Vol. 13 No. 1 February 2014 ALEXIAD (!7+=3!G) $2.00 February has come in cold and icy. From the window it is Printed on March 6, 2014 beautiful. It is not so pretty when every step has to be examined. It Deadline is April 1, 2014 is not as bad as the huge ice storm of two years ago. Most of the ice is arranged in rough waves, not the slick mess that made sidewalks Reviewer’s Notes impassible even for cats. It still requires careful negotiation. The trip to the corner convinces me to take the bus and not try to walk to Does it ever seem like everyone else around you has a much bigger work. Winter is here in white fury. It is as far south as Atlanta, income and membership in some secret discount club? When I see co- Georgia, which was totally unprepared for snow. At least here we workers drive to work in SUVs and talk about their three-week have snowplows and salt. vacations in India or Peru, it’s discomfiting. — Lisa But . . . I have my own network. I have family across the country. I wish there were more fanzine fans, but the days of Degler (and doesn’t Table of Contents that take us back) ended fannish hospitality. Editorial...... 1 One reason baby-care books boomed was that G.I. Joe and Rosie Reviewer’s Notes...... 1 the Riveter, after their marriage, struck out and moved into Levittown, where they had neighbors, but no network. Instead of asking Grandma Coffee...... 6 why Junior was crying, they looked it up, in the book that said that Gotta Have Them All!...... 7 crying was good natural exercise or the one that said that it was Super Bowl...... 6 traumatic. There were no connections. Winter Travels...... 6 This was why Robert Bloch’s “A Way of Life” (Fantastic Universe, October 1956) was appealing; in a devastated world, the people with Book Reviews communications and connections were in a position where they could JTM Bagley, Spymaster...... 5 take responsibility — and somebody had to do it. So Fandom ran the JTM Chadwick, The Forever Engine...... 3 world. That it would more likely be like Ian Watson’s “The World JTM Green, Murder in the High Himalaya...... 4 Science Fiction Convention of 2080" (F&SF, October 1980) , a JTM Hotta, Japan 1941...... 5 marginal group surviving, but barely, in a marginal world, is a bitter JTM Jarvis, Chasing Shackleton...... 4 realism. But even Watson’s Fans had connections and community. JTM Resnick, The Doctor and the Dinosaurs...... 3 It has been longer since Watson’s story than between that and WW Small, The Avenging Ray...... 12 Bloch’s story. There have been changes. What connections, what community is there in this fandom of consumers, not participants? Video Review JTM Wholock...... 5 Next January, I will be eligible to retire from work. Eligible is not the same as “able”, and with expenses (heating bills of $$$) as they are Con Reports it’s not going to happen. Such are the confines on my congoing. SB HispaCon XXXI...... 10 RSK LosCon 40...... 10 I’ve seen recommendation lists for the Hugo nominations. Lists, I’ve seen, the books recommended I haven’t. So often, the Fanzines Received...... 13 recommended books are obscure volumes from small or foreign presses. Has real science fiction become such a marginal market that Random Jottings...... 2 it now can only be published a step above self-publishing? As for the Fan Hugos, there is hope now, but again, rhe realization Letters...... 14 . . . how many minor pros with blogs are out there, rallying the Sheryl A. Birkhead, Dainis Bisenieks, Sue Burke, Brad W. Foster, followers to give them an award? Alexis A. Gilliland, Jerry Kaufman, Robert S. Kennedy, Evelyn Leeper, Rodney Leighton, Murray Moore, William H. Patterson, But it looks as if there will be some sort of convention round this Lloyd Penney, AL du Pisani, George W. Price, John Purcell, Darrell year; ConCave in Bowling Green in February (assuming the convention Schweitzer, Joy V. Smith, Milt Stevens, Jim Stumm, R-Laurraine hotel doesn’t fall into a sinkhole), Holmes, Doyle, and Friends in Tutihasi, Taras Wolansky Dayton in March, ConGlomeration in Louisville in April. Then NASFiC n Detroit in July. Comments are by JTM, LTM, or Grant. A small annoyance is that the announced dates for the DC in 2017 bid conflict with the solar eclipse. I just can’t drive seven hundred Trivia:...... 30 miles in a day any more, and flying woutd take about as much out of Art: me. Mike Glyer wanted to have a NASFiC bid in Nashville (near the Sheryl Birkhead...... 14, 29 fringe of the eclipse) but Hopkinsville (at the greatest totality) is better Paul Gadzikowski...... 30 sited, and the con can share with the Little Green Men Festival. Hey, Alexis A. Gilliland...... 5, 6, 13, 28 it worked for Ray Palmer. Trinlay Khadro...... 2 — Joe Marc Schirmeister...... 3, 12 Page 2 February 2014 Alexiad

the temperature is -100EF or lower, the memorise have been downloaded into a robotic RANDOM JOTTINGS winterer-overers at the Amundsen-Scott Station humaniform body with human feelings. The by Joe will join this exclusive group. Candidates sit in thousand years have seen a war with her the sauna, which is at 200E F, to warm up, then abductors that led to their annihilation, the on signal, don rubber boots and run out onto the destruction of Earth, the modification of Polar plateau, otherwise naked, to be humanity, and the formation of a multi-species photographed by the Ceremonial South Pole. multi-planetary government. It’s good to know some traditions are kept. Jansen is involved in finding the remnants of the abductors’ technology, terrorism, dealing In the Kindle department, Over the Wine- with the question of identity, and other changes Dark Seas (2001, 2013) by Harry “H. N. in the nature of humanity. Turteltaub” Turtledove, the first mercantile Then, in the third volume, a group of adventure of the Rhodians Menedemos and terrorists use the alien technology to develop . Sostratos, is now available for Kindle (Amazon . . you guessed it, zombies. So much for that. Digital Services, $5.99). Also, the third book in David Row’s The Whale Has Wings series, The MONARCHIST NEWS Whale Has Wings Volume 3 — Holding the Barrier is now available (2013, Amazon Digital Sir Shao I-fu, CBE [pinyin: Shao Yifu], Ann Siefker, Martin Arbagi, and others of Services; $3.99). Volumes 1 and 2 were died in Hong Kong on January 7, 2014. Born the Agra Treasurers have pledged to continue reviewed in Alexiad V. 12 #3. on the fourteenth day of the tenth month of the the Sherlockian tradition in Dayton with a new year of the Fire Goat of the 77th Cycle convention, “Holmes, Doyle, & Friends” in I happened to run across Of Dice and Men: [November 23, 1907] in Ningpo, Chekiang Dayton on March 14-15, 2014, at the Airport The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The Province [pinyin; Ningbo, Zhejiang], Shao was Clarion Inn at 10 Rockridge Road, People Who Play It (2013) by David M. Ewell. educated in Shanghai. He joined with his two Englewood, Ohio. Membership is $60 to Ann The book is somewhat haphazard, as Ewell has brothers in Singapore to create Unique Film Siefker, 25 Macready Avenue, Dayton, OH chosen to intersperse his history of the Productions, which later became Shaw 45404-2104 ([email protected]), check development of Dungerons & Dragons ™ with Brothers Studio, one of the leading movie and payable to the Agra Treasurers. There’s not a chapters on his own personal experiences with television production companies in the Sinic moment to lose! Thanks to Dan Andriacco the game. For those of us who aren’t intimately world., responsible for the production and and his blog, “Dan Andriacco’s Baker Street involved with the convoluted corporate history distribution of many martial arts and fantasy Beat”, for the news. of the game, and how it went from nothingness films Shao was made CBE in 1974 and a http://bakerstreetbeat.blogspot.com/ to boom to bust to redevelopment to persistence, knight in 1977. the events described here are an intriguing proof He is better known as Sir Run Run Shaw. The Martin 5 Theater in Hopkinsville was of Moist von Lipwig’s observation in Going originally a single-screen, in the shopping mall Postal (2009) on how the people who develop a And as year follows year, there. That was where I saw The Wind and new concept so often lack the business skills to More old men disappear, the Lion on my twenty-first birthday. They manage it. Someday no one will march there moved into a separate structure behind the Incidentally, while shopping at Barnes and at all. mall with five screens. Just before my fifty- Noble the other day, we happened to find the Report by Joseph T Major ninth birthday, it closed. 2010 adaptation of Going Postal on DVD. “It is the wind that passes, but the sea Captain Józef Kowalski of the Polish army remains.” It is reported that a new adaptation of 1984 died December 7, 2013. Kapitan Kowalksi is in development. The movie will be retitled was the oldest man in Europe at the time of his Frederick Forsyth’s latest, The Kill List Equals, star Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult, death (but not the oldest person), and the last (2013), features the hunting-down of the and be a romance. The director is Drake survivor of the Polish-Soviet War. Preacher, an Islamic orator whose Doremus, who previously directed Douchebag Born in Lwów, (now Lviv, Ukraine) as he spellbinding sermons, distributed over the (2010). Screenplay is by Nathan Parker, who claimed on February 2, 1900, Kowalski Internet, inspire ordinary Muslims to carry out previously wrote Moon (2009) served in the Polish army’s 22nd Uhlans, personal jihad against the unbelievers. As a Is it too much to ask that the fulfillment of reaching the rank of Lieutenant. He was part of the hunt, the agents carry out a cunning “We are the dead,” be before this atrocity is imprisoned in a concentration camp during the plan, as cunning as a fox who has just been realized? Can we get the editorial staff of the World War II. After the collapse of communist appointed S. Baldrick Professor of Cunning at Ministry of Truth to repair this malreport? control of Poland, Kowalski was honored, Oxford University. They create an elaborate, being promoted to captain, awardeed the Order convincing physical duplicate of the Preacher, Equals of Polonia Restituta, and made an honorary then prepare and release a video of him http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3289728/ citizen of several prominent Polish towns. apparently delivering another oration saying, “All those things I have been saying? I have More zombie news: I was reading a new SF On January 28 I remembered the shuttle the Word from Allah that they were wrong. series on the Kindle; Steel Beneath the Skin, The Challenger and her crew. Never mind.” Cold Steel Mind, and Steel Heart by Niall Francis R. (Dick) Scobee No, his name wasn’t really Nehemiah Teasdale. They were interesting, albeit some Michael J. Smith Scudder [cf. “If This Goes On —“ (NHOL readers might find them not to their lacking. Judith A. Resnik G.011, Astounding February-March 1940, (The frequent girl-girl sex, but the general Ronald E. McNair 1953)]. Now if only the Tracker had said to obsession with being good-looking, would seem Ellison S. Onizuka the Preacher “Hasta la vista, baby.” to alienate both sides.) The protagonist, Aneka Gregory B. Jarvis Jansen, is a sometime mercenary — sorry, Sharon Christa McAuliffe The website of The Atlantic has an article, private security contractor — who is abducted “On Getting Naked in Antarctica”, about an by aliens. She awakens a thousand years later, May their memory be eternal. old Antarctic tradition; the 300 Club. When except in a sense she doesn’t, because her — Lisa Alexiad February 2014 Page 3

the advantage of having played a game called colorful, larger-than-life characters and such a SPACE: 1889 Space: 1889 is a little confused. Yes, it’s an tension-ridden and conflict-filled setting. Review by Joseph T Major of antigravity material. Presumably a little safer Particularly when the Comanche medicine men THE FOREVER ENGINE than Cavorite. really are going to reanimate the dinosaurs and by Frank Chadwick After a surprise attack from a French turn them loose on Edward Drinker Cope and (Baen; 2013; ISBN 978-1451639353; $15; airship (you were maybe thinking Wade of Othniel Charles Marsh for the sin of having Amazon Digital Services; $7.53) Piracy Preferred?) Fargo and his new British disturbed a sacred (human) burial ground. And associate wind up in Munich, going to see a once the Triceratops, Velociraptors, etc. finish Game Designers’ Workship’s game Space: vacationing British peer. Fortunately, Fargo eating up all the paleoentologists, they are 1889 was amusing; an early exemplar of knows that Baron Renfrew is more than that. going to get hungry again and go hunting more Cyberpunk. When the game declined in It’s not surprising that he has a comely dinner. Like other humans. popularity and fell out of print, it was an young lady with him, one Gabrielle Courbiere. Not that this concerns John Henry “Doc” unfortunate occurance. Chief Designer Frank It is surprising that Gabrielle is an agent of the Holliday, who is rather more concerned about Chadwick had gone to some effort to evoke French Secret Service. (Oh, the Commune the extremely impending end of his life. When the spirit of the real Victorian Era. took over France in 1871, just as the He Who Yawns, also known as Geronimo, At present, efforts are underway to reissue Confederacy won its independence in 1864, as makes an appearance and makes Holliday an the game. While you’re waiting, read this Lincoln had taken sick and died in ‘62 and the offer he can’t refuse. Well, he could, but he is novel, set in that exotic world where Allan disarrayed Republicans lost to McClellan, who somewhat fond of living. One year’s extra life Quatermain meets John Carter. needed some more time to rebuild the army, (subject to change without notice in the case of Or perhaps Martin Padway meets James and so offered peace.) gunfire or marauding big ugly scaly things), Bond. Jack Fargo of the University of But they have to head for the Balkans to that is. Chicago gets called up by old friends in stop the Old Man of the Mountain, who has Blighty to see about this queer coin they been buying liftwood like nobody’s business. found. It’s a coin of Galba, iii trib pot — the See, he wants to stop the motor of the world, or third year of his imperium. Since Servius at least reduce Earth’s orbital velocity. Like Sulplicius Galba Caesar Augustus encountered Clark Fries, who would blow up the universe to something sharp, hard, and penetrating, also hear the bang. fatal, on a.d. xv Kalendis Feb. AUC Then, it turns out that Fargo met the “Old DCCCXXII, a mere seven months after Nero Man of the Mountain” before, all unsuspecting. declared “What a poet dies with me!” (but Just as his chief scientific advisor, Professor never quite said who) and stabbed himself, Thomson, is someone he knew, just not that thus leaving the succession to Galba, there way. was a small problem there. In the hills of the Balkans, a desperate The British have developed a long-range confrontation between the Old Man of the sampling device. This coin was one of the Mountain and his flunkies, and Jack and samples collected, and it just doesn’t fit. Gabrielle with the damnednest assortment of Whereupon a professor of classics with a Royal Marines, Bavarian riflemen, Servian useful background and connections, even if he hillmen, and what not leads to a dramatic is from overseas, can be of assistance. climax . . . Particularly when something goes blooey! Jack wakes up in a hospital. He notices that (I do hope that some editor points out to there is a great deal lacking in the way of up- Frank Chadwick, should he attempt to reuse a to-date equipment. Now the National Health particular Space: 1889 adventure in the Service has its problems, but even they can sequels, that “Tereshkova” is a female name! afford to have cardiac monitors. That was a grotesque error.) Shortly thereafter the inspector arrives. He doesn’t quite pull out his notebook, lick his ACADEMICS! And so, oddly enough not having to endure pencil, and begin a moment-by-moment Review by Joseph T Major of cries of “Doc Holliday! I heard you had reconstruction of the movements of this Yank THE DOCTOR AND THE DINOSAURS died!”, he sets out for Wyoming to try to Fargo, but he does inform Jack that he needn’t by Mike Resnick resolve the matter one way or another. worry about Christmas presents, since he’ll be (Pyr; 2013: Somebody else is also there to resolve the hanged for treason by then. It’s September. ISBN 978-1-61614-861-6; $17.95; matter one way or another. It’s a boring day September 1888, that is. HarperCollins; $11.99 [Kindle]) with nothing much to do, so Theodore This is when Jack begins to realize that “A Weird West Tale” Roosevelt has turned up. Add to that the he’s shifted time-lines. Did Maxoni and feudists’ gunmen Cole Younger and William Cocini have those sorts of issues? Cope and Marsh hated each other to begin Frederick Cody and you’ve got a powder keg Except someone higher up with access to with. Well, not quite “to begin with”; there just waiting to go off. information decides to take over. And, far was, presumably, some early parts of their lives With the Numunuu (“Comanche” is, not from being sent to Pentonville for a long drop, when they were unaware that each other even surprisingly, from the Ute, meaning “enemy”; Jack finds himself at the offices of the Royal existed. However, during their glory days of and naturally “Numunuu” comes from the word Society, explaining things and having things paleoentology, their feelings towards each in their language for “people”) taking a explained to him. Particularly after that other were such that if some redskin medicine vacation from the Comancheria to pounce, big dramatic terrorist attack by the agents of the man (yes, that was how they said it then; live ugly scaly things out there, suceptible to the Old Man of the Mountain. with it) had reanimated one of the dinosaurs, super steampunk weapons Tom Edison and The next thing he knows, he is on one of and had it eat one of them, the other would Ned Buntline have provided, but it takes a lot, HM airships, heading across the Channel to have rejoiced. and so on, our protagonists are in a perilous Bavaria. The airship is sustained by Martian One can almost say that Bwana is getting situation. Which only one man can resolve . . liftwood. At which point Jack, not having had lazy, when history provides him with such Page 4 February 2014 Alexiad

IT TAKES A BOAT the National Geographic Society. Did someone Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air: A Personal Review by Joseph T Major of say something good about Dr. Cook? (Jarvis Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster (1997) is CHASING SHACKLETON: notes Shackleton’s assiduous courting of among other matters an indictment of the Re-creating the World’s Greatest Journey sponsorship and concludes that he would have professional guiding business. A significant of Survival done very well in today’s environment. contributory cause, he says, of the massive by Tim Jarvis “Twitter statistics for #EHShackleton, death toll and the callous abandonment of (2014; William Morrow; #Endurance, #ITAE . . .”) dying climbers on the mountain was the ISBN 978-0-06-228273-6; $35.00; What has changed, though, is the attitudes of the guides and their affluent 2014; William Morrow (Kindle); $13.29) environment. There are permits permits climbers; they had to get their ascent, and permits to get. Every small-bore bureaucrat anything else was incidental, if not irrelevant. . . . Bilbo Baggins was standing at his sees these people as a potential income source. The business shrugged off Krakauer, and door after breakfast smoking an Not to mention political rivalries only continued. Nine years later, on Cho Oyu, enormous long wooden pipe that nominally suppressed by the Antarctic Treaty. another high-altitude fatality occurred, before reached nearly down to his woolly toes Indiana Jones married Marion so he could get parties of professionally-guided climbers, who (neatly brushed) — Shackleton came someone to handle the paperwork. went their way. Except for one. by. Shackleton! If you had heard only Then there are safety regulations, insurance In other lands, forcible efforts to break a quarter of what I have heard about requirements, and the like. In Paul Edwin down old social structures, introduce new him, and I have only heard very little Zimmer’s The Survivors (1979) the protagonist means, and retrain the backward people with of all there is to hear, you would be Dane is going slowly but inexorably mad modern methods are quite popular with the prepared for any sort of remarkable because every venture he undertakes is most aware segment of the population. How tale. Tales and adventures sprouted up monitored nonstop by rescue drones. The only this is reconciled with the “Free Tibet” all over the place wherever he went, in reason the Alexandra Shackleton wasn’t so movement never quite seems clear. the most extraordinary fashion. supervised was that the technology was still in The efforts of the Chinese government to All the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that development. reshape minority cultures into Disneyland-style morning was a Man with a paper in his The ocean voyage was one of the less exhibits and Sinicize the population have been hand. He was weating a dark suit with stressful parts of the venture and this was with noted. Tibet is, well, the bloodiest case. a neatly tied tie, and his dark hair was six guys throwing up constantly, crammed into Tibetans who do not agree with the program parted in the middle. space on the order of a tube hotel, and being have been striving to leave for over sixty years. “Good Morning!” said Bilbo, and filmed for the documentary non-stop. (The use Naturally, the Chinese government finds this he meant it. Then Bilbo sat down on a they found for wool caps is not one mentioned emigration without permission unseemly, and seat by his door, crossed his legs, and in the sales literature.) the efforts of the People’s Armed Police blew out a beautiful grey ring of smoke In spite of it all they got to South Georgia, (Zhongguo Renmin Wuzhuang Jingcha Budii that sailed up into the air wtthout where they would undertake the next step of [“Chinese People’s Armed Police Force”]) to breaking and floated away over The the recreation. The crossing had its own prevent it are drastic. Hill. unique problems. One of the three crossers had The Nangpa La is under the heights of Cho “Very pretty!” said Shackleton. to lie to the insurance company, for example. Oyu. It is a pass with an altitude of 5806 “But I have no time to blow smoke- Jarvis and his colleagues did not quite have the meters, 19,050 feet. On September 30, 2006, rings this morning. I am looking for impression that a fourth man was along. a party of Tibetans attempted to cross into someone to share in an adventure that Baz Gray, one of the other crossers, when Nepal through the Nangpa La. The PAP fired I am arranging. Low wages, bitter not trekking across mountains, serves in 30 at them, as climbers watched. One of the cold, long hours of complete darkness. Commando Information Exploitation Group, Tibetans, a Buddhist nun named Kelsang Safe return doubtful. Honour and Royal Marines. Its predecessor was 30 Assault Namtso, was shot and killed. recognition in event of success.” Unit, the exploits of which are described in Ian In alternating chapters, Green tells the story Fleming’s Commandos by Nicholas Rankin of Kelsang Namtso and of the witnesses to her It’s becoming my opinion that if you went (2011; reviewed in Alexiad V. 11 #2). death as they both came to the Nangpa La. The back far enough in the genealogy of the In the end they got to Grytviken. Where guides are sympathetically portrayed; they have Shackletons you’d get to Aragorn, while it is someone else was, gone to see her to make a living, doing what they enjoy doing, blatantly obvious that Tom Crean was a grandfather’s grave. It was entirely fortituous even if it’s with people who are only having the Tuatha Dé Danann on a vacation. Frank that Alexandra Shackleton was there, yet she latest status symbol. The fate of the Tibetans, Worsley, however, was a time traveller with a was quite pleased. oppressed by their alien rulers, burdened by an inertial navigation system hooked up to his There are still people willing to go out there excruciating progress as they make their brain. where safe return is doubtful, but there seems escape, ever in danger of betrayal and death, Tim Jarvis lacked those advantages. On to be less room for them in an increasingly conrasts grimly with both. the other hand, he had the backing of the Hon. closing society. One of those tourists was a Romanian Alexandra Shackleton, granddaughter of the named Sergio Matei. He wanted to record his man in question, and he knew it had been That comment about the cameras? The ascent of a wonderful mountain; he recorded done. Accordingly, he thought it should be documentary Chasing Shackleton is available instead the dreadful deeds of men under that done again, as closely to the original as on DVD from PBS for $24.00. mountain. Green describes the dire fear that possible. Matei lives under, for all that his images have Therefore, a replica of the James Caird INTO THIN AIR gone around the world, the secret out for ever was built (named Alexandra Shackleton), five Review by Joseph T Major of and ever. other masochists willing to endure bitter cold MURDER IN THE HIGH HIMALAYA: But there is so much information out there and long hours of complete darkness, along Loyalty, Tragedy, and Escape from Tibet that no one really has the time to care. with freezing seawater, cramped discomfort, by Jonathan Green Or other things. One sinister, and and faithful versions of official Imperial (2010; Public Affairs; saddening, comment that Green reports was Trans-Antarctic Expedition gear were found. ISBN 978-1-58648-714-0; $26.95) how so many of the people he interviewed Also, corporate sponsors were lined up. One http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com asked that their names not be used, since their of the sponsors which pulled out abruptly was companies did business with China. Alexiad February 2014 Page 5

Cho Oyu is the sixth highest mountain in when she asserts that a strategy of not attacking business of any organization and of a spy the world, with an altitude of 8201 meters the American possessions would have been agency in particular. (26,906 feet) above sea level. It was first viable. Kondrashev also discusses some of the climbed on October 19, 1954 by a party led by What Hotta has done is to describe the wider and more notorious incidents of the Cold Austrian mountaineer Herbert Tichy. The careers and personalities of the Japanese War. By some peculiar alchemy if not strange second ascent was in 1956 and the summit leaders. For members of the “system” some of coincidence, he validates most of Bagley’s team included Pasang Dawa Lama, who had them were surprisdingly different. Thus, for controversial propositions. been with Tichy on the first ascent. example, the Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori Nosenko a fake spy? Sure. Agent TOP Green tells of how in September of 2009, was a Korean. (His ancestors had come to HAT (Dmitri F. Polyakov of the GRU (Soviet professional guide Marty Schmidt took Japan in the sixteenth century. That’s not long Military Intelligence)) a fake spy? Sure. investment broker Clifton Maloney to the top enough to become Japanese.) Grand deception? Sure. And fortunately, of Cho Oyu, on Maloney’s second try. Similarly, Hotta describes the basis for Kondrashev has died, so is unavailable for Maloney was seventy-one, the oldest what these people did. One memorandum from comment or elaboration. American ever to reach the top of an 8000- a subordinate in the American treasury The Angleton-Golitsyn theory of a grand meter peak. After the summiting, Maloney department wasn’t going to have much deception broke apart the CIA. Bagley was said to Schmidt before they went to sleep, influence. The Japanese economy was one of Angleton’s associates and he seems to “I’m the happiest man in the world. I’ve just terrifyingly marginal even before the decision have an animus against Yuri Nosenko. It’s also summitted a beautiful mountain.” He died in for war. worth noting that according to Oleg Kalugin his sleep that night. There is something As for the military factors, more discussion (who is available for comment) in the eighties poignantly fulfilling about that. [Pages 104- might have been made of the strategic the KGB was looking for Nosenko, not 106] considerations and the problems of equipment. Golitsyn. And Golitsyn also claimed that the There was no Uchū senkan Yamato (“Star entire dissident movement was a KGB- Cruiser Yamato”) to save the day, no managed deception operation. Transformers or other technological marvels The portrayal of the “other side” being as that would overcome disasters such as bureaucratic as ours, and as dominated as much Nomonhan. by office politics as by world politics, is oddly Sometimes, reality does not provide the enough a counter-argument to the other thesis. boost that a good story needs to bring about its The KGB had its Pointy-Haired Vozhd, too. desired end. Understanding the ways and ends will create such a story, if not the one wanted. THE STARCROSSED Reviewed by Joseph T Major of BATTLEGROUND: LANGLEY WHOLOCK Review by Joseph T Major of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3bGYljQ5Uw SPYMASTER: Startling Cold War Revelations of a Soviet The bullet-spattered walls are covered with KGB Chief pictures of a man, and of a police call box. THE MARCH OF FOLLY by Tennent H. Bagley Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) sitting in his Review by Joseph T Major of (2013; Skyhorse Publishing; chair, says, “A name. Give me a name.” Then JAPAN 1941: ISBN 978-1-62636-065-5; $26.95) there is a strange noise, and John (Martin Countdown to Infamy Freeman) says, “What is it?” Sherlock gets up, by Eri Hotta Sergey A. Kondrashev was a senior officer looks out the window of 221B Baker Street, (2013; Random House in the First Chief Directorate of the Committee and observes “We have a client.” ISBN 978-0307-59401-3; $26.99) of State Security. He ran operations against the Indeed. There is a police call box in the Main Enemy and its allies, and handled parking space in front of the building. The assiduous readers of manga and defectors from them. In a career beginning in Sherlock goes down the seventeen steps, and as viewers of anime may wonder how such a 1944, during the Great Patriotic War, and he opens the door a man openes the door of the forthrightly aggressive and powerful culture, lasting until 1991, outlasting the Soviet Union, box. Sherlock says, “Who are you?” The man which has guys with huge swords, while its Kondrashev was involved in many of the closes the door. Sherlock looks at it closely, it competition has only a mouse and a rabbit, greatest operations of State Security. opens, and the man invites him in. “It’s larger could lose. The perfervid believers in Japan And then, being on his uppers, like most on the inside than the outside,” he says . . . Inc. find it incomprehensible that a culture former Chekists, he went looking for a All right, someone put together clips from where the workers have wa and work eighteen connection among his former opponents. Then Sherlock and from various episodes of Doctor hour days until their company needs them no he found one, in Tennent H. “Pete” Bagley, a Who with the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith). more, whereupon they gladly go to their long-term CIA veteran of the dark side of the Nope, the characters appear in the same frame. deaths, outproducing other nations, could have cold war. They seem to have hit it off well, The BBC got them to work together on one failed. The eager fans of martial-arts films are considering they had spent forty years working shoot. Nope, doesn’t look like it; there’s no at a loss to understand how the kickboxers, against each other. credits and it’s not listed on IMDB. ninjas, samurais, and kung fu fighters could be The first part of this is Kondrashev’s career In Ben Bova’s novel The Starcrossed defeated. in the State Security (which, for the record, was (1975), the harrassed Bill Oxnard, developer of In more serious circles, the idea that the frequently redesignated for about ten years the 3-D video system used to produce the peaceful people of that land were provoked to unti l t he y se t tle d o n Комитет witless space opera of the title, works on a action by the malicious actions of the Yankees государственной безопасности (Komitet system to completely animate live actors, so the are all too common. It is doubtful that any of gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti; “Commitee of actors would look natural, except they would these will read Hotta. State Security”). He describes a number of be saying and doing rational, comprehensible Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly: efforts at straight-up counterintelligence and things. The devoted fan going under the From Troy to Vietnam (1984) touches on the espionage, other actions that fell under the head pseudonym of “John Smith” (or Ghu forbid, Japanese decision for war, briefly (Pages 29- of “Active Measures”, bureaucratic struggles that’s his real name) used advanced editing 32). Her argument loses some credibility with superiors, and other items of the usual technology to create this video to a like effect. Page 6 February 2014 Alexiad

It is amazingly effective. It’s been referred Dinner Infamy by Eri Hotta to as “Sherlock Holmes becomes the Doctor’s This planning had our own problems. latest companion.” Grant was feeling very low, for various Monday, December 23, 2013 reasons, and was wondering if he could even Henderson COFFEE get out of the house. And Johnny was This was the wind-down. I got an early by Lisa impossible to get in touch with. birthday cake, made without sugar. Now that However, in spite of everything, they both was nice. We shared gifts and generally I have a new favorite coffee. It is Vienna made it. The service was more ordinary than it enjoyed ourselves Cinnamon. It is full bodied but not bitter and has been, but it was a pleasant combination of And so to bed. the cinnamon in it brings back memories of song and instrumental performance. Elizabeth hot cider with a cinnamon stick, one of the was in the chorus. Her sister Alice and Alice’s Miles driven: 45.4 great treats after sledding in a cold winter. husband, Loren, were also there. Sunrise: 7:03 AM Grant managed to get through the serving Sunset: 4:35 PM This year’s Super Bowl is between the line all right, there were no disasters at the Weather: Cold, cloudy Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos. In table, and we had a quite friendly conversation. Book read: Last of the Blue and Gray by terms of horses the names are interesting. In The weather was a little better that day than it Richard A. Serrano the case of the Broncos it is obvious. For the had been last weekend, which meant we didn’t Seahawks the connection is through their city, have to worry about Alice and Loren. (There Tuesday, December 24, 2013 after which 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle had been the time they were coming to have Henderson — Hopkinsville, KY Slew was named. A fan of predatory birds Friday dinner with us and their car hit a Fifty-Nine Years and Thirty-Two Years would probably cheer the Seahawks. As a pothole.) Drove down to Hopkinsville. My cousin horse fan my choice is the Broncos. It does All was calm, all was bright, and we got Myra had had a most distressing experience, not hurt that I loved the city of Denver when I pleasantly stuffed. which as she was going off to Colorado that was lucky enough to visit. So it will be the afternoon didn’t help. Not that we didn’t offer Broncos whom I cheer. Having made my Over the next week I prepared. I did to help, but she said she was fine. choice I settled back to watch what I laundry, got my medicines, and had the oil So many in the family were unwell; it’s anticipated would be a well fought game. It changed, but also had to buy a new tire. Then always a bad time to be so and what was was not. The Seahawks got control with the I renewed the auto license and paid the tax, happening was even worse. One who wasn’t first snap and the Broncos managed to score after which I bought Grant a pizza. We went to unwell was merely aged; cousin Helen had only once. It looked like an exhibition, not a dinner at Culver’s with Tim and Elizabeth, did been a schoolmate of my father’s. game between two teams. our final shopping at Wal-Mart, and I did my Got back, finished unloading, made last packing. preparations against the chill. ON THE ROAD AGAIN And so to bed. And so to bed. Chronicle of our Solstice Travels by Joe December 21, 2013 Miles driven: 98.0 Louisville — Henderson, KY Sunrise: 7:04 AM I woke up a little early. I got the car loaded Sunset: 4:38 PM while Lisa cleaned out the litter boxes, then I Weather: Clear, cold. put the trash bin where Grant could get it down, and we were off. Ate breakfast along the way Wednesday, December 25, 2013 and got to Henderson at lunch time. Lisa’s Hopkinsville father and his wife were home and we unloaded Newton’s Birthday the car. They spent most of the rest of the day Abusy day. Lunch was at the home of talking and watching movies. cousin Chris and his wife cousin Penny Faye And so to bed. (this is Kentucky, understand) who had rebuilt Chris’s grandfather’s house. It’s a good Miles driven: 135.1 distance down a gravel road, and I tend to Sunrise: 7:56 AM (EST) worry about the isolation. We also saw the Sunset: 4:34 PM (CST) mother of my cousin Jim. She is in a nursing Winter Storm Dion went through the area Weather: Warm, rain home in Hopkinsville, and then we saw some on Friday. This being Kentucky, it began with other relatives who were in their own homes. rain, and finished with snow. This promotes December 22, 2013 Turned out I’d missed two get-togethers “black ice”, frozen patches on the roads. Back Henderson where I would have been welcome, if not in the seventies, after Thanksgiving, Grant and We went out to lunch and then had a family moreover expected I went with Tim to see our friend Bruce in get-together all afternoon. It was very relaxing And so to bed. Lexington. We came back on Sunday; Tim and a pleasant time was had by all. Checked in was driving and Grant was in the back asleep. with Grant and he managed to get the trash bin Miles driven: 54.1 Coming to the county line, though it was a down to the sidewalk, though it was pretty Sunrise: 7:01 AM bright sunny day, we hit a patch of black ice heavy because of all the kitty litter in it. Sunset: 4:39 PM and the car went into the median, ending up And so to bed. Weather: Sunny, cold next to the eastbound lane. Grant got a very disturbing wake-up call. Sunrise: 7:03 AM Thursday, December 26, 2013 I don’t care to have that repeat. So we Sunset: 4:35 PM Hopkinsville — Cadiz, KY — Hopkinsville didn’t go to the Southern Lights, or meet with Weather: Warm, drizzly One of my cousins has a status that is only Tom Sadler and Rod Smith. Books read: Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue unusual if you’re from outside the state. He with His Century Volume I by has the same name as my father and older December 15, 2013 Bill Patterson brother. We met him for lunch. The place St. Matthews Baptist Church Christmas Japan 1941; Countdown to where we met him has its own unique Alexiad February 2014 Page 7 distinction. I have seen some very elaborate Miles driven: 163.4 picking up fallen books. music boxes, playing brass disks that are Sunrise: 7:02 AM And we didn’t get out for breakfast until it broader than LP records, made with elaborate Sunset: 4:39 PM was practically lunchtime, not to mention that cherrywood cases, and generally showing high Weather: Sunny, cool I forgot my pills. Which would have effects on levels of construction and craft. One is at the Books read: Murder in the High Himalayas Tuesday, but that’s another story. Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. The other by Jonathan Green Nevertheless, we got to Poor Richard’s is at Broadbent in Cadiz. Visions of Infamy by William B. Bookstore in Frankfort all right. Rod Smith We also saw Lisa’s favorite cousin, Tony, Honan was there and we caught up on the past few who lives at the end of a gravel road, like so months. I’m afraid he and I drove the others a many. He had birds flying around the house, Saturday, December 28, 2013 little crazy talking about such things as Harpo buzzards and vultures. I’m not sure what this Hopkinsville — Madisonville, KY — Marx’s only speaking role in a movie. means. Hopkinsville Finally, it got late, we had to go home, and We also saw our cousin the other he- Lunch with my brothers, their wives, and did, stopping for dinner along the way. Then it Madison Major. Not the one in Chicago, a my incredibly cute grandnephew, who is was only a matter of catching up on the pills, computer consultant. Not the girl in already reading and apparently generally getting the trash out, and collapsing. Hopkinsville. But a chunky young man, performing above his grade level. Maybe I And so to bed. working on his grandfather’s farms and should start him out on Red Planet (1949, studying to step in and fill the role. At least he 1999, NHOL G.077) in four or five years. It Miles driven 108 doesn’t have to make his own topsoil. (You has an untrustworthy government, and guns, Sunrise: 7:56 AM don’t think I should give him a copy of which should be an introduction to reality. Sunset: 5.51 PM Farmer In the Sky (1950, NHOL G.083)?) One brother went home, my grandnephew’s Time out: 10:58 AM His sister Ella went off driving a tractor with father came by to get him, and finally we Time back: 6.58 PM all the confidence of an old timer. Fine pair of needed to leave also. Went out to dinner and Weather: Sunny, mild (unlike the rest of kids. We also saw his mother and then drove back. the week) grandparents. And so to bed. My cousin Andrew has the coolest job. As you know, Bob, Chris Garcia works at the Miles driven: 78.5 GOTTA HAVE THEM ALL! Museum of Computing, including building the Sunrise: 7:02 AM Taral Wayne Steampunk Internet with two Babbage Sunset: 4:41 PM Machines and telegraphs, but Andrew’s job is Weather: Cloudy, cool At times, I’ve fancied myself a cooler. He is a hacker for the government. Book read: The Whale Has Wings Volume “completist.” That’s somebody who has to Oh all right they say “cybersecurity specialist” 3; Holding the Barrier by David have all of something. As a kid, I was most but he gets to break into other computers and Row often a completist about bubble-gum cards and they’ll cover for him! Andrew’s parents comic books. More recently I’ve been a David and Susan, who we did see, had just Sunday, December 29, 2013 completist for videos of Fraggle Rock, Elvis seen the children but were awake enough to Hopkinsville — Louisville Costello albums, or Flavian coinage. In see us. But it was time to go. We stripped the bed, between, I was a science fiction completist. And so to bed. put the sheets and towels by the washer, made The object of my first brush with sure there was nothing of ours left, and took obsessive-compulsive disorder was the Good Miles driven: 66.4 our departure. It was a long trip and we wanted Doctor, Isaac Asimov. I had read Bradbury, Sunrise: 7:01 AM to get home. Clarke and Heinlein as well, but it was Asimov Sunset: 4:40 PM Grant was feeling up to going out and after who most appealed to me. It wasn’t for his Weather: Sunny, mild. an arduous effort at unloading there was evocative language or delicate style. Asimov Book read: Spymaster by Tennent H. enough room in the car for all three of us. We wrote like the list of ingredients on the side of Bagley tried the Red Robin in Louisville, which I a biscuit box. You always knew what was in remembered I had seen once I was reminded of the recipe, but were never impressed by the Friday, December 27, 2013 where it was. Embarrassing. taste. Hopkinsville — Nashville, TN — And so to bed. Bradbury was all style . . . and most of the Hopkinsville time no substance. Vampires sucked electricity We had to go see McKay’s Books while Miles driven: 174.7 from television sets and circus calliopes we were so close. They have a very satisfying Sunrise: 7:02 AM (CST) marched down main streets in small towns to collection of books, graphic novels, DVDs, Sunset: 5:31 PM (EST) protest recorded pop music. While appealing and comics. They even sell vinyl records (as Weather: Sunny, mild. to mood and sentiment, Bradbury was depleted you know, Bob, this was a primitive form of uranium when it came to literal sense. Clarke encoding .MP3 files). Total mileage: 815.7 was closer to core of science fiction ideas – yet, Afterwards, by odd chance, we passed by Gas bought: $132.86 to me, he was an even more gray stylist than a Red Robin restaurant. Now we had seen one Time out: 9:54 AM Asimov. Other times, he seemed fascinated in Newport, not far from the Aquarium, but Time back: 5:24 PM with the idea of grand, incomprehensible had passed on it. This time we went there. It forces, Cosmic Overminds, in the shadow of was a good place. For you technical types, the New Year’s Eve Grant was able to get out which humanity diminished to insignificance. greeters book you with iPads. and we all had dinner with Carolyn Clowes. It Insignificance wasn’t my cup of tea, either. After seeing two relatives of mine who was a quiet night for us and we had a good time And Heinlein? Everyone loved Heinlein. I happen to have the same last name as a well never did. His love of human inventiveness known fantasy author, we went back to Monday, January 20, 2014 seemed to go to the opposite extreme, Hopkinsville, with dinner in Clarksville. Louisville — Frankfort, KY — Louisville somehow arrogantly assuming that, in a galaxy Fortunately it was a clear day and we didn’t The horse farms weren’t offering tours so of unknown intelligences, humanity was the have any problems. we went to Frankfort. After an immense toughest and most deserving of Darwinian And so to bed. amount of trouble, including spending an hour success. Even without alien competition, the Page 8 February 2014 Alexiad human species is sometimes so vile and stupid No matter. By that time Earth was a Venus, or what the surface of Jupiter’s moons I’m not sure it will even survive to get off the backwater, largely poisoned by toxic pollution might be like. Until infrared measurements of planet, let alone dominate a galaxy. Heinlein and radioactivity, the natives reduced to the temperature of the Venerian cloud-tops was also bounded by a frustratingly narrow, impoverished rustics. Rather like much of the revealed astonishingly high temperatures, we parochial sense of history. It was a recap of American rust bucket. could only speculate whether they concealed a the American Experience, replete with Don’t mistake me. I’m not claiming that world-ocean, a tropical jungle or a desert pioneers breaking the sod on Mars to build log the Foundation series was great literature, or wasteland. At a temperature considerably cabins, ‘49ers rushing to the gold rush on that Asimov was highly superior to his higher than the melting point of lead, your Ganymede and Thomas Edison inventing the contemporaries. My argument is only that his money should have been placed on the latter. starship in his garage. Then there was tone and subject matter were more to my liking But Asimov also wrote mysteries, didn’t Heinlein’s dialog. It was straight out of 1950's than were the others. Pity that he stopped he? There were only two novels of family television – “Hand me the fission writing fiction in favour of nonfiction as the significance, The Death Dealers (which I knew wrench will you, honey?” “Of course, 1950s wore on. It was an even bigger pity that by a superior title, A Whiff of Death) and sweetiecums, right after I adjust the verniers he returned to fiction in the 1970s. Murder at the ABA (also known by the superior and pour the coffee.” I couldn’t stomach it. I began collecting Asimov with the basics – title Authorized Murder). Neither is a But Asimov! Ahhh … he was just right his two robot novels, the Foundation trilogy, particularly spirited model of the mystery form, for me. Certainly not too poetic. Barely Pebble in the Sky, The Stars Like Dust, The and demonstrate that the author is more poetic at all, in fact. Oddly, there wasn’t Currents of Space, and The End of Eternity. interested in the puzzle than the story and much science, so you couldn’t call Asimov too Although it is not part of either the robot novels characters . . . a fatal flaw that grew more dry, either. He didn’t puff humanity up too or the Foundation series, The End of Eternity is pronounced in a later incarnation. much, nor tear it too far down. As well, there interesting because it is a story about time- With one late addition, the collection of his was a grander scope of history to Asimov’s travel in which there is no space-travel. In the earliest published stories (The Early Asimov), fiction than in Heinlein’s. It was all borrowed end, time-travel is erased from the time-line you have the Basic Asimov. One might add from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman and mankind is given a new chance to expand these books to your shelves along with Empire, of course, but no one faults Frank into the galaxy – instead of endlessly revising whatever non-fiction that suited your taste, and Herbert for borrowing all the history for Dune his own past into ever blander and less vibrant feel that you had a complete collection. from the Arabs. From childhood, I was a “perfection.” I like to see The End of Eternity Oh, if only that were so! sucker for Roman history, and I have clear as the unofficial beginning of the whole future In fact, after some fifteen years of writing memories from when I was very young of history, even though I don’t recall ever seeing mostly non-fiction, Asimov wrote his first trying to find books on the Roman Legions, anyone make the same point. non-Hollywood novel in 1972, The Gods Caeser’s campaigns and the chief figures of There was also Fantastic Voyage. It might Themselves. It wasn’t a bad book, actually, the late Republic politics. The Foundation well have been the first genre SF that I ever though it seemed uncharacteristic of the author. series was made for me. read. I was in the habit of picking up my Gone was most of the fusty, archaic tone of I was just as absorbed by Asimov’s robot father’s castoff paperbacks, and this was one of Asimov’s earlier writing. The novel dealt with stories. R. Daneel Olivaw as plainly one of them. Frankly, though, the less said of the alien beings, a subject that the author had rarely the models for Mr. Data on Star Trek: The book, the better. It was written for the money, dealt with in the past. Environmental concerns Next Generation. Like Asimov’s robots, Data and shows it. Even Asimov demonstrated his also hinted that the author had new had a “positronic” brain, and was governed by dissatisfaction by rewriting it many years later. preoccupations. a set of rules that the writers called “The Unfortunately, he might as well not have Asimov’s new preoccupations came farther Three Laws of Robotics.” Such humanoid bothered, since it was an uninspired work both to the fore in the subsequent expansion of his robots are wonderful metaphors for how, at times. future history. He began to consciously one time, fans typically saw their place in In addition, the Basic Asimov required a integrate his robot and Foundation novels into society – both superior and inferior to those number of short story collections. There one grand scheme, and moved Seldon’s Plan around them, natural “outsiders.” Mere weren’t many of note, in the beginning – two farther into both the past and future with automatons at first, Asimov’s robots became collections of robot stories, The Martian Way Foundation’s Edge, Foundation and Earth, more human, and easy to identify with, as he and Others, Earth is Room Enough, Nine Prelude to Foundation and Forward the developed the sweeping future history of the Tomorrows, Nightfall and Other Stories and Foundation. I waited eagerly for first of the 1950s novels. Through a Glass Darkly were pretty much the new series, but it was a profound There was at least one problem with fitting lot. Through a Glass Darkly was such a disappointment. At a stroke, Asimov abolished Asimov’s early work into one future history. slender volume you wondered if they couldn’t Seldon’s Plan. It had gone off its tracks, and a It required that humanoid robots be invented have found a few more stories if they looked new, environmentally aware plan took its place. atleast twice, and forgotten entirely three harder. What did Seldon’s Plan mean to me, that I felt times! At that point, my collection of Asimov its abolition so disappointing? Their first invention was by Universal might have been called “representative.” But it Granted, Seldon’s Plan was a ridiculously Robotics, sometime in the near future – late wasn’t complete. Before I would be able to deterministic idea, based on the notion that 20th century or early 21st. They were think of myself as a completist, I had to track mathematics could predict mass human apparently invented again at a much later date, down the six “Lucky Starr” juveniles, written behavior with great precision. We know better at a time when the population of an as “Paul French.” Fortunately, about that time now. overcrowded Earth lived entirely in enclosed they were all reissued in paperback by Signet, With access to more powerful mathematics, cities, and the first extra-solar colonies had so I had no difficulty acquiring them. As we know that complex systems are inherently been established for at least a few generations. juvenile SF goes, I can’t fault them. They are unpredictable, and that seemingly insignificant Then, as humanity spread through the galaxy a quick, light read for an adult, and the picture events can gather force behind them and alter and inhabited planets numbered in the of the solar system that they present is hardly the system entirely . . . and yet tend toward a thousands, robots were forgotten once again – more accurate than the one painted by the sort mean center. Well, perhaps mass behavior apparently once and for all, this time. It was of television SF that had puppet actors … but isn’t entirely unpredictable, then. It can surely hardly the only thing that humanity forgot. much of the adult SF of the time was no better. be forecast as well as the weather. They forgot the whereabouts of Earth and that Today, it’s easy to forget that we had no idea Unfortunately, no weather bureau in its right it was the planet of our origin as well. what lay beneath the clouded atmosphere of mind will venture a forecast for more than Alexiad February 2014 Page 9 about a week into the future, or make long represent the Good Doctor at his laziest. They park in his driveway. term predictions other than cyclic ones, such show that he has been mainly interested in *Sigh* Finally. Yes, finally. That is the as that strong El Nino events indicate warmer “ideas” all along, and regarded character, plot end of it. North American winters. and mood as encumbrances. Without a single And I had them all. Nearly . . . Whatever the weakness of the idea, exception that I recall, the late mysteries follow Not in first editions; heaven forbid. Who is Seldon’s Plan represented to me the a monotonously skeletal outline – a guest is that rich and that wasteful of their money? But enlightenment that Reason and Science cast announced at the monthly dinner, he or she I had almost all of them in one edition or upon the darkness of blind historical forces. I explains the mystery, a few of the members another. I simply refused to buy the two “new” lapped it up. And what Asimov’s continued offer plausible solutions that are incorrect and, robot collections, as they included only one future history gave me in exchange was a kind last to speak, the club’s headwaiter gives the new story in each, and I didn’t give a fig for the of hippy paradise where we asked the trees correct answer. The answer is never especially illustrations. Some of the later short story and hedgehogs if it was alright before we built believable, of course. The whole point of these collections were cheaply bought, as well, and a supermarket. Yes … humanity has abbreviated sketches is that they are tricky. rather ratty. I read the newer books first – the overdeveloped the Earth, and certainly we Apparently there is an audience for this kind of “in the worlds of” stuff that Asimov hadn’t should have given more thought to trees and thing, but I’m partial to mystery fiction that’s actually written, then Azazel and Asimov on hedgehogs . . . but … sputter . . . where’s the fiction . . . not a Rubik’s Cube sketched out in Science Fiction (a tedious and unrewarding white lab smock and slide rule? Where’s the prose. There are, astonishingly, 11 volumes of chore that was!) then finally the time came arrogance of scientism at its best? I will not this. when I began to read Magic and Gold. That give up wanting a new flat screen TV just so Late in life, the Good Doctor decided he was the point where the intellect rebelled! there can be 11 more hedgehogs in the world! had avoided writing fantasy long enough. He In a dozen novels and short story The new Foundation novels were just not the began a new series of rather sparse little stories collections, the Good Doctor had fallen from same. about an other-dimensional imp named Azazel. one of my favourite early writers to a Worse was to come. Asimov remarried to Bright red and only about an inch tall, Azazel embarrassment. Oy. another writer, Janet Asimov – a.k.a. J.O. would have been mistaken for a devil in the So . . . I decided to sell some of the later Jeppson. There is some question in my mind Middle Ages – or by some members of collections – I sold Gold, Magic, Buy Jupiter, whether the newlywed author could have sold Congress in the present day – but is in fact a The Winds of Change, and The Bi-Centennial her first book if the publisher had not known member of an advanced technological Man … it was a better movie than a short story, she was Asimov’s bride. Be that as it may, civilization, whose “magic” creates more anyway. I’m looking really hard at The Early she went on to collaborate with her hubby on problems for the narrator than it solves. Slight Asimov, Alternate Asimovs and all those Lucky a series of children’s books based on a cute in themselves, the stories at least possess some Starr juveniles as well. The Silverberg and little robot named Norby – rather like R2D2 – entertainment value. faux Foundation books could easily follow. In who assists a precocious youngster on his Add to everything so far another seven or short, I’m no longer an Asimov completist … adventures, saving the galaxy from bad men eight collections of late (and lesser) Asimov not even notionally. and worse zyqrforbs. Oh, well . . . to be fair, short stories … also a volume of early novellas I used to have all the Heinlein as well … maybe they are no more awful than the Lucky in their original magazine versions … and a not that I could stomach reading anything after Starr books . . . but, in the post-Star Wars pair of illustrated collections of old robot Friday. For that matter, trying to reread some world, the very idea seems unimaginative and stories … and a 1989 novel called Nemesis that of the older stuff from the Golden Age gives unpromising. was so unmemorable that I can’t tell you the me the fantods. I sold off everything newer According to Asimov, his wife wrote most first thing about it. Whether or not you feel it than 1973, along with his collected letters and of the six books. He only polished and necessary to own copies of the numerous other ephemera. revised . . . indicating that they probably biographies that the Good Doctor has written, I never did quite have all the Philip K. needed it. And his name was printed on the I leave to your taste. Dick. The man must have written thousands of covers to enhance sales. I should remember to At this point, you might imagine you have short stories, most of which were never put Asimov’s name on my first book . . . for finally gathered together a complete collection available in mass paperback editions. Even if the same unselfish reason, of course. For what of Isaac Asimov’s fiction. I had been willing to pay the typically doubled it’s worth, though, Asimov’s admission that he Alas, you’d still be wrong! You would still price for small press trade paperbacks and is only nominally the co-author does leave the not have exhausted all the works needed for a limited edition hardcovers, it’s doubtful I could completist collector off the hook. I convinced complete collection! Although they are not have found more than a smattering of them. I myself there was no reason for me to buy or written by the Good Doctor, there are three gave up on Phil Dick without coming anywhere read a single one of the Norby books . . . and “must” novels written by Greg Bear, Gregory close to complete. I didn’t. Benford and David Brin that continue the I had all of Doris Piserchia, even the two If Asimov had left matters at that, I would Foundation series even farther into the future, novels under her “Curt Selby” pseudonym. have added the extended family of Foundation each adding its own increment of new After I read about three-quarters of them I novels to my shelf, along with a couple more developments. They are not especially realized I’d had enough and didn’t want them. collections of short stories, and been satisfied. compatible stylistically, and even introduce This led to selling all but one or two. I pursued I did mention that Asimov wrote ideas that are less agreeable than “thinking” Gene Wolfe for a while, until I realized that he mysteries, didn’t I? Ha, ha, ha, ha, haaa…. ecologies – such as an invisible network of wasn’t interested in telling stories that made He does. Since the novels and early SF super robots who undermine human linear sense . . . or were remotely interesting in crossovers, Asimov’s mysteries have mainly developments so as to keep it stable and “safe” themselves. been in either the Union Club or The Black from itself. I kept only the older work that had made his Widowers. He once explained that they would Not even that is the end of the Asimov reputation. Similarly, I wore out all desire to all be the same series, but for magazine canon. Robert Silverberg has rewritten and own all of Samuel Delany, Ursula K. LeGuin, copyrights. They might as well have all been expanded upon three of Asimov’s stories, Johanna Russ, R.A. Lafferty, J.G. Ballard and Black Union stories (or whatever) since they creating novels from Nightfall, The Positronic any number of other writers I once pursued were without exception among the most Man and The Ugly Little Boy. They are not bad with fannish enthusiasm. No more of that! wretchedly lame mystery stories that I’ve read, in themselves, but one wonders if it was I still collect die-cast cars, but since I have and would be inadequate even to justify inspiration that led to their writing, or whether no more space I go easy with them. I continue self-publication. Clearly, these stories Silverberg simply needed a new Mercedes to to collect Roman coins as well – but I’m in no Page 10 February 2014 Alexiad danger of overindulging myself with tiny bits answer was that then basically we’re screwed. pathways. of bronze and silver, either. Especially not at After that it was back to the Art Show where I We had come early to visit Valencia, which the sort of prices they go for of late! made a bid on a Sarah Clemens art. It was a we had never seen, and we spent the afternoon In fact, just about the only thing I’m minimum bid of $20.00. I stuck around until roaming the Old City, its streets lined with completist about collecting now is myself . the end of the show. Just before the end a man palms and orange trees and Christmas Without a doubt, I have the world’s most in a suit who I had never seem before made a decorations. Temperatures were in the seasonal complete collection of Taral there is, or likely bid of $25.00. So, I borrowed a pen from a 40sF. Among other things, we visited the 700- ever will be . . . but, dammit, even I’m missing lady and made a $30.00 bid which sent it to the year-old Cathedral, which displays the Holy some of my work. Art Auction on Sunday. After dinner it was Grail: an ancient agate cup said to have been back to my room and for some reason that I’ve used by Jesus in the Last Supper, now housed LOSCON 40 forgotten I did not go to the Masquerade. in a special chapel. You may know that relics Con Report by Robert S. Kennedy Sunday I stashed my luggage with the hotel produce a kind of spiritual force field that and got to just the last 15 minutes of “Planetary benefits the souls who approach, so I am now Thanksgiving afternoon as usual I drove Exploration and the Big Question of Life holier than thou. down to the LAX Marriott. It’s about 50 Elsewhere – What do we do when we find it?” We also visited Les Torres dels Serrans, the miles on two freeways. Traffic was not bad My comment is: Who Knows? If there is no Serranos Towers, built in 1398 as the triumphal and it only took a little over an hour. After way around the speed of light we may never entry gate to the city, now the center of the dinner I obtained my badge and materials. know. Then it was a quick trip through the Fallas Festival in February. (That’s when they Then it was back to my room to read for a Dealers Room and off to the Art Auction. My burn elaborate papier-mâché statues.) And we while and to bed. I apologize for not having art was one of the last items offered. The enjoyed the sound of Valenciano, the local much comment on sessions. I go to them, but stranger in the suit did not appear and the art language somewhat like medieval French, take virtually no notes. was mine for $30.00. After paying for and although the use of Spanish prevailed. On Friday after an excellent breakfast the obtaining it it was time to go home. The art first session attended was “Anachronisms in was my only purchase. I did, however, pick up Saturday, December 14 Time Travel: The Dangers of Bad Research”. 7 free paperbacks. Got my luggage, got my Valencia — Quart de Poblet — Valencia Then it was “Time Periods You Don’t Want to car, and back on the freeways. It was a good Visit” where one of the panelists was Chris drive until I hit Thousand Oaks on the 101 On Saturday we ran into some friends on Garcia. After lunch it was “Intro to Classics Freeway where there was a big traffic backup. the subway, and when we arrived in Quart de SF” which was outstanding. Then it was It took about an hour and a half to get home. Poblet six stops later, working together we “What Are Your Three Must Haves for Time That was it. Unpack, dinner at the Lure Fish were able to find the Quart Jove youth center to Travel” which was also outstanding and two House, watch some TV, then to bed. get our credentials and welcome pack: a choice of the panelists were Chris Garcia (again) and of six books from a wide selection donated by Barbara Hambly. I then signed up for Loscon HISPACÓN XXXI / QUARTUMCÓN six publishers, along with comics, chapbooks, 41. After that it was dinner and then to the Ice The 31st Spanish national convention, and other materials. Cream Social. Thankfully, this year they did December 14 and 15 in Quart de Poblet Each year, the convention is held in a have Chocolate Chip. I was able to obtain two Reported by Sue Burke different city and organized by a different scoops, then vanilla on which was placed group, and this year the members of the prozine chocolate topping. Following the ice cream Friday, December 13 (In Spain, Tuesday the Hiperespacio used their connections with Quart was what they called The Crosstime Cabaret. 13th is an unlucky day, not Friday) de Poblet, population 25,500, to host the There was a young girl who sang. She really Madrid — Valencia Hispacón. The convention is sponsored by the put herself into it; but did not have a Spanish Association for Fantasy, Science particularly strong voice. There was a male My husband and I caught a 9:40 a.m. high- Fiction and Horror (AEFCFyT), which had singer who sang a four verse song two of speed train at the railroad station a few blocks searched until September for a local organizer. which he composed and the other two by from our house, and soon we were racing east The event spanned several small buildings, all someone else. He was good. There was a in Castilla-La Mancha through fallow fields, located near each other in the heart of town: the magician who performed some good tricks. vineyards, and olive groves. After a few tunnels cultural center, youth center, town hall and I’ve missed one performer. But, the last one under a some small mountains, we were library. Paid attendance was about 100, but was incredibly loud music and screaming suddenly in Valencia province, now speeding because the events were in municipal buildings, singing. I couldn’t stand it so left and went to through orange groves laden with ripening they were open to the public, so up to 200 my room. Read a bit and to bed. fruit. The trip of 200 miles/325 kilometers took people attended. Saturday the first session was “A Weapon an hour and a half each way and cost Several vendors occupied the ground floor by Any Other Name: The Rise of the €79/US$108 round-trip. of the youth center, selling books, game (Unmanned) Machines”. An excellent session We pulled into Valencia, alighted, found material, tee-shirts, toys, and jewelry. In the despite the political commentary by some in the subway system, and a few stops later, morning, the Skywalker Saga Club, in Star the audience regarding Drones. After lunch it arrived at our hotel, the Turia. A few decades Wars costumes, posed outside the entrance to was “Alternative Sexualities in Time Travel ago it had probably been cutting-edge but now Quart Jove and entertained fans and people Narratives”. Then a tour of the Dealers Room struck us as merely adequate and not especially passing by in the street. and the Art Show. This was followed by busy despite economical prices. Our room did Small towns are becoming the preferred “Believable Alternative Timelines and How to have a little balcony that gave us a beautiful place for conventions in Spain because the they Structure Time Travel” with panelists Larry sunrise view of the Ciutat Vella, the “Old will open their facilities for cultural events (and Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Harry Turtledove, and City,” its medieval center, and part of the Turia an influx of outsiders spending money at local I’ve missed someone (might have been Gardens. For centuries the “garden” had been businesses). This keeps costs down – only €15 Gregory Benford). This was an excellent the bed of the Turia River, but a catastrophic for registration – yet the towns are close panel. Pournelle seems to have mellowed, flood in 1957 that killed 80 people convinced enough to big cities to take advantage of air, perhaps because he was among friends. After Valencianos to move the river safely to the rail, and highway connections and hotel the panel as we were leaving I asked Harry south of the city, and its former bed was filled facilities. In Roman times, the town was known what if there is no one ahead of us and we are by a 6.5 km-long park with gardens, sports as Quartum Miliarium or “Fourth Milestone,” the time travelers just going forward? His facilities, playgrounds, sculptures, and so the 31st Hispacón was called Quartumcón, Alexiad February 2014 Page 11 following the tradition of giving the in the 1980s. She said writing there often created by Ángel Benito Gastañaga (Sportula) conventions historic alternate names. Quart de focuses on social and political themes and on Best Audiovisual Production: Los Poblet featured the quiet charm of a small traditional mythology, and named important Verdhugos, a podcast by Miquel Codony, Elías town, with pleasant little restaurants and, writers and their works country by country. Combarro, Josep María Oriol and Pedro above all, bars that appreciated extra At a panel that I moderated, Lola Robles Román customers. Taking a break to visit the “Bar- and María Concepcíon Regueiro spoke about Best Comic: Espinas [Thorns] by Santiago con” became an ongoing joke. women in the genre. Only about one-tenth of Eximeno and Angel Manuel Sánchez Crespo The convention enjoyed the presence of the genre writers in Spain are female, while in (The End 2012) five guests of honor with long careers in the English-speaking world they are about one- Best Poem: “Quiero comerme tu máscara writing and publishing: Juan Miguel Aguilera, third. The men at the talk found this de gas” [“I Want to Gobble Up Your Gas Rafael Marín, Juanma Santiago, José Carlos regrettable, and Rafael Marín also mentioned Mask”] by Santiago Eximeno (Groenlandia Samoza, and Luis Vigil. As usual the the lack of women writers in his talk. But 14) Hispacón became a chance to renew women are not encouraged to be authors in Best Magazine: Delirio [Delirium] friendships and occasionally talk business. In Spain of any sort of literature, so the problem (Biblioteca del Laberinto). I will have a story general, the convention focussed on books and does not seem to have an easy solution. in an upcoming edition. writers, probably due to the short organizing Up to four tracks of programming went on Best Website: La Tercera Fundación [The time that made film or musical presentations at once, almost all of them dedicated to authors Third Foundation] by Los Conseguidores at difficult. Writers are always willing to flog and writing, and most of them running over, so tercerafundacion.net their work. sessions rarely started on time. On Saturday Best Foreign Short Story: “El zoo de papel” Rafael Marín opened the convention with afternoon, fans of the Aznar Saga, a 59-novel [“The Paper Menagerie”] by Ken Liu (Terra a presentation about the birth of fandom in series published in the 1950s and 1970s about Nova) Spain and the history of Hispacóns. They the deeds of the Aznar family in space, held Best Foreign Novel: La ciudad y la ciudad began in 1969 when isolated fans discovered their own mini-convention, the 15th Aznarcón, [The City & The City] by China Miéville (La each other, and national conventions were which I didn’t visit but said hello to the many Factoría de Ideas) held sporadically until 1991, when they friends as they went past. In addition, author The Domingo Santos Award for best became annual. Sofía Rhei hosted two writing workshops, one unpublished short story, selected by a jury, was He was followed by a talk by Luis Vigil, for children on Friday evening and one for presented to “Remolinos de viento coloreado” one of the founders of the award-winning adults on Sunday morning, which I did not [“Colored Whirlwinds”] by José David magazine Nueva Dimensión. It was the first attend but her usual enthusiasm and energy Espasandín García and to “Artículo 45.1" professional-minded publication in Spain, and apparently made them successes. [“Article 45.1"] by Aitor Solar Azcona. from 1968 to 1983 it established the genre and A dinner on Saturday evening included the Finally, the Gabriel Award was presented provided an outlet for writers, critics, and presentation of awards – a dinner limited, by officers of AEFCFyT for valuable artists. This was during the Franco incidentally, to 73 people because that was the contributions to the genre. It went to authors dictatorship, and “censorship was very brutal,” most that the largest restaurant in Quart de Juan Miguel Aguilera and Javier Redal for Vigil said. The pages containing the humorous Poblet could hold. But in keeping with the opening Akusa-Puspa, the location of their story “Gu ta gutarrak” [“We and Our Own”] intent to hold an economical convention, the novels and short stories, to other writers. by Magdalena Mouján Otaño had to be dinner cost only €15. Then we hurried to get back to the subway removed from Issue 14 in 1970 because The Ignotus Awards, named after an early before it closed for the night to get to our hotel. censors thought it encouraged Basque 20th-century Spanish writer, are given out by nationalism, although it was eventually printed AEFCFyT and are nominated and voted on by Sunday, December 15 after Franco died. Still, Vigil said, serious its members and convention attendees. The Valencia — Quart de Poblet — Valencia — topics could be breached in the magazine award is a black monolith, a small version of Madrid because “it was possible to evade censorship the one that appears in the movie 2001: A by talking about dictatorships – in the future.” Space Odyssey. The 2013 winners: My first order of business on Sunday In addition, the magazine’s copier could be Best Novel: El mapa del tiempo [The Map morning was to attend the annual assembly of used at night to print pamphlets for resistance of Time] by Felix J. Palma (Plaza & Janés) AEFCFyT, since I’m a member. Among other groups. Best Novella: “Osfront” by Eduardo items, we approved bids for upcoming Juanma Santiago spoke about young adult Vaquerizo, José Ramón Vázquez and Santiago Hispacóns. The 2014 convention will be books and how they might serve as a gateway Eximeno (Ediciones del cruciforme) organized by the fan group Colectivo Urânik in to adult readership in the genre. José Carlos Best Short Story: “Neo Tokio Blues” by autumn at Montcada i Reixach, a suburb of Samoza discussed writers and electronic José Ramón Vázquez (Prospectivas) (Salto de Barcelona – another small-town site where the books. Página) event will be organised in collaboration with Rafael Marín and Juan Miguel Aguilera Best Anthology: Terra Nova. Antología de the municipality and possibly with read from and commented on the anthology ciencia ficción contemporánea [Terra Nova: programming tracks in Catalan, the local Más allá de Némesis [Beyond Nemesis], an Anthology of Contemporary Science Fiction] language. The 2015 convention will be held in anthology set in the same location as several edited by Mariano Villarreal and Luis Pestarini Granada. novels and short stories by Aguilera and Javier (Sportula). I helped translate it into English, Sunday morning ended with a series of Redal. Akasa-Puspa, an imaginary globular and you can buy it from Amazon and talks, including one by Andrés Aragoneses, a cluster orbiting the Milky Way Galaxy, was Smashwords. It was a best-seller in Spanish physicist, who explained how Einstein’s theory opened for use by other writers for the and achieved a record number of Ignotus of relativity and science fiction do not always anthology. nominations. coincide. In the closing presentation, Finally Marín, Aguilera, Vigil and Carlos Best Non-Fiction Book: La ciencia ficción Concepción Cascajosa discussed the history of Frabetti, all of whom have been writing for de Isaac Asimov [The Science Fiction of Isaac the genre on television and suggested that decades, discussed how “Les Enfants Terribles Asimov] by Rodolfo Martínez (Sportula) series like Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Get Older.” Best Article: “Ciencia-Ficción en español” and X-Files were more innovative than Tanya Tymjälä, a Peruvian writer now [“Science Fiction in Spanish”] by Fernando programs based on conventional realism. living in Finland, spoke about Latin American Angel Moreno (Prospectivas) (Salto de Página) Since we were taking the late train out, after writers and the boom in genre literature there Best Illustration: Cover art for Terra Nova goodbyes, my husband and I spent the Page 12 February 2014 Alexiad afternoon exploring Valencia again. We saw dinosaurs still roamed a cooling Earth and the undisturbed by crass reality. Santiago Calatrava’s Exposition Bridge over last of the old Pulp Magazines were still I read the book. the Turia Gardens at the south end of the clinging desperately to life… there wasn’t It was, not to put too fine a point on it, Cuitat Vella, wandered through the extensive much in the way of fanzines for the young bloody awful. It was Bad. It was so Bad that and beautiful Royal Gardens, then ambled up beginner to refer to, and certainly no fan the light from Merely Mediocre took 27 years the Turia Gardens to our hotel, pausing to activity of any sort in the little Oregon hamlet to reach it. I don’t know who I stole that gag watch an exhibition scrimmage of the where I had my being. In fact, aside from the from, but it seemed so appropriate that I had to Valencia Giants, an American-style football occasional arrival of the odd Ace paperback in appropriate it. team. Who knew that Spaniards played the revolving rack down at Hartwell’s General To begin with, Austin J. Small seemed to be gridiron ball? Store (“We Match City Prices, Please Don’t stuck in the old Penny Dreadfuls of the 1890s, Then we took the subway to the high- Tease the Dog”), there was damn little in the although The Avenging Ray was published in speed train station and were back home by 9 way of science fiction to be found. 1930. His hero is, of course, a young British p.m. Finally, an esteemed grade school art aristocrat, with a title, and a “living,” and a teacher bestowed on me a cardboard carton of stellar record in the Great War, a former Distance traveled: 650 kilometers/400 miles, Fantastic Adventures and Startling Stories, boxing and cricket champion at the ‘Varsity, plus local commutes. most dating from several years before, and I etcetera, etcetera, (insert all the other late- Books brought home from the welcome suspect that it was in the microscopic classified Victorian hero stereotypes here), a clean-living, pack: the anthologies Perspectivias; Terra ads in the back pages of those gaudy-covered, manly young chap who prefers shooting, Nova II; Vintage ´62; Fabricantes de Sueños aromatic, ragged-edged old pulps that I finally fishing, boxing, cricket and even a day’s ratting 2009; the novel Señores del Olimpo by Javier became aware there were other places to feed with his little terrier, Mack, to the giddy whirl Negrete; the special-edition chapbooks “El my habit. of Society. His name (let it be admitted and paso del Rhin” by Carlos Sáiz Cidoncha and There were actual science-fiction book then mercifully forgotten), is Geoffrey Fitzalan “CTC” by Juan Miguel Aguilera; and the dealers advertising their wares, and I risked Windermaine. He has somehow managed to comic El niño que ama la crema de some 3-cent stamps to write to their old evade marriage to all the titled young damsels espárragos by Toni y Miguel. addresses; and, mirabile dictu, some of them being pushed at him by doting titled mothers, Unique refreshments enjoyed: A couple of actually sent me their catalogs! There was but he just happens, while visiting the Typical servings of Valencian paella, made as it Fantasy Collector and several others of that ilk, Bluff Country Squire Friend in the English should be with both chicken and rabbit. And a within whose crudely-Mimeographed pages I Moors, to encounter the simple country bottle of Er Boquerón beer from Xàtiva, a city could browse for the cheap paperbacks and heroine, Rosaine, who breaks through all his south of Valencia, with ingredients including pulp appearances of A. Merritt … my favorite bachelor defenses at one glance from her saucy Mediterranean sea water – hoppy and just author at the time … offered at prices that in blue-violet eyes. In fact, Small doesn’t seem to slightly salty. those distant days seemed steep to a grade- go much below her eyes. Aside from a hasty schooler, but that would lead to mass reference to “delicious feminine perfections,” stampedes and bloodshed today. he hardly admits that she has any anatomy at all Hardback books, however, were more to the south of her “sweet, pointed little chin.” expensive… some cost two whole dollars or Ah, but there is a Mystery about her. Of more! And the OLD hardbounds . . . well, course there is, otherwise the book would only forget about those. be 20 pages long. One title that I saw listed repeatedly was It seems the moors are haunted by some The Avenging Ray, by one Austin J. Small. I Lurking Horror. Small assures us of this, in so wondered about that book. Ray guns, I many words. He does so repeatedly, even when assumed. Lurid space battles, with rock- the evidence cited seems entirely absent, or chinned heroes and buxom heroines in brass merely “deucedly odd.” brassieres, fighting the inevitable Evil Overlord Said Lurking Horror seems somehow with unthinkable weapons created by a kindly associated with a gigantic, sinister, silent old scientist. figure, something like Lurch in “The Addams Eventually, however, graduation from high Family,” who goes stomping about the moors school, searching for work, enlisting the the Air at all hours of the day or night. The country Force and doing fire lookout duty for the US folk refer to him as “the Mad Scientist,” even Forest Service in between winter stints at the U though there has never been any indication of O, on Uncle Sam’s GI Bill . . . all gradually whatever of his association with Science, Mad pushed my childhood enthusiasms to the or otherwise. He is simply labeled “the Mad background. Scientist” from the first, which saves the author Occasionally over the years, I would run no end of tedious exposition. across a stray reference to The Avenging Ray, Well, one thing Small does that seems at although I never followed up on any of them… least somewhat original is that his Mad Until a couple of weeks ago, when I was Scientist, Carlos Damien, is also a religious browsing through an antique shop in Coburg, fanatic, who is intent upon punishing the one of the more interesting small towns in Wickedness of Man by destroying the Earth THE AVENGING RAY; Oregon … and there, among a shelf of other with his Decohesizer and Degravitator rays, or, Vengeance Indefinitely The Crime Club, Inc. titles, was The Avenging which seem to combine the science involved in Deferred Ray! Tesla’s early hydroelectric generators and the By Austin J. Small I should have left it there. After all, it cost primitive fluoroscope that old-fashioned Reviewed by Walt Wentz seven whole dollars now. But I was feeling country doctors powered from the coil of their flush and didn’t want to leave the shop empty- Model Ts. Way back in the Old Stone Age, when I handed, my childhood curiosity came back with I know you are simply champing at the bit first got interested in science fiction… this a rush, so I splurged and bought it. Childhood to get to the climax of the story, so, after a lot was in the mid-1950s, you understand, when fantasies are best cherished as they are, left of mucking about with various Lurking Alexiad February 2014 Page 13

Horrors, the hero makes an attempt to shoot Steven H Silver, 707 Sapling Road, Opuntia #270 December 2013, #271 January down the attacking madman (somewhat Deerfield, IL 60015-6939 2014 hampered by the fact that the author Dale Speirs, Box 6830, Calgary, Alberta apparently cannot decide whether his hero is Askance #30 T2P 2E7 CANADA armed with a “revolver” or an “automatic”), John Purcell, 3744 Marilene Circle, but whatever it is, it is equipped with both College Station, TX 77845-3926 USA The Reluctant Famulus #97 “clips” and “chambers” and fires seven shots, [email protected] Thomas D. Sadler, 305 Gill Branch Road, which fortuitously have no effect upon said Owenton, KY 40359- USA madman, as Carlos, as is later revealed, just Beyond Bree December 2013, January 2014 [email protected] happens to be wearing a chain-mail jerkin Nancy Martsch, Post Office Box 55372, http://www.efanzines.com under his ulster. Sherman Oaks, CA 91413-5372 USA This respite allows the Mad Scientist to [email protected] Trap Door #30 capture and bind our hero, and then subject http://www.cep.unt.edu/bree.html Robert Lichtman, 11037 Broadway him to the cruel torture of a long-winded Not available for The Usual; $15/year, $20 Terrace, Oakland, CA 94611-1948 exposition of his nefarious plot in his Secret foreign, $10/year electronic. [email protected] Lair, concealed behind a waterfall deep within mysterious caverns. The Drink Tank #361, #362, #363, #365 WORLDCON BIDS Of course, it seems that all is lost. But I Christopher J. Garcia won’t spoil the ending for you. Of course the [email protected] 2016 Mystery about the delicious Rosaine, which http://www.efanzines.com Beijing bids fair to keep the young lovers apart, is http://www.guokr.com/zone/worldcon/ finally revealed … although the explanation of Chris has announced that the Tenth Annish Year of the Fire Monkey said Mystery was, ever since page 17, about as of The Drink Tank, Issue 400, will be the last. obvious to the reader as a long-dead whale Oh no! Where will all the fanzine energy go? Kansas City being towed down a busy thoroughfare on a http://kansascityin2016.org/ hot summer day. Fadeaway #39 According to his online biography, Austin Robert Jennings, 29 Whiting Road, Oxford, Proposed Dates: August 18-22. J. Small committed suicide in 1929, the year MA 01540-2035 USA before this book was published. At least, by [email protected] 2017 that simple expedient, he mercifully escaped http://www.efanzines.com Helsinki the reviewers. http://helsinkiin2017.org/ File 770: 163 Mike Glyer, 1507 ½ S. Sixth Avenue, Japan Arcadia, CA 91006-4359 USA http://nippon2017.org/ [email protected] http://file770.com Proposed Dates: sometime in August Fish Out of Water #559, #560 Montréal Marty Helgesen, 11 Lawrence Avenue, Malverne, New York 11565-1406 USA Washington DC http://dc17.org/ It Goes on the Shelf #35 November 2013 Cuyler “Ned” Brooks. 4817 Dean Lane, Proposed Dates: August 16-20 Lilburn, GA 30047-4720 USA [email protected] 2018 http://home.sprynet.com/~nedbrooks/home.htm New Orleans http://neworleansin2018.org Journey Planet #18 http://www.efanzines.com San José The Life of Rodney Year 65 #1 2019 Rodney Leighton, 11 Branch Road, R. R. Dublin #3, Tatmagouche, Nova Scotia, B0K 1V0 http://dublin2019.com/ CANADA Paris Luna! Ten https://sites.google.com/site/parisin2019/ C. D. Carson, Post Office Box 1035, Fort Worth, TX 76101-1035 2020 [email protected] New Zealand http://nzin2020.org/ MT Void V. 32 #23 December 6, 2013 — V. 32 #31 January 31, 2014 Bids under consideration include: Mark and Evelyn Leeper, 80 Lakeridge 2021 Drive, Matawan, NJ 07747-3839 USA North Texas [email protected] 2022 FANZINES [email protected] Chicago http://leepers.us/mtvoid Argentus #13 Thanks to Mike Glyer for the updates. Page 14 February 2014 Alexiad

damage caused to vehicles by fixes which did Yet I cannot see myself leaving this place – Letters, we get letters not last. Very few people try to sue city hall for I think that too much of Africa are in my soul. damages – Even if you get any, you will wait a Nelson Mandela has died. I suppose the very long time for your money. world will come and tell us how much he has But it does look if this shook up city hall a meant – mostly as a symbol. But I cannot agree bit, as I can see that small potholes are – Maybe too long a time where he was the generally fixed faster than before. Large symbol of the enemy. Maybe the belief that he potholes, on the other hand, are a different pissed away a huge amount of goodwill, setting story. the stage for today’s divided South Africa. And In 2008 we had major power shortages, with maybe no man could ever have lived up to the regular scheduled and unscheduled blackouts. expectations, even though he often got given And the gold mines shut down production for praise for things that in most decent people the first time since the Anglo-Boer war. At the would have been taken for granted. time one of the responses to the problem was to But this now is the past – and that is a authorize the building on three major coal fired different country. From: AL du Pisani December 11, 2013 power plants. (This was after about a decade Tolling on the main roads in Johannesburg 9 4 5 G r a n d P r i x S t r e e t , where government refused to authorize the got implemented on 3 December. A very odd Weltevredenpark 1709, REPUBLIC building of power plants, as they had something time, just before the summer holidays, and OF SOUTH AFRICA else in mind – which never came off.) before the elections. I have no idea when the [email protected] In my last letter I mentioned that the first of elections will be held – As South Africa uses a these are six months behind schedule. I have modified Parliamentary system, requiring While it gets warmer from mid-August since found out that the six month slip was only elections every five years, at either the onwards, and the first blossoms and flowers the latest in a series of slips, and that the power discretion of the President, or if he loses a are already around by 1 September, in plant is actually three years behind schedule. It motion of “No confidence” in parliament. Next Johannesburg Spring only starts with the rains. was supposed to be in full production now. We year will be 20 years since the ANC came to The rains should start falling from about 10 are currently hoping that the first portion will power. And I have no idea what will happen. October, and continue often until late start producing power by late next year. The There are a lot of divisions in the ANC, and February to mid-March. Once the rains fall, other five portions to start producing power more and more blacks are either speaking out the dust gets washed off the vegetation. And later. publicly against the ANC, or organizing at the Jacarandas start to bloom – giving the We have already had one major scare as to local level for alternatives. colours of spring in Johannesburg – light availability of electricity. And I have had a My expectation is that the ANC will win an green and purple. couple of unplanned power outages at home, election, but at a lower level than previously. Pretoria is the place to see lots of each lasting a couple of hours, taking out a With more small parties emerging from the Jacarandas, as the entire city center has loads couple of suburbs. It looks as if this is going to woodwork. Yet I do not know if the main of Jacarandas. But Johannesburg has even continue, and get worse, before it gets better. opposition, the DA, will gain much. more, but they are interspersed, and you do And if some of what I hear is true, the better I have had in many ways a bad year SF not see them en masse. But I like the mix of is not going to last. See, for a coal fired power wise. I had to work too often on days when we colours a lot better, here in Johannesburg. The plant you need a certain amount of coal every have been having meetings, and had to skip all Jacaranda is magnificent during the about two so often. And it looks as if the mines to provide or most of the meetings. And the books I have months that it is in bloom, very nondescript that coal are not being dug. This is for two been finding have mostly not engaged me. I for the rest of the year. And very messy while reasons: Government has a preference for new have had to change my daily schedule to in bloom – it keeps dropping flowers to the (black owned) junior mining owners. Which in accommodate a little bit of reading. Yet the ground, where they become slippery hazards many cases lacks the capital to proceed. And most important change has simply been to to be avoided. government changed the way mining rights replace one light bulb, from one that started out A lot of the rains come in the form of the work during the past decade. (Essentially bright and quickly faded, to one that stayed late afternoon thunderstorm, arriving at about stealing mining rights from the owners of the bright, in my bed lamp. This allowed me to 16h30, and over by 18h00. This buggers up land.) This change over have introduced a large read for a while longer. the afternoon rush hour. In Pretoria they amount of uncertainty into the system. It did not I am slowly getting back my groove, not talked about this as the civil servants’ rain, as help that the changeover was neither smooth that I had much, but I had lost a bit of what I government office hours are 08h00 until nor transparent. Which leaves the larger mining had. Regaining it is proving to be a bit elusive. 16h30. houses with the option to develop new mines in In any case, I am soon to be off for a decent With the rain come potholes. other parts of the world, an option which they holiday with my family. This should provide Johannesburg is still spending a lot less than have exercised. some recharge for the year ahead. they should in road maintenance and Associated with this has been labour unrest, rehabilitation. Having a policy of a small a government which is wedded to February 1, 2014 quota of money to be spent per Apartheid era socialist/communist economic ideas, and white suburbs, and everything else budgeted to organized labour trying extremely hard to price Greetings from a warm and wet be spent on Apartheid era black suburbs and themselves out of the market. As a result, Johannesburg. townships. This means that the roads in the business have scaled down as far as they can, Summer is our rain season. This year there old white suburbs have not had enough and are switching wholesale to less labour was an interruption for most of January, with maintenance for the past twenty years, and the intensive methods of production. Which is why little rain falling in Johannesburg, and for that, old black suburbs have new roads, most of the official unemployment figures of 25% are for much of the rest of the country. It was just which are less than twenty years old. believed to be really 40%. swelteringly hot. Some humidity, but for weeks A couple of years ago a local short term And in the very areas where there are jobs on end no rain. But it started raining again insurance company tried to fix potholes, as the (servants, domestic workers and gardeners), recently, and we can expect intermittent rain official city response to potholes was so poor. government have decided that the work is for the next two months. And then the long dry They had to abandon this after six months, demeaning, and are trying to price and regulate winter months are upon us. since the company became liable for any it away. Not the recipe for success. I took a decent vacation over the Christmas Alexiad February 2014 Page 15 season this year – I had not expected to, but expensive. And to some extent collusion hours of operation, and extending the network, then things at work worked out this way. I between the two biggest mobile operators has with 5 options listed. (One of which will be went down to Hartenbos to the family shack resulted in voice and data rates that are still relatively close to where I live.) by the sea, and eventually all of my near overpriced, but becoming less so over time. And it has been giving my sister who lives family joined there. It was a very nice holiday, We have two fixed line operators in South in Pretoria a nice outing, every couple of but almost all I can remember doing was Africa. Telkom and Neotel. Telkom is the months. She lets me know in advance that she reading and sleeping. I came back to face the incumbent, with a very large amount of cables is coming in, and I go and meet her at one of year mostly rested. Unfortunately with a small in the ground, a very unionised workforce, and the stations. There is an entire network of malls illness than managed to spoilt the last couple since it is mostly owned by the government, and shops and other activities, where we meet of days of my holiday. enormous interference into making sure that the and talk and spend some time with each other. The toll roads are still with us. And people politically correct boxes are ticked. They are I have caught up a bit with reading, during are still unhappy about the tolls. The toll not very responsive to customer complaints, the past holiday. Almost all electronic books, management company has had to evacuate enquiries and advise. Also very slow to deliver except for a year's supply of Analogs. I have their headquarters twice because a suspicious services, especially if it is in the slightest way been subscribing to Analog for a decade now, white powder was found on the premises, and out of the ordinary. They are, however the and will not be renewing my subscription. The once because of a bomb threat. And common cheapest way of getting bulk data. problem started when I realised that I do not bumper stickers defiantly declares that they Neotel has concentrated in gaining business read Analog as it comes in, but let it all pile up refuse to pay tolls or get tagged for electronic customers, at a premium price. Since Telkom until I take a holiday, during which time I binge payment of tolls. have totally pissed off a lot of businesses, read the lot. Then, last year, I came to realise One side effect of this have been that the Neotel just has to be slightly more responsive, that almost all futures described was to some tolled roads are carrying significantly less at a similar price. Not very good at serving extent poverty stricken hellholes, with traffic than before tolling was implemented. retail customers, and not very competitive at sometimes nice people. Almost none of them Peak traffic is both shorter and less intense providing bulk data. Also, in talks to be taken were places where I wanted to spend a than before. How much of that is because over by one of the mobile operators, who seems significant amount of time. This year the people have found alternative roads, and how to be interested in them for backhaul capacity. experience was the same. I'll probably let the much of that is because people have made Most business working from home will need current subscription's issues pile up and read other arrangements, I do not know. I do expect some form of telecommunications, and the during my next holiday. But I am not renewing a future where more and more people work current environment are not desirable and my subscription. from home, as far as is possible. overpriced. However, given that for large portions of For instance, Telkom is the only supplier of Talking about movies like that, greater Johannesburg the city planning is still ADSL lines in the country. This are available in Roger Ebert the movie critic (but up to the 1920's idea of how modernity in connection speeds of up to 2 Mb/s, 4 Mb/s, 10 once he did fanzines, and he was a cities work, (as implemented from the 1950's) Mb/s (ADSL), 10 Mb/s (VDSL)and 20 friend of Bob Tucker) categorized with dormitory suburbs, the CBD, and an Mb/s(VDSL). VDSL use an entirely new that attitude as Orwell That industrial zone. (Even though to a large extent infrastructure and modems to the rest of the Ends Wells. reality have modified the implemented offerings, and is available in only a handful of — JTM reality.) I believe that to a very large extent a locations, covering about 1 000 clients. At the movement to work from home will happen lower connection speeds, you normally get More and more I realise that most of what against an entrenched city planning between 50% and 90% of the nominal most publishers are pushing are not books I am bureaucracy. connection speed. As an example, I have a line interested in reading. It has been compounded We have electricity supply issues, with with a nominal connection speed of 4 Mb/s, a by the local publishers removing the common threats from the main electricity supplier that maximum connection rate of 2.2 Mb/s, throttled (for at least the past 40 years) B format they will implement rationing should down to 400kb/s to 1.5 Mb/s during most of the paperback book from distribution, in favour of consumers not voluntary decrease electricity day, reaching the maximum connection speed the C format paperback, which is larger and use. And the main centrally planned solution only between midnight and 06h00 in the about 50% more expensive. I have one series in of new power stations are running at least morning. This is for a supposedly premium which I bought 9 of the 10 books. I cannot find three years behind schedule, only supposed to household account. the tenth book in the same size as the others. I start delivering electricity by year end. This Most people pay for lesser packages, limited refuse to pay more for a large format book, that can cause problems with increasing your use to 5, 10 or 30 GB of data per month. And more will not fit in with the rest of the series. of electricity at home, once you work there. than half of all South Africans do not use Great idea guys – you are losing money and Given that there is a very large movement Internet in any form, for anything. market to cheaper electronic books, and you towards solar and wind power, from some of Just about the only public transport system fight back by removing the cheapest available which I stand to benefit indirectly, but which, in Johannesburg that works with any consistent format of books, and asking your readers to pay I believe, are just an expensive boondoggle reliability is the Gautrain, and even so cable 50% more than they are used to for exactly the preventing a move to nuclear and other forms theft, water in the tunnels, and strikes by bus same book. Do you now understand why I have of electricity generation that will actually, you drivers are making it not entirely reliable. One written off the one book chain that used to see know, work and be predictable. I do not see a of the girls at the office used to take the me weekly, that I now only visit out of stable electricity supply situation anytime Gautrain to and from work. She gave it up, desperation, and when they have a sale on? soon. since taking the Gautrain was about an hour per I read, with varying degrees of interest, Telecommunications is also a large issue, trip longer than taking a car. And that is before some of the debates in the loccol. In most of especially fixed line infrastructure. Cellular is the incidents where she was informed that the the debates I am on the side of “Let's find out a an entirely different kettle of fish, mostly due bus drivers had gone on strike, and that she has little bit more, before we implement the to the fact that there are two large and two to find alternative transport home. Solution” Especially since most times the small companies in competition with each Yet lots of people do use the Gautrain. After Solution seems to be indistinguishable from other – resulting in voice communications at a about 4 years of operation the volumes of full blown Communism, with the elect as the reasonable price. Data is something else, with passengers are up to what they expected after new aristocracy, who will relieve you of all small monthly bundles available reasonably. 20 years. They have already started talking duty to think, since they will do it for you. Not (500 MB to 2 GB packages) Bulk data is very about buying extra rolling stock, expanding the a future I am interested in, thank you very Page 16 February 2014 Alexiad much. beating the bounds of genre. It seems to me I had just asked a zombie why he ate brains. Thank you for continuing to send me that the whole formulation is naïve and unaware Unfortunately, our technology promotes a Alexiad. It continues to show me glimpses of of our own reading processes. I’m getting tired solitary and sedentary lifestyle. Maybe I was a world to which I belong peripherally, yet to of being pushed back inside the crib. always prone to being sedentary, but which I remain too much of an outsider and Sue Burke’s explication of Spanish idioms technology allows me to remain motionless Odd to belong to fully. and equivalences with English idioms (p. 16) while using only a fraction of the energy I was highly entertaining and put me in mind of might otherwise expend. In order to keep my From: Bill Patterson December 17, 2013 the last (next to last?) American Comparative blood flowing, I go to the gym three times a Literature Association Conference I attended week. Even at the gym, I see people on I’m afraid Alexiad is getting short shrift and presented at (I think this was the New bicycling machines staring blankly at their these days. 12:5 arrived, and I read through it Orleans one, and I was in Vancouver the next smart phones. I don’t really believe the immediately, but when I started to LOC, I year, so next-to-last). For some reason machines are plotting to take over, but . . . found Mr. Gilliland’s remarks to me so vague CompLit types think this kind of translation and As far as who is the senior living SF writer and elliptical that I felt the need to re-read the equivalence of idiom is the core of CompLit, is concerned, Dave Kyle’s story in Stirring last two issues to figure out what the heck he while I’m more interested in studying Science Stories doesn’t count. He wasn’t paid was talking about. Harsh, aggressive, and development and change of genres over time — for it, so it isn’t a professional sale. Wollheim vague all at the same time! I am dazed in a subject that is not well studied in general but had an editorial budget of zero for Cosmic and admiration. has a lot of potential for development. The Poe Stirring. He only managed to produce the As I am really not set up to do archival panel I was put on the next year yielded some magazines by getting rejected stories from research for fanzines comments (most of the interesting stuff, particularly about translations regular pros and amateur efforts from his reading and writing gets done while waiting at of “The Black Cat” into Japanese (though the fit friends in the Futurians. So who is the senior bus stops which, in Los Angeles, can of my paper was not so good. The conference SF writer? It looks like Julian May. Her first sometimes involve significant amounts of organizers really don’t know what to do with a sale was “Dune Roller” in 1951. She has sold time), the writing of the loc got put off and put genre concentration). a fair amount of SF under several names. She off . . . upon which the copyedit for volume 2 has had one Hugo nomination (The Many of the Heinlein biography crashed onto my If you want to talk about an Colored Land) and chaired one worldcon. It desk. untranslatable story, there’s seems like Bob Silverberg ought to be the And 12.6 arrives during the middle of always Lawrence A. Perkins’s senior SF writer by now, but he was voted best galley proofs. So long as I can correct 1 or 2 “Come You Nigh: Kay Shuns” new writer in 1956. chapters a day I can make my deadline, but it (Analog, April 1970) where an Leigh Kimmel’s report on Lonestarcon requires me to keep punching at it, to the urgent message is enciphered by jogged my memory about one aspect of the exclusion of everything else. being done in mondegreens. convention. I think we have reached the I think I can offer a definitive answer to saturation point for mobility scooters. We are Darrell Schweitzer’s convention-panel topical Let me second the implication of John Hertz beginning to have in door traffic jams. I know question (p. 11): “when did Heinlein Go (p. 19) that Dorothy Sayers’s The Mind of the some people really need mobility scooters. Bad?” Maker is well worth reading. It’s one of those However there are also people who use them It really depends, of course, on what you critical favorites that would go in my “desert because they represent less effort. I think mean by “bad.” It you mean it in the island” chest (along with things like the people in the latter category should be Nietzschean sense in which Darrell Schweitzer Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Cities discouraged from using scooters. Worldcons is one of the “Good and the Just,” defending and the Wealth of Nations and one or another of represent more physical strain than any other the divinely ordained boundaries of genre as it Jane Jacobs’ other core-critical books — like cons I attend. At the end of the day, I’m came to be set in the 1950's, well, fine, if that The Nature of Economies, perhaps —) I tell completely tired out, and the calves of my legs floats your boat. It didn’t float Heinlein’s, and you, I would be prepared for a three-hour tour! hurt. I fear that’s just part of the worldcon in fact the Good and the Just of his own day experience. No pain, no fanac. are exactly the reason he stopped writing those Warner Brothers is working on ingratiating books and found good ways to be a Gilligan’s Island movie. I think From: Darrell Schweitzer Dec. 21, 2013 bad. this proves the conclusion of “The 6644 Rutland Street, Philadelphia, PA But if you have other definitions of “bad” Seven Deadly Sins of Gilligan’s 19149-2128 (and by implication “good”), your answer Island”: Gilligan is Satan! [email protected] might be “never,” but with a necessary — JTM qualification: “at some point he did stop Actually, contrary to Timothy Lane, this writing for genre-fans-who-can’t-tell-the- From: Milt Stevens October 25, 2013 past year was quite an important one for global difference-between-‘not-to-my-taste’-and-‘b 6325 Keystone Street, Simi Valley, CA warming science. The UN committee of many ad.’ I think that’s what you really meant to 93063-3834 USA nations (I forget how many) concluded, say.” [email protected] overwhelmingly, that the Earth is heating up Late in life we find Heinlein saying he has and humans are responsible. It was also the a personal goal of finding the toes God made In Alexiad V12 #5, Lisa begins the issue by year of superstorms. And of course it was one to be stepped upon and then doing Gods will talking about techy toys. I like techy toys, but of the hottest years on record, but then most with heartiness and cheer. (He didn’t really I stop short of loving techy toys. I know there years are anymore. Lane seems to be say much of that; I paraphrase liberally, to is a whole generation of plug and play completely delusional at this point. Global capture the emotional truth — a practice I convention attendees who will go into geekish warming is an issue that every national on cannot indulge in biography and so am arrest if they are deprived of free WiFi. At Earth is now dealing with in various ways. Yes, somewhat starved of . . . but when LASFS, there are members who come to the big chunks of the Antarctic ice sheet are opportunity for such a satisfying “low flying club every week only to stare at a computer breaking off at a record rate. There are global cheap shot” is presented on silver salver — or screen. I asked one of them why he bothered to warming stories in the news almost every day. paper, at any rate . . . ). come to the club to do something he could do I don’t find any specifically today (Dec 20th, I have to say that I doubt the just as well at home. He explained that he was 2013). The closest is a story about the worthwhileness of the entire project, here, of a geek. That gave me an unsettling feeling as if discovery of diamond-bearing rocks in Alexiad February 2014 Page 17

Antarctica, which are at present in a As for the nature of Islam, Lane seems to from the Astounding serial, is improved permanently frozen area. But of course it may have swallowed the Al Qaeda propaganda line thereby.) It is clear, as we can see from the bad, not be so permanently frozen in another in its entirety. Yes, Islam does have a World of uncut version of The Puppet Masters that came twenty or thirty years. I am sure Lane thinks War and a World of Islam, etc. etc. That is all out later, that Heinlein always needed this sort this is all part of a liberal conspiracy, even as true. However, millions of the world’s Muslims of tight discipline. Panshin put it best when he the UN is a liberal conspiracy, and the liberals just get on with their lives and take their said that Heinlein went bad when he stopped (who are supermen, after all) seem to have religion about as seriously as American telling stories and started to preach. Once the taken over every government on the planet, so Republicans take the teachings of Jesus. But length restrictions were off, and particularly as to delude everyone about climate change. Osama Bin Laden very much wanted everyone when Heinlein could no longer be edited at all It’s not surprising that Lane is opposed to to believe that there was a war to the death (the bestseller syndrome) he went bad. I think green energy, and would rather get rid of wind between Islam and the infidel West. If the West in the long-run his reputation may stand on farms and go back to more polluting forms of accepts this, then Al Qaeda wins, because that only a very few works, and he may not seem energy, rather than try to solve the bird-kill makes them orthodox and the inspired leaders quite the towering figure he was to the Baby problem. (People are trying to solve it.) The of all righteous Muslims. I point out that the Boom generation. I was in a Barnes & Noble wind-farms are not going away. I was on a Old Testament contains all sorts of horrific the other day, and as I usually do, I made a train between London and Paris not all that things, but modern Jews do not go around quick survey of what classic SF authors were long ago, and I saw modern windmills across condoning slavery or stoning adulteresses and still on the shelves. They had scads of both the English and the French countryside. homosexuals. Religions do change, even Islam. Lovecraft and Dick, and a good deal of I have never been in France before, but the As we used to say about Communists, ignore Bradbury. No Clarke at all. Only two last time I was in rural England, I saw no such what they say and watch what they do. I Heinleins, an unabridged Stranger in a Strange things. watched my Turkish sister-in-law cook Land and Red Planet. Somebody who knows As the ice-caps disappear, the liberals must porkchops. little about SF and discovers Heinlein browsing be doing something with all that ice. It’s far in that store may not perceive him as very more than they need for cocktails at elite And yet this vast majority of important. But hopefully they picked up Red parties. This remains a mystery. moderate Muslims seems curiously Planet first. Global warming is as real as evolution or silent about this. To answer Sue Burke’s question about who gravity. Real scientists deal with it, whatever was not allowed to take their children when their disciplines, not just the climate By the way, the reason that Yahweh in the expelled from Ferdinand & Isabella’s Spain, it science(who are 99% arrayed against Timothy old testament does not command conversions is possible that I am simply wrong and have Lane). Biologists note the shifts in the range by force, is that the Jewish religion was an misremembered something, but I think some of species. My brother the eminent exclusive tribal religion for Jews only. They historians have made the same error. It is entomologist tells me now that European rarely took converts, and did not send out entirely possible they were confusing the plight hornets (like yellow jackets, only three times missionaries. But there were forced conversions of Jews with that of Spanish Muslims. This as large), which were rare when we were kids, during the Hasmonean period. Herod the great from Justin Wintle’s The Timeline History of are now quite a problem for him in southern was an Idumean, a descendant of people Islam: New Jersey. (These critters apparently like a forcibly converted by John Hyrcanus in the 2nd warmer clime. I saw them in their native century BC. The reason he was so useful to the 1501. . .. Isabella of Castille orders the habitat in Tuscany.) In his line of work, he Romans is that he was Jewish enough to be expulsion of all Muslims who refuse to otherwise just records the incidence of minimally acceptable to the Jews, but he had no convert to Christianity from her southern species as they move north with the local sympathy for Judea. The Pharisees did not kingdom and imposes a heavy departure warming climate. An epidemiologist of course accept him however, which was also the source fine on emigrants, who are also has a very different job, and now must deal of much conflict, and probably why the forbidden to take their children with with tropical diseases in temperate zones. Herodian house has gotten such bad press ever them. Many Moors opt to convert and Civil engineers now have to plan better sea since. remain in Spain, although this exposes walls to protect low-lying areas, before we As for the question of when and why them to the watchful eye of the lose New Orleans, or even parts of Manhattan. Heinlein went bad, I don’t think it was so much Inquisition. (pp. 244-45) There are vast implications for agriculture. that he needed a strong personality to argue That’s quite some liberal hoax . . . Of with, but that the strictures of the science fiction P. 3. No, Joe Lansdale was not the author of course John Grant’s Denying Science market in the 1940s and ‘50s prevented him the first authorized Tarzan pastiche. Fritz documents who the global warming deniers from getting too self-indulgent. When he was Leiber’s novel Tarzan and the Valley of Gold are, why they are spreading these lies, and writing for Astounding, there were fairly severe (1966) was fully authorized and was officially who is paying them. This is old news. In the space restrictions. An Astounding story could volume 25 in the Tarzan series, as released by real world, we leave Mr. Lane in his fantasy not have stood for a hundred pages of Ballantine. bubble and get on with solutions to the long-winded chatter. Pulps demanded pacing. p. 12. I do not understand your comment problem. When your house is burning down, In the good old days, Heinlein was a master of about Bradbury at all. Is “Mr. Munigant” you do not stop to argue with someone who this. The book market of the 1950s was not possibly a garbled reference to the illustrator doesn’t believe in fire. much different. The Doubleday science fiction Joe Mugnaini? How did he effect the quality of line was sold mostly to libraries, as what Bradbury wrote? No, what I think Due to global warming, the MV semi-juveniles. You will remember them with happened is that Bradbury hit a few notes very Akademik Schokalskiy has been the “atomic” sticker on the spine for SF, placed well, and then went stale repeating himself, stuck in the dwindling Antarctic in the same section with Winston juveniles. writing, in particular, about childhood, and a ice pack off of Wilkes Land, while That meant that books like The Puppet Masters few standard images and scenarios derived two powerful icebreakers were or Double Star could only be about 60,000 from pulp science fiction. He became, as unable to even reach the ship and words long. No 400-page bloat books, larded someone put it, a professional 11-year-old, they had to call in the old USCGS with lecture. (This size restriction was not which is harder and harder to do as you get Polar Star (WAGB-10) to do the always a good thing. I am not sure that the older. His science fiction ideas did not grow job. Doubleday version of Clement’s Mission of either. He wrote imitations of himself. I note Gravity, which is cut by about 20,000 words that among his later stories, most of the better Page 18 February 2014 Alexiad ones are mainstream, and about adults. In by surprise, but then, NOBODY standard, so I wonder how an US return to it these he was drawing fresh material from life, expects the Spanish Inquisition! would affect our trading relations with the rest rather than self-pastiching. — JTM of the world. When the US was last on this standard, if Which was the point Damon From: Brad W. Foster December 26, 2013 memory serves, we pegged gold at $35 to the Knight made about Bradbury, Post Office Box 165246, Irving, TX ounce. Currently, I see, gold is valued on the using Bradbury’s story about the 75016-5246 USA (non-arbitrary but constantly changing) market man who was terrified to know he [email protected] at around $1,200 an ounce. Is this the price had a skeleton in him, until a little http://www.jabberwockygraphix.com gold would be fixed at? Also, am I right in guy named Mr. Munigant offered remembering that when we were on the gold to crawl down his throat and eat Taking a break from the holiday stuff to standard, there were laws requiring that only it, turning him into a blob. catch up on things fannish today. With so many the Federal government could own gold? — JTM splits in family groups spread around the Looking at the article in Wikipedia on “The country, this year we ended up with having Gold Standard” didn’t tell me if my memory is December 22, 2013 three days of Christmas, to be able to get right. together with different groupings. So far, two Well, I’ve done what I can to keeping the I wrote to you a day too early, obviously, down, only one more to go. Like getting to see letter column humming with my (probably) because yesterday (December 20th) was a rare all these folks, but does kind of cut into the time naive thinking. You can thank me later. day on which there was no actual global schedule! warming news. Today we are back to normal. From: Alexis A. Gilliland Dec. 23, 2013 This from the BBC: Europe’s Cyrosat reports In spite of going going going all 4030 8th Street South, Arlington, VA that there has actually been a bounce-back in Christmas Eve and Day, I managed 22204-1552 USA the amount of Arctic sea ice retained this year, to miss two family parties where http://www.alexisgilliland.org which seems a fluctuation. We are cautioned we would have been welcome. against reading too much into it. The level is — JTM Thank you for Alexiad 12.6, which arrived still the lowest in thirty years. In a related more or less on the winter solstice, bringing story, Antarctic ice continues to melt at a Oh, first, new little toon attached. As per tidings of if not comfort and joy, at least the record, and accelerating rate. Western usual, if you don’t care for it, just let me know. usual. In his Reviewers Notes Joe says that he Antarctica is now dumping 150 cubic Otherwise, will watch to see it used, then send “can’t read the more readable stuff.” From kilometers of ice into the sea every year, fresh! context I think he meant to say that he finds the which represents a 15% rise in the region’s And glad I have at least that to send. Read more popular stuff unreadable, a reflection of contribution to sea level rise. In a sidebar to the whole issue, but have no notes at all as far the fact that the tastes of the rising audience are that, we read that melting polar ice has added as any feedback for you. My brain must be different than his own. The younger generation 11 millimeters to global sea levels over the numbed from all the turkey and eggnog. I’ll try may or may not be going to hell in a hand past two decades. That doesn’t seem a whole to do better next issue, I promise! basket but Joe can properly deplore their taste lot, but “accelerating” is the operative word in literature. here. You and I may still have time to see New From: Jerry Kaufman December 29, 2013 With apologies to Rodney Leighton, I feel Orleans or Venice while they are above water. [email protected] more inclined to discuss global warming than Our great-grandchildren might not. Islam. Thus, the Intergovernmental Panel on Another insidious liberal plot, I am sure. Thanks for the last Alexiad of 2013. Best Climate Change (IPCC) recently issued its fifth wishes for the coming year. report since 1990. A report predicting a From: Evelyn Leeper December 22, 2013 I don’t have any comments about your three-foot rise in sea level by 2100, and saying [email protected] reviews this issue, so I’ll move on to one or two that there is a 95 percent chance that the things in the letter column. observed warming was caused by humans Darrell Schweitzer says he wrote only one Jim Stumm explains how television writers burning fossil fuel. A rebuttal has been issued alternate history (“The Last Heretic”), but will create original scripts when they run by the Nongovernmental International Panel on what about “Sweep Me to My Revenge!” in through adaptations of the stories or novels they Climate Change (NIPCC), a creature of The which (according to uchronia.net), “To settle started with. My remark about Perception Heartland Institute, described by the New York (or win) an academic dispute, a literature prof running out of material when the show works Times as the primary American institute goes back in time to avert Christopher through Oliver Sacks’ books was really a joke. promoting skepticism of climate change. That Marlowe’s mysterious death.” I don’t believe the show’s writers have given rebuttal, Climate Change Reconsidered II, a credit to Sacks for his recounting of various collection of arguments that I found http://www.uchronia.net/bib.cgi/label.html?id=schwsweepm cases he worked on, like in his collection The unpersuasive, is available on line, where it Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat. (I did a supports the 5-percent chance that humans are Schweitzer, Darrell. “Sweep Me to My brief search on Google to see if there was an blameless for the observed warming. Revenge!” explicit connection, but didn’t find anything.) For the sake of argument let us assume that Divergence: 1593 CE But so far almost all the neurological both the IPCC and the NIPCC may be acting Summary: To settle (or win) an academic disabilities, diseases, and deficits featured on from ulterior motives rather than seeking the dispute, a literature prof goes back in time to the show were highlighted in one of Sacks’ case objective scientific truth. So we ask: whose avert Christopher Marlowe’s mysterious studies. Once they run through Sacks, will the motives are the most ulterior in terms of death. writers have to do their own research? ideology and cold, hard cash? Generally as a Published: In Talebones #35 (Summer 2007). The discussion of the gold standard may group grows larger it will embrace more never end. No one responded to my question diverse ideologies, especially among its unpaid Secret MI5 papers stolen by about the best books to read on the subject, so volunteers. The NIPCC employs 31 editors and whistleblowers have revealed I continue to have thoughts on the subject senior fellow, with 222 volunteer advisors, that Marlowe was killed by Philip untrammelled by any deeper reading or while the IPCC has 195 members and of Spain’s inquisitorial agency knowledge. Wikipedia helpfully informed me thousands of volunteer advisors. Therefore the Muerte a Espias. They took him that there’s no nation currently on the gold IPCC seems less likely to be able to embrace a Alexiad February 2014 Page 19 coherent ideology that must be upheld against were fighting Smaug before he flies off to Swords would win out over Harry Potter and the evidence. What about money, then? The incinerate Lake Town at the end of TDoS. the Goblet of Fire. Voters are a fickle lot, IPCC says that since the start of the industrial However, even padded Tolkien is pretty especially since they tend to vote along the revolution humans have burned 0,5 trillion good, and the visuals were excellent even if, as, group mind instead of qualities like plot, tons of carbon and (since stopping at 0.5 and when they strayed from the book. Will I go themes, ideas, characterization, etc. You and I trillion ton would be impossible) recommends to part 3? Yes, although probably as a meet-up are preaching to the choir here, sadly, because that future emissions be kept below 1.0 trillion excursion. Will I buy the DVDs of the three those of us who inhabit traditional fandom — tons of carbon, drawn from estimated reserves movies? Not unless part 3 is really, really good. fanzines, conventions, and such — are a of 3.0 trillion tons. Assuming that the shrinking minority. Science Fiction is a huge scientific minions of IPCC are looking for I suspect that Tauriel won’t media industry now, so it doesn’t surprise me grants, fellowships and tenure, they have a make it out of the Battle of Five that the Hugo Awards have become stake of at most a few million dollars. The Armies. Which should please meaningless, although I am disappointed. All Heartland Institute of Chicago is a purists but hardly seems fair to along I have thought that SF fans were much conservative and libertarian 5Oi(c)(3) the character. more intelligent and independent than the nonprofit organization that does not disclose — JTM average K-Mart shopper. Guess I was wrong, its funding sources, but THI took in $4.7 especially since now so many K-Mart shoppers million in 2011. Previously it had worked with Best wishes, and, of course the Merriest of called themselves “science fiction fans.” The Phillip Morris to argue that smoking did not Christmases and the Happiest of New Years! problem is obviously definitional: literary cause health problems. Some funding appears science fiction fans vs. media science fiction (Greenpeace says) to have been provided by From: John Purcell December 31, 2013 fans, and the latter far out-number the former. the oil industry, which is looking at the distant 3744 Marilene Circle, College Station, prospect of leaving 2.0 trillion tons of carbon TX 77845-3926 USA What’s hot changes. In the on the table. The math is left as an exercise to [email protected] late nineteen-nineties, J. Michael the reader, but the oil industry working Straczynski ruled. LSC 2 goers through the Heartland Institute that funds the Well, Joe and Lisa, as calendar year 2013 were devastated when he couldn’t NIPCC has a vastly larger incentive to refute, winds down today, I believe I shall dash off a make it; in Baltimore next year he dispute, and misinterpret the scientific quick letter of comment to you while the filled an auditorium and they had evidence and is able to hire mercenaries Twilight Zone marathon plays in the to schedule a second speech. calling themselves scientists for chump background on the SyFy Channel. Sounds like Then Babylon Five ended, his next change. a good setup to me. series Crusade tanked, and he Again, the very conservative IPCC appears Lisa’s opening paragraph about the idiocy speedily became “Jay who?” less likely to follow the money rather than the of the holiday shopping season is one that I science. completely agree with. For me, it’s not only the There. That should garner some comments. By way of refuting of the “cultists of conspicuous consumption and the totally Onward to a couple other things in this issue. Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global materialistic nature of marketing strategies that Hey, I really liked that review of Worlds of Warming,” Tim Lane cites the weather of I don’t like, it’s the incessant Christmas music. Edgar Rice Burroughs edited by Mike Resnick 2013. On the other hand, yesterday was an The overkill of the same tunes over and over, and Robert T. Garcia. Those capsule reviews unseasonably warm 74 degrees, refuting his even when performed by dozens of different are good, and make me want to go out and find refutation, but weather is only a point on the singers in a dizzying array of styles and this book. It sounds like a fun collection of line of climate that proves little until like snow arrangements, drives me completely bonkers. It stories. Okay, fine: I’ll order it online. Sheesh, on a glacier, enough accumulates. Tim also has gotten to the point where I really don’t like the Internet takes all the fun out of offers a scientific speculation that the pause in any Christmas music anymore, not even book-hunting these days. global warming since 1998 could continue for Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, which is beautiful Rod Edmiston’s installment of “the Joy of the rest of the century. music, yes, but it’s constantly played in stores High Tech” was interesting reading again. I How significant might such a pause be? A to the point of making me dread shopping at kind of like the conclusion he comes to, that of recent TV show on glaciers reported that the this time of the year. Fortunately it is now New the different theories to explain Dark Matter, Greenland Ice Sheet is melting 80 times faster Year’s Eve day, so the vast majority of the the one that works best is the theory of Weakly in 2013 than it was in 1980, which means that airwaves and stores are devoid of these dreaded Interacting Massive Particles, or WIMP. In a we would be pausing at a point where the tunes, thus I feel better about venturing out into way this makes sense. I mean, if the meek are great Greenland Ice Sheet is no longer stable. public with less of a Scrooge-like demeanor. to inherit the Earth, then it’s not far-fetched to Will the 200-odd year De Vries cycle of solar Joe, you open with some discussion about believe that wimps hold the universe together. activity produce a future Maunder minimum to Hugo-worthy books. Sadly, being an award Would you do me a favor, Joe and Lisa? mitigate the anthropogenic increase in voted upon by fans instead of industry The next time you list either of my fanzines, atmospheric CO2? That would be a useful professionals (which the Nebulas are), the Hugo Askance or Askew, please show my street and straw to grasp at. However, if it happens (a big is simply a popularity contest now largely e-mail addresses. Normally you do, but those if) any solar cooling effect will probably be controlled by marketing and clique-voting. A were omitted in this issue’s fanzine listing. overwhelmed by the outpouring of all that great number of people were happy that John Thank you. anthropogenic CO2. What do I mean by “all Scalzi’s Redshirts won, but there was an equally Say, in my loc I see that I may have that?” Currently we happy humans are large number of folks (myself included) who dropped a word: when I was talking about the releasing the equivalent to one Krakatoa’s felt that Kim Stanley Robinson was robbed by Worldcon the sentence about Leigh Kimmel worth of CO2 every year, when the level of dint of Scalzi’s devoted fans. I will admit that I should have read “Sure wish I had met Leigh atmospheric CO2 is already at an 800,000 enjoyed Redshirts; it is a fun book, but it isn’t Kimmel, though.” Insert “wish” and it makes year high. “Hugo-worthy” which I felt 2312 was, having much better sense. Also, I really do want to Our meet-up group went to see The Hobbit such a broad, sweeping story-line, meet her someday and get those books part 2, The Desolation of Smaug. Mostly they thought-provoking ideas, and written in a much autographed. liked it, although Lee skipped part 2 because more literate, serious tone. Taking the two Ah, me. Time to wrap up shop here and call she found part 1 boring. Me? I felt there was books you mentioned based on their fan-bases it a loc. Many thanks for sending the zine my a lot of padding, especially when the dwarves of 2013, I would think that now A Storm of way, and I wish you two a prosperous New Page 20 February 2014 Alexiad

Year free of car troubles and health issues. with the Constitution, when appropriate cases we celebrate are about 5-6 weeks apart, just the are referred to them. right time to boost the economy on a regular No such luck. George W. Price: I have discussed the basis. Boy, are we trained… — JTM economy of abundance in great detail elsewhere I haven’t read new SF in years, so if I have (in The Connection, published by Filthy Pierre). my Hugo voting franchise, I exercise it only From: Jim Stumm December 27, 2013 It’s hard to say much about it in a short letter. It where I might pass for vaguely knowledgeable, Post Office Box 29, Buffalo, NY could come about if machines progress to where and that is usually with the fan categories. 14223-0029 USA they can make any goods or services faster and Seeing I know next to none of the potential better than humans. Imagine if these machines, candidates, seeing so much of fan activity Darrell Schweitzer: I recently read or some of them, were also autonomous and seems to happen through websites, blogs and Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit, Will Travel for the self-replicating. vlogs and podcasts, I will soon be completely first time and found it to be poor compared to Von Mises wrote about economies where unknowledgeable about every category on the other Heinlein books I have read. What it the workers and central planners were all ballot. lacks that I find so appealing in other Heinlein humans with certain human limitations and stories is this: Usually the protagonists find foibles. That won’t necessarily apply to an I was direly tempted to ask themselves in a jam and by cleverness, pluck, economy run by autonomous productive Best Fan Writer of 2007 John and daring-do they manage to save machines where machines do all production and Scalzi, Best Fan Writer of 2011 themselves. There’s nothing like this in Have distribution of goods and services and humans Jim C. Hines, and Best Fan Writer Spacesuit, Will Travel. Instead, after failing to are all retired. In such an abundance economy, of 2012 Tansy Rayner Roberts escape from vile aliens on the Moon, the two labor (IE machine labor) and natural what of their writings they wished kids are dragged around the galaxy like sacks resources will be unlimited in the long run to contribute to the 2013 of potatoes, forced to go wherever various (though not at any one moment) since Fanthology, but had to take into aliens want to take them, and there’s nothing resources, except for energy, can be consideration that they might not they can do to help themselves. The happy continuously recycled, and it will be possible have any idea what it was. ending occurs entirely at the whim of aliens for machines to continue making more stuff — JTM who could just as easily have killed them both with the only upper limit being reached when and wiped out all of humanity if they felt like all material in the solar system, and all the The Detroit NASFiC is something the fans it. energy of the Sun, is fully utilized. there have been bidding for for some time. I I don’t know what role capital will play in think I still have the bid shirt for the last time Until Kip Russell persuaded this future economy. Who will own resources they bid, in the 80s? It is literally down the them that it might not be in their and means of production (machines)? Will highway from me, but as always what we can best interests to do so. autonomous, replicating, self-aware machines afford will determine if we go. be self-owned? Trying to preserve today’s The locol…Brad Foster, you’ve probably In the more usual kind of Heinlein story economic system in this future may be like fully recovered from your eye operation. At that libertarians find so appealing, the trying to preserve feudalism at the beginning of some point, you will probably develop a protagonists are self-reliant, masters of their the industrial revolution. In the Soviet Union cataract from this surgery, and will have to fate, and not tossed around by forces beyond workers said: “We pretend to work and they have it removed. Not fun, but it is what will their control. There is also the successful pretend to pay us.” But in the abundance happen, you’ll get a new lens, and you will be libertarian revolution in Moon is a Harsh economy machine workers will all be like those partially bionic. Cool! Mistress, and speeches that express ideas we auto assembly line robots, toiling away 24/7 My loc…the three-month contract I had for find congenial, and unusual sexual without a complaint, and there will be no last year unfortunately ended prematurely on arrangements based on mutual consent. These human workers. So this would be an entirely Christmas Eve due to lack of work. There is the features, more than literary merit, are what different situation. distinct possibility of being called back, but in gives Heinlein his high place in the libertarian Of course, if we give machines such power, the meantime, I must look again. I met Dave pantheon. can we keep them under human control, or will Kyle at SFContario again, and the years are Milt Stevens: There would be a lot less they become our masters? And if our masters, telling. I wish him and his daughter the best. need for law-abiding private citizens to have will they remain benevolent toward humans? Maxichlorians? I think that might come guns if all violent low-lifes were disarmed.’ from fluoridated water…not sure. Better living For once I’d like to see a gun control law Look forward to an exciting through different chemicals? aimed at disarming criminals, ex-cons, and career in the Reeks and Wrecks. Time to go, I am running out of interesting reckless juveniles, but instead politicians give — JTM things to write. Am I getting too old or senile us laws that disarm law-abiding citizens, that for this kind of thing? Who knows….Take leave law-breakers fully armed. From: Lloyd Penney January 6, 2014 care, and see you with the next issue. There are many countries with a much 1706-24 Eva Road, Etobicoke, ON higher murder rate than USA. My source says M9C 2B2 CANADA From: Joy V. Smith January 7, 2014 the murder rate in USA is 4.7 per 100,000, [email protected] 8925 Selph Road, Lakeland, FL 33810- which is far below the world murder rate of http://lloydpenney.livejournal.com/ 0341 USA 6.9 and below that of many other countries, [email protected] such as Pakistan 7.8, Mexico 23.7, South Thanks for Alexiad WN 72, Happy New Africa 31.8, and Honduras 91.6. Year, and I fully agree with Lisa about mixing Thanks for the round-up of ERB-dom Richard A. Dengrove: No I didn’t say the holidays. One at a time is best. With our books; I wasn’t aware of how they were judges should stick to the letter of the law. Thanksgiving in October, we have that first, proliferating! Mike Resnick’s mystery sounds They should stick to the letter of the then Hallowe’en, then Christmas and New interesting — and refreshing as you point out. Constitution, which they have sworn an oath Year’s. Still, the first Christmas commercials The United States of Paranoia sounds like it to uphold. Laws, IE statute laws, are made by are heard on the radio and TV just before covers a lot of territory, and it’s rather Congress, often with considerable input from Hallowe’en now, and the Valentine’s Day stuff depressing... Thanks for the other non-fiction the President. Justices of the Supreme Court was in the stores just before Christmas. Insanity reviews too. And I always enjoy the con should judge these laws to see if they comply all around. I’ve noticed that a lot of the holidays reports. (Oasis isn’t running this year, which Alexiad February 2014 Page 21

I’m sorry about.) you had to be an accepted member of the clan also about that same number of people who Lots more interesting items in letters, and as defined by Katz/Hooper/Lichtman. People would want to know what the hell I was doing I enjoyed Sue Burke’s translation tidbits. who are not “us” as defined by Robert need not there, who would either confront me or avoid (Good ideas for culture slang in fiction.) Must apply. But lately there seems, at least to me, to me and also some that I really would not want get back to work now. Oh, btw, I recently be some folks who don’t fit my definition of a to meet. signed a contract for my science fiction novel, Corflu goer. Murray himself being one. And also a bunch of folks that I don’t Strike Three. Laurraine Tutihasi. Well, she’s a party girl and enough about to know if I would want to meet a Trufan. But you know what? If I counted them them. And vice versa I imagine. From: Rodney Leighton January 5, 2014 right Murray listed 94 people. Believe it or not The bundle that arrived Dec. 31 contained, 11 Branch Road, R. R. #3, I know something about almost all of them. along with Spartacus #2 and a fanzine from Tatmagouche, Nova Scotia B0K 1V0 There are some names on there that I don’t one of those Brits named Christina Lake and CANADA know; good Lord there were a lot of Brits at Fadeaway #38 a copy of The Reluctant that thing. But one thing I wondered: how many Famulus #96.One of the great thing about It’s a winter wonderland around here. I of these folks qualify as “us”. That’s Robert fanzines is that almost anyone can find was just out shovelling a bit of snow. More Lichtman’s term for so called trufans.Mrs. someone who will publish their writings.I see snow on the ground now than we had all last Moore for example. Mike Weasner for another. our old pal Gene Stewart gets his drivel winter. Everything is covered with ice and One of the bundles that arrived Dec.23 published in this one. Later on there is a decent snow. Trees look bedraggled, many are bent contained a bunch of back issues of A Meara column by some lady named Michaele Jordan. over praying for rain and mild temperatures to for Observers by Mike Meara who was at that Come the letter column and what do I find? get the snow and ice off and allow them to Corflu along with his wife Pat. Lisa partakes of Stewart taking potshots at Joe and Bob stand up again. I’ve been awash in SFanzines Alexiad in various ways; Pat appears in words Kennedy and suggesting that Ms. Jordan find lately.Alexiad 72 arrived Dec.23 on top of and photos in AMFO but doesn’t contribute another pastime.Oh, it’s a good thing I am not Opuntia 270 and under 2 packages of printed anything as far as I can tell.Lots of photos in on the TRF mailing list! I have never heard of off the web zines.24th. brought JOMP Jr. that fanzine; one was Robert Lichtman and Ted this woman as far as I know. Still, if I were Dec.31 brought another package of ezines. White sharing something. In issue #11 in the getting TRF, there would be yet another I have been pondering the nature of letter column the discussion was about mailing Leighton/Stewart war. fandom and fans. One of those bundles lists and I came across this from Mr. Remember the other one? Of course, the contained a couple of issues of fanstuff, one Lichtman:...”! do occasionally add a few editor did stand up for the lady somewhat. He was all about GAFIA and was quite good I prospective new names but there are slim writes a mild reproach and then writes that he thought and the other was mostly about some pickings out there.” I exclaimed aloud:” Well, hopes Stewart doesn’t take offense. I was open letter Graeme Cameron sent out to fuck you too!” I then immediately sat back and thinking, Tom, Stewart takes offense at praise Canadian fans. Since I don’t qualify as such wondered why in the world I should be sometimes. Besides which, if you allow writers by Graeme’s definition or Arnie’s or as far as irate.Robert has been usually polite any place to trash folks like that,well.. that goes by my own ....please don’t growl at we have had any contact; he has sent anything But now, eventually, I am back to the point: me Lisa! ...I haven’t seen it. Or perhaps it was I have ordered from him quickly, he has why can’t we all belong, take and give what we online only and since I am not...in any event , sometimes responded to some of my questions wish to from fandom and be happy?None of the based on-the parts quoted in Fanstuff 40 it was in various fanzines. He has told me that I am people I just wrote about would qualify as mostly about trufans and fringe fans and all not someone he wants on his mailing list for trufan. Hardly anyone mentioned in all this that bullshit. Graeme is trying to find new TRAP DOOR. Twice. Well, that’s his decision, ramble would be eligible for one of those Faan fans,apparently. Specifically new fanzine fans. right. I accepted that long ago. And since he Award things.Strangely enough, I would. Not Katz claims to have done so. Well, maybe so. rejected me back when I was loccing everything that I have any interest in them. And Graeme’s He lists a bunch of folks that fall within his list I could get my hands on, it only stands to reason special Graeme Cameron Fan Awards or of 250 trufans. Well, about 70% of them were that he would not want me now that I only loc whatever. Give them to Lloyd, or Taral or at that Corflu thing that Murray Moore writes once in awhile.I was unable to determine why someone. I ain’t interested.Fanzines come from about. Gotta be a Trufan as defined by that statement pissed me off. But also I think it many places, diverse lands, different folks, Katz/Hooper to attend one of those things, is a matter of perception and opinion. Graeme wide ranging interests. Clinging to old school right? nor anyone else is going to promote fandom nor ideas or folks is not going to promote But I wonder: if producing fanzine fans is find new fanzine fans by blathering about what fanzines.Writing and publishing interesting the criteria, do all of these people count? I I think Graeme now calls Tradfans. God! Or as articles and fanzines which are available to any know, I fall within the 250,000, labelled in someone described it awhile ago: “Trufandom, person who wishes to read them and using their this issue as Definition 2: A participant in core fandom, old school fandom, shove it up contributions without regard to whether the fandom,someone who engages in some form your arse fandom”. person is a trufan or a fringe fan or just of activity within the context of Fandom.And someone who likes to read fanzines. Treating to be fair, he may have meant that some of the I don’t feel welcome at Corflu. all people with respect; offering advice without 14 Vegas fans that he has lured into fandom I’m not in their clique. trashing them; provide good reading and good fall within that category.The sensuous Jacq publications without regard to whether the Monahan has done fanzines, I have seen them. I am on the mailing list for AMFO. Unless contributors are poor as mice or rich as sin; And of course my lack of knowledge is hardly I have recently been kicked off. I will, I believe, without worrying whether they are pure fans or definitive. I mean, Graeme proclaims himself get a copy of Feline Mewsings when and if professional writers or artists and without as an expert on Canadian fandom and fans; in Laurraine does another one. I recently got a trying to drive enthusiasts away just because Space Cadet #23 he lists someone named fanzine from Seattle. I would never go to one of you think you are superior to them or you don’t Dave Haren as’Renowned Letterhack’. I have those Corflu things, even if I could afford to do like the way they write or even because they never heard of this guy.The only other loc in so, there are way too many people in one place are pros; that will likely result in people joining that issue came from the guy who Iocs but you know, reading Murray’s list, I find 3 or in. If you have to use a battering ram or a bribe everything that vaguely resembles a fanzine. 4 people who I believe would be happy to meet to be admitted to a club, very few folks will So I was looking at this Corflu list. Murray me and although I am a really lousy bother to attend. If you are being attacked or seems rather defensive, somewhat ticked off at conversationalist I think there are a few folks scoffed at or belittled, well, some folks, like whatever you said about that con.Used to be who wouldn’t mind talking to me. There are you, will truck right along. Some, like me, will Page 22 February 2014 Alexiad fight back sometimes and sometimes feel it’s copies of my bitty thing to folks who sent zines; in Vietnam. Given the times, toughness had to not worth it. Others will feel the hassle is not those ancient issues of Vanamonde and be a big deal with him.. worth it at all. Opuntia. Christ, an old fashioned Leighton loc! Jesse Walker, in his The United States of Sad, isn’t it? Edit at will! Paranoia, sounds more on the mark about As Sheryl Birkhead might write ...urn, er, conspiracy than Jeff Greenfield does about I don’t know where that came from. The From: R-Laurraine Tutihasi Jan. 9, 2014 JFK. I have only one remark about him, which enclosed generic letter thing goes to. well, I Post Office Box 5323, Oracle, AZ pertains to all mainstream commentators on bought 20 copies. Going to start a new Look 85623-5323 USA conspiracy theorists. It sounds like they think thing. Don’t know for sure what I will do with [email protected] conspiracy theories are a rare disease. The Life of Rodney. http://www.weasner.com/ Not that rare in the States; and, I suspect, I am watching Taxi. My benefactor sent the majority of the World’s people believe in the entire run of that. It’s fun. Watched the I found Lisa’s coffee experience interesting. them. It isn’t a totally irrational take either. first season of Bones. Pretty good show. Must I don’t get addicted to coffee for two reasons. Where emotions run high, it’s hard to believe have been the inspiration for Castle. I also got Caffeine doesn’t keep me awake; in fact it puts the other side is giving you the facts – even if the 3 episodes of Foyle’s War season 8. me to sleep if I have enough of it. But even the other side is everyone else. Watched the first 2. I didn’t like them quite as before that happens, the acid in coffee really More than thinking he was on the mark, like much as I did the earlier ones. Not sure why. upsets my stomach badly. I’ve been drinking a Jesse Walker, Rodford Edmiston’s column on Sam doesn’t appear as much. cup or two of coffee most of my life, because I dark matter, in addition, started the wheels One of my recent DVDs has 3 episodes of like the taste. By the way, I had a coffee maker cranking in this old brain pad. Thus, I have a show devoted to exploring the Bible. Not once that could be installed under a cabinet. something to add. If the dark matter in the sure if it is on or was on. History channel I You don’t sacrifice any counter space. universe was sufficient, wouldn’t the universe believe. It’s quite interesting. Third one was I knew you didn’t make it to LoneStarCon, shrink back into a micron only to big bang all about books that were excluded from the but I didn’t realize how close you got before itself into another universe again? Bible. More of them than were actually you had to give it up. I was just plain too sick. I am going to go from physics to applying included. Jesus was a kickass dude in some of I might have been able to make the trip, but I the same approach to every day life, i.e., those. Just another human being in some of wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the con. I’m coming up with brain storms. In the letter them. sick again but don’t know if it’s a recurrence of column, Sheryl Birkhead wants to know how to Nice to see Tim surface; I almost wish the Lyme or something else. It’s very similar get along in the world without much money. Schweister would aggravate him more,just so but not exactly the same. How to afford computing power, how to afford I could read what he writes. I miss FOSFAX, cars. The answer requires a different take on believe it or not. Get well soon. everyday life. The way to afford things is to Yeah, but, Sheryl: being the greatest — JTM borrow, borrow, borrow. Isn’t that brilliant? fanartist on earth doesn’t necessarily mean you Maybe not. Thinking about it, maybe will get all the fanzines there are, especially if To Taras Wolansky: the reason scientists borrowing isn’t as satisfactory an answer as it you spend all your time obsessed with bloody didn’t talk much about the effect of climate first seemed to me. computers; reading TRF and JOMP Jr. and change on Antarctica before was because so Lloyd Penney, in his letter, doesn’t need Alexiad in a short span of time it seems that little was known. Many believed that dubious advice, but congrads. Congrads, Sheryl is all about computers.) And besides Antarctica might not be affected very much. Lloyd, that you’re once again employed – even which, if you define fanzine as a publication More recently, however, new discoveries have if it’s temporary. You know we wish you the intended for all fans that want to read it only 3 led to more disturbing conclusions that bode ill best of luck. of the 10 qualify. Broken Toys does except it’s for the world. Back to wisdom again because John strictly electronic; get your computer woes Sorry my LoC is so late. I’m catching up Purcell, in his letter, wonders whether resolved and I am sure you could get that one. but slowly. over-abundance is making us complacent. I Maybe you do. I hear that Taral emailed me a haven’t notice that happening. No matter how copy of one or so of those issues.Haven’t seen From: Richard A. Dengrove Jan. 11, 2014 rich people become, most always want more. it yet. The drawback of having an email 2651 Arlington Drive, #302, Most also don’t get cowed by overabundance. address in the U.K. is that mail, Iocs and Alexandria, VA 22306-3626 USA If they get cowed, it’s due not to zines, are dependent upon the guy over there [email protected] overabundance but lack of opportunity. printing the stuff and mailing it to me. He was By the way, Joe, in commenting on John embroiled in work and life troubles. He had Ah, an Alexiad to comment on, December Purcell, you mention an Huga Well-Erb, been sending me copies of Broken Toys 2013. If you notice, no high octane politics this Heinsturbury for her initiative sapping ability. printed off the web. Yes, those 3 bundles of time around. However, my annoyance with it Isn’t she a fictitious authoress imagined by fanzines mentioned earlier came from him. No has turned into a rational objection. I have to Harlan Ellison? BTs.I think he has to print them from a figure out my objective in writing about While Huga is fictitious, Horizon magazine different machine or something. Some will politics. A subject guaranteed to get people hot was real. I have to ask Dainis Bisenicks, arrive before anyone sees this no doubt.. I and bothered with you, especially if you tell the though, whether the one edited by Cyril don’t suppose it means anything but I only get truth. Not that, looking back on it, I have Connolly, which he mentions in a letter, is the 1 of the 10 listed in Alexiad 71.No, 2, always spoken truth to either ignorance or same one my parents used to receive in the supposing Broken Toys arrives. power. ‘50s. It came in hard cover, and contained On the other hand, I have not eschewed all some good articles. It varies. Sheryl often has politics. My first comment embarks on mild Speaking of blasts from the past, I problems with telephone and politics. I have a question to ask Jeff Geenfield, remember the Frederick Pohl story “The Midas Internet service, with cars , with who wrote If Kennedy Lived . Would Kennedy Plague,” which George Price recalls from his the house. . . Maybe she ought to have gotten us out of Vietnam, as opposed to years in science fiction. George believes the come live with her brother. Johnson? Or would he have felt that he had to plot is ridiculous; no such commonwealth of — JTM prove his toughness, and come to the same end? overabundance, could exist. For once, I have to While Liberals want to believe the best about agree with him. That overabundant society And 2 of 11 in this issue. I only sent paper JFK, I am not certain he wouldn’t have stayed would be easy to shut down. Alexiad February 2014 Page 23

On the other hand, even though the Also, obtained from the library was Star From: George W. Price January 21, 2014 apprehensions about consumerism which it Trek Into Darkness (2013). I gave it a 4.5 even P.O. Box A3228, Chicago, IL played on have vanished in the intervening though I had a hard time in the beginning 60690-3228 USA years, I have found the idea remains getting use to the characters who, of course, [email protected] humorous. I could picture the poor being looked nothing like the originals and that forced to consume in an overabundant future, Hollywood had to get some of its politics into December Alexiad: and the rich and poor changing places. I the movie. Joe’s review of Jesse Walker’s The United remember the protagonist, Morey participating After being on a wait list Destroyermen: States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory in group therapy. In this case, though, the Storm Surge by Taylor Anderson (2013) which makes me wonder: What inspires group was made up of psychiatrists and not is the 8th novel in the series was finally obtained “conspiraphiles” (as I call them) to spin wild patients. Also, each psychiatrist represented a from the library. After reading the first couple theories on little or no evidence? And why does different school of Psychoanalysis, popular of pages I said to myself that I’d already read it. anybody believe them? Some possibilities: then. So, I went to the end and, yes, I had already (1) “I know something you don’t know.” Many I suspect even George will admit that I am read it. I’ve now made a list of all the books in a conspiraphile loves to think he’s got the not being belligerent in the above statement. the series so that the mistake of checking out a Real Inside Dope, putting him one-up on Ironically, I am being more argumentative in book in the series that has already been read the rest of us. Convoluted reasoning and my next comment. I beg to disagree with you, will not be made again. I do hope that Taylor lack of evidence may even make a theory Joe, about the “Decadent Empire”: that it has an end to the series in mind so that it does more attractive: he prides himself that his didn’t work right. It’s just perfect for a not become the never-ending story. superior intellect grasps reasoning that is dystopia, or a society a hero singlehandedly too deep for the common herd. would reform. Themes that sell sufficiently I am glad that Commander (2) “Nothing happens by accident.” Some well. Reddy and crew are not making conspiraphiles just cannot accept that “shit With your dystopia, Joe, I have reached dramatic technological advances, happens.” No, by golly, whatever happens the back page, and there is no more Alexiad but improvising and making do. must have been planned by somebody, and for me to conquer; so I await your efforts next Though their enemies may just be their task is to figure out who and why. Alexiad. too numerous for them to keep on They leave no room for accidents and going. screwups. During the Cold War many From: Robert S. KennedyJanuary 16, 2014 — JTM right-wingers fell into this trap. When the 1779 Ciprian Avenue, Camarillo, CA Communists made a gain, it couldn’t be 93010-2451 USA The Mentalist: Well, since my last letter we because our side had made honest mistakes [email protected] now know that the person thought to be Red — it had to be that traitors sold us out. This John was not Red John. But, the real Red John typified the John Birch Society. The reader Thank you for Vol. 12, No. 6 (December is now dead because Patrick Jane strangled him. may think of similar traps that leftists fall 2013), Whole Number 72. I did have a problem with how the Red John into. Enjoyed your review of The Lost Stars: concept ended. The FBI could not just come in (3) “It can’t be that simple.” Many Perilous Shield by Jack Campbell having read and shut down the CBI (the California Bureau conspiraphiles can’t believe that the book as indicated in my letter. of Investigation which does not exist in real world-shaking events can have trivial Interesting review of If Kennedy Lived: life) which was a state agency. Furthermore, causes. It is literally unthinkable that a The First and Second Terms of President John the first thing that the CBI people should have dumbshit loser like Oswald could bring F. Kennedy: An Alternate History by Jeff done was to demand that the “FBI Agents” down the leader of the free world all by Greenfield. I’ve had my library enter a display their left shoulders to make sure that himself. There just has to be more to it than suggestion to purchase it. If JFK had lived none of them had the Red John tattoo. Patrick that. It scares them to think that major and were still alive he would be 96 instead of Jane and the CBI people becoming part of the events can happen at random, or at the having been murdered at 46. He is forever FBI is a bit farfetched. But, for the program to whims of madmen. So even being ruled by young. continue it had to take off on a new track. villainous Secret Masters (the International Your review of The United States of Obviously I like the program and continue to Jewish Bankers or whoever) is more Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory by Jesse watch it. comforting — or at least less frightening — Walker was appreciated. I have the book; but John Purcell: I agree with you about than having to live in the real world where haven’t read it as yet. Daylight Saving (no “s”) Time. Many years no one at all is in charge. You mention (p. 5) MacArthur’s War: A ago before they had extended it I said to Novel of the Invasion of Japan by Douglas someone that I didn’t like it and if anything it Regarding Point 2; this is still Niles and Michael Dobson that you had should be the reverse. going on. I am waiting for Diana previously reviewed. I can obtain it from the Joe: I had marked your review of The Last West to accuse George Marshall library. Full Measure by Jack Campbell in V12 #2 and of having been a Soviet agent and I went to see the movie Gravity and on my then sadly forgot it. have in her hand a list of 205 scale of 1-5 gave it a 5.0. It was quite Timothy Lane: Your comments on wind Communists in the State enjoyable despite it being a combination of turbines are excellent. Wind farms kill about Department. Tom Hanks movies Apollo 13 (1995) and 440,000 birds a year. But, the Interior Cast Away (2000). Department has agreed that wind farms can kill * * * * * I read The Ocean At The End Of The Lane eagles for up to the next 30 years. How do the by Neil Gaiman (2013). It was enjoyable until turbines know the difference between eagles Darrell Schweitzer says China is the the end which I did not like. and other birds? Every bird lover and bird world’s leading polluter “because the Chinese The movie After Earth (2013) was watcher society should be screaming their heads have completely unregulated capitalism, very obtained from my city library. Our library has off. Some time ago I read that it would take a much in bed with the corrupt government but a large selection of DVD’s for which there is wind farm the size of Connecticut to just power not at all answerable to the people.” Oh now, no charge. That may be one of the reasons New York City. Wind farms should be Chinese capitalism is highly regulated, but the Blockbuster closed its stores. On my scale of abolished. regulation is almost entirely political, and for 1-5 I gave it a 1 and that was being nice. the benefit of the rulers, not the environment. Page 24 February 2014 Alexiad

Many of China’s worst polluters are not activity. Visiting my sister-in-law in Phoenix money is only a marker for wealth, and just “in bed” with the government, they are the about ten years ago, I found a book on her shelf multiplying the markers does not multiply the government. The People’s Liberation Army about colonial America, published circa 1990, wealth. Quite the opposite: inflation destroys isn’t only a military force — it operates many before climate change became a huge issue. It prosperity by introducing false signals into the huge business enterprises which are less than casually mentioned that the New England price system, sabotaging the creation and attentive to environmental purity. And even colonies were founded four centuries ago just as preservation of wealth. the truly private businesses still have to do the “Little Ice Age” was giving way to the long exactly as the government says; they exist by warming trend that we are still in. Well, if the * * * * * sufferance of the rulers, who neither respect warming began two hundred years before the property rights nor believe in an untrammeled Industrial Revolution started pumping CO2 into Mr. Dengrove also says I have failed “to free market. the air, then the cause had to be natural. It is give any actual proof that the Community By the way, is it “corruption” when it certainly possible — even likely — that our Reinvestment Act of 1978 was the cause of the pervades the entire system? When it emissions have added to the warming. But how Housing Bubble of the ought years.” What effectively is the system? At what point is much? For me to take seriously the theories of would he accept as “actual proof”? Obviously, “corruption” better called “standard operating the warmists, they need to show that they can this can never be proved (or disproved) with procedure”? quantitatively distinguish man-made warming scientific certainty, since it involves deducing The Chinese rulers give lip service to from the natural cycle. So far they have come people’s motives. Let’s look at it again: environmental cleanup; someday they may nowhere near. The Community Reinvestment Act, as actually do it. They might not even need a big amended in the Nineties, required banks to bureaucracy like our EPA; they could just rely The Norse colonies in make more mortgage loans in minority on tort law. That is, the government would Greenland were founded during neighborhoods. As I recall, the penalty for not recognize and enforce the right of ordinary the Medieval Warm Period. When meeting the quota was loss of federal deposit people to sue polluters who befoul their the Little Ice Age closed down, insurance, which might put a bank out of neighbors’ air and water. Who knows, China the Inuit moved in. business. So they stepped up “subprime” might even develop a free-market economy. lending and met their quotas (set at about 50% But don’t hold your breath. * * * * * of total home loans). This much is historical fact, and needs no further proof. * * * * * Richard A. Dengrove says, “George Price The CRA assumed that racism was why advocates taming the politicians with banks were not lending much to minorities. My Alexis Gilliland says that when I extol the bimetallism.” No sir, I did not say that. I said own unprovable judgment is that the real virtues of the gold standard, I “should that Milton Friedman thought bimetallism might reason was the obvious: minorities were mostly consider whether there are minuses as well as work, but I did not say I agreed. Actually, I poorer than mainstream borrowers, and less pluses” to my “beautiful idea.” Oh, I am sure don’t see how it can possibly work, but I able to meet the standard criteria for lending there are. It’s far from perfect — but still one hesitated to dispute Friedman, who has been risk. (The anti-racists assumed those criteria hell of a lot better than any known alternative. right on so many other monetary issues. Perhaps were rigged to purposely exclude minorities.) Alexis cites William Jennings Bryan’s I deferred too much to his authority. What is undisputed is that lenders did lower famous “You shall not crucify mankind upon Mr. Dengrove adds that if we had Free their standards, and loaned to people who a cross of gold!” speech, and adds, “The fact Silver — where “Anyone could have any silver wouldn’t qualify under the old rules. that the nation eventually abandoned the gold they owned brought to the mint, made into Of course most of the lenders well knew standard suggests that Bryan might have been coins and used as the currency” — that would that such mortgages would suffer high defaults. on to something.” get us pretty close to the private currency that I So why didn’t they kick and scream and protest Well, no. What it suggests to me is that advocate. But he suspects that the effect would that they would be put out of business, either Bryan was an inflationist whose agenda was be the opposite of what I want: it would inflate by losing money on borrowers who couldn’t thwarted by the gold standard, luckily for the the currency, “and the farmers who advocated repay, or because the government would punish country. That we eventually abandoned the free silver intended it to do just that then.” them for not lending to those poor borrowers? gold standard means only that the inflationists The inflationary effect should not be To me, the obvious answer is that they eventually won, to our great cost. It is no significant. Like gold, silver is scarce enough knew they could pass those bad loans on to coincidence that the price level fluctuated over that the amount mined and brought to the mint Fannie and Freddie and the FHA, and let the a relatively narrow band (about two-fold up would usually be very small compared to the taxpayers take the hit. True, there’s no way to and down) during the 140-odd years we were amount already circulating. As long as the prove that’s what they thought. Mr. Dengrove more or less on the gold standard, and has shot money supply grows no faster than the suggests that “lenders were willing to stoke the up about twenty-fold since we abandoned economy, the wage and price level should stay housing bubble because they saw dollar signs gold. close to constant. Past discoveries of gold and in their eyes. With prices always going up and silver have usually resulted in prices rising up, foreclosures didn’t matter. Nor that the * * * * * moderately and leveling out quickly as the new mortgagee was a credit risk. The lenders could money is absorbed into the system. still make money by reselling the property.” Brad Foster has old records which he no Yes, many farmers wanted inflation, but I But this only describes how lenders thought longer plays for lack of a working turntable. bet they would not have liked it if they had after the boom got going, not why the boom About $300 will buy a table-top stereo that gotten it. Inflation generally benefits only the started. plays records (78, 45, and 33 rpm) and music first people to get the newly-created money, and (We might also note that “prices always tapes, and also burns them onto CDs playable that would have been mostly the silver miners, going up and up” was due to the Federal on modern equipment. I may get one — I have not the farmers. Reserve making “easy money” readily albums I haven’t played in years. The common fallacy that pumping up the available to the housing market. That’s another money supply will create prosperity arises from of my unprovable opinions.) * * * * * confusing wealth and money. Wealth consists of Once it became apparent that lending real things that help us live better. It can be standards had been drastically lowered, with Like Jim Stumm, I am skeptical about how tangible (such as factories and cars) or the full approval (not to say connivance) of the much global warming is due to human intangible (such as a workman’s skill). But government, then all kinds of slippery dealers Alexiad February 2014 Page 25 and outright crooks crawled out of the — JTM deemed a living wage. A wage-slave may woodwork and began issuing “liar’s loans” speak only those words that are in the script. and other dubious financial products. Most I have also noticed that Alexiad’s style is to The girls at Hooters are a perfect example of lenders took greater and greater risks. use italics for titles, but not for emphasis in wage-slaves. Their human dignity is in Since Mr. Dengrove does not think that all regular text. At least, my italics for emphasis abeyance. In grand houses, the domestic staff this constitutes proof that the CRA was at the always get changed to roman. So in this letter I worked invisibly and inaudibly. root of the bubble, let me ask what he thinks have forgone italics and have used the underline was really the cause. Are we to believe that in for emphasis. I will look to see if my underlines Mr. Hammer in The Cocoanuts the late Nineties lenders abruptly started are still there. (1929) had a solution to that taking huge risks on subprime loans for no problem: “What makes wage particular reason? Greed and bad judgment From: Dainis Bisenieks January 20, 2014 slaves? Wages!” are standard parts of human character, so why 921 S. St. Bernard Street, Philadelphia, did they suddenly run wild at that particular PA 19143-3310 USA In the future, when the towns are caves of time? setel, Lije Baley is shown as granting the I also ask Mr. Dengrove just what he It is now 65 years since I had a glimpse of courtesies to his robot partner’ Asimov made thinks would have happened if, when the CRA the Statue of Liberty and landed on these much of this in subsequent work. was amended to punish lenders for not making shores; it happened also to be the day of Does labor — any labor — have dignity? enough subprime loans, the lenders had Truman’s inauguration for his full term. I had Where would Brahmins be without the labor of courageously refused to make the riskier been primed for science fiction in Germany by the Untouchables? Who may yet ask: “Who do loans. (I think the government would have a marionette play of Kasperl’s trip to Mars, you think you are? What do you think I am? punished them as threatened — resulting in a which turned out to be a colorful place with Who ordered our respective estates?” Many of financial crisis that would of course have been colorful inhabitants. So: in time, Heinlein in oru chores have been eased by machinery, but blamed on the “intransigent” bankers.) Boys’ Life came my way, and the Conklin there is always a residue of scutwork. Now if A minor point: Mr. Dengrove says, “I anthologies. I will not chronicle the rest except the scutwork was done by humanoid robits, disagree with George that absolutely no one to note that in time I read more and more which have no faces in which — if we looked saw trouble coming while the housing bubble selectively. I have not yet forgiven certain — we might detect reproach? No faces, only was in progress.” I don’t believe I ever said authors who knew damn well they were writing masks. Ah, to be safe from being reproached that. To the contrary, I said that the Wall shit. And were they not putting their readers off by those who serve us! Asimov, of course, Street Journal did indeed see it coming, but science fiction? considered this in characterizing the series. did not anticipate how bad it would be. I will not further expand on these thoughts What would that be, “Satellite here. * * * * * Scout” (August 1950, NHOL G.083b)? Or “Tramp Space Ship” It was their karma. The Timothy Lane says that “No other religion (September 1952, NHOL G.092b)? Brahmin had been virtuous in a of significance . . . treats women anywhere Those being condensed versions of previous life, the Dalit had been near as badly as Islam does.” True, and ironic. Farmer In the Sky and The Rolling less so. Elliott Ness joke omitted. I have read that Islam originally commanded Stones respectively. an improvement in the status of women. A nonprofit organization in the Before Islam, an Arab could have an unlimited In one of Rosemary Edghill’s urban neighborhood supplies books to prison number of wives and concubines, and could fantasies, the p-o-v character reflects on the inmates; of those donated, only a small part is treat them as badly as he pleased. incongruity of the denizens of Faerie showing suitable. Some of what looks valuable is Mohammed’s revelation limited a man to four up in modern cities. It is as though you had the briefly offered for sale, but such is put out on a wives (and as many concubines as he could Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court duking it table in front for passers-by to take. I had been afford), required him to treat them equally, out — in Minneapolis; something something — seeing parts of a well-organized SF/F and even set limits on how big a stick he could in Toronto; and a third which I forget. I collection (pbs all) put together 20 - 30 years use to beat them. It is hard to think of recognized the first at once; it’s War for the ago — all by woman authors! There were Mohammed as liberal, but for his time and Oaks by Emma Bull. I think I have now found some twenty each by Jo Clayton, C. J. Cherryh, place he was. Alas, many Islamic cultures the Toronto book, it’s Gate of Darkness, Circle and MZB. Takers for these hereabouts are seem unable to liberalize beyond the original of Light by Tanya Huff. Can anyone clue me in few; to save them from being rained or snowed revelation. on this, and on the third book? I no longer have on, I hauled off several batches and took them the source book; The Sword of Maiden’s Tears (saving a few) to the North-East Regional * * * * * is not it. The only other thing I can remember Library, which has a room full of donated from the sequels is an episode in which the books going cheal. Of books available there, I I don’t usually comment on my own aristocratic Elf requires to have his boots pulled was highly pleased to find a very recently letters, but my last one had an oddity off and turns to the woman p-o-v as to a published London: A History, a nice fat volume introduced by the editor. Discussing the servitor. Some debate on the matter ensues. that would have cost me £25 new. I cannot Spanish novel Cenital, I italicized that title. This brings to mind a passage from the now imagine adding another book on London: The editor kept the italics and added an second chapter of G. K. Chesterton’s enough is enough. Or on Jerusalem, either, underline. This was done to both mentions of Orthodoxy: “The determinist makes the theory after buying (used, $8) Skyline Jerusalem, a the title, so it doesn’t seem to be an accident. of causation quite clear, and then finds out that large-format album of aerial views from about I do not see this usage with italicized words he cannot say ‘ifyou please’ to the housemaid.” 20 years ago, including quite a few taken after elsewhere in Alexiad. Would the editor tell This is, in Marthn Huber’s terms, an “I — It” January 1992 snowfall. me, why the underline? relation, where “I — Thou” is desired,which courtesy and listening can begin. (But the I liked Jo Clayton. She wrote Cenital is 1) a book title in 2) a employer, too, is a real person.) A wage-slave, about what I called the Canonical foreign language. I’ve been doing by definition, is deemed to have put into SF Universe; a place with ancient that all along; i.e., with Jules abeyance, during working hours, any call on mysteries, conflicts among Verne Voyages Extraordinaires. courtesy and listening, in exchange for what is humans, other races, far-off Page 26 February 2014 Alexiad

places. She connected her books organizer of the Orlando [2015 Worldcon] the truth of what he said! Which reminds me in an intriguing fashion. bid had alienated a lot of people.” Orlando of another “hero”, John Henry Faulk. “They — JTM losing the Worldcon – and so badly — was a were bad detectives, and we got ‘em!” he surprise. Optimistically, I would like to think crowed to his young friend, Orson Bean, a From: Taras Wolansky December 1, 2013 the Communist theme the organizers adopted fellow blacklistee. (The defendants in his libel 100 Montgomery Street., #24-H, didn’t help – I told them it was comparable to suit were “fascists”, Faulk explained to the Jersey City, NJ 07302-3787 USA drawing on Nazi imagery – and it seemed they disillusioned Bean, so perjury and witness [email protected] de-emphasized it toward the end. tampering were justified.) Given the ruined state of the city, Detroit Interestingly, both Wilde and Faulk were October 2013: winning the 2014 NASFiC was also a surprise specifically mounting legal attacks on freedom “Oomphel in the Sky”: The “economy of to me. It seemed as if the bid came out of of speech and the press, ironic as both men abundance” is an economic myth, a nowhere. (Had there been some sharp practice posed as advocates of those freedoms. misunderstanding of human nature. Or, to put involved, I wondered idly, offending a In fact, I expressed my main objection to it another way, we can start talking about an committee person who was within hearing.) the myth about Spanish Jews being forced to economy of abundance when we all have The Detroit people assured me that security is give up their children in 1492 as follows: “For personal starships — but then, of course, good in the convention district — but if you’re one thing, no one would leave, under those we’ll want better starships! the type of person who likes to explore the town circumstances.” (They would undergo a false Jack Vance understood this. In “Ullward’s where a con is happening, you may want to conversion – as many did anyway – then grab Retreat” (1958), the protagonist buys a think twice. their kids and go.) The potential expense and continent on a newly discovered planet, but he annoyance to the Spanish government and/or and his guests feel cramped because the other We’ll go to the Henry Ford and Church was secondary. continents are off-limits. to see Paul, the widower of my But this may be a garbled reference to a Technological unemployment is also a cousin Kathy. real atrocity. For money, the King of Portugal myth. We went from 97% farmers to 3% offered six months refuge to the Jews – but farmers without putting 94% of the population Sue Burke: “I’d like to sit next to my when that period was over any Jews still in the out of work. boyfriend ... so would you mind changing kingdom were enslaved. At this point, several Review of Surrounded by Enemies: What tickets? Mine’s first class.” And after so hundred Jewish children were separated from If Kennedy Survived Dallas?: “Beyond that promising a beginning, all that happened was a their parents and sent away to a plantation, there was the President’s tangled love life comfortable, five hour train trip? No handsome never to be seen again. (I don’t recall the and his treacherous health.” Or in plain stranger mistook your identity and involved you details, if the details are known. Possibly their English, he slept with a gangster’s moll in the in a thrilling romantic adventure? ship foundered.) White House, and with prostitutes on every During the American Revolution, “the trip he took outside of the White House, French Canadians … were at that point unsurprisingly contracting venereal diseases. fighting against their own king and country He also took mind-altering medications, which …” In all the accounts of the American may explain some of his erratic behavior as Revolution I’ve ever read, I’ve never heard of President. French Canadians actually fighting on the I recall seeing an ABC report that British side. Rather, with their country heavily indicated, had JFK not been killed when he occupied by the British, they simply sat out the was, he was about to have a tsunami of war. scandal wash over him. Depending on how “I do not think the real conflict today is much of the truth about him got through the between Islam and Christendom. It is media firewall, it’s quite possible he would between Islam and Secularism.” In that case, not have been able to run for re-election in start studying the Koran. Secularism: “You’re 1964. Darrell Schweitzer: “Wilde … sued a doomed animal on a doomed planet in a A good thing for the country? Probably; Queensberry for libel. Queensberry doomed universe.” Islam: “Paarrr-tttyyy!!!” elected through Hollywood glitz over defended himself by proving that the charge “Taras conveniently fails to report about substance, JFK was one of our least competent [i.e., allegedly libelous statement] was true. ... all those news stories about climate change Presidents. He also holds the record for By today’s standards what is offensive about not fitting some of the predictive models … lowest score on an IQ test by a future Wilde’s behavior is that he broke his that these stories always make a point of President: the brains that made him President marriage vows.” giving the deniers no cause for comfort.” In were his father’s. Let me get this straight: “by today’s fact, I’ve pointed out that scientific researchers Review of The Riddle of the Labyrinth: standards” it’s not offensive that Wilde brought whose actual findings undermine the global “Alice Kober ... came out of nowhere; a false charge of criminal libel against warming consensus are careful to kowtow to all saying nothing of her past, her family, her Queensberry? Note that I used to think it was the proper idols, as a matter of survival. (You origins. She seems to have been a totally just Queensberry’s money that Wilde was trying would see a similar pattern of behavior in, say, bland and indifferent-looking person ...” to steal by perjury, but the truth is much worse: economists doing research in the Soviet Union: Which of course raises the obvious question: if Queensberry had lost the case, he could have regardless of their actual findings, Marxism time traveler, or alien robot? gone to prison for two years. Thus, it’s an always had to be correct.) Of course, the exquisite piece of poetic justice that, in the end, reference to “deniers” is something of a straw Time traveler. She died of Wilde was sentenced to — two years. man argument: warmists try to pretend there cancer, so presumably came from “The basic legal principle illustrated here are only two possible positions, believing an era where the connection is that you should never sue for libel when everything or believing nothing. between that and smoking had the charges are actually true and the accuser “The [global warming] models have been forgotten, and in blending [i.e., the defendant in the libel suit] can prove often proved too conservative. The climate in, went too far. it.” is changing faster and more radically than I hope Darrell does not mean to imply it’s predicted.” (Later in the same paragraph:) Leigh Kimmel: “Apparently the OK to sue for libel if the defendant can’t prove “There are some questions about the Alexiad February 2014 Page 27 apparent slowdown of the process. Not healthy chunk of the, um, viewership, carrying probably true. On the other hand, living that it is stopping, but that it is, for a time, it to Fox and Friends, which set ratings records; standards are becoming less unequal over time, slowing down, and there is no consensus on while McCarthy (notorious for encouraging and that’s probably more important. the cause.” So global warming is accelerating parents not to vaccinate their small children) Darrell Schweitzer: Obviously Michael and slowing down? brought no audience with her. Fumento’s The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS “It is offensive to suggest that [Saladin] Leigh Kimmel (Archon report): “The hot (and Delany’s comments along similar lines) Ahmed only got nominated for an award tub … had been shut down permanently refer to the U.S., not Africa. Where, I’m told, because of his name and ethnicity. It’s because it couldn’t be made compliant with the abysmal state of public health results in rather like suggesting that Samuel Delany ADA accessibility requirements.” As I recall, millions of untreated STD cases which produce or Octavia Butler only got nominated for something similar happened when a firm lesions HIV can then exploit. There are also things because they were black.” We were wanted to install self-cleaning toilets in indications that the white population has higher trying to understand why a not-greatly- sidewalk kiosks in New York City: they were percentages of resistant forms of the cell distinguished DAW mass-market paperback rejected by the government because they receptors exploited by HIV, due to an earlier was nominated for a Hugo Award. Not couldn’t be made wheelchair-accessible. encounter with a pathogen that used the same nominated “only” because of the author’s receptor: the Black Death. Headline from name, but the name was a “plus factor”, in the They could be made Science Daily in 2005: “Biologists Discover jargon of affirmative action, which is wheelchair-accessible. And also Why 10 Percent Of Europeans Are Safe From pervasive in our society. hooker-accessible, becoming mini- HIV Infection”. brothels. “The science on global warming is in. It had zombies, which have We know it is happening and it is caused by replaced vampires as the “plus Lloyd Penney: Actually, “Dubya” won his human activity. The UN admitted as much factor” du jour. I don’t know wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in the latter case recently.” It seems bizarre to use a political what horror trope will be the by rejecting the advice of the Joint Chiefs and body – and an extravagantly corrupt political next “plus factor” in SF. finding a better way. Not that the achievements body, at that – as a scientific authority. To me, are necessarily permanent; but he is not to the U.N. is where the Pol Pot regime, a By the way, Octavia Butler is still the only blame for the gross ineptitude of his successor, member in good standing even after science fiction writer to win a MacArthur who has frittered away much of the gains. exterminating one-third of Cambodia’s Foundation “Genius” grant, in the 33 years of U.S. military spending is in the population, condemns human rights abuses in its existence. Perhaps Delany and LeGuin neighborhood of 20% of the Federal budget, Israel; where Qaddafi’s Libya chairs the were passed over because they had only one dwarfed by the vast social programs that Human Rights committee; where (just now) “plus factor” apiece, not enough to cancel out increase every year on automatic pilot. But Iran is elected to a major arms control post. their sci-fi cooties. Gene Wolfe? statistical reporting tricks are used to make We can only conclude that anthropogenic Fuggedaboutit! military spending look bigger; for example, global warming is a hypothesis useful to some Finally, Robert S. Kennedy: Next excluding from the count those vast social of the world’s most evil regimes. Worldcon, get yourself one of those indoor programs; or reporting 10+ years of the war “The southern polar cap … is melting motor scooters – and bask in the knowledge costs while giving the rest of the budget on an too.” Here’s the British Antarctic Survey, that you are helping to bring to life the world annual basis. (Looking at a chart of Federal cited by Wikipedia: “Antarctica seems to be of Dr. David H. Keller’s 1928 “Revolt of the spending as a proportion of the GDP, it’s hard both warming around the edges and cooling at Pedestrians”. even to make out the war years,) This is the center at the same time. Thus it is not probably how you got the false impression the possible to say whether it is warming or January 31, 2014 wars created the deficit. cooling overall. … There is no evidence for a decline in overall Antarctic sea ice extent.” As always at the last possible minute, Not to mention counting Given the increasing well-known (but still comments on the December 2013 Alexiad. interest payments on the deficit, unexplained) flat lining of global warming Review of Dam Busters by James Holland: the space program, and even some since the late Nineties, these findings shouldn’t George Lucas adapted the story for the climax of those social programs as be a surprise. of Star Wars: A New Hope, but did he have to “military spending”. “The Chinese have completely dumb it down? unregulated capitalism, very much in bed Rodford Edmiston: Setting off a “gigaton Milt Stevens: Good point, that “Making with the corrupt government but not at all warhead” to illuminate the solar system would bullets is cottage industry.” Sometimes answerable to the people. Profit is all.” also reveal our presence to aliens with people hatch these “bullet control” schemes. Unregulated, profit-oriented capitalism is relativistic bombs. (P.S.: Another great “In the United States, it does appear that the totally answerable to the people, in their role as “rambling”!) number of massacres [i.e., mass shootings] consumers (and investors), and no one else. Sheryl Birkhead: I watched The Bletchley has increased in recent years.” I think you’re What the Chinese have is crony capitalism (“in Circle for several episodes but got annoyed right: there were fewer mass shootings in the bed with the corrupt government”): what Ayn with the writing: the women use their period before most gun controls, when people Rand fulminated against in Atlas Shrugged, and cryptographic techniques to find a new victim carried their rifles onto planes and school buses. what America is moving toward in the Age of of the serial killer before the police do, yet Alexis Gilliland: “American’s shrinking Obama. Under crony capitalism, “rule by the (for dramatic purposes) no one listens to what middle class”. “Middle class” is a statistical rich is the most common form of human they have to say about the case, even so. It category with a floor and a ceiling, both government.” To be precise, it’s not the rich reminded me of Medium, in which every arbitrary. Thus, the number of people within that rule, but the rulers get rich: take a look at episode began at zero, as it were, with the the range can be reduced both by increasing what happened to Russian tycoons who crossed police forgetting the dozens of times they poverty and increasing wealth. The latter Putin, for example. previously doubted the protagonist and she appears to predominate: people are rising, was eventually proven right. rather than falling out of the category. “We Okay, so Orren Boyle supports “Jenny McCarthy is the new co-host on seem headed for more inequality of income Putin, the way Floyd Ferris wants the View.” Ratings at the time indicated that than we currently enjoy.” With a constant to be on the Global Warming Elizabeth Hasselbeck walked off with a flood of poor and uneducated immigrants, that’s Control Board. Page 28 February 2014 Alexiad

— JTM £105 per night, or US$173. Good thing our Knowing as I do nothing about the record, travel expenses will be low. blood line, owner, etc. of any of the horses you “What [bad Heinlein] had she read? I list running in the 2013 Pacing Triple Crown Will Fear No Evil, The Number of the Beast, The Calais-Dover stretch of races, I would have picked Captaintreacherous. Time Enough for Love, etc.” Ironically, a that bus trip will be interesting. I like the name. similarly young woman in the audience of a — JTM We are attending our first NASFiC because Heinlein panel, where there had been a lot of it is in Detroit, i.e. close to us in Mississauga. late-Heinlein bashing, rose up to say she Both Richard A. Dengrove and George W. We have become ConFusion (in January) didn’t understand what they were talking Price wondered about the central premise of the regulars. The Sunday of this year's ConFusion about: she liked late Heinlein! novel Cenital by Emilio Bueso: a sudden I joined the group of DetCon 1 committee Time Enough for Love is more a scrapbook disappearence of petroleum. In fact, he was members on a tour of the DetCon hotel. I was than a novel; I Will Fear No Evil was a challenged on that in his presentation at surprised that the hotel is as old as it is, dating product of its time; The Number of the Beast Hispacón XXXI. He answered that the major to the late 1970s. I can barely remember, but what I do reserves are state owned, and it is in those You will enjoy, if new to you, exploring remember is rather bizarre. On the other countries’ strategic interest to misstate the "Michigan's Largest Bookstore", John R. King hand, Job and To Sail Beyond the Sunset I reserves. (The CIA confirms that. Privately Books, 901 W. Lafayette Boulevard, Detroit recollect with some affection. All of these owned companies also tend to lie for tax MI 48226. It occupies the multiple floors of a books I read only once, when they were first reasons.) The question is how much they are former glove factory, ten minutes or fewer by published. Might be good to read them again. lying. For the book, Bueso assumed they were car from the DetCon hotel. Dainis Bisenieks: On the subject of the lying a lot. While there are other energy Re. the review of Dam Wars, as part of editor who “corrected” the drunk’s speech in sources, none is so widely used, efficient, and your drive to Detroit you can visit, near Titus Groan, I once bought myself a concentrated as oil. In fact, we can’t dig and Hamilton, Ontario, the Canadian Wartime paperback of Paradise Lost, a Signet edition ship coal without petroleum-powered vehicles Airplane Museum. Among the aircraft is one of I think, and discovered the editor had restored and equipment. A sudden breakdown in the the two Lancaster bombers still flying: all the vowels Milton had painstakingly supply of petroleum would not give us time to extracted for rhythmical reasons. Silly, old- switch to alternative sources or exploit http://www.warplane.com/vintage-aircraft-col fashioned Milton, writing his primitive poetry untapped reserves. lection/aircraft-history.aspx?aircraftId=4 . without the benefit of our modern advances! Bueso’s main thesis is that modern Brad W. Foster: “I always wondered agriculture depends on oil. “We are eating You can be a passenger in the air in the what a Monty Python sf movie would have petroleum,” he said at Hispacón. Petroleum is Lancaster, in exchange for $2,500. Oh, and you been like.” They actually did a half-hour essential for producing fertilizer, powering must be a museum member. episode about how giant blancmanges from equipment, and transporting seeds to fields and A relative bargain is a flight in a B-25, 20 the planet Skyron in the galaxy of Andromeda produce to consumers. After a sudden, minutes for $450. attempt to win Wimbledon by transforming unanticipated disappearance of petroleum, we Englishmen into Scotsmen. wouldn’t be able to switch over to another So, you can get Thirty Seconds energy supply quickly enough to avoid losing Over Tokyo for $11.25, or in 1942 From: Sue Burke January 25, 2014 a year or more of harvests. Meanwhile, we prices 78¢. calle Agustín Querol 6 bis - 6D 28014 wouldn’t have the means to distribute what food — JTM Madrid, SPAIN there was. There lies the disaster. [email protected] In the end, though, he confessed that the Four bids for Worldcon in 2017. Helsinki mount-oregano.livejournal.com premise of the book serves best as a means to will be a distant second to DC in 2017, for no amadisofgaul.blogspot.com ponder our dependence on petroleum. We other reason than Worldcon last happened on won’t run out, oil will just get more scarce, and your East Coast in 2004, or 13 years ago by Continuing the theme of translation, Joe our lives will change, possibly a lot, since our 2017. said goodbye at the end of my last LOC with current lifestyle depends on cheap, abundant Helsinki did as well as it did in 2013 “Hasta la vista, baby” from Terminator 2: oil. The future will be based on sustainable because Tampa underwhelmed, and Spokane Judgement Day. But how should that be said energy, he said, one way or another, but getting did not overwhelm, voters. But much support when dubbed into Spanish? Here in Spain, it there might be hard. for Helsinki Redux will switch to D.C. The list turned into “Sayonara, baby” to keep it foreign Finally, I’m sad to say that my sister, of the D.C. bid's committee members is wide and using an expression with somewhat Elizabeth Horton, died on January 9 of lung and deep. similar lip movements. cancer at age 53. She had been diagnosed in And Helsinki chose not to oppose Kansas January 2013, and although it had seemed to be City in 2016, I am led to understand, because In the French dubbings of in remission at the Fourth of July, it came back, the Helsinki bidders and the Kansas City Warner Brothers cartoons, Pepe this time incurable, and her health deteriorated bidders are friends. le Pew is Italian. quickly. I’m glad I had time to spend with her So no NASFiC in 2015, 2016, 2017, and in San Angelo, Texas, to help her and her perhaps 2018. But the Chinese are coming: to Lisa objected to Christmas decorations husband, and to get them to my brother’s house LonCon 3, to bid for a Worldcon. before Halloween. Here the Christmas candy in Houston for a family reunion at was out well before All Saints Day, too. I Thanksgiving. She leaves behind a loving From: Sheryl L. Birkhead Jan. 31, 2014 refused to buy it before its time. husband and wonderful son, and many happy 22509 Jonnie Court, Gaithersburg, MD My husband, Jerry Finn, and I have signed memories. She was enjoying life and making 20882-3422 USA up for Loncon 3. It’s reasonably close: we jokes until the very end. could actually get there by bus, 29 hours and Just when I thought I was getting caught up €100/US$135 each way, although a plane will From: Murray Moore January 30, 2014 I got lax in my locs and . . . well . . . you know! be the same price and less than 4 hours. We 1065 Henley Road, Mississauga Ontario Yeah, the holidays are now running plan to go a day early for sightseeing. But L4Y 1C8 CANADA together at the end of the year. If the stores even with the convention discount, our rooms [email protected] could somehow manage (can we say sales?) to in the Ibis Hotel – already reserved – will run stimualate buying for a longer period it might Alexiad February 2014 Page 29 serve everyone better — no feeling of rushed I do have to say that I was a bit surprised about problems there — must be a reason. The (but hey, for some of us that is fun!). I would last year that whoever decides if something or optician is 4th generation in the business and hope it would mena everying gets purchased someone is qualified for a nomination let some even I know the family name! So when (now over a longer period of time so there is not any of the “items” through (esp. in the fanzine have a total of $61) I can get a pair of sudden expenditure that means big problems category). Okqy, enough creebing especially reading/computer glasses I’ll see if that solves in the budget (yeah, that’s experience talling.) when preaching to what I suspect is the choir. some of the problems. The opthalmologist Got the Harry Potter Forever stamps I did a fantasy check on what a trip to suggested just driving glasses — knowing I before the “temporary” 3¢ price increase — LonCon3 would cost and gave up very quickly would not be able to look down at the along with some of the global Forever stamps. (I entertain myself every few years with making console/dashboard and be able to focus on it — I like them, so it is my personal preference — a budget for such a trip — oops, forgot to add not willing to make that concession . . . yet. as it is for all the stamps I buy. a passport into this one — ah well, never going The budget is not elastic and with the roof The latest things I have thought about, to happen). estimate at $12,000, that trumps a second pair equine-wise, are the Budweiser Super Bowl of glasses, for right now — caveat — no way commercials — heard a lot about the one from am I coming up with the $12,000 int eh near 2002, so went and found it online — then future, but it becomes the top item on my list hadn’t seen 2013 either and went to that one for right now. too. Working on Sundays puts a crimp in my Richard Dengrove: this (very) used and TV watching that day, regardless of what is now badly abused laptop actually came with a on. cordless mouse. It was all a surprise when I This year one of my pseudo-resolutions opened the box and various bits and pieces fell was to spend at least one hour a day doing out. I use it every so often. Now that the something I like — sketching drawing, etc. noxious battery is gone, it seems less That lasted one day. I still intend to do it, but important. If I was trying to work with so far life keeps getting in the way without artwork, that would be a different situation. extending the number of hours per day. I will Lloyd: Hope the job situation was as ghood Ender’s Game went on my Netflix list as get back to it, just not sure when . . . as possible — you didn’t know at last loc. soon as I knew it was being produced. It now Hope you are riding out the weather this When my brother, who is off to Hawaii for two sits in my no. 1 spot with the notation (it will winter — cold is not exactly descriptive. I weaks to their time-share, then back and after be available (through Netflix) February 11. watch the pile of wood rapidly dwindle and three weeks off on a 120-day cruise — all while That means I should be able to watch it in the worry a bit. We shall see. Ironically, it is waiting for their “new” (i.e., new to them) home relatively near future. We’ll see. supposed to flirt with the 50s this weekend — to be available, asks me where I am going for Because I seem to have fouled up the lines then (rumor has it) a bad storm is supposed to my vacation this year, I tell him the same place of communication between the worldcon and be coming in another week or so. Oh goodie. I have gone for the past 22 years and he has my desire for paper copies of . . . well . . . It is time to think about Hugo nominations stopped askign where that might be. I keep everything, I keep forgetting that it is time to again! I (every year) hear mumbling about hoping that one year I will be able to actually start putting together my nomination list. I had don’t bother, but my take on it is, if I am go somewhere, if only for a day or two — but hoped to check out the artwork for LonCon3 to qualified to nominate, I can complain about need to win the lottery for that. With the see if anything I might have to offer would fit the results only if I did my part and $17,000+ needing to go into the house (and a their style. Usually I expect concomms to nominated. I get that feeling that it is an uphill whole $461 saved so far), unlikely there will be utilize (and rightly so) their local talent, but just battle. After all this, the fandom of today and any non-essential traveling. I hope you get to in case . . . So, for the last few years I have nto tomorrow is not the same as yesterday . . . LonCon3 and I look forward to a trip report! gotten any paper copies and lost track of any that’s called progress (like it or not). Since I (By the way, I’d love to be able to afford the deadlines . . . for the most part. This year I am interested in the fan categories, especially new technology, but I can’t. It is amazing that need to vote for TAFF and then be sure I have the fanartist one, I cringe at the thought that you can get along without all the bells and done my Hugo nomination and voting duties. any art is qualified (meaning sone and dance, whistles — but people have done it for years. Sorry, still have not been able to get back to filk, etc.). I had, honestly, never given any If it won’t shoehorn into the budget, it isn’t at least an hour a day on artwork. Well, one thought in that direction. All my time (up even up for consideration these days.) day is better than none. I know I want to get until just recently) in fandom fanart meant Seeing Rodney’s glasses saga — same here back to it RSN. drawing for fanzines. Right. Now fanzines except these are my first pair. Insurance will Thanks for thish! I have about 6 mroe are . . . well .. . not necessarily the fanzines we pay for diagnostics but not the routine exam, Beanjies to add to my list of 20 or so in the line have had in our fan culture for so “loong”. and of course not the glasses which totaled — maybe I can work on an Alexiad Beanjie — Again, like it or not, that’s progress. It never about $650. To be fair, I went to the allied but most probably not this go-round. crossed my mind that art encompassed so optician beside the opthalmologist — not one of many categories that fit the definition and the touted low price chains. I have now had the WAHF: unless the criteria are much more specific than glasses almost a year and they still make me Lloyd Daub, with various items of they are now all those are qualified. dizzy, I compare my vision plus dizziness with interest. Personally, I feel the fan part of the name glasses and vision without — the glasses are Martin Morse Wooster, with the same. comes with “responsibility” to fandom – but to still ahead. Unfortunately there is not a lot you Cathy Palmer-Lister, who always enjoys me (as a no-convention goer these days) this can do if there is a problem. These are Alexiad. means not just in art shows. Once again, that progressives — was never told I had an Bob Kennedy, Lacy Thomas, Garth is my take on it and without very specific astigmatism — so with the glasses, scripted for Spencer, Mike Glyer, Joel Zakem, guidelines. two problems — i.e., go for the progressives. Lloyd Penney, Steve Silver, Chris Now I think I want a separate pair just for Garcia, Chuck & Patti Lipsig, John What “Fan Art” means these computer reading — not specifically for Purcell, Bill Breuer, Jeff Boman, Guy days is a website with cartoons driving. The optician said that until I have nn & Rosy Lillian, and others with birthday from which the artist makes a old set of frames, any new glasses, progressives, and holiday greetings living with tie-ins. will be at least $400. We had an honest talk — JTM about going to one of the chains, but I worry Page 30 February 2014 Alexiad

Comments: LOSING MR BAGGINS Co-Editors: Lisa & Joseph Major http://www.imdb.com/title/tt8960737/ The details were striking for the Co-Publishers: Joseph & Lisa Major reviewer, no doubt. Some of the Writers, Staff: Major, Joseph, Major, Lisa, The BBC’s story of the tense (and failed) concept art presented is truly dreadful, & McCormick, Grant negotiations for a Disney presentation of The stomach-turning, even. The “Bilbo and Tech Staff: Grant C. McCormick Hobbit is the highlight of the 2015 season. the Twelve Dwarfs” [sic] scene, for Repeating his striking portrayal from example is barely painted-over Snow This is issue Whole Number Seventy- Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Tom Hanks plays White. How much did the animation Three (73). the beloved Walt Disney seeking to bring to cost the Beeb? the screen the latest sensation in childhood Art: What we are mainly looking for is literature. The efforts expended to bring They even had Disney Princesses small fillos. Your fillo will probably be reluctant writer J. R. R. Tolkien (Sir Derek then! This Princess Tauriel they scanned in (by Grant) and may be reused, Jacobi) to an agreement are shown in full and intrusively introduced was so much at unless you object to its reuse. intense detail. odds with the original concept. They The reluctance of the Professor is were no doubt planning to make a mint Contributions: This is not a fictionzine. It illuminated in his correspondence with his on tie-ins. is intended to be our fanzine, so be interesting. wife and their son Father John Tolkien, as he struggles with his conflict of Art and You’re all so down on Disney. Material in Alexiad is copyright © 2014. Commerce. The Disney artistic vision is Unlike some of the other adaptations, All rights reserved. Upon publication, all limned in great detail, as is the struggle this would have been done by people rights revert to the original contributor, but we between the two creators. with skill, and respect for the original. reserve the right to use any item more than The notorious copyright problems are used once, unless otherwise specified by the to further the plot, as Disney executives, I knew Donald A. Wollheim, and contributor. All letters sent to Alexiad become behind Uncle Walt’s back as it were, negotiate Michael Richards, you’re no DAW. the property of the publishers. Any material by with novel editor Donald A. Wollheim You’re no Futurian, you’re a Pasturian. the editors is available to other fanzines if they (Michael Richards) to realize the public- provide proper credit and send a copy. domain solution to the matter. What are we going to see next, When two great creators go head-to-head “Walt Disney Presents Doctor Who”? Available for The Usual (letter of comment, against each other over an artistic vision, the trade, contribution). Sample issue available result can be as striking and conflicted as any And the chicks will dig that. upon request. Back issues $1; subscription fiction. Recommended. $10/year. Alexiad is also available by email in Adobe Acrobat .pdf format. ALEXIAD c/o Lisa & Joseph Major 1409 Christy Avenue Louisville, KY 40204-2040 USA [email protected] http:/efanzines.com/Alexiad/index.htm