Quanta is Copyright(c)1994 Daniel K. Appelquist.
From here, you can go to the contents by issue, or go to the Quanta home page.
Looking Ahead
Daniel K. Appelquist
Hello again, and welcome to another exciting issue of Quanta! Sorry it's been so long since the last issue, but I think you'll find it's been well worth the wait. I'm very excited about this issue.
If you're a PostScript subscriber, you may have noticed the terrific cover art for this issue. Thanks to John Zimmerman for designing this. (What appears on the ASCII cover is a text version of this design.) I hope we'll be seeing more of his work on the covers of future issues. The cover is based on the new serial that starts this issue, Marshall Gilula's novel, `Dr. Tomorrow'. This work will be presented in five parts. `Dr. Tomorrow' is, to put it mildly, a very strange story, but one that I also feel is very important. As a warning, the story jumps back and forth between tenses and person, which can sometimes be disorienting for sensitive readers.
Also in this issue, Jim Vassilakos gives us a very good installment of `The Harrison Chapters'. Jim tells me he's definitely thinking of wrapping `The Harrison Chapters' up soon. Possibly within the next couple of issues.
In addition to Marshall we have fiction from three new faces this issue: Maurice Forrester, Jae Brim and Joel Wachman. I've been really impressed with the quality of fiction I got in response to my request for submissions. I hope we'll be seeing more of these authors in future issues, as well as more new authors and voices.
Good news for Compuserve subscribers: all issues of Quanta (as well as InterText, Athene, Core and other network magazines) are now available on Compuserve, in the EFF forum. New issues will also appear on Compuserve as they are released. This service is being made available by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, specifically Rita Rouvalis (editor of Core). Thanks Rita!
Several new projects are currently in the works. First of all, a mail server which would automatically fill requests for back issues. I'll be sending out a bulletin to all subscribers about that when it happens. Also, I may be piloting a paper-distribution for Quanta on a cost-recovery basis. Again, I'll send out a bulletin when and if this happens.
Something I'm definitely going to be doing is a disk-distribution for Quanta (again, on a cost-recovery basis). The disk-distribution might potentially open up a whole new market of computer users who do not have direct access to the Internet or to Compuserve.
If you have any comments or advice (especially advice!) about any of these projects, feel free to send me mail.
Let's see...what else? Well, Quanta has changed postal addresses again. The P.O. Box just wasn't a cost-effective solution for mail delivery. The new address for Quanta is:
Quanta 401 Amberson Avenue, #208 Pittsburgh, PA 15232
Thanks to the wonderful postal service, mail will continue to be forwarded from the old address to the new one for about a year.
Now, on to the topic of the month, which seems to be `Electronic Fiction: Can it Survive?'. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read the editors' columns in InterText and Core this month.) I'm not going to stand (well, virtually stand) here and attempt to justify my existence, or the existence of Quanta. To me, the form of an electronic publication is convenient, but not especially integral to Quanta's function: to get good fiction by amateur authors out there where people can read it! Quanta exists because writers and readers exist. I've already outlined several proposals to increase Quanta's distribution, one of which is a paper distribution. Remember paper? I'd also love to get more submissions from writers off the net. I feel the net, while expansive in some ways, and certainly vast by some definitions, is, basically, a cloistered community. If Quanta is to truly fulfill its promise, it needs to get outside that community. It has to become available to EVERYONE out there interested in writing and reading science fiction. Currently this simply isn't the case.
So I'm not claiming victory yet.
What's my point? Don't get so overwhelmed by the nifty method in which Quanta is produced and distributed, that you miss the important part: the fiction within its pages.
That's about it from me for now. Enjoy!
Quanta is Copyright(c)1994 Daniel K. Appelquist.
From here, you can go to the contents by issue,
or go to the Quanta home page.