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Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or
fandom A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant ...
of people interested in
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel univ ...
in contact with one another based upon that interest. SF fandom has a life of its own, but not much in the way of formal organization (although formal clubs such as the
Futurians The Futurians were a group of science fiction (SF) fans, many of whom became editors and writers as well. The Futurians were based in New York City and were a major force in the development of science fiction writing and science fiction fandom in ...
(1937–1945) and the
Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, Inc., or LASFS, is a science fiction and fantasy fan society that meets in the Los Angeles area. The current meeting place can be found on thLASFS website LASFS is the oldest continuously operating scienc ...
(1934–present) are recognized examples of organized fandom). Most often called simply "fandom" within the community, it can be viewed as a distinct
subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, pol ...
, with its own literature and
jargon Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...
; marriages and other relationships among fans are common, as are multi-generational fan families.


Origins and history

Science fiction fandom started through the letter column of
Hugo Gernsback Hugo Gernsback (; born Hugo Gernsbacher, August 16, 1884 – August 19, 1967) was a Luxembourgish–American editor and magazine publisher, whose publications including the first science fiction magazine. His contributions to the genre as pub ...
's fiction magazines. Not only did fans write comments about the stories—they sent their addresses, and Gernsback published them. Soon, fans were writing letters directly to each other, and meeting in person when they lived close together, or when one of them could manage a trip. In New York City,
David Lasser David Lasser (March 20, 1902 – May 5, 1996) was an American writer and political activist. Lasser is remembered as one of the most influential figures of early science fiction writing, working closely with Hugo Gernsback. He was also heavily in ...
, Gernsback's managing editor, nurtured the birth of a small local club called the Scienceers, which held its first meeting in a Harlem apartment on December 11, 1929. Almost all the members were adolescent boys. Around this time a few other small local groups began to spring up in metropolitan areas around the United States, many of them connecting with fellow enthusiasts via the Science Correspondence Club. In May 1930 the first science-fiction fan magazine, '' The Comet'', was produced by the Chicago branch of the Science Correspondence Club under the editorship of Raymond A. Palmer (later a noted, and notorious, sf magazine editor) and Walter Dennis. In January 1932, the New York City circle, which by then included future
comic-book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are oft ...
editors Julius Schwartz and
Mort Weisinger Mortimer Weisinger (; April 25, 1915 – May 7, 1978) was an American magazine and comic book editor best known for editing DC Comics' ''Superman'' during the mid-1950s to 1960s, in the Silver Age of comic books. He also co-created such features a ...
, brought out the first issue of their own publication, '' The Time Traveller'', with
Forrest J Ackerman Forrest James Ackerman (November 24, 1916 – December 4, 2008) was an American magazine editor; science fiction writer and literary agent; a founder of science fiction fandom; a leading expert on science fiction, horror, and fantasy films; a p ...
of the embryonic Los Angeles group as a contributing editor. In 1934, Gernsback established a correspondence club for fans called the
Science Fiction League The Science Fiction League was one of the earliest associations formed by science fiction fans. It was created by Hugo Gernsback in February 1934 in the pages of ''Wonder Stories'', an early science fiction pulp magazine. Gernsback was the Lea ...
, the first fannish organization. Local groups across the nation could join by filling out an application. A number of clubs came into being around this time. LASFS (the
Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, Inc., or LASFS, is a science fiction and fantasy fan society that meets in the Los Angeles area. The current meeting place can be found on thLASFS website LASFS is the oldest continuously operating scienc ...
) was founded at this time as a local branch of the SFL, while several competing local branches sprang up in New York City and immediately began feuding among themselves. In 1935, PSFS (the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, 1935–present) was formed. The next year, half a dozen fans from NYC came to Philadelphia to meet with the PSFS members, as the first Philadelphia Science Fiction Conference, which some claim as the world's first
science fiction convention Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of the speculative fiction genre, science fiction. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of expre ...
. Soon after the fans started to communicate directly with each other came the creation of
science fiction fanzine A science-fiction fanzine is an amateur or semi-professional magazine published by members of science-fiction fandom, from the 1930s to the present day. They were one of the earliest forms of fanzine, within one of which the term "''fanzine''" wa ...
s. These amateur publications might or might not discuss science fiction and were generally traded rather than sold. They ranged from the utilitarian or inept to professional-quality printing and editing. In recent years,
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...
newsgroups A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinc ...
such as rec.arts.sf.fandom, websites and
blogs A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...
have somewhat supplanted printed fanzines as an outlet for expression in fandom, though many popular fanzines continue to be published. Science-fiction fans have been among the first users of computers, email, personal computers and the Internet. Many professional
science fiction authors This is a list of noted science-fiction authors (in alphabetical order): A * Dafydd ab Hugh (born 1960) * Alexander Abasheli (1884–1954) * Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838–1926) * Kōbō Abe (1924–1993) * Robert Abernathy (1924–1990) * Da ...
started their interest in science fiction as fans, and some still publish their own fanzines or contribute to those published by others. A widely regarded (though by no means error-free) history of fandom in the 1930s can be found in
Sam Moskowitz Sam Moskowitz (June 30, 1920 – April 15, 1997) was an American writer, critic, and historian of science fiction. Biography As a child, Moskowitz greatly enjoyed reading science fiction pulp magazines. As a teenager, he organized a branch of ...
's ''The Immortal Storm: A History of Science Fiction Fandom'' Hyperion Press 1988 (original edition The Atlanta Science Fiction Organization Press, Atlanta, Georgia 1954). Moskowitz was himself involved in some of the incidents chronicled and has his own point of view, which has often been criticized.


By country


Sweden

Organized fandom in
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...
("Sverifandom") emerged during the early-1950s. The first Swedish science fiction fanzine was started in the early 1950s. The oldest still existing club, Club Cosmos in
Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has a ...
, was formed in 1954, and the first Swedish science-fiction convention, LunCon, was held in
Lund Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish province of Scania, across the Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipality, Scania County. The Öres ...
in 1956. Today, there are a number of science fiction clubs in the country, including Skandinavisk Förening för Science Fiction (whose club fanzine, ''Science Fiction Forum'', was once edited by
Stieg Larsson Karl Stig-Erland "Stieg" Larsson (, ; 15 August 1954 – 9 November 2004) was a Swedish writer, journalist, and activist. He is best known for writing the ''Millennium'' trilogy of crime novels, which were published posthumously, starting in ...
, a board member and one-time chairman thereof), Linköpings Science Fiction-Förening and Sigma Terra Corps. Between one and four science-fiction conventions are held each year in Sweden, among them Swecon, the annual national Swedish con. An annual prize is awarded to someone that has contributed to the national fandom by the Alvar Appeltofft Memorial Fund.


UK

SF fandom in the UK has close ties with that in the USA. In the UK there are multiple conventions. The largest regular convention for Literary SF (Book focused) fandom is the British National convention or Eastercon. Strangely enough this is held over the Easter weekend. Committee membership and location changes year-to-year. The license to use the Eastercon name for a year is awarded by votes of the business meeting of the Eastercon two years previously. There are substantially larger events run by UK Media Fandom and commercial organisations also run Gate Shows (for-profit operations with paid staff.) The UK has also hosted the Worldcon several times, most recently in 2014. News of UK events appears in the fanzine Ansible produced by David Langford each month.


Italy

The beginning of an Italian science fiction fandom can be located between the late 1950s and early 1960s, when magazines such as ''Oltre il Cielo'' and ''Futuro'' started to publish readers’ letters and promote correspondences and the setting-up of clubs in various cities. Among the first fanzines, ''Futuria Fantasia'' was cyclostyled in Milan in 1963 by Luigi Cozzi (later to become a filmmaker), its title paid homage to Ray Bradbury's fanzine by the same name; ''L’Aspidistra'', edited by Riccardo Leveghi in Trento starting in 1965 featured contributions by Gianfranco de Turris, Gian Luigi Staffilano, and Sebastiano Fusco, future editors of professional magazines and book series; also Luigi Naviglio, editor in 1965 of the fanzine ''Nuovi Orizzonti'', was soon to become a writer for ''I Romanzi del Cosmo''. During subsequent years fanzines continued to function as training grounds for future editors and writers, and the general trend was towards improved quality and life expectancy (e.g. ''The Time Machine'' run for 50 issues starting in 1975, ''Intercom'' for 149 issues between 1979 and 1999, before its migration to the web as an e-zine until 2003, then as a website). In 1963 the first Trieste Festival of Science Fiction Cinema took place, anticipating the first conventions as an opportunity for a nationwide social gathering. Informal meetings were organized in Milan, Turin and Carrara between 1965 and 1967. In 1972, the first European convention, Eurocon, was organized in Trieste, during which an Italia Award was also created. Eurocon was back in Italy in 1980 and 2009 (in 1989 a Eurocon was held in San Marino). Since its foundation in 2013, the association ''World SF Italia'' coordinates the organization the annual national convention (Italcon) and awards (Premio Italia – with thirty- two categories across media – and Premio Vegetti – best Italian novel and essay).


Conventions

Since the late 1930s, SF fans have organized conventions, non-profit gatherings where the fans (some of whom are also professionals in the field) meet to discuss SF and generally enjoy themselves. (A few fannish couples have held their weddings at conventions.) The
1st World Science Fiction Convention The 1st World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) was held on 2–4 July 1939 in the Caravan Hall in New York City, United States, in conjunction with the New York World's Fair, which was themed as "The World of Tomorrow". It was later retroa ...
or
Worldcon Worldcon, or more formally the World Science Fiction Convention, the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), is a science fiction convention. It has been held each year since 1939 (except for the years 1942 to 1945, duri ...
was held in conjunction with the
1939 New York World's Fair The 1939–40 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York, United States. It was the second-most expensive American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purch ...
, and has been held annually since the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. Worldcon has been the premier convention in fandom for over half a century; it is at this convention that the
Hugo Award The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention and chosen by its members. The Hugo is widely considered the premier ...
s are bestowed, and attendance can approach 8,000 or more. SF writer
Cory Doctorow Cory Efram Doctorow (; born July 17, 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog ''Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent o ...
calls science fiction "perhaps the most social of all literary genres", and states, "Science fiction is driven by organized fandom, volunteers who put on hundreds of literary conventions in every corner of the globe, every weekend of the year." SF conventions can vary from minimalist "relaxacons" with a hundred or so attendees to heavily programmed events with four to six or more simultaneous tracks of programming, such as
WisCon WisCon or Wiscon, a Wisconsin science fiction convention, is the oldest, and often called the world's leading, feminist science fiction convention and conference. It was first held in Madison, Wisconsin in February 1977, after a group of fans a ...
and Worldcons. Commercial shows dealing with SF-related fields are sometimes billed as 'science fiction conventions,' but are operated as for-profit ventures, with an orientation towards passive spectators, rather than involved fans, and a tendency to neglect or ignore written SF in favor of television, film, comics, video games, etc. One of the largest of these is the annual
Dragon*Con Dragon Con (previously Dragon*Con and sometimes DragonCon) is a North American multigenre convention, founded in 1987, which takes place annually over the Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, Georgia. , the convention draws attendance of over 80,000, f ...
in
Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,71 ...
with an attendance of more than 20,000 since 2000.


Science-fiction societies

In the United States, many science-fiction societies were launched as chapters of the
Science Fiction League The Science Fiction League was one of the earliest associations formed by science fiction fans. It was created by Hugo Gernsback in February 1934 in the pages of ''Wonder Stories'', an early science fiction pulp magazine. Gernsback was the Lea ...
and, when it faded into history, several of the original League chapters remained viable and were subsequently incorporated as independent organizations. Most notable among the former League chapters which were spun off was the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, which served as a model for subsequent SF societies formed independent of the League history. Science-fiction societies, more commonly referred to as "clubs" except on the most formal of occasions, form a year-round base of activities for science-fiction fans. They are often associated with an SF convention or group of conventions, but maintain a separate existence as cultural institutions within specific geographic regions. Several have purchased property and maintain ongoing collections of SF literature available for research, as in the case of the
Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, Inc., or LASFS, is a science fiction and fantasy fan society that meets in the Los Angeles area. The current meeting place can be found on thLASFS website LASFS is the oldest continuously operating scienc ...
, the
New England Science Fiction Association The New England Science Fiction Association, or NESFA, is a science fiction club centered in the New England area. It was founded in 1967, "by fans who wanted to ''do'' things in addition to socializing". NESFA is currently registered as a non- ...
, and the
Baltimore Science Fiction Society The Baltimore Science Fiction Society (BSFS) is a literary organization focusing on science fiction, fantasy and related genres. A 501c3 literary society based in Baltimore, Maryland, the BSFS sponsors Balticon, the Maryland Regional Science Fic ...
. Other SF Societies maintain a more informal existence, meeting at general public facilities or the homes of individual members, such as the Bay Area Science Fiction Association.


Offshoots and subcommunities

As a community devoted to discussion and exploration of new ideas, fandom has become an incubator for many groups that started out as special interests within fandom, some of which have partially separated into independent intentional communities not directly associated with science fiction. Among these groups are
comic-book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are oft ...
fandom,
media fandom A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant ...
, the
Society for Creative Anachronism The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is an international living history group with the aim of studying and recreating mainly Medieval European cultures and their histories before the 17th century. A quip often used within the SCA describes ...
, gaming, and furry fandom, sometimes referred to collectively as "fringe fandoms" with the implication that the original fandom centered on science-fiction texts (magazines and later books and fanzines) is the "true" or "core" fandom. Fandom also welcomes and shares interest with other groups including
LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is ...
communities,
libertarians Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
, neo-pagans, and space activist groups like the L5 Society, among many others. Some groups exist almost entirely within fandom but are distinct and cohesive subcultures in their own rights, such as
filkers Filk music is a musical culture, genre, and community tied to science fiction, fantasy, and horror fandom and a type of fan labor. The genre has existed since the early 1950s and been played primarily since the mid-1970s. Etymology and defin ...
, costumers, and convention runners (sometimes called " SMOFs"). Fandom encompasses subsets of fans that are principally interested in a single writer or subgenre, such as
Tolkien fandom Tolkien fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially of the Middle-earth legendarium which includes ''The Hobbit'', ''The Lord of the Rings'', and ''The Silmarillion''. The concept of Tolkie ...
, and ''Star Trek'' fandom ("
Trekkie A Trekkie or Trekker is a fan (person), fan of the ''Star Trek'' franchise, or of specific television series or films within that franchise. History Many early Trekkies were also fans of ''The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'' (1964–1968), another show ...
s"). Even short-lived television series may have dedicated followings, such as the fans of
Joss Whedon Joseph Hill Whedon (; born June 23, 1964) is an American filmmaker, composer, and comic book writer. He is the founder of Mutant Enemy Productions, co-founder of Bellwether Pictures, and is best known as the creator of several television serie ...
's ''Firefly'' television series and movie ''
Serenity Serenity may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Serenity'' (2019 film), a thriller starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Diane Lane * Sailor Moon (character), also known as Princess Serenity and Neo-Queen Serenity, in the ' ...
'', known as Browncoats. Participation in science fiction fandom often overlaps with other similar interests, such as fantasy
role-playing games A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal ...
,
comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are oft ...
s and
anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening o ...
, and in the broadest sense fans of these activities are felt to be part of the greater community of SF fandom. There are active SF fandoms around the world. Fandom in non-Anglophone countries is based partially on local literature and media, with cons and other elements resembling those of English-speaking fandom, but with distinguishing local features. For example,
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...
's national gathering
Finncon Finncon is the largest science fiction convention in Finland and, with up to 15,000 participants, one of the largest SF conventions in Europe. Finncon is unique among SF conventions because it has no participation/membership fee, and is funded p ...
is funded by the government, while all conventions and fan activities in
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
are heavily influenced by anime and
manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is used ...
.


Fanspeak

Science fiction and
fantasy fandom Fantasy fandom is a fandom and commonality of fans of the fantasy genre. It revolves around popular media franchises belonging to the fantasy genre and can include collective fan works of these fantasy franchises and events that celebrate franch ...
has its own
slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gr ...
or
jargon Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...
, sometimes called "fanspeak" (the term has been in use since at least 1962). Fanspeak is made up of
acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
s, blended words, obscure in-jokes, and standard terms used in specific ways. Some terms used in fanspeak have spread to members of the
Society for Creative Anachronism The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is an international living history group with the aim of studying and recreating mainly Medieval European cultures and their histories before the 17th century. A quip often used within the SCA describes ...
("Scadians"),
Renaissance Fair A Renaissance fair, Renaissance faire or Renaissance festival is an outdoor gathering open to the public and typically commercial in nature, which purportedly recreates a historical setting for the amusement of its guests. Some are permanent the ...
participants ("Rennies"), hacktivists, and
internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...
gaming and
chat Chat or chats may refer to: Communication * Conversation, particularly casual * Online chat, text message communication over the Internet in real-time * Synchronous conferencing, a formal term for online chat * SMS chat, a form of text messagi ...
fans, due to the social and contextual intersection between the communities. Examples of fanspeak used in these broader fannish communities include gafiate, a term meaning to drop out of SF related community activities, with the implication to Get A Life. The word is derived via the
acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
for "get away from it all". A related term is fafiate, for "forced away from it all". The implication is that one would really rather still be involved in fandom, but circumstances make it impossible. Two other acronyms commonly used in the community are FIAWOL (Fandom Is A Way Of Life) and its opposite FIJAGH (Fandom Is Just A Goddamned Hobby) to describe two ways of looking at the place of fandom in one's life. Science-fiction fans often refer to themselves using the irregular plural "fen": man/men, fan/fen.


In fiction

As science fiction fans became professional writers, they started slipping the names of their friends into stories. Wilson "Bob" Tucker slipped so many of his fellow fans and authors into his works that doing so is called tuckerization. The subgenre of "
recursive Recursion (adjective: ''recursive'') occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematics ...
science fiction" has a fan-maintained bibliography at the New England Science Fiction Association's website; some of it is about science fiction fandom, some not. In
Robert Bloch Robert Albert Bloch (; April 5, 1917September 23, 1994) was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, psychological horror and fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and television. He also wrote a relatively sma ...
's 1956 short story, "A Way Of Life", science-fiction fandom is the only institution to survive a
nuclear holocaust A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scen ...
and eventually becomes the basis for the reconstitution of civilization. The science-fiction novel ''Gather in the Hall of the Planets'', by K.M. O'Donnell (aka Barry N. Malzberg), 1971, takes place at a
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
science-fiction convention and features broad parodies of many SF fans and authors. A pair of SF novels by Gene DeWeese and Robert "Buck" Coulson, ''Now You See It/Him/Them'' and ''Charles Fort Never Mentioned Wombats'' are set at Worldcons; the latter includes an in-character "introduction" by Wilson Tucker (himself a character in the novel) which is a sly self-parody verging on a self-tuckerization. The 1991 SF novel '' Fallen Angels'' by
Larry Niven Laurence van Cott Niven (; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer. His best-known works are ''Ringworld'' (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards, and, with Jerry Pournelle, ''The Mote in God's Eye ...
,
Jerry Pournelle Jerry Eugene Pournelle (; August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017) was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s ...
and Michael Flynn constitutes a tribute to SF fandom. The story includes a semi-illegal fictional
Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
Worldcon Worldcon, or more formally the World Science Fiction Convention, the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), is a science fiction convention. It has been held each year since 1939 (except for the years 1942 to 1945, duri ...
in a post-disaster world where science, and thus fandom, is disparaged. Many of the characters are barely tuckerized fans, mostly from the
Greater Los Angeles area Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...
. Mystery writer Sharyn McCrumb's ''Bimbos of the Death Sun'' and ''Zombies of the Gene Pool'' are murder mysteries set at a science-fiction convention and within the broader culture of fandom respectively. While containing mostly nasty caricatures of fans and fandom, some fans take them with good humor; others consider them vicious and cruel. In 1994 and 1996, two anthologies of
alternate history Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, alte ...
science fiction involving World Science Fiction Conventions, titled ''Alternate Worldcons'' and ''Again, Alternate Worldcons'', edited by
Mike Resnick Michael Diamond Resnick (; March 5, 1942 – January 9, 2020) was an American science fiction writer and editor. He won five Hugo awards and a Nebula award, and was the guest of honor at Chicon 7. He was the executive editor of the defunct m ...
were published.


Fans are slans

A.E. van Vogt's 1940 novel ''
Slan ''Slan'' is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer A. E. van Vogt, as well as the name of the fictional race of superbeings featured in the novel. The novel was originally serialized in the magazine '' Astounding Science Fictio ...
'' was about a
mutant In biology, and especially in genetics, a mutant is an organism or a new genetic character arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is generally an alteration of the DNA sequence of the genome or chromosome of an organism. ...
variety of humans who are superior to regular humanity and are therefore hunted down and killed by the normal human population. While the story has nothing to do with fandom, many science-fiction fans felt very close to the protagonists, feeling their experience as bright people in a mundane world mirrored that of the mutants; hence, the rallying cry, "Fans Are Slans!"; and the tradition that a building inhabited primarily by fans can be called a
slan shack ''Slan'' is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer A. E. van Vogt, as well as the name of the fictional race of superbeings featured in the novel. The novel was originally serialized in the magazine ''Astounding Science Fiction' ...
.


Figures in the history of fandom


See also


References


Further reading

* *Kozinets, Robert V. (2007), "Inno-tribes: Star Trek as Wikimedia" in Cova, Bernard, Robert V. Kozinets, and Avi Shankar Consumer Tribes, Oxford and Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann, 194–211. *Kozinets, Robert V. (2001), "Utopian Enterprise: Articulating the Meanings of Star Trek's Culture of Consumption," Journal of Consumer Research, 28 (June), 67–88. * ''In Memory Yet Green'' by Isaac Asimov (1979) * ''The Futurians'' by Damon Knight (1977) * ''The Way the Future Was'' by Frederik Pohl (1978) * ''All Our Yesterdays'' by Harry Warner Jr. (1969) * ''The Immortal Storm: A History of Science Fiction Fandom'' by Sam Moskowitz. Hyperion Press 1988 (original edition The Atlanta Science Fiction Organization Press, Atlanta, Georgia 1954) * Hansen, Rob THEN Science Fiction Fandom in the U (Ansible Editions, 2016)K: 1930–1980


External links


eFanzines – SF fanzines and other fannish projects

Trufen.net, dedicated to "conversations between science fiction fans on all subjects"

The Fanac fan history project

The Fancyclopedia 3 project






by Rob Hansen

(1955) edited by Bob Tucker *
Who's Who in SF Fandom

''The Voices Of Fandom – Rare Historic & New Recordings from the World of SF Fandom''



David Langford Home Page

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