K40

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K40, a (post-mailed) APAzine for PIECES OF EIGHT from A. Vincent Clarke, 16 Wendover Way, Welling, Kent, DA16 2BN, for January '94

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UPDATE

Our thrilling hospital serial continues. All packed for the trip, I rang the ward as required on the 28th. November, and was told that there were no beds available and there was a waiting list of ten. Four weeks later they wrote and said I might be able to get in at the end of March, but ring on the date proposed – just in case....

Missed the Xmas Wellington gathering too – running for a bus a couple of days prior to it, arms loaded with Xmas shopping, I went sprawling. Got a beautiful purple and gold bruise around one eye, but what was worse, a broken little finger. They strapped that finger and the one next to it together, and warned "Don't get the sticking plaster wet".

I've had many a good laugh since, trying to do the washing up (and face washing) with one hand. Putting the hand in a plastic bag is OK so long as the sealing on the bag resists hot water. Mostly it doesn't.

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Child psychology and stuff. I don't go much on blathering about my adored grand-daughter, but something odd happened last week, which I then heard about, and witnessed last weekend. Up to the present (she's 2½ years old), she's been what you might call a fairly incurious child. A close friend of hers who is one year older was driving her parents to distraction by the time she was thirteen months old by pointing and saying "Wossthat?" to everything...doors, windows, carpets, busts of Napoleon, etc. But my grand-daughter was, as I mentioned, aloof from all this.

Until last week. In twenty-four hours, she changed from asking "Why" about once or twice a day to querying each and every statement made by her parents. When I visited, they, being literal minded, were trying to answer every query by going further and further back along the multiple reasons trail until they were nearly at the fundamental physics stage.

I wonder what brought that on? Anyone had an experience like this?

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Tara & Barry (nice people) came along and collected a quantity of the Wodehouse books offered in the last 'K'. Thanks, T & B. Hope to see you some other time. In a perhaps futile attempt to relieve some of the creaking shelves I'll continue to offer stuff free, subject only to mailing costs. The latest selection is of John D. MacDonald thrillers.

JDM has written, way back in the '50s, some fairly routine sf – BALLROOM OF THE SKIES and PLANET OF THE DREAMERS spring to mind, and one (at least) extremely enjoyable fantasy, THE GIRL, THE GOLD WATCH AND EVERYTHING. If you haven't read the latter, it's recommended; a pure and unadulterated wish fulfillment fairy tale. Sheer escapism.

The following list is the result of a short-lived passion I had for his 'Travis McGee' thrillers, sparked off by a friend's enthusiasm. I say short-lived because after collecting avidly for a year or so I've suddenly realised that I haven't even looked at the things for three or four years.

The McGee books are intelligently written and sophisticated...even the two obligatory bonking sessions per book are reasonably done, and the private eye plots are no worse than others in the field.

POCKET BOOKS

• DARKER THAN AMBER
• THE DEEP BLUE GOODBYE
• THE TURQUOISE LAMENT
• THE LONG LAVENDER LOOK
• THE GIRL IN THE PLAIN BROWN WRAPPER
• A DEADLY SHADE OF GOLD
• ONE FEARFUL YELLOW EYE
• A TAN & SANDY SILENCE
• THE SCARLET RUSE
• A PURPLE PLACE FOR DYING
• NIGHTMARE IN PINK
• HARD COVER
• THE DREADFUL LEMON SKY (with dj)
• FREE FALL IN CRIMSON (with dj)
• SHADES OF TRAVIS McGEE (contains THE QUICK RED FOX, PALE GRAY FOR GUILT, and DRESS HER IN INDIGO)

Most of these are in medium to poor condition, but all the reading matter is intact.

Incidentally, if you've noticed in American sf fanzines off-hand remarks directed to a 'Meyer', this series is probably the origin – a sidekick of McGee is so named, and seems to have caught the imagination of a few fans.

COMMENTS ON DECEMBER MAILING

COTTAGE PIRACY/A SECOND PIECE OF PIE – Ian Bambro

You bring up a point which has worried me at intervals – the "mass of interesting ((ta)) facts and snippets" in K's. I find that I'm inclined more and more to the odd mention rather than an 'in-depth analysis' of other folk's contributions such as, for instance, Maureen and others (including your good self) do so capably. Guess this is due to a life-long habit of compressing for the sake of saving on stencils, paper, time, postage. Not made any better by using a word-processor either, which invites a continual going back to shorten comments. I do hope no one thinks they are being neglected because of this.

But I doubt that anyone can give an adequate answer to the two-months-worth of brilliant comment represented by your titles. I keep on dipping into them, tho' the combination of small type-face and full width text doesn't make it easy to read – I'd certainly like to see double-columns. You don't have to lose space in a central gutter, as you can widen each column to compensate.

And I keep wondering if I should slip into a smaller type-face. Have you had any adverse comments on your 17cpi?

You pick up on Sue's comment on Terry Pratchett books examining ethical positions, which also intrigued me when I read it. I think it's because he does underline the ethics. In MEN AT ARMS, for instance, there's emphasis on the equality of the City Watch personnel (dwarves, trolls, the odd werewolf, etc.), and Vimes has quite a struggle between personal feelings and the force of Law. In every book the characters face moral dilemmas; quite a feat for a top-class humorous writer.

Loft space; interested in your plans. Like to come and see to mine some day? At present it's full of empty bottles and wine-making equipment (once upon a time I had an ambition to make cider from the three apple trees in the garden), numerous cardboard boxes that might come in handy some day, a Christmas Tree, unwanted electric fires, a sawn-in-half water tank I just haven't had the energy/muscle to get downstairs, and some ancient books which are probably too dusty and damp to salvage. What I need is the energy I had 20 years ago – and the ability to throw stuff out.

CRITICAL SITUATIONS – Andy Butler

Andy, I'm extremely sorry to have caused you a "brief moment of anger" with my previous comments. Trouble is, I'm a long-time introvert, and when Life slips a knife between my ribs I'm more inclined to put on an Elastoplast and say nuffin rather than to expound on my troubles to other folk, however friendly they are. I find it very hard to come to terms with a psychogical viewpoint which is so radically different from my own. Of course, you're fully entitled to deal with your own personal tragedy in your own way, and my less-than-tactful response was uncalled for. Sorry again.

"I suspect Vince is of a generation where men can't cry". I guess that's true, but having lived through a world war and 40 years when A-bombs were a background worry does tend to harden metaphorical sympathetic arteries as well as the normal blood-bearing ones.

I was intrigued by the odd hyphen popping up in your text, caused I assume by a re-laying of the original words in a flurry. Reminded me of a pre-war childrens paper called TIGER TIMS WEEKLY, strictly for the pre-school set, which actually hyphenated multi-syllable words. I've never seen a reference to this (references to children's papers are pretty scarce, anyway), and I wonder if it was of any help to the kids? Not much use asking you youngsters, I suppose?

Interesting on your library. I think library staff are as fallible as the rest of us, eg. some new books in my local Public Library have a note paper-clipped to the first page which reads (in part):

ATTENTION STAFF.

THIS IS AN ADVANCE FICTION TITLE

REMEMBER TO RETAIN HOLD BUT

DO NOT MAKE ANY COPY!

CHECK IF BOOK SHOULD BE ON

SHORT LOAN etc.

"Do not make any copy"? One has a vision of an underground, illicit publisher at work in the Library cellars. I wonder (idly) what it does mean. Anyone versed in libraryspeak?

Pleasure to read most of the zine.

MARAUDER 46/47 – Ken Cheslin

Like both covers, especially the mice, tho' the No.47 ('wild horses') is more – er – subtle. Sorry to hear of your plight jobwise, and if I can help on copiering stuff let me know.

Honestly, JB's holiday account which you've now got is not so much a white elephant as a white gigantosaurus. I saw a smaller version about 8 years ago, given to Arthur Thomson, and haven't fully recovered. You know I don't fancy holidays abroad; being presented with a 305p. (single-sided) diary by holidays-abroad enthusiast John was a wee bit OTT.

RYCT Keith Walker (Oct) on 'memories of memories'. Interesting you should have them also. I remember at 14 years old remembering back to an occasion when I was given a football when I was about 5 (Xmas? Birthday?), but the original memory's gone.

The illo. of the religious (?) person on p.6 of the Nov. issue instantly brings to mind Kelly Freas drawings in the old ANALOGs; is he the artist or is it someone extremely similar in style?

Your remarks re. the hopeless feeling engendered by the Govt. are spot on. It gets nightmarish.

Re. your cats (and Maureen's cats and other owners of multiple moggies), I came across an interesting press release the other day. On the back of a letter from Steve Sneyd, actually, not that this has significance. The press release was from Ciba-Geigy (Ref. CAH.4X.2P.1 dated 3rd. September), on a substance called Program.

You give Program to your pet (tablets for dogs, liquid for cats), which gets into the bloodstream. If a flea feeds on the blood, (heaven forbid but we must be realistic), it becomes incapable of hatching eggs. No eggs – no new fleas.

This strikes me as an elegant solution to an old problem.

Even if the cat (or dog), due to the new chemicals in its blood, later develops into a twenty-tentacled horror.

THE CALENDAR – Ken Cheslin

A marvellous gift to us all – and funny to boot. Particularly liked extras, such as the love-lorn hedgehog in November. Grateful thanks.

K39 – self

No comment

FRAGMAS – Mike Gould

I found your excursions to ethnic restaurants, two for the first time, interesting up to the point where I was half-expecting a description of the grub available. The Turkish place might as well have had fish 'n' chips as you didn't try to particularise, the Indonesian Rendang was "rivalling a Lamb Pasanda I had (earlier)". This made me start thinking about the background to writing about exotic foodstuffs, and I suddenly realised that I was expecting too much. Seems to me that unless you can relate it to something your reader has already experienced, you might as well be describing colour to a blind man. A bit like the well-known expert's patter about wine – "a cheeky little vintage, quite presumptuous" etc., which is ultimately meaningless.

What does come across well, though, is the fact that you and Helen were satisfied with the places you chose and, perhaps more interesting, they were satisfied with you as customers. Says a lot for your admirable ability to 'get on' with varied groups.

Nice mini-description of NovaCon, suitably laced with a few anecdotes. Far more agreeable than the peevish outbursts one sometimes hears. Wish I'd been there in a way, but this just hasn't been my year for travelling.

RYCT Tara and myself on Wodehouse, you evidently take collecting him fairly seriously if you have only 10 to get. I presume most of these are the early ones, the prices of which run into hundreds for the first – and probably only – editions. Don't know why they haven't been reprinted except that, possibly, the humour relies on contemporary events, eg. in SWOOP, which is the only really early story I've read, the plot hinges on a scout leader defeating a (pre-Great War) German invasion.

The later Wodehouse is timeless, as it relies so much on characters. And some literary merit. In IMAGINARY PEOPLE, David Pringle writes of Bertie Wooster: "His apparently idiotic speech, full of the 'Knut' slang of pre-1914 days, is laced with poetry."

RYCT Barry on fandom: yes, it takes all sorts. I'm personally guilty of much preferring fanzine fandom to other forms, and sometimes have to remind myself that the play-ground is big enough for all.

Really like your general layout, typeface, etc.

ROPE OF SAND – Brian Jordan

The chat about amateur radio brought back some memories; long long long ago Dad bought an '8-valve Superhet', and I used to spend hours listening, trying to pick up short-wave radio from amateurs. This involved not only stringing an aerial from various high points in the back garden but dowsing the 'earth connection' (a wire from the set culminating in a sort of copper poker thrust into the earth of the back-garden) with water.

The 19 metre band was favourite. Proper amateurs, with far more sensitive equipment, would come on the air talking excitedly about logging calls from Burma or Australia, (individuals would then exchange postcards with long-distance callers) and hearing them I'd twist the tuner knob excrutiatingly slowly, trying to pick up these exotic voices from the general background noise. Can't remember if I actually heard anything as far away as Australia, tho' I do recall once picking up a broadcast concert from New York featuring Jack Teagarden, a top-class trumpeter.

There were small annoyances. A transmitting amateur about a half-mile from the house blasted out nearly all the others when he was on air. And there was a coded language used by old-timer operators, who were sometimes surprisingly indiscreet about the 'GF' (girl friend) and similar when on air. The DAILY MIRROR once had a front-page spread about the scandal when one of these lame-brained loudmouths had talked about his GF and the 'OW' (old woman = wife) to the listening world.

But then came the War and spoilt everything.

DAY FOR NIGHT: FAN – Paul Kincaid

This had some fascinating insights into the planning of the early MexiCons, and of Greg Pickersgills involvement. I take it that the whole 'zine is in the public domain, as it were, and will pass it along to Rob Hansen for any tidbits he can extract for THEN 5 (when it's written).

I suppose you would think Hansen's history was dull, it not being to your own tastes, but the little remark about it being inaccurate should have been backed up by evidence. Not, of course, that nearly 400 pages of factual history could be expected to be right in every detail, but it would help all of us if the correct facts as fans know them could be transmitted to Rob, as he has so often asked.

The examination of your relationship with Greg was as interesting as it was unexpected. Your analysis was deadly accurate up to a point, but you missed out on another aspect of his character which has a bearing on how fans regard him and vice versa. He is – perhaps more accurately was – macho man incarnate, the dominant leader – at least, in his own estimation. Without going into too many personal details, the entrance of Avedon Carol into London fandom and her marriage to Rob Hansen was like throwing a match into a dynamite store. Avedon is just as strong a personality on the feminine side as Greg is on the male, and subsequent ructions caused splits which have not yet been repaired.

You write, in admiring tones, of Greg's 'brutal honesty'. But we're not discussing a fictional character here, removed from real life. A little adult tact, forebearance and if you like gentle hypocrisy would make the real flesh-and-blood GP a lot easier to know and respect.

HEY CAPTAIN ETC ETC ETC. – Kev McVeigh

That's an interesting plaint on p.3 about "I want information. I want communication." Hooray to that. But we don't all like the same things, or want to communicate on the same level of intensity. On your two or three pages on music (I nearly wrote pop music, but I guess that might seem insulting), see my earlier remarks to Mike Gould on descriptive writing of something perceived through another sense – in his case taste, in yours sound. Unless one bought all the records/CDs/tapes that you do, or listened as attentively to the radio, the writing on music passes over ones head. I don't know about other PoE'ers, but I have other things to do with my money and time.

But there may be similar souls to yours aboard, so I, personally, nod politely at the lists of meaningless titles and turn to other pages.

I reckon, without prejudice (or perhaps only a smidgin of it) that my personal contributions cover a wider field than yours, if not so eloquently expressed, so I reckon I'm doing my bit on the communications side. We're both signalling – maybe we have telescopes to our blind eyes?

THE ONE PERCENT FREE – Darroll Pardoe

Re. your opening remark about me not liking my defensive shell disturbed, you're nearly right – as noted to Andrew, in this particular context, (fandom), openess on private matters is alien to me. But this ties in with an interesting remark you make to Sue, that you don't understand why diary writers do it. Me neither. A little common ground there, perhaps. But I certainly sympathise with Andrew.

THE TOMMY LEE JONES – Ro Pardoe

Ummm – a soulmate of Kev, with all the stuff about music.

Re. the Beach Boys, I probably heard them as I had a teen-age daughter in the late '60s, but nothing's stuck in my mind as being specifically theirs. I'd be a dead loss on modern quizzes, where equal weight is given to Who Painted The Sistine Chapel and What Was Top Of The Pops in June '65.

Don't really understand the gist of your comments to me. You mean it doesn't help to be told that someone is worse off than yourself? Strange – that's sustained me through a lot of hard times. And I would have thought it the basis for most charities – recognition that someone is, for the time being at least, not doing as well as you.

THE ARACHNO FILE Vol.35 – JDR

Picking a plum at random, we find RYCT Dop that bit about banks not employing blacks amongst others. Which connects vaguely in my mind with the mention on TV last night that the very first black (and a Rastafairian at that) is being trained for show jumping. Tho' I suppose that the latter is a bit more esoteric. And no doubt banks in other countries employ non-whites...by the context you meant in this country.

Which ties in (in a distorted fashion) with the rarity of blacks in sf fandom, as mentioned by Pickersgill in the latest RASTUS JOHNSON'S CAKEWALK. Once upon a time I shook aside inhibitions and went up to a lone coloured guy sitting forlornly at a Convention table. Turned out he was a STAR WARS fan and not at all interested in other sf.

Philosophy. Sorry, but my seasoned sensible judgment has gone out to lunch. Except that the more lonely a fascist gets, the better.

Nice comments on wild ride to NovaCon.

RYCT me on videotaping. Nope, the VCR's OK, but as in the field of reading, I'm just getting plain doggone scared at the way unwatched tapes are piling up, just like unread books. Why, I see WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (or vice versa) is coming around again and I haven't even managed to see the first taping yet. It's a hard life being retired, isn't it?

Incidentally, anyone know why the screen slips into black-and-white when on Fast Forward?

The general rant to Maureen (civil servants, economists, political people of various persuasions) is nicely worded but doesn't – possibly wisely – come to any conclusions. The conditions you describe, poor, clean, honest, etc. applied to most lower middle-class families before the War, when there was one bread-winner in the family and he (invariably 'he') was out to work all day.

This was the end result of years since the Depression (which you forgot to mention, possibly because it was another balls-up by folk who manipulated the money-market), and is the sort of thing which I imagine Major has in mind with his 'back to basics'. In direct opposition to Major's public ambitions of a classless society, England in the '30s was one of the most class-ridden societies in the world, money-wise and hereditary-wise.

In fact, in a way you've got a good point inasmuch as Hitler was the root cause of all the changes, from '36 when the need for more armaments caused a huge economic upheaval, through the '45 election when for once people were not swayed by weasel worded election promises, to the '60s when the wreckage of WW2 was more-or-less eliminated. I don't, however, care for another Hitler – one European megalomaniac per century is more than enough.

Rant, anyone?

That's a nice colophon.

THE STRUTHIAN PERSPECTIVE – Theo Ross

There's been later cases of justifiable homicide than your admiral running a burglar through with a sword, and most of them have resulted in acquittals. My own feelings have changed on this since growing a little feebler, less able to extend charity towards the burglar (poor fellow was compelled to do it by the way society is run), and I'd probably do the same if there was some weapon handy.

I remember reading (in a diary!) many years ago that in law even if you threaten to punch someone when standing within arm's length of them, you could technically be charged with assault – I'll leave it to the legal minded (Ian?) to sort that out.

But there are curious echoes in my own memory to your account. When my daughter was 3 or 4 I used occasionally to take her to a local park, and there on a couple of evenings was a local youth (Irish?) practising whacking a ball (or whatever they call it) with a shinty stick. I kept a watchful and nervous eye on him, and in fact afterwards rarely used the park. But your case, with Sally actually being hit, is more serious.

You should not have grabbed the boy. You should have grabbed the puck/rubber/ball, told the boy to lead you to his parents, and told them what he'd been doing and that you'd taken the ball to stop him from possibly injuring someone or something else. It would then have put the responsibility on the parents to keep the child in order.

That, of course, is a counsel of perfection (at least, according to AVC), and in your anger you re-acted as most of us would have done. Sympathies on the treatment you received. Some people have a large blind spot where their children are concerned.

RYCT Barry, of course miscarriages of justice are the big argument against capital punishment, but although the individual won't err again it won't stop others. In fact, likely to make them more callous in carrying out crimes – the 'might as well be hung for a sheep' syndrome. But we (as readers of E.S. Turner's marvellous ROADS TO RUIN) know all about the Scots ideas of punishment. Not until 1948 was the penalty of hanging, drawing and quartering for traitors dropped from Scots law.

(Alright, alright – they'd overlooked it.)

TRAVELS IN HYPER-REALITY – Maureen Spellman

What? No columns? Pity!

Have never seen a staged TTOTS but read it many years ago and of course enjoyed KISS ME KATE. Very good essay; your perception that Shakespeare was modern minded (equality of males and females) didn't coincide with my own dim remembrances, and I must re-read it some time with that in mind. Thanks.

A hasty glance at Roget's Thesaurus (not an inhabitant of Jurassic Park) bears out your remarks on the paucity of collective names for females – even 'wench' has a slightly 'naughty' connotation these days, and as for 'mistress'....! I've seen 'femmes' used in print, tho' not heard it. I was metaphorically smacked down once – I think by Avedon Carol, tho' can't be sure – by saying I preferred 'girls' more than any alternative, and am now somewhat confused.

Even that thesaurus-like free verse doesn't answer the query, tho' it's so good.

Agree completely with you about female circumcsion. As for hypnotism, I wouldn't – as you might easily guess – subject myself to it unless there was a strong medical reason for it, and watching it for entertainment seems a bit perverse; one feels an element of sadism must be present, just as at a boxing match.

Re. convention holding, I, as you know, come from an era when we fanzine fans also formed convention committees, because we were the only ones around.

But although there were a few fans who thoroughly enjoyed it, even one Con committee a year was a bit of a strain to some of us. I was very glad when Manchester broke the London monopoly of Con holding, and after they found out how difficult it was even more pleased when an unknown fan group in Kettering wrote to me and said that they were willing to hold the next annual 'do'.

After that the Con(s) more or less drifted away from London, until nowadays it's quite uncommon for a big Con to be held nearer than 50 miles to the capital's centre. Of course, I rather regret this, now I regard travel with feelings of dismay rather than anticipation, but that's life.

I didn't know that bit about the MexiCon being 'blissfully unaware' of criticisms because they don't read fanzines. That's weird – I would have thought that the latter were the only source of 'audience reaction'. Unless you pick it up in the bar.

Incidentally, I have a sneaking feeling that no one shouldn't criticise a Con unless you've first tried running one. Is this valid? Could it perhaps be extended to other forms of criticism – don't do it unless you've tried it yourself?

Your comments on my comments to Andy noted, and replied to elsewhere here.

LE TORTUGA EN EL FONDU etc. – Brian Stovold

Nice light well-written stuff, without a lot to get the teeth into.

Interesting clipping.

I should have replied to Andrew like yourself, I feel.

On the supermarket stuff, a small shopping centre near here, called 'Blackfen' (probably was once upon a time, it's at the foot of a hill) was the proud (?) site of the very first Safeways in this country. The only general grocery store remaining there is one that opens on Sundays – Safeways doesn't. The small store's prices are significantly more than normal.

PIECES OF EIGHT – THE OFFICIAL PAPERS – Paul Kincaid

Thanks for the extra few days, but it still wasn't enough, hence this post-mailing. Please advise if you want this 'K' sent to anyone not on the membership list.

Interesting checklist.

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UPDATE UPDATE

You may have heard old-timers raving about UNKNOWN, later UNKNOWN WORLDS. This was a companion magazine to ASTOUNDING (later ANALOG), and was one of the many zines killed by the War. It was an astonishing 'zine, as it concentrated on fantasy which, given an initial fantastic premise, had to be worked out logically. This may be commonplace these days but wasn't so then.

One major contributor was sf author Sprague de Camp. He wrote a series of novels in which the hero and friends were transmitted to various fictional realms by reciting a mathematical formula. Initially they found themselves in Norse mythology, then in Spenser's FAERIE QUEEN, etc.

All of the stories were severally reprinted into pocket books, but I now find that there's a paperback available in remainder shops which collects the stories into one volume – THE INTREPID ENCHANTER – Sphere Books – £1.99. Recommended