The Joiner is a newcomer to Boston and a compulsive joiner of clubs and organizations. He shares his experience joining Boston area groups weekly at Bostonist.

Last Wednesday, Geri Sullivan presented a visitor to the Somerville clubhouse of the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA) with a gift: A hand-colored copy of her Hugo Award winning fanzine, Science-Fiction Five-Yearly. Printed on vintage, musty Fibertone paper using a mimeograph (named "Mr. G") and hand stapled, the fanzine felt like a grainy artifact. But there, on the cover, was the date, "First in Five-Yearlys since 1951 -- Number 12 -- November 2006."

When offered payment for the fanzine, Sullivan protested. "Fanzines are free," she explained, "all done out of love."

"Love?" asked Dave Grubbs, a fellow NESFA member, "What are you talking about? It's done out of obsession."

Obsession has driven NESFA since 1967. The obsession is not science fiction as it is commonly understood, or, at least, not only. Rather, it's science fiction fandom, that network of conventions ("cons"), collectors, nonprofessional writers, and artists glued together, at least nominally, by science fiction and its imaginary worlds.

"You have to be interested in science fiction," Grubbs explains, "that's what brings us together in the first place. But then you also have to be a club joiner."

Indeed, members talk very little about science fiction at the regular business meeting, spending most of the time covering the intricacies of the club's operations. NESFA runs an annual con (Boskone), circulates a weekly newsletter, rents commercial space, and, improbably, publishes a line of books.

NESFA discusses all this business with a sort of loose parliamentary procedure. All the better to govern the bitter dissent on the issues, whether they be internal emergency matters (replacing the clubhouse water heater, negotiating with the barbershop tenant next door), or external matters (Boskone logistics, handling financial matters for other clubs). The dickering can pull the meeting into absurd new realms of bureaucratic distinction. Nonetheless, for all the argument, when it comes to a vote, the results are usually unanimous.

Post contributed by Rick Sawyer. Image of the NESFA badge from the official site. More about the group after the jump!

There is one area where there is never any disagreement: puns. NESFA values puns. In fact, puns have a precise value: twenty-five cents payable to the club for every one made during a business meeting. This was true even for Lis Carey, who, as Vice President, introduced a "moment of vice": two boxes of cream puffs. The punfines pile up: the pun levy is one source of income that will pay for the next NESFA clubhouse.

The jokes can get more complicated. Wednesday, as NESFA members collated the "Instant Message" newsletter by hand (a process involving a continuous procession around a table), a visitor asked about the "Fanzine Control Number" (71-58837 791) printed at the bottom of each page. Nobody had a clue, and the matter was referred to Tony Lewis, a founding member.

"I can't remember which President it was," he explained, "but in the fifties there was widespread worry about the proliferation of fanzines and fanzine material. The Fanzine Control Number was introduced to limit the spread of fanzines."

The visitor, looking for the Fanzine Control Number on his copy of Science-Fiction Five-Yearly, finally realized that Lewis was putting him on.

When NESFA old-timers -- and they are mostly old-timers, the average member's age being around fifty -- recount the history of the club, facts are spun among inside jokes and lore. NESFA began in 1967 when a group of students graduated from MIT and decided to maintain their friendships and their connection to fandom by launching a con. The group also compiled an index, published annually, of every English language science fiction magazine. The index quickly became a definitive aide to fandom everywhere, and the twin missions of NESFA -- cons and publishing -- took shape.

The 80s were a wild time for the club, and NESFA saw attendance climb 20% at each successive Boskone. By 1987, the con had earned a reputation around the Hub for its XXX film screenings and teen hooliganism (all beyond the control of the small, volunteer NESFA staff). After 1987, "The Boskone from Hell," the con was banned by every hotel in Boston. NESFA had to move to the suburbs -- and stop partying like rockstars.

Things have changed since then. NESFA President Tim Szczesuil, a man with straight grey hair swept rakishly to the side, lamented, "In the 80s, you'd go to a convention and everyone would be wearing a costume."

Dave Grubbs explained the shift clearly. "It's the aging of fandom. When you show up [to a con] with your kids you don't tend to dress up like Darth Vader. Or, you know, a slave princess."

As NESFA grew older and Boskone less extravagant, the club began paying more attention to publishing. Today, NESFA Press publishes half a dozen titles annually. The Press focuses on books that, in longtime club member Dave Anderson's words, "should damn well be in print," titles that have been deleted from the catalog of the original publisher.

Club members choose the titles, contact the rights owners, design and edit the books, and commission the cover art themselves. They hire a commercial printer to print runs of 1,000 copies for each title, some of which are in their sixth or seventh pressing. Sometimes, the club publishes a genuine bestseller. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, stars of the contemporary mass science fiction market, have both published with NESFA.

And the books are good. Though the labor is volunteer, the results look professional. The design is thoughtful, the covers resplendent, and most editions have bonus material -- atlases, glossaries, interpretive essays, memoirs -- that enhance the reader's understanding of the text.

So, as fandom ages, NESFA pumps the formaldehyde that keeps it from rotting. NESFA members, so obsessed with inhabiting futuristic worlds, spend just as much time tending to the past. The puns, the lore, the club history, the cons, and all those out-of-print books find, in their reenactment, a living archive.

Fandom, is, of course, not the only entity that maintains its traditions this way. Bonnie Atwood began going to cons in 1968 with her husband Ted, whom she met in graduate school. They joined NESFA in 1980, when their daughter was 11. She, too, is into fandom. Bonnie summarized the point: "Science fiction is family now."

Organization: New England Science Fiction Association
Membership Requirements: $16; obsession.