Pages

▼

Mar 28, 2012

Unearthing Gems - More Ditmar Eligibles

SFC82Having wrangled possums out of my roof and engaged in some amateur archaeology (the house is 120 years old, very interesting the things you find discarded in your roof – 32 volt wiring, false ceilings) I sat down to scour the fan production category of the Ditmar Eligible list.


And I am finding some absolute gems;  fan work that probably should see wider circulation or maybe it does. It just doesn’t get to me.


You see I have lived in relative isolation my whole life.  Growing up in Alice Springs I was well into my teens by the time we got commercial television. 


I only have 3-4 early copies of Aurealis because newsagents seemed to get them in intermittently, and its always been too bloody expensive to go anywhere from Alice Springs – still is in fact.


The Internet coincided with the start of my university degree and here I am nearly 20 years later, in the middle of a wheat field in rural SA, having just finished an interview with an award winning novelist, in another country, via Skype( that cost me nothing).
The world is at my fingertips or it should be.
I am reading Issue 82 of SF Commentary, part of the 40th Anniversary Edition. Yep a fan mag that has been running 40 years.  And I am blown away by the history, the quality of the writing and the contributors.  Last year’s editions are available free of charge online here.


I can’t help thinking though that we should be paying for this stuff and that a blog web page with web 2.0 functionality advertising its existence, wouldn’t be too bad an idea either. Working out how to make it available in ebook formats might be worthwhile as well.  Indeed perhaps this is a topic for a fan panel/workshop?
This sort of work deserves wider distribution.


I am not convinced that the internet necessarily expands the SF & F community, rather than just creating a community that just happens to exist in Cyberspace. Your thoughts?

Did you enjoy this post? Would you like to read more? You can subscribe to the blog through a reader,by Email or Follow me on twitter.

Posted by Sean Wright at 4:26 PM

Comments (4)

Loading... Logging you in...
Dashboard | Edit profile | Logout
  • Logged in as
0 Vote up Vote down
Gillian Polack's avatar

Gillian Polack · 676 weeks ago

I was blown away when I found out about it, too. That's why I write for this and for Steam Engine Time (which will end soon, alas, but which is my favourite fanzine of all). The efanzine site is one of my favourite haunts. So much good stuff, well written and thoughtful. I just need more time in my day...
1 reply · active 676 weeks ago
Loading...
+2 Vote up Vote down
SB Wright's avatar - Go to profile

SB Wright 110p · 676 weeks ago

I am trying to figure out why its taken my this long to find it. If I wasn't going through the eligibles list I wouldn't know they exist. Are they generally distributed via mailing list and shirt-fronts?

I am wondering if a ebook construction workshop at Continuum 8 might be worthwhile - probably too late though.
+1 Vote up Vote down
Sue Bursztynski's avatar

Sue Bursztynski · 676 weeks ago

I think a lot of the older fanzines are still paper. It's nice that the Internet has made it possible to spread them around. Media fanzines have been republished on- line too ; I discovered a web site that had published, with permission, a lot of stories I first read in print, years ago.

Mind you, I've always thought that blogs are more or ess this era's fanzines. :-)
My recent post And, finally ... Stephen Thompson, Editor
1 reply · active 676 weeks ago
Loading...
+2 Vote up Vote down
SB Wright's avatar - Go to profile

SB Wright 110p · 676 weeks ago

One of the advantages that fanzines in paper or in ebook form is that they allow (at least for me) a chance to both write and read longer works. I have trouble with reading an article on screen if its longer than 1000 words.

The real advantage of blogs is the immediacy turnaround speed. It's particularly good for news

Post a new comment

Comments by