This is the SF news column which is not afraid to ask searching questions. Which American SF writer threatened bodily harm to a British one at the recent World Convention? Which Heinlein novel was bounced by which major publisher on the grounds of literary worthlessness? Which British writer recently stated in public debate that to introduce characterization into SF was tantamount to high treason? With libel suits ever in mind, this is also the column which is not afraid to keep quiet about the answers.
SF is the literature of change, unrest and flux, of new options and alternatives. Perhaps this is why its editors like to keep on the move. Recently, for example, Omni's (formerly Analog's) Ben Bova has been booted upstairs from the humble Fiction Editor post to the apotheosis of Managing Editor, while Robert Sheckley seems to be taking over the fiction side – which should be a change. At least Sheckley doesn't write books called Notes To A Science Fiction Writer which explain how to write SF by example, using his own stories as examples of the best ... In Devon the SF Book Club and its editor Paul Begg (who actually managed to make it interesting) seem to have parted company. The new venture Virgin Books (spinoff of Virgin Records) suffered a major cutback before actually publishing anything, while lovers of SF will be fascinated to learn that last October's Isaac Asimov's Sf Magazine was partly consumed by a warehouse fire (it was, however, reprinted). The companion Isaac Asimov's Sf Adventure Magazine – the one which set out to make Planet Stories look like the New Wave – has been abandoned owing to poor sales, at least until late 1980.
Of course there are other and more joyous changes – changes of mind, for example. "The Known Space Series is complete. If you want more stories in the series you can make them up yourself." Thus Larry Niven in 1975. It is thanks to the change, unrest and flux of SF that a massive new addition to Niven's Known Space series – a sequel to Ringworld, titled Ringworld Engineers – is even now being serialised in the US magazine Galileo. As Asimov likes to quote: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
Have you thought of becoming a limited company? For high-income writers, there are tax advantages, A.P. Herbert first had the notion and became Haddock Productions Ltd; British SF now has several limited writers (no joke intended). There's Brunner Fact and Fiction Ltd (John Brunner), Southmoor Serendipity Ltd (Brian Aldiss, who has since moved from Southmoor – oh well), Cosmic Perspectives Ltd (Brian Stableford) and perhaps most recently, Greystoke Mobray Ltd (R.L. Fanthorpe). If the name Fanthorpe seems unfamiliar, perhaps Bron Fane, Pel Torro, Lionel Roberts, Trevor Thorpe or Lee Barton – all Fanthorpe pseudonyms – will ring bells with those who remember the awful SF produced by Badger Books from 1954 onward: Fanthorpe of the thousand names wrote most of it himself, 150 books in eight years, often one a week, dictated into banks of tape recorders while his frantic family typed up the results.... It seems that GM Ltd will republish all these wondrous SF classics, plus new ones like The Black Lion (95p), whose blurb sends delicious shudders up my spine....
"Mark Sable, a lonely and alienated ex-convict, encounters an old mystic who gives him a curious medallion. This strange talisman transports Mark from the hostility of Earth to his rightful home on Derl. Here, as the Black Lion, re-incarnate feudal King of Dar, and royal brother to the Golden Tiger, Mark sets out in quest of the great Power Sphere of Kalun ... Mark's beautiful young queen, Amana, is a prisoner in the torture dungeons of Ramos ... her defiant courage unbroken by the whips and branding irons of her sadistic enemies ..."
Fanthorpe is a master of evocative prose. I still remember his Negative Minus (1963): "He slept the sleep of the tired. He slept the sleep of the weary. He slept the sleep of the exhausted. For he was tired and weary and exhausted." Not that such lyricism has vanished – recently a writer who shall be nameless (clue: envious rivals sometimes call him Alan Dead Foster) included in his The Black Hole a line of such beauty that I wanted to set it to music and half suspected Walt Disney had already done so: "Dimly they/it perceived the final annihilation of a minuscule agglutination of refined masses ..." Try singing it in your bath.
Let's finish with some astonishing facts. Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, the paperback, was as you know a worthy bestseller (despite the grotty cover, erratic punctuation and horridly unjustified margins): at around the same time, another fantasy work was the top-selling "children's book". Don't be fooled by the juvenile label: Fungus the Bogeyman by Raymond Briggs is beastly, sick, revolting and enormously enjoyable. (Imagine Alien in a version for the Beano.) The top seller at Seacon, the 37th World SF Convention held here in August, was beer: 19,000 pints were drunk, as were many of the 3,500 fans and writers in attendance. That was the biggest ever UK convention, yet still peanuts to the plans of a group who want to hold a massive week-long SF event in the Wembley centre – in 1984. Originally they wanted 63,000 attendees, but the GLC refuses (so far) to allow more than 5,000 per day.... Nor will our wonderful editor allow me any more words until next time.
Comments, queries and requests for coverage of specific areas in future columns are always welcome. Write to me c/o AD ASTRA.