OtherRealms
OtherRealms was a Science Fiction Fanzine I put out between 1986 and 1992. It was primarily focussed on reviews and criticism of Science Fiction and Fantasy, but also contained other material that I found interesting. Beyond my own writing, it contained the work of many others, some fans like I was at the time, others authors in the field who were looking for an outlet for informal pieces. Authors who were to be found in OtherRealms included Mike Resnick, Jack Chalker, Charles de Lint, Harry Turtledove, Melissa Scott, Kevin J. Anderson, Michael P. Kube-McDowell, and Lawrence Watt-Evans. I'm proud to admit that at the 1989 World SF convention in Boston (Noreascon Three), OtherRealms was nominated for a Hugo award for Best Fanzine, and I was nominated for Best Fan Writer. I'm even prouder to note that I finished ahead of No Award in both categories, even though there was a voting controversy which affected the Hugos that year.
32 issues have been published. 30 of them were available on the net, while 31 and 32 were paper only. OtherRealms grew out of a wish to find a better way to publish material on the net. You have to realize that back in 1986, things were plain text and distribution was by e-mail and USENET. Even then, USENET was showing signs of strain from growth and popularity, but none of us had a clue how good we had it at the time. USENET today is nothing but a shadow of what it was, quality-wise. A second reason for OtherRealms (other than thinking I had something useful to say) was that I was fighting a serious, nasty writer's block, and I felt that putting myself on a writing schedule and forcing myself to write (or embarass myself in front of the readers waiting for each issue) would help me break out. It did, but it also took on a life of its own and became a much larger thing than anyone expected.
Of course, in today's World Wide Web world, OtherRealms looks (and is) horribly primitive. But it was one attempt to find a better way to deliver and distribute information on-line, long before the WWW existed (or was even under consideration).
Please abide by the copyright notices in the issues -- people's lack of concern over copyright protection was one reason I removed the final issues. Don't screw it up for others.
Special secret sneak peek: I’m (slowly) working to convert all of the OtherRealms issues to HTML with internal anchors to each article. This is going to take a while but until I formally announce it, if you get to this page, you can get a sneak peak at what I’ve completed.