Event Horizon #2 October 2019

An efanzines exclusive & A Ninth Fandom Publication Fandom is a Way of Life—for Dogs and Other Trash----Squink Blog

Fandom is jest a goddamn hobby—you’ll find them in Hell, working at what they cannot accomplish, suffering utter damnation in blind unknowingness. The above quotations, although they may add quality to our publication as headings due to their literary nature and link to fannish tradition, are not true and lack nobility; what are their authors but those lacking true enlightenment? This is a publication wrought by Oort Cloud Publications/VacHume Press, intended for circulation in fandom. Anyone not liking it does not respect the publisher or the press. The editor is John Thiel, 30 N. 19th Street, Lafayette, Indiana 47904, who may be accessed by email at [email protected] . The cover shows a fearless spaceman who has elected to be in outer space in the visible vicinity of a black hole. We need men like him. Of course a Live Coward has something to be said for him also, but will anyone say it? It is unintended matter that a live coward has banked up for him. But are we in fandom more like the live coward or the dead hero? We are more like the live cowards, and we write the reports, etc. Anyone who goes near a black hole isn’t going to come back arguing about what we say about him. But, again, doesn’t a black hole somewhat resemble the world we live in? We lie around in our bunks, searching for an event horizon that will be the sign of our emergence from this so-called “black hole” that we are metaphorically to be found in. And if we have this metaphor, the thing to do is to make use of it and find out more about where, existentially, we are at. Here, then, is a purpose to which this fanzine is set.

Representation of the Universe, not giving it any disreputable black holes that obscure its significance and the cosmic beauty of it all. The artist has done his best to convey the probable wonder of it. Let us ponder this if we have not already done so, and if we have, let us expand our own best contemplations and gain greater knowledge of where we are at.

Where, In Fact, Are We At?

In the opening words of this issue I gave the impression that where we were at is in a black hole, conceivably and with luck viewing the event horizon. Well, this existential view is not existentially sound, and is merely an interpretation of the significance of black holes, what they might mean to people, studied from the superstitious perspective. But better philosophical speculation leads to better philosophical results, and I think taking a perspective on the situation we may all be in, given that we are evaluating our entire culture, is more rewarding than to think of ourselves as being in a black hole, a computer simulation, or a tangential universe. If we are in the universe we are in, what is elsewhere is tangential to us; we could not really have it otherwise and be ourselves. Taking an alien perspective loses us the track of our thinking. Well, existentialism is surely confounded by modern circumstances, especially without the most notable existentialist philosophers still being around to consider them in terms of the philosophy they had evolved. But they laid it in solid, and we must needs be considering the existential effects of our current world situation. Some of the existential questions posed are “Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going?” Their point in posing these questions is that we don’t know the answers except in standard labelling. People don’t know how to express who they are in meaningful terms, even to themselves. They don’t know where the whole human race comes from, let alone themselves. And they have no idea what purpose may be found for their existence in the future, and even if they found a purpose for themselves, they are mortal, and mortality ends in death in a shorter time than they need to consider these things, which might not be worth considering in the face of this coming death, as it nullifies everything about them and leaves them unable to proceed beyond their brief mortal span. That is tough luck, but it leaves everybody unable to complain in a way that would have any positive results in terms of the situation complained of. There is nobody to complain to as there is nobody who can conquer this problem. People point out that there is God, but he hasn’t conquered the problem and therefore wouldn’t, if, in fact, he could, but of that we have only the say-so of people no more learned than ourselves. In Jeffrey Redmond’s article in this issue we get an expression of the philosophical and scientific and religious materials available. We’re not very well provided for. The secret? There may not have been a provider. Things just got here, including us. Well, it’s easy to reach this conclusion, but it’s just as easy to reach something else. There must have been something prior if there is a now, and that holds on down the line to infinity and eternity. We can easily understand how there wouldn’t have been anything, but we can’t grasp why there is anything now, limited as it may be from an individual perspective. You might ask, “How long are we gonna last?” with all the wars and mayhem shooting. Some people don’t make it past five or six due to disease. Nobody makes it much more than a century, even bypassing all the dangers. Life seems not much oriented toward its furtherance, aside from such impulses as may exist within it. Life causes us to do things, even though we know the doing is futile, and in scrutinizing it we find it seems to have this quality of furtherance, but not enough, surely, to accomplish anything worthy of itself and its dreams of doing. (Key to this sentence: life has its dreams of doing.) Now, nothing is more mutt feraund than a philosopher expounding his philosophies at length in an inappropriate medium, with an unheeding vacuum around him, and, if you read it, with you as a sole occupant of the cave in which he lives and has expounded, you reading his antiquated-sounding words while he is elsewhere doing something else. (A netzine can be visualized as a cave in the sky.) But consider this: mortality is a philosophy, hedonism is a philosophy, materialism is a philosophy, and existentialism, well-nigh played out by there being a new century with nothing but neo- existentialists still writing, is a philosophy, and even nihilism is a philosophy, or Nietzsche is no philosopher. These may be seen as philosophies that have done nothing for us but stall us in quicksands of non-progress, whereas we who concern ourselves with science fiction are progressive, on the whole. Should there not be evolved by science fiction a progressive, open-ended philosophy which will, perhaps, release us from the morbidity of the prior philosophies, or the earth-boundness of the philosophies preceding the 20th Century philosophers? And should this evolution not be proposed here, considering that there is nowhere else to suggest it? Robert Bloch once suggested that fans take the place of beatniks (who tend to be either nihilists or reactors to nihilism), which is not much like what I am saying except in form, but it does have an impulse. I would say of the article in which he said this that he planted a seed. It suggested a progress which we all might want considering how bad things are in the world of today, the world as it stands at present. The editor of the fanzine Prodigenius said, “I see the light, and that light is the future.” Shall we forget the words of these men? No matter how shallow their proposals may have been, we should not let any spark of enlightenment die, and I might add that shallowness has its virtues; when things get too deep we may get mired in them, as I have suggested above (not to heaven, I mean above on this page). What is enlightening is good matter, which I think compares favorably to bad matter, and thus I store my veritable thoughts, thinking and therefore being, in a place where they may not even be read, but if they are read anywhere efanzines is the most likely place to inscript an outlook which I myself consider worth the consideration and even preservation, such as it may be. Yes, I think the impulse toward enlightenment lurks in science fiction, from the early Rosicrucian ads so many of the magazines had to the March 2007 issue of Analog, where there is an ad saying “What if everything you know is wrong? Discover the truth!” But as far as I know the book they were selling has been unrecognized and forgotten. (Or it may have devotees we don’t see around online much any more.) So, that may just be where we are at. Kolob—Star or Planet?

By Jeffrey Redmond

An esoteric look at the Universe

Kolob is a star or planet described in Mormon scripture. References to Kolob are found in the Book of Abraham, a work that is traditionally held by adherents of the Mormon faith as having been translated from an ancient Egyptian papyrus scroll by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saints movement. According to this work, Kolob is the heavenly body nearest to the Throne of God. While the Book of Abraham refers to Kolob as a “star”, it also refers to planets as “stars” and, therefore, some Mormon commentators consider Kolob to be a planet. It also appears in Mormon culture, including a reference to it in an LDS hymn. The first published reference to Kolob is found in the Book of Abraham. It was first published in 1842 in Times and Seasons, and is now included within the Pearl of Great Price as part of the Canon of Mormonism. The Book of Abraham was dictated in 1836 by Smith, after he purchased a set of Egyptian scrolls that accompanied a mummy exhibition. According to Smith, the scrolls described a vision of Abraham, in which Abraham “Saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God. And the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God. I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.” In an explanation of an Egyptian hypocephalus that was part of the Joseph Smith Papyri, Smith interpreted one set of hieroglyphics as representing “Kolob, signifying the first creation, nearest to the celestial, or the Residence of God. First in government, and the last pertaining to the measurement of time. The measurement according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit. One day in Kolob is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of the Earth, which is called by the Egyptians Jah-oh-eh”. The Book of Abraham describes a hierarchy of heavenly bodies, including the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun, each with different movements and measurements of time, where at the pinnacle, the slowest-rotating body is Kolob, where one Kolob day corresponds to 1,000 Earth years. This is similar to Psalm 90:4 which says that “For a thousand years in His sight are but as yesterday when it is past.” And 2 Peter 3:8 which says “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years”. Additional similar information about Kolob is found in the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, which are manuscripts in the handwriting of Smith and his scribes. According to the traditional, literal Mormon interpretation of the Book of Abraham, Kolob is an actual star or planet in this universe that is, or is near, the physical Throne of God. According to Smith, this star was discovered by Methuselah and Abraham by looking through the Urim and Thummim, a set of seer stones bound into a pair of spectacles. LDS Church leader and historian B.H. Roberts (1857-1933) interpreted Smith’s statements to mean that our solar system and its governing “planet” (the Sun) revolved around a star known as Kae-e-vanrash. This revolves with its own solar system around a star called Kli-flos-is-es or Hah- ko-kau-beam, which revolve around Kolob. This he characterized as “the great center of that part of the universe to which our planetary system belongs”. Roberts was confident that this hierarchy of stars orbiting other stars would be confirmed by astronomers. The literal interpretation of Kolob as an actual star or planet had significant formative impact on Mormon belief and criticism, leading to conceptions such as that the Biblical creation is a creation of the local Earth, solar system, or galaxy, rather than the entire known physical reality. The Book of Abraham is unclear about Kolob being a star or a planet, and Mormon writings have taken positions on either side of this issue. One part of the Book of Abraham states that Abraham “saw the stars, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God, and the name of the great one is Kolob”. Thus, Kolob is referred to as a “star”. However, the book defines the word “Kokaubeam” (Genesis 15:5) as meaning “All the great lights, which are in the Firmament of Heaven”. This would appear to include planets as among the “stars”, and the Book of Abraham refers to Earth as a star. In addition, the Book of Abraham appears to classify Kolob as among a hierarchy of “planets”. On the other hand, in the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar paper, Kolob is classified as one of twelve “fixed stars”, in distinction with fifteen “moving planets”. The term “fixed stars” generally refers to the background of celestial objects that do not appear to move relative to each other in the night sky, generally including all stars other than the sun, nebulae and other star-like objects. Though “fixed”, such objects were proven to have proper motion by Sir Edmund Halley in 1718. Apparently referring to proper motion, Smith said that Kolob moves “swifter than the rest of the twelve fixed stars”. Also, the Book of Abraham refers to “fixed planets”, thereby including planets in the set of celestial objects that may be “fixed”. He also refers to the sun as a “governing planet”, which further complicates the terminology. From the variety of terminology Smith used in referencing Kolob and other astronomical objects, it is unclear whether he understood Kolob to be a planet or a star. Writers in the Latter Day Saint movement have taken positions on both sides of the issue of whether Kolob is a star or a planet. Likewise, LDS Church apostles John Taylor, Orson Pratt (a mathematician with an interest in astronomy), Orson F. Whitney, and Alvin R. Dyer referred to Kolob as a planet. Other Mormon theologians have also viewed Kolob as a planet. Several other Mormon writers have referred to Kolob as a star, including B.H. Roberts and LDS Church President David O. McKay. According to several Mormon writers, such as W. Cleon Skousen in his book THE FIRST 2000 YEARS, the Earth was created near Kolob over a period of 6,000 years. It was then moved to its present position in our solar system. The hypothesis is also based on a passage from the Book of Abraham stating that in the Garden of Eden, time was measured “after the Lord’s time, which was after the time of Kolob.” For as yet God had not appointed to Adam his “reckoning”. According to the hypothesis, the reason that Earth time was measured in Kolob time was that the Earth was physically located near Kolob. As a corollary, some Mormon writers argue that at the end times, the Earth will be plucked from our solar system and returned to its original orbit near Kolob. Using traditional Creationist reasoning, LDS Church apostate Bruce R. McConkle came to a different conclusion. He argued that during the first “day” of creation, Earth was formed and placed in orbit around the Sun. This is not necessarily a one thousand year “day” in Kolob time, with a “day” referring instead to a phase of creation. The idea that the Earth was formed elsewhere and then migrated to orbit around the Sun differs from the scientific explanation of the Earth’s formation. According to scientific consensus, the Earth formed in orbit around the Sun about 4.5 billion years ago by accretion from a protoplanetary disk, and remained near its original orbit until the present. Several Mormon authors have attempted to situate Kolob within modern astronomy. Skousen speculated that Kolob is a star at the Galactic Center, Sagittarius A of our own Galaxy. This view also had the support of several former general authorities of the LDS Church, including J. Reuben Clark and George Reynolds (with Janne M. Sjodahl). In the mid-19th Century, early efforts to find a single “central sun” in the galaxy resulted in failure. Another Mormon author has hypothesized that Kolob exists outside the Milky Way Galaxy at a place called the “meta-galactic center”, and that this galaxy and other galaxies rotate around it. Within mainstream astronomy, the idea of a meta-galactic center was once assumed, but has been abandoned because on large scales, the expanding universe has no gravitational center. Another Mormon author has speculated that Kolob is Polaris (the North Star). In addition to the literal interpretation of Kolob as an actual heavenly body, the LDS Church has proposed that Kolob is also “a symbol of Jesus Christ”. Like Kolob, Jesus “governs” all the stars and planets similar to the Earth. A metaphorical interpretation suggests that Kolob may be construed as a metaphor for Jesus. The symbolic interpretation was explained by Hugh Nibley in The Temple and The Cosmos. Advocates of the symbolic interpretation believe it harmonizes better with other Mormon beliefs and with beliefs in the greater Christian community, as it does not require that God have a physical throne within this universe. According to Mormon author James Ferrell, the metaphorical interpretation is supported by the parallel construction of the passages in the Book of Abraham’s third chapter: “And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it. And the Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all.” After intervening passages that discuss how some souls are greater than others, the theme is repeated in reference to Jesus: “And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good. And there stood one among them that was like unto God.” Some Mormon scholars have sought to link the Kolob doctrine to ancient astronomy. Gee, Hamblin & Peterson (2006) have sought to show that this astronomy is more consistent with ancient geo-centrism than with 19th Century Copernican and Newtonian astronomy, and thus carries with it the misconceptions of ancient astronomy. For example, in their interpretation, Kolob is the highest and slowest moving of a series of concentric heavenly spheres, which are centered on Earth. These authors believe that Smith, in the 19th Century, would not have made this geocentric “mistake” about Kolob, and therefore, they argue that the Book of Abraham is of ancient origin. John Tvedtnes suggested that “Another possible Hebrew etymology is the Hebrew KLB “dog” originally pronounced kalb just as it is in the Arabic. This is used to denote the star Regulus in Arabic while the Syriac, which is also kalb, denotes the star Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens.” He also suggested that the Hebraic use of “KLB” as both the word “dog” and an astronomical term refers to the universality of Sirius as the “Dog Star”. According to Fawn Brodie, Smith’s idea of Kolob may have been derived from the “Throne of God” idea found in Thomas Dick’s THE PHILOSOPHY OF A FUTURE STATE, which Brodie said Smith “had recently been reading” before dictating the Book of Abraham, and which “made a lasting impression” on him. Modern Egyptologists have made an analysis of the facsimile of Smith’s translation of the Book of Abraham. A copy of the extant original vignette is from the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, and with fragments of the papyrus of the type from which the Book of Abraham was translated. They have identified it as a hypocephalus, an object placed on the head of a deceased person. Some of the elements of the two BATTLESTAR GALACTICA science fiction television shows seem to be derived from the Mormon beliefs of its creator and chief producer, Glen A. Larson. In both the originals series from 1978, and the 2003 new series, the Planet Kobol is the ancient and distant mother world of the entire human race and the planet where life began, and the “Lords of Kobol” are sacred figures to the human race. They are treated as elders or patriarchs in the old series, and versions of the Twelve Olympians in the new series. “Kobol” is an anagram of “Kolob” and, according to academician Jana Riess, is one of many plot points Larson has borrowed from Mormonism. Many Mormons are interested fans of Science Fiction, and this enthusiasm will no doubt continue.

Here we have seen something out of the ordinary, which may be a bit of a surprise in a fanzine, but let us open the doors to anything that may take our interest, and now, let us have a poem.

Elfquest

by Prem C. Nesbit 8 bars cover up the hole in the cave Crave for the freedom the ghost of the brave Slave to the slumber the cumbersome dreamland The lost soul hangs on a single strand Of the chandelier tour drips catch a reflection Check the odyssey moving in the right direction Towards the treasure I feel momentous memories As I watch the wizard measure tremendous herbal remedies

Seas sway slow surrounding succulent skies The siren sings medusa looks me in the eyes Who sent the spies what’s the cause of the betrayed The enemies in jail have got assassins on my tail To no avail I pack my pipe and start puffing My songs a nail for the evil king’s coffin With the magic machinery armies and artillery Protect the towers of tragedy trauma and the tyranny

So I’m crawling through the debris for eternity Searching for wisdom approaching hermit philosophy I hear stories of sorcery trickery treachery I’m absorbed in centuries of legends and mythology Wondrous wizardry transcending morality So what can we really call reality Where are we why are we looking for love I caught a glimpse in the eye from the sparkle of the gods above

Where’s the glimmer swirling stars are shimmering Take a view of the thoughts in the stew that I’m simmering Boiling the witches brew who’s got the bubbling hemorrhage The goblin trembling guzzling the poisoned beverage So he’s tumbling stumbling through the crooked valleys While the hungry dragons scrape through nooks and crannies Light carries from the cinders like the sound of the wind Tales of numerous monsters various shapes of wing Types of claw size of teeth roars of fire from the beast Multicolored clouds of smoke surround the feast of glory Bravery behold the beautiful bouquet The immaculate magic found within the golden amulet The search is over it’s time to rest Reap the benefits then continue the elfquest…..

Eye of the tiger, man Does this suggest our present existential mood?

I think Major Tom should be made aware by ground control of the possibility of swimming in space. He need only aim and create a forward momentum with his arms and he would counteract the slight gravitational pull of the Earth and with the lack of air resistance he would travel with increasing rapidity in the direction of the beginning of his space walk.

art by Daniel Slaten

Primitive conception of the Earth’s foundations modern science casts doubt on every aspect of this visualization

We All Play Our Part by Will Mayo

While I debate life and death and the meaning of both, while I wonder whether humanity will survive or not, while I play the part of a writer and sometime philosopher and my neighbors go to work outside my door, my brother works in a busy warehouse, lifting heavy freight [and, once, injuring his knee in the process], his wife handles their company’s contracts, my sister dispenses medicine for the needy at a hospital down in Florida, and all the world hungers for attention. While I press one more button on this machine and see my life hurry away. I go on my way and so do they.

It All Cycles Round

Historians and faddish rebels will look back upon these early decades of the 21st Century as a time of desirable decadence and strange political correctness and other trifles. They will seek to imitate our dress, our speech, our literature, our way of life, much as we do the time of the bad old 20th Century. It only stands to figure.

Pity the Reaper

Then the Reaper came to my bed in the darkness and asked me, “Have you ever lived?” “No,” I said. “Then you must go and do so,” he said. Then it was a day and a night and another day. And I tried my very best to live. If only to make it easier for the Reaper. Oracle

And the dead stand sentinel over the Fountain of Knowledge and holler and curse to the break of dawn. Witnesses still.

Memento Mori

After the Renaissance and the turmoil of both the Reformation and the Counter Reformation, it began to dawn on people that their final destination might not be the delights of heaven or the tortures of hell, or, indeed, any other life but a kind of nothingness from which no man can emerge. Mind you, they weren’t ready yet to give up their angels and demons. Some artifacts of their old belief system still remained. But they were ready at last to confront the awful totality of death itself, a hard bargain to swallow. They began the art of memento mori with skulls and crossbones in every aspect of their daily lives. All in an effort to treasure the now, the quickly fleeting today. To this day, if you wander among the tombstones, paintings and sculptures of that era, you will see around you symbols of old bones, proudly proclaiming “I lived, did you?” All tread carefully through the fortress of the dead.

Standing Watch on Time

And when I tell people just how mortal we all are, how death waits around the corner for us all, they look at me out of the corner of their eyes and say, “Are you crazy, man?” As if it’s crazy to ponder the cosmos and our brief existence on this planet. As if prayer alone will keep us around forever. I flee their madness, find refuge here in my rooms in a book or two. The world can wait. If alone is mad, I am happy to explore the world within. This is my life. The day within the year I consider well spent.

The Hardest Thing of All

I was purchasing a movie ticket in the summer of 1976 when suddenly the cashier at the box office asked me “Why are you seeing a movie alone?” “That never occurred to me,” I said. And, really, it hadn’t. “Yes, you should be with somebody.” And, handing me my ticket and watching me, “Good luck!” she said. “Enjoy your movie now!” Strange. Over the ensuing decades, more and more people stopped me in parks, on the streets, or while browsing a businessman’s wares, and asked me in the strangest tones of voice, “Can I help you?” and “Is somebody waiting on you?” It got to be where it was considered a sin, plain and simple, to be alone in this world. Rarely, after all, was I ever hassled while I was with somebody else. No, almost every time it happened while I was alone. The poet Charles Bukowski put it best when he said that “The hardest damn thing in this world is being left alone.” Damn right. Now, pass me a beer, why don’t you?

Talking About Black Magic Now

I heard a lot about white magic when I was growing up in the Deep South all those years ago. You know, a spell or potion cast to bring love near, hexes to ensure a good birth and a long life. Yes, that was all the talk back then. But what really interested me, more than anything, was black magic, the dark side of things, words and spells to shorten a life and drive an enemy away. Mind you, I never did learn these things. But I was awfully curious about them just the same. Even now, all these years later, I would just love to call up those dark clouds, that old forbidden love, if only I could. If only I knew who to ask.

Time and Us

Back when my father was trying to explain to me the change of seasons I couldn’t help but misunderstand him, small child that I was. When he would say “The days are getting longer here,” I would think to myself, “Then it must get longer than 24 hours now.” And when he would say, “The days are getting shorter now,” instead of counting the number of hours of daylight left, I began to fitfully feel time itself closing in until, at last, I feared that soon there might be no time left in the day for us at all. I just cannot tell you how many years it took me to get the thing about seasons straight in my head. A long time, for sure. Here, In Infinity

Then, as a child, I was caught up in the idea of other universes, below and above ours. Say, on the microscale, each atom being a proton surrounded by circling electrons just like planetary orbs. And then, over and beyond us, our universe, being but one molecule pinned together with another to form the flower of that leafy planet. And go to another and another, above and below, until, caught in the avalanche of infinity, I found myself in today. One man going forth. So like any other.

Between Two Nothings

One wise man when questioned by a man who feared death replied, “You have no memory of being nothing before you were born. So, too, can you have no expectation of the nothing that is to come. Enjoy the something that you are and be glad.” With that, his eager student walked away equipped with the now in every step.

Empty Years

The empty years stretch ahead of me, a desert without an oasis. I begin my journey with some hesitancy, knowing that the road behind me is blocked. Yet I cannot stay where I am either. That is an even greater peril. So I go forth on a path none have traveled through, knowing I will meet the passersby in the crossroads from time to time; that thought hangs in back of my mind, giving comfort to the few provisions of the soul. The sands are hot, burning the bare soles of my feet with increasing intensity, the sun shines brightly over my naked body, but I continue on nonetheless, the burden growing daily from my frequent stumbles and falls. Now and then, I give a hearty greeting to some fellow wanderer in the dust and we embrace briefly before going our separate ways. The sun begins to descend; the moon and stars beckon at some greater distance. Ahead of me I see the crags of mountains, filling the skyline like some greater need. I let out a sigh of gratitude and so forward to my destination, the place where horizons meet.

Flimsey, Mimsey, and Whimsey by Gerald Heyder

art by William Rutherford Let me introduce you to three ghosts named Flimsey, Mimsey and Whimsey. Like Casper they are friendly, benevolent spirits. They attempt to do good deeds as described below: Flimsey attempted to assist an elderly woman to cross a busy street. Unfortunately the woman was too slow and was run over by a truck! Flimsey failed his good deed for the day. Mimsey attempted to assist a pitcher failing to strike out a batter. Instead of a strike, his final pitch hit the batter in the head laying him across home plate like a rug! Mimsey struck out! Whimsey attempted to assist a firefighter to put out a fire on the third floor of an abandoned building. Alas, the floor collapsed leaving the firefighter dangling at the end of his fire hose! Needless to say, no cigar for Whimsey. All three of them decided to become malevolent ghosts with the psychology that their attempts would be reversed by boomeranging into good deeds that way. Wish them luck folks for success. You never know, they may attempt to help you some day!

Art by Shutterstock RUNAWAY TIME MACHINE by Neal Wilgus We smashed through the 23rd century and went careening into the 24th, knocking history crazy and setting off paradoxes so paradoxical the paratemporals would never ever come to terms with them. Then our valiant Operator tried to correct his initial mistake and we were suddenly thrown into reverse, sliding down the centuries until we hit rock bottom in the middle of the Middle Ages. The machine died and we got out and looked around in awe. Everything was quiet and peaceful, the forest green and lush, the clouds white and fleecy, the streams bubbling and teeming with fish. What the hell was going on? The Investigating Commission concluded that our irresponsible and reprehensible mistake had caused a trillion and a half creds of improvements in the millennial matrix. Quality of life alone had resulted in untold fortunes for each and every century affected. No one wanted to go back to the bad old days. We got off with a slap on the wrist.

Well, folks, that’s the issue. No longer do we carry wargaming notes in “The Eye of the Tiger” because, frankly, the war’s end has been declared at large. Many dispute that it has ended, but that’s what the end of a war is like. There is always an aftermath, always a period of confusion, and a lot of recaps are being done. Don’t fight any mop- up—that’s drudgery. Instead, sing a new song of peace. Also there is no letter column, for although I did receive some comments on the last issue, none of them were LoCs. But the issues will expand, as may be desirable—will burgeon in the future. Looking at all the time I have been “in” fandom calls my greater attention to being here now (and I think we are all introspecting about it). I’m perhaps too old to be a “fan” of something any more, as that is mainly for young people; but we grow older through the experience of different ages, and after I left the military I had had all the maturing experiences life had to offer and it may be that I did not acquire anything else but the physical signs of growing older. There just was no more of the external environmental road to maturity, and I have seen others saying the same thing. So I find no discomfort in not being something I could not be, and that is any placement fit for a mature individual, and the only things like this I have seen are governmental positions, which are not much to be found around here. And so I have found me a tiny place in existence, and there it seems I will remain. I was considering filling out this issue with a story by myself, and thought of the following story, which continues some of the trend of thought I was following in the editorial observations I am just concluding. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed doing something that I really enjoyed.

The blue cruiser by John Thiel

Son, they tell you the Void doesn’t have a spirit. I’m here to tell you this isn’t the truth. They err when they say this—you might even say that man has erred when they tell you something like this. The Void has a spirit, and I have a little tale that will show you how this is so. You remember back before there were things, and the early days when things were just a-building. Well, that’s the time I’m talking about—how there was nothing, not time or anything else, and that was the way things were before time and things began to be, and went into development. And they say that before that, there was nothing but the Void, and emptiness was all there was, and the void was nothing at all, and there was only the void, which was only a word signifying the absence of anything. You couldn’t even get an all-day sucker back in those non-times. Or the blue cruiser that you have in your pocket now—that wouldn’t have cruised in the void, because if it even existed there would be no void, there would be a blue cruiser, and everyone wouldn’t wonder who had constructed it, because there wouldn’t be anybody to wonder about it. It’s good one didn’t appear as a first appearance in—and then after— the void, because then everything else might have developed off of it, and I wouldn’t like it if that were to be our origin. Anyways, like I just said, the Void may have been nothing at all, with no existence anywhere, but the idea that something would then come along is more than unlikely, and so you would wonder what there was in this nothingness if there was nothing there known to us. The Void had a spirit, and that spirit was in its own way active. It contained being, and making, in their pre-potential form, and it had within it an impulse for there to be things; and when this impulse became paramount, as it did and would by constant revisitation of itself, and a feeling for its relevance, then things began to occur as they would. The first being to come out of this was one Moris Timway, who had no name when he first appeared, but acquired one through a confluence with occurring matter. Timway didn’t have much thought as yet, just physicality and sentience, but there was nothing more to him but for thought to develop, and as you well know, with a variety of matter being as near as looking for any of it, thought is a result of matter to think about, and Moris developed all kinds of thoughts. Nothing else like him had occurred, as there was a lot of variety in what came about, but Moris wanted something like himself, and he had only to look around and there was something like himself, because in the void, where he still was except for himself and what else there was, one has only to think of something for it to be, as there is nothing as yet to counteract its being. So Moris now had another before him, and they developed speech. One of the first words spoken was “obelisk” , with which word Moris described the inside of his mouth, and his speech capacities. The two did not tire, and the development of things around them was not rapid, so they had language before the confronting ended. Yes, the time that elapsed would be considered tremendous. Let us see what was said when saying had been accomplished: “War and oma frame,” Moris said. They were standing in space, with near nothingness in all directions. “Let’s talk,” said the other. He added, after what we would find to be a great amount of time, “Here is good. But we are all that is here. Should there be something showing we are in the same place?” “I could whip up something as quick as a cowboy could whip up a fryer of scrambled eggs and bacon,” said Moris. “But there aren’t those yet to consider. They are something I have thought of within. See, there is something beneath us ‘supporting’ us.” He was referring to two lengthy strips of silvren matter, which extended a way past them and then went fading out of being. Though he had eyes, Yom, as Moris had started calling him, had sight by putting his attention on the designated place—which as time passed he would train his eyes to do, having this instinct for their use. Man had existed before this period of void, and was called forth by these considerations. After a great passage of time, which was coming into a form of quasi-existence as the two measured out the eventualities they perceived coming to pass with them—I say, after a great passage of time the idea of there being something different came from them, and of course what they came up with was women, which they saw as being something more like the voidness there had been than they were themselves. Well, there could be a thousand diversions from this tale, and more than that, but I think I have given you the essence of what was said and done in these earliest of times, and so when I said I had a tale to tell I think I did not deceive you. You know more of the Void than you did at first, and you know that anything could proceed from the Void when anything did. Now go fly your blue cruiser as you will, and don’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t doing anything when you are flying it. For there are vestiges of the Void all around us, and that is where you’ll fly it.