The Concise Version Science Fiction should only be read in mass-market paperback, preferably with a garishly illustrated cover. And the reader should be 12 years old. The Verbose, Profusely Self-Referential Version Science Fiction should never be read in hardback. Paperbacks merely by their tatty, down-market appearance flag you as someone who's just that type of shifty subversive capable of imagining a reality more than half a step distant from the status-quo. And you can hide it away in your back pocket so won't be eyeballed as one of those people should you ever find yourself in some rigidly conformist stronghold -- like a Whole Foods or University campus. Back in the previous century, when libraries actually bought books instead of burning them, it was common to have at least a couple of spinner racks stuffed with Sci-Fi paperbacks. A perfect gateway drug for youngsters venturing out from the Heinlein juveniles stashed in the children's section. I can't remember wh

  A Journey Through America With the Rolling Stones   Robert Greenfield lived and traveled with the Rolling Stones as they prepared for and executed their 1972 tour of the U.S. and Canada. S.T.P. was an acronym for "Stones Touring Party", which consisted of the band, crew, handlers, PR flacks, security, photographers, film crew, celebrities, groupies, hangers-on ... and Greenfield, pet journalist. Considered to be the first in-depth account of the 1970's traveling circus Rock-and-Roll tour, it was well-regarded at the time, but fell flat with the public. Only 5000 copies were printed. The book is a product of an interesting moment in time. Rock and Roll had survived its teenage Fad period before morphing into a viable artistic vehicle for young adults by the mid-sixties. After that second, short-lived interval (certainly over by Altamont, if not already by 1968) Rock and Roll transformed into a mass-market commercial product performed in 10,000 seat arenas. There's no

    Tinker -- Wen Spencer -- 2003 My membership for Balticon 2020 was rolled over to Balticon 2021, then rolled over to Balticon 2022 . Hopefully it'll stop rolling. If it starts to gather some moss, I'll see you in Baltimore over Memorial Day weekend. One of the scheduled guests is Wen Spencer, from whom I've read nothing. I decided to try something, in my quest to discover new SF authors -- by new, I mean someone not publishing before the present century. One of her earliest novels, "Tinker", was highly recommended in on-line reviews. Even though it was awarded Best Science Fiction Romance novel of 2004, I decided to take a flyer. In the near future, the Chinese have built an orbiting inter-dimensional gateway that sends out colonists for interstellar exploration. An unexpected side effect from the gate's operation sends the city of Pittsburgh to a parallel Earth where magic exists. This mirrored Earth, Elfhome, is populated by a race of elves who have esche

  Won't You Try / Saturday Afternoon -- Jefferson Airplane  "The Be-In was a great long stare in the mirror for the psychedelic community, both at the event and in the awed coverage given it by the news media -- everybody was impressed by the fact that the notorious Hell's Angels had stood guard over the generator for the PA system. The temptation to admire the image was too great."   -- Charles Perry, Rolling Stone  #207  26 February 1976 The above Ralph J. Gleason column published 55 years ago today in the San Francisco Chronicle, reports on the Gathering of the Tribes / Human Be-In on the Polo Field at Golden Gate Park, Saturday 14 January 1967. The hyperbolic, if good-natured, review of the event reflected the view of many in the new-generation Hip community (derisively named "Hippies" by the previous paragons of Hip, the "Beat" generation) who saw this event as the heralding of a new utopian era. But it marked instead the high-water mark of a

40 years of Playing and (mostly) DM-ing the World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game When I started playing D&D in 1981, I was already an adult.  I was a Tolkien fan, had read LoTR several times by then, and also some of high-fantasy pastiches the Sci-Fi paperback houses had started publishing in the late '70s. What little I knew about the game sounded intriguing. About the only other awareness I had were the reports about some D&D playing kid named Egbert disappearing in the steam tunnels. Some friends I was working with at a NASA facility were starting up a game, and I wrangled my way in. We were all newbies, starting with the Moldvay Basic rules, then picking up the Expert rules as we rolled along. At some point, we bought in to AD&D and played a mash-up of the two rule sets. We eventually ended up with a solid group of five. Our friendship pre-dated gaming and, particularly through the '80s, D&D was only a small part of our social interaction. We never play

  Reaper 0319  Goblin Warriors Missing the Archer -- I lost the bow before attaching. Probably it fell into the carpet and was sucked up by the vacuum.    

Northwest of Earth -- C. L. Moore When I was a wee lad, my father told me stories of his childhood growing up as the first-born of immigrant parents, in the depths of the Great Depression. One of his greatest pleasures, on the rare occasion when he had a dime in his pocket, was to run down to the local news stand and buy his favorite Pulp magazine, "The Shadow." He told me how the writers for "The Shadow" and the many other Pulps were paid such a low rate per word that they would need to sit banging on their typewriters non-stop to keep from starving. Needless to say, that gave me visions of forests clear-cut to fuel a mountain of shitty, disposable prose. The impression that stuck with me was that genre fiction of the era of the 20s and 30s was something to be avoided. Still, through the years, I'd read authors I greatly respected talk about how the Pulp mags were full of fabulous writers who inspired them to become authors themselves. I figured their memories

  Whence we learn the history of how the Posleen boiled forth to scourge the spaceways. A small surviving band of Posleen are whisked off Earth by the Indowy / Himmit, and sent off to discover the ancient and forgotten origin of their rampage across the galaxy. A team of human clerics chases them in the hope of converting the race, and leading them back to a peaceful existence in Galactic civilization. The designs of the Aldenata are revealed, and it seems that they themselves burst upon a galaxy already ravaged from a genocidal onslaught of unknown origin. This, and the John Ringo novel "Eye of the Storm", the last two published in the series, seem to be setting up a new existential threat to humanity, presumably those responsible for the pre-Aldenata catastrophe. Nothing has been published since 2009, though. This novel, like the rest of the series, is a well-written Space Opera romp -- leave your slide-rule at the door. I've greatly enjoyed this series, and have read a

Hadn't picked up the brush in almost a year; these three had been partially completed. Somewhere between Slop 'n Go and Table Top.                               Reaper 02011 Darbin, Human Wizard                                     TSR 5601 AD&D Shambling Mound                                TSR 5502 Gamma World Pure Strain Humans     The photos pick up fine detail not readily apparent to my naked eye. And probably to the eyes of the old men sitting around my table. But they should look great out there on the battle mat during play. Next up: Three Goblins, almost done.