Project Yano

I am honored to let you know that 200 science fiction paperbacks are on their way to American service personnel in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Stuck inside each paperback is a note of welcome and encouragement asking each service person, after reading the book, to give it to a local who might be interested in having a part in the adventure of science fiction.

How did I come about this? This took a year in preparation, after I learned in October of 2004 of the passing of Tetsuo Yano, who, while a 23 year old living in Allied-occupied Japan, discovered science fiction through a paperback book discarded by an American soldier. As a result, he later became an author and translator of science fiction in Japan. He has been called Japan's first science fiction fan. Yano was the first internationally known Japanese fan and attended the 1953 Worldcon in Philadelphia. A former chairman of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan, Yano wrote many original works, some of which were made into anime. Yano translated more than 350 books, including titles by Frederik Pohl and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and was author of "The Legend of the Paper Spaceship," a novella first published in English translation in 1984 and subsequently reprinted numerous times in various collections. He was also the translator of almost all of the novels and short stories by Robert A. Heinlein and helped to introduce many American and British science fiction writers to Japan. All because of the one discarded science fiction pulp that opened doors to him that he never thought conceivable. Tetsuo Yano died in 2004- hailed as the father of Japanese science fiction.

Now, politics aside, if one discarded genre paperback in Iraq and Afghanistan can change the world...

I would like to ask that, if you have any extra dog-eared paperbacks, extra copies of digests, please send them to this address:

Project Yano c/o PayMaster Payroll Services 200 Knuth Road, Suite #206 Boynton Beach, FL 33436

I would like to thank to thank Gordon Van Gelder of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for his enthusiastic response and assistance in this project.

I can assure you that all materials will be sent to American service personnel serving abroad.

Please pass this information onto whomever you feel would like to be a part of this magnificent adventure in tribute to Tetsuo Yano.