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Refractions #1

 

The Fifth Edition

 

GeneratedMay 7, 2005

Table of Contents

 

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Illustrations

 

Jean Graham ??
Shona McAndrew ??, ??
Kathryn Andersen cover, ??, ??, ??, ??, ??, ??, ??, ??, ??
Anonymous ??, ??, ??, ??, ??

 

 

width=4cm]bag-cat.png Cat-Out-Of-The-Bag
Productions

 

Edited by Kathryn Andersen
<zines@katspace.org> < http://www.katspace.org/zines>
< http://www.katspace.org/fiction/>

Agented in the UK by Judith Proctor
<Judith@blakes-7.com> < http://www.blakes-7.com>
28 Diprose Road, Corfe Mullen, Wimborne, Dorset BH21 3QY England

 

Editorial

Here we are – the first thing to be read, and the last thing to be written. Welcome to the debut of Refractions, the club zine of Alternity, the club for fans with eclectic tastes. Half the blame is Bryan Dart’s. It was his idea. I’m starting a club, he said. You’ve got experience, he said. Would you be interested in editing the club zine? I said no. Then I said maybe. Then I said yes, but don’t expect me to contribute to it. Famous last words. Here we have a zine, and I contributed to it. Then again, one zine editor that I know said you can’t edit a zine without expecting to contribute 50% of it. Another revised that figure to 90%, so I guess I managed okay! I can’t believe it. It’s actually finished. It actually happened. The whole thing. Done.

Why Refractions? The name and the idea for the logo came to me at about the same time, back in January. It’s supposed to indicate diversity of ideas, alterations, crossovers, and things broken away from the original yet echoing its image; the epitome of a mixed Media SF fanzine. That’s why.

My chiefest thanks go to Jean Graham, Judith Proctor and Kev Davis, without whom we wouldn’t really have a zine! Thanks to Jean for digging up those gems and making me wonder why I hadn’t read more of her stuff before. Thanks to Judith for peppering me with poems in the midst of her own zine editing and family crises. Thanks to Kev for sitting down and writing a durn good (and long) story and polishing away at it – not forgetting the contributions of the Alien Nation Mailing List folks for some of that polish.

Due to the wonders of the Internet, this is truly an international fanzine. Besides Jenny Hayward, Shona McAndrew and I from Australia, we have Jean Graham and Jim McMahon from the U.S. of A., Kev Davis and Judith Proctor from England, and Marina Bailey from South Africa.

I hope you like this zine. There’s a mixture of stories and poetry, of Blake’s 7 and other universes, mostly serious, but also stuff to bring a smile to your face. Watch out for the end of Aftermath – I originally wasn’t going to use Babylon 5 stories, but I couldn’t resist this one. If you don’t like the zine, why on Earth not? Tell me, constructively. And tell me why you like it too. Do you want a Letters Of Comment column in the next issue? Tell me so.

Speaking of the next issue, its existence and speed of arrival depend on you. If I receive no contributions, there will be no zine. If you’re on the ’net, check out my web page for the full submission guidelines, or write or email me (see the front page for the various addresses). To put it briefly, I want good PG-rated stories, poetry and artwork based on any SF Media universe except the Big Two, Doctor Who and Star Trek.

Enjoy!

PIC

Note on the Fourth Edition

Yes, that’s right, this is the fourth edition of this first issue of Refractions; the fourth time the issue has been laid out. The written content is exactly the same, and the illustrations are mostly the same. Why so many times? You could probably say it was a teething problem, trying to get an issue which would be the same for A4 and Letter paper, then laying it out again for Acrobat PDF format in January 1999, and this time, re-doing it completely with LYX (and underneath it, LATEX2e ) in my quest to be free of the yoke of evil monopolies. February 2003.

Word count: approximately 40,400 words.Warning — boring geekish paragraph follows:

Refractions #1 (The Fourth Edition) was put together using LYX , LATEX2e and ancillary scripts for conversions to things like PDF. Story headers were done with GIMP 1.2.1. Prose text was done in Utopia and headers in Dauphin.

Refractions #1 is an amateur, non-commercial publication. It does not seek to infringe upon any copyright. Contents copyright © 1995-2003. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior permission. The authors retain copyright for their own works, and illustrators retain copyright for their art. Contributions of art or written material accepted for use in Refractions #1 are in trade for one free copy of the fanzine, or a discount on the zine if the contribution is less than one full page.