Issue No. 30, December 2013. Edited and published by Robert Lichtman, 11037 Broadway Terrace, Oakland, CA 94611-1948, USA. Please send trade fanzines and letters of comment to this address (or [email protected]). Founding member and Past President1991: fwa. This fanzine is available by Edi- torial Whim for The Usual (letters, contributions both written and artistic, and accepted trades), or $5.00 per issue (reviewers please note!). An “X” or “?”on your mailing label means this may be your last issue. All contents copyright © 2013 by Trap Door with all rights reverting to individual contributors upon publication. CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE: Doorway Robert Lichtman 2 Looking for the Lost Valley Prairie Jeff Schalles 5 PKD in OC Greg Benford 9 Bradburyland Andy Hooper 11 A Long, Live Night in Nimes Pascal Thomas 23 I Am Iron Man Rob Hansen 27 The Ether Still Vibrates the Readers 29 ART & GRAPHICS: ATom (2), Rob Hansen (27), William Rotsler (4, 26, 28), Dan Steffan (cover, 5, 11) and Steve Stiles (2, 9, 23, 29). Welcome to Trap first issue thanks to the Door’s thirtieth issue, paper I chose, which took which coincidentally is the weight into a second also the thirtieth annish. ounce and increased the How did this harmonic postage significantly. convergence happen? Rather than retrench, I pub- When I launched this lished larger issues to use fanzine in October 1983, up the rest of that addi- I envisioned it, in the tional ounce. And I never fanspeak of the time, as did manage anything that an “ensmalled” fanzine approached quarterly. For that could be mailed for a the first five issues I single stamp and come published twice yearly, but out at least quarterly. My after that “highly irregular” inspirations were Dan would best describe my Steffan’s and Ted schedule, with just over White’s Pong and two years being the most Richard Bergeron’s Wiz. extreme gap. In more Pong in particular was a recent times I’ve adjusted fanzine I loved. It started my internal fan clock, and up just as I returned to this issue will be the fifth my new life in fandom consecutive one I’ve pub- from a decade on the lished on a yearly basis. Farm and it was full of This month also marks both familiar names and the 55th anniversary of the interesting new ones. first issue of my first fan- Well, my vision was zine, Psi-Phi, in December never fulfilled. I inad- 1958. I’d caught the fan- vertently blew it with the zine editor bug that summer, almost as soon as I’d read my first paper lined the room, and there were stacks On the strength of that issue and two It’s been four years since Carol last handful of fanzines and thought “Hey, I and piles of more paper that covered much more in 1959, Psi-Phi placed seventeenth in appeared in Trap Door, and I sympathize could do that.” But first I needed to come of the floor. My eyes could hardly take in the Fanac Poll, where it was described as “a with her faithful fans who have opened each up with a suitable title, something that’s such abundance. Arv grinned and told me bright newcomer.” And to my surprise I new issue in anticipation of a fresh often difficult for me. (Paul Williams, rest his father had given us permission to help placed third in the “best new fan” category. installment of her column, “Stuff”—which his soul, gave me Trap Door.) I considered ourselves, that he always had more than he Terry again: “In the short space of a year and started in Terry’s Lighthouse in 1964 and and rejected a bunch of names until, one could use. A lot of it was high-quality a half Bob Lichtman has become one of was revived here in 1990. Although this day, as I was reading a story in Astounding coated book paper that we decided to use for fandom’s most active members. He writes issue also lacks her column, your long wait about psi, lightning struck, and Psi-Phi was Psi-Phi. I was in fanzine heaven! well and knows how to publish neatly— for more Carol is over. She’s got a book born. At the time I didn’t know that some in That first issue wasn’t much: eleven definitely an asset to the fan-scene.” coming out, and here is an admittedly fandom harbored great disdain for the term pages, single-sided, mostly written by me Arv remained my coeditor for the first six shameless plug for it. “sci-fi,” and I had to take a little flack. but with a cover and a one-page column by issues (we still hadn’t made much of a dent By the time you read this, Carol Carr: With the title settled, I started mulling Arv. We printed up about a hundred copies in all that paper), but after we graduated from The Collected Writings will probably be over what to put in the fanzine and how to and sent them out to an unsuspecting high school he went off to Stanford and available for purchase. It contains the five produce it. Ditto? Mimeo? I couldn’t fandom. The first response came quickly: disappeared into the glades of gafia. He was published stories she refers to as her afford to buy my own machine. The possi- “Psi-Phi is a new fanzine from people never completely out of my mind, though, oeuvrette. In addition, she has “appreci- bility of using a mimeo where a friend we’ve never heard of before down in Los and eventually—thanks to the internet—I ations” of Dick Lupoff and Avram David- worked came and quickly went. In the Angeles. Fellow named Bob Lichtman learned he’d become a physician practicing son, plus her amusing (sic) obituary of depths of desperation, I even considered seems to be the guiding light, with another in Southern California. We reconnected this Philip K. Dick—with seldom-seen photos of using a hektograph. They were cheap to fellow name of Arv Underman helping. I fall for the first time in over fifty years, when all three. There are also seventeen poems buy. I didn’t learn until much later what an somehow doubt the existence of Mr. Under- I was given his e-mail address by a mutual and a lavish helping of the best of her inky mess that would have been. man—it’s too pat a name for an assistant. acquaintance. Because it had been so long “Stuff” columns (including newer material One day, as I was mulling things over, Anyway, this first issue contains little of and because our lives had taken such in print here for the first time). there was a knock on the door. It was my interest except the fact that there are new different turns since our days doing a fanzine The publisher is Dick Lupoff’s Surinam fellow SF-reading high school friend, Arv fans on the scene, that they’re trying, and together, I was a little apprehensive about Turtle Press, an imprint of Ramble House. Underman, who had come to show me a few that they’re capable of quite decent layout seeing him again. But it turned out I had no It will be available on Amazon, but can best books he’d just bought. He went into lyrical and reproduction. This could develop into reason to be. After several hours of pleasant be ordered via this link: detail about the huge piles of SF magazines something good, and contact with the other remembrances of times past and catching up http://www.ramblehouse.com/carolcarr.htm at some of the downtown bookshops. This active fans in L.A. could help. Go look on our present lives, we parted with plans to If link doesn’t work, try again in a few immediately brought out the (even then) them up, all you fans down there.” (Terry meet again when we could. days. Shipping is free when you order that dedicated collector in me, and I asked him if Carr in Fanac) Don’t doubt for a moment that the early way, there’s no sales tax—and you get to he might have seen any 1951 issues of Those L.A. fans did look me up, and egoboo and the easy acceptance I received as avoid a perhaps unwanted interaction with Galaxy that I needed to complete my run. before long I was going to LASFS meetings part of the fan scene didn’t have a strong Amazon. And then I told him about the fanzine I was —but that’s another story. Lured by the effect on me. I was an introverted teenager Preview copies of the book elicited back- hoping to publish and my financial diffi- prospect of “quite decent layout and repro- with little social life, and it was pure manna. cover comments from Ellen Datlow, Grania culties in getting it together. duction,” the second issue attracted contri- Contrary to the common knowledge back Davis, Joe Haldeman, Marta Randall, Kim “Oh, is that all? I can help,” he said. He butions from John Berry, Guy Terwilleger, then that young people who got active in Stanley Robinson, Bob Silverberg, and San explained that his father was a paper sales- “Ted Johnstone” (who began a series of fandom burned out and disappeared in a Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll. man (of all things!) and had a spirit dupli- articles that speculated on a movie being couple of years, this acceptance only served If Carol’s impending fame and fortune cator at home which he used now and then made of The Lord of the Rings) and Roger to reinforce my interest and boost my don’t interfere (I hear her laughing), I’ll do to print price sheets for his customers.