K9

---

K9, an APAzine for Pieces of Eight, Jan. '91, by A. Vincent Clarke, 16 Wendover Way, Welling, Kent, DA16 2BN. "His features, except for his nose which he picked himself, were obviously inherited from his wire-haired old mother." Willis – HYPHEN 36

---

....LET NOTHING YOU DISMAY

I was flicking through one of the local free papers, the biggie with about 80 pages of advertising in it, when I saw underneath the "Christmas Fun For All The Family" Crossword (One down was "December 25th [9,3]") a short series of Xmas odd facts. "Woolworths sold 300,000 miles of tinsel for Christmas tree and decorations last Christmas" and "Mince pies were first made in oblong shape...." etc, etc.

And there was a statistic with a lot of noughts in it:

I looked at this with a sense of disquiet. Say that there are 40,000,000 men, women and children in these islands who are in the happy position of exchanging Christmas greetings. According to this each of us give and receive an average of 37,500 cards. I wasn't sure I was ready for them. Taking 2 cards as equivalent to a sheet of paper, this is 18,750 sheets, or 37½ reams. It seemed a lot to take home and address.

I've rarely felt so differently from average, and was still thinking about it a couple of days later, having sent out 36,450 less than your average wisher of good tidings, when I heard a news reader talking about the same subject. "The Post Office handled one-and-a-half billion pieces of mail last Xmas". Suddenly, light dawned. Perhaps the newspaper had taken 'billion' as used in the traditional sense, ie. a million million, whereas the go-ahead PO had used it in the modern (American) sense, a thousand million. That reduced the basic figure to a mere 37.5.

I just knew there was something wrong somewhere.

* * * * * * *

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I referred in a recent K to a book called THE SELF INSTRUCTOR; or YOUNG MAN'S BEST COMPANION, published in 1805, which – provided you knew how to read – could give you a DIY education. Amongst the many items of interest is a Chronology ("a due and orderly arrangement of events and transactions, according to the time in which they happened"), and it occurred to me to look at the various dates ending in '91. Is there any special anniversary we have to look for? Well, xx91 has been a dull year:

691 – Durham had 25 houses burnt

991 – Arithmetic brought into Europe from Arabia

1091 – A violent storm in England, 500 houses thrown down, and Bow Church in London unroofed; The church steeple ......and many houses thrown down at Old Sarum; and Winchelscomb church steeple, in Gloucestershire, thrown down.

1191 – Coarse woollen cloth introduced. An eclipse, when the stars appeared at ten in the morning, June 22nd.

1291 – Barristers first appointed.

1391 – Brest given up by the English.

1491 – Greek language first introduced into England. Wheat 20d per bushel.

1591 – East Indies visited overland by some English; First patent for printing; Three ships went from England to ......the East Indies.

1691 – Conspiracy of the bishop of Ely and others to restore King James – 11,000 persons died in a great mortality ......at York.

1791 – Mirabeau dies in March. Louis and his family escape from Paris but are stopped at Varennes, June 21st. ......Treaty of Pilnitz, July. Riots in Birmingham, July.

I may be showing my age, but I fervently wish everyone a dull old 1991.

RECENT READING

HOMEGOING – Fredk. Pohl (Gollancz SF, £13.95) "Yes, we are the Hakh'hli, a race of highly technologically advanced people with a recorded history that goes back some sixteen thousand eight hundred of your years. We have come to share our wisdom with you. Also to return the human, John William Washington. (We call him Sandy.) He is the son of two of your astronauts whom our ship rescued when they were stranded in space...we have brought him up as one of our own....."

Thus a quite likeable alien, 90 pages into the story. 'Sandy' is short for 'Lysander' – they're all fluent in English as heard and deciphered on radio, and have given themselves English names from Midsummer Nights Dream. But on an Earth devastated by global warming, with one-tenth present population, the Americans are suspicious; the aliens are exhibiting the sort of child-like playfulness reminiscent of soldiers on furlough; why were the videos on board all of Earth wars and revolutions?...etc.

This story is slightly reminiscent of Pohl's delightful AGE OF THE PUSSYFOOT. Sandy is humourously initiated into the ways of a future society, and there's always the over-riding question, Does One Trust These Aliens? There's a bit of pulp-type plotting inasmuch as the first military female Sandy meets he falls for, but overall this book is recommended. Pohl's in excellent light form.

MAY WEEK WAS IN JUNE – Clive James – Jonathan Cape, £12.95)

The third and final part of Unreliable Memoirs. James is usually brilliant and funny, this time somewhat less so. Here it's mostly his undergraduate days, which tends to limit the variety of experience. On almost every page the culture vulture cries:We went to see Il Trovatore at the Opera House. Romain, not liking the production, talked to me animatedly throughout the first act. (Proust, when gladly accepting an invitation to the opera from the Baroness de Pourtales, said: 'I've never heard you in Faust.')

I was wondering whether he'd make any reference to science fiction, of which he was admittedly a keen reader at one time, but no luck. On the whole, a disappointment.

THE COLLOGHI CONSPIRACY – Douglas Hill – Gollancz, £12.95

Hill has written children's sf, and it shows from the first sentence:There is a saying that if you stand around long enough on Bumstead Concourse, at the centre of Alph City on the planet ClustAlph, you'll run into everyone you've ever known.

His hero, a sort of private eye, is foppish, cowardly, greedy, self-seeking and other unpleasant characteristics, which are laid on with a shovel, and carries more personal armament than the Stainless Steel Rat. Most of his adventures are on a far-away planet, where unpleasant people are served by furry subservient aliens – and guess who turns out to be wise and intelligent? If I'd have read this in STARTLING STORIES in 1948 – which is its proper niche – I'd have thought it was a bit below standard.

A 'Douglas Hill' edited an anthology for Pan, WINDOW ON THE FUTURE, back in '66. Not bad at all if you like your sf downbeat and depressing. Don't know if it's the same DH.

FREEDOM FROM CLUTTER – Don Aslett – Exley Publications – £7.95 in 1985

An excellent book, telling you how to get rid of all the junk in your life, from food to junk mail. Really good – all the reader needs is the will-power. I wonder if I left it under this pile of books...?

---

MORE TITLES WITH THAT EXTRA SOMETHING: SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE * LIFE IN A PUTTY KNIFE FACTORY * LOST HORIZON * TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT * CONJURE WIFE * PRELUDE TO A CERTAIN MIDNIGHT * THE GLASS MASK * BLACKBOARD JUNGLE *THE DRAMATURGES OF YAN

COMMENTS ON THE DECEMBER '90 MAILING

PIECES OF EIGHT/THE CAPTAIN'S TABLE – Ian Bambro (which you forgot to include in the Contents, heh heh heh) – Yes, you do have a rather mixed-up approach. Pure boyish enthusiasm, I guess.

I wasn't exactly looking down on media fans; I just think that there's a lot of difference between them and the ties of friendship and 'common knowledge' that I understand as fandom. I spent a heck of a long time on re-writing a letter trying to distinguish between what he thought of as fandom and what I thought. But we do need some sort of introduction. The BSFA printed Peter Roberts' LITTLE GEM GUIDE in '76, a marvellously comprehensive survey of fanzines, and in the same year Robert Jackson published, in collaboration with the BSFA, a LITTLE DICTIONARY of 'terms used by SF fans'. Both items are of course dated, and haven't been available as far as I know for many years.

As you might expect, the US are ahead of us in a way. Bob Tucker, whom you may have read under the name of 'Wilson Tucker' (Long Loud Silence, Wild Talent, etc.) wrote a NEO-FAN'S GUIDE in 1955 and it's been brought up to date through six editions to '84. No more since then.

I may put out a Thing myself on these lines in '91. Meanwhile, if you or anyone want to borrow any of the three guides mentioned....

Agree on all your comments.

COMMUNICADO No.4 – Ian Bambro – I'll be sorry to see you vacate that prestigious post of Cap'n – there are few enough people who are willing to Do Things, in fandom and Out There. I was talking to daughter and her husband this Xmas; they'd been part of a country-wide network of a charitable concern – was it Rotarians? – and when they left the local branch it promptly collapsed.

Welcome aboard to old friend Eve Harvey and to Brian Stovold – gee, we're a well-scattered crew.

The Legal Annex on some problems of Old Age was interesting, in spite of what you youngsters are saying. It's also a wee bit depressing, 'cos it creeps up on you, sez he, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder. During this last month (no delving back into history this time) a friend was rung by Aunt Edna to say that she was worried about Uncle John and Aunt Janet – would friend go over to check them out, because they had run out of money, their bungalow had no heat at all, and they were so destitute they didn't even dare switch on the TV? So friend drove over there, collecting Edna on the way and checking with the pair's local Doctor, who said there was nothing wrong except old age.

John, grubby and unshaven with a five-day beard, was in bed and looking bad. The home was freezing cold, no food in the refrigerator, and Janet was tearful. John said there was no money left. Which might possibly have fooled friend, but Edna was never very patient with John. She ripped open John's bedside drawer, pulled out envelopes and papers...the first envelope held £910 in cash, the next held Building Society passbooks with a balance just short of £70,000......

And there's nothing my friend can do except give good advice and keep an eye on them.

STRANGE DEBRIS 1 – Chris Carne – Just shows you the difference between people – it would have never occurred to me to even mention using a new typewriter without going into the details of what it was. Nice result, tho' on a personal level wish you'd have more paragraphs.

I give a respectful gulp at your exegesis of the structuralist position on myth-making; I'm a simple guy, and would only use words like 'stereotypical event sequence' if I were filling in a TIMES crossword. It must be 50 years since I struggled through some of Frazer's Golden Bough stuff about sacrificial kings, and nearly as long as that when I discovered Benedict and Mead and Levi-Strauss, so my knowledge (what there is of it) is sadly dated, but I thought that Maureen was asking for contemporary myths as relating to sf. I'd have liked to see some sort of resume from someone of Adler's book on flying saucers, which must surely have some significance. The piece on appeasement is very relevant, bringing up all sorts of associations – the white feathers given to 'conchies' in WW1, the current headline about 'yellow bellies' in the SUN, etc. The folk wisdom which draws on the myths about bullies and the virtues of standing up to them, ranging from David and Goliath to schoolboy yarns, comics, and How The Hero Overthrew the Tyrant of Planet X, totally ignores, of course, the fact that history is written by the victors.

It would be interesting to return in a hundred years or so and discover what the Vietnamese made of the American invasion.

On a lighter note, and still thinking of myths in relation to sf, I wonder why They say "that Buck Rogers stuff" instead of "that Flash Gordon stuff"?

You've put a lot of thought into your comments, Chris...and on a typewriter, too, not a simple old w/p where you can back-track half-a-dozen times if you're not satisfied with your remarks. Wish I had more time to comment on your comments.

(Illo: the cover of FATE which was the first magazine to publicize that interesting 20th.-century myth, flying saucers. The article inside referred to 'discs', not 'saucers').

MARAUDER 12 – Ken Cheslin – Gee, I wanted a calendar without having to go out and pay for one. Nice idea, Ken, and thanks. Like the cartoons, too. Interesting to note, Maureen and others, that although two of the ideas (at least – not sure about Father Christmas) derive from our knowledge of 19th. century fiction, neither of them have passed into myth. Which, on further thought, tells you nothing as neither Frankenstein nor Jekyll were the sort of people you'd write to. Whereas I understand that the eminently respectable Sherlock Holmes received (and may still do) lots of mail.

K8 – self – Thanks also go to John Rickett, who brought to the Wellington for me a packet of 'proper' sized Air Mail envelopes, made by Rymans; I'm (almost) speechless.

It's a bit ironic that my use for them has been slightly curtailed. Don Thompson, US fan-editor (DON-O-SAUR) whom I mentioned in the final para. in K8, died on December 15th. To quote Carolyn, his widow: "He died at home in his room surrounded by his books as he wished".

He was 62 years old. I didn't know Don for very long, but the fortnight he stayed in Welling after the Dutch World Con will live in my memory – I've rarely felt so deeply that here was someone who had all the qualities I'd look for in a friend. The courage he showed in putting out the last issue of his fanzine when he knew that he had only a short time to live (and it was even shorter than he anticipated) is something I'd hope to emulate.

LOLLYGAGGING THIRTY – Chuck Connor – Full to overflowing with the old Connor cenergy and I think you'd have to be a very competent technophile to read that Intro-duction, so I'll pass on hastily to the mystery of jenny hanniver. Disappointing, eh what? I spent a spare hour in the public reference library recently, ploughing through all the books of slang, synonym, and cant for it. Maybe the library wasn't big enough.

Stuffed far too full of commentable stuff actually to comment on, but in passing shake my head over W. Burroughs (never been able to finish any book and gave up trying), appreciation for the Gus Honeybun episode, interest in the TWP/PAPA bit (isn't it about time that there was a history of APAs, don't even know that of PoE?), and nod of approval for flying defence of Alan Dean Foster – some of his stuff is good light space-opera. Complaining about your cigars in the Wellington would have been like worrying about the radioactivity of your wrist-watch dial at Chernobyl. And that's a lovely description of Harry Bond. Nice zine – fizzy.

MALACHITE – Jenny Glover – Easy reading; enviable flow. The problem of the working mother has roots in the whole social structure. The severance of kinship ties is partly to blame – in the old days a mother could leave her kid/s with Aunt Dora or Grandma Madge – but one can't now see a ready solution; State run creches? Wage allowances for being a mother? Computer-work from home? Communal care for the kids? All of these?

I was one of those at the Friends of Foundation meeting at NovaCon, held, as you say, at a barbarous hour – they couldn't find any other slot. I was staying with Chuch Harris in Daventry and we did the 35 miles in 35 minutes to get there on time. The Foundation is an interesting example of how economics affects our lives. It functions more or less as a museum and research source; it houses 15,000 sf books, magazines, fanzines (yeah!) and books about sf, and exists in a monetary vacuum. It has a part-time Secretary and a miniscule budget, and is in quarters given to it by a Polytechnic. Work is carried out by volunteers. And it's this country's representative in the international field of sf scholarship. Pathetic.

Re. minimum APA efforts. I'm in it for communication, general interest, friendliness. If someone else doesn't partake of these things but still helps to pay for the mailings – right on! It's their loss.

I take it there wasn't a fourth page of text? Seemed to end abruptly.

POST MAILING – Ron Gemmell – Nice to see you back again. Oh yes, I can imagine driving so that you didn't turn the wheel for 20 minutes – happened to me once, second-hand. I was in the back of of small truck being driven across a lava-dust desert in Iceland. After half-an-hour the driver spilled us into a ditch. His explanation – he'd been hypnotised (or more likely, had gone to sleep) at the sheer monotony of the track stretching in front of him. Be warned!

Snowcaves don't sound like fun to me, and are probably more expensive than going up to the attic and spending the night on a blanket. Oh well – whatever turns you on.....

UNTITLED – Sarah Cox – That's a weird drawing; looks as though it could be a title with the snowball-like object being some sort of stop, but Ian's evidently given up and so do I. Your bit on your waitressing is good – you have a way of writing that's appealing. Do you think you'd be able to package up some reminiscences of the job and sell 'em?

I won't offer any comments on Etty, as I don't know the circumstances, but on the parental problem I'd offer the fact that parents ain't all they're cracked up to be. (Looking back on my own childhood I feel a deep impatience at the sheer incompetence of my own parents as child-raisers. In retrospect they seem to have relied purely on instinct).

The advice I'd give to you, for what it's worth, is to forget the subject as much as possible. What your parents did or didn't do is a matter of history; it helped create you as you are, but there's nothing you can do about it now. Relax.

Personally, having just spent a couple of agonising weeks trying to pick birthday and Xmas presents for just three people I'm really thankful I haven't more relations to worry about. Blood-ties are vastly over-rated; it's friendship that counts – you choose them.

---

TITLES....?

Terry Carr at a Milford SF Writer's Conference: "Joanna Russ was collecting titles for science fiction books all night. My favorite was Rogue Molecule, but there were other goodies like Gynecologist to the Stars and Dangerous Vegetables. Separately, Norbert Slepyan (sf editor at Scribner's) and I were discussing titles for anthologies along the lines of Critics' Choice. Damon wandered into the room just then, so I said "It could be My Fifteen Favorite Science Fiction Stories Except for Those by Damon Knight." "Hey, wait a minute, I protest," Damon protested. "Oh, sorry, Damon," I said, "How about The Fifteen Worst Stories of All Time Except for Those by Damon Knight?" "No, no" he said and went away." Terry Carr – WARHOON 26

---

Written on an Amstrad 8256; electro-stencilled on a Roneo; duplicated Gestetner 230.