SF COMMENTARY 85 October 2013 92 pages IN THIS ISSUE: Jennifer BRYCE Elaine COCHRANE DITMAR (Dick JENSSEN) Brad FOSTER Bruce GILLESPIE Steve JEFFERY Patrick McGUIRE Mark PLUMMER Steve STILES Taral WAYNE Ray WOOD AND MANY MORE! Cover: ‘The Alien Race’ by Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) SF COMMENTARY 85 October 2013 92 pages SF COMMENTARY No. 85, October 2013, is edited and published in a limited number of print copies by Bruce Gillespie, 5 Howard Street, Greensborough, VIC 3068, Australia. Phone: 61-3-9435 7786. Preferred means of distribution .PDF file from eFanzines.com at: Portrait edition (print equivalent): http://efanzines.com/SFC/SFC85P.PDF or Landscape edition (widescreen): http://efanzines.com/SFC/SFC85L.PDF or from my email address: [email protected]. Front cover: Ditmar (Dick Jenssen): ‘The Alien Race’. Back cover: Steve Stiles: ‘Lovecraft’s Fever Dream’. Artwork Taral Wayne (p. 47); Steve Stiles (p. 52); Brad W. Foster (p. 58). Photographs Peggyann Chevalier (p. 3); Murray and Natalie MacLachlan (p. 4); Helena Binns (p. 26); Barbara Lamar (p. 46); Mervyn and Helena Binns (p. 56); Harold Cazneaux, courtesy Ray Wood (p. 71). 3 I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS 45 I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS (cond.) 4 Friends lost in 2013 4 The Sea and Summer returns Doug Barbour :: Damien Broderick :: Taral Wayne :: John Litchen :: Michael Bishop :: Yvonne Editor Rousseau :: Kaaron Warren :: Tim Marion :: Steve Sneyd :: George Zebrowski :: 5 FAVOURITES 2012 Franz Rottensteiner :: Paul Anderson :: Favourite books of 2012 Sue Bursztynski :: Martin Morse Wooster :: Favourite novels of 2012 Andy Robson :: Jerry Kaufman :: Rick Kennett Favourite short stories of 2012 :: Lloyd Penney :: Joseph Nicholas :: Casey Wolf :: Murray Moore :: Jeff Hamill :: David Lake :: Favourite films of 2012 Pete Young :: Gary Hoff :: Stephen Campbell :: Favourite films re-seen in 2012 John-Henri Holmberg :: David Boutland Television (?!) 2012 (David Rome) :: Matthew Davis :: Favourite filmed music documentaries 2012 William Breiding :: We Also Heard From ... Favourite classical music CDs of 2012 Favourite popular music CDs of 2012 69 FEATURE LETTERS Bruce Gillespie 69 Walking Song 26 AIDE-MEMOIRE: 2012 Ray Wood Jennifer Bryce 76 Falling Woman days Mark Plummer 36 THE REAL GOSH! WOW! 81 From a psychedelic hedgehog Elaine Cochrane Steve Jeffery 43 MORE GOSH! WOW! SUGGESTIONS 84 P. K. Dick to McGoohan to Rousseau to Bujold Dick Jenssen Patrick McGuire 2 I must be talking to my friends This issue of SF Commentary is 10 months late. Sorry about the last 20 years it has appeared as *brg* in ANZAPA that. I had a faint hope that I could retire from paying (Australia and New Zealand Amateur Publishing Asso- work and do nothing but publish fanzines, listen to ciation), The Great Cosmic Donut of Life in Acnestis (1995– music, and watch films, but that’s not possible. In order 2005), and Scratch Pad in the PDF version <http:// to survive, I need to take on any and all paying work efanzines.com>. From now on I will publish all versions, (indexing and editing) that’s offered. Fortunately some print and electronic, under the same name. Already I’ve of my clients remember me, and have sent me some very received many interesting letters of comment for the first interesting jobs during 2012 and 2013. Treasure chest. So instead of publishing during 2013 the planned I ask people to download my magazines if possible, four issues of SF Commentary, Treasure (as it is now but for the time being I can continue to print a small named), and my mailing-comments fanzine for number of copies of SF Commentary for people who send ANZAPA, I’ve only published Treasure 1. That’s my me printed fanzines, books for review, articles, artwork, magazine that covers material that freewheels outside and substantial letters of comment, and those who can- the SF/fantasy field. It’s had many names over the years, not access it on the internet. And, of course, for people including The Metaphysical Review (1984–1998), but in who send me subscriptions ($100) and donations. Friends lost in 2013 We lost many members of the SF community during the last year. Some, such as Jack Vance and Frederik Pohl, had reached their nineties, and had contributed a vast amount to science fiction during much of the twentieth century. Jack Vance had finally retired from writing, but Frederik Pohl was working on a novel and a second volume of The Way the Future Was when he died. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2010. His most recent novel is All the Lives He Led (2011). One month after he announced that he was severely affected by aggressive cancer, Iain Banks left us. He was 59. His novels fill a large section of one of my shelves, but most of us expected him to be published steadily and successfully for the next 30 years. He had already achieved fame with The Wasp Factory and two other novels before an enterprising fan (Rog Peyton from Birming- ham, much mentioned later in this issue) invited Iain to an SF convention. When Iain discovered that fans’ drink- ing capacity matched his own, he adopted fandom and it adopted him. He was to be the British Pro Guest of Honour at Loncon 3, next year’s world convention to be held in London. Michael Waite during the last months of his life. (Photo: Two fans you might not have heard of were Michael Peggyann Chevalier.) Waite from Ypsilanti, Michigan, who died on 1 January conversation with him. He stayed in touch with his Aus- at the age of 77, and Dan McCarthy from Dunedin, New tralian friends mainly through SF Commentary cover artist Zealand, who died on 7 August at the age of 79. Their and writer Dick Jenssen. He also liked to send presents deaths greatly upset me and his other close friends, but of fine books and magazines. We knew little about him they were less weoll known than might be expected. until after he died, when his friend and neighbour Michael Waite was known to the members of FAPA Peggyann Chevalier gathered together quite a bit of (Fantasy Amateur Press Association, America’s oldest information about his life and times into a publication and most venerable SF apa) and a few other people to Missing Michael, including an account of the funeral whom he sent his very fine fanzine Trial and Air. He was gathering at his home. Michael collected books and cats, a reticent man, and I found it hard to keep up an email 3 Dan McCarthy. (Photo supplied by Natalie and Murray MacLachlan.) and, as Peggyann tells us, he knew his books well. Robert Lichtman gathered together material about him for FAPA, and Dick Jenssen and Bill Wright prepared a wonderful tribute to Michael for efanzines.com, ANZAPA, and othrt interested fans. Dan McCarthy was the grand old man of New Zealand fandom, having been a member of Aotearapa for 25 years, awarded the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and also been made a Fan Guest of Honour at the national NZ conven- tion. We (mostly Australian) members of ANZAPA were very lucky, because Dan sent us 77 issues of his fanzine Panopticon during the last decades of Dan’s life. The covers of Panopticon featured his wonderful paintings and colour graphics, plus wise and witty comments about his family, New Zealand and its literature, life, and, of course, the fanzines of other members of ANZAPA. Still, it was only after Murray MacLachlan, a Dunediner who has been living in Melbourne since 2000, prepared an account of his and his wife Natalie’s memories of Dan that we gained any idea of his life and achievements. The Sea and Summer returns George Turner was an Australian critic, novelist, short died in 1997 at the age of 79, he had been a mainstream story writer and fan who is still much missed. When he Australian novelist (including a Miles Franklin Award in 1962), SF novelist , SF critic, short story writer, and essayist. He had agreed to become the Australian Pro Guest of Honour at Aussiecon 3 (the third world SF convention to be held in Melbourne) in 1999. George Turner’s career as an SF novelist comprised two series: the trilogy that began with Beloved Son in 1978, and the novels that began with The Sea and Summer (Drowning Towers in the American edition) in 1987 and finished with Down There in Darkness (posthumously in 2000). After he died, I discovered that he had made me his literary executor and heir — which surprised me greatly. I doubt if I’ve been the best possible promoter of his works. Neither I nor my American agent have been able to re-sell his books in America, but we were very pleased when Malcolm Edwards, in his role as Orion/Gollancz executive head of the SF Gateway project, offered to republish Turner’s best SF novel The Sea and Summer (Drowning Towers) in print and e-book editions. The rest of his SF novels may yet reappear in e-book editions. I had hoped that this republication would lead to widespread distribution of The Sea and Summer for the first time in Australia, but I haven’t seen it in any book- shops yet. I’m assured by Hachette in Sydney that copies exist, and I’m sure Justin Ackroyd at Slow Glass Books can find you a copy if nobody else can. The Sea and Summer is one of the first novels to look at climate change in a realistic way, so remains relevant. It still reads very well as a serious piece of Australian literature.