Page Created: 09/18/10. Last Update: 09/20/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 01/17/08.
ROGER MAC BRIDE ALLEN
Novels:
BSI Starside: The Cause of Death
BSI Starside: Death Sentence
BSI Starside: Final Inquiries
The Depths of Time
Farside Cannon
The Game of Worlds
Issac Asimov's Caliban
Isaac Asimov's Inferno
Isaac Asimov's Utopia
The Modular Man
The Ocean of Years
Orphan of Creation
The Ring of Charon
Rouge Powers
Shattered Sphere
The Shores of Tomorrow
Star Wars: Ambush at Corellia
Star Wars: Assault at Selonia
Star Wars: Showdown at Centerpoint
The Torch of Honor
Collaborations:
Supernova (with Eric Kotani)
The War Machine (with David Drake)
The author's website is: http://www.sff.net/people/roger.allen/.
TAYLOR BLANCHARD
The artist's website is: http://ntaylorblanchard.com/.
MEETING SUMMARY:
Meeting Date: October 8, 1988
Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center.
Official Attendance: 23.
Meeting Program: Talk by Science Fiction Author / Slide Show by SF/Fantasy Artist.
Notes:
Meeting Memories:
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 1988 Philip J De Parto:
Author Roger MacBride Allen and artist Taylor Blanchard formed a fill-in double feature in place of the STAR TREK extravaganza originally scheduled for October 8, 1988. Attendance was a little light--23 in all--but not really that bad considering the last-minute reshuffling meant that no press releases were filed, nor was the newsletter produced.
Taylor Blanchard was first man up. He brought along four original paintings and gave an hour-long slide show. This was his third meeting attended, he was present at our first meeting and also at our first picnic, but this was actually the first time I actually had time to sit and talk with him. He was personable and forthcoming, demonstrating why he is held in such esteem by several club members.
Since Taylor happens to be black and everyone in his paintings is white, I decided to ask the obvious question which everyone else in the room was too polite or uncomfortable to raise--why? This lead to a discussion of marketing difficulties of books with black characters on their covers (read: racism is America). This topic continued into Roger MacBride Allen's talk and into a long conversation with Lisa Feerick (Advertising Coordinator, Davis Publications). The long and the short of it is that while it is possible to write a science fiction work featuring a black character and get it published, you cannot hope to sell the book if that character appears on the cover.
After an intermission, Roger MacBride Allen spoke. Mr Allen has written four science fiction novels: THE TORCH OF HONOR, ROGUE POWERS, FARSIDE CANNON and ORPHAN OF CREATION. The first three of these fall into the Heinlein school of military sf. ORPHAN, his latest novel, represents a very different genre, that of sf anthropological fiction. The main character is a black woman.
Mr Allen came into the field from outside the ranks of fandom. He recounted his first encounters with conventions, fandom, and the sf pecking order with a laid back humor. He read a short passage from FARSIDE CANNON about the emptiness of space and the afterword of ORPHAN which addressed a range of contemporary social issues. He sold most of the books he brought with him and left those in the audience unfamiliar with his work wanting to track it down.
Philip Duran, William Mc Cauley, and Anthony Pawlak won free books. Ray Cooper and Sherri Gin, who had been AWOL for a long time, made it back. Leora Baeder won the Gift Certificate to Schillers.
The S F A B C extends heartfelt thanks to Lisa Feerick for helping to arrange for Roger and Taylor to be present.