Yet another fanzine from Eric Mayer, August, 2012 mail: [email protected]

finishing a new novel, set in rural Shropshire in 1941. It The Ink Stained Wraith combines mystery elements (residents gone missing) with a The cover this issue is "Cigarette Break" by Harry hint of the supernatural (a stone circle). Hard to say if Bell. Harry is one of our best fan artists but he's also an anyone will want it. I suppose we'd be better off accomplished professional painter, a vocation he's been professionally writing about vampires, werewolves or working at with great success since his retirement. Check zombies, but the very idea makes me shudder, and not in an out his website: enjoyable reading-a-ghost-story way. In the spring we completely rewrote our first book, http://www.harrybellart.com/ One for Sorrow, for publication by Head of Zeus in the UK and Europe in November. Our rewrite has now become the I love his stuff. I admit, figurative painting (which is version available on Kindle in the US. We've finished our what I would define as art anchored in reality but stressing detailed outline for the tenth Byzantine mystery and that design elements rather than realism) is my favorite sort and will probably be the next project. Harry's terrific at it. Writing continually maddens and frustrates me. I can Mary immediately guessed -- and Harry confirmed -- never quite seem to achieve what I want to, artistically, that "Cigarette Break" is based on The Hoppings, an annual although I continue to creep closer. And there seems to be fair held on the Town Moor in Newcastle. It reminded me of no way to reconcile the sorts of things we want to write with of going to the local amusement park when I was a kid, the sorts of things large publishers will pay you well to write. which I've written about for this issue. Nevertheless, when I am not agonizing over the Harry's decision to reboot and take up a new career writing I realize what a wonderful thing it is at sixty-two to instead of actually retiring is something Mary and I hope to be able to embark on a brand new adventure with every new emulate one day with our fiction writing. Maybe it's my book. It's like being in one's twenties again. Puritanical streak (or that I'm a workaholic) but collecting a A life devoted to art is a successful life even if you pension in order to put your feet up and watch television never make a cent off your work. seems a terrible waste of life. The major project here at Casa Maywrite has been

2 One of summer's biggest treats was when my parents took me to the amusement park. I don't know if amusement parks come so small these days, but it was big enough to thrill a nine-year old. No matter where you were you could hear the clatter, rush and shriek of coaster and riders, the miniature train's jingling bell, the cheerful, maddening tooting and thumping of the merry-go-round's mechanical drum and organ. The air smelled of cotton candy. My sneakers crunched on gravel, sawdust and discarded peanut shells. By the time I got home my soles were plastered with sun-heated, sticky chewing gum. Near the park entrance, a low cinder block building formed a dim, cool cave full of flashing lights and ringing bells. I never ventured into the pinball lair. The two machines at the entrance of the arcade were what interested me. One stamped the Lord's Prayer or the Gettysburg Address on a flattened penny. Behind the other contraption's glass face a crane with a mechanical grabber hung above an enticing mountain of trinkets. I managed to snag a treasure trove: a Lilliputian pinhole camera with film, a miniature hectograph and a trio of ceramic monkeys which GONE WITH puffed smoke rings from their little cigarettes even while they saw, heard and spoke no evil. I recall the atmosphere and anticipation more than the rides. I do remember my heart pounding as the roller coaster was ratcheted noisily up the impossibly steep incline THE WHIP until wooden platform and rails vanished and I looked straight up into nothing but blue sky before the bottom dropped out of the world. Then there was centrifugal terror

3 as the whip's long, steel arms threatened to fling my car start of the roller coaster remained, though sagging and through the railings. Pressed helplessly back against the probably as rickety and unsafe as I'd feared it was so many cushioned seat, I imaged a bolt coming loose, my car years before. Scattered humps of rotting wood were visible smashing through the flimsy railing and flying out over the between the tall trees that had grown up around the rest of passersby, over the popcorn stand to smash into the fun the coaster. One cinder block wall of the arcade still stood, house. The stifling dark of the fun house comes back to me, covered with graffiti. There was the platform where the whip the abrupt turns to avoid illuminated skeletons, the far more had spun, roofless, empty. At one end of the park small, scary touch of invisible cobwebs in the dark. Also vivid is rusted tracks vanished into an overgrown field. the feeling of delight when the miniature train train chugged At the entrance a faded sign remained, promising past the boundaries of the park proper and into a wilderness amusements which were now ghostly memories. I was of grass and picnic tables. grateful that as a child I had not known it would come to Not too many years ago, I passed by the place where this. the amusement park had been. The wooden mountain at the

4 Judith and I

Judith and I had a long history. I was living in Brooklyn in the late seventies, going to law school. When you're in school, furnishing an apartment can be a challenge. You make do with an orange crate here and a couple of cinder blocks and boards there. If you find a wobbly table put out to the curb then suddenly you need to rearrange the whole decor. One afternoon I was walking back from the subway station on trash pickup day -- "shopping day" for students -- and there she was, leaning up against some beat up garbage cans, smiling in my direction. I guess I should have noticed the severed head she was holding but considering the way she was dressed... She, I must explain, was a four foot high reproduction of Klimt's Judith II (Judith with the head of Holofernes but often taken for Salome with the head of ...I'm tempted to say those Biblical babes were buggers for beheadings but I shall resist) nicely mounted on a heavy backing. I put my arm around her and she didn't resist, so we went up to my apartment. There's nothing more depressing than bare walls. I put Judith in a prominent spot. I can tell you, a half naked,leering woman holding a dead man's head by its long hair really changed the whole atmosphere of the place. Now I've got to be honest and admit that I was

5 married at the time. My first marriage. And if I were writing point our three other ezines with a historical slant. a short story I guess I could make something of the fact that The first two actually are historical zines published the poster that turned up was Judith and not, say, the back in the winter of 1948, available as pdfs thanks to the Lovers, if you get my drift. Was Judith trying to tell me efforts of Robert Lichtman. I found these especially something? But I've got to get this entry up before the interesting because they aren't well known zines but, I Google logo changes so I don't have time to get all literary. suppose, good examples of the sort of thing fans were up to Suffice it to say that Judith (somehow, no matter how at the time. long I knew her, "Judy" just didn't seem to fit) moved There has been some discussion in Arnie Katz' around with us for years, although finally she ended up on Fanstuff about the merits of reprinting more examples of the wall of the basement office. That's where she was when fanzines from the past and I think these are exactly what Mary and I were married, if I recall rightly. One of my few people had in mind. possessions the Ex didn't take with her. At least she left me my head. H-1661 is 6 dittoed pages When we moved from that place Judith got left from Rusty Hevelin. It behind with the rest of the past. I wonder if someone else includes FAPA mailing invited her into his tent? comments but is largely devoted to a discussion of what ------fans should do to insure that the cosmic race survives a Three Zines possible nuclear war. A suggestion is made that fen ------chip in to buy some remote land and stock up on supplies, It's unclear to me how many people actually read the including weapons. In case of ezines Bill Burns continually posts to eFanzines. I suspect a Armageddon fans could gather lot of them go virtually unnoticed, in particular one-shots. at this base to restart Last issue I mentioned Taral's collection of Candadian fan civilization, no doubt in a Trufannish mold. history Essays, Great White North, this time I want to It's been a long time since fen thought in such grandiose terms. No one managed to save fandom from

6 trekkies let alone save the world. A shame that the plan was in August 1941. In a nutshell, my idea was to invite never carried out since land in California would likely have several fan writers and illustrators to create an all appreciated considerably. We'd all be rich! new fanzine using the article titles that Harry used in Soipdalgeif is a 5 page 1941. I sent out a wave of invitations simply mimeoed FAPA one-shot put providing the deadline for the articles and the title of out by "five fine the article in question, without explaining the overall minds...whirring at top concept for the issue or what I was looking for in the speed": Rog Phillips Graham, article. I wanted each contributor to come to the Howard Miller, Don Wilson, project without fully understanding what I was Rex Ward and Charles Burbee. trying to do and without reading Zenith to get an As Phillips (I think) observes, idea." "This magazine is intended to Steven attaches the original Vector. Thus David Redd, die stillborn and in this Peter Sullivan, Christopher J. Garcia, Mark Plummer, Steve objective, at least, I believe we Pitluk. John Purcell, Gregory Benford, Brad Foster, Maurine have succeeded." Starkey and Valerie Purcell match wits -- in a manner of Rog Phillips introduced speaking and unbeknownst to them -- with John F Burke, many sf readers to fanzines via Ted Carnell, Maruice K. Hanson, Sam Youd and Harry his Amazing Stories column, "The Club House." The zine Turner. features the off-the-cuff, intelligent nonsense that was one I'll let you compare and contrast. For me the highlight the real attractions of early fandom . was the mimeoed artwork of Alan Hunter and it was also Speaking of intelligent nonsense, there is Argentus cool to see the neat cover by Valerie Purcell! A brand new Special Edition 4: From Agentus to Vector. I'd better fanartist amongst us. let editor Steven H Silver explain the concept: "So it happened that I was looking through the archives at fanac.org on April 25 and I had a Soipdalgeif: http://efanzines.com/Soipdalgeif/index.htm brilliant, idea for a fanzine, or, if not brilliant, than H-1661:http://efanzines.com/H1661/index.htm interesting. Or at least clever. Perhaps. The idea came Argentus: http://efanzines.com/Argentus/index.htm to me as I read through the first issue of British fan Harry Turner’s fanzine Zenith, which was published

7 The best presents original ideas but Behold the Man merely repackages, as a time travel story, theories about the historical that have been knocking Behold the around since the Enlightenment at least. Moorcock doesn't even come up with any clever or Man interesting explanations for Jesus/Glogauer's "miracles" by aside from the plausible but well-worn observation that events tend to become magnified and distorted in the telling. At one point he indicates that Glogauer's modern psychiatric A Review training allows him to effect cures of the mentally ill so instantly and noticeably that observers think they are Behold the Man proved an witnessing miracles -- a laughable exaggeration of the enormous disappointment to powers of psychiatry, about as believable as postulating an me. I usually enjoy the old earth-like atmosphere on the moon. science fiction classics I To make matters worse scenes of Glogauer's sojourn reread and I love Michael in ancient Galilee are interspersed with flashbacks, mostly of Moorcock's Elric saga but it's Glogauer's debates about religion with his psychiatrist girl hard for me to understand how this novella won the 1967 friend. These are nothing more than info-dumps, in the Nebula, aside from the fact that controversy always grabs worst sf tradition of the mad scientist stopping the action for attention. two pages to explain the physics behind his invention. But Not that it should have been anything to get stirred who knows, maybe Moorcock had tongue in cheek while he up over since the bestselling The Passover Plot had already was writing. covered much the same ground the year before. Maybe sf There's more literary pretense than substance here, a writers who vote for Nebula didn't read bestsellers. sign of the times when it was published perhaps. It isn't that The novella tells the story of Karl Glogauer, who Behold the Man is a terrible story or not worth reading but it travels from the year 1970 in a time machine to 28 AD, hardly struck me as award material let alone a classic. where he hopes to meet the historical Jesus of Nazareth. Rather, it seemed like a wasted opportunity coming from a Instead, Glogauer finds himself, at first reluctantly, taking writer as good as Moorcock. For all I know, the novelization on the role of Jesus. might be better.

8 We sometimes went to the coast on sunny summer Sundays, but that was not always possible. The swimming baths part of the baths and wash house not far from our street were not free, and the only other body of water near Cool as a us -- across Scotswood Road at the bottom of our street in fact -- was the River Tyne. Nobody with any sense set foot in it, given at the time if anyone fell in a certain nasty procedure involving the stomach was routine treatment because of the filthy state of the water. Colander Aside: cleaning-up efforts have progressed very well since then as I hear salmon have returned to spawn upriver. by Mary Reed They must have long ancestral memories or perhaps enough of t hem got through the various conurbations along the The current heatwave in many parts of the country river to keep the Tyne tribe alive. has doubtless provided a bonanza in the form of increased But to get back to what I was saying, discomfort being sales of ice cream, soft drinks, and sun tan oil. Not to the mother of invention, one day my younger sister and I mention calamine lotion, that pink flaky stuff we wore devised a cooling method which these days would be called during the hotter stretches of English summers, which green. despite that lying jade Dame Rumour's contention to the We lived in an upstairs flat in a terraced street, and so contrary came along now and then. steps led down from the back door into our back yard. If any During those warm spells, since we lived in an subscribers have seen Get Carter, they've seen this type of industrial area with an abundance of concreted over back housing in the sequence with the hearse in the back lane, yards and no gardens -- the nearest greenery was to be except our back steps were open to the sky rather than found in local cemeteries or parks and living in the city roofed in. haymaking was not an option when the sun shone -- the Our brainwave was to hook up a hosepipe -- it's an heat was magnified something awful. It was excellent for enduring mystery why we even had one, since there was drying the Monday wash strung across the back lane but us nothing to water and no buggy to wash -- to the cold tap in thin-blooded locals sometimes found it hard to cope with the kitchen. In passing let me mention that this was the only higher than usual temperatures. plumbing provided in the flat until we got a water heater.

9 The traditional usual offices were represented by the loo in the back yard although in all fairness to the landlord, the Victorian clothes boiling copper was still in the scullery although in our time it was only used by as a meeting place for black beetles. Well, we tied a broom to the top of the outside staircase and from the broom suspended a colander swinging from three bits of string. Then we tied the hosepipe into the colander, turned on the cold tap, et voila, a shower arrangement was created. We donned our scratchy one- piece black wool bathing suits and took turns standing under the cool water, our feet on sun warmed concrete. As the neighbours may well have said, by, but those bairns thought up a canny plan. Now when Eric says he feels too hot, I'm not being rude when I tell him to stick his head under the cold tap. A colander is optional.

The painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema is a slightly idealized depiction of a homemade Newcastle shower arrangement. (Where did those kids get the Sphinx?!)

10 vertebrates in general, reptiles, etc. on down to bugs and plankton, it's clear that the level of consciousness drops. So the question of whether consciousness somehow comes to the living creature from beyond the veil, or is a natural Voices From function of being alive remains undecidable. It strikes me as an interesting question, though, how something like consciousness, that feels immaterial ,could arise from matter and also interesting why it feels different Beyond to us than matter if in fact it is merely physical. I never doubted that the Gestetner Corp. gave mimeos to Popes - I just thought that photo looked fake. The readers speak. The font you use at the end of the zine for the closing Editorial comments are in red. title, Papyrus, was used in the last Ray Bradbury book published before he died, THE NEFERTITI-TUT EXPRESS. NED BROOKS I proofread that, and complained that the one use of I am not much impressed with Nagel - he seems to be underline in the text was ugly because the line went through trying to create a Mystery to replace the traditional one that the bottom of the letters instead of just below the bottom. I he can't accept. I never imagined - and I doubt Darwin did suggested that they use italic instead of underline to either - that the theory of natural selection was a complete emphasize that one word. But when I installed Papyrus in my answer to a nebulous question. Nagel seems to start wrong trying to make a mystery of consciousness - it's a mystery all own PC, either the font had been improved or there was some right, but it is just an element of "life", and we don't know difference in the typesetting software. what that is either. We cannot tell whether all life has some consciousness, but there is a hint in the fact that what we Papyrus struck me as a kind of neat font. You can recognize as consciousness seems to dwindle as the proofread Bradbury's last book? So you got to read his last organism becomes less complex. Few people would deny book first. Neat! that primates are conscious, and mammals. As we get to

11 DAVE LOCKE remember the unit cost $100, basically for a game of pong That's right. Nobody ever told me I had to be good to that had no relationship with reality. be interested in something. Some things I actually did get to be fairly good at but others I did not, even though I enjoyed Not like real tennis. But more interesting than today's them mightily. Like tennis and chess, at both of which I was tedious game where about all they do is serve. a weekend hacker though I played both for number of years and with a variety of people. Well,if we were made in His image, then why aren't "I'm not convinced there is much of an audience for humans invisible too? Of course, I've never seen you, Eric, ezines." I'm not, either. My biggest problem with a digital so maybe you actually are invisible. No, wait, I have a few genzine was asking people to submit material when I knew photos with you in them, so probably you're not invisible the response was going to be either squat or close to squat. I unless it's a magic camera. can deal with that kind of response on my own material but I hate trying to cajole others into going along with it. As a It's a good question what is meant by being made in God's byproduct of that TIME AND AGAIN went into a second image. But then again I suspect only dumbass Christians hibernation and the perszine UNSTUCK IN TIME was take every word of the Bible literally. Granted, those are the created. If UIT wasn't also an apazine, possibly I wouldn't ones who are always on the news. even be pubbing that much. Science has never claimed that it can "explain Yes, I don't want to beg people for contributions while everything". That's a claim falsely imposed by magical knowing there will be almost no response to them. So I will thinking. almost certainly never attempt a genzine. As Robert L. Park wrote in his excellent SUPERSTITION, Belief in the Age of Science: "Will we ever I remember getting an Atari in the mid 70s. It was get to a 'final theory' that explains everything and can, as amusing at first but then I realized that by moving the Nobel Prize-winner Leon Lederman put it, "be written on a controls you could actually adjust the flight of the ping pong T-shirt"? Perhaps we never will, but what a magnificent ball. I could make the ball dodge my opponent's paddle quest." And, as Bertrand Russell wrote: "If a man is offered a because I could control the forward direction of the ball fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it while it was in flight. That was kind of weird. The other closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will games which came with the Atari were, in a word, crap. I refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered

12 something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to easily explained world, and prides itself on its rejection of his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. rationality. Its mascot/saint is Pollyanna. Religion The origin of myths is explained in this way." eschews reason, investigation, and logic, as disturbing and Even more simply stated, H.L. Mencken wrote: "For unwanted elements of life. Religion is comforting, but also centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable sophistic and - to me - soporific. I'll have none of it." in terms of the-not-worth-knowing." Most succinctly, on the subject of "explaining", David Mark Twain had a simple explanation, too: "When we Brooks wrote: "To explain the unknown by the known is a remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a stands explained." form of theological lunacy." Perhaps more useful, James Randi wrote: "Science does something that religion never does, and never will do: Although I read the whole Bible, and found it fascinating science welcomes and incorporates facts as they are historically, and generally admire the teachings of Jesus (I presented, whether they agree with the theory to which they mean, as Elvis Costello said, what's so funny about peace, apply, or not, and adjusts any discovery to incorporate the love and understanding?) I still cannot put myself in the newly-discovered evidence - thus growing and improving frame of mind to actually feel a belief in some unseen deity. the view we have of reality. Science is never "proven" - it However, I continue to believe that you cannot prove a offers a view that explains the world as we see it, a view that negative. is subject to improvement, adjustment, or even reversal, if the facts require that to be done; science gets better by Before the recent discovery of the Higgs Boson, most discrete steps, getting closer to the truth, with each step. scientists were pretty sure it existed, even if it was at yet not Religion, on the other hand, is set, hardened, incorrigible, proven. dogmatic, and incapable of changing its notions. It rules as a dictator, denying any and all facts that oppose its dogma. It Nagel's arguments are far more sophisticated than, I guess, I does not grow." At another time he noted: "Religion is was able to show in my little essay. If I understand him based on blind faith; it is not evidence-based. It rests on rightly, and probably I don't, he thinks (for one thing) that basic beliefs - dogma - that are not derived nor supported by consciousness is something different than any of things, observation or by performance, but by need. It is wishful matter/energy that current scientific models accounts for. thinking used to simplify everything; it requires no real (I'm not sure that this is true and plenty of philosophers thinking. It survives on the need for an uncomplicated and would disagree) Thus, as presently constituted, science

13 cannot even aspire to be on a journey toward the perhaps problems around house, car and body in the past year that unreachable goal of explaining the universe. It's defining put us in some big debt on a couple of credit cards. This for a characteristics prevent it from dealing with non-physical guy who has always paid off his full balance. phenomena even if such exist. Good news is I lucked into a job doing some game app design that is paying pretty well for a short term job, To deal with such matters as consciousness and and will at least help to put a dent into those bills. intentionality science would need to admit to there being Bad news is it is a LOT of work that has to be things in the universe that are not governed by physics. completed within a short, very constrained time period. I've Obviously, science may someday "discover" what pretty much done nothing else but work on this thing for the consciousness is. But if it turns out to be nonphysical then past two+ weeks, and have two+ more weeks to go before I suddenly you'd have a new branch of "science" which didn't see the end of it. depend on physics. So, aside from a very occasional break away to check emails, get something to eat, speak to Cindy, or get some Remember, I have a law degree and so am maybe inclined to sleep, I've had to let everything slide while give this full play Devil's advocate. You can probably see the essential attention. (The sleep thing has been interesting-- I've absurdity of an agnostic and an atheist arguing about worked each day until get tired, then go to sleep until I wake relative degrees of disbelief. up. At this point seem to be doing "days" that are about 17- 18 hours long, and then waking up after only 5 or 6 hours of "The Song of the Ambitious Neo". Cute poem by sleep, not my usual 8. I'm rested each time, but really odd. Mary. Vaguely reminds me of a name badge from Bill Maybe my subconscious also knows I need to put max time Rotsler which is one of three I have on the bookcase next to in on this, so is compressing my sleep? Who knows! me. In large letters is "LNF" and standing next to them is a Anyway, felt bad that a second ish has appeared and small cartoon character saying "Tell me I'm wrong". might have gone by with no response, so wanted to drop these lines to let you know not to take it personal! Now, BRAD FOSTER guess I'd better get back to work: tonight's project is to make Missed out on sending you any comments on issue 4, the alien invader animation so that he can strum his poo- and now here is 5 showing up already, and I'm still strapped inducing harp machine. (Yes, you read that correctly. No, I for time to gather thoughts. won't explain it right now. It's a very -weird- game app, Bad news was we had several (too many) major seems geared toward the 12 year old market with a poo

14 fixation. But, hey, having fun designing animations, and now, that is. they -are- paying me!) This was prompted by the latest REVENANT, in which you sounded quite despondent about the lack of Don't worry about responding every issue. You're one of the response it gets. I do hope you're not contemplating giving folks who have made my publishing venture worthwhile. the whole thing up. That would be a sad loss, as REVENANT Relatively few people write locs at all these days and you do is one of the best things in fanzine fandom at the moment, so on top of all the art you contribute. as was e-DITTO before it. Fandom can ill afford to lose its best writers and fanzines, whether the latter are paper or Sorry to hear about the house, car and body problems -- electronic. that's the unholy trinity of the great devil "Money Woes." I also have some idea about how work can be good and bad There have been so many projects, from legal work to books, news at the same time. Mary and I keep trying to write competing for my time this year that I am beginning to fear books and we would dearly love to expand beyond our fanac may need to take a back seat. Byzantine mysteries and maybe even find a big publisher, but, alas, you need to write the books but we also need to, Have you tried my trick of emailing the pdf to a well, you know...eat. So I'll get a big legal writing project and selected list? Such a list might take a while to put together, on one hand I'll be thinking, thank goodness, solvent for a but the result is much more personal than just waiting for few more months, but also I'll be thinking, but we won't Bill to announce the arrival of a new issue on eFanzines. I'm have time to finish that new book for the next few months. convinced it improves my response rate, though I agree - because my stats prove it - that paper still gets the best Ah, the life artistic! response of all.

At least that game design thing sounds weird and interesting Sometimes I almost work up the nerve to try it, but then I (more so than say "Compensation of Government Officials") recoil. I am not so sure that very many fans would actually But watch your sanity working on that 18 hours a day! want to get an unsolicited mailing from me.

MIKE MEARA I greatly enjoyed your piece about early computer You write so many fine locs to my zine, so I have felt games. I still have fond memories of Breakout and its many increasingly guilty that I've never responded in kind. Until variants, and there was another that involved preventing a

15 king being carried away by balloons that I found very I am dismayed by the treatment of Science in this and addictive, though for the life of me I can't recall its name. I the prior issue. Poor thing, cowering over there in the corner too tried my hand at writing my own games, one of which after being beaten about the head with bladders. Exactly was a simple D&D-type adventure game in Microsoft Excel, when did Science claim to be able to reveal All Truth and using macros, but I never got very far with it. answer all questions about Nature and our existence? Give the poor thing a break. Breakout I was lousy at! My trouble with writing computer games -- aside from not being able to program -- was that it I don't feel sorry for science. It can take care of itself! took me forever. So I'm not surprised you didn't get far writing something with macros. I'll tell you the difference between Science and Religion, and why Science is superior. In Science, it's As you know, I never discuss religion, so your considered glorious if you can disprove a long-standing lettercol was something of a no-go area for me. It was good, theory and provide a new and better one. In Religion, it's however, to see an all-too-rare appearance from Uncle John considered heretical. Hall, one of our best locsmiths. Of course, I don't agree with Science lets you propose a theory or model of some anything he says, but there's nothing unusual about that. He phenomenon, with supporting observations, then others are does write well, though, but not, as I say, often enough. invited to test that model and find observations that don't fit. If they are successful, then the theory or model is One thing I learned from discussing religion in a fanzine was discarded and they get a Nobel prize. to never discuss religion in a fanzine. Religion also puts up theories or models. When Bishop Usher counted up the generations in the Bible and DAVID B. WILLIAMS announced that the Earth was less than 5,000 years old, he Let me reassure you about the existence of readers for was presenting a model. This model has been well e-zines. We are out here. I'll tell you the problem. There are discredited by observations that don't fit. just too many fanzines. I only managed to get around to “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Revenant with its fifth issue. Earth” is also a model. The Bible says He did it in six days, and I think observation demonstrates that He rushed the You're right. Too many editors not enough readers. job. Otherwise, how to explain hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and all that stuff, which are the result

16 of poor design. Whether or not one thinks religion might offer answers, the Science doesn't claim to be the final truth, only to fact is that not all Christians, for example, take the Bible offer models that define the truth as closely as we can literally. All through the ages there have been believers who measure it. Thus Newton's laws of gravity were close enough have sought to refine their understanding of the Bible in to be considered true until Einstein and more refined terms of what they knew about the world from their own measurements came along. Religion, on the other hand, has perspective in history. always claimed to be the final truth and just won't accept the fact when some of its proposed models fail. Some thinkers would say that human understanding of the That God is omniscient and omnipotent is another Bible is ever evolving. I realize fundamentalist types don't model that doesn't stand up to close examination. How believe that. Plenty of people today don't even think our much easier it would be to explain the deaths of innocents understanding of human produced legal document like the and the problem of evil if Religion just proposed that God US Constitution should evolve. doesn't know everything and can't do everything. Then it all makes sense. On the other hand even a staid organization like the United I say all this because God and I are pals. We get on Methodist Churchs states clearly that intelligence is one of great, because I don't expect too much from him and he the tools to be brought to bear in understanding the Bible. treats me with the same consideration. LLOYD PENNEY So a God who doesn't interfere...that would make you a I’ve got the fifth issue of Revenant here…it’s a hot day Deist.... outside, and the new AC is making the place at least bearable. I’ll see if I can make this a fast one, and say Nagel, in his book, repeatedly stresses that he is an atheist something intelligent, no promises. and he does not believe that religion has any of the answers I agree with you about judging others. Fandom is at to what he sees as the shortcomings of modern science. He its best busy and constructive in an anarchical setting. We mentions that too often, today, questions are stated in terms should be exploring what else we can do in that fannish of opposing factions: science vs religion for instance. So as setting. Who knows, that person might discover something soon as someone criticizes science it is assumed he is siding interesting we’d like to do. with religion which is not necessarily true. We have too many cranky old fans all too eager to find some

17 criticism of newcomers. To be fair, most of these people aren’t interested in fandom elsewhere. These days, clubs were the same way when they were much younger fans. seem to form on Facebook, and there’s no need for a zine.

Interactive TV was something I never came across I does seem that a country as large as Canada would have myself. We also never had games for the TV at home. TV was more of a fandom. Dad’s domain, so we found things to do outside, and I toured fairly great distances on my bicycle. I didn’t find I have dealt with people from a wide variety of games until Yvonne and I finally got a computer and Web religious backgrounds, and I have been lucky in that I have access, and I ditched them fast for bulletin boards. met few extremists, convinced that if I didn’t immediately agree with their own religious ideas, I was going to hell, and Aside from text based games I haven't bothered with they’d send me there. I have to say that among the nicest computer games for more than fifteen years and even then I folks I’ve discussed religion with are the Mormons, sampled a few of the crude graphics based games available especially those who were converted instead of those who at the time and didn't find them very compelling. So of the were born into it. Belief in math? I guess I am an sort of fancy games that now -- I understand -- generate Algebraicist! I always got good marks in it. more income than movies, I am entirely, and blissfully, ignorant. I'm surprised to hear that about Mormons, frankly, since the religion doesn't strike me as very friendly, particularly The Great White Zine…Taral is unfortunately right in towards gays and women, and I am less than impressed by that because of Canada’s population being largely placed the most famous Mormon in the US today. However, it's along the US-Canada border, Canadian fandom is a handful best to judge individuals by how they act rather than what of embers along that line. We’ve got about one-tenth the they purport to believe. population of the US, so that’s to be expected. However, I have discovered by hunting down conventions that there are I barely passed Algebra, I am ashamed to admit. comics fandoms and gaming fandoms in other cities as well. There are major clubs and clubzines in Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal, and I get them all, and they all trade with each other. There appears to be other clubs in other cities, but they don’t have a clubzine, or don’t care to trade, or just

18 three decades since I've attended any sort of school I still get August is the Cruelest Month a sinking feeling in my stomach when August rolls around. It's August and even though I'm sixty-two I have to Of course, when September arrives and I realize I'm remind myself not to worry, I don't have to drag myself back not back in school, I feel better. Until I remember I'm sixty- to school at the end of the month. two. On the June day when the bell rang for the final time and we all went racing out the double doors and down the concrete steps, shouting and laughing (or maybe shedding a Free Sorrow few tears after falling down those steps and skinning a If you're interested in the professional knee....) unshackled from our desks, free of homework and fiction Mary and I write here's your the lurking horror of pop quizzes, summer seemed endless. chance to check out One for Sorrow, the The resumption of classes in three months was nothing first of our nine book (and counting) more than a shadowy rumor, distant as old age, something mystery series set in 6th century so far in the future it might as well never be happening at all. Byzantium. For Free! Oh those happy days of frogs and jaw-breakers, the stink of chalk replaced by the fragrance of grass and dirt. We rewrote the book for fall publication Best of all, the world of June and July was timeless. in hardback, paperback and ebook by Then along came August like some wild-eyed, long UK publisher Head of Zeus and now the bearded prophet waving a sign that said "The End is Near!" spiffy new version is available (as I Thanks a lot! Now I could count the weeks left until write this on August 12th) for free as school on the grubby, grass-stained fingers of one hand. a Kindle download from Poisoned Pen Press. Suddenly the newspapers were full of back-to-school No idea how long the offer lasts so take advantage while you advertisements, clearly intended ruin the short time left can. with constant reminders of what was to come. And there was http://www.amazon.com/One-Sorrow- the inevitable, terrible journey to town for my new prison Chamberlain-Mystery-ebook/dp/B0015ACGQ0 uniform. So August was never quite as fine as the previous two Long blonde hair and eyes of blue not included. months. There was that awareness of the horror lurching down the road towards me. Although it's been more than

19 remained some material I had wanted to include but which didn't fit the faux ditto format. In particular mini-comics. And I also realized that you can only push a good idea for so far before it becomes a tired schtick. Revenant's format has become a terrible drag. Although I like it, my word processor doesn't want to let me assemble material as I go along. Each time I add anything I need to reformat every suddenly discombobulated page. So what's next? A new title? A new format? A hiatus? Darned if I know. Revenant # 6 A Snoutypuss Press publication Cover Harry Bell p 3 paperbackwriter's photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/paperbackwriter/ p4 las-initially's photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/21561428@N03/ Last Words p. 5 Gustave Klimt I planned on six issues of Revenant in 2012 and here p. 10 Lawrence Alma-Tadema we are. True, I intended to publish every two months through December but in practice that seemed a glacial pace p. 20 Brad Foster p. 6 for an ezine. From Eric Mayer, [email protected] As you may have gathered Revenant has been a sort of addendum to E-Ditto. At the end of last year there

20