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That there is a Michele Wilson cover! I love her stuff, and Im so glad that she getsso much my way. Mo Starkey was kind enough to take the image and set it up as a coverfor me! Shes an absolute star, no? That pun was, almost, completely intended.

So, Mo Starkey is Art Director for this one!OK, this issue has 2 Steve Stiles images! Gotta love that1 Whens he getting his

Hugo? Thats one right there! A man who has saved kitties from Fires, has donated ferretsto orphanages, who has tamed the Nubian Lion on the Plains of North America! The man

deserves a Rocket to use as the paperweight for his pile of commendations for MeritousService!

Now, theres a lot to talk about. Turns out Ill be working the Napa Valley FilmFestival in November. Love me some lm festival! Im going to be running the Wine Tent

in Calistoga! Cant go wrong with that!Theres my look at ConQuesT, a couple of LoCs, and theres art! Thats this issue.

Not a big one, but one Im looking forward to putting out because Ive been falling offschedule more and more often. I gotta get back into the rhythm. Were doing the HugoAward for Best Novel issue for Westercon, and theres gonna be at least two more issuesbetween now and then!

Not to mention my issue of Claims Department about the music of The Smiths.I love the Smiths, and it took The Smiths Project by Janice Whaley to make me realiseexactly how much. its been tied into much of my life. Its gonna be one of those GiantGarciazines that no one actually reads, but I will be printing and mailing a few out, prob-ably give some away at Westercon. Its looking like 80 or so pages.

What else is there?Oh yeah, Im currently loving the few booksIve been able to start reading. Theres

a great Psych novel (more on that later) and a couple of Non-Fiction Things (includingThe Science Fiction Reboot, which Ill be writing more about, probably in the next issue)

and a couple of J. Daniel Sawyer books. Theyre really enjoyable!Also, all my Bay Area Sports Teams in the Playoffs are no longer in The Playoffs.

Warriors did great, if they can keep the team together, theyll do well the next few years.The Sharks... well, they went 7 with the Kings and then they dropped off. Sad, but theyrealways at least something of a contender!

ALso, Ive been watching One Life to Live. Its my Soap Opera, has been for ages.Id watch Aussie Rules Football on ESPN 2 at noon, then at 1 turn over to ABC for OneLife. Its back after ABC cancelled it in 2011. They brought it back on Hulu and Im soexcited. They show two new episodes a week, and it works. They can swear now, and itseems like the writers just discovered the word shit as they use it all the time. Actually,

there are several instances where the swearing actually helps, which can be rare.

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Kansas City.I love it. Its a city built around BBQ.Thats not true, obviously, but its also a MAJOR

industry, it seems, and so on my trip to KC forConQuesT, its what Ill write about most.

Because Thats what I do!Of course, a city with a Con that is having

you as a Guest of Honor for the weekend isinstantly going to get some extra love from ya!Ive been lucky, Ive been Fan GoH 4 times (inChicago, Minneapolis, Toronto, and now Kansas

City), and the best part isnt just that theyll yyou out and put you up, but its that youre given

a bit of a star-turn on a big fun stage.

So, we got in on Wednesday and EricOrth got us at the airport and we had our rst

meal at a place in KC called Shoneys. They doburgers and sammiches, which is what Linda had,and I had the tiny miracles: Fried Cheese Curd.Now, I usually enjoy my cheese curd meltingover Fries and under Gravy, but these wereAWESOME! They still have a bit of squeak toem, and dippin em in BBQ sauce was nice. Theywere a bit heavy, but its Cheese, so what you

gonna do?After that, Linda and I watched a little

Castle, then the BBQ began! Jesi Pershing led the

way, and various others joined up. There was KeriOBrien, who I only knew as a name on an eMailstring, and Jeff Orth, who was actually putting usup for the night. James Murray showed up, and ILOVE Jim. Hes the worst punster in the world*(* - Glenn Glazer gives him a run for his money)and there was also Jo, who I know on Facebookas Mutha Hydra. Shes from the UK and is anabsolute RIOT! We had those hilariously darkconversations that allow me to go all blue, as

well as surreal, and it was a blast. Of course, Istayed up too late, had a little bit to drink, but

A Series of BBQ Reviews Masquerading as a ConQuesT Report

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got to enjoy the Pork that Jeff had been preparing for theCon Suite.

Oh. My. Ghod.Now. Ive had BBQ all over the world, in just about

every potential form, and this was some of the best Iveever eaten. It was powerfully smoked, had enough bite ofthe wood to give it the distinctive Kansas City bark. Its why

KC is just bout the only place you nd the menu optionof Burnt Ends. They are impressive. The sauce was ArthurBryants bottled, as I understand it, and it only needed a hintof it to give it a bit more over-tones. We had a great eveningbefore the night was done. Also, Jo mixes a helluva a Gin &Tonic.

So, the night ends, the next day brings us our pre-con traditions: museums and meals. Whenever Ive been aGoH, or if weve decided to make a trip to a con thatsout of town, we always have a day to go to the museumsand tourist attractions of the city were visiting. In this case,there were two museums I had to get to: The NationalNegro Leagues Museum and the American Jazz Museum.Luckily, theyre in the same building, a part of the 18th & VineJazz District, right across from the GEM Theatre, which stillhas the original sign and whatnot. Its a nice part of town,though at points they put up fake facades to mimic old-timey building fronts and these were starting to show theirage.

Now, we got there early, but we had not had breakfast,and it was after 10am, so I convinced Linda to walk over toone of the places Id been told was the Best BBQ in KansasCity: Arthur Bryants. It was a nice walk through a semi-industrial-esque part of town, but it was only 3 or 4 blocksaways. We got there and the place was deserted, so much sothat we wondered if it was open until I tried the door andwalked in.

Now, this is not an upscale joint. The window whereyou order reminded me of nothing so much as a Fourth of

July Fireworks stand (buy one, get ve free!) and we walked

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but certainly not spicy. The Hot and Spicy wasnot spicy, and the regular was so full of avour

that I nearly passed out. So very damn hell assgood! I couldnt quite nish the rack, so I gave

a rib to Linda, and she is the cutest when sheseating Ribs! I was very happy and very full.

We went to the museums, starting withthe Negro Leagues Museum, which was very

nice in a late 1990s sort of way. It was very mucha Colourful Text Panels against the walls witha few cases sorta museum, which was the wayfolks were doing things back then. It makes a lotof sense youre thinking that youre going to haveto move them, because its not a whole lot ofwork to move that kind of set-up. They chose avery bright color pallet and a lot of video. Theywere careful to put historic context in withthe baseball stuff, which was nice. And while

they did mention the House of David Baseball

Team, and the Mexican and Cuban and JapaneseLeagues, they were careful to point out that onlyBlack players were banned from baseball. This iscertainly not true, ALL non-white players (withthe possible exception of Mexicans and a fewCubans) were not in the Bigs until after JackieRobinson. They said that Blacks formed theirown leagues and were the only ones who did

so. On the West Coast, there were JapaneseLeagues, largely Semi-Pro, that played up anddown the coast. A few of these lasted until the1960s! Still, the material they had was great,and the looming presence of Bock ONeil, anincredibly important gure to the History of

American Baseball, gured prominently.

The Jazz Museum was a bit of adisappointment, but also had some incrediblestuff. it was set-up as a series of pods dedicated

to an individual gure: Charlie Parker, Duke

Brubeck, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, and onand on and on. Its hard, I know, to give everyonethe attention they deserve, but they could havedone a somewhat better job. One of the thingsthey had was a touchscreen interactive with abunch of Historical lms. One of them was Bill

Bojangles Robinson doing a call and responsedance lm which was GREAT! I watched it twice.

After that, we had some time. Jeff hadbeen telling us to go to the National WorldWar I museum. To be honest, I wasnt thatinterested. Im not a big War History guy, andWorld War I was both the rst Modern, and

the last Traditional, war. The interesting thingabout it was that had an amazing space, a HUGEmonumental tower. We drove over there, paidadmission, and walked through.

Pretty Darn Glad I did!

They have you walk over a glass bridge

up and ordered. The Lovely & TalentedLinda had a Pulled Pork Sammich,which I had a slab of ribs.

My Ghod, the ribsFirst off, they did not bother

with a plate. They just set the slab ofribs, mound of pickles and bread right

on the lunch tray. Thankfully, they putLindas on a plate. I took it back to atable in a little niche in the far wall, justbig enough for two at the table. I dugin, as Linda sampled her fries (whichshe declared Not Great). The Ribswere perfect, even without sauce. Thebark was there, they were just fattyenough, they had immense avor and

texture. It was ideal. They had threesauces. The Sweet and Spicy was OK,

Ellington, Louis Armstrong, EllaFitzgerald, though they also had amore general section that talked a lotmore about concepts; rhythm, horns,melody, etc. That section was largelydone via audio, and that stuff tendsto break down, and in several parts

it was broken stuff. That happens. Still,hardly any love for some of the gures

that I consider to be among the mostimportant in Jazz. There were none ofthe Avant Garde, which was sad. Folkslike Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock,Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, aswell as Earl Fatha Hines, Eubie Blake,Django Rheinhart (OK, hes notAmerican, but he inuenced American

Jazz greatly of the 1940s and 50s), Dave

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with poppies underneath it. Theyre fake, Impretty sure, but the connection to In FlandersFields is obvious, and it was a nice touch. Themuseum itself had a TON of space, which allowedthem to do three things I like. First LOTS oftext. Everything is explained and theres lots ofscene-setting done in text panels. Second, they

do a lot of atmospheric stuff, like a recreationof trenches and a battle eld with a multimedia

presentation. Finally, theres a lot of interaction.They separate it into a European Side, and anAmerican side. Its actually kinda Good Guys andBad Guys, but not entirely. The interactive tableswith all up and operational, though a bit difcult

to operate. Still, lots of good stuff.AND TONS OF ARTIFACTS!There were cannons, and mortars, and

swords, and shells, and uniforms, a tank, and

was off to the Hotel. We checked in, hung arounda bit, and then off to Gates for a BBQ dinnerwith the staff. Only the Toastmaster, PatriciaWrede, and I went of the GoHs, but a bunch ofthe staff was there. It was a lot of fun.

And MY GHOD the BBQ!The spicy versions werent great, again

hardly spicy at all, but the regular were spectacular.TONS of Flav-R. The meat was well-smoked, hada nice bark on it, and as I had the beef and ham,it was a HUGE portion on a sammich. It wasdelicious. Linda had the same sammich, but withsliced pork instead of Ham. it was equally hugeand delicious. The conversation was awesome,and it was a nice start for the Con portion ofthe con.

Yes, the Con is bigger than just the con.Linda and I then hung out in the

ConSuite, did a Crossword puzzle that includedtwo word (Monotheism and Cockknocker) thatwe had brought up at the BBQ. It was fun! Theyhad a really delicious queso dip in the ConSuite.This might have had the most food, and almostcertainly the BEST, of any ConSuite I have everbeen to of a con this size. It was awesome!

Off to bed, kinda early sadly, and then itwas morning and we ended up having breakfastwith Joel Philips, one of my favorite people in theworld! He was awesome and brought his son,the great artist Alec, with him. Sadly, the serviceat the Hotel Restaurant was slow slow slow. Ittook them about 30 minutes to get our order,early an hour for us to get our food. That said,the French Toast was pretty damn tasty. I mean,it was exactly what I like about French Toast, andit was coupled with crunchy bacon. Some nd

it crumbly, but thats exactly how I like it. Afterthat, we got ready for the day.

That started with hanging with our goodbuddy John Picacio.

He was the Artist Guest of Honor atBayCon, and wed met a few times at WorldCons.

a few vehicles, andmedals, and letters, andposters and on and on.These set the scenebeautifully and werecelebrated. All toooften, museums that

use lots of text andatmospherics forgetabout the power ofthe artifact, but notthe National WorldWar One museum!Very very well-done.When KC hosts the2016 WorldCon,James Bacon NEEDSto see this place!

After that, it

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an order for more Arthur Bryants! No question,

great choice. The rst panel I had was aboutthe State of the Art, about cover and comicsart, where John put together a slide show andGeorge RR Martin, Pat Rothfuss (the AuthorGoH), John Hornor Jacobs, me and Mitchell(head of the ASFA) talked about our thoughtson them. There were some great pieces, largelycovers of books, and we gave our thoughts. Iloved it! There were a couple of artists I hadno idea about who I am very grateful that John

exposed me to!

After that, I wandered around, talked

to folks for the documentary, had a good lookaround, and then headed to my next panel,which was the rst of my editions of Themed

for Your Pleasure, the Pseudo-Ofcial Podcast of

Journey Planet. I got to do silly little interviewswith Catherine Spector (author and lovelywoman, exceptionally funny), McKay (a fan andcomputer guy!) and Brett, who was awesome!Theyre going up on our website, and on theDrink Tank Review of Books, and ALSO we shot

it for 5 Cons (5consdocumentary.weebly.com)

peak of my funny for the Weekend!

We were brought the Arthur Bryants,this time I had the sliced pork and Linda thePulled pork. We ate up in the ConSuite, wherethey were having a homemade BBQ challengewhere they had 4 sauces competing. I used therst one as the sauce on my Pork and OH MY

GHOD it was awsum! I mean it was sweet, andthere was a great touch of peppery avor, vinegar,

and smoke to it. I loved it, easily my favorite ofthe 4 that were out there. I used it on my pork

and it made it even better because it played so

He was starting to hanghis art in the Art Showand we gave him a hand.Hes such a great artist,easily my favorite ofall the Pro Artists outthere. We talked and

he was showing somegreat art, most notablya Loteria Card that hisnew project, Loneboy, isdoing. Its awesome stuffand I cant wait until theentire Loteria set is outthere.

We were havingsome time crunch, mostnotably I had threepanels on Friday andnot nearly enough timebetween them to getlunch, especially if theservice at the HotelRestaurant was going tobe so slow. So, we put in

and its good stuff. I hada lot of fun with thisone!

After that,Opening Ceremonies,also up on myYouTube page (Im

JohnnyEponymous onthe YouTubes) and it wascool. We all said a littlebit, got an introduction,and then they hadannouncements fromfolks. At one point,someone announcedthat they were havinga Dark Shadowsmarathon room party,and at the end oftheir announcement,I proclaimed I loveJohnny Depp! and thewoman who made theannouncement stormedthe stage! It was the

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well with the smoked meat.There was also BBQ Beef and Pork in the ConSuite, the

stuff made by Jeff, and it was great, especially with the sauce.Others didnt seem to like it as much as I did, and I would stilltake it 100 times out of 101! It was great. There were a bunchof my favorite people in fandom who showed up, most notablyElizabeth and Dave McCarty, with the adorable 3 Year Old Mia,Tim Miller and his son, Joel, Diane Lacey, Leann Vurlhurst and

many, many more. We were talking about various cons, and wegot to watch the reworks from across the freeway at Royal

Stadium. Dave, that scamp, was making lewd comments all theway through. That was awesome! Dave also came up with abrilliant concept for Fencon in a couple of years for the 11thannual edition. Tims often the chair, and the concept was dark:Fencon 9-11: Fucking Al-Qaeda. I think it works.

We got a little extra sleep and Saturday was around andwe shot more, and then did what I think was the best of theThemed for Your Pleasure Podcasts. It was Lawrence Schoen

(Hugo and Nebula-nominated author), John Picacio (Hugowinning artist), and Brad Denton (Hugo-nominated author). Itwas a great trio and the interviews were all pretty spectacular.John, in particular, was awesome. He talked some art philosophy,which is stuff I like.

After that, it was time for breakfast, which was Dennys,across the street. Even accounting for the walk, it was twiceas fast as the meal in the Hotel. We got back and I went toa panel about WorldCons called WorldCon 101, which was a

basic WorldCon panel, but done in a room full of folks whoregularly attend WorldCons. It was weird. I did a panel aboutFilm Adaptations, which was amazing because everyone onthe panel had a different direction for their enjoyment. I likedthe lms like Dune (Lynchs, not the SciFi Channels) and The

Shining and The Hunger Games. I was alone on those. I wasntas big a Princess Bride fan as others on the panel save for theguy who HATED it and thought it wasnt well-cast. Andre theGiant was the best thing about that movie! It was a fun debate.

At every Con Im a guest at, I have Unreasonable series

of Requests, and my Unreasonable Request for my Liason,Meghan Petersen, was for Pudding Cups and Slap bracelets. Ican not think of better results!

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After that, it was a night out. DaveMcCarty, Liz, Mia, Tim, his son (Ewan? Ian? I cannever remember, but hes a lot of fun!) and EricOlson along with Linda and I. We headed intotown for Jack Stacks, the place Id been told wasmost important to get to! It was a sit-down place,but since it was Memorial Day Saturday, there

was a wait later, so we went in early. Driving over,we had the typical SMoFish conversation thatyoud expect in a year where there are 3 groupsbidding at the next WorldCon. Its an awesomeplace, all dark wood, and we sat down, and Miawas pretty amazing. She wasnt loud or anything,possibly due to the fact that Liz brought heriPad, and Mia loves it! Every time shed nish a

level, shed throw her hands up and say I did it!,which was just adorable!

Oh yeah, the food.OH!MY!G!H!O!D!It was amazing! The regular ribs were

great, they didnt really need any sauce, the ribs

themselves were great, the pork ribs being solid,very tasty. The Babybacks were even better,delicious and smokey.

Then there was the Crown Rib. It wasperfectly marbled, incredibly tasty, needed nosauce, was hyper-tender and deserving of farbetter adjectives than I am able to provide! Youonly got two of em, and Linda and I were sharing,but that one was spectacular.

Then there were the Lamb Ribs. These

are deserving of a sonnet, no a Villanelle! So

tender, so tasty, and these, when you added a dabof sauce, practically exploded with full avor!

Again ,we only got two, but they were the bestribs Ive ever had. I might have to see if I can nd

a Lamb rib provider. MUST DO THIS!!!!!As amazing as the ribs were, the sides

were better. The Beans, heavy with BBQ Sauce

avor, were great. BIG TASTE! And then, therewas the Cheesy Corn. it was Corn in CheeseSauce, and it was fantastic! No, it was Fantastical!It was so good, I forgot that I normally dont likecheese sauces! There were cheesy potatoes,and they were even better! Au Gratin, only WAYbetter than anything other than Gregoire!

And then, we had dessert! I orderedCarrot Cake. It was easily the best carrot cakeIve ever had. Liz ordered the Chocolate BrownieCake.

That was a revelation!No, a REVOLUTION!

It was so much better than anything Idever had in that genre before!

Back to the con, they had a live ArtAuction, and Linda had her eyes on some things.I have a theory about Fannish auctions. They aremore a form of entertainment than an ACTUALauction. I, then, will assume a sort of persona.

In this case, it was mostly my own darn self. JimMurray, who was the auctioneer, has a thing aboutprimes. Here are a couple of actual exchanges -

Other bidder - 17.Jim - Thats Prime!Chris - 21, ALSO prime!Jim - Thats not Prime!Chris - Now whos being naiveOr, the one that really made folks laugh

for some reason, possibly because of how fast ithappened.

Jim - Do I hear 10 dollars?Chris - 12.Other Bidder - 17Chris - Sixteen!Other bidder - 19!Crowd laughs loudlyJim - Wait, what just happened?Linda got a few pieces of art, most

importantly a piece by Mitchell (for less than100 bucks) and a lovely Picacio. I got a GREATpottery piece that was Fredos Bread Bowl,but Im using it to hold my keys and wallet! Itscompletely different than the John Singer piece Ibought at SFCOntario, but its absolutely lovely!

After that, we hung out in the ConSuite,then I found that I wanted to see a few folkswho I gured were in the Gaming room. Clay

and Hershey, two Minnesota fans, were indeed in

there, and they were playing a game called Lost

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Cities. I watched, kibbutzed, made fun little comments, and after they were done,we played some Zar.

That is my favorite game in the world! Its a card game and its awesome!I love it too much, and I seldom get to play it. Alec Philips joined us and we had agreat time. This is a game where I can trashtalk with the best of them. Im usuallygood at Trash-talking, but having Minnesotans around me makes my brash sort ofhumanity more aming. We played, and while I didnt win, I didnt lose either, which

for a guy with little experience is a good sign!WHile we were playing, a couple came in and mentioned that I had said that

I love BBQ and if there was any left over, they should bring it my way. I had said soin my GoH speech, so I was pleased to see that they brought me left-over ArthurBryants! It was chicken and burnt ends, neither of which Id had. The chicken wasgood, but those burnt ends were AWEMAZING! Maybe not quite Lamb Ribs, butthey were still WOOHOO!!!!!

We played until 2am. It was late, and we were leaving on Sunday at 5, soafter staying out so late, I, of course, had a 10 am panel, which was another HardCopy Podcast. John Hornor Jacobs and Teresa Nielsen Hayden were the guests andit was a good time. Teresas so great! We chatted, I got a few words out of PatrickNielsen Hayden, Linda shot stuff, and it was great!

After that, there was the charity auction, which was nice, and and we packedand got ready. We didnt get into as much fun as the Art Auction, Deb Giesler wasthere and shes a shark! I would never want to go up against her, so I only bid a fewtimes.

Jeff took us to the airport, and we had Mexican food there. Not BBQ, butthere was Mexican so I ended trip foodwise, with cooked cheese, much as it begun.Queso fonduta, which was really tasty.

We ew home, and on the plane, I read a novel. Ive been watching Psych,and Ive been in the mood to read a mystery, and Psych is the kind of mystery Ienjoy. Pop Culture-soaked and hilarious at times. This one was about a murderthat Shawn, the main character who happens to be a fake psychic, managed to geta woman off for, only to have a MASSIVE web of murder, deception and funkinesshappens. I loved the book, the work of William Rabkin is typically delightful, and itwas a fast read. It was called A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read. Gotta love it.

So, I headed back home, dropped by BayCon for Monday, thus maintainingmy Cal Ripken-like streak at my hometown con, but still, it will always be the yearI got to hang out in Kansas City and eat OH MY GHODLY GOOD BBQ!

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Art from Steve Stiles!

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Diane O. Reads Books, Then She Reviews Them!Title: AfnityBridge:ANewbury&HobbesInvestigation[2009] TheOsirisRitual:ANewbury&HobbesInvestigation[2010]Author: George MannPublisher:Tor

Wherever Tor found this author, they need

to nd more. George Mann delivers a tour de force

with his series, Newbury and Hobbs Investigations.

In Afnity Bridge, we get the rst glimpse of an

author whose writing sucks you in like a riptide and

tosses you onto the shore of this Steampunk world

with no life preserver, no water, no rations. Forget

getting lost in the depth of imagery he conjures witha steam-powered world. Forget getting lost in the

glimpses into the life of the various levels of society

in this version of England. Forget getting lost in the

delightful gadgetry.

You are lost in the sheer reality, improbable,

impossible, surreal, yet maybe maybe not.

With The Osiris Ritual, Mann delves deeper into

the psyche of characters and countries. The humanity

of his characters wins out against the horror of what

they face. This is no gilded mystery lled with neatgadgets and neat endings. Does Mann deliver nicely

wrought plots with credible endings? Absolutely. He

also leaves you reeling with the awareness of what

is to come.

Mann is so deft at his craft that he make you believe.

He is so good that he make you crave more from

this series, even when you know there will be

disappointment and betrayal, danger and drama, and

no truly safe haven at the end of the tunnel.

Like his characters, we go on because to stop

is unthinkable. One does what one can, and stays astrue to oneself as one can.Author

Author: Liesel SchwarzTitle AConspiracyofAlchemists Chronicles of Light and ShadowPublisher DelRey

Like Steampunk and want a good read? Like the madcapsilliness of Keystone Kops? Take a Chance - Eleanor Elle Chance,that is and let the mayhem begin!

Liesel Schwarz brings us a fantastic bit of fun with AConspiracy of Alchemists, the rst book in the series Chronicles ofLight and Shadows. Part urban fantasy, part historical adventure,with a dash of silliness and paranormal, Conspiracy delivers awalloping good load of fun and the promise of more to come.

The scene: London, Paris, Venice and beyond. Theprotagonists: Elle, airship pilot, and Marsh, a warlock who hiresher to transport an unusual cargo. The adventures leap offthe page like a barrel full of monkeys. Atrocious Alchemists.Calculating Warlocks. Absent-minded scientists. Altruists andtraitors. Nightwalkers. Supernatural creatures of all stripes. Andthats just for starters.

Schwarz mixes humor and high adventure, immortalityand immorality, zeppelins and gyrocopters, feminism andfanatics together as Elle faces an unexpected and unwanteddestiny, with danger at every step. Allies and enemies bite offmore than they can chew with this morsel of womanhood. Sitback and enjoy as she plots a course to save the world from amagical apocalypse and have some say in how she lives her life.

This book is mind-boggling. With a quick turn of phrase,the author imbues a minor character with so much depth thatyou want to scream for more volumes just on the tidbits. Mrs.Hinges Guide to Housekeeping. La Fee Vertes Guide to Owninga Paranormal Pubs, aka Memoirs of an Absinthe Fairy. OraclesGone Wrong. Visions of movies, TV spin offs and lead-ins toOprahs Book of the Month ll my mind. If there is a God/dess ofSteampunk out there, someone will make the author very, veryrich and her fans very, very happy.

Schwarz deserves a new word to describe her style.Paranormorality - paranormal morality tale doesnt quite do it

justice but its a start.

I cant wait for the next in the series. My dimples hurt fromgrinning. More, please!

Title: AFantasyMedley2[2012]Editor: Yanni KuzniaPublisher: SubterraneanPress

Before I was handed his anthology, I was

not overly familiar with Subterranean Press or Yanni

Kuznia. I wish I was. If this is their usual, I have been

missing out.

Kuznias quartet of original stories is a

wonderful array by gifted authors. Tanya Huff,Amanda Downum, Jasper Kent and Seanan McGuire.

They deliver superb nuggets, stories that are

top shelf offerings. The book is short, 160 pages.

They bring fantasy to life with their own insight

and love of a tale. I could write more but I wont. I

want to chase down a copy of Fantasy Medley 1.

Do yourself a favor. Read this book. Savor it.

It is well worth it.

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Letter Graded MailsenttoGarcia@computerhistory.org

byOurGentlestReadersLet us start with John Purcell!!!!!I think those are the latest issues of your

zine. What I think I shall do is write a LloydPenney-style loc, which I havent done in manya moon, and make a handful of quick commentson each of these issues.Well, briey they were, but you man-

aged to get your LoC to me about 5

minutes after Id sent the next issueoff to Bill!

#340 - Taral Wayne can now crawl un-der a rock and whimper himself to sleep. Hardto believe that he wrote 100 articles for DrinkTank! Obviously, he has WAY too much timeon his hands. Be that as it may, this was a veryinteresting article, one that begs the question:why? Well, I guess its the challenge. Once hepushed past the 50 article mark, I suppose Taral

looked at himself in the mirror and said, well,why not? Why not make it an even hundred? Sohe achieved fannish history. Outside of writingapazines, I cant imagine anyone doing anythinglike this: writing 100 articles for somebody elsesfanzine. There is no question in my mind thathe couldnt have done it without an equally in-sane person publishing fanzines at a pace to rivalcockroach reproduction --- you.

In other words, you are just as much toblame for this milestone achievement, Chris, as

Taral is for writing all those fershlugginer ar-ticles. And we were all here to witness it. Willfanzine history ever be the same? Wait, dont an-swer that question...I do what I can...

#341 - I am not one for Hugo handicap-ping and such, and since Valerie and I will actu-ally be there this year for the Award ceremony

- shes soon to begin production on our fancydress duds for Hugo night - for once I have morethan a passing interest in them. And in actuality, Ireally dont care who wins for once: everybodyseems to be worthy contenders, so Im going tobe there to enjoy the show.Im still choosing between outts!

The really nifty thing is that I wont haveto worry about copyright bots crashing my en-joyment of the proceedings.

THAT will be a major plus, no?

Thanks for pubbing, even if youre notcranking them out as rapidly as you used to. Seeyou in San Antonio! The fanzine lounge is gonnabe the place to be!

All the best,John Purcell

Very much looking forward to the

Fanzie Lounge at San Antonio! I love a

good Fanzine Lounge!Thanks, John!

And now... Lloyd Penney!

Dear Chris:Three issues of The Drink Tank are here,

340, 341 and 342. As you are enjoying MemorialDay, today for us is Victoria Day, and our rst

really warm day. And, Im going to see the mixed-review new Trek movie this afternoon, so Id bet-ter get with it on this issues.

Victoria Day... I LOVED her in all those1950s movies!

340We never get the egoboo wed like to getin our heart of hearts, but what we do get ispretty good. School was not a good place for meeither when I was growing up, but I was prescientenough to realize that life could easily open upas soon as I was out of high school, and the fam-ily moved to the west coast, and thats exactlywhat happened. Taral, you were lucky enough to

nd someone in town who spoke your language,

but I grew up in Orillia, north of Toronto, a smalltown of about 23,000. No one else there spokethe language I wanted to speakgetting out ofOrillia and off to the west coast did the trick.Getting noticed is important, especial-

ly when youre a young fan. Its some-

thing thats always been true, and so

often over-looked. Having someone

who can speak their language. I waslucky, I had that in spades!

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If I had my way, a number of us wouldhave at least one silver rocket, but theres onlyso many to go around. Well have to make dowith the egoboo.Theyre also highly practical! Ive usedmine for a variety of purposes!

341Taral should have a silver rocket,

and so should Steve Stiles. And it doesnt hap-pen this year, those chances get slimmer as thedays go by. Perhaps David Thayer/Teddy Harvias

return to fanzines might get on the ballot again;the competition gets tougher.Can never be sure whats gonna hap-pen! Id really like to see D. West on

the ballot next year, though he may

well decline the nom!

I thought that Best Fancast and Best Fan-zine were supposed to separate the blogs andpodcasts from the fanzines, but as I expected,that didnt happen. I know my own time will be

done when I fail to recognize the majority of thepeople on the ballot, and that time is just abouthere, probably at London. If Montreal doesntwin the 2017 Worldcon, I think that time will benext year in London, and its been a good run.It should have separated em out, butalas, it was neutered by this years Ad-

ministrator. There does need to be aBest Blog category, or somthing of the

like.

342A ne Starkey cover We con-tinue to lose our friends, with the departure ofthe Wombat and Roger Ebert. Jan was denitely

hyperactive, but his happiness came about frombeing as involved with what was happening aspossible.Really gonna miss Wombat at World-Con...

The Nebulas are handed out, and I sawsomething from Jean Martin about who wonThe Kim Stanley Robinson novel picked up theLucite block, thats the only one I remember.I was there, man! It was a good week-end, and I got to meet KSR and folks.

Alliette de Bodard was there and she

also won! I got a 1956 Stanford Year-

book signed by a ton of the authors! Itwas awesome!

The fandom I see from my own vantageis that fans do their thing, and as those thingshappen, we are successful most of the time, wefail here and there, and we try our best to en-joy ourselves, and make that enjoyment happenfor others, too. I dont like to bring gender intoit, but successful conventions, clubs, etc. are runby both genders, and I hope the day will come

when we wont have to differentiate by gender.

Were not there yet, and discussion will bring usto that day. The last four or ve conventions Ive

attended were all run by women, so all of thiswill balance out over time. We all participate asbest as we can.Thats probably true, time is the greatequalizer, it seems. As we move along,

we see more and more change, quitepossibly not fast enough for many, if

not most, folks, but its also the way

things change. Even when you have

periods of great expansion in laws and

such, it still takes time, sometimes a

great deal of time, to change attitudes

and beliefs.

This is perhaps a poor letter to receivefor three issues of The Drink Tank, but this hasbeen a busy weekend for me. Saturday wascleaning up the apartment as much as we could,Sunday was spent helping with the cleaning ofone of our favourite pubs, and today is a day ofrest, and trying to get over the various aches andpains of our labours. Tonight is a fannish pub-night at the same pub we cleaned, Tuesday is adoctors appointment in nearby Mississauga, andWednesday is a job interview with an advertising

agency. I think Im readyor maybe Ill just clonemyself, and hell report back to see how I did.Hope all went well, Big Guy!

Good luck with the Hugo, we have novote this year because we bought for Londoninstead of San Antonio, and we continue to savefor London.Yours, Lloyd Penney.

Well miss ya at San Antonio!Its always good to have yall around,

but Londons gonna be off the hook!

Art by Teddy Harvia (aka Yiva Dreadth)

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And now... Taral Wayne!

Loc on Drink Tank 342, 17 May 2013

Dont look at me as a writer Drink Tankhas lost look at me a loccer that Drink hasgained. Potentially, anyway.I will do just that!

To begin with, I have given up thinkingabout Hugos. The whole subject seems pointless,in as much as nothing that anyone can say orapparently do has any effect on them. The voterthrows his dart and whichever balloon pops, VoxPopuli has spoken. There is rhyme and reason towho the voters aim for, to be sure. I can namea half dozen inuences on the outcome of the

Fan Hugos. But like the weather, its easier toexplain in retrospect than to predict in advance.I neither case the weather or Hugos canyou do much about it. So you wont hear mecomplaining any longer

At least not until next year.I started doing the entire Handicapping

thing because I wanted to gure out

those inuences. Im just about .500

lifetime.

A lot of fans have passed away recently,

but you dont always feel much when you hearthe news. Fandom is an awfully big place, afterall. Take Roger Ebert, for example. He was a fan?I didnt know that. But it seems that he wrotefor the fanzine Xero and hung around ForrestJ. Ackerman. Xero was published quite a longtime ago, though. Even after decades of fanzinecollection, I own no copies and have never readone. They were all bought up by afuent comics

fans in the 1960s and 70s, I guess. I remember

a set that was put up for sale more than 35

years ago. The owner wanted $150 for them; anutterly scandalous price at the time. But withrst issues of Spiderman going for thousands

of dollars, and it not being nearly as old as thefanzine, $150 was probably a bargain. Thats justhow comics fandom was and probably still is.I loved his reviews, and the few fannish

pieces Ive read have been spectaculartoo!

I quibble about hanging out with Forry,too. In my mind, Forry stopped being a fan whenhe started lurking around movie studios and hebecame the editor of Famous Monsters of FilmLand. He may have been a fan at heart, but apartfrom talking to fans through his magazine, orfrom the front of a room at conventions, whatfanac did Forry ever do after the 1950s? Whatfannishness could then possibly rub off on anyonewho hung around with Forrest J. Ackerman? Ifany fannishness did rub off, it would be lm-

fannishness.Id argue that Forry was just as Fannish

in the later years as he was earlier. I

spent hours with him, talking about

fandom. He did some fan writing

all along, his stuff for Mimosa was

particularly nice stuff. Maybe it wasa bouncing ball, periods of fan stuff

followed by periods of non-fan stuff.

To me, then, Roger Ebert was only atelevision personality, and one I had seen littleof, for that matter. I felt no sense of loss.Growing up a lm fan means that he

was an inuence. He wrote reviews as

if he was the ultimate lm fan.

Its a different case with Jan Howard

Finder. He was a fan, a-yup. I know I met Jan at

least once, at one of those cons you know theone the con with guests, panels, a hotel, stufflike that. I seem to recall it was in upper NewYork State or maybe Pennsylvania. But, thatsnot the point, is it? I met him at least once andmaybe two or three times. Somehow, though, Ispent so little time with Finder that I knew him

mainly by reputation. News of his death servedmainly to remind me that I had once known him.I clearly felt he was one of our own.Ill miss him. Nice guy who always had

a story.

It was nearly the same with AndrewOffutt. I think I knew him but I cant recallwhen we ever met. Maybe I had just known aboutAndy for so long reading his letters in fanzines that it seemed like I knew him. I thought Imight have read a few of his books. Well acouple. But ach! As I look down the list onWikipedia of books hed written, I dont see asingle familiar title! So much science ction and

fantasy; too little time and money.Also reported in File 770 in recent weeks

were the deaths of Dan Adkins, Larry Farsace,and Ray Harryhuasen. Those guys will be missed, though

Harryhausen is the only one I can sayfor sure that Id met.

Really fandom is so big. Its a bloodyshame, but how can anyone hope to knoweveryone in it, no matter how many cons a fanattends? I doubt I know one in a hundred of thepeople in fandom, and so far Ive been relativelylucky that few have passed on. I was not so luckywith Phyllis Gotlieb, though, who died someyears ago. Nor with Bill Bowers, who also died a

number of years ago. Nor with Mike Glicksohn,

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