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Ansible 255, October 2008

Cartoon: Sue Mason

From Dave Langford, 94 London Road, Reading, Berks, RG1 5AU. Web news.ansible.co.uk. Fax 0705 080 1534. ISSN 0265-9816 (print) 1740-942X (e). Logo: Dan Steffan. Cartoon: Sue Mason. Available for SAE or bandicoots with thalassaemia.

The Blast of the Book

Ray Bradbury mourns the impending closure on 18 October of his favourite bookshop, Acres of Books in Long Beach, California, recently acquired for city redevelopment: 'If this place could be kept here, if you're going to build a mall, they should build it around here. They should be the center of the mall. They should be a shrine. They should have a crucifix up in front. I will come and bless the goddamn place. And I mean that. I want this store to remain here and they can build a mall around it ... It should be surrounded by other fascinating stores. It shouldn't be moved.' (LA Observed) [PY] No chance, it seems.

Eoin Colfer is to write a sixth novel in the late Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. [DKMK] Oh dear.

Harlan Ellison is reportedly suing Paramount for failing to pass on income from licencing of his City on the Edge of Forever storyline for a Simon & Schuster tie-in trilogy by David R. George III. Did Courthouse News Service really have to headline this story 'Harlan Ellison Wants Paramount To Beam Up Royalties For "Star Trek"'? Of course they did.

Marc Gascoigne, late of Games Workshop's Solaris and Black Library operations, is to run a new sf imprint for HarperCollins: 'Angry Robot, to provide the global science fiction/fantasy community with new content both in physical and digital form.' Angry Robot should publish 2-3 books per month from July 2009. Ansible imagines a corporate brainstorm session which – after noting that Paranoid Android had been used by some other guy – considered Mad Mechanoid, Grumbling Golem, Enraged Replicant and Surly Cyborg before inspiration came.

Boris Johnson's 2008 Tory conference speech remembered past appearances there: '2006 when I was physically pelted with pork pies by the press corps or last year when my speaking style was criticized by Arnold Schwarzenegger. / And it was a low moment, my friends, to have my speaking style denounced by a monosyllabic Austrian cyborg.' Nevertheless, 'Ken Livingstone was terminated.' (The Register, 29 Sep)

George Takei and his long-time partner Brad Altman were married as they'd planned on 14 September, with Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nichols as best man and matron of honour. (Associated Press)


Conck

3 Oct • Sci-Fi London Oktoberfest (film), Apollo West End Cinema, Lower Regent St, London. Box office 020 7451 9944.

11-12 Oct • NewCon 4, The Fishmarket, Bradshaw Street, Northampton, NN1 2HL. £40 reg (BSFA members £35). £10 supporting; £20 per day. Contact 16 Albany Road, Northampton, NN1 5LZ.

15 Oct • Brian Aldiss lectures on 'Science and Civilisation': Jack Leggatt Theatre, Victoria Bldg, U of Liverpool. 5 pm, Admission free.

17-19 Oct • Festival of Fantastic Films, Day's Hotel, Sackville St, Manchester. £70/$140 reg; £30/$60 day. Under-17s £30; under-13s £20. Contact 95 Meadowgate Rd, Salford, Manchester, M6 8EN.

18-19 Oct • Octocon, Royal Dublin Hotel, O'Connell St, Dublin. €30 reg to 12 Oct; students €12; under-18/supp €10. Octocon 2008 c/o Electric Dragon, 19a Main St, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland.

22 Oct • BSFA Open Meeting, The Antelope, 22 Eaton Terrace, London, SW1W 8EZ. 5pm/6pm onward. With John Clute.

25 Oct • Teledeux! (pub event), London. CANCELLED. Because.

1-2 Nov • UnCon 2008 (Forteana), University of Westminster, 309 Regent St, London, W1B 2UW. £36 advance reg, £20 day. Booking on-line only, it seems: http://www.wegottickets.com/f/319.

3-9 Nov • Shipping Lines (Liverpool Literary Festival) includes Philip Pullman on 'The Elementary Particles of Narrative', 7 Nov, 6:30-7:30pm, Sherrington Lecture Theatre Two: £5 (£3 concessions). Pullman reappears 'In Conversation', 8 Nov, 8-9pm, same venue and cost.

7-9 Nov • Alt.Fiction Horror Writing Weekend, Dove Valley Centre, nr Buxton. Workshop: £150 reg including 2 nights full board. Contact Alex, 07768 635293, or alexdavisevents at hotmail co uk.

7-9 Nov • ArmadaCon XX, Royal Fleet Club, 9-12 Morice Square, Devonport, Plymouth, PL1 4PQ. £35 reg; £30 concessions. Contact 20 Pinewood Close, Plympton, Devon, PL7 2DW.

8 Nov • Music from the 21st Century: Barry Gray (Thunderbirds and other Gerry Anderson music) centenary concert, Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, London. Tickets: www.southbankcentre.co.uk.

11 Nov 08 - 4 Jan 09 • Science Fact & Science Fiction exhibition, National Space Centre, Exploration Drive, Leicester, LE4 5NS. Contact info at spacecentre co uk; phone 0116 261 0261.

14-16 Nov • Novacon 38, Quality Hotel, Bentley, Walsall. £38 reg; £42 at the door. Contact 379 Myrtle Road, Sheffield, S2 3HQ.

14-15 Feb 09 • Hi-Ex (comics), Eden Court, Bishop's Rd, Inverness, IV3 5SA. Tickets (prices to follow) from www.hi-ex.co.uk or the venue box office: 01463 234 234. Contact hiex dot comics at gmail dot com.

10-13 Apr 09 • LXcon (Eastercon), Cedar Ct Hotel, Bradford. £50 reg, £30 concessions/under-25s, £20 under-17s, £5 under-12s, under-5s free. Contact 379 Myrtle Rd, Sheffield, S2 3HQ. Dirk Maggs had to drop out as a GoH. Main hotel and dealers' room both full. A free shuttle bus (two at peak times) will run half-hourly between the main hotels.

23-25 May 09 • plokta.con 4.0, Sunningdale Park, Berks. £30 reg, under-17s £15, under-12s free. Cheques to Plokta c/o 13 Collette Court, Eleanor Close, London, SE16 6PW; PayPal to mike at plokta dot com.

19-21 Jun 09 • Aetherica (fantasy), Crowne Plaza Hotel, Chester. £35 reg until 16 Nov; £20 supp; under-18s £25; under-5s £5. Contact membership at aetherica dot org for booking form, or join online.

25-26 Jul 09 • Satellite 2, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Glasgow. £40 reg, this rate extended to 31 Dec 08; £10 supp/junior (5-14), £1 infant (0-4). Contact 33b Hardridge Road, Corkerhill, Glasgow, G52 1RH.

31 Jul - 2 Aug 09 • Constitution (sf, fantasy, RPG), New Hall, Cambridge, is also the 2009 Unicon. Still £20 reg. Contact 207 Campkin Rd, Cambridge, CB4 2LE; info at constitution-con org uk.

2-6 Sep 10 • Aussiecon 4 (68th Worldcon), Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre. $A160 / $US155 / $CAN155 / €100 / £80 reg until 3 Nov 08; discount information at www.aussiecon4.org.au. Contact GPO Box 1212, Melbourne, Vic 3001, Australia; info at aussiecon4 org au.

25-27 Sep 10 • Albacon, Holiday Inn, Glasgow Airport. £30 reg until 16 November 08; £20 concessions; £10 supp; under-12s £15; under-5s free. GoH Liz Williams, Peter F. Hamilton. Contact 1/2 10 Holmlea Rd, Glasgow, G44 4AH.

RumblingsDiscworld Convention. The next in this biennial series is planned for August 2010, and against all expectation the guest of honour will be Terry Pratchett. More to follow at www.dwcon.org.


Infinitely Improbable

As Others See Us. HMV, having consulted newspaper style manuals, knows how to woo sf fans: 'Welcome to our first ever sci-fi newsletter, boldy [sic] going where no email has gone before. If you love all things sci-fi, know your Star Wars from your Stargate and hide behind the sofa when the Daleks are on telly, then this one's for you ... So strap on your Spock ears and let hmv.com get you closer to sci-fi.' [PT]

Awards. David Gemmell Legend Award: new memorial award to be first presented in 2009 for the best heroic fantasy of 2008. On-line voting for the shortlist opens at gemmellaward.com on 26 December.

R.I.P. P.C. Bartrum (1907-2008), scholar of Welsh genealogy and the earliest versions of the Arthur legend (in the Mabinogion etc), died on 14 August aged 100. (Independent)
Bill Meléndez (1916-2008), Mexican-born US animator – with Disney 1938-1941 – who created 75+ Peanuts specials through his own production company and directed the animated The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Warner 1979), died on 2 September aged 91. [SD]
Paul Newman (1925-2008), legendary US film star, died on 26 September aged 83. Like most long-time actors he had accumulated a few sf and fantasy credits, including Quintet (1979) and The Hudsucker Proxy (1994).
Brian Thomsen (1959-2008), US, writer, anthologist and sf/fantasy consulting editor at Tor, died from a heart attack on 21 September; he was 49. [ML] Thomsen co-wrote Julius Schwartz's autobiography, Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics (2000).
David Foster Wallace (1962-2008), US novelist, essayist and professor of creative writing best known for the long and surreally funny sf novel Infinite Jest (1996), hanged himself on 12 September. He was 46. [GVG]
Joan Winston, US fan who co-organized the first Star Trek convention in 1972 and wrote The Making of the Trek Conventions (1977), died on 11 September aged 77. [JM]

Thog's Big Science Masterclass. 'The Large Hadron Collider – basically, a big-bang simulator – opens in Switzerland next week. There's been much talk of the possibility that it could create a lethal black hole, so perhaps it's worth emphasising how unlikely that is. One estimate put the chance at 1 in 1,019. To put that in context, you have a one in 1,011 chance of spontaneously evaporating while you shave.' (Archie Bland, Independent, 6 September; figures strictly sic.) Clearly I've been pushing my luck with all those years of Extreme Shaving.
• LHC background information: 'Europe's most eminent scientists are trying to recreate, in laboratory conditions, the atmosphere millions of years ago that led to earth's existence in the first place during the "big bang."' (Helen Stanley, Bournemouth Daily Echo, 10 September) [GD]

Court Circular Redux. US judge Robert P. Patterson decided in favour of Warner and J.K. Rowling in their suit against RDR and its intended print edition of Steve Vander Ark's Harry Potter Lexicon: 'Ultimately, because the Lexicon appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work for its purposes as a reference guide, a permanent injunction must issue to prevent the possible proliferation of works that do the same and thus deplete the incentive for original authors to create new works. [...] Defendant's publication of the Lexicon (Doc. No. 22) is hereby permanently enjoined, and Plaintiffs are awarded statutory damages of $6,750.' (8 September) The judgment, read in context, doesn't attack the principle of fair use or threaten such reference books in general, but concludes that this specific Lexicon 'copies distinctive original language from the Harry Potter works in excess of its otherwise legitimate purpose of creating a reference guide.' One clinching point was the use of material from Rowling's Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, already structured as reference books. With this guidance, the Lexicon could presumably be re-edited into acceptable form. RDR's Roger Rapoport (who happily 'said the legal tangle has boosted business for his company.' – Detroit Free Press, 15 September) has also made noises about an appeal. Steve Vander Ark can't discuss this, not being a party to the suit, but writes: 'I don't feel bad about the decision, actually. I think it was very well thought out and fair. My only real regret is that we couldn't come to a settlement, which I think would have been by far the best solution, as it would have shown that both sides honestly wanted to work together to solve this problem amicably.' (email, 26 September)

As Others See Us II. 'Diora Baird is beaming onto the big screen in J.J. Abrams' upcoming Star Trek. "I play the green girl. There you have it," Baird tells Maxim in the Oct. issue. "It hasn't quite hit me, because I've never been a big sci-fi fan. I'm not a horror fan, either, and then, with [Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning], suddenly I was at these conventions with really scary people. Combine that with the Star Trek stuff and I'm going to have the perfect psychopath as my fan."' (New York Daily News, 26 September, quoting from Maxim) [DB]

British Fantasy Awards. NOVEL Ramsey Campbell, The Grin of the Dark. NOVELLA Conrad Williams The Scalding Rooms. SHORT Joel Lane, 'My Stone Desire' (Black Static 1). COLLECTION Christopher Fowler, Old Devil Moon. ANTHOLOGY Stephen Jones, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18. SMALL PRESS Peter Crowther, PS Publishing. ARTIST Vincent Chong. NON-FICTION Peter Tennant, Whispers of Wickedness website reviews. SPECIAL Ray Harryhausen. NEWCOMER Scott Lynch.

Censorship Update. After 28 years of repression, Torbay Council has lifted its ban (actually, X-rating) and allowed local Devon cinema-goers to watch Monty Python's Life of Brian. (Telegraph, Sept) [MP]

Outraged Letters. Steve Sneyd vs BBC Radio 4: 'Just a Minute (Sept 1) had Science Fiction as a topic. Chris Addison started, saying sf was genre for those who can't find girlfriends. Sue Perkins challenged, and went into a riff that sf is for folk who want to explore brand new worlds while failing to understand there's one here that they're living in now. Julian Clary in turn challenged, and gave as an e.g. of sf Mr Gobbledegook walking down the road and turning into a frog: Paul Merton challenged for deviation on basis that wasn't sf, though would have been if Mr Gobbledegook had turned into a spaceship. Sue Perkins then got in and summarized what she said was a Vonnegut tale, re Martians depriving humans of voiceboxes/ability to speak. Finally Julian Clary got back in v. briefly to try again at an example of sf, giving as that Daleks came in a spaceship but when its door opened, out popped a four-foot Welshman. Clearly missionary work is required!'

Magazine Scene. The on-line Helix SF is to cease with its tenth (Fall 2008) issue, for reasons of general editorial exhaustion and not-quite-adequate reader support. Co-editor William Sanders writes: 'As of the end of this year the magazine will no longer exist, except as a fond memory. (Anybody for whom the memory isn't a fond one can blow me.)' There is, he insists, no connection with the recent Helix SF mini-controversy reported in A253. More at HelixSF.com.
Oddlands, another web magazine, has also closed after editor Omar Singleton's embarrassing mishap: '... my computer imploded. I have lost ALL submissions, correspondence, personal work, etc. I simply never backed everything up on a regular basis. I would file this under TOTAL STUPIDITY.' The five published issues are at oddlandsmagazine.com.

Fanfundery. TAFF reminder: 2009 race nominations close on 5 November. Fuller details in A254 and at taff.org.uk. Administrator Chris Garcia dynamically announces a current US TAFF kitty of some $9,500.

Random Fandom. James Bacon is promoting sf cons with flyers and free books at events like Collectormania in Milton Keynes: 'If any of your readers are having a clear-out and want a good home for their books we will even collect them if possible and use them as lures for new con-goers.' (piglet at indigo dot ie)
David V. Barrett broke his left arm in two places in a fall on 24 September: 'I'm thinking of suing my local council for the state of their pavements.'
Steve Green & Martin Tudor plan to relaunch their newszine Critical Wave in November as an on-line monthly of 'convention reports, brief news, fanzine listings, etc.' CW's first series ran from 1987 to 1996.
Terry Jeeves is home again, with four visiting carers, and so can be reached at the old address: 56 Red Scar Drive, Scarborough, YO12 5RQ. [SH/J]
Teresa Nielsen Hayden suffered a minor heart attack on 12 September and spent a few days in hospital, mostly undergoing tests; the general prognosis seems good.

The Dead Past. 25 Years Ago, Charles Platt reported from the New York Forbidden Planet convention: 'I did an interview with Phil Farmer as a substitute for a GoH speech. He gave me a list of questions to ask him, including "If you had never been born, where would you be now?" He said he didn't know the answer, but after a moment's reflection came up with one. There is a large reservoir of souls (he said), far more than there are available bodies. Surplus souls are allotted individual body parts. "So if I had been reincarnated as one of those souls," said Philip José Farmer, "I would like to have been Ronald Reagan's cock. Then whenever he wanted to have sex, I could say, uh-uh, sorry Ron. That way, he would never have been elected because no one's going to vote for an impotent President."' (Ansible 35, October 1983)

C.o.A. Keith Brooke, 2 Pylon Court, Elmstead Road, Wivenhoe, Essex, CO7 9HX.

Call It Please, 'Research'. Stephen James Walker's Something in the Darkness, his second unofficial Torchwood guide, annoyed a number of fans whose LiveJournal reviews were excerpted as 'Fan Comment' – reportedly some 5,000 words in all. Walker responded graciously to LJ complaints that doing this without asking permission was naughty: 'I've been pretty much put off LiveJournal for life now, and no-one need have any fear that I'll be quoting from it or even reading it again.'

A254 Updates. Warner's lawsuit against the non-fantasy Bollywood film Hari Puttar – A Comedy of Terrors was thrown out by Judge Reva Khetrapal of the Delhi High Court on 22 September. (Times of India)
• Despite claims in the obituaries, Mornington Crescent reportedly existed years before Geoffrey Perkins introduced it to I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. [BC/SS]

Thog's Masterclass. Creature Features Dept. 'Brown John studied her smile as it performed about her face.' 'She seemed to be frowning, but it was difficult to tell. Her firm smooth forehead was barely co-operating.' 'Her eyes were large, beautiful, wet wounds.' 'She twisted, rolled again until she was a ball of soft shadows exposing only a pink earlobe, warm, tender and inviting.' 'It was as if her lips were a perch where a soldier could stand guard.' (James Silk, Death Dealer: Prisoner of the Horned Helmet, 1988) [AR]
Dept of Constructive Metaphor. 'She takes grains of truth and builds them into vast deserts.' (Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson, Paul of Dune, 2008)
Dept of Neat Tricks with Your Arms Securely Trussed in a Straitjacket. 'Percy yipped with pain and began rubbing his lips. He tried to speak, realized he couldn't do it with a hand over his mouth, and lowered it.' (Stephen King, The Green Mile, part six of the original serial version, 1996) [SK]


Geeks' Corner

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Back issues – http://news.ansible.co.uk/
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Conventions/Events Longlist
Details at http://links.ansible.co.uk#cons
London meetings/events – http://news.ansible.co.uk/london.html
Overseas – http://news.ansible.co.uk/conlisti.html
2008
Until 25 Oct 2008: Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain, Science Museum, London
3 Oct 2008: Sci-Fi London Oktoberfest (film), London
4-5 Oct 2008: Birmingham International Comics Show, Birmingham
11-12 Oct 2008: NewCon 4, Northampton
17-19 Oct 2008: Festival of Fantastic Films, Manchester
18-19 Oct 2008: Octocon, Ireland
CANCELLED 25 Oct 2008: Teledeux!, London
1-2 Nov 2008: UnCon 2008 (Forteana), London
3-9 Nov 2008: Shipping Lines (Liverpool Literary Festival), Liverpool
7-9 Nov 2008: ArmadaCon XX, Plymouth
11 Nov 2008 - 4 Jan 2009: Science Fact & Science Fiction exhibition, National Space Centre, Leicester
14-16 Nov 2008: Novacon 38, Bentley, Walsall
5-7 Dec 2008: Battlestar Starfury (BSG), Heathrow
2009
20-24 Jan 2009: Wyrd Sisters: The Directors' Cut (play), Abingdon
6-8 Feb 2009: AXXIdental (filk), Grantham
6-8 February 2009: SF Ball (media), Bournemouth
14-15 Feb 2009: Hi-Ex (comics), Inverness
20-22 Feb 2009: Redemption 09 (multimedia sf), Coventry
26-29 Mar 2009: Eurocon 2009, Fiuggi, Italy
27-29 Mar 2009: P-Con VI, Dublin.
10-13 Apr 2009: LXcon (Eastercon), Bradford
29 April - 4 May 2009: Sci-Fi London (film), London
8-10 May 2009: Bristol International Comic Expo, Bristol
23-25 May 2009: <plokta.con> Release 4.0, Sunningdale Park, Berkshire
19-21 Jun 2009: Aetherica (fantasy), Chester
CANCELLED: 26-29 Jun 2009: Sectus 2009 (Harry Potter), North Wales
25-26 Jul 2009: Satellite 2, Glasgow
31 Jul - 2 Aug 2009: Constitution (sf, fantasy, RPG), Cambridge
6-10 Aug 2009: Anticipation (67th Worldcon), Montréal, Canada
2010
17-18 or 24-25 Jan 2010: Conrunner 2, 'The North'
2-5 Apr 2010: Odyssey 2010 (Eastercon), Heathrow
2-6 Sep 2010: Aussiecon 4 (68th Worldcon), Melbourne
25-27 Sep 2010: Albacon, Holiday Inn, Glasgow


Endnotes

Apparitions.
• 4 Oct 2008: Mark Chadbourn, Stan Nicholls and Juliet E McKenna at GamesFest III, Tring.
• 5 Oct 2008: Alan Grant and others, Wasted comic launch at Forbidden Planet, 40-41 Southbridge St, Edinburgh. 2-3pm.
• 10 Oct 2008: Brum Group, Briar Rose, Bennett Hill, Birmingham city centre. Speaker still TBA [later: it's Jo Fletcher of Gollancz]. 7.45pm. £4; members £3. Contact 07845 897760 or bhamsfgroup at yahoo co uk.
• 19 Oct 2008: Bryan Talbot, Hannah Berry, Paul Grist and Paul Gravett panel, Manchester Literature Festival, Whitworth Art Gallery. 2:30pm. Tickets £4/£3.
• 23 Oct 2008: Bryan Talbot talks at Eccleston Library, St Helens, Lancashire. 7:30pm. Admission free. Contact 01744 677575.
• 7 Nov 2008: Brum Group, Briar Rose, Bennett Hill, Birmingham city centre. With Graham Joyce. 7.45pm. £4; members £3. Contact 07845 897760 or bhamsfgroup at yahoo co uk.
• 15 Nov 2008: creative writing course and discussion with Juliet E McKenna and Chaz Brenchley, Wokingham Library, 10am-1pm. Details 0118 978 1368.
• 22 Nov 2008: Sarah Ash and Juliet E McKenna talk at Welling Library, 11am-12.30pm. Details 020 830 37777.
• 6 Dec 2008: Brum Group Christmas Social, Selly Park Tavern, Birmingham. Tickets to be bought in advance. Contact 07845 897760 or bhamsfgroup at yahoo co uk.
• 17 Dec 2008: Stan Nicholls, Juliet E McKenna, Chaz Brenchley, Conrad Williams and Paul Magrs talk at Stretford Library, Manchester, from 7pm. Details 0161 912 5150.

Editorial. The multiple Ansible event lists cause occasional puzzlement, not least to the editor. Everything above the Geeks' Corner heading is from the print edition, still appearing and still a single sheet of A4 paper, where space is tight and the Consomething list covers newly announced, significantly updated and imminent events. Below the line, as it were, the Conventions/Events Longlist is meant as a reminder of what's on the links-page event list: I'm frequently tempted to reduce this section to a bare link. Apparitions deals with signings, library talks and other doings that don't make it into the main listing – but not appearances at main-list conventions with their (warning: literary effect ahead) perpetual plethora of peripatetic panel pundits.

PayPal Donation. Support Ansible and keep the editor happy! Or just buy his books ... please.
http://ansible.co.uk/paypal.php
http://ansible.co.uk/biblio.htm

End of the World Postponed ... while the Large Hadron Collider has two months' downtime for repairs.

GUFF 2009. Candidates for the Get Up-and-over Fan Fund trip from Australasia to Europe for LXcon (Easter 2009) are: Sue Ann Barber and Trevor Clark (joint), Norah Ding, and Alisa Krasnostein. Voting ends 24 November 2008. Details here:
http://www.users.on.net/~juliettewoods/guff2008.html

Outraged Letters II. Simon R. Green is a man of taste: 'Interested to see the furore about labelling books for children, and designated age ranges. I'm blessed if I can see where most of my books would fit in. Perhaps there should be a new rating system: tasteful, not very tasteful, and very definitely in bad taste. As an author who once provided a rewrite of the Alamo in a leper colony, I think I know where my books would go.' • Diana Wynne Jones heard from the NoToAgeBanding campaign people, who were worried that A254 'reported an email that they haven't got and can't trace. Mine to Philip Pullman seems to have vanished into cyberspace. He was just about to Meet With the Mighty in Publishing and my guess is that he nervously cancelled it for fear of overload. But it all goes to show that Ansible reaches places other zines can't get to.'

Late News. Clive Newall, Melbourne fan and ANZAPA contributor who for some years had suffered from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, died in the small hours of 1 October; he is survived by his wife LynC. [AIP]

As Some Of Us Like To Be Seen – from, alas, The Sun:
http://tinyurl.com/4wprgh

Ansible 255 Copyright © Dave Langford, 2008. Thanks to Damien Broderick, Barry Cryer, Steven Dunn, Sandra Hastie/Jeeves, Stephen King, Jim Meadows, David K.M. Klaus, Making Light, Marion Pitman, Andrew I. Porter, Adam Roberts, Steve Sneyd, Paul Tomlinson, Gordon Van Gelder, Pete Young, and our Hero Distributors: Vernon Brown (Brum Group), Janice Murray (North America), SCIS/Prophecy, Alan Stewart (Australia). 1 Oct 08.