[penguicon-general] Fannish Material To Read

[Matt Arnold]

Garrett,

A huge number of us simply are not readers, pure and simple. I notice
you didn't mention games, TV or movies, but that has just as much
influence on fandom culture as reading. Take The Rocky Horror Picture
Show, for instance. You would also do well to browse a gaming store in
the unlikely event you have never done so.

There is no such thing as a core experience for anyone in the fannish
community, in the sense that no one book has been read by everyone in
the community of fannish readers, or even by ninety percent of them.
Any genre will be disliked and repudiated by a large minority within
fandom. However, it's true that fandom has inside references to a few
works whose window dressing has been culturally absorbed even by those
who have not read them.

The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams contains many
jokes you might need to know when hanging out in fandom parties. When
someone calls their friend a "hoopy frood", that's a good thing.

Read the three laws of robotics by Isaac Asimov. One would not have to
read any of the actual Robot books-- such as "The Caves Of Steel"-- to
get any more into the superficial surface of convention culture than
an attendee already is after having gone once or twice and paid
attention.

Read the following sentence by Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." As with Asimov,
you now know everything you need to know to get by, and reading an
actual book-- such as the "Rendevous With Rama"-- is only a good
investment of time if you want to read a good book.

Robert Heinlein: one prominent examplar is "Stranger In A Strange
Land". Granted, some of us take the ideas of Heinlein (and by
extension, John Varley and a lot of SF authors) pretty seriously in
our personal lives; and yet, just like with Asimov and Clarke, read a
work of Heinlein because it's a good book, not in order to understand
fen.

You should know who Cthulhu is, and what the H.P. Lovecraftian mythos
is, at least in its vague outline. You can pick this up entirely from
the internet. The concepts Lovecraft invented are powerful and will
never go out of fashion, but I will not inflict his ponderous writing
style on you.

Read at least one graphic novel of "The Sandman" series plotted and
scripted by Neil Gaiman.

Use The Geek Test for recommendations: http://www.innergeek.us/geek-test.html

If you find you're not enjoying any given book, put it down
immediately and walk away. You're not looking to master genre literary
criticism here, and will be just fine with the Cliff Notes version you
heard on the internet. A large percentage of fandom gets by with that.

To conclude, one thing you need to understand is that conrunning is
its own hobby within fandom. It has a language all its own. See the
"Fanspeak Dictionary": http://www.stilyagi.org/fanspeak.html However,
becase conrunning is not a book, movie or game, a lot of the
terminology goes in and out of style. When I attended my first
convention, the first Penguicon, I went to the "Congoing For Newbies"
panel. I had researched documents like these so thoroughly that I
asked enough questions for clarification of these terms that it filled
the whole panel. And yet much of the information had simply gone out
of wide usage when older fen had stopped running cons.

-Matt


On 12/17/06, Garrett Kajmowicz <gkajmowi at tbaytel.net> wrote:
> As some of you may have known, I've been recently appointed to the board of
> directors of Penguicon.  I have a strong background from the OpenSource side
> of things.  However, my background in the "fannish" side of things is weak.
> As such, I'm looking for suggestions of other items which I should be reading
> or watching to better understand the other side of things.
>
> There are a few criteria to be considered:
>
> It should be easy to get ahold from a well-stocked library.  The library I
> have access to is the Carnegie Library System: http://www.carnegielibrary.com
> I'm not willing to start spending money on books, authors or even genres I
> have little experience with.  Since I live in Pittsburgh, borrowing starts to
> be difficult, as well.
>
> It should be in English.  I can also read French, but if so, it should be
> short.
>
> It should be a core experience for anyone in the fannish community.  Yes,
> there is "your favorite book of all time which is better than anything else
> ever written".  However, I'm trying to understand the community as a whole,
> and not just you.  Sorry  :-)
>
>
> Thanks for the suggestions,
>
> -     Garrett
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