Jim Baens Universe-Vol 2 Num 5

by Eric Flint

  Finally, Leslie Turek edited the profusely-illustrated coffee-table-sized edition The Noreascon Proceedings, the main-track transcripts of the 1971 Worldcon, which was published by NESFA Press in 1976. Highlights include a panel with Asimov and Clifford D. Simak, and another with Asimov, Marvin Minsky, and Larry Niven.

  By then, Worldcons had gotten so large that it was impossible to glean even a hint of their flavor from a single track of the proceedings, and to print the entire proceedings—which has occasionally run to 15 and more tracks of programming, from 8 to 14 hours a day, during a 5-day weekend—was simply not feasible.

  PHOTO BOOKS

  The continuing growth of Worldcon eventually spelled fini to a series produced by Jay Kay Klein, science fiction's unofficial photographic historian. Surely no one who has ever been to a Worldcon prior to the last few years has been able to avoid Jay Kay and his flash camera—but not all that many people know that in 1960 he published his Convention Annual #1, Pittcon Edition, a memory book filled with hundreds of photos and captions from the convention, covering panels, speeches, masquerades, the Hugo ceremonies, lobby lizards, and dozens of parties.

  This was followed in rapid succession by Convention Annual #2, Chicon III Edition, in 1962; Convention Annual #3, Discon Edition, in 1963; and Convention Annual #4, Tricon Edition, in 1966. Jay Kay was all set to publish a fifth book, from 1974's Discon II, but the Worldcon had grown so huge by that time that even with help, he could barely identify half the fans in the photos, and so he retired the series.

  Looking back on them, I think the Klein photo books gave even more of a sense of what the conventions were really like than the various Proceedings did, since Jay Kay not only photographed every panel, but also thoroughly covered the art shows, the huckster rooms, the masquerades, and just about every party that was thrown on Worldcon weekend. Until we invent a time machine, these photo books are probably the closest you'll ever come to experiencing—or re-experiencing—those early 1960s Worldcons.

  There were two more memory books, published only months apart—and both, while slickly produced, were far less thorough than the Klein books. In 1984, Steve Francis edited Memories of NorthAmericon, a photo book of the 1979 NasFic that was held in Louisville, Kentucky—and just a few weeks later, Massachusetts Convention Fandom brought out the Noreascon Two Memory Book, the photo book of the 1980 Worldcon, edited by Suford Lewis. (They have since published the Noreascon III Memory Book as well.)

  It's been quite a while since the last photo memory book was produced, yet I know fans cherish them; hopefully some future committee(s) will reestablish the practice.

  PRO/FAN MEMOIRS

  As science fiction has reached larger audiences, and its practitioners have become more famous, it was inevitable that some of the leading professionals would be asked to write memoirs and autobiographies—and since so many pros came up through fandom, especially in the early days, many of their recollections also concern fandom.

  The most important, and delightful, of these is Damon Knight's The Futurians, published by John Day in 1977 (and later brought out in mass market paperback). Damon chronicles the group of teenagers who banded together in New York in the late 1930s, determined to have an effect on the field of science fiction—and considering that their numbers included Don Wollheim, Fred Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, Robert Lowndes, Cyril Kornbluth, Virginia Kidd, Judith Merrill, and James Blish, among others, I think it's safe to say they did just that. Knight chronicles their interior and exterior feuds (and one can be forgiven for feeling that, for their first couple of years of existence, they lived only to feud), follows them as Wollheim, Pohl and Lowndes nail down editorial jobs and begin buying from each other (and by 1943 they controlled more than half the magazines in the field), and then traces them to the present day, with Isaac becoming an international superstar, Wollheim morphing from Communist to capitalist and starting his own very successful publishing company, Kornbluth dying far too young, John Michel dying in almost total obscurity. It's a difficult book to put down.

  There's a collection of six novelette-length autobiographies, edited by Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss, entitled Hell's Cartographers (an editorial tip of the hat to Kingsley Amis's ground-breaking collection of essays about science fiction, New Maps of Hell). It was published by Harper & Row in 1975, and three of the six autobiographies—by Fred Pohl, Damon Knight, and (peripherally) Robert Silverberg—deal with fandom.

  Fred Pohl also wrote a full-length autobiography, The Way The Future Was, published by Del Rey in 1978, which covers much of his life in fandom before he turned pro. Isaac Asimov's In Memory Yet Green, published by Doubleday in 1979, does much the same, though Isaac was never as heavily involved in fandom as many of his contemporaries. Surprisingly, Robert Bloch's Once Around the Bloch, published by Tor in 1993, contains almost nothing about fandom, though Bloch himself was the best professional friend fandom ever had. (He wrote me that he had included a number of fannish anecdotes, especially about himself and Bob Tucker, but that they were later excised.)

  Some passing references are made to fandom in some other memoirs, most notably Lloyd Arthur Eshbach's Over My Shoulder and Jack Williamson's Hugo-winning Wonder's Child, but in truth these are so pro-and-publishing-oriented that they don't really qualify for mention here, despite their outstanding quality.

  Finally, David G. Hartwell's Age of Wonders, published by Walker in 1984 and since reprinted by Tor, has perhaps the best analysis of the symbiosis between prodom and fandom that has ever been written. It took a pro editor, rather than a fan, to write a general book for the science fiction public that explained in simple, straightforward terms the historic connection between fandom and science fiction, the pervasive influence of fans on the literature through fanzines, conventions, awards, and the graduation from their ranks to professional status of dozens of writers. Anyone even mildly acquainted with the field knows this is true, but it wasn't until Hartwell's book that it was stated so clearly that people who weren't acquainted with fandom would know it too.

  COLLECTIONS

  My other favorite fannish book, along with Fancyclopedia II, is Bob Bloch's The Eighth Stage of Fandom, a collection of 49 articles and poems, plus some hilarious filler ads. Bloch made his reputation as a writer of psychological horror, but he was also one of the field's master humorists, and that sense of humor was never on better display than here. The book was published in hardcover and trade paperback by Advent in 1962, and 30 years later Wildside Press reprinted it in hardcover. It was editor Earl Kemp's idea, and a damned good one; I love this book.

  Bloch's second fannish collection was Out Of My Head, published by NESFA Press in 1986. It contains 22 stories and articles, including the first new "Lefty Feep" story in four decades.

  Another fine fannish writer turned pro was the late Terry Carr, creator of the Ace Specials. His most interesting collection was Fandom Harvest, a hardcover containing some 20 articles—including such classics as "The Hieronymus Fan" and "The Infinite Beanie"—and published in Sweden (but with English text) by Laissez Faire Produktion AB in 1986.

  Terry also authored another collection of fanzine articles, Between Two Worlds, the flip half of a hardcover double with Bob Shaw's delightful collection, Messages Found in an Oxygen Bottle. This two-in-one book was published by NESFA Press in 1986, when Terry was the Worldcon's Fan Guest of Honor and Bob was its Toastmaster. Terry's half of the book has 5 pieces, including the classic "Night of the Living Oldpharts," Bob's has 9 pieces, including the text of perhaps his most famous speech, "The Bermondsey Triangle Mystery."

  Another Terry Carr product was The Cacher of the Rye, a parody by "Carl Brandon." Brandon was more than just a pseudonym; he was a fictional creation—a black California fan—that Terry foisted on fandom, and at one time most of fandom believed Carl was an actual person. The book begins with a long article by Carr explaining how and why he created Brandon, then presents the story, and ends with a thorough index of every article and story
ever credited to Brandon and who actually wrote them (Carr did the bulk of the writing, but he was helped from time to time by Boob [sic] Stewart, Ron Ellik, and a handful of others who were in on the secret.) The story itself is a semi-loving criticism of fandom, which also manages to take a shot or two at Dianetics.

  Another half of a convention double book was In and Out of Quandry, by Lee Hoffman. (The flip side is A. Bertram Chandler's Up to the Sky in Ships.) Quandry was among the best and most important fanzines of the early 1950s, Lee was its editor, and this hardcover contains 9 articles from it, including "The Bluffer's Guide to Publishing a Fanzine" and "A Surprise for Harlan Ellison." It was published by NESFA Press in 1982, when Lee was the Fan Guest of Honor at the Chicago Worldcon. (Chandler was the Pro Guest of Honor.)

  The 1996 Worldcon Guest of Honor book, The White Papers, published by NESFA Press, not only contained some brilliant stories by James White, but also many of his fanzine articles as well.

  Paranoid/Inca Press brought out a couple of Bob Shaw chapbooks back in 1979, each a sheer delight. The first is The Best of the Bushel, a collection of 13 articles, and second is The Eastercon Speeches, containing five of his always-hilarious "Serious Scientific Talks" from 1974 through 1978. A later book, A Load of Old BoSh (published by BECCON in 1995) collected ten of Bob's Eastercon speeches. (A word about these speeches: Bob Shaw ranks with Bob Bloch and Isaac Asimov as one of the funniest natural talents ever to hit science fiction's Toastmaster circuit, and his collected speeches are almost a textbook demonstration on how to delight an audience, without letdown, for a full hour.)

  Perhaps the most famous single collection of fannish writing ever put together is the massive Warhoon 28, published in hardcover by Richard Bergeron in 1978. This contains more than 600 pages, single-spaced, by Northern Ireland's legendary Walt Willis, arguably the greatest fan writer of all. This enormous tome contains, among other things, installments 1 through 44 of his classic column, "The Harp That Once Or Twice;" the 36 chapters of "The Harp Stateside," his memoir of his first American visit; the 20 chapters of "Twice Upon A Time," the story of his return visit to America; and 21 segments of the mostly-autobiographical "The Subcutaneous Fan." There are also a number of convention reports, some fan fiction, and various other examples of Willis' literary art. A very worthwhile volume.

  More recently, NESFA Press published a pair of fannish collections, both of which were nominated for Hugos. First came Teresa Nielsen Hayden's Making Book, in 1994, which included 15 articles from fanzines; and then, in 1996, multiple Hugo winner Dave Langford's The Silence of the Langford which includes more than 50 articles and reviews and incorporates the earlier Langford collection, Let's Hear It For the Deaf Man

  And, he said immodestly, I have edited a number of anthologies about fandom: Alternate Worldcons (Pulphouse, 1994), Again, Alternate Worldcons (Old Earth Books, 1996), and, with Patrick Neilsen-Hayden, Alternate Skiffy (Wildside Press, 1997). These were all semi-pro publications. I also edited a mass market anthology of recursive science fiction, Inside the Funhouse (Avon, 1992), which includes some stories about fandom. And my collection of fanzine articles, Once a Fan . . ., is probably still available from Wildside Press.

  Finally, there is a totally different type of collection, and a must-have for any serious student of fandom. This is Science Fiction Fandom, edited by Joe Sanders and published by Greenwood Press in 1994. The book contains 26 articles which cover fandom in various countries, its history, collecting, conventions, apa's, Fanspeak, and just about everything else you need to know about science fiction fandom. It's not cheap—I believe my copy cost $50.00—but it's worth every penny of it.

  I should add that some books consisting of fanzine articles, such as The Conan Reader, The Conan Swordbook and The Conan Grimoire, all from the two-time Hugo-winning fanzine Amra, have nothing to do with fandom; whereas the numerous Fanthologies, which collect the best fan articles of the year, would be of interest to anyone who enjoys fine fannish writing. (The Fanthologies, by the way, are sponsored by the annual Corflu convention, with a new volume appearing almost every year.

  NOVELS

  There have actually been seven professional novels about science fiction fandom. Six are set at conventions. Perhaps even more surprisingly, five of them are murder mysteries. Or maybe it isn't so surprising at all.

  The two best—both of them quite brilliant—are by Barry Malzberg, writing early in his career under the pseudonym of K. M. O'Donnell (his tribute to Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, who often wrote under the pen name of Lawrence O'Donnell; hence K{uttner} M{oore} O'Donnell.) The first is Dwellers of the Deep, half of a 1970 Ace Double, in which fandom must save the universe from alien invaders. The second, Gather in the Hall of the Planets, a 1971 Ace Double, takes place at a Worldcon, and for months after it came out fandom's (and prodom's) favorite game was trying to figure out who was who, because every pro and fan in this mordantly funny book has a real-life analog. (Both are included in an omnibus volume from NESFA Press, The Passage of the Light, which was edited by Tony Lewis and myself.)

  Gene DeWeese and Buck Coulson wrote a pair of murder mysteries set at Worldcons. Now You See It/Him/Them . . . (Doubleday, 1975) takes place at the 1974 Discon II, and Charles Fort Never Mentioned Wombats (Doubleday, 1977) is set at the 1975 Aussiecon.

  Perhaps the most famous novel about fandom—or at least the best-selling one—is Sharon McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun (Windwalker Books, 1987). The fandom is not one I much care for—the convention it's set at is mostly media and gaming—but it's a fine mystery, and in fact won an Edgar Award. She later produced a sequel, Zombies of the Gene Pool.

  Finally, there's William Marshall's Sci Fi (Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1981), in which a murder takes place in Hong Kong at the All-Asia Science Fiction and Horror Movie Festival. Again, fandom—but not necessarily as we know it.

  Peripherally, there's another novel—Niven, Pournelle, and Flynn's Fallen Angels (Baen, 1991)—in which thinly-disguised fans appear and Mimosa itself is mentioned, but this, unlike those already mentioned, is not a novel about fandom and/or conventions, but merely a science fiction novel in which some of the characters are fans. I suppose if you stretch the definition far enough, you could even include Frederic Brown's delightful What Mad Universe?, since the entire story takes place in a universe imagined by a goshwowboyoboy teenaged fan (or, more accurately and confusingly, presumed by an editor to be a universe that this particular fan would create—and even that's not exactly right, but it's close enough.)

  There are two more books that must be mentioned. Neither is a professional novel, but each was co-authored by a pro, and their place in the history of fannish literature is secure. I'm referring, of course, to the classic work of fan fiction, The Enchanted Duplicator, by Walt Willis and Bob Shaw (a Hugo-nominated writer as well as a fan). This completely charming allegory follows the adventures of Jophan as he sets out to find the Enchanted Duplicator and publish the Perfect Fanzine. It was originally published in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1954, and has been reprinted so many times I've lost track of all the editions.

  Then, 37 years later, Willis teamed up with another fan-turned-Hugo-nominated-pro, James White, to produce Beyond the Enchanted Duplicator . . . To the Enchanted Convention. It was published by Gerry Sullivan's PROmote Communications in 1991, and to be honest, it's not up to the level of its predecessor, though it's still an enjoyable read.

  FANZINES AND PROZINES

  Remember a book called Seduction of the Innocent, by Frederic Wertham, M.D.? It's the study that suggested Batman and Robin did more together than fight crime, that the Phantom Lady was the logical successor to Gypsy Rose Lee, and that William Gaines of E. C. Comics was in league with the devil. In the end, it was the prime reason the Comics Code was created.

  Well, that same Frederic Wertham began seeing his name reviled in one fanzine after another—the editors thoughtfully sent copies to him, since he couldn't purchase them on the newsstands—and lo and beh
old, a few years later he wrote a flattering, if shallow, study of them, called it The World of Fanzines, and sold it to Southern University Press, which published it in 1973.

  The only other book about fanzines would be the Fanzine Index by Bob Pavlat and Bill Evans, which purports to list every fanzine "From the beginning through 1952." Assuming that it was published in 1952, I've never seen an original; but it was reprinted (I assume) and published (I know) in 1965 by Harold Palmer Piser.

  A lovely, nostalgic book, one that demonstrates exactly what fannish enthusiasm is all about, is A Requiem for Astounding, by Alva Rogers, an issue-by-issue study of the golden days of John Campbell's Astounding, in which Rogers' less-than-scintillating prose is more than compensated for by his boundless enthusiasm. He imparts that sense of almost unbearable anticipation he—and so many other fans—felt while waiting for each new issue, the agony of not knowing the end of a Heinlein or van Vogt serial for weeks on end. It was published in 1964 by Advent, which tried to recapture the magic in 1986 with Galaxy: The Dark and Light Years, by David L. Rosheim, but while Galaxy was a fine magazine, in ways even better than Campbell's, the book is a failure. Far from being the adulatory fan that Rogers was, Rosheim didn't even read Galaxy during Horace Gold's editorship; and since he can't capture the sense of enthusiasm Rogers imparts, what remains is a simple recounting of the stories—which has been done better by many other writers and critics.