Looking Ahead

Daniel K. Appelquist

One year ago, the first issue of Quanta was released to about a hundred and twenty subscribers, after about two months of design, experimentation and copious blood, sweat and tears. The Quanta of one year ago was really not much more than an experiment. Was there a place for this sort of network magazine? Were there enough amateur writers out there to keep Quanta alive? The fact that this, the sixth issue, is being distributed to over _twelve hundred_ subscribers in an ever expanding list of countries shows that Quanta is viable.

Let me see... I'd like to thank Matthew Sorrels for starting the ball rolling (suggesting LaTeX as a platform, doing the initial work to get that operational), and doing proofreading on and off. I'd like to thank Jay Laefer who has spent countless hours proofreading material (and also Todd Williamson who has also done proofreading for Quanta at times.) I'd certainly like to thank Norman Murray for his continual support and advice. I have to thank Will Frank. It was Will who came up with the name ``Quanta,'' which I think is ``really cool.'' Will has also been a great help in de-mystifying LaTeX into a useable form.

I really have to include some remarks thanking Christopher Kempke for a seemingly unending flow of quality prose. Chris has had a story in every single issue of Quanta since its inception. ``Shifting Sands,'' published in this issue, is his latest offering.

While I'm thanking people, a big thanks to Tom Roikicki of Radical Eye Software for all his help by way of getting DVIPS to work correctly. Thanks to his efforts, this PostScript edition of Quanta will be relatively smaller in code-size than previous issues and should have no problems printing on any PostScript printer.

But enough back-patting. We mustn't be complacent. Quanta must continue to evolve and expand if it is to survive. Right now, I'm exploring options for making it available to people on disk and/or paper formats. This may involve a fee for copying costs, but I think people would be willing to pay it. Of course, all network subscriptions are and will remain without charge.

As a bit of a side note, a very interesting matter caught my attention recently, and that is the possibility of a solar sail craft race to Mars. I've only heard sketchy detais on this so unfortunately I can't offer any information on it. However, if there's someone out there who does know more, I would encourage you to write an article and submit it. I'm sure this is the sort of thing Quanta readers would be interested in (I know I am). I'm always interested in science and science-fiction related articles, by the way. The fact that there are none in this issue is unfortunate, but I hope to make up for that in the December issue.

This will be the second issue without an offering from Faye Levine. Faye is currently involved in writing a sequel to her novel, _Revolution_, (entitled _Fronterra_). According to Faye, _Revolution_ is being seriously considered for representation by a successful Minneapolis agent. I certainly hope to see it on bookstore shelves in the near future. If you have any words of encouragement for Faye, like ``Write more short fiction for Quanta,'' send them to her at fl0m+@andrew.cmu.edu.

Unfortunately, I also have some bad news with this issue. Athene, the journal of fiction published by Jim Mccabe (MCCABE@MTUS5.BITNET) is shortly going to publish its last issue. According to Jim, he simply doesn't have enough time to continue publishing Athene. I can certainly see where he's coming from (Quanta has continued to take up a large chunk of my time, but a manageable chunk). I certainly hope that someone can take over the Athene project for Jim. A net without Athene is a depressing thought. Athene has been around for about as long as Quanta and it was, in fact, the first issue of Athene that inspired me to attempt to produce a magazine of my own. I owe a great debt to Jim, and I'd like to take this oppurtunity to thank him for his efforts. We're sorry to see you go, Jim.

I am constantly impressed with how tight knit a community ``The Net'' is and yet how easily it accepts new people into itself. It's a constantly growing and expanding group, and I'm honored to have been able to contribute in some way to it, as I hopefully will be able to do for years to come. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Quanta is Copyright(c)1994 Daniel K. Appelquist.
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