April 1999

Welcome Aboard

GNU Blood

A big thanks to ALL the people who signed up for the Info-Alert at
Revelcon. Welcome Aboard. From Houston, we have Anita Haddock,
Glenda Jordan, Heidi Harbaugh, Rachel McKee, Bonita Crider, Anita
Kite, Eileen Fenske, Morgan Chambellan, Carlotta Barnes, Lee Billings,
Faron Thomason, Jennifer Husmo, Carol J. Schorn and Erika Frensley.
In the Greater Houston area, we welcome Melissa Hinton from Sugar Land.
>From across Texas, we are pleased to have Julie Craig and Robin Mayhall
from Austin, Karen Robertson and Sharon Dickerson from Dallas, D. Vann
from San Antonio, Melissa Martin from Fort Worth, Rosie Postelnek from
Beaumont, Ann Walton from Bryan, and Cami Crews from Lubbock. From
our neighboring states, we are semi-deliriously glad to add Melody
Beard from Midwest City, Oklahoma and Tom Howard from Little Rock,
Arkansas. To the frozen wastelands of the Nawth we extend our
sympathies to Jill Jacobs in Merriam, Kansas, Anne Smith in
Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania and Ronald Schweizen in Brighton, Colorado.
Our mandatory randomly generated individual claiming no homegrounds at
all is Connie Green. Last, but not least, we give the secret alien
invader recognition sign to Derly Ramirez who missed REVELcon to attend
a wedding (where's your sense of priorities?) but finally agreed to sign
up just to shut me (Clif) up about all the stuff he was missing by not
getting the Info-Alert.

Last time we mentioned our experimental email to Arlene via a fax
machine, but it didn't take. The fax machine was down for the weekend
though, so we are trying again this time.

This seems to be an appropriate place to say that we are glad (as
in please, please) to have people forward copies of the Info-Alert
to people that may be interested, but do make sure that you put a
message in front so that people won't think we are putting them on
a mailing list without permission. Last month we received some
requests of varying levels of politeness from a couple of people to
remove them from the Info-Alert list, and they were never, ever on it.

OK, Crew, old and new, fasten your seatbelts and we're off....
(How far off, as always, you have to judge for yourself)...

Adventures in Crime and Space

Our friends at Austin's (and Texas's) best Science Fiction specialty
store are gearing up for Terry Goodkind to sign his new novel, Soul
Of the Fire, the latest in his Sword of Truth series on Saturday,
April 17, 3-5 PM.
Although it is part of a series the book really stands on it's own,
though it also means that those familiar with the series have to wade
through a bit of background.

Adventures in Crime and Space - http://www.eden.com/~acs/
Soul of the Fire
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=3D0312890540/fantasicfuturesbA

Notice the previous is an Amazon.Com address. It's a good place to
look at reviews, cover-art, and the like. We think Amazon.Com is
infinitely preferable to Barns and Noble which seems to be part of
the Evil Empire seeking to dominate the publishing world, snuffing
out specialty and small bookstores, and forcing the publishing
industry to submit to the judgement of their buyers. (See the
Science Fiction Writer's of America's take at
http://www.sfwa.org/news/letter.htm ) If you follow one of these
Amazon.Com links and actually make a purchase we, (Clif and Margaret,
not Friends of Fandom) make a few cents (but not so many as to make a
big difference).

But we would like to point out that Adventures in Crime and Space
provides Mail order service with a competitive shipping rate within
the Continental US via UPS at $4.00 for up to 5 lbs. You can check
to see if they carry any of the books we mention by using their
search form at http://www.eden.com/~acs/order.html and where there
are signings you can specify an autographed copy, or if you talk to
them in advance of the signing they will have the book personalized
for you.

Adventures in Crime and Space is a valuable asset to Texas and
surrounding states, and particularly to Austin. They are good people
and have helped to support fandom in a variety of ways. Here in
Houston we have lost the individuality of Future Vision's bookstore
to the cookie-cutter volume deals of the chain stores. For it to
happen in Austin would be a loss for everybody.

What we are saying, is that even though we provide (and will continue
to provide) Amazon.Com links we think supporting Adventures in Crime
and Space with your business is a very worthwhile thing to do. For
more information, see the Feedback section at the end of the issue.

Forthcoming SF&Fantasy Books

April releases from Lynn Abbey, Kate Elliott, Terry Goodkind, Robin
Hobb, James Hogan, Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, Sheri S. Tepper, &
Harry Turtledove.

For more sf&f new book listings and more detail (updated monthly), see
http://www.clever.net/cam/forthcomingsf.html .

Forthcoming SF, Fantasy, & Gaming Cons

REVELcon -- Con Report
It was a lot of fun! As SF cons go, REVELcon is always a lot of
fun. But this last one was one of the good ones. My (Clif's)
favorite part of Revelcon is always the Song-Tapes (Music Videos).
(My [Margaret's] favorite part, too, closely followed by the cabaret!)
For those who are not familiar with the art form, fans take TV shows
or movies on videotape and edit them to go with their choice of music.
The result is sometimes hilarious, sometimes moving, and almost always
interesting.

This year's categories were Voyager, Due South, other humorous, and
other serious.
This year's winners were:

Voyager: Tie When Seconds Count by Jackie Edwards
Tie Someone Wants to Love You by Maura Kelly
Due South: Movin' on Up by Dementia, Ink (Angela Harris &
Jennifer Shipp)
Humorous: It's in His Kiss (multi-media) by Maura Kelly
Serious: Dante's Prayer (Titanic) by Morgan Dawn & Justine
Bennett

I was too involved with art show to remember to get my vote in on
time, but I thought the choices were fairly reasonable this time
(unlike some years when my vote counted, but was overwhelmed by
the votes of dirty old women with strange tastes, but then that's
always one of the attractions of Revelcon. :-)

This year, there is going to be a tape made of the entries, and we
will try to mention it here when it is finalized.

The art show was smaller than normal this year, perhaps due to a late
start in contacting artists, and it seemed that pieces didn't really
get enough bids to go to auction. On the other hand there was quite
a bit of variety in the art that was there and a pretty fair number
of people bought art, so on the whole we wound up with happy buyers
who got what they wanted and generally happy artists who sold art.
Even Margaret and I with a fairly minimal budget wound up the proud
owners of a hatching reptile with an attitude.

Most years, stuff for the charity auction comes drifting in, but this
year we only had one item. Margaret suggested that I ask Candy if she
had mentioned it to the dealers. I found a slightly frazzled Candace
and emphasizing that I WAS NOT volunteering, suggested she have someone
talk to the dealers. She grinned wickedly and informed me that I HAD
TOO volunteered. I hate salesmen and pushy people and am not very good
at that sort of thing, so with some (a lot) of reluctance I began to
make the rounds of the dealers room to go through the motions. The
generosity of the dealers was overwhelming and took me completely by
surprise. I still can't believe it. They were not donating stuff that
wouldn't sell, they were invariably donating some really neat items, a
lot of it fairly expensive. And every single dealer but two did that,
and one of those was Several Unlimited which was selling everything on
commission, and even there several individual members donated something
on their own. So the short art auction was compensated for by the really
impressive charity auction. I know some of you get the Info Alert, so
I want to say "Thanks, Guys", both on my own behalf and on behalf of the
Arthritis Foundation who is the beneficiary of your thoughtfulness.

Speaking of Several Unlimited, we spent a bit more time hanging out
with them at Revelcon than has been our habit, and found it enjoyable.
Essentially they provide their own programming track during REVELcon.
The political discussion got a little too intense for Margaret at one
point, but otherwise it was neat hanging around a group that spends
some time thinking about life, the universe, and everything. (Wait,
that sounds familiar.) At one point Clif raised the question, that
given that some older TV was now unacceptable due to racial depictions,
or due to now unacceptable depictions of the use of tobacco or alcohol,
what was there in current TV that would be unacceptable in the future.
The opinion was nearly unanimous that it would be the depiction of
violence. Several people mentioned in support that while sexual
attitudes were more relaxed in England and Europe, tolerance of
depicted violence was much less. Interestingly the lone dissenter was
a fan with a British accent who maintained that it was just the
opposite.

(We also appreciate the Several Unlimited food run while we were tied up
on Sunday).

The Revelcon Costume Contest & Cabaret featured 7 official entries,
but Jan Meek had a non-entry and as always, MC Glenda, was an act in
herself. Laurie Keeper and a group calling themselves the Magnificent 7
stole the show, but special thanks to Jan Meek and especially Anne Smith
for reasons some of you will understand.

The REVELcon Web page is at http://www.clever.net/cam/revelcon.html
and if you click on Revelcon 10 you will find the official After the
Con Report.

There are Con Tee Shirts and Totes that are sold out and being
reordered, but you need to contact Candace IMMEDIATELY. You also want
to check back as there were digital photos taken at the con and they
will be appearing, a few at a time, real soon now. And of course
you can also click on REVELcon 11 (AKA REVELcon Y2K) to start getting
ready for next year!

A bumper crop of cons/conferences are coming up Memorial Day Weekend.
Fans will have the 18th Annual International Space Development
Conference (May 27-31, 1999) and I Think Therefore I Con 1999 (May
28-May 31, 1999) to choose from in Houston and there's also ThunderCon 8
(May 28-30, 1999) in Oklahoma City with Project A-kon 10: The Convention
for Animation & Pop Culture in Dallas the next weekend, June 4-6, 1999!

See also our monthly What's Happening list at
http://www.clever.net/cam/concalendar.html .

The Coming of the Phantom Menace

And the whole world goes Star Wars Crazy. Fans in Britain are
unwilling to wait the two months it will take for Star Wars to open
there and are booking flights to the United States specifically to
see Star Wars in record numbers. But they will have to wait in line
like the rest of us (and the rest of us WILL be waiting in line) since
Lucas has the whip handle and is laying down the law. No advanced
sales of tickets (so no scalping), no honoring passes for eight weeks,
if there is any competition the theater will show Star Wars on at
least three screens and they will be the largest three screens
available and that will not change during the initial run. Theaters
will rent a print for each screen its shown on, they will not show
paid advertising on those screens for two weeks and the theaters own
ads (previews) are strictly limited. There will be none of this
sitting on Lucas's money for 30 days, payments will be made in seven
days maximum. The film will not be shown a second before 12:01 a.m.
on May 19. Those who violate a long list of rules will pay stiff
penalties if they are lucky and will loose their copy of the film if
they are not.

(Actually http://theforce.net/prequels/ quotes E! quoting the
Hollywood Reporter that Lucas has reconsidered the no advance sales
and will allow sales a week in advance after all. On the other hand,
SCI-FI Wire at
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?1999-04/13/16.35.film
claims that Fox and Lucas are only considering it in response to the
theaters requests).

Does this mean you can't see it early? No, it will premiere in 11
cities on May 16, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, New
York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto and Washington,
but your movie tickets will cost $500. each (it's for the Elizabeth
Glasser Pediatric AIDS Foundation).

So just how fanatical are you?

Meanwhile the novelization will be released by Ballentine two weeks
before the movie (what's that about?) and with four collectors covers.
Fans polled at the web site http://www.theforce.net/ vote:
6% Buy all four covers and read immediately.
15% Buy one cover and read immediately.
1% Buy four covers and read some.
3% Buy one cover and just read some.
10% Who cares about the book.
13% Buy all four covers and put it back till after the movie.
24% Buy one cover and put it away.
27% Won't go anywhere near the book because of their weak will power.

Lucas's friend Ron Howard apparently helped him with the final cut,
and Howard is quoted in the Calgary Sun as praising the story, the
effects, and the humor.

On the other hand, Ron Howard is Lucas's friend and when he says that it
lives up to the hype, isn't that just more hype? Which doesn't prevent
it from being true hype.

We won't even get started on the rumors, speculation, alleged spoilers,
and general feeding frenzy. Interesting times.

See also the official Star Wars site: http:www.starwars.com/

Interesting Talk for Interesting Times

The May'99 SF Age contains a science debate with Geoffrey A. Landis,
Marianne Dyson, and James Oberg. That alone is worth the $3.99 cover
price. In that crowd, its hard to know who to put your money on, but
out of a sense of loyalty, we'll go with our own Marianne Dyson.

Zines Zines Zines

SFRevu is now at its own website.
You have to be fast to get to the archives, or it takes you to the
current ish. SFRevu brings Science Fiction news, reviews and
interviews to the web each month. They have a nice balance of
subject matter. This issues interview with Vernor Vinge would be
worth the price of admission if there were a price of admission.
SFRevu - http://www.sfrevu.com/

And Zines!!

If you have zines you'd like to sell, remember to check out Several
Unlimited's upcoming March-April 1999 Internet Zine Sale at
http://members.aol.com/ErikaF/su/sale.htm

Congrats to Several Unlimited who sold their first zine online "only half an hour after the page went up" this year! Hurry, better check out
that Zine Sale site right away! :)

To find out more, see our listing at
http://www.clever.net/cam/clubslist.html .

Science Fiction on TV

Crusade needs YOU! The Babylon 5 spinoff series will premiere on TNT
Wednesday June 9, 1999.
See the Crusade for Crusade at:
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~fleming/index.html

For more information on the series' chances of revival (it's currently
CANCELLED!), see:
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=3D3419

Straczynski to be presented Bradbury Award

J. Michael Straczynski has been voted the Ray Bradbury Award for
Dramatic Screenwriting (only the second time this award will have been
given to anyone) by the membership of the Science Fiction and Fantasy
Writers of America. SFWA termed the Babylon 5 series "one of the most imaginative and influential science fiction television shows in years".
The actual award will be presented to Mr. Straczynski during the Nebula
Awards Ceremony on May 1, 1999.
See: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?1999-04/09/23.32.tv
and http://www.bucconeer.worldcon.org/goh/jms.html

For more information about Science Fiction on TV, see our listing at
http://www.clever.net/cam/sftv.html .

Chili? Whose Chili?

StarBase Houston has announced the 5th annual Chili Cookoff and Dessert
Bakeoff on Saturday, April 17, 1999 at Midnight Comics.
13155 Westheimer between Dairy Ashford and Synott (In Houston).

For those entering the contest, the starting time is 12 Noon.
Judging commences at 12:30 PM and serving at 1:00 PM.

For those that are eating, the starting time is 1:00PM.
$5 for Chili--$5 for Dessert--$8 for Both

Auction to start at 3:00 PM.
For more information contact the WARP line at 713-790-0044 or visit
the web site at web.wt.net/~robg/sbh .

Inscrutable Secret Masters of Fandom

The San Francisco in '02 Worldcon bid has competition. The San Jose in
'02 Worldcon bid which has... the same committee???

Wow!

It seems that their San Francisco convention site has begun to demand
unacceptable conditions and concessions. They were putting together a
new, more limited San Francisco convention when they were approached by
the San Jose Convention and Visitors Bureau. There are arguments for
going both ways, and their committee is undecided. So they decided to
let the Worldcon voters decide. Hence the competing bids.

Two competing bids by the same committee is unprecedented in Worldcon
History, but apparently doesn't violate any rules.

More details - http://www.sfsfc.org/worldcon/combined/news/number8.htm
San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area Bid for 2002 -
http://www.sfsfc.org/worldcon/

The Wit and Wisdom of Jerry Falwell

Most of you will be familiar with the recent pronouncements of spiritual
leader and guide to millions, Jerry Falwell, concerning the Teletubby
menace. While perusing the latest Ansible, we were struck by an earlier
pronouncement of Mr. Falwell.

`The decline in American pride, patriotism, and piety can be directly
attributed to the extensive reading of so-called "science fiction" by
our young people. This poisonous rot about creatures not of God's making,
societies of "aliens" without a good Christian among them, and raw sex
between unhuman beings with three heads and God alone knows what sort of
reproductive apparatus keeps our young people from realizing the true will
of God.' (Jerry Falwell, `Can Our Young People Find God in the Pages of
Trashy Magazines? No, Of Course Not', Reader's Digest Aug 85)

Ansible - http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/Ansible.html

FREE SF

Its worth noting that Analog Magazine has placed Aurora in Four Voices
the Nebula nominated novella by Catherine Asaro on the web for all to
read - http://www.sfsite.com/analog/nebula/aurora.html
While you are in the neighborhood, you may be entertained by Stanley
Schmidt ripping into Literary Analysis.
http://www.sfsite.com/analog/_issue_9905/edit_9209.html
Tom Easton reviews, among others, Bruce Sterling's Distraction, but you
have to wade through a lot of bad html code to read it (unless your
browser is a lot more forgiving than mine is). He claims that Distraction
is Bruce's best yet and is Hugo/Nebula material.
Easton Reviews - http://www.sfsite.com/analog/_issue_9905/reflib_9904
Distraction: A Novel
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0553104845/fantasicfuturesbA
Back on topic, Asimov's has placed it's Nebula nominees on the web.
Soldier's Home by William Barton
http://www.sfsite.com/asimovs/_issue_9905/soldier.html
Echea by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
http://www.sfsite.com/asimovs/nebula/echea.html
Fortune and Misfortune by Lisa Goldstein
http://www.sfsite.com/asimovs/nebula/fortune.html
Izzy and the Father of Terror by Eliot Fintushel
http://www.sfsite.com/asimovs/nebula/izzy_terror.html
Lethe by Walter Jon Williams (Starts with "Davout had himself disassembled for the return journey") -
http://www.sfsite.com/asimovs/nebula/lethe.html
Standing Room Only by Karen Joy Fowler
http://www.sfsite.com/asimovs/nebula/standing.html
Winter Fire by Geoffrey A. Landis
http://www.sfsite.com/asimovs/nebula/winter.html

If you tastes run towards reading SF in Comic Book form let me direct
you to the Matrix. I can do no better than to quote their site :

"The Matrix is not an easy film to explain. Beneath a story of unexpected complexity, it is, at its core, a film of ideas and it is those ideas that have inspired this project: a collection of stories set in the world of the Matrix. The stories stand alone. They are not adaptations. The contributors are some of the most talented artists and writers working in the comics medium today. The stories work without seeing the film and run a wide spectrum of types, from action to contemplation to frightening, much like the film itself. And the best part is: it's all free! FREE! Long live the web!"

(How could I beat that? - Clif)
The Matrix - http://www.whatisthematrix.com/cmp/comic_index.html

Live Long and Perspire

While we normally consider the exciting Science Fiction-y things that
are happening in space, we will also say a word now and then about
other topics from machine intelligence to biotechnology to, well
basically whatever strikes our fancy.

In one of his many essays, Isaac Asimov looked at metabolism, some
creatures live faster more energetic lives than other animals do. Birds
for example generally have very fast metabolisms as they require a very
high energy use for flight. Using heartbeat rate as a rough measure of
metabolism he listed the heartbeat rate of all kind of animals from the
very small to elephants and whales. Then he listed the average lifespan
for those same animals. Calculating the lifespans, not in years but in
heartbeats, he finally listed the lifespans again for those same animals.
The results were remarkably consistent. With one glaring exception all
animals lived more or less the same number of heartbeats. So the choice
seems to be whether to live a fast paced short life or a long slow one.

The single exception was man who lives much much longer than his
metabolism would justify.

With this background in mind it is interesting to look at some of the
life extension work being done with animals. SOD1 is a gene found in
all cells of all creatures, a gene that fights cell damage and keeps
the nervous system functioning effectively. It functions as an
antioxidant, protecting the body from the toxic byproducts of the
oxygen that, ironically, we cannot live without. Tony Parks of the
University of Guelph Ontario, Canada led a recent study in which
fruit flies lived an average of 102 days, 40% longer than their
normal lifespan of 80 days. Researchers injected the nerve cells of
these fruit flies with SOD1 from humans.

Began twilight zone music and read
http://www.worldhealth.net/news/gene.html .

Open the Pod Bay Door, Hal

The Deep Space 1 mission testing 12 advanced technologies including an
ion drive and robotic navigation is doing so well that most of the
technologies are completely tested and all will be through by summer.
The robotic navigator will guide the spacecraft to a rendezvous with
asteroid 1992 KD on July 29 and the mission is scheduled to end
September 18. Now NASA is considering a possible extended mission that
would take the spacecraft on flybys of two more comets in 2001.

Meanwhile In the Direction of Mars

NASA's other comet-bound spacecraft, Stardust is traveling at a speed of
70,000 mph towards the red planet on an egg-shaped trajectory that will
take it past Mars to an eventual meeting in 2004 with Comet Wild-2,
where it will collect samples of comet dust for return to Earth in 2006.
Stardust has just passed two other Mars bound craft which will approach
Mars at a much slower speed. Mars Climate Orbiter will enter orbit
around the red planet in September. Mars Polar Lander is due to land on
Mars in December. For the Mars spacecraft, slower is better, because
less energy will be required to brake the spacecraft when its time for
them to land or enter orbit around Mars.
The Mars Climate Orbiter continues to perform well in preparation for
its arrival in September. Late last month, the orbiter completed the
final health check for all of its instruments. The spacecraft team is
now preparing a comprehensive test for the end of April to update the
spacecraft's software for interpreting and processing pictures from the
star cameras. These images are used to determine the spacecraft's
orientation in space. Images from the Orbiter will also be used to
select the landing site for the Mars Polar Lander and the Orbiter will
also relay data from the Lander once it is on the surface of Mars.
The science instruments onboard the Mars Polar Lander spacecraft were
given their first 'test drive' last week while in flight to the red
planet. Five of the science instruments were turned on and calibrated,
showing that each one is healthy and ready to perform when the
spacecraft lands in December. Mars Polar Lander will search for water
on Mars and study the history of the Martian climate, which may be
preserved in layers of terrain at the near-polar landing site.
The Mars Global Surveyor in final orbit and no longer needing to fire
its main engine has finally deployed its steerable high gain antenna
and now the craft has switched from a garden hose to a fire hose of data
return from the spacecraft and on April 4 full-scale mapping began.
The nearly constant stream of observations of Mars will continue for the
next two years.

In the last part of March, NASA tested an experimental device inside a
Mars environment chamber that selectively absorbs carbon dioxide from a
simulated Martian atmosphere -- called "Mars mix" -- and converts it to
oxygen.
"The concept is to use the resources on Mars to reduce the amount of material that needs to accompany a human mission ... to 'live off the land,' " said David Kaplan, principal investigator of the Exploration
Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. "Producing oxygen using materials readily available on Mars would be an important step toward reducing the costs and risks of an eventual human mission to Mars."
This week's demonstration is an initial test of technology that will be
aboard the Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander, scheduled to launch April 10,
2001, and land on Mars on January 22, 2002. Called the Mars In-Situ
Propellant Production Precursor, the experiment will test the feasibility
of using the thin Martian atmosphere to produce oxygen for breathing air
and propellants. Propellants created on Mars could eventually be used to
send samples and astronauts back to Earth.

The Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft remains in excellent health and
on-course for the second of its two flybys of the planet Venus in June.
Then it will fly by Earth and then Jupiter for two more gravity assists
to reach Saturn in 2004. At the end of March an update to the software
for Cassini's cosmic dust analyzer was radioed to the spacecraft through
NASA's global Deep Space Network telecommunications system. Two days
later, the instrument was successfully turned on as planned and the
telemetry rate was changed to allow the return of data from the dust
analyzer which will help to determine the density and composition of
Saturn's rings.

In orbit around Jupiter, the Galileo spacecraft is operating normally as
it continues transmitting to Earth pictures and other science
information gathered during its January 31 flyby of Jupiter's icy moon
Europa. Transmission of the data, which was stored on Galileo's onboard
tape recorder, will continue until April 30. It is hoped that these
observations will show differences in the surface texture and show the
difference between various possible forms of water ice on Europa. The
shape of ice crystals is dictated by the temperature at which the ice
formed. Scientists believe Jupiter's icy moons, including Europa,
would mostly have either cube-shaped ice crystals or non-crystalline,
glassy ice because of the extremely low temperatures on those moons.
If ordinary, six-pointed ice -- the type found in snow and the freezer
section of a refrigerator -- is discovered, it could indicate that the
ice was formed by the freezing of liquid water spewed out from a geyser.
This is an intriguing prospect, because it might be yet another sign of
a possible ocean beneath Europa's icy crust.
Hydrogen peroxide -- the chemical that can turn a brunette into an
instant blonde -- appears on the icy surface according to a report
in the March 26 edition of the journal Science. "Hydrogen peroxide is a really weird chemical that reacts strongly with almost everything," said Dr. Robert Carlson, principal investigator for
Galileo's near-infrared mapping spectrometer instrument, the device
that detected the chemical on Europa. Hydrogen peroxide is formed
constantly on Europa as Jupiter's energetic particles smash apart
molecules on the surface to produce new chemicals, Carlson said.
This process is called radiolysis. "We expect to find more bizarre materials on Europa, because it's constantly bombarded by Jupiter's intense particle radiation environment," Carlson said. Hydrogen
peroxide does not appear naturally on Earth's surface, partly
because the surface is not hit by enough radiation to initiate the
process that creates the chemical. "On Earth, if we want hydrogen peroxide, we have to make it in factories," Carlson said.
Galileo's instruments had previously detected several other chemicals
on Europa's surface, including sulfur dioxide, water ice, carbon
dioxide, and possibly salt molecules containing water. Carlson and
other scientists will have another chance to study the chemistry of
Europa's surface when the Galileo spacecraft flies by Europa again
on November 25 as part of its extended mission.

The Hubble Telescope has been trained on Uranus, on and off, from 1994
through 1998 to take images of Uranus in both visible and near-infrared
light. A dramatic new time-lapse movie created from NASA's Hubble Space
Telescope images shows for the first time seasonal changes on the
planet. Once considered one of the blander-looking planets, Uranus is
now revealed as a dynamic world with the brightest clouds in the outer
Solar System and a fragile ring system that wobbles like an unbalanced
wagon wheel. The clouds are probably made of crystals of methane, which
condense as warm bubbles of gas well up from deep in the atmosphere of
Uranus. If springtime on Earth were anything like it will be on Uranus,
we would be experiencing waves of massive storms, each one covering the
country from Kansas to New York, with temperatures of 300 degrees below
zero. The seasonal changes on Earth are caused by our planet's rotational
pole being slightly tilted. Consequently, the Earth's Southern and
Northern hemispheres are alternately tipped toward or away from the Sun
as the Earth moves around its orbit. Uranus is tilted completely over on
its side, giving rise to extreme 20-year-long seasons and unusual weather.
For nearly a quarter of the Uranian year, the sun shines directly over
each pole, leaving the other half of the planet plunged into a long, dark,
frigid winter. The Northern Hemisphere of Uranus is just now coming out
of the grip of its decades-long winter. As the sunlight reaches some
latitudes, it warms the atmosphere. This appears to be causing the
atmosphere to come out of a frigid hibernation and stir back to life.
Uranus does not have a solid surface, but is instead a ball of mostly
hydrogen and helium. Absorption of red light by methane in the
atmosphere gives the planet its cyan color.

Space, The Final Frontier

If civilizations exist around other stars they are likely to be just
emerging across our Galaxy right now: like an apple orchard suddenly
maturing and ripening in the autumn sun. So concludes Space Telescope
Science Institute theorist Mario Livio, in a paper published in the
Astrophysical Journal.

Livio emphasizes that his theoretical work doesn't necessarily mean
extraterrestrial civilizations really do exist, but it shows they cannot
be dismissed either, while answering the question of why they haven't
stopped by to say hello.

Astronomers have discovered 'Middleweight' black holes. The field of
black holes, formerly dominated by heavyweights packing the
gravitational punch of a billion Suns and lightweights just a few
times heavier than our Sun, now have a new contender: a
just-discovered mysterious class of "middleweight" black holes,
weighing in at 100 to 10,000 Suns. Astronomers at NASA and Carnegie
Mellon University have independently found evidence for the new type
of black holes in spiral-shaped galaxies throughout the Universe.
The newfound black holes, formed by an unknown process, are 100
to 10,000 times as massive as the Sun, yet each occupies less space
than the Moon.
The astronomers identified the new class of black holes through X-ray
light, the final cries of energy emitted from gas and particles
spiraling into a black hole. They found telltale clues for a new type
of black hole in the spectrum, or colors, of the invisible X-ray light.
Such colors are judged by comparing the intensity of X-rays with shorter
wavelengths to those with longer wavelengths, just as blue skylight is
mostly composed of shorter wavelengths than the light from a red sunset.
Supermassive black holes are thought to power a phenomenon called Active
Galactic Nuclei, which are extremely compact and energetic objects seen
in the core of one percent of all galaxies and are typically very bright
X-ray sources. The luminosities that now analyzed have colors different
from those found in Active Galactic Nuclei, suggesting the source is
something other than a typical supermassive black hole. Middleweight
black holes might be formed by "the continual merging of stellar black holes." In other words, stellar black holes that approach each other
too closely under certain circumstances can merge to form a more massive
single black hole. This process might build objects that produce the
peculiar colors of these X-ray glows.

Who's Your Favorite Star???

ATTENTION! The Hubble Heritage Project launched a voting session on
May 6th (which will end on June 4th). The public is invited to vote for
their favorite out of 3 groups of interacting galaxies (called Hickson
Compact Groups). The winning group will be observed with the Hubble
Space Telescope in the summer of 1999.

Stardust - http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/scnow.html
Mars Global Surveyor - http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/
Mars Surveyor 2001 - http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/2001
Galileo - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo
Middleweight Black Holes
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/1999/99-051.txt
Hubble Space Telescope: What's New?
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/whats-new.html

How Not To Write SF

John VanSickle has several interesting lists, but his truly useful and
amazing list is at http://www.erols.com/vansickl/cliche.htm
The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Cliches
John grades Cliches on a variety of scales which range from
"baloney, but tolerable for the sake of dramatic effect"
to "flatly contradict the known laws of nature, introduce an irreconcilable contradiction, require the characters involved to have the IQ of a banana peel, or are abysmally stupid for some other reason".
Other grades include
"items that show racial, ethnic, or religious bigotry",(marked with
swastika)
"items that are unconscionably sexist" (These are marked with piggys)
"items for which Star Trek has been an offender" (Marked with StarFleet
logo).

Anyone who consistently reads SF will recognize every single one of
these but I (Clif) must admit there were one or two where the illogic had not
struck me before. Frankly this is a good checklist to peruse _before_
writing the great American SF novel (or short story).

Along similar but more specialized lines, John has a series of other
lists.

The True Love List:

1.I will never take a vow to marry only someone who can defeat me. I
will learn of those laws which limit my marriage options and work
towards their repeal. I will decided when and who I marry, thank you
very much.
23.I will never buy an apple from peddlers plying their craft in remote
places where the customer base could not possibly support a full-time
merchant.
24.I will not give sloppy, wet kisses to the Hero until I verify that he
isn't related to me.

The SideKick List:

6.I will not go to town for information if I am routinely beaten to a
pulp for doing so.
13.Before accepting the role of Sidekick, I will learn how the position
became vacant.
19.I will not wear a red shirt when beaming down to a planet.

The Hero List:

4.I will put surge suppressors in the circuitry of my ship, so that a
shot striking some distant portion does not cause a control panel on
the bridge to explode.
76.If I lose a hand and have it replaced with a prosthesis, the
prosthesis will have a functional weapon built in to it. I can use
it to surprise Bad Guys and open canned goods.
101.I will not trust a being with an inordinate number of tentacles.

Evil Henchman's Guide:

9.Learn where the trap door is in the Evil Overlord's audience chamber.
Avoid standing there, especially when bad news is brought to the Evil
Overlord.
18.If the Hero you are sent after dresses entirely in black, he is even
more dangerous than the Evil Overlord suspects; double all requisitions
for men and firepower.

Tips for evil Cult Members:

2.Familiarize yourself with the specifications for sacrificial victims,
and ensure that unacceptable substitutes cannot be unexpectedly introduced
into the ceremony. If the penalty for not-to-specs work is death and/or
mutilation, consider working for a more fault-tolerant deity.
16.When a religious artifact begins emitting light, CLOSE YOUR EYES.
Thousands of cult members could be saved every year if they followed
this simple safety tip.

Guidelines for Legion of Doom troops:

1.Before performing guard duty, familiarize yourself with the sound of a
tossed pebble, and learn to avoid being distracted by it.
7.Don't attack the hero alone or in pairs. The Evil Overlord hired a
million of you for a reason.

Tips for the Evil Overlord's Wicked but Beautiful Daughter:

9.Have some engineers install a hidden exit from the room where Daddy
imprisoned Mommy for the rest of her days after she displeased him.
14.Rather than simply being an attractive stage prop, make sure that you
know every detail of the running of the Evil Empire, so that if anything
unpleasant happens to Daddy, the transition of power will go smoothly.
Then make sure that something unpleasant happens to Daddy.

John's Science Fiction pages - http://www.erols.com/vansickl/scifi.htm

The Write Stuff (Pen and Ink Optional!)

The May 1999 issue of Writer's Digest (a print magazine) has a feature
article on the 101 Best Web Sites for Writers. Here are some of the
sites which caught my eye (on a quick look through the article):
(Unfortunately, I was unable to find this list on the Writer's Digest
site itself.)

Fiction Writers Connection
http://www.fictionwriters.com/

Inscriptions, the Weekly E-zine for Professional Writers.
http://come.to/Inscriptions/

African American Authors
http://www.blackwriters.org/public/authors.html

Association of Authors' Representatives
http://www.bookwire.com/AAR/

Screenwriters & Playwrights Home Page
http://www.teleport.com/~cdeemer/scrwriter.html

Writer's Digest
http://www.writersdigest.com/

For more information, see our listing at:
http://www.clever.net/cam/writers.html

FFFeedback

hey Clif,

I just have to do a little bragging. I don't know if you had noticed,
but I had kind of stopped doing any painting. Don't know what happened,
just found other artistic projects I guess. I crochet afghans and I
averaged an afghan every two weeks before Christmas and I made seven as
gifts last year...anyway.

I went up to Irving Tx last weekend for KSCon with a scaled back
version of the Babes (yes we are still there, look for our return). I'm
really not into K/S, have never read any, but going to this con was
something to do. And they had an art show. And we took my van to haul
everyone's stuff. Dianne Blankenship, Diane Hord, Machael Foegelle and
Karen Phillips and I had made plans last fall to go together. Bill
Phillips' accident kept Karen from attending...Bill is doing better.

The woman who organized the con asked me to bring some art up to show to
try and sell. I told her I didn't do K/S, she said no problem. She
really liked my work and knew others would too.

So I took six paintings. Four 8x10 and two 5x7 sizes. They had planets,
nebulas, stars and alien landscapes. I sold five of the paintings I
took. The sixth was an abstract that was really out of place, but I
traded it to Dianne Blankenship for something.

So now I'm looking forward to Conestoga '99 in Tulsa. This con is in
June. I have been asked to enter art in the show. My sister-in-law
lives just north of Tulsa and has agreed to act as agent if I can't
attend myself.

I've got all types of ideas for paintings now. I'm really getting into
the painting mood again.

Look for my return.

Patti E. Prevett.

---
Hey Patti!

You're a regular fountain of good news! Congratulations on the run of
inspiration. Be sure and let us know when the web page is open for
business again so that we can all drool.

We appreciate the update on Bill Phillips. Derly (of Cat Boxe) who had
both parents in the same hospital said that he thought he had been moved
into the less intensive care, but that was some time back.

---

Clif and Margaret,

I appreciate your mention of the FACT Reading Group in your March
newsletter. Participating in this group is one of my favorite
fannish activities. Thanks for providing the link to our web page,
which provides a taste of the group for those unable to attend
our meetings.

While I appreciate your mentioning the books on our reading schedule,
I don't feel that the links to Amazon.com are appropriate for these
books. Our group meets at Adventures in Crime & Space, a SF specialty
bookstore owned by longtime Texas fan Willie Siros. As a courtesy
to the bookstore, our members generally buy books there. If you
want to provide a link to each individual book, could you choose
a link other than to one of ACS's rivals? I'd suggest linking
to either the site of the book's publisher or its author.

Thanks for another fine issue. Your newsletter is helping me keep
up with what's going on in SF.

Sincerely,

A. T. Campbell, III
FACT Reading Group Organizer

----

Thanks for the well thought out (and tactful) comments. And thanks for
bringing this up, since there are wider issues. I touched on some of
this earlier in this Info-Alert, but I would like to go in to a little
more detail here and provide an actual response to your concerns.

As a matter of editorial judgement there are a number of reasons to like
the Amazon.Com links. Unlike publishers, they list unfavorable as well
as favorable reviews, they have a wide selection of titles and include
information on books that are still forthcoming. Their information is
in a standard easily learned format. They make it easy to search for
other books by the same author and they do one thing not even a bookstore
can do, they provide a list of books frequently bought by people who bought
the book in question. Empirically this seems to work as an excellent
recommendation system, both of individual titles and of unfamiliar writers.
Some of these same benefits could be found in an Barns and Noble link,
but I like Amazon.Com's format marginally better and I believe I like their
business practices a lot better. Above all, when I don't have time to
look up links for a specific title, Amazon.Com links are dependable. They
will not suddenly disappear nor will loading them lock up browsers.
That said, we would of course honor your request in any circumstances. But
Margaret and I both agree you have a legitimate "beef". As it happens
Willie Siros put on the first Science Fiction convention (in El Paso) that
I went to specifically to study how to organize and put on a Science Fiction
convention (back in the dark ages before there WAS a Star Wars movie) and
he has been both a friend and an occasional source of information and advice
ever since. (For that matter, much the same applies to Lisa Green as well,
if not more so). But even if they were not friends, as stated earlier this
issue we think that the bookstore is a very valuable thing to have around
for a variety of reasons and certainly deserves our support.

We routinely use the Amazon.Com links, not only for the Reading group, but
for also for titles relating to the bookstore and for just about everything
else. We will be sending a copy of this Info Alert to Willie specifically
to find out if he would prefer that Adventures in Crime and Space related
links not go to Amazon.Com. To be perfectly honest I seriously doubt the
links are hurting the store in the slightest (they certainly aren't making
us rich), but then I am not necessarily the best person to make that decision
and it might well be the principal of the thing. My opinion is that anyone
who has the option of coming in and enjoying browsing at Adventures in Crime
and Space but shops on the Internet is a complete idiot, but neither does
the bookstore provide the same kind of data-rich web environment that Amazon
can. On the other hand, Amazon.com just cannot provide you with the type of
personal service that a specialty bookstore can. Of course there is nothing
to prevent fans from getting information using the Amazon.com resources and
then buying the book by mail or in person wherever they like.

Once again, thanks for bringing this up. We will use some other kind of
Link for the Reading Group information.

- Clif

-----

Announcing The End of Human History:

ALL HUMAN STRIVINGS FIND THEIR PURPOSE AS
WWW.DAVIDRICHARDS.COM
MAKES ITS DEBUT ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB

HOUSTON, 4/13/99 (FPA) -- "It's common knowledge that the Internet has been good for nothing," said noted crank journalist
David Richards, addressing an empty high school gymnasium here
in Houston, "that is, until now." Richards was referring to his new
web site, recently registered with InterNIC and now carried on the
top level domain name servers.

"Call it fate, kismet, karma or whatever you like," Richards intoned,
"it is clear that, albeit through a process not quite grasped by the consciousness of any individual, humanity has collectively been striving towards this moment. "Forget trifles such as fire, the wheel, writing, agriculture and all
those other trivialities. It is not merely the Internet, but humanity
itself that has been given a proper sense of purpose as of this
moment.

"By 'this moment' I mean the appearance on the World Wide Web of WWW.DAVIDRICHARDS.COM. Yes, it's the same tired, old unfunny [Gleefully CENSORED by Clif] I've had on HAL-PC since the Great Impactor snuffed the dinosaurs, but I figure everyone has a moral duty to view it all once more in this new venue. "I realized that, with all the pathetic home pages out there, these
petty little monuments to small, pathetic egos, what the Internet
awaited was a great whopping big monument to a grossly distorted
ego.

"So, humanity, drop your tools, leave the office, let the children go unfed. Fire up your computers and go directly to my new web site. Bask in its wisdom, untouched by affected humility, have a hearty chuckle at its wholesome and oh-too-true humor, prepare to be challenged, to be educated, to be nurtured. Indeed, prepare to be dumbstruck with awe. My own [Gleefully CENSORED by Clif] name is finally on the web."

"I'd better go," Richards said in conclusion, "the kids are coming in to play basketball."

(c) The Fraudulent Press Association. [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [Gleefully
CENSORED by Clif].

-----

Gee Dave, that was fun. To read the Uncensored Dave Richards check out
http://www.daverichards.com/ with particular attention to the Fraudulent
Press Association (FPA).

And if that doesn't wrap up this issue, I don't know what will.

Send any email comments or suggestions regarding fannish
activities/events in the greater Houston area (or within Texas) or
regarding this Info Alert to fof@clever.net . If you received this Info
Alert as a sample and would be interested in receiving future editions
directly, email clifton@cs.uh.edu or click on "sign up" on any of our
Web pages as listed above and register. Alternately you can
register directly on http://www.clever.net/cam/register.html .
Be seeing you!

Margaret A. Fincannon, Friends of Fandom &
Clifton B. Davis, Friends of Fandom Vice Pres. of Publications
http://www.clever.net/cam/fof.html fof@clever.net

All Units Standby. On my mark. Activating Fine Print Generators, Now...
****************************************************************
The Friends of Fandom Information Alert is an official publication of
Friends of Fandom, distributed in electronic and print form in
furtherance of its tax exempt purpose. The information contained
therein reflects that believed to be true and accurate by its editors.
However, we make no guarantees. All opinions expressed are those of the
individual contributors and may not necessarily reflect either the
official position of Friends of Fandom or the opinions of the editors,
nor the officers or board of directors of Friends of Fandom. Friends of
Fandom is a nonprofit, literary, scientific, and educational 501(c)(3)
corporation committed to encouraging and facilitating interest and
activities pertaining to science fiction, fantasy, and science fact in
its various forms.
*****************************************************************

To be removed from this Mailing List, please send a remove request to
fof@clever.net