Second Edition, 2023!
What's this thing called "filk music" that's sung at science fiction conventions? It's a culture with a rich history, a community that transcends national borders. It's dreams of space and science. It's laughter and sadness. It's the people who create and sing the songs, who publish them, who organize conventions.
This is its history in a free e-book by Gary McGath: Tomorrow's Songs Today: The History of Filk Music.
It was funded by the generosity of contributors to my IndieGoGo campaign, which paid for editing and cover art. Matt Leger provided the cover art, and Terri Wells edited the book.
Gwen Exner did copy editing for the second edition. Many thanks.
The book is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. Copy and repost it all you want for noncommercial purposes; please make sure to credit me.
You can download the book in PDF or EPub format. PDF is best for desktop computers and Kindles; EPub is good for most other ebook readers. A limited print edition exists. Look for me at a convention or MASSFILC meeting if you're interested.
Note for Apple iBooks users: By default, iBooks right-justifies ebooks, even when (like this one) they specify flush left alignment. This results in bad auto-hyphenation and other ugliness. To turn this off, go to Settings, scroll down to iBooks, and turn off "full justification" and "auto-hyphenation."
The version currently available for download is version 2, September 18, 2023. It has a new chapter on filk history since 2015, and the appendices have been brought up to date. The already existing chapters have been lightly updated, and many links have been fixed.
For errata, additional information, and alternate accounts, please see the Notes page. This will be updated occasionally.
Thanks to everyone who supported the nomination of Tomorrow's Songs Today for Best Related Work in the Hugo Awards, even though it didn't make the finalist ballot.
"It is a very readable, and deeply researched history of filk around the world. Highly Recommended." — Dorsai Irregulars
Copyright 2015, 2023 by Gary McGath.
Last updated September 18, 2023.
