K47


K 47, an APAzine for Pieces of Eight, Sept. 1994, from A. Vincent Clarke, 16 Wendover Way, Welling,, Kent, DA16 2BN


UPDATE

No, I wasn't lounging on a silken couch having my every need attended to by a bevy of sloe-eyed beauties last month, in spite of any rumours you may have heard. About half-way through July I suddenly had what I can only describe as an influx of energy. Cause is mysterious. I hadn't been eating bananas or practising the Jane Fonda workout, or anything out of the ordinary, but suddenly zip. Felt better (more alive) than I had for a couple of years or so.

Funny about the subconscious. If I'd have been told that I was going to get this energy-surge I'd have probably said "Good – I can then catch up on loccing fanzines" or spend some of it composing an extra-large 'K'.

What actually happened was that I went out into the front garden, cut about 18" off the top of the hedge, thus bringing it down to about 6', mowed the grass, and next morning erected a Bantam Tower, one of those efforts made up of galvanised steel tubing which give you a reasonably secure platform up to about 14ft. high. Oh yes, I have a ladder but in a burst of enthusiasm some years ago I bought an industrial type, and the damn thing is too heavy for me these days.

So I've been climbing up and down the Tower like a balding Tarzan, filling and painting, trying to rectify years of neglect. It's gradually coming right. The hot weather has slowed me down a bit – the house faces south-east, which is why the sun has so wrecked the paint-work – but the energy is still there. Next, of course, is the back of the house, the back garden, and the interior of the house. I'm wondering if I'll be able to keep on as a crewman on the Jenny Hanniver with all this work to do. We'll see.

ALTERNATE PUBLISHING DATES

You may remember that many moons ago our mate Theo was writing about a new ALTERNATE WORLDS, and saying he'd sold to them. I searched everywhere for it with no luck (Welling is so illiterate I even have to go into the next town to buy BOOK & MAGAZINE COLLECTOR), but as it happened Ken Slater advertised a copy, which I secured. A very nice first issue, more of a semi-pro than is usual amongst the hundreds of bookstall magazines, and it had our own Brian Stableford with an interesting introduction.

I wrote in, asking if there was going to be a second issue (supposed to be quarterly, but this was 6 months after No.1) and had a form letter back apologising for delay and saying No.2 was coming out Real Soon Now. Still waiting, but hope for Theo's sake it'll appear – yes, his story is advertised as forthcoming.

AUTHOR! AUTHOR!

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but if you're interested in the SF output of certain modern authors, there's few sources of information better than 'Galactic Central', subtitled 'Bibliographies for the Avid Reader'. This is run in England by Phil Stephensen-Payne ('Imladris', 25A Copgrove Road, Leeds, W. Yorks, LS8 2SP) and issues checklists detailing all the publications of a list of popular authors, including Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, Eric Frank Russell, 'James Tiptree Jnr.', Bob Shaw, and at least three dozen others. Remarkably comprehensive – for instance, the Sturgeon index lists 91 articles/book reviews and 62 miscellaneous pieces (interviews, introductions etc.) as well as all his fiction in magazines and books. Remarkably cheap, too – mean average of about £3 each, some higher, most lower.


BIRDS OF A FEATHER DO WHAT?

No ornithologist I, so the following may be an everyday occurrence to country-living crew, but....

It's the time of the year when great flocks of birds fly over, on their instinctive quest for warmer lands, but going outside at dusk tonight (to admire the painting job I'd done on the front of the house, if the truth be told), I saw a curious sight. Over the road, on the roofs of semi-detached houses similar to this one, was a huge mob of birds. I can only think that they were having a breather before travelling on to France, Italy and all points South. I counted over 50 on one roof, probably 300 in the crowd. Is this unusual? I'd always thought of birds as winging on for hundreds of miles when they migrate. I went inside and typed this paragraph, and now I look out of the window they're gone.

Wonder what Alfred Hitchcock would have made of it?


COMMENTS ON THE AUGUST MAILING

OMNIFORMIS 2 – Tanya Brown

You're taking these twitches and jerks with marvellous courage and good humour. I sincerely hope that they find it's something reasonably trivial.

Agree with your comments on cars, and also remarks on the Criminal Justice Bill; the Government seems to be determined to make itself as unpopular as possible while it's still in office. That's a nice little phrase – "These are my liberties as well".

MARAUDER 54 – Ken Cheslin

Yes, it was Housman who became the brewer's favourite poet by that couplet about malt being better than Milton. But some of his stuff is really naff – how about "My object in enquiring is to know / But if you happen to be deaf and dumb / And do not understand a word I say / Nod with your hand to signify as much"?

Agree with you re. comments on crew of the Jenny Hanniver – don't really see why it shouldn't be left open.

Agree with you RYCT Mike on religion – unsane is a good descriptive word. Added comment: it may just be personal prejudice but 'lapsed Catholic' raises my hackles. These are people who have been brought up on a rather stricter code of ethics than most of us, and when they forsake that system there's often a nasty hole where those ethics should be.

RYCT Chris and govt. reaction to computer pornography, this sounds like trying to patch up a sieve. Situation reminds me of a story (Arthur C. Clarke?) many years ago of satellites broadcasting porn. and attempts to stop them. As far as I can remember the author hadn't put the thing on an economic basis, tho – no profit in it, either just pure mischief or an attempt to destabilise the country.

Nowadays authors quite often take a harder headed view on this sort of thing. I recently read Pohl's MINING THE OORT – a marvellous yarn – where the old idea of terraforming Mars by bombarding it with ice meteors is the main motif, but this isn't done on a purely altruistic basis. The Martian settlers have to pay, putting themselves into debt for years 'n' years.

RYCT Ros. on swearing legal oaths. Never understood why this was regarded as unbreakable. Typical British hypocrisy? Thereby hangs an anecdote – or maybe I'm still infected by Sterne's rambling in Tristram Shandy. Anyway – I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I have a copy of Arthur Machen's The Bowmen which was written in 1915 and which gives a fictional account of angelic visions occurring to soldiers in World War I. I seem to remember that St. George was involved, in shining armour.

This has been widely thought of as being the source of a WW1 myth, The Angel of Mons (thus tying in with your remarks on modern myths also!). A previous owner of the book (according to a signature probably Elizabeth Garnett, widow of Richard Garnett who wrote Twilight of the Gods which I mentioned in a 'dusty shelves' supplement), has pasted in an extract from a WW1 newspaper in which a soldier swears an affidavit before a JP that he saw a 'flash' of heavenly visitors during the battle of Mons.

An affidavit? It must be true!

Twenty five years later another clipping was pasted in, during WW2. Some newspaper columnist had dug up the story – and found that the JP who'd taken the affidavit discovered 10 days later that the soldier had been in this country during the battle.

RYCT Brian Stovold: It has been, of course, common practise to get an artist to draw a cover and then send it to some author to construct a story around it. I've often wondered if Bob Shaw's Galactic Tours, which was apparently constructed around a couple of dozen marvellous pictures by David Hardy was produced in that way, or was it the other way around – tour description first. (I've just got the book out to make sure of the title, and had another grin at the disclaimer – "Thomas Cook Galactic Tours is entirely a work of fiction and in no way suggests that Thomas Cook now or in the future will have the tours described in this book").

But the peak of this sort of thing was, I think, achieved long before the war when 'Wonder Stories' ran a competition where readers were invited to write a story based on the cover. Said cover depicted an ocean liner sailing upside-down in the sky over New York.........

I could go on – you've made this a very interesting MARAUDER, but postal deadline looms. Good cover again, and where on earth do you get the fancy outlines on the interior pages? They're very good.

WATCHER FROM THE SHADOWS – Jenny Glover

Nature notes: Due to the aforementioned surge of energy I've recently fought my way down to the bottom of the back garden – and 'fought' is the right word, those 7-feet high thistles not only scratch you but choke you with thistle-down – and I've found clear evidence that foxes have been living there. Not only suspicious areas of clearance under the brambles but a hole which can only be an 'earth'. This has put me in a dilemma. I've nothing against foxes, and the local paper hasn't run any stories about Wendover Way cats disappearing. And I'm not particularly interested in the garden at present – it'll be a couple of years before grand-daughter is let loose in it. What do I do? Let things stay as they are, or fill in the earth and thereby drive the foxes to some other suburban jungle, or call in a pest control officer? Wonder if there's a chance that the Authorities could humanely transport foxes elsewhere?

Re. smog. The local paper runs a weekly survey on how breathable the air is, one reason why I think the wild back garden is no bad thing, if it does the usual re-cycling job. I'm not sure if the paper is doing it for environmentally sound reasons, however, or because there's a proposal to make an existing rubbish incinerator on the outskirts of the district the biggest in Europe. Politics gets into everything these days.

Good anecdote on Tanya and the 'G' spot. I showed that particular paragraph to Chuch Harris when he paid a flying visit during the month – it's the sort of thing that delights him – and he immediately went on to your brief description of Coventry Cathedral which he much appreciated. One of his favourite buildings.

RYCT me about Tanya saying if a plant is in the wrong place it's a weed.

Yes, true, but when you get a cottage garden mixture you just throw handfuls onto a large patch and just hope. At least, that's the way I do it. Actually, I'm wondering whether it might be easier to get a hamster mixture from the local pet store and sow it. Or, come to that, a parrot mixture. Knowing my luck, they'd probably come up Triffids.

Thanks for type info., which I feel confirms some stuff in the back of my own mind. But I like san-serif, possibly because two of the best fan writers, Bob Tucker and Dean Grennell, used it. Hoping to hear from someone else as to readability. (Sense is another subject).

FRAGMENTS – Mike Gould

Interesting as usual. Sympathies to you and Helen on latest miscarriage. RYCT me: Saw a Wodehouse Tales of St. Austins in the local library, so as you say old stuff is being reprinted.


Re. covers etc. comment to Ken, am just watching (while W/P'ing) 'Her Alibi', a comedy thriller on ITV. And would you believe it, the title wording was backed by 21 pocket book covers supposedly written by the hero. Now, there's a nice artistic job – 21 thriller covers and no story needed.


ROPE OF SAND – Brian Jordan

Interesting on various fonts. Amstrad had them, but only in the last 15 months have they produced an add-on in which you could mix them on one page like this. None of them your favourite Courier, tho.

Fascinating on computer progress too. Even the humble Amstrad can hit snags – I've used a Scrabble game disc on and off for years, but suddenly the m/c has started to reject it as an illegal copy.

Re. the duper, the sick Roneo 475 is still around – been too busy to mess with it – but you may be interested to hear it is white, has four knobs, a handle, and two other wheels set edge-on so only the serrated edge is showing. Roneo's output appears to be extensive – there's two Roneo electro-stencillers in the house – but there seems to be little promotional literature.

RYCT Ros: Yes, Skyrack, once the title of a fan news fanzine, has been a feature of a Leeds market for some years – herewith Ron Bennett's card:

[[SPACE FOR ARTWORK]]

For the benefit of newcomers to the fan family, Ron was a great '50s/'60s fan, TAFF winner, editor of PLOY, a genzine, and 96 issues of SKYRACK from '59 to '71. He had a bad time in the '80s when his daughter, whom he used to take to Conventions, died of leukaemia after numerous operations. I don't know if he still operates the bookstall on Saturdays.

ALL AT SEA – Pauline Plant

Like the writing style. Yes, E-mail is being hyped all over, and some of the articles aren't by Dave Langford either. As a pensioner I'm not in a position to go in for it and in a probably futile gesture of defiance have just installed a larger letter-flap in the front door. Only trouble is that the new flap is a push-against-the-spring type, where the old one was simple lift-outward-and-slip-in-letter(s). The postman, possibly deliberately, lets the spring flap down on the last quarter-inch of envelopes, so instead of shooting across the room or even spiralling limply down to the doormat, the flap clamps them and achieves an effect of the door sticking out its tongue.

THE STRUTHIAN PERSPECTIVE – Theo Ross

Heartily agree with the conclusion of the page 1 survey; the Chinese have the right idea with the limited family. It makes me shudder when some tabloid presents as something to be proud of a happy family of 12 or more children. When I was born the population of these islands was under 40,000,000. It's now apparently 55,000,000 and rising. I keep on thinking of Kornbluth's 'Marching Morons' or the version of it in Pohl & Kornbluth's 'Search the Sky', tho' these are directed at diminution of intellect rather than ecological disasters.


RAEBNC on those titles unmentioned – haven't left much time to go into detail, and as usual am ending in a rush. Post and paint pots await.

On the next page, if it comes out (the original is in itself a photocopy and not perfect) is a cutting from a Grimsby paper I had passed on to me by Steve Sneyd. If you can't read the little box two-thirds of the way down, it reads:

WARNING: Visitors of a nervous disposition may find aspects of this experience frightening, especially the realistic effects of the E-motion cinema."

No, I don't know what the hell it is, but I bet the prices charged are the most frightening thing. Pity we haven't a crew member in or near Great Grimsby.

Thanks, Steve.

VINCE

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Vince Clarke's APAzines
Contents

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Notes and Queries
K1
K2
K3
K4
K5
K6
K7
K8
K9
K10
K11
K12
K13
K14
K15
K16
K17
K18
K19
K20
K21
K22
K23
K24
K25
K26
K27
K28
K29
K30
K31
K32
K33
K34
K35
K36
K37
K38
K39
K40
K41
K42
K43
K44
K45
K46
K47
K48
K49
K50
K51
K52
K53
K54
K55
K56
K57
K58 to K69
K70
Books About SF Continued
From K??
Vincentian 1
Vincentian 2
Vincentian 3