I was quite surprised when I first met Whitney Ware. I had been corresponding with her for a few months because we were both writing for the same ElfQuest fanzine. She was a very good writer and had been publishing her own fanzine for several years. And, as I discovered on that summer day in 1984 at an ElfQuest fan picnic, she was only 15 years old. It was only the first of many times that Whitney would surprise me by being a few steps ahead of the pack.
Over the next few years we collaborated on ElfQuest stories, hung out at cons together, and corresponded a lot. At NorWesCon 10, in March 1988, a group of us who had met through the EQ ’zines were out at a Denny’s at some ungodly hour of the morning. We were all chatting, passing around sketchbooks, and munching, when Whitney started talking about producing our own ’zine. Not a fanzine in the traditional sense, but a self-published magazine set in a universe we would create ourselves.
Ideas started flying back and forth as they do at such events, and by the time we were piling into cars to drive back to the convention hotel, we had the bare bones of the project figured out. An interstellar trading ship, populated by a mix of humans, aliens, and genetically-engineered animals journeying from world to world and having adventures.
Those original brave souls, Whitney, Keith Alan Johnson, Julie Rampke, Mark Allen Davis, Joe Bohnen, Alan Chapman, and myself, began creating characters that very night, most of whom are still crew members of the Tai-Pan.
The next day we kept talking about the project at the con. Some other friends at the con offered suggestions, and we tried to flesh out the ideas. Many of us were reading C.J. Cherryh’s “Chanur” series of novels at the time, and Steve Gallacci’s “Albedo” comics, or Lex Nakashima’s “Fusion” comics. Some of us had recently read David Brin’s Uplift War, a sequel to his novel Startide Rising (or were anxiously awaiting the paperback). You can see influences of all of these things in the creation that eventually emerged.
When we left the con, several of us had assignments—projects each of us agreed to work on to get this thing off the ground. Whitney would be the coordinator and editor, and other details we’d work out as we went. One of the first things Whitney did was begin writing many other friends in ElfQuest and Pern fandom to recruit more writers and artists.
By NorWesCon 11, March 1989, membership had grown to 13, and the Tai-Pan itself had a crew of about 15. Whitney had designed the first flier, and we had our earliest pieces of artwork, along with some technical articles and the ship name. Over the course of the second year things really got moving. The membership reached 20 people, we had two competing ship schematics, a timeline, and a pile of stories in the editing process. But it took another year before the first issue of the Tai-Pan was published.
I can’t show you the cover of the first issue, published in March 1991, because the issue was going to be of greater significance than any of us could imagine. The issue contained four short stories, some technical articles, and a crew roster of 30 characters. The initial effect of having an actual issue, rather than just a flier with a few bits of artwork, was nothing short of phenomenal.
New members and requests for subscriptions started pouring in. The membership more than doubled and things looked like they were going beautifully!
Then we had a little problem. One member who had joined during the second year and written several stories while other members were still figuring out their own characters, the technology, and the society of the universe, received his first request for a rewrite from our editorial staff. Apparently he had never been asked for a rewrite by any other fanzine. He became more than a little upset.
Upset enough to send an angry letter threatening a lawsuit unless Whitney and the other members of the editorial board removed all mention of his character, stories, and artwork from the project, including from the recently published first issue (which is why I can’t show you the cover of the first issue). We decided to comply, rather than try to get into a legal hassle (although more letters were exchanged). This meant that we had to redo the first issue, since it contained a story, art, and a technical article created by the disgruntled former member, besides having his character in the cover illustraion.
This was more than just an inconvenience. By the time the blow-up occured, issue #2 of the Tai-Pan fanzine was nearly finished and ready to go to press. After toying with the idea of christening issue #2 First Issue-Revised, Whit went to work revamping the introductory issue.
By January, 1992, the issue #1 which most of you know hit the newsstands. It still contained two of the stories which had been in that now-rare first, First Issue, along with several more articles on the technology, society, and history of the Tai-Pan universe. The crew roster had shrunk to 23, but the new issue made a definite impression. More members started joining.
As early as June of 1989 we were talking about a second ship. There was a certain amount of sympathy for the idea of keeping the size of the crew of the Tai-Pan around a dozen, and to just keep creating small merchant ships as we recruited new members.
Sometime before the second First Issue went to press, we had started designing the Iktome. The original idea was to have a ship which would be the Tai-Pan’s rival. We didn’t want some cordial trader who just happened to be competing with the Tai-Pan for business. No, we wanted a crew that could sometimes be the villains in our space-faring tales.
It is probably painfully obvious that Capt. Roberts was named after the Dread Pirate Roberts from the movie “The Princess Bride.” Our pirate leader got his name because of a slight misunderstanding—Whitney misheard the name of Inigo Montoya, the character who, it is implied at the end of the film, will take over the role of the Dread Pirate Roberts. So, Bendigo Roberts, swashbuckling coyote, was born.
The problem was coming up with story ideas in which the two ships would plausibly be bumping into each other a lot. Fortunately, Juli Cowan created Sirrah Chakhan, a wolverine who had once owned the ship that would become the Tai-Pan, and who would stop at nothing to regain possession of her. Chakhan, who was deadly serious, made a perfect foil and first mate for the flamboyant Capt. Roberts.
The first Tai-Pan story plotted by any of us didn’t see print until issue #2 of the fanzine, in February 1992. We started the bare bones of plot for the tale that would become “New Queensland Station” within 24 hours of creating the project itself. I know this because the very first, handwritten character sheet for McQuarrie includes the line, “legs blown off in fight scene in Big Story.”
Although the byline credits Whitney Ware, Keith Johnson, and myself with the story, many other people participated in the creation of the tale. For a long time “New Queensland Station” was at the same time the most liked and the most despised tale in the fanzine’s history. Years later readers are still recommending the story to potential new readers. And some people still grumble about the fact that the story introduces a large number of characters, and then “kills half of them.”
The original idea was for “New Queensland Station” to be the jumping off point for a large number of possible plotlines. The story created crew openings in an established freighter, making it easy for new members to get their characters into the roster. The story ended with a few unanswered questions, and provided plenty of fodder for internal conflicts for the survivors. And some of those questions and conflicts have surfaced in later stories.
Despite the fact that the Tai-Pan fanzine is definitely a furry/anthropomorphic publication, none of us who originally created it were furry fans. The term hadn’t really come into common usage within the more general sci-fi/fantasy fandom. Most of us were familiar with such seminal furry publications as Albedo and Fusion, but none of the people working on the production end of the project in late 1991 had any idea that there were all these people out there exchanging anthropomorphic artwork.
But they discovered our issues. We were flooded with inquiries, artwork, and some very unusual characters and requests. It took us some time to sort if all out, but the fanzine was definitely improved by the ideas of new people.
It wasn’t all good, unfortunately. To be blunt, some of the unsolicited material mailed in could be grounds for a sexual harassment lawsuit today. Particularly the stuff from a couple of people who continued sending it in after members of the editorial board wrote them and asked (then demanded) that they stop. It was during this period that the project first acquired the “prude” label.
What we were dealing with, of course, was simply differing sets of assumptions. Many of us were involved in the fanzine because we wanted to write stories in a space opera setting which included some anthropomorphic characters. We assumed that people would read our issues and say, “Wow, what an interesting blend of science fiction elements and anthropomorphics.”
A very small number of people, on the other hand, saw anthropomorphic art and jumped to the conclusion that we were all interested in erotica.
But the overall effect of furry fandom discovering us (and us joining them) has been good for the quality and direction of the fanzine.
By 1993 we were up to issue #6. We had published 16 stories about the crew of either the Iktome or the Tai-Pan. There were at least 20 more stories going through the editorial process. The stories ranged from comedic to tragic, from hard science to murder mystery.
Gary Fletcher proposed creating a third project ship. While the range of story possibilities offered by a merchant vessel and a pirate were quite broad, Gary saw a need for telling the stories of characters who would never become starship crewmembers. The Quantum Lady was born. Some people saw the ship as sort of a Love Boat in the stars. Others envisioned a Grand Hotel. Gary was thinking bigger, though. Not just a simple cruise ship, but the ultimate cruise ship. A virtual resort city that traveled from one star system to the next. He must have been onto something, because a lot of characters were created and submitted for the Lady.
Around this time, Julie Rampke was pitching the idea to several of us to think about some sort of research or science vessel, a place where it would be easier to set some of those “mystery of the universe” story ideas that we came up with from time to time. Although several people expressed interest, and Julie assembled some information about the ship’s homeworld and crew, the idea didn’t gel right away.
About the same time that folks were creating characters by the handful for the Quantum Lady, Whitney walked up to me at a Tai-Pan party with an unusual request. One of our members wanted the planet she had created to be destroyed. Not just destroyed any old way, mind you. No, this world had to be utterly obliterated, so there would be nothing left behind for looters and scavengers to take from the dead world. The destruction also had to be quick and nearly painless—no plagues or lingering famines. Finally, whatever destroyed the planet had to fit into the guidelines we’d set for the project as a whole. It had to be at least somewhat scientifically plausible and not contradict anything we’d already said about the technology or science of the universe.
I mulled it over for a few days, and then the idea hit me. To tell the story, I would need someone who would observe the disaster but remain outside it. I remembered Julie’s idea of a science or research vessel, and in short order the Ramanujan was ready to set sail among the stars.
By the time issue #7 was published in November 1993, certain forces within the project seemed to be converging toward a definite collision. Several people involved in the project were unhappy with one aspect or another of how things were developing. Others were finding other interests and commitments leaving them less and less time to put into creating stories and artwork for the fanzine. Assigned story illustrations and other things needed for issues were not coming in on time. The publication schedule slipped several times.
By the summer of 1994 an offer had been made to a sub-group of the creators to develop a book based on Tai-Pan for commercial distribution by MU Press. Many of us who had long been involved with the project got together at Keith Johnson’s home to discuss options. After a lot of consideration, a tentative plan was adopted. We would print three more issues of the fanzine, through #10. Those issues would contain stories which would wrap up some of the story lines already in place and clear the way for the proposed prozine. If there was sufficient interest, the fanzine would then be turned over to someone else to publish as they wished, minus those elements which were to be taken into the new book.
A letter was sent out to members explaining this, though there were some unfortunate misunderstandings. Several members of the project prepared to participate in the prozine. Rumors of various kinds circulated among the rest of the membership.
Independent of all of this, Whitney came to the conclusion that she needed to make some changes in her life. Whitney resigned from the project. New rumors were rampant.
Kristin Fontaine (who was project treasurer at the time) and I convened a meeting to discuss the next step. We tracked down founding members who were available and still interested (Mark Davis, Keith Johnson, and Alan Chapman). We also asked Chuck Melville (contributing member and Editor at MU Press), David Dailey (contributing member and former sourcebook coordinator), and Ray Cornett (contributing member) to join us. We were all willing to keep producing the fanzine. We came up with job descriptions for editorial board members and a publication schedule.
I started work on issue #8 that day. Six weeks later, in March 1995, issue #8 was mailed to all current subscribers. An enclosed letter explained that there was a new editorial board and publisher, and promised that there were many more issues to come.
In the three years since, we’ve managed to stick to our publication schedule of three issues a year. Stories featuring the third and fourth project ships have been published. We’ve also produced two supplemental books, Contraband and Eclipse, containing somewhat more adult-themed stories. Our subscription base has increased steadily. We’ve published a lot of the backlog of art and stories. New contributors (plus new art and stories) are coming in all the time.
In the last ten years we’ve published 61 stories and 695 pieces of artwork. Members have created over 100 characters. We’ve created starships, planets, interstellar alliances, alien cultures, and plutonium rock bands.
We’ve created stories that range from the silly to the sublime. We’ve published furry hard science fiction, murder mystery, suspense, drama, melodrama, comedy, action, and poetry. We’ve done just about everything from gimmick short-shorts to space operatic epics.
While creating one of our early promotional flyers, someone came up with the slogan: For the best anthropomorphic art and fiction in Known Space. It was a very ambitious goal. I think the contributing artists and writers have lived up to it many times.
And I believe we’ll do even more in our next ten years.
Tai-Pan
P.O. Box
17032
Seattle, WA, 98127
Tales of the Tai-Pan Universe copyright 1988-2007, Tai-Pan Literary & Arts Project. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American conventions. All art and stories © by respective artists and writers. All persona characters © by their individual creators. All other material © 1988-2003 Tai-Pan Literary & Arts Project. No part of Tales of the Tai-Pan Universe or these webpages may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems - without written permission, except for reviews with proper credit. We reserve the right to reprint any material contained within the pages of Tales of the Tai-Pan Universe.