ó22, an APAzine for Pieces of Eight, February '92, from A. Vincent Clarke, 16 Wendover Way, Welling, Kent, DA16 2BN. "The single most important thing to know about Americans – the attitude which truly distinguishes them from the British – is that Americans think that death is optional...there's a nagging suspicion that you can delay death (or, who knows, avoid it altogether) if you really try. BRIT-THINK AMERI-THINK – Jane Walmsley (Harrap '86)
This month, boys and girls, we start off with a Literary Competition. At the beginning of January the RADIO TIMES (and possibly other magazines) had an insert from The Softback Preview, offering a quantity of books at knock-down prices as an introduction to their Book Club. Incidentally, isn't it odd how many of these mail-order clubs originate in Wiltshire? Makes you wonder if every hayloft out there is stacked full of classic books and records, every barn a repository of Brahms and Ballard.
The fetching difference in this new venture is that there's no obligation to take any books other than those on the preliminary offer. As one who joined the Encounters Book Club years back hoping to get cheap sf and was thereafer deluged with offers of dozens of books on astrology, dream interpretation and black magic, of which you had to take a fixed number per year, this is a distinct advantage.
There doesn't seem to be any drawback to the scheme, other than the fact that on the insert the hardback price is prominently displayed ('History of Western Philosophy' – £25), whereas one is getting softback and just perhaps miniscule type. The running offer is 'around half the price of the publisher's hardback'; according to figures here the hardback price ranges from £9.95 to £35, so your softback would be around £5 to £17.50 if you bought it on the monthly offer, which is obviously where TSP's profit lies.
I'm not sure that I'd be terribly interested in buying a softback for, say, £10, economics being what they are and my usual range being under £1, but it's a proposition to think about and leads to further deep thoughts. While pondering on the relative merits of, eg., a Guide To English Usage against A Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy (given that I was going to join the thing at all) it occurred to me that this was a rough and ready test of people's personality. Which would you choose? I should add, by the way, that the initial choices are £1 each plus postage. Even if you don't let others know it's a ready-made small test of your areas of interest. Here's the titles of the books on offer, with a short description if the title's obscure:
All reasonably middleweight – no Catherine Cookson or that Buck Rogers stuff – and except that there's an interesting bias (BritishIsles, Western Philosophy) something one would think for all tastes.
Which would I pick?
That's a hard question. Probably The Softback Encylopedia, (because my present encyclopedia needs 'topping up'), the Coming of Age In the Milky Way (because I keep on coming across references to the echoes of the Big Bang that I have a hard time understanding), and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, (because of a life-long love affair with words.)
But that's today.
WORDS, IDLE WORDS
Ever come across the BBC TV quiz CATCHWORD? As it's on only in the afternoon, on weekdays, it's possible you've missed it. It consists of various word-games with three contestants. One games asks that you find a series of words in five seconds, given 3 letters, the first of which must be the first letter of the word and the others to follow in order somewhere within your offering, eg. if the three letters were C-A-G you could have CRAG or CARGO or CARRIAGE or CHANGE.
Sounds easy, but....They've programmed a computer to select groups of three letters at random for the competitors, but don't say whether it's pure random or whether the selection is based on some idea of how our language is constructed. The latter would be the fairer method, but I suspect they've opted for the former – it's easier. It also leaves a lot to luck.
Out of sheer curiosity I took down the letters on which the contestants failed one day.
Out of 30 offerings, 10 to each contestant, they couldn't think of a word, within 5 seconds,based on the following letters:
I thought afterwards, but not within 5 seconds, of SHIBBOLETH, NORMAL and BARBARISM, but it struck me (a) how often the inclusion of a 'B', if it isn't the first letter, makes a difficult word to construct, and (b) how little I know about the English language. If nothing else, it's a test of humility.
J.T. EDSON REVISITED
You may remember that in a recent 'K' I wrote of the local charity shop that had dozens of J.T. Edson books on offer, some local enthusiast having, for one reason or another, Given Up.
I knew Edson only as a Western story writer, so in 60-odd years of reading had never opened a book of his.
But the other day I came across, in another charity shop, an opus of his which was vaguely in my territory, called FEARLESS MASTER OF THE JUNGLE. It appeared to be about a Tarzan-like figure on another planet, and for a mere 25p – and that going to a charitable cause – I felt I couldn't go wrong.
Boy, was I mistaken!
Edson has apparently written about 100 titles, most of them divided into series, and most of them being Western. The one I bought was in a series of 4 titles. The hero, Bunduki, who is described on every other page as a 'blonde giant', and his adoptive cousin Dawn have been mysteriously transferred to another planet. This is being stocked with Earth life, people and animals, by a super-intelligent alien species, and the pair have been installed as a version of game wardens, with responsibility for the preservation of human life also.
Well, Burroughs' Martian series had its hero transferred by mysterious means if you remember your pre-teen reading, and we all know about Tarzan and his fights with tigers, ant-men and other denizens of the African jungle. Surely Edson was writing in the grand old slightly mildewed tradition?
Wrong. Burroughs wrote in the pulp-magazine era and he knew how to spin a yarn, driving forward so fast that you were inclined (at least, at the age of 8 or 9) to overlook his defects.
Edson's writing style is so slow and wooden that it's a wonder it isn't infested by termites. It combines Victorian style with a painstaking thoroughness – no African tigers for him – which is often expressed in footnotes, eg. 'The modern materials, excellent design and great strength of Dawn Drummond-Clayton's and Bunduki's sophisticated archery equipment provided the power required to penetrate the Mun-Gatah's hitherto invulnerable breastplates'. You think I'm joking? I present here a page from the opus cit., a thrilling moment when the heroine tries to tame Isabel, a wild horse.
One page has six footnotes. God!
REVIEW
As a blessed relief from Mr. Edson I have to report that I have found another book which is eminently readable, at least to my atrophied senses:
POLAR CITY BLUES by Katherine Kerr (Grafton '91)
The author has written at least 4 fantasy novels, but this is her first sf. It combines virtually every element from humour to some mildly slushy sentiment (an AI loves its mistress), other world politics, sadness, space, known aliens, unknown aliens, murders, telepathy,, a glorious mishmash that's highly readable. A big plus is the fact that most of the characters act intelligently. The plot is far too complex to summarise in a few lines, but the book has one outstanding merit for us godforsaken Limeys. A small facet of the plot involves the aspirations of one of the heroes to get a place on a baseball team, and the author actually gives as an epilogue a 10-page precis of the rules of the game and the slang encountered. This act of kindness may be due to the fact that, although American herself, her parents are Brits.
COMMENTS ON JANUARY '92 MAILING
THROUGH THE LOUD HAILER – Cap'n
Odd rhythm scheme, sez he, casting a doubtful glance at it. Odd, too, that in our own language there's no rhyme for 'English'.
STRANGE DEBRIS – Chris Carne
Interesting, readable, but little on which to comment from my viewpoint except the notion you quote from 'Les Chants de Maldoror'. There is a God but he's a sadistic bastard? Now that's an eminently sensible attitude – if you believe in God. Must try it on the next Jehovah's Witness who comes along. Will report reactions.
Good point on the longevity of electronic communication. This applies to so many things. I managed to video ('cos it was on in the middle of the night) Hitchcock's VERTIGO (1958) during the Xmas period, and on playing it was somewhat depressed to see a greenish hue over the whole film – was especially taken by a car that had green headlights. When you compare the colours with, say, illuminated missals in the British Museum......
MARAUDER Vol.3 No.1 – Ken Cheslin
Best wishes to Jean after the operation – and to you, with extra work for a time. And, to a lesser degree, to Guiness the cat.
Yes, discussing hospitals, sales of, there's an interesting local example. There was one, quite large, built when nearby Woolwich was a garrison town with loads of soldiers and where there was also the governmental Arsenal, one of the main makers of guns and munitions in the country. This particular hospital was designated for the armed services and civil servants only – the latter included those thousands of people working at the Arsenal.
Some years ago the Arsenal was sold off – it's now a huge private factory estate – and the garrison soldiery was reduced, so the hospital was closed. It remained standing there, shuttered, for about 20 years, subject to the occasional fire. There just wasn't the money available, apparently, either to turn it into some socially useful building or to knock it down. One huge building – wasted. Meanwhile, the other local hospitals have long waiting lists.
Interesting comment on the last paragraph of the re-printed school survey. Actually, that last paragraph reads almost like an afterthought, as if the author, after laying out the case of the incredible lack of educational funds in this country, thought he'd make it topical.
Did you catch the BBC2 two-part programme on the English attitude to higher education? Made one deeply ashamed.
RYCT JDR – interesting about the size of crew of merchantmen and pirates – this is one of the areas where authors usually assume that one knows the outline, rather like the makers of instruction books for modern computers. I remember some years ago getting an enormous number of weekly parts of THE SECOND WORLD WAR and eventually writing in exasperation saying OK, OK, so many brigades attacked somewhere and a division was located somewhere else – but how many soldiers were there in a brigade or division? Never got an answer.
DREAM DAYS & GOLDEN AGE were written by the author of WIND IN THE WILLOWS – you know, Toad and Mole and Badger etc. I seem to remember (can't be bothered to look for 'em) that every other chapter was either sentimental or Christian, so it's quite permissable to skip chunks, but they're good reads.
Don't apologise for doing mailing comments – to know that you're appreciated (or not) is one of the driving forces of APAs.
K21 – self
Nothing to add, except that I forgot to put an 'Update' in this issue. I'm still a bit depressed, find it hard to motivate myself.
Had an enquiry from a London Doctor who's working on a biography of 'John Wyndham'. Couldn't help much – JW was from an era when the age groups didn't mix easily, and he kept aloof from sf fandom, who reciprocated.
YOU ARE HERE(ISH) – Steve Glover
Nice title. And nice computer-generated illo.
RYCT Ian; no doubt Ian will oblige but I can provide copies of Somewhere Before if wanted. Unless, of course, our ex-Cap'n slips a small cheque in the post.....
Re. methods of reproduction (in fanzines, in fanzines); as far as I can find out the earliest were in fact printed, professionally of course. It wasn't until about 1936 that the hecto came on the scene, closely followed by the stencil duplicator. An electro-stencil appears to have been cut on home-made equipment produced by the Medway group in 1952. Off-set appeared, I think, about 1958, in the US. I refer, of course, to the usage of all these methods by fandom – businesses used the procedures previously. I have an instruction book on a stencil duplicator dating from 1917, and that was by no means the earliest. Er – I used a born-1917 duplicator – in 1950.
RYCT me: Re. Philip K. Dick's Christmas Carol, it turns out that Scrooge was having trouble with reality and didn't know if he was living in a condominium during Xmas Past, Present or Future...and neither did his robob Scratchit...
Science Fiction Five Yearly was started in '51, by Lee Hoffman, and has appeared regularly every lustrum, serials and all. Send me your name if you want to borrow the '91 issue and I'll arrange a sort of circular system for lending it out, one borrower passing on to the next.
Re. bad review of BEYOND THE ENCHANTED DUPLICATOR, that's a 'given' seeing whence it came. "Poke them in the eye to see how they react" is their motto. Take no notice.
Marvellous contribution, Steve.
TO THE SHIRAKAWA GATE 3 – Darroll Pardoe
RYCT me: Thanks for the extra info. on the GANDALF GARDEN trepanning...oddly enough I came across an advert for that very issue in STARDOCK the other day. For some years I've cherished a copy of DO-IT-YOURSELF BRAIN SURGERY AND OTHER HOME SKILLS by Stewart Cowley (Fredk. Muller '81), which incorporates a wonderful po-faced article on the subject plus many others – 'An Ocean Liner of your Own' – 'Orbital Hardware from the Home Workshop' – 'Breeding Combat Hamsters' etc. If you come across this book, grab it. It's wonderful.
"Giving leaves to strangers in the street"? Leave to do what?
RYCT Theo on souls and similar stuff. A local Vicar had the temerity over Xmas to write to a local rag pointing out that educated Christians didn't credit all that fairy-tale stuff about Virgin Birth, etc. This week there's a full page (except for adverts) of folk frothing at the mouth about this blasphemy, citing Bible authority in every other sentence. In a way I feel sympathetic towards the hapless Vicar, but every time I think of dropping a line to the paper (possibly citing the 'Les Chants de Maldoror' quoted by Chris) I get that old feeling that intelligent people – bishops, the more enlightened clergy – can't possibly believe in the religious tosh and the Vicar should know what to expect.
I was interested in what your spell-checker had in its memory banks...how did it get for instance 'Monsieur De Lapalisse' and not 'Helas!'?
UPDATE
As I write the TV news is showing the unveiling of monitors for air pollution set up by HMG in various parts of the country. The most prominent shown is located on what appears to be a piece of local park – not, one would think, the best place for this equipment. In the middle of Piccadilly Circus would be favourite, I'd think – there'd certainly be a lot more choking pedestrians around there than in this local park.
THE ARACHNO FILE Vol.14 – John D. Rickett
The mazy wanderings through the psychology of our creepy friends amusing as usual, tho' as one who only recently learnt how to transport bath-marooned spiders back into the open air instead of closing my eyes and sloshing them with something heavy, the grin is perhaps a little wry.
RYCT Ian on the Royals; reminds me that they make a handy rule(r) to judge present day standards against more ancient ones, ie. they present a sort of control grouping. Thus when you talk about breeding prolifically I remember reading that Queen Anne had – I think – 18 children, of which 2 only survived infancy. Inasmuch as they would have had the Best, it makes one see the difference a couple of hundred years makes.
RYCT Ken. Saw an explanation the other day of why cats sometimes run up to one in the street and start weaving across the legs. It's a reflex from when they were kittens and induced the mother cat to give milk by head-butting her. Just thought I'd drop that in.
RYCT me: yes, I knew a girl years ago who used to have a thing about pigeons – used to chase them. It was hell crossing Trafalgar Square.
RYCT Sarah. Good comments. I actually saw some 'crystal gardens' on sale a few years ago, which further reminds me of these sudden passions that sweep the youth of the nation for a couple of months and then die – Yo-Yos, Biff Bats, Hula Hoops, or on a slightly more sophisticated scale, Dunking Birds. They never really come back, tho' there's been some attempts – do I remember Diabalos making a brief re-appearance in the '60s?
RYCT Theo – re the race/colour issue. It's always slightly worried me that there aren't any blacks (as far as I know) in British sf fandom, seeing that they represent about 7% of the population.
Wait – I tell a sort of lie; there is one youngster who sometimes comes to the London Wellington, but he's sort of fringe, being interested in way-out publishing and eldritch ways of thinking. We are divided, not by colour, but ye olde generation gap (several of 'em, in fact.)
I did see a black sitting alone and obviously feeling out of things at a Con some years back, but after I'd cheerfully barged in and introduced myself he turned out to be a STAR WARS enthusiast and was running a small SW club in London (which later had one of its members featured on BBC TV as an example of a rabid enthusiast) so there wasn't really a meeting of minds, as you might say.
Of course, I don't go to Cons very much, so it's possible that I'm out of date. Anyone have a better experience?
It was interesting to read of the status of blacks in Brazil. Of course, France used to be held up as the perfect melting-pot, but political causes in recent years have tarnished that image.
TRAVELS IN HYPER-REALITY – Maureen Spellman
You cut straight on stencil? Coo! Aren't you afraid of getting the print-head bunged up with 'wax'? Makes me shudder. I'll make electro-stencils from the original if you like. 22p each + post.
Wish I'd seen the semiotic analysis of Mary Poppins – talk about dissecting a teddy-bear.
Ah – Patience Strong! Years since those syllables smote the eardrums. In fact, some of the crew like young Chris may not even know the name. PS was a rhymester for the newspapers, trotting out a series of couplets in prose form advocating the Good, the Sweet, and the Sickening. Something like this: On the poop the Cap'n sits, waiting to receive your bits, O.A.P., employed or breadline, Don't ever miss the monthly deadline, For then he'll give your arse a spank, Or worser yet, you'll walk the plank, etc. Well – something like that.
[[SPACE FOR ARTWORK]]
An illo from the Breed Combat Hamsters' section of DIY BRAIN SURGERY mentioned within.
Notes and Queries
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Books About SF Continued
From K??
Vincentian 1
Vincentian 2
Vincentian 3