Produced by Robert Jennings, 29 Whiting Rd., Oxford, MA 01540-2035, Email [email protected]
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FADEAWAY #44 is a fanzine devoted to science fiction and related fields of interest, and is produced by Robert Jennings, 29 Whiting Rd., Oxford, MA 01540-2035, email [email protected]. Copies are available for a letter of comment, or a print fanzine in trade, or by subscription at a cost of $20.00 for six issues. Letters of comment are much preferred. Any person who has not previously received a copy of this fanzine may receive a sample copy of the current issue for free by sending me your name and address. Publication is bi-monthly. This is the December-January 2014-2015 issue __________________________________________________________________________________________ THE SPEEDY JOURNEY Regular readers will recall the article that Dwight Decker wrote back in Fadeaway #39 about one of Germany’s oldest science fiction stories, the very first science fiction story to propose an interplanetary trip to one of the Martian Moons. The author, an early German astronomer, believed he had discovered a large moon of Mars, but his evidence was subsequently disproved. At the end of the article Dwight promised to work out a complete translation of the original novel that he would make available at some point in the future. He has recently completed the work. “A Speedy Journey” by Eberhard Christian Kindermann, originally published in 1744, edited and translated by Dwight R. Decker is now available for sale. Interested fans can purchase the 122 page Trade Paperback print version, complete with a long introduction direct from the author at $9.96, or available from Amazon.com at a discount price of $8.06. At the present time no e-book version has been released. Dwight reports he is giving some considerations to expanding into that format, however technical problems preclude an e-book version for the present. The book comes with extensive background information on the life and career of Kindermann, early interplanetary science fiction stories, the state of early astronomy, an overview on some peculiarities in the story itself and a lot of other info and critique that I personally found as interesting (and in some cases, more interesting) than the story itself. This is a nicely produced package with illos both very old and very new sprinkled thruout. It’s an entertaining read that is easily worth the asking price. A FEW READERS MAY RECOGNIZE that the subject of the feature article farther over in this issue was covered by me some years previously. A much shorter article by me about Bomba appeared in The Boy’s Book Buff #5, back in February 1978. After thirty-six years I thot it might be time to take another look at one of Tarzan’s most successful imitators. I had fun rereading the books, and since the article originally appeared some new information has been unearthed about the Stratemeyer Syndicate, the creator and owner of Bomba, so I was able to provide much more comprehensive background info now than I could with my original article. Even tho the jungles of the world have mostly been explored, and the believability of jungle lords and jungle goddesses has pretty much vanished, many fans still retain a nostalgic interest in both the genre and the mighty heroes who populated what was once a very viable niche in popular fiction. Bomba was one of the most enduring of those. MEN WITHOUT BONES… The other day I was rummaging thru some boxes of stuff in my eternal quest to sort things out, discard junk, condense down material, list sellable stuff and otherwise try to move things out of this house and make some room, when I came across not one, but two copies of “Men Without Bones”, a collection of fantasy and science fiction stories written by Gerald Kersh, published in paperback by Paperback Library back in 1962. This brought back a lot of memories, including a rather painful one. I bought my copy of this book fresh off the newsstand rack back when it first came out. Fifty cents was a bit more than the normal cover price for a ppbk back then, and as I recall the pickings were slim that week, but even if the racks had been packed with brand new stuff I would have bought this one immediately. I had encountered Gerald Kersh before. In fact I had another paperback collection of his stories, published back in 1958 by Ballantine titled “On an Odd Note”. That one had a thirty-five cents cover price. It was a remarkable collection of very interesting fiction. In particular I remember another very well written story from that a different anthology titled “Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo?” I also remember a story titled “The Secret of the Bottle” which I had read in the Saturday Evening Post when it came out in 1958. Many years later I learned that the Bottle story had impressed a lot more people than just me and the editors of the Post. It won the Edgar 2 Award that year from the Mystery Writers of America. So, it wasn’t a difficult decision to invest fifty cents in this new collection, and I was certainly not disappointed by the stories in the book. A few weren’t even fantasy, including a very memorable short-short titled “The Hack” that portrayed one William Shakespeare as a hounded literary hack, forced to turn out play after play as rapidly as possible to satisfy the fickle public and make enuf money to keep himself afloat. I had never thot about it, but a guy who wrote thirty-nine plays one right after the other over a twenty-four year period, all staged rapidly one right after another with each new drama season probably would have regarded himself in exactly that light. Mr. Kersh always had a unique, and sometimes bizarre way at looking at things thru the pages of his short fiction. But that wasn’t the memory that hit me when I turned up these two books. Two books. It sent a little shiver down my spine. Altho I have almost every single SF/fantasy book I ever purchased from those days as part of my permanent collection, I no longer have the original “Men Without Bones” that I had bought back in 1962. Back when I was running my science fiction/comics/game store from 1978 thru 2000 I encountered many people. Some of the customers became regulars, and some of the regulars became friends and stayed regular friends for years and years. A few lasted all the way up to the very end when I finally closed the retail store in 2000 and decided to sell books exclusively by mail order. One customer I remember in connection with “Men Without Bones” was a woman who liked science fiction. She had no interest in comics or games, but she bought books, always paperback, never any hardbacks, and occasionally she would buy one of the science fiction magazines. I tried to stock the science fiction magazines on a regular basis, but it was pretty much a losing battle. Most of the readers in those years had no interest in magazines, only paperback or hardback books. My return rate for those mags was wretched. Sometimes the only copies I sold were the ones I bought myself. But anyway, we talked about science fiction and movies and SF on television, even tho I had precious little time to watch much television then. The subject of Gerald Kersh came up during one visit and she immediately mentioned a book she had bought once, titled “Men Without Bones”. She loved the book but somehow she had lost her copy. I told her I had bought the original paperback when it first came out and went on about how much I enjoyed it. She was also a big fan of Gerald Kersh and we swapped memories of a few favorite stories. She asked if she could borrow my copy. I explained that I couldn’t loan her the copy because a good part of my collection was still back at my parents’ house in Nashville, TN. Every time I went home for a visit I would pack up some boxes of material and bring them back up to Massachusetts with me. If I were flying it would only be a small box or two. If I were driving I could bring a trunk-load of stuff. I told her that as soon as I managed to bring the book up I would loan it to her. But I never seemed to get the copy up. Mainly this was because I was working very long hours and taking almost no vacations of any kind, or trips back to my Nashville home either. Years went by, a bunch of years. She was a regular customer, coming in every couple of weeks to buy books and talk, and every single visit the subject turned to Gerald Kersh and “Men Without Bones”. Then, my father died of complications from lung cancer. It was a sudden death, and I had to fly down for the funeral. Not a pleasant situation, as you can imagine. I did pack up some boxes of books and magazines, but I decided to mail them to myself rather than try to wrangle boxes onto the airplane this go round. I packed up all the Edgar Rice Burroughs books, hardbacks and paper, and a lot of fantasy paperbacks I wanted to look over again, and I specifically dug out the copy of “Men Without Bones”. When I got back the woman came in and I told her the book was on route to me.