Sword and Sorceress #23 Cover Image Contest

Here’s your chance to become a part of genre history!

Norilana Books is looking for a photo image of a warrior-like woman
with a sword or other old-fashioned weapon, striking a martial arts
pose, and dressed in an appropriate fantasy outfit (pre-industrial) to
be used as part of a design for the cover of the upcoming volume of
Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress classic anthology series.

Get out those swords, go out there, get your friends to dress up in
gorgeous costumes, strike up some fun warrior poses, and use your
imagination! For best results photos should be full-body (as opposed
to head shot or torso only), against a plain background (try to avoid
too much background scenery).

Please submit your photos as a URL link via email to service AT
norilana DOT com. DO NOT send attachments.

The winning photograph will be used as part of the cover image and you
will receive credit in the book and a free contributor copy of the
finished anthology.

Send in your entries now!

Deadline: August 10, 2008

Good luck!

He died as approximately 3 a.m. Saturday morning in his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as discovered by Ruth, his wife of many years.

In the mundane world, John Bristol Speer was a retired lawyer who resided in Albuquerque since 1962; previously, he was a Democrat state representative from the Bend, Washington area during 1959-1961.

Jack was a giant in science fiction fandom, a founding member of N3F, FAPA and the original historian of science fiction fandom.

His 1944 Fancyclopedia has spawned many imitators over the years (including one on this site) and his 1939 book, Up To Now: A History of Science Fiction Fandom, is still used as a reference almost 70 years after first publication thanks to its recently resurrected electronic form on efanzines.com.

Fellow science fiction historian Harry Warner credited Jack Speer as “the first to stress [fandom's] subcultural aspects. Single-handedly, he made fandom’s ayjays something entirely different from the mundane amateur journalism groups.”

During his early prankster days in fandom, Speer was also known by the fannish name, John Bristol (his first and middle name sans surname).

A fandom innovator, he is also credited with being the father of the fanzine mailing comment.

Jack was the second editor of N3F’s The National Fantasy Fan in the 1940s, after founding editor, E. E. Evans.

LINKS:

• UP TO NOW is available as a free PDF at efanzines.com
• Jack’s entry on Wikipedia
• Jack’s bio at N3F.org

Please feel free to leave your remembrances of Jack in the comments section at the bottom of this article.

* Special thanks to Robert Lichtman for fact-checking details of Jack Speers’ life.

Note to fen: This has very, very light K/S fanfic themes and is PG-rated.

A new web site launched that may be of interest to role-playing fans of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series of books.

Called The Red Sun, the fan-crafted site launched over the weekend. The RPG uses a blend of in-character message board posts and fan fiction to build the player-generated storylines.

The game is open to the public to create user accounts and join in on the fun. Since it is still in its rough starting stages, The Red Sun may be more malleable in its plot direction (a boon to creative new players) than more established BBS-based RPGs.

The Red Sun describes itself as a “game is set in the Recontact era – Terra discovers Darkover for the first time … again. Shattered Chain, The Winds of Darkover, Spell Sword and Forbidden Tower are books set in this time. Terrans think Darkovans are a primitive, violent people while Darkovans feel pretty much the same things about Terranans.”

In the same introductory message, the main site administrator (with the board nickname of Zandru) warns MZB purists that the “game does not always follow MZB canon. Rather, just like MZB herself did in her work, I’ll make minor changes to allow for the best stories and game balance.”