[penguicon-general] Fannish Material To Read

[Rob Landley]

On Sunday 17 December 2006 6:32 pm, Garrett Kajmowicz wrote:
> 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  :-)

Read books written by our author guests of honor.

Yes, this is an oblique way of once again recommending the discworld books at 
you.  As you said, you have access to a fully equipped library system.  I'd 
start with "Reaper Man" and "Small Gods" to make sure you're good and hooked, 
and then back up and read the rest in order (keeping in mind that the first 
2-3 aren't nearly as good as the later books).

Watch "Galaxy Quest"; it's a movie by fans about fans.

Watch the new Dr. Who (even if you haven't seen the old stuff).  It won a 
Hugo, that's the ultimate Fan award, given out at Worldcon each year.

Attend a worldcon, fandom's ultimate floating beer party.  Attend a few 
smaller regional conventions (Pittsburgh has ConFluence and Philadelphia has 
Philcon.  Note that Philcon hosted the 2000 Worldcon, so they must be doing 
something right.)

Google for "convention running", and also for the acronym SMOF.  That brings 
you to things like http://fanac.org/Conventions/Running/ and 
http://www.boston-baden.com/smofs/smofs.html and 
http://www.smof.com/conrunner/index2.htm

If you want to track literary fandom, read Locus magazine: 
http://locusmag.com/

Oh, and I'm not saying I have that much influence over our guests of honor 
anymore, but the woman who wrote Her Majesty's Dragon worked on Neverwinter 
Nights before she did that.  And while you're at it, "Tinker" by Wen Spencer 
is set in Pittsburgh (although it's a futuristic Pittsburgh's which has 
accidentally been transported to another world populated by Elves, but 
still).

Enough to get you started?

Rob
-- 
"Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but
when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery