From the President (and Interim Editor)

I continue to be pleased with the progress and stability the LFS is showing. We did have a problem getting the newsletter published over the last six months, missing one issue and sending another only via email. As part of transitioning to a new editor, I agreed to edit this issue, with assistance from various people (see the credits in the sidebar on this page).

In parallel, we sent out a call for volunteers, and as a result, I’m pleased to announce that past Editor Anders Monsen (he edited the newsletter from 1994 through 1998) has agreed to return and edit the newsletter again.

As he said in his opening message to me, one of the reasons he stepped down five years ago was all the other tasks he had to handle for most of his tenure. The list of responsibilities he had then included a substantial proportion of the volunteer positions that are now handled by separate people: membership coordinator, finances, webmaster, contacting publishers, arranging awards ceremonies, and conducting ballots for the awards. Since Anders will be able to focus on the newsletter, he should find the position to be much more enjoyable, and we can hope that he will want to continue for quite some time.

Yet another sign of stability is that the board of directors, first elected in 2001, has gone through a complete cycle. We started out with three groups of directors elected to one-, two- and three-year terms, and now each group has cycled through and been elected to a new three year term, in the process replacing two retiring board members with new leaders from within the organization.

Our newest new board member is Jorge Codina, a longtime libertarian activist who has run for public office, and who has been a member of the LFS for more than five years. Jorge lives in Costa Rica, but the Internet makes it easy to stay in touch. He replaced Tod Casasent, who stepped down from the board, but will continue as webmaster for the lfs.org web site. Welcome Jorge, and thanks to Tod.

With that, I’ll get out of the way, and let you read the rest of this issue. We have reviews of new and old fiction in book and DVD form, a report on the 2004 WorldCon and our awards ceremonies, as well as a remembrance for a too-soon departed LFS member. Expect more and better in the next issue from our new editor.