Dear Friends,

You've had to wait quite a while (mea culpa!) for the attached ish. But it may yet prove worth your while, with pages of quotes from the Arisia science fiction/fantasy/horror/media con on such tempting topics as:

• How Shane Toutellotte hits the trifecta every year
• How tiresome it gets telling women how to have orgasms
• Who thinks Walter Hunt's new series could be "the science fictional equivalent of The Lord of the Rings" (besides Walter, I mean)
• How Wombat formed an alcoholic bond with Anne McCaffrey
• The real meaning of Phil D'Amato
• Why Hal Clement might fit in at Fox News
• Which movie about a haunted sub was among last year's 10 best
• Why our space program reminds Harry Turtledove of the Vikings
• How Keith De Candido came to name our favorite planet
• How unrequited love has affected Paul Levinson's career
• How Wen Spencer became an SF writer by default
• Why Aristotle should have been named this con's Dead Guest of Honor

Plus Web site and quote of the month, a quick lettercol, flicks reviews, backchat, and a few replies to the then-last APA ish.

By the way: hope to meet many of you at Readercon, perhaps the world's highest-minded yet fun speculative fiction conference. Remember, it's July 11-13 weekend in Burlington, Massachusetts (details at www.readercon.org). And let's see: I'll hand a dollar to the first subscriber there who can tell me the provenance of this sentence:

"The chimney rock is only a little older than mankind, a little younger than grass."

Anyway, here's the 85th edition of The Devniad, which unlike this e-version has a life upon paper in APA:NESFA, the monthly club fanzine of the New England Science Fiction Association. As usual: this and attached document is copyright 2003 by Robert E. Devney. Comments, cavils, or cancellations -- and/or requests for free subscription, as an attached doc in Word or in vanilla text format -- are welcome at my addresses in the doc. (Just mention the word DEVNIAD somewhere in the subject line so I don't can your spam.)

warm regards,

Bob Devney