> WELCOME, TRAVELER

The Lost Signal Science Fiction Society (LoSiFS, which we say "LO-siffs," and which no one outside the club has ever pronounced correctly on the first try) is Omaha's science fiction club. We've been meeting since 1983. We read, we watch, we argue, we put out a monthly fanzine, and once a year we throw a small convention. We currently have 41 dues-paying members, about 25 who show up regularly, and three who have not missed a meeting since the Reagan administration.

I'm Jeremiah Frink, the club secretary and the editor of our fanzine, Lost Signal. In the daytime I'm a technical writer for an insurance company, which means I write manuals that almost nobody reads. At night I edit a fanzine that about sixty people read, every word, and then write in to tell me about my typos. It's the better ratio. I've been a member since 1994 and secretary since 1996, which in LoSiFS terms makes me middle management. I also maintain this page, so if something is wrong, it's my fault, and you can tell me at the next meeting, where several people will already be telling me.

> MEETINGS

We meet the first and third Friday of every month at 7:00 p.m. in the back room of a pancake house on the west side, where the coffee is bottomless and the waitresses have stopped asking what a Wookiee is. Order something; they're nice enough to give us the room for free. New people are always welcome. Just walk in and look for the table with the paperbacks on it and the man in the Babylon 5 jacket.

> THE BOOK DISCUSSION

Lynn Tullos picks the books and runs the discussions, with a firm hand and a bell she rings when anyone talks for more than three minutes. We alternate between new books and older ones somebody insists everyone has to read. Read as much as you can. Spoilers are allowed after the first half hour.

Looking for something to read between meetings? A few of us have been following Marcus Townsend's Sci-Fi Book Reviews from the Night Shift, where a night watchman reads a science fiction novel a week and reviews them all, rated in cups of coffee. His five cups for The Forever War caused a happy twenty minutes at our September 17 meeting.

> MOVIE NIGHTS

Douglas Cabezas runs movie nights, which means either we all go to a theater together, or we all go to his apartment, which has the biggest TV and the most patient downstairs neighbors in Omaha. It's been a big year:

• The Matrix (March). Fourteen of us went opening weekend. Douglas has seen it eleven times. It is the only movie in club history that nobody disliked, and we have checked.
• Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (May). We went to a midnight show on opening night, in costume, and we have been arguing about it ever since. Positions in the club currently range from "it's the best thing that ever happened" (Haz) to "I want the last sixteen years of anticipation back" (Uncle Rudy). The pod race is great. Nobody will defend the trade negotiations. We do not discuss Jar Jar at meetings anymore. It is in the bylaws now.
• The Iron Giant (August). A cartoon about a boy and a giant robot from outer space in 1957 Maine, made from a book by Ted Hughes. It is wonderful. Almost nobody went to see it, which is a crime, and the club has been telling everyone we know. Six of us cried. Seven, if you count me, which I'd prefer you didn't.

Next movie night: Saturday, October 30, Halloween double feature on tape at Douglas's place: John Carpenter's The Thing and Ridley Scott's Alien. Bring snacks. Leave the lights on.

> THE 1999 HUGO AWARDS

This year's World Science Fiction Convention was in Melbourne, Australia, over Labor Day weekend, and the Hugo for Best Novel went to Connie Willis for To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is why it's our November book. Best Dramatic Presentation went to The Truman Show, which started a whole argument about whether it's science fiction (Lynn: yes; Uncle Rudy: "it's a satire with a camera in it").

Uncle Rudy Solari, who has been to nineteen Worldcons, actually went to Melbourne, which took him two planes, a layover in Los Angeles and a good part of his savings. His trip report, with the time he got lost looking for the Hugo ceremony, is in the September issue. Next year's Worldcon is in Chicago, and the club is organizing a car pool. We'll need about six cars and a lot of tolerance.

> TV TALK

• Farscape (Sci-Fi Channel, Friday nights) is the best new science fiction show on TV and half the club is missing the third-Friday meetings to watch it, which is why we now tape it and watch it in the back room afterward on the waitress's little TV. An astronaut shot through a wormhole, a ship that's alive, and puppets from the Henson people that act better than some humans on network TV.
• Crusade, the Babylon 5 follow-up, is over. TNT stopped it after thirteen episodes, and the last of them aired this summer. Alvin, our president and our biggest B5 fan, wore a black armband to the August meeting. He was mostly joking.
• Star Trek: Voyager started its sixth season this week. With Deep Space Nine over since June, it's the only Trek on the air. The club is divided. The club is always divided.

> DUES

Membership is $15 a year ($8 for students), which includes twelve issues of Lost Signal and a discount at SignalCon. Out-of-town fanzine subscriptions are $12 a year. Pay Carolyn Tincher, our treasurer, at any meeting. She takes cash, checks, and in one documented case, a signed first edition. (We sold it. It covered the con suite.)

> A SHORT HISTORY OF LoSiFS

1983. Robert Hershey, then a graduate student, put a notice for "anyone interested in starting a science fiction club" on a college radio station's community calendar. It was read on the air exactly once, on a Tuesday night, about four minutes before the station's transmitter failed for the rest of the week. Five people heard it and showed up. Bob decided the club should be named for the signal that almost nobody received, and so it was.

1984. The first issue of Lost Signal, two typed pages, mimeographed. The club moved to the pancake house, where it has been ever since, through four owners and three remodelings.

1987. The Great Schism, over whether Star Trek: The Next Generation was "real Trek." Six members left to form a rival club. Four came back by Christmas. The other two eventually married each other, so it worked out.

1994. The first SignalCon, a one-day event in a church basement with 38 people and a bake sale. We've held one every year since, and they've grown, slowly, on purpose.

1997. I took over Lost Signal from Bob, who had edited it for thirteen years and handed me the files in two banker's boxes and a shoebox labeled "DO NOT LOSE." I haven't.

1998. This home page. Fifteen years after almost nobody heard our signal, anybody in the world can pick it up. Bob says that's poetic. Carolyn says it's free, which is more important.

SIGNAL STRENGTH:

transmissions received since March 1998

Hailing frequencies: [email protected]
Last updated September 24, 1999, by the Secretary, who should be reading Cryptonomicon instead.