1. Assorted Fan Histories (1960s-1970s) - LASFC (Los Angeles Science Fiction Society)

https://web.archive.org/web/19990203011625/http://www.smithway.org/history/hist.html

2. Also Arnie Katz's essay: The Philosophical Theory of Fanhistory. Very much 'what is it to be a fan?'

F. Cesperanza writes: "he's talking mainly about science fiction fandom, but there's a lot of applicable stuff, and in particular I love his categorization of the "seven basic approaches to fandom: Sercon, Scientism, Communicationism, Professionalism, Commercialism, Trufannishness, and Insurgentism." To wit (and paraphrasing madly):

Sercon (in it for the fiction)
Scientism (in it for the science)
Communicationism (in it for the discourse community)
Professionalism (in it for the literary training and connections)
Commercialism (in it for the money)
Insurgentism (in it for the resistant subculture)
Trufannishness (fandom is a way of life o my brothers and sisters!)

Click on the 'icon' in the lower right to get to the next page

https://web.archive.org/web/20080820021335/http://www.smithway.org/fstuff/theory/phil1.html

Or you can go to each page from the folder view

https://web.archive.org/web/20090108032925/http://www.smithway.org:80/fstuff/theory/

In the olden days, our corner of fandom (TV, movies) called itself 'media fandom". Today some call it transformative fandom, and it can cover both books and TV, movies, both science fiction and contemporary types. And of course there is also the parallel fandom spaces for anime and manga.

But the longer more established 'fandom' community focused on science fiction and to some extent fantasy) book communities starting the 1930s. They host the Hugo book awards and WorldCon, the world science fiction convention. These communities focus less on fan fiction and more on original fiction. Their fanzines contained original stories, long essays about the future or social changes and speculative perspectives.

There is a small group preserving this area of the fan experience. I met them at Worldcon 2018 and they are very enthusiastic. https://fanac.org/

They have YouTube channel with interviews and convention footage

https://www.youtube.com/c/fanacfanhistory

They scan older fanzines, fan art, photos and post them online.

And they can always use more help.

Post from 2010 about their project

https://www.metafilter.com/88936/History-of-Science-Fiction-Fandom

Introduction:

The World Science Fiction Convention, or WorldCon, has been, since 1939, the seat of a certain strain of literary Science Fiction fandom. Held at a different city every year, it has retained a relatively small community feel by contrast to massive media events like San Diego ComiCon.

The WorldCon community gives out the Hugo awards (plus one non-Hugo award but we'll get to that). These awards are voted on by the attendees of WorldCon and by others who buy a membership even if they can't attend. The Hugos are probably the most prestigious award in Science Fiction and can propel works and authors to be well known outside of the SF bubble.

The combination of the relative small town giving out the awards and the big city impacts of those awards has proven a fertile ground for drama.

At the Hugo award ceremony each year, an award is given to a promising new writer. This award is not a Hugo--a distinction I to this day do not understand but everyone always makes it clear to the point that it's kind of a running gag. This award has historically been called the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Most of the Hugos are for fiction--short story, novel, editor, etc. Some are for magazines, fanzines, etc. Others are for art or "dramatic presentation" (usually film and tv). There's also an award for best Related Work--usually essays about the genre or other things that touch on, but are not, SFF.

Dramatis Personae:

John W. Campbell was the editor of Astounding Stories--later Analog, the dominant SF magazine in the mid 20th century. He had enormous influence on what science fiction of that era looked like. Among other things, he used that influence to suppress non-white, non-male perspectives.

Jeannette Ng is a Hong Kong-born fantasy author.

George R. R. Martin is a white American science fiction and fantasy writer and editor who has been involved in science fiction fandom for many decades.

2019

In 2019 Jeannette Ng was awarded the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She jotted down an acceptance speech on her phone while in the audience. The first line of the speech was "Joseph Campbell, for whom this award was named, was a fucking fascist" to pretty wild applause. She goes on to talk about the (then and still) ongoing protests in Hong Kong, her birthplace and the "most cyberpunk city in the world."

The video is available here ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ58zf0vzB0](https://www.youtube.com/watch

Hey there! I'm aphrodite, a 20-year old he/them who's looking for new friends. I'm majoring in history, enjoy strong ginger ale, have an absolute garbage sleep schedule. I have very specific complaints about the Disney movie Hercules (which you should totally ask about) and I think I'm generally a pretty easygoing and friendly guy.

Now onto my RP requirements and expectations and general desires, I'll try to not sound as grumpy as I did last time. I'm seeking a partner that's open to any gender pairings, I generally do FxF and MxF, since MxM has left a bad taste in my mouth in the past, though if we have a good roleplay, I could consider MxM for the second! I'm generally on every day, or I try to be, you being on would be appreciated but I won't hold you to that standard. As long as we touch base every few days, it's good with me! I'm pretty lax. Talk to me, I'm friendly and love to get to know my partners, maybe we can game or chat, I'm cool with anything!

Right now, the stories that I write are much less about action and fighting (though those are certainly an element that comes up in them) and more about emotional development. Sue me, I did a lot of superhero roleplays in my youth. As such, having stories about emotional development, I'm really looking for some nice character and relationship development. Like food, the longer it cooks, the better it will be. Usually. I do have a strange, niche idea or two, but I like to think that most of my stories are normal-ish.

I'm currently looking for Fallout stories (I've only played Fallout 4), Skyrim, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, and original stories that are modern, science fiction, or modern-fantasy!

My Mechanical Heart
In this universe, mankind is in a seemingly endless war against a hostile alien race. Going on for hundreds of years now, the humans are desperate for an ending. Short of thermonuclear annihilation, they've tried everything to no avail. The aliens are simply too resilient to be beaten. In their desperation, humanity turns to less-than-ethical experiments to create the perfect soldier. These soldiers are fast, strong, keen-eyed and quick-minded. They're exactly what humanity needs to gain an edge in the war, and they're largely successful in turning the tide, finally. One day, one of these supersoliders is caught in an ambush with their unit, they are able to defeat the aliens, but are incapacitated by an explosion. They wake up in a space medical station, missing one leg, and are no

I came across a story awhile ago I can't seem to find again. It seems that one of the very early Fandom groups, maybe the Futurians, was contacted by a professional publicity agent that plainly had never read any sci-fi himself. he gave a grandiloquent presentation about supernal this and the future that, and promised them the Milky Way, more or less, if their hired him to let the world know about their cause. I guess they were pretty baffled, took his card, thanked him, and left it at that.

I think it may have formed the basis of Harlan Ellison's "GBK: A Many-Flavored Bird", which I read decades before finding--and losing! track of this incident.

Can anyone here point me in the direction of this?
Thanks.

Hello!

I'm a 28 year old man with over a decade of role playing experience. I prefer third person writing, and I've written in High Fantasy writing environments, science fiction, cyberpunk, shadowrun-esque roleplays, and I've role played in fandoms like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Skyrim. I've played everything from Orcs infected to Lycanthropy, Mass Effect Vanguards, War-Queens of Northern Wastelands. I'm willing to play a lot of varied characters if you give me something to work with.

I do not have much of a post length minimum, but please no one line posts. If anyone is interested, then I would prefer to use a discord server, because that's what I've been roleplaying on for about three years now. I'm in the Central Time Zone, and it's possible that on some days I'll be able to reply several times a day, and some other days may only be once or twice.

I know this is not the best ad, but it is my first so hopefully that's just nerves why the ad is a little rough. I'm spreading my literary wings again, just need to shake some of the dust off of it.

What the title says. For me it’s the need for male friendships to be turned sexual. This is super common in fan fiction communities especially.

So, I'm currently reading "Playing at the World" by Jon Peterson, which is a history of gaming focusing on the evolution of myriad items that ended up as Dungeons & Dragons. I started it on my way back from Gary-Con, and as an old Grognard I'm finding it fascinating to discover the influence early fan activities had on gaming in general, but specifically how things like Coventry, the SCA, and other fan-driven activities help to bring role-playing into what was essentially miniature wargaming creating this new thing from which all modern gaming owes its origin.

I know that SF fandom has had a huge impact on SF itself, so I head to Wikipedia and look at the references for the history of SF fandom section and I find something worrisome...of the listings there, the only one that covers SF fan history in general is this one: The Immortal Storm: A History of Science Fiction Fandom by Sam Moskowitz (Hyperion Press 1988 ISBN 0-88355-131-4 (original edition The Atlanta Science Fiction Organization Press, Atlanta, Georgia 1954)), last published in 1988...

So, is anyone aware of any books out there covering this topic that were published more recently than 1988, or has (as I'm suspecting) the internet become the replacement for this information? If it's the latter, I wonder how much is going to be lost to time as web pages get dropped, lost, unrecorded and all that information that would have ended up in a reference book ends up lost forever. A century from now, we're going to know whether or not there's a big gap in formally recorded information, or if that information exists but lies buried under billions of petabytes worth of social media posts.

Female human or any kind of female creature! Any media counts that can be loosely classified as sci-fi, including superheroes. Give the name of the character and what they are from.

• Example: Wanda from WandaVision

Outer space shows with imaginary gravity on spaceships used to kind of bother me. Now, after watching and thoroughly enjoying The Expanse, this really bothers me -- especially when all other spaceship systems fail.

Of course, The Expanse also maintains tight consistency within its milieu, another personal qualification for suspending disbelief and enjoying the story.

Ever since publishing my novel, I see things in other fandoms that remind me of my OCs or imagine my favourite characters being best mates with my ocs.

I'm curious, does any big fandom have their own fiction sites.