December 2015 Askance Volume VIII, Number 3 Whole Number 35 Edited and published by John Purcell, 3744 Marielene Circle, College Station, TX 77845-3926 Contents © 2015 by John A. Purcell. NEW! Contact information: [email protected] 3744 Marielene Circle, College Station, TX 77845 Even so, all rights revert to original artists and authors upon publi- cation. Disclaimers are a dirty business, but are always included. What you have here in your hands (or on screen) is another Mythical Publication. Copies of this fine, sort of semi- quarterly fanzine can be had for The Usual, which means expressed interest, submission and eventual inclusion of articles and artwork, letters of comment, expressed interest, and cold hard cash in the amount of $3.00 USD. Bribes are also accepted. Of course, if you send in locs, articles, and artwork, you just earned a life-time free subscription. Not a bad deal, if you ask me. Contents Bemused Natterings…………………………………………....3 The Search for Extraterrestrial Life, by Thomas D. Sadler………………………………………...5 The Post-Modern Fan Awakens, By John Purcell………………………………………………..7 Figby, by Bill Fischer…………………………..……...……...13 Two Novels by Francis Stevens, By Randy Byers……………………………………………….14 Fanzine Reviews……………………………………….………...16 New Orleans in 2018………………………………….……….19 From the Hinterlands, faithful readers………………..20 Regional Convention Calendar…………………………...28 Chat, the 4th Fannish Ghod, by Teddy Harvia……..36 What’s Next………………………………………………………..37 Art Credits Front cover by Steve Stiles Sheryl Birkhead—2; clip art—3, 5, 30, 33, 37; photo by John Purcell—4; nicked off Internet—5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 15, 20, 33, 34; Robert Whitaker Sirignano—9; Al Sirois—10, 28 ; fanzine covers copied from efanzines.com—17,18; A. B. Kynock—17, 24, 27, 31, 32; Steve Stiles—35; Jose Sanchez—37. Back cover by Ditmar Member FWA (since 2007!) 2 Why this issue is not late I say that because I can. In fact, the publishing schedule of this fanzine has cleverly morphed over its existence from bimonthly to quarterly to semi-quarterly to Real Soon Now. Works for me, and that’s all that really matters now, isn’t it? Be that as it may, it feels good to get back to working on this fanzine again, even though it requires a fair amount of time, effort, and nagging some people—but not too hard—for material. However, that also means I had to write new material myself, which likewise takes time. So what is really different this issue is that I am attempting to produce it completely in Word Publisher. Yes, I know, this could very well be an exercise in futility and I may resort to using Office Word Docu- ment again, but why not? If it looks good and works reasonably well, then the experiment will be worth the effort. If not, so be it. And speaking of bees… Whoops, there goes another bumble-bee One of the totally crazy, ludicrous, if not downright ridiculous things about living in this region of Texas—the area that I frequently refer to as the Land That Time Forgot—is that there are insects and all sorts of other ground critters that literally bug you year round. Once in a while, such as this year’s Thanksgiving Holiday weekend, the weather has turned a bit chilly (morning tem- peratures in the 40’s F, that is) so there are less creepy crawlies meandering about. That doesn’t last very long around here, sadly, because this is a subtropical region and the temperature will bounce back into the 70s by afternoon with hardly a thought. What usually happens then is that all those creepy crawlies and flying insects return from their brief hibernation and resume their typical annoying habits. This is why, when recently clearing out another section of our garage, mostly crammed full of junk we have accumulated over the years, I had to knock down and crush a half-dozen mud dauber wasp nests. Those danged things looked like high-rise condominiums designed by the Anasazi tribes of the American southwestern desert. This is typical. I know of no other place on this planet outside of the Amazon jungle—well, my experiences are limited to what I read or find during Internet searches—where a person is liable to be stung by mosquitos in January. It’s not natural. Okay, so I grew up in Minnesota where winters last for six or seven months and the temperature is subfreez- ing for most of those months, and the net result of such bitter cold is that insects either (a) hibernate or (b) die. I much prefer (b), but beggars can’t be choosers. The bottom line is that I really get tired of dealing with flying and crawling insects all the year round. Just don’t get me started on the slithering beasties. Please, don’t. 3 Over the bosom of the Earth–Mother, in pulsating vibrations, radiant and energizing, flows the perennial Stream of Life. The joys of grandfatherhood I do have to admit that I’m starting to get the hang of being a grandfather. In fact, it’s downright awesome. On Face- book I have posted many a picture of our grandson Brian over the last two and a half years—that long already? Dang, but time certainly does have wings—extolling his status as “The World’s Cutest Grandson,” and have tailed off on that recently. And then Hallow- een this year happened, and he happily wore his Batman costume around while trick or treating with his mom, uncle Dan, and a couple others around their neighborhood. Unfortunately, he refused to wear the cowl, defiantly ripping it off whenever someone—usually his mother—would try to put it back on. No luck. As it turned out, he still rocked the look, as this picture attests. He may not have the strength of ten men, or be able to stop a rac- ing train, but he will cuteness you into submission. Who’s in this issue Some old names, some new names have joined the fray, and not a moment too soon. I am pleased to see the return of good friends to Askance, and very happy to get material from new people. This is definitely A Good Thing. Randy Byers Fresh off the success of Sasquan, the recent World SF Convention in Smoky Spokane, Washington, Randy has appar- ently recovered enough to read books and write reviews. Recently he wrote a blog entry on LiveJournal (I guess people still use it from time to time) in which he reviewed two books by Francis Stevens. Randy was kind enough to forward them to me for usage here. Bill Fischer It was a surprise to learn that Bill had suffered a heart attack back in September of 2014, but he has recovered and back to doing things he loves. Then I had the nerve to ask him for another “Figby” cartoon strip. Hopefully the stress of producing these again won’t cause another coronary. One year I still would love to collect them all into a bound vol- ume. Dream on... Teddy Harvia I was astonished when Teddy (a.k.a., David Thayer, a.a.k.a., Miranda Thomson) asked if I would be interested in giving his “Chat, the 4th Fannish Ghod” comic series a new home: it used to run as a feature in Dick and Nicki Lynch’s legend- ary fanzine, Mimosa, and it is indeed a great honor to welcome it here as a recurring feature, alongside “Figby”, in this fanzine. And that’s no mean feat, finding room for a 500 pound cat. Thomas D. Sadler And lastly, only by dint of alphabetic order, I welcome to these pages the editor/publisher of the fine, 100+ issue fan- zine The Reluctant Famulus. Tom is an avowed space nut, like so many of us, who also frequently talks to himself (like so many of us), and even talks back to himself (uh, like so many of us), and sometimes those conversations lead to fan- zine articles (yeah, like so many of us). And unfortunately—like so many of us—he also watches old science fiction movies. I detect a trend here. 4 Be not fond of the dull, smoke-coloured light from Hell. The Search for Extraterrestrial Life Or: What’ll We Do When We find It? by Thomas D. Sadler The SETI program is humming along, searching for evidence and solid proof of intelligent life on the right kinds of planets circling the right kind of stars in the right distance from the stars. Those involved in SETI and their supporters are hoping there is other intelligent life so that we won’t have to feel all alone in the universe. They’re also hoping we can somehow get in touch with and communicate with them. But why are they so eager to do that? There are detrac- tors who assert that it would be bad for us if we did and we would regret the results. They assert those other intelli- gent beings will do all sorts of awful things to us. That sounds paranoid to me. Paranoia: “a psychological disorder characterized by delusions of persecution or grandeur.” Yes, that sounds like us. We humans seem to possess a paranoia that has no boundaries. Consider what we dream up in our fiction, motion pictures, and television series. Here are some examples to ponder. To Serve Man, story by Damon Knight, adaptation from The Twi- light Zone. Aliens come from a long way off to bring about peace and to exchange technology—and for a gourmet food supply.