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.

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

I want to discuss the pet of the future.

Before I begin, I think I'd better list my bona fides.

From 1968 through 1981, Carol and I were among the country's leading breeders and exhibitors of collies. We had 23 champions (and named almost all of them after science fiction stories and characters. Among the leading winners of 1974, 1976 and 1979 were Champions Gully Foyle, The Gray Lensman, and Paradox Lost -- "Gully", "Kim", and "Pax" around the house -- and among the leading broodbitches were Champions Nightwings and The Changeling.)

Saving the Game

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

There was a time, not so long ago, when Africa was described as "islands of men in an ocean of animals."

No longer.

These days Africa is a few islands of animals in an ever increasing ocean of men.

And if this beautiful wilderness that I have visited so often is to be preserved for future generations to experience and enjoy, it's time to properly pinpoint the problem and unflinchingly apply the only solution that will be effective.

The answer is: pretty much what your parents did -- and that includes the heroes they dream about. (No, not basketball players and the like. HEROES.)

Let me explain.

You see, there was a time when heroes were springing up all over the landscape -- and the good ones never leave. The 1930s were an exceptionally fertile time for the creation of heroes who struck a responsive chord in the public's hearts (which, after all, is where one responds to heroes.) Everyone knows about the comic book heroes, Superman and Batman, who are well into their 60s now with no signs of slowing down.