Saturday, February 16, 2008
Argentus #7
Steven Silver / http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/argentus.html. / on eFanzines / Steve brings out one Argentus a year, usually with a wonderful "mock section" wherein his contributors run wild with their imaginations; this issue lacks that, but I'm jealous of the goodies it does proffer. There's an outstanding b&w design cover by Deb Kosiba, whose work is new to me. Three contributors name their top ten (or five) out-of-print SF books. (Lord of Light? Stand on Zanzibar? Bridge of Birds? Why aren't these masterworks on the shelves?) Fred Lerner of Lofgeornost tells tales from the Portuguese, a change of pace for most fanzines, and Michael Thomas provides a nifty piece about Dr. Who. (Long live Jon Pertwee!) Mike Resnick tells the tale of his friendship with Satanist Anton Levey; Levey sounds like a guy who found a dandy scam and milked it for everything he could get. Most interesting item in this serious, intellectually stimulating fanzine is a quasi-panel discussion of utopian SF Silver "cobbled" together from comments by several erudite Sfers. And that's the distinction of Argentus: it tries to touch and stimulate the intelligence of its readers.
