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—The Cover On May 5, 1961, I was afforded the incredible luxury of either feigning or being sick. I was allowed to stay home from school. I was a rocket nut. If that date is not to you, it has been burned into my mind. The day Alan Shepard riding a Mercury-Redstone rocket became the first American into space. It was pretty much an elevator trip, no orbit, just a quick trip 116 miles up and dip back into the ocean. I was with him all the way. I cheered when he was recovered. ‘Take that Gagarin,’ I thought. On February 2, 1962, John Glenn made orbit three times in Friendship 7 without my participation. On January 27, 1967, on Launch Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were asphyxiated when the Command Module interior caught fire. I wasn’t paying nearly as much attention to the space program when the tragedy occurred. July 20, 1969, I arrived with my new wife on a hilly street in Berkeley California. Trudged up the steps to my friend’s apartment, sat down on the floor in the room crowded with people gathered from the apartment complex, and landed on the moon. Exciting as that day was I feel NASA did all they could do to make the space program seem like a drag. Even the slow pace of the movie “Destination Moon” was a thrill ride in comparison. Lately, I am feeling that glimmer again. We may make it back to the Moon. We may travel to Mars. The planets have been revealed in new splendor photographed in fly-by missions. I am soberer about space travel. Living outside our atmosphere is inimical to life. Rife with dangers. More than envisioned in . February 18, 2021, I was just plain home and not ill. I turned on the TV and cheered with the folks at JPL when the “Perseverance” rover set treads on Mars. In a dream later that evening I found myself in an early scientific laboratory, possibly with Tesla, when an experiment went awry, and we were transported to the surface of Mars. So many friends were there if you exclude both Phobos and Deimos in a ridiculous orbit, and an equally silly sign I made up from the culinary Martian I know, there are Seven visits from our wonder-filled science fiction imaginations. Can you name them? Feel free to add others and email them to me. I will print any and all, other than the extremely vulgar and erotic, in the May Issue of Sigma. [email protected] —Meeting Notes – Parsec Meeting 03-20-2021 by Kevin Hayes

President: Joe Coluccio (absent) Vice President: Karen Yun-Lutz (Standing in for President) Secretary: Bill Hall (absent) Treasurer: Greg Armstrong (absent) Commentator: Kevin M. Hayes (Standing in for Secretary)

Welcome to the March Parsec meeting Meeting was brought to order by Karen Yun-Lutz, vice-president, at 1:02 PM Our president, Joe Coluccio will not be able to join us today. He is not feeling well after receiving his second dose of the Covid 19 vaccine. Our secretary, Bill Hall is also out today. His computer died. He hopes to be with us next month. Karen opened the meeting with two Quotes In honor of Women’s history month: “Kindness eases change. Love quiets fear. And a sweet and powerful Positive obsession Blunts pain, Diverts rage, And engages each of us In the greatest, The most intense Of our chosen struggles.” ~Octavia E. Butler, from her book Parable of Talents. Winner of the for best novel 1999

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” ~Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness Two Unknown Guests: Beth Wilson and Robert Lohman. Karen sent both of these people private messages, but neither responded. Both kept their cameras off and microphones muted the entire meeting. (a lot of the verbal discussion was reflected in the Chat feature of the meeting)

Old Business: Parsec Ink: Report given by John Thompson 272 stories were sent in 106 stories have been rejected 166 stories are still in progress of being read Accepted 0 The two editors, John Thompson and Diane Turnshek are holding 30 stories that they have agreed upon The editors are looking at the end of July as their publish date.

New business: None

Treasurers Report: None. Treasurer not in attendance

Mary Soon Lee, poetry reading. “On Reading Le Guin” Published in the book, Climbing lightly through Forests.

Kevin Hayes gave a brief story history on the Parsec Vice President.

Announcements: Karen Yun-Lutz noted Parsec Ink has a new newsletter and provided the link where people can sign up: http://eepurl.com/dFpuZT Diane Turnshek encouraged everyone to sign up to follow the goings on of the publishing branch of Parsec. And said: Thank you for signing up!

Karen Yun-Lutz advised the Confluence YouTube channel is still in need of 12 more subscribers to get our own unique URL: https://www.youtube.com/ channel/UC37uvCJAKMsSf2rh-NlBDSQ (everybody sign up!)

Barton Levenson announced he has a short story, “Gorgon,” in the Exterus Anthology which is available on

John Thompson let everyone know “Lepracon’ was up and running on line. With Brian, Benford and Bear as guests.

Scot Noel told us about DreamForge - Our Kickstarter is funded, but there’s still time to contribute until Sunday at 8:20 pm, https:://bit.ly/DFKicks. DreamForge Anvil Issue 2 is coming online April 10 and includes a poem by Mary Soon Lee, as well as some great stories by Wulf Moon, Bo Balder, and others. Our Anthology “{Worlds of Light and Darkness” by UpRoar Books is coming out in May and has received good to great reviews, including from Publisher’s Weekly.

Mary Soon Lee advised that she and Diane Turnshek are both among the participants at the virtual conference at Flights of Foundry in mid-April. Mary is giving a reading on Sunday. They are also on panels. You need to register for the conference in advance, but it is free (donations requested not required): https://flights-of-foundry.org/

Kathryn Smith provided the url for Lepracon http://www.leprecon.org/lep47/index.html (but that’s kind of moot since this was taking place several weeks ago but this time)

Mary Soon Lee told us that her poem, “How to Go Twelfth” is a finalist for the AnLab Readers’ Award and may be read online at https://www.analogsf. com/assets/6/6/POEM_HowToGo.pdf. Links to all the finalists are at https://www.analogsf.com/about-analog/anlab-readers-award-finalists/

Read the official statement on the website: https://confluence-sff.org/ It was announced There will be no in-person Confluence in 2021 people are still encouraged to sign up for the Confluence newsletter! http://eepurl.com/64Xif to stay abreast of the latest developments

Kevin Hayes began his presentation about Confluence by providing a little of the history and background of Confluence – when and how it was started and how it developed and changed from year to year. Most of what he said was gleaned from the history section of the Confluence Website. Discussion and chat ensued as the meeting progressed:

Randy’s Concerns about holding the conference in October: If we put on something in October, it would have to be on a low-conflict weekend in October. We need to avoid both the first and last weekends in the month at the very least. Another concern that I have with October is that I will have a much harder time getting musicians to perform in October than I will in July. I predict that by October, musicians who have been without performance revenue for 18 months will be trying desperately to line up paying gigs and won’t want to be playing a low- or no-revenue online concert. I’m leaning towards running another most- or full-weekend Confluence the Musical in July and maybe just doing a couple of concerts and some open filking if we do another Confluence the Novelization (or whatever) in October.

Panel Topics gleaned from suggestions and conversations.

• TCP I-pocalypse - what would happen if the internet went down? • What happens if Facebook takes over? With a view of social and moral determinations/interactions based on decisions from an arbitrary source. • What if Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa became sentient? • Is the internet supporting the growth of a corporate neo-royalty (similar to what Bester develops in “The Stars My Destination”) • Using Low-budget A.I. to monitor on-line content. Faults and foibles—problems waiting to happen • How long after a societal issue can we address that issue in our fiction? (When will it be ‘safe’ to write about the pandemic? ) • If a GoH is chosen, do a review/discussion about their work or a specific piece of their work • In view of some of the programs available (look at the writing A.I. presentation at the virtual con last year) will A.I.s replace writers and artists and what could happen to creativity? • The effects of the future in SF • Poetry Writing workshops – hosted by Herb Kauderer and/or Timons Esaias • SF/F and Parsec – a demonstration of community. • Draft of the panel topic: How long do we need to wait after a traumatic event before books/movies with similar plot lines/events will be marketable/reasonable to publish? Probably to be discussed with focus on the recent/ongoing pandemic, but not limited to it. • SF precursers to the First World War • A panel with Triangulation: Habitats authors.They could talk about sustainable housing in the future. • Presentation on Parsec. PARSECocalypse. Let’s talk about the sff community in Pittsburgh and the good that has come out of being associated with the Parsec Inc., organization. • Get people to send in short video clips: How has Parsec been instrumental in your life? • Reaching across the Parsec-- stories of how Parsec SFF has impacted the writing community • a survey of past plagues • What media did everyone consume in their year of staying home and watching Netflix? • Some science things — have you seen this? https://openai.com/blog/dall-e/

Two Unknown Guests: Beth Wilson and Robert Lohman. Karen sent both of these people private messages, but neither responded. Both kept their cameras off and microphones muted the entire meeting.

Meeting adjourned 2:40pm

DreamForge Anvil, SF & Stories and How to Write Them. An online magazine of that is positive and hopeful, while also helping new writers learn their craft. First Free Issue at: https://bit.ly/DF-Anvil-1 —President’s Column Face it. The reason we like crank science is because we can understand it. The words. Not the concepts.

The concepts are every bit as slippery as anything that is on the deep end of scientific thought. On the one hand you’ve got spooky action at a distance and on the other a telekinetic thought process. Which is the fiction? Einstein owes much of his theory to his thought experiments. The notion sounds awfully close to SF what-if. Flying saucers come from another dimension. What? Dimension? How? Or flying saucers race across interstellar perhaps even intergalactic space from another world with superior alien beings owning quite a few of our worst traits. Like pirates of old they want to sink our world, then steal our precious treasures, and last but certainly not least, serve us up in a stew. As Enrico Fermi asks, ‘Where are they?’ If you strain hard enough you can either telekines an object external to you at a short distance by crashing it off Aunt Minnie’s drum table or stop a missile from exiting a Siberian silo. Other than floating me my coffee in the morning, or having fun with the neighbor’s yapping dog, it has negligible interest to me. Teleportation. Now there is something I could use. The thought of having to travel for hours or days to get to another destination causes me so much agita that I just stay at home. If I could teleport to say Tahiti in an instant, I would be lying around on the beach right now. Ready to split immediately if a volcano erupted or a tsunami threatened. Scan the mind of your colleague only to encounter quite a contrary stream of thought. So, after all, that is what they think of you. And please, please don’t read the Id. There, for sure, be Drink from a spring, get frozen into a corpse-cycle, or just fall asleep next to Newton’s apple tree, and you will be either long-lived or immortal whichever comes last. And, Oi, the that are unleashed from the Jackalope to Yeti, witches, warlocks, fey and fraught supernatural figments, and a whole host of ware-beings. My favorite, the wareduck. We like crank science because it comes close to the world we espouse in the of science fiction. If you write with slightly more research, authority and proof you would be writing a popular science book. Asimov did it for years. Willy Ley never wrote one word of fiction yet was one of the primary contributors to Galaxy . John W. Campbell Jr, head crank in chief, littered the pages of Astounding and then Analog with the pseudo-science clap-trap that he fervently supported. Analog is still published with a banner that proclaims Analog Science Fiction & Fact with much better effect. We exist in the twilight world between Science and Fantasy. I find it a pleasant place. Sure it scares the crap out of me once in a while, but I can put up with those storms with more aplomb than the ones brought on by the evil forbidding imagination of horror. —No Dangerous Visions: On The Failure of Fantasy Fiction Eric Leif Davin [email protected]

In the interest of full disclosure, let me say at the outset that I love fantasy! Perhaps the first “Science Fiction” I read was the planetary romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs, particularly his Barsoom stories. I was so enthralled with them I almost believed they were real! I certainly hoped they were real! I fell in love with Dejah Thoris and still think that’s one of the most beautiful names in . That’s a testimony to the power of imprinting upon a young mind. But, how does John Carter, the of the Barsoom novels, get to Mars in the first place? By astral projection! By wishing it were so -- and he wakes up on Mars! Pure fantasy, all of it, from the dead sea bottoms of Barsoom to the hollow Earth of Pellucidar. Yet, I still think the first three novels in his Barsoom series -- A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, and A Warlord of Mars -- are the best things Burroughs ever wrote and I treasure my first edition copies of these novels. I also love Robert E. Howard, whom some consider the founder of the Sword & Sorcery sub-genre of fantasy. I have every Conan story he wrote -- including the fragments completed by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, Bjorn Nyberg, and others. I have all the paperback editions published by the long-defunct Lancer Books, with their wonderful covers by Frank Frazetta. I treasure my Press editions, which first published Conan in hardcover back in the Fifties. I have a complete run of the classic Conan comic book first published by Marvel in the ‘70s. I published my own pseudo-scholarly contribution to the Conan Canon -- a study of literature in the Hyborian Age -- in the journal Niekas several years ago. And when I first tried to write fiction of my own, I emulated my heroes. I wrote blatant imitations of Burroughs and Howard. Even as a kid, however, I knew there was something lacking in these stories I wrote. They replicated too faithfully the basic formula of all Burroughs novels, which is simply one chase scene after another, on and on, forever. I knew that wasn’t good enough. So I went into a vacant field near my home, tore my stories up into little pieces, scooped them into a pile of fragments, and put a match to them so that no one could ever ever read such drivel. Which brings us to the crux of this lovers’ quarrel I have with so much fantasy, then and now. We like to say SF is a literature of ideas, and at its best it is -- but how often is it, really? We like to say fantasy is a literature of the imagination, and at its best it is -- but how often is it, really? All too often it is reactionary and retrograde. It is trivial. In a word, it is junk. Before I tell you why I think so much of it is junk, though, perhaps some background and definitions are in order so we know what we’re talking about. Up to the Scientific Revolution, virtually all Western literature was “fantasy,” according to our current world view. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the first story ever recorded, the hero Gilgamesh literally goes to Hell. In Homer’s The Iliad the gods mingle and battle with humans. In The Odyssey the hero confronts a witch, monsters, & battles the gods themselves to return home. In Vergil’s The Aeneid, the hero once more goes to Hell. In the first English language story, Beowulf, the hero confronts and slays monsters. What Aeneas Saw in Hell Perhaps such stories weren’t seen as “fantasy” by the ancient societies which told these stories. In their world, gods and magic was reality. Among the Iroquois, for example, the “dream world” was as much a real world as the waking world. What happened in dreams really happened. Perhaps stories of adventures, therefore, were the “mundane” stories of their time, stories of reality. “Fantasy,” as we know it today, began to take shape at the end of the 18th century, an off-shoot of the Romantic Movement. And what was this “fantasy” which began to emerge. What is it today? Is it Sword & Sorcery? Planetary romances? ? Scientific fantasy? ? ? ? Epic fantasy? Horror? Ghost stories? tales? ? Satire? Surrealism? ? There’s really no consensus among critics as to what “fantasy” is. It’s all those labels I just mentioned and more. So, I’ll attempt only the most amorphous definition. Science Fiction is a type of fantasy in that it’s not about the mundane world we see all around us. But not all fantasy is science fiction. At its most simplistic level, science fiction is about what could happen, based upon what we currently know about the natural laws of the Universe. Or, as Samuel Delaney put it, based upon what is “known to be known.” But fantasy could never happen. It’s the basic difference between the possible and the impossible. Even so, sometimes it’s ambiguous which is which. Fantasy & SF are almost inextricably mixed up with each other. As we currently understand the laws of the Universe, for example, faster than light travel is impossible. Time travel (one of my favorite concepts) is also impossible. According to what is known to be known about the Universe, both are fantasy. Now, Star Trek & are ostensibly Science Fiction, but faster than light travel is commonplace to both and time travel is a favorite Star Trek . Are they Science Fiction or are they Memorex? So, perhaps fantasy can’t so usefully be defined by any rigid definitions, but instead by pointing to significant examples which we instinctively recognize as fantasy. There’s an old definition of Science Fiction as being that which I’m pointing at when I say the words, “Science Fiction.” Perhaps that’s the best definition of fantasy, also. “Fantasy” is what I’m pointing at when I say the word, “fantasy.” Some critics have denigrated fantasy as “escapist” literature. It’s trivial, they say, because it takes us away from the “real world.” But that’s a small- minded view, not only of fantasy, but of all literature, even great literature, and fantasy, at its best, is great literature. J.R.R. Tolkien, whose Lord of the Rings is the touchstone of all that fantasy can be at its best, -- but which has also spawned many pale imitations -- argued that one of the virtues of fantasy is that it does enable us to escape -- to “escape from the prison” of the mundane world, just as a Prisoner Of War escapes from his POW camp. It is an escape from the “reality” which doesn’t teach us the truth, a mundane reality which conspires to blind us and befuddle us. It is an escape from such mundane reality to essential reality, the metaphysical reality of the universe. It is an escape to the reality of the human soul, be it found in an , a , or a wizard; escape to the more real reality of hope and tragedy, morality and evil. Which brings us to the metaphysical function of fantasy, indeed, of all literature, indeed, of all art. Metaphysics deals with “...speculation [about] the first principles of things...being, substance, essence, time, space, cause, identity,” and so on. Metaphysics deals with the true nature of the universe, of human nature, of the human condition. And it is the function of art to explore that metaphysical reality and return to our mundane reality with the “Truth” about the way things really are. And, “what is Truth?” to quote Pontius Pilate. The truth is that life is contingent, open-ended, and sometimes the good guys lose. The truth is that nothing is certain, that all things must pass, the only constant is change, and humanity lives in a possibly arbitrary universe whose patterns, if they exist at all, may be only those imposed upon it by human beings. The truth is that evil is real. The truth is that human suffering cannot be easily alleviated and the human condition cannot be glibly transcended. The truth is that bad things happen to good people -- and we don’t know why. Art -- and fantasy when it is art -- asks you to face these metaphysical truths and, by doing so, become fully human. Art calls you to be all you can be. It scares you and makes you cry and makes you laugh and shout for joy. Now, can be used by good writers to tell such hard truths about our mundane world -- but usually this is not the case. All too often the escape is not from mundane reality to metaphysical reality, but escape into a warm, cozy, simple world where bad things happen only to bad people and human suffering can be easily alleviated. All too often the imaginary worlds of fantasy tend to be conceptually static rather than dynamic, cyclical rather than evolutionary; the narrative form is usually a and characters are symbols, usually of good & evil. The live in a determinist world, not a world of free will, they merely fulfill their destiny, something imposed upon them from elsewhere. E. R. Eddison’s classic fantasy “The Worm Ouroboros,” published in 1922, is the template for such changeless adventure. Once the battle is won, the cycle of threat, quest, and battle begins anew. There is no aging in the book, there is no change, there is merely the eternal present, destined to recur forever. In the main, Sword & Sorcery heroes, such as Eddison’s hero, have no desire to change the social order and, indeed, nothing really changes in their static societies. True, there’s an ostensible change over time in, say, the Conan Saga. He goes from thief, to outlaw chieftain, to mercenary, to king. But, basically, his story is the same in all incarnations. A lone Conan enters, stage right. He fights demons or witches or gods or sorcerers or outlaw hordes and wins the girl and the treasure and rides off into the sunset. In the very next story, however, he’s lost the girl and the treasure and has to win them all over again. And, except for Belit in the story, “Queen of the Black Coast,” we never do find out why Conan never seems to be able to hang on to a woman. They just disappear. So, the names change, but the story remains the same. We claim fantasy is a literature of imagination, but this is really a failure to imagine. And, when fantasy tells us this story, it lies. It’s junk. It may be as tasty and pleasurable as junk food, but it’s reactionary and retrograde. It is autistic, as it insulates and isolates us from metaphysical reality. Great and legend lead us toward the metaphysical truth of the human condition. Junk food fiction leads us away from the metaphysical truth to a denial of the human condition. Such fantasy is almost anti-fantasy, at least the kind of fantasy Tolkien praised and defended. It is a cozy retelling of comfortable and well-worn narratives about and , wizards and , ugly ducklings, dark lords, and mystic portals between worlds. “Here there be no tygers.” Here there are no dangerous visions. I repeat: The purpose of literature is to tell the metaphysical truth about the human condition. Out of a thousand possibilities, I’ll give you one example of great literature which tells such a truth. Arthur Miller’s play, “The Death of a Salesman,” debuted on Broadway in 1949 and was quickly recognized as one of the great plays of the American theater. Half a century later, in 1999, it was revived for another Broadway run. I have no doubt that when yet another half century has gone by, “The Death of a Salesman” will still be enacted on American stages. Why is that? What is it about “The Death of a Salesman” which resonates in the human psyche? What metaphysical truth does it tell us? The truth it tells us is this. Arthur Miller’s , Willy Loman, wants to be great -- but he is not great, which he eventually comes to recognize, to his tragedy. He is literally a “low-man.” That simple insight is what the play is about. But the reason the play resonates so much is because each and every one of us wants to be great. The metaphysical reality of the human condition, however, is that each and every one of us is not great. That is one truth of the human condition that great literature teaches us. Such metaphysical truth is movement from darkness into light, from sleep into wakefulness, from ignorance to knowledge -- knowledge of one’s own true nature and the world’s true nature. The basic plot of all fantasy is “liberation” -- Tolkien’s “escape from the prison.” But sometimes the slaves aren’t liberated. Sometimes the deal is rotten. Sometimes the dice are loaded and the fight is fixed. Sometimes the boat is sinking and the captain lies. Sometimes the Salesman can never attain greatness, no matter how much he desires it. But the metaphysical truth is also that the future is an open door -- a thousand open doors -- and we have the power to choose which ones we’ll walk through. Nothing is written in stone. It’s an open universe. And the patterns of it are the ones we create. The question is not, “What is the purpose of life?” The question is, “What is your purpose in life?” That purpose is the one you create in the midst of pain and suffering and injustice. The world and the future are both horrible and hopeful. And only when we know the horror, the horror, can we know the hope. That is the truth of the human condition -- and the truth of all great fantasy. —Persephone station by Stina Leicht Review by Larry Ivkovich Best described as a “feminist, LGBTQ, BIPOC ” Persephone Station (published 2021) is an action-packed, high- tech story with the universal concepts of greed and the lust for power at its core. Reminiscent of The Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven (there’s even an AI named Kurasawa and a town name Brynner in the mix!), the story involves a group of female mercenaries recruited to protect a protean, indigenous, pacifist, secretive, tech-savvy race called the Emissaries on the colony planet Persephone. There are a number of familiar ideas and tropes in the book but they don’t get in the way of the story at all. Stina Leicht’s writing is very descriptive and flows well. Persephone Station itself, orbiting Persephone, really serves as a secondary setting, most of the action taking place on the planet. Sabrina “” de la Reza, the merc team leader, is hired by Rosie, owner of Monk’s Bar on Persephone Station. Monk’s Bar is the hangout for drifters, criminals, refugees, etc. where various deals and life-and-death decisions are made. All under the table, naturally. Rosie and corporate bigwig Vissia Corsini are old friends who’ve diverged on their journey through life. Rosie, despite her shady lifestyle, wants to do the right thing, having lived with the Emissaries in her youth and benefited from their technology. Vissia has been corrupted by grief and a hunger for revenge for a perceived crime by the Emissaries against her daughter. Vissia is the main aggressor in the story, leading the powerful Serrao-Orlov Corporation, in the fight to upend the Emissaries and their way of life and steal their life-extending technology. There’s also a rogue AI on the loose, eager to subvert and destroy. Alerted to this rogue’s presence, a human-form AI endowed with human empathy named Kennedy Lieu begins searching for it with the assistance of another AI name Zhang who seems to be one of the good guys. But it turns out to be more complicated than that. Lieu becomes part of Angel’s team as part of her search. All roads lead to Persephone Station though as the fight to save the Emissaries and stop the rogue AI converge in a slam bang final battle. From which, of course, not everyone will survive. Well-written with great character development/interaction and terrific action scenes, the book does falter at the end. It seemed rushed to me with the epilogue a bit too warm and fuzzy but up until then, it rocks. Check this one out.

From Uproar Books: The Worlds of Light and Darkness is a collection of the best speculative fiction from the pages of DreamForge and Space &Time mag- azines, including short stories by Scott Edelman, Jane Lindskold, John Jos. Smith, Austin Gragg, and more.

Stories include WSFA Small Press Award Nominee Weight of Mountains, and six stories that made the Tangent Online Recommended Reading lists in 2019 or 2020.*

More info, including where to pre-order, at http://bit.ly/WoLDpreorder —Brief Bios Eric Leif Davin

Diane Detzer (de Reyna), (1930-1092) Detzer produced a series of space operas in the late 1950s and early 1960s as “Adam Lukens,” beginning with The Sea People (1959). The most interesting of these was Conquest of Life (1960) about a future Earth where women vastly outnumber men, who the women buy and sell. She published The Return of the Starships (1968) as by “Jorge de Reyna,” but Planet of Fear (1968) was published under her own name.

Leah Bodine Drake (1914-1964)

Born in , Drake was primarily a poet, with much verse appearing in between 1935-54. Some of her fantasy poetry can be found in the anthology, Dark of the Moon (1947). Derleth’s specialty press, , also published her collection of supernatural verse, Hornbook for Witches (1950). A second poetry collection, This Tilting Dust, appeared in 1955 from the small specialty press, Golden Quill. Her poetry also appeared in such glossies as The Atlantic (for which she was also a poetry reviewer) and The Saturday Evening Post.

She also published fantasy fiction in Weird Tales and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. “The Woods Grow Darker” was reprinted in The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: Sixth Series (1957), while “They Run Again” was chosen for Peter Haining’s Weird Tales, Vol. I (1978). To Skeptics Mary Soon Lee (first published in F&SF)

Those who require evidence laid down in fossil records, will never understand the doctrine of dragons: how they brooded atop treasure, how they mistrusted each other. The desolation of solitude.

Since you deny dragons, I suppose you will also deny that there were ever cats who lay against their warmth, who licked their salty scales, whose company the dragons hoarded jealously as gold. —SF And Rock And Roll Larry Ivkovich

One Hit, Or So, Spec Fic Wonders…

This is a very short and incomplete list of musical artists who’ve recorded at least one song influenced by SF, some of which are part of larger concept albums.

David Bowie (1969) – “Space Oddity” – A song about astronaut Major Tom meeting his ultimate fate in outer space. A sequel of sorts occurs in Bowie’s 1980 song “Ashes to Ashes.”

The Byrds (1966) – “Mr. Spaceman” – A very upbeat song about UFO abduction and the abductee’s desire to want to go back.

Crosby, Stills, and Nash (1969) and Jefferson Airplane (1969) – “Wooden Ships” – A sobering song about the aftermath of nuclear holocaust.

Kate Bush (1980) – “Breathing” – Another song about nuclear holocaust, this time told from the POV of an unborn child. Bowie

Björk (2011) – “Cosmogony” – A song about the creation of the universe told through different cultural creation , ending with the Big Bang.

Jimi Hendrix (1967) – “Up From the Skies” – A jazz-influenced song about an ET returning to Earth centuries after he’d left and being extremely disappointed with humanity’s evolution during his absence.

Douglas Blue Feather (2016) – “Caves of Mars” – Beautiful Native American flute Bjork instrumental.

Elton John (1972) – “Rocket Man” – A song about a working man in space. Re-recorded later by Kate Bush.

Neil Young (1971) – “After the Gold Rush”- A song about silver spaceships flying “mother nature’s silver seed” to a new home in the sun.

Styx (1977)– “Come Sail Away” – A song about “” aboard a starship whisking humans off to space.

Zager and Evans (1969) – “In the Year 2525” – A song about the of humankind with a neat twist at the end.

Mike and the Mechanics (1985) – “Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)” - A song about a fascist takeover of an unnamed country George Clinton/Parliament (1975) – “Mothership Connection (Star Child) – A song about a messianic alien named Star Child returning to Earth to “reclaim the pyramids.” Part of Clinton’s Afrofuturist P-Funk SF mythos.

Foreigner (1977) – “StarRider” – A song open to interpretation about “stealing a ride on a passing star through years of light, lands of future and past.”

Joan Osborne (1995) – “ Moon” – Another song open to interpretation but it seems to depict a torn between its hunger and humanity. Maybe.

George Clinton - Mother Ship Rush (1981) – “Red Barchetta” – A song about a future world where “motor laws” have banned recreational driving but one young rebel dares to break those laws. Inspired by the short story “A Nice Morning Drive,” written by Richard S. Foster which appeared in the November 1973 issue of Road & Track magazine.

Rush-Red Barchetta clipping--the deep clipping. (2017) – “The Deep” – 2018 nominee about a race of descended from African women thrown into the sea from slave ships because they were pregnant (based on a true, repulsive practice). Inspiration for the novella of the same name by Rivers Solomon with the members of clipping. listed as co-authors.

S.J. Tucker (2010) – “Were-Owl” – A song about a supernatural lover.

Nightwish (2000) – “Wishmaster” – Finnish band’s song inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s and Dragonlance by Laura and Tracy Hickman.

Nightwish Douglas Blue Feather Parsec Meeting Saturday, April 17, 2021, 1:00PM

Fun - Frolic - Frenzy Ride the Wild Mouses Play Chuck-A-Luck Fired Chicken at the Broaster Concession ...Wait...That’s the Carnival at St. Leibowitz two centuries hence after the apocalypse

Forget everything but the Fun, Frolic, and Frenzy Join us at the the Zoomenist Parsec Meeting

Jamie Lackey will read stories from Triangulation for our new You Tube video