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Egoboos
10 August 2005
SF fandom is such a community sui generis, and so insular by nature, of course it has a language of its own; the plural of fan is fen, and evermore shall be so.
More relevantly, an egoboo is that warm feeling generated by any fanac [sorry, that’s 'fan activity'] that reflects well upon oneself: from being asked for an autograph, on up.
My egoboos of this week, my pet moments:
sitting at a table with a dozen other writers, signing sheets for various limited-edition publications, and suddenly here is Brian Aldiss sitting next to me. We talked. He talked to me. He, Brian Aldiss, spoke to me, and gave a wonderful impression of enjoying the conversation;
being at a party on a tall ship, and being introduced to Pat Cadigan, and not having a chance to say how much I enjoyed her work before she was saying "Oh, you're Chaz Brenchley! You're so cool, I love your books...";
getting home to find that my story Going the Jerusalem Mile has been nominated for the British Science Fiction Association short story award. Any BSFA members out there - the shortlist is compiled from those titles that get the most nominations, so don't let it rest there, nominate again. And again, and again, and...
Nah, actually I'm happy just to see it on the list. It couldn't ever win anyway, and this is one of those cases where it's true to say that the real award is to be nominated. Chuff, chuff.
© Chaz Brenchley 2005
Reproduced here by permission of Chaz Brenchley, who asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.