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2010 Guest of Honor

CJ Cherryh
We are pleased to announce that CJ Cherryh as agreed to be ConDor's 2010 Guest of Honor. Her numerous awards include:

• John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1977

• Hugo Award, short story, for "Cassandra" in 1979

• Hugo Award, novel, Downbelow Station in 1982

• Locus Award, Best SF Novel, Cyteen in 1988

• Hugo Award, novel, Cyteen in 1989

Among her other novels are Rusalka, Pride of Chanur, Exile's Gate, Chanur's Legacy, Flood Tide, Regenesis, and Fortress of Dragons.

Carolyn Janice Cherry, aka C. J. Cherryh, is a prolific writer, having published more than forty books in little more than twenty years. She has created characters, cultures, and universes so intricate and detailed that the reader is never sure what they will find when they open one of her books. All they know is that they will be fascinated and entertained.

Born in St. Louis, MO, on September 1, 1942, she graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a B.A. in Latin in 1964 and received an M.A. in Classics from Johns Hopkins University in 1965. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in Classics in 1964-5. From 1965 through 1977, she taught Latin and Ancient History in the Oklahoma City Public Schools.

She grew up watching Flash Gordon and reading all the science fiction available at her local library. She published her first science fiction story, "The Mind Reader," in Astounding Science Fiction in 1968, but did not become a full-time writer until 1977.  Once she did, she began winning awards, starting with the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best New Writer in 1977 for Gate of Ivrel. She won her first Hugo award in 1979 for the short story "Cassandra" (1978). The first volume of The Faded Sun trilogy, Faded Sun: Kesrith (1978), was also nominated for a Hugo and a Nebula in 1979. In 1982, she received a Hugo for her novel Downbelow Station.  She won again in 1987 for Cuckoo's Egg and 1989 for Cyteen.  There are many more awards, but they would fill up the rest of this page and more.  However, we would be remiss if we did not note that she was the Guest of Honor at Bucconeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention, in Baltimore, MD. 

CJ told a contributor to the St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers: "Having made a thorough study of the past, I am vehemently certain that I do not wish to live in it, nor do I wish to see three quarters of the planet weltering in conditions that should have been left in the past, with the same hunger and disease our ancestors knew. The reach for space and its resources is the make-or-break point for our species, and the appropriate use of technology and the adjustment of human viewpoint to a universe not limited to a blue sky overhead and the curvature of the horizon are absolutely critical to our survival. Therefore I write fiction about space and human adjustment to the unfamiliar."  Her characters are often positioned, both physically and emotionally, on the borderlines between a variety of human and alien cultures that interact within several meticulously built universes.  She is known for constructing a multitude of intelligent alien cultures in her fiction, as well as for creating active, powerful, and complex female characters that challenge many of the traditional biases of a male-centered science fiction. Although she freely adopts many science fiction conventions and writes within the science fiction tradition, she is able to alter those conventions and question that tradition in subtle ways, as in her choice of protagonist, so that situations that appear familiar develop in refreshing and intriguing ways. 

She has as many interests outside Science Fiction as the worlds she has created in it.  On her website, she notes:  “I write full time; I travel; I try out things. The list includes, present and past tense: fencing, riding, archery, firearms, ancient weapons, donkeys, elephants, camels, butterflies, frogs, wasps, turtles, bees, ants, falconry, exotic swamp plants and tropicals, lizards, wilderness survival, fishing, sailing, street and ice skating, mechanics, carpentry, wiring, painting (canvas), painting (house), painting (interior), sculpture, aquariums both fresh and salt, needlepoint, bird breeding, furniture refinishing, video games, archaeology, Roman, Greek civ, Crete, Celts, and caves.”  With all these interests, it’s a wonder that she finds time to write – but she does, and we are all the better for it. 

ConDor is honored that she has found the time to grace us with her presence as our Guest of Honor. 

(The above is a combination of material from an article in the Gale Literature Resource Center and from CJ Cherryh’s website, www.cherryh.com)

2010 Media Ghost of Honor Ross Martin

Ross Martin, ConDor’s Media Ghost of Honor, was a man of many talents.  He, of course, is best known as Artemus Gordon, the inventor and gadgeteer on the television version of "The Wild Wild West", which ran on CBS from 1965 to 1969.  In addition to being an accomplished actor, Martin was also a dancer, singer, comedian, makeup artist, superb dialectician, acting teacher (Peter Falk of "Columbo" fame was one of his students) and accomplished violinist.  In one of the first season episodes of "The Wild Wild West", Artemus is shown playing the violin.  I remember being so impressed with the tone quality of that violin solo that I didn’t think a studio musician had dubbed in the music.  A trip to the Internet Movie Data Base confirmed that Martin could, indeed, play the violin…and play it well.

Martin was born in 1920 in Grodek Poland .  His family immigrated to the United States when he was a small child.  He could speak Yiddish, Russian, and Polish before he started learning English at the age of five.   His parents instilled in their son a strong work ethic and a desire to succeed in everything he attempted.   By the time he was in his early twenties he had a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, a Master’s Degree in Education, and a Law Degree.  Despite all of his talents and formal education, he decided on a career as an actor.  Martin started working in radio and live theater in the 1940’s and by 1948 had launched a career in television.  He acted in many television shows, but prior to "The Wild Wild West", is best remembered as Andamo in the late 50’s TV series, "Mr. Lucky".  Martin also branched out into film, where he performed as the creepy asthmatic villain in "Experiment in Terror" and as a comic villain in "The Great Race".

In the mid 1960’s when producers started putting together a new television series about a James Bond type hero in the old American west, they immediately thought of Martin for the role of the hero’s friend and brilliant gadget man, Artemus Gordon.  He was actually approached to be in "The Wild Wild West"before Robert Conrad, who would end up playing the James Bond role of James West.  Ross wanted to wait until the show was more fully fleshed out before committing to the series, but eventually ended up accepting the role of Artemus Gordon.  The show ran for four seasons.  During the run of the show, Martin wore over 100 disguises, for which he created the makeup himself.  There is a recently discovered sketch that Martin made for one of his disguises that can be seen in the “extras” section of the DVD’s of the show.  People working on the series didn’t know what Martin would look like in a given episode until he showed up on the set.  Everyone who saw Martin’s work on the show was amazed by the disguises and the various accents Martin would adopt for each character he created.  One day, while filming the series, Martin had to make a quick run to his home and left his makeup on for the trip.  Neighbors saw the “stranger” at the Martin home and called the police.  Martin reportedly had some convincing to do to get the police to believe that he had entered his own home.  Someone once paid Martin the ultimate compliment by saying that Ross was “Alec Guinness in chaps.”  Present day comedian, Dana Carvey, has stated that Martin was a major influence on career. 

While filming an episode in the Wild Wild West's final season, Martin broke his leg.  He kept working, even though he had to be filmed just from the waist up and couldn’t move around easily.  Then, a few weeks later, Martin suffered a massive heart attack, from which he was not expected to recover.  He did, however, recover and went back to work after missing only ten weeks of the show’s production.  Various actors filled in for him while he was absent from the show, but none of those characters had the charm and charisma of Artemus Gordon.  The fans got to see just how flat the show could be without him.  I’ve always felt that the most important aspects of "Wild Wild West" were the friendship of Artie and Jim and the great chemistry between Martin and Conrad.

In 1969, the show was cancelled.  While earning good ratings, CBS felt the show was too violent, even though most of the violence in the show was obviously of the “stage fighting” type, so the network brought the series to an end.  Martin continued to work doing mostly guest shots on various TV shows.  He even worked with his former student, Peter Falk, in an episode of Columbo.  Much of Martin’s energy was devoted to charity.  He was a great champion of heart disease research and each year sponsored a tennis tournament to raise money for this cause.   On July 3rd 1981, Ross Martin suffered another heart attack and died at a tennis event in Ramona , California .  I remember being very saddened when I learned of his death.  He was a talented actor, humanitarian and true Renaissance Man, who is still fondly remembered today.

Literary Ghost of Honor Jules Verne

Jules Gabriel Verne was born on February 8th, 1828 in Nantes in Western France, the oldest of five children. His family spent their summers in a country house on the banks of the Loire River. Jules and his brother Paul would often rent a boat and spend the day on the river, whose many ships he described as sparking his imagination. At twelve he snuck aboard a ship in an attempt to travel to India but was found and received a whipping from his father after which he stated, "I shall from now on only travel in my imagination."

Verne went to Paris to study law but began instead writing librettos for operettas and stories for the Musée des Familles. This caused his father to revoke his financial support. He became a stock broker and latter married Honorine de Viane Morel, a widow with two daughters.

In the early 1860’s, Verne met Pierre-Jules Hetzel, one of the most important French publishers of the 19th century. In 1863, Hetzel published the first of Verne’s famous novels Five Weeks in A Balloon, about the exploration of Africa, a novel which other publishers had declared “too scientific”. From then until years after Verne’s death, Hetzel published two or more volumes a year, including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869), Around the World in Eighty Days (1972) and The Mysterious Island (1875). While able to live off his writings, most of his income came from stage adaptations of Around the World in Eighty Days and the minor work Michel Strogoff. In 1870 he was made a knight of the Legion of Honor for his works.

In his later years, Verne ventured into politics and served as town councilor of Amiens for 15 years. Jules Verne died on 24 March 1905

Verne wrote about air travel before usable airships, underwater travel before practical submarines and space travel before the nature of space was even understood. His 1863 work Paris in the 20th Century, anticipated glass skyscrapers, calculators, gasoline automobiles, televisions, elevators, the fax machine, air conditioning and a worldwide communications network. He is often referred to as “the Father of Science Fiction” along with H. G. Wells.

All guest appearances are subject to professional commitments.