He was a clown with a difference – when he wasn’t busy amusing the press, he killed some 300,000 of his own people and invaded a neighboring country. Even the war had aspects of a circus.

He was Idi Amin, of course. As a young man he had enlisted in the Kenyan army, and had actually become its heavyweight boxing champion. When he returned to his native Uganda, he rose rapidly in the military, and when he could rise no higher, he overthrew Dr. Milton Obote, who was no Lincoln-in-the-making, and became President in 1971.

Obote fled next door to Tanzania, where the President of that nation, Julius Nyerere, gave him sanctuary – and when Amin decided it was easier to kill off his political opposition than win them over to his side with compelling arguments, Nyerere also offered sanctuary to some 20,000 Ugandans who were fleeing for their lives.

All this took place during the first two years of Amin’s reign.

Amin, for reasons a lot of us have yet to comprehend, was the darling of the Western press – at least for awhile. But in bits and pieces, Uganda’s darker secrets began coming out. He turned government buildings into mass torture chambers. He began committing genocide on any Ugandans who were not from his own tribe. He erected a statue of Adolf Hitler in the middle of the capital city of Kampala, declaring the Fuehrer to be his hero. Though Uganda’s economy was pretty much run by, and dependant upon, Indians, Amin kicked them all out of the country. Then, when the economy tanked and inflation skyrocketed, he invited them back – only to kick them out (and appropriate their property and their businesses) a second time. He couldn’t afford to feed his army, so he allowed them to poach their meals in the game parks. It’s said he even practiced cannibalism on his own infant (or unborn; the accounts differ) son.

Copyright (c) 2000 by Mike Resnick.

by Mike Resnick

Let me start by saying that I love books and magazines. I like the heft and feel of them. I grew up with the printed page. I can’t remember ever having a house where most of the wall space wasn’t covered by overflowing bookshelves. I don’t especially like reading my science fiction off the computer screen.

But as a science fiction writer—and one who has to pay the bills with his science fiction—it’s my job to look ahead and see what’s coming, and whether I like it or not makes no difference. It is not a matter of Good or Bad, but rather of True or False. And the truth is that we’re not going to be pulping as many forests in the future.

Twenty years ago, when the Internet was just taking off, just about every established science fiction writer was approached by start-up publishers. The pitch was always the same: give me something for free today and I’ll make you rich tomorrow (or maybe next week, or possibly in 17 years, or conceivably in . . .) Every one of them went belly-up.

Copyright (c) 2000 by Mike Resnick.

Just saw Van Helsing. I have to preface this by saying I thought Stephen Sommers' The Mummy was a better film than any of the Indiana Jones films, and that the sequel, though flawed, was at least enjoyable.

This one isn't quite as dumb or as bad as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but it comes mighty close. An hour into it Carol, who never leaves a film or a play, turned to me and whispered that she was ready to walk out if I was. I couldn't believe it wouldn't get better, so we stayed. I was wrong. It got worse.

For Challenger #24 (reprint)

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR CRAZY (NOVEL) IDEAS?
by Mike Resnick
It's hard for a science fiction writer to go anywhere without being asked, at least once, "Where do you get your crazy ideas?" The number of facetious and/or contemptuous answers, at least that I'm aware of, is nearing the thousand mark, and yet it seems to do nothing to discourage the endless recitation of the question.

Oasis 15 Program Book

Memories of My Dad

by Mike Resnick

My dad should have been born in New York. There is no
question in my mind that if he had been, he'd have found and
joined the Futurians, collaborated with Cyril Kornbluth, feuded
with Don Wollheim, worked for Fred Pohl, and had affairs with Judy
Merril and Virginia Kidd. They were his kind of people, but he

MY PAL ROSS
By Mike Resnick

I’d like to tell you a little about my late friend, Ross H. Spencer, because his story is unique.

Ross loved his native Youngstown, Ohio, but he moved to the Chicago area to work in first a Studebaker and then a Ford plant. He took time off to help win the war in the Pacific, for which he was properly decorated and from which he made most of his lifelong friends. He fiddled a bit with poetry, but never wrote a word of fiction in his life, except maybe to the IRS. Then, in his early 50s, he had a serious heart attack, brought on by too many beers and too many cigarettes.

So I'm sitting there in Winnipeg, resplendent in my tuxedo, and morbidly wondering how many fans have called me "Mr. Resnick" instead of "Mike" since the worldcon began three days ago.

I don't _feel_ like a Mister. I feel like a fan who is cheating by sitting here with all the pros, waiting for Bob Silverberg to announce the winner of the Best Editor Hugo. He goes through the names: Datlow, Dozois, Resnick, Rusch, Schmidt.

Me and the Kingpin

But there was really only one man who merited the title. His name was Reuben Sturman, and I worked for him for the better part of five years.

Why Carol Won't Sit Next to Me at Science Fiction Movies

Carol has a high threshold for embarrassment. You can't be married to me for 42 years and not have one. But recently she has announced that she will no longer sit next to me at science fiction movies, that indeed she will sit on the far side of the theater and do her very best to pretend that she doesn't know me.

Eve and No Adam

Copyright (c) 2000 by Mike Resnick.
Reprinted with permission

The late great science fiction grandmaster, Alfred Bester, once wrote a story called "Adam and No Eve". Over the years it has risen to classic status within the field.

Well, Alfie was almost right. The real truth of the matter is that there was Eve and no Adam.

We're talking about the real Adam and Eve here, the most recent common ancestors of the human race, not the Biblical couple who had that little problem with the snake and the apple.

Turns out Michael Crichton had the right idea after all. He just had the wrong time frame.

As perhaps every scientist in the world has pointed out, DNA decays in considerably less than 65 million years, and you really can't substitute frog DNA for the missing stuff and still come up with T. Rex and all those other nifty dinosaurs. It simply can't be done.

It happened in the early 1970s, just before I moved from Chicago to Cincinnati.

They were tearing apart half a square block in the Loop, preparatory to building some new monument to bad taste. It was a hard hat area. There were signs all over warning people to stay clear of the area, that there would be falling bricks and falling timbers and falling anything-else that was heavier than air. Then, because not all Chicagoans can read all that well, they erected a 6-foot chain link fence around the thing, with DANGER and KEEP OUT signs posted every couple of feet.

They Made Me A Criminal

Copyright (c) 2000 by Mike Resnick.
Reprinted with permission
(with apologies to John Garfield and Warner Brothers)

Years ago I co-authored a novel with Jack Chalker and George Alec Effinger called The Red Tape War. Though the whole purpose of the book was to show a tongue-in-cheek picture of an unbelievably over-regulated society, the one thing I never anticipated was that governmental red tape would actually have me contemplating a life of crime in my declining years.

Copyright (c) 2000 by Mike Resnick.
Reprinted with permission

Science fiction movies have a lot in common with the Cincinnati Bengals football team. Stick around and you'll find out why.

The question everyone asks is: why are so many science fiction films so dreadful? Why can't they at least try to do something proud? No one says Blade Runner or The Matrix were perfect, but at least they treated both the material and the audience with some respect.