father passed away a week or so later and I didn’t even know about it until after the funeral.

Also last month Memphis fan Claude Saxon died. According to Greg Bridges and several other messages I have received Cluade was one of the founding members of the Memphis SF Association. He also worked at Mid America books and was always kind and helpful to those looking for the perfect sf book..

Greg had this to say:

"Those who knew him well knew Claude as among the most gentle soul's on the face of this Earth. He will be missed by all that knew him even ever so slightly. His friends were his family and you can't say everyone has a family as big as Claude had in his friends.

I know I will miss him very much."

Conventions

Parthecon was a very intersting convention. It was smaller than the last several cons and as expectected for a baby con not everything went perfectly. The best part of the convention was a Saturday night concert by the Celtic sounding band " The Secret Commonwealth". The con suite and the parties empited out as work spread about how good they were. The Middle Tennessee SF Society party went rather well and we raised some money for Charles and Dave.

Upcoming Convnetions:

Memorial Day weekend , May 22- 24 is Libertycon.

The at the door registration is $ 35. It is at the Ramada Inn South off of I 75 in East Ridge.

May 22-24 - finds- NashCon – a gaming con in- Smyrna, Tennessee . Contact-- smcpeak@nashville.org for more info

June 12-14 -- DeepSouthCon 36 -- Birmingham, Alabama T

The memberships are $ 25 until May 15^th. The hotel is the Ramada Inn Suites Hotel at 420 20^th avenue south. They want you to reserve your room early and mention you are with B’hamacon. The hotel is 1 – 800-579-5464.

Contact the Birmingham people at :

POB 94151, Birmingham, Al. 35220

Rivercon is July 31- August 2, 1998 just before some big convention that has something to do with pirates.

Tom Norris sent a message that the Outside con web site is alive again at:

http://www.telalink.net/~badger/outside.html

OutsideCon is 11-13 September 1998 at Camp Marymount, Fairview TN. Thankfully the cicada’s will be gone by then.

If I didn’t know better I would swear the two most popular hobbies in Nashville is looking at the sky for signs of tornadoes ( and compulsively pulling up various weather radar on the web) or taking the temperature of the ground to see when the cicada’s will emerge and seranade us with their happy song.

God Fan News:

Randy Fox and his Bluegrass show on Vanderbilt’s WRVU Radio Station was in the Nashville Scene "Best Of Nahville"

A couple of tidbits I gleaned from Allen Steele’s web page and the Highgate newsletter.

The October-November issue of Asimov's had Allen’s story" Where Angels Fear to Tread"

It has since placed first in the annual Asimov's Readers Poll. .

Been nominated for both the Nebula and the Hugo awards.

Big Noisy Winds

How to prepare for big noisy winds and other disasters check out this FEMA page:

http://www.fema.gov/pte/prep.htm

MENA Disaster Preparedeness .

How to spot big noisy winds especially when they are hiding behind a thundercloud like that ship from Idependence Day.

From FEMA

Learn these tornado danger signs:

An approaching cloud of debris can mark the location of a

tornado even if a funnel is not visible.

Before a tornado hits, the wind may die down and the air may

become very still.

Tornadoes generally occur near the trailing edge of a

thunderstorm. It is not uncommon to see clear, sunlit skies behind

a tornado.

The best explanation of the weather conditions that day and how the ornado developed can be found at :http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/people/babin/imgallery/tortn/index.html

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory . Page developed by Steven M. Babin

For victims of disasters:

http://www.state.tn.us/commerce/weather/bad2.htm

How to deal with your insurance company

Red Cross Service Center

Payne Chapel

A.M.E. Church

212 Neill Ave.

Open 9-6 daily

.Red Cross Hotline

call: 1-800-422-7935

the Insurance Information Institute at 110 William Street ,New York, NY 10038

(212) 669-9200

http://www.iii.org/

After hearing from your insurance company's claims executive, you still feel your claim hasn't been

handled properly, call 800-942-4242. It is a toll-free consumer information telephone service

sponsored by the insurance industry. Trained personnel and licensed agents are available to assist

consumers who have complaints. The Helpline operates Monday - Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. ET.

Some other important sites:

http://nashville.citysearch.com/E/V/NASTN/0002/20/12/

Nashville Red Cross

The Salvation Army is seeking donations for tornado victims. Contributions can be sent to The Salvation

Army, P.O. Box 24236, Nashville, TN, 37202-4236. Victims are urged to contact The Salvation Army for help. Visit their web site for more information about getting help or on volunteer efforts.

http://www.rdgroup.com/nashville/home.htm

Tornado Recovery Information - Need Help? Call 242-0411

Cash Donations, Clothing and Furniture Needed Free Pickup for the Nashville area- 259-2358

Want to contribute to a worthy cause and see a lot of scary stuff:

Trail of the Tornadoes is a 30 min video tape filmed by WTVF which is the CBS affliate.

Their studio is in downtown Nashville and the film features footage from their " skycam" camera utop the Bat building plus film shot by two photographers hanging out of the door of the studio when the tornado came .

The tape is only 15.95 which includes shipping and handling. All proceeds go to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund and other area charities.

Call 1-800-957-news

•Allow 4-6 weeks delivery •All major credit cards accepted •For a limited time only •Non-refundable shipping and handling fee .