his online version of the Hugo Award-winning fanzine is an interactive archive to Mimosa's best articles and artwork. The 'zine is devoted to serving as a history of SF fandom, and a scan through recent issues will reveal articles by Fred Lerner and Forrest Ackerman, as well as a don't-miss piece by Mike Resnick called "How I Single-Handedly Destroyed the Sex Book Field for Five Years and Never Even Got a Thank-You Note from the Legion of Decency."
The most recent issue of Mimosa available on this site came out in December 2001, and its theme is "Welcome to the Future." It has an account of the 2001 Worldcon in Philadelphia, ruminations on the effects of September's terrorist attacks on fandom and SF, an article about fannish time capsules (again by Resnick), and "Some Notes About 2001: A Space Opera," which discusses a musical based on—no surprise—the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Older issues on the site are similarly packed with fan lore and articles which will seduce any visitor.
It should be evident by now that articles are the heart of Mimosa, and the Web page makes a priority of indexing them by issue and author for easy searching. But the art on the pages of this fanzine cannot go without mention. It makes the stories vastly fun to read, dressing them up in humorous, well-drawn clothes. The cartooning styles carry delightful variety, the use of both the color and black-and-white formats is invariably terrific, and the commentary they add to each article gives extra zing to the accompanying prose. Mimosa is both fun to read and pretty to look at, in other words, and anyone interested in fannish culture or the history of the SF field should make visiting this page a priority.
— A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week—April 8, 2002
ortured fans of The Matrix who salivate at the thought of the upcoming sequels, but scream in frustration at their 2003 release dates, can find temporarily solace at Believe the Unbelievable.
The trilogy fan site features monthly updates about the new movies, including rumors about production delays, educated guesses about when the first trailers might be seen and highlights of interviews with the stars. The Trilogy Notes section is filled cast lists, plot spoilers and rampant
speculation about the movies, all gleaned from sources around the net, television and magazines. Particularly interesting are the tidbits about how the movie's directors might deal with the death of some of its signature stars, including Gloria Foster, who played the Oracle in the original flick, and Aaliyah, who played a character named Zee in The Matrix 2.
Quicktime-formatted trailers from the original movie can be found on the site, as can a half-dozen different screen savers. The Pictures section includes dozens—if not hundreds—of photos taken from the original movie, as well as artwork taken from posters and CDs, and downloadable desktop images. The Matrix 2 picture galleries are less impressive, but they do include concept art and some clandestine snapshots taken on the set of the next movie.
— Kenneth Newquist
Site of the Week—April 1, 2002
ecades of role-playing, board, war and computer games have spawned enough gamer jargon to put even NASA's linguistic gymnasts to shame. GamerJargon.com tracks this ever-morphing lingo with hundreds of entries explaining exactly what each cryptic utterance means, denoting its origin and then using the phrase in a sentence.
The featured jargon spans the entire gaming spectrum. "Alien eyes" refers to rolling two 3s on six-sided dice (rather than the traditional "snake eyes" that comes from rolling 1s). "Aggro," derived from "aggressive," describes the online lynching of a character in EverQuest, and dates from the days of more primitive online games like MUDS. "Wandering damage" refers to any encounter that the game master throws at players for the express purpose of hurting them and getting them to use up valuable supplies.
It's not all about obscure slang, though. The site also defines common gaming terms like "war-gaming" and "role-playing game" and includes brief histories of popular games like Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer. There are a few holes in its coverage—the classic "TPK" (total party kill) isn't included—but fans are encouraged to submit entries of their own.
— Ken Newquist
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