Posts Tagged ‘Nova Express’

Obituary: GAK

Wednesday, February 20th, 2019

Only in reading the February Ansible did I learn that artist GAK died mid-January. His real name was evidently Gregg Kanefsky (edited to add: probably not; that seems to be a different GAK), though I also knew him as Glenn Denny Gak (the name he used on Facebook), and an obituary linked from his Facebook page referenced Glenn A. Klinger. He was obviously a man of many mysteries.

Back when I edited Nova Express, GAK became my go-to guy for cover art. His spikey style seemed a good fit for what I wanted to publish. Among his best covers was the one for the Tim Powers issue:

As well as the one for the Neil Gaiman issue, the original artwork for which I have matted and hanging in my house above a copy of the issue:

After Nova Express, he went on to illustrate a number of horor works, including the Dead Cat Bounce series.

I only met GAK once, at the 2002 World Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis, where I had dinner with him and Nova contributor Hank Wagner. I had no idea he was sick until I read that he had died.

Here’s his ISFDB listing.

One more for the road:

An Overview of Gene Wolfe’s Time at Plant Engineering Magazine

Saturday, August 17th, 2013

Nigel Price alerted me to his short but interesting piece on Gene Wolfe’s time at Plant Engineerring magazine, where he got to write on a number of interesting engineering subjects, including robotics. (And there are a number of other pieces up at Ultan’s Library (which boasts an A-List cast of Gene Wolfe scholars) worthy of your attention. ) It, in turn, quotes the Nova Express interview I did with Gene at the 1998 Baltimore Worldcon (which I think is worth your attention if you haven’t read it already).

Alas, Gene won’t be able to make the San Antonio Worldcon, since the folks at DragonCon have evidently paid his way there instead….

It’s Been A Bad Month for Old Fans

Tuesday, March 5th, 2013

First Jan Howard Finder (AKA “Wombat”) died February 26.

Now Locus Online brings word that Richard E. Geis, Hugo-winning fanzine editor of Science Fiction Review and The Alien Critic, died back on February 4th.

I wasn’t particular close to either of them, but both were on the Nova Express mailing list, and I occasionally got mail from them.

Geis may be most famous for killing the porn book market for writers in the 1970s. Writers used to be able to get $1,000 a pop for a porn novel (not great, but far from chicken feed), but Geis turned them out so fast the price dropped to $500 a pop.

And here’s an appreciation of Geis by Michael Swanwick.

Review Copypalooza

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

So about a year after I really needed to, I’ve finally got around to reorganizing my office. And by “reorganizing,” I mean “putting away a bunch of crap so I can actually put the books I’ve already bought in their proper places on my shelves.”

One obstacle to this is all the Nova Express review copies that have piled up around the place. It hasn’t (quite) been a decade since The Fanzine That Walks Like a Semiprozine published its last issue in 2002. In 2003 I was unemployed most of the year, in 2004 I bought a house, and in 2005 I took a 10 day trip to the UK to see London and the Glasgow Worldcon, all things that ate up both time and money required to publish something that lost a good $1,000-2,000 an issue. (I contend that Nova Express is not in fact dead, but merely resting and pining for the fjords. It’s been my intention to resurrect the beast as some sort of online zine, but life has continued to get in the way.) Despite its non-published status, Nova Express has continued to receive review copies of books (proofs, ARCS, hardbacks, paperbacks, you name it), the more interesting of which I’ve put aside until I had time to bring the zine back to life, though I have reviewed something here every now and then.

But rather than let all these review copies continue taking up valuable bookshelf space, I’ve decided to do two things:

  1. Offer them up to former Nova Express staffers (you know who you are) to review here on Futuramen (as a sort of low-calorie-Nova-Express substitute, or Nova-Express-in-Exile sort of thing), and
  2. Disperse the rest (sell/giveaway/put into my own library).

Rather than spend time listing each and every copy (there are a lot), I’m just going to list the authors. If you’d like to review something by them, let me know. Keep in mind some of these are almost a decade old, but what the hell, better late than never.

  • Neal Asher
  • S. A. Bodeen
  • Kevin Brockmeier
  • M. M. Buckner
  • Ramsey Campbell
  • Storm Constantine
  • Brenda Cooper
  • Robert Conroy
  • Frank Corsaro
  • Ellen Datlow
  • Cory Doctrow
  • William Drinkard
  • Carol Emshwiller
  • Andreas Eschbach
  • Steven Erikson
  • Ian C. Esselmont
  • Michael Flynn
  • Gregory Frost
  • Anne Harris
  • Melanie Gideon
  • Daryl Gregory
  • Jim Grimsley
  • Peter F. Hamilton
  • Thomas Harlan
  • Howard Hendrix
  • Stephen Hunt
  • James Patrick Kelly
  • Liam Jackson
  • Jay Lake
  • Jean Lorrah
  • James Maxey
  • A. Lee Martinez
  • Sandra McDonald
  • Paul Melko
  • James Morrow
  • Jamil Nasir
  • Paul Park
  • Nicholas Pekearo
  • Kit Reed
  • R. Garcia Y. Robertson
  • Cameron Rogers
  • Mary Rosenblum
  • Rudy Rucker
  • Melinda Snodgrass
  • Stanley Schmidt
  • William R. Trotter
  • Vernor Vinge
  • Kit Whitfield
  • Kim Wilkins
  • David Wellington
  • Scott Westerfield
  • If you want to review any of these, drop me a line.