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Home , Black Destroyer, Chandler Award, Fantasy Press, Foundation and Empire, Noise (short story), Pebble in the Sky

Six Pillars of Sept 11th, 2013 by Bill Wright. Rob Gerrand and Mervyn R Binns Synopsis This article provides information from different perspectives about six great pioneers of Space Opera, Edward Elmer ‘Doc’ Smith (1890 - 1965) Alfred Elton van Vogt (1912-2000) (1920 - 1992) Jack (John Holbrook) Vance (1916 - 2013) Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (1913 – 1966) writing as Cordwainer Smith and Arthur Bertram Chandler (1912 – 1984), Most of the following was written by the 2013 DUFF winner, Australian fan Bill Wright. Rob Gerrand contributed his obituary to , who died aged 96 on May 26th, 2013. The science wasn’t always sound, but those six pioneers of SF wrote rattling good yarns, creating universes and peopling them with heroes and villains in an astonishing variety of ways. The information on Bert Chandler was provided by his friend Mervyn R Binns, winner of the Forrest J Ackerman Big Heart Award at Aussiecon 4, 68th in Melboure (Australia) in 2010.

One of many images of universal destruction that abound in early Space Opera

After the trauma of the 1930s Great Depression and World War II, westerns, mystery writing and detective stories no longer satisfied a voracious public demand for escapist literature. Space Opera offered liberation from Earthly concerns – at least in one’s mind – and was embraced enthusiastically by millions. The atomic bomb had demonstrated the power of science, albeit most people were hazy about the scientific method if they had heard of it at all. That changed with education, which improved greatly from and including the 1960s. People began to understand what Science was about and that its benefits depend on how it is used. There were sharp increases in reader education and standards of literary criticism of , as universities became interested in the genre as both a product and part of the social consciousness of the contemporary world. At the end of the twentieth century, belief in science as a panacea for the World’s ills had waned. and Horror took over from Science Fiction as the dominant sub-genres in . But that’s another story, except for a common thread that runs through all of literature - reluctance on the part of some writers to sufficiently acknowledge their sources. It means that their not-so-well-read fans give offending authors more credit than they deserve. If you need an example, ask yourself ... Was Jurgen a model for Cugel? James Branch Cabbel (1879 – 1958) wrote his master work Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice in 1919. The story can be read on line at: http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/cabell1/jurgen.html). It is considered by some reviewers to be the unsung inspiration of such authors as Jack Vance in his epic and Robert A Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land – the latter being hailed today as an accurate guide to the morés of the 1960s; and so it is, but only for two thirds of the story after which its quality dwindles. Vance, too, was not a writer who went out of his way to reveal his sources, It is obvious to me that Vance’s character Cugel the Clever is modelled in part on Cabell’s Jurgen. Edward Elmer ‘Doc’ Smith (1890 - 1965) Science fiction fans like two kinds of epic fiction: Space Opera begun in 1929 by Doc Smith, and Epic Fantasy Smith E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith ushered in the era of Space Opera when his novel was serialised in commencing with the August 1928 issue. By taking adventure stories off-planet he captured the imagination of a generation, then the next, and the one after that. At left is the cover of the novel’s first book publication by the Buffalo Book Co. in 1946 The novel was re-edited in the 1958 with Lee Hawkins Garby. It retains its entertainment value to this day, as do the sequel novels Skylark Three (1948) and Skylark of Valeron (1949). Scientist Richard "Dick" Seaton teams up with inventor and millionaire Martin Crane to build a spaceship using a new propulsion formula. Fellow scientist Marc DuQuesne is in league with the evil World Steel Company and works to undermine them. He kidnaps Seaton and Crane’s girl friends and carries them off into interplanetary space. The characters unite to face spectacular dangers including black holes, hostile planets with weird inhabitants, friendly planets with not-so-weird inhabitants, and a planet-wide war. This is raw, primal stuff. Suspend disbelief, win with the hero, despise the villain and enjoy the ride. A fourth novel published two decades later, Skylark DuQuesne (1966), sought to reconcile bitter antagonists in the earlier books. It came across as stodgier than the others and failed to capture the popular imagination. Smith’s Galactic Roamers Doc Smith’s Ph D was in food chemistry, not in any of the flashier technologies featured in his space opera. Like a great many authors before and after him, he needed collaborators to enrich his storytelling. His group, which included published writers, called itself the Galactic Roamers and were largely responsible for the impetus that kept Smith’s epic Lensmen novels at or near the top of best seller lists for decades. The Universe of the Lens The Roamers were the sounding board for Doc Smith during the years he was painstakingly mapping the Lens Universe. He listened to, and often took, their advice; but still felt free to disregard ideas that did not fit within his vision.. . The Universe of the Lens The Lensmen stories were long in gestation. Smith wrote the rough draft of Galactic Patrol and the concluding chapter of the last book in the series, Children of the Lens, as far back as the mid-1930s. Galactic Patrol was serialized in Astounding from September 1937 to February 1938. Obviously intended to be a stand-alone novel, it was not even in the same universe as the Lensmen series. A revised text became the third Lensmen novel. Publication years of all six novels in Smith’s Universe of the Lens are… Triplantary (1948) Gray Lensman (1951) First Lensman (1950) Second Stage Lensmen (1953) Galactic Patrol (1950) Children of the Lens (1954) The Vortex Blaster ( 1960) was a fix-up novel from a number of versions appearing in SF magazines in 1941 and 1942. Set partly in the Lensmen universe and parallel to the main story line, it introduces another dimension to the mental horizons of the Universe of the Lens. Smith invented an interesting classification method in Gray Lensman and Children of the Lens to differentiate the multiplicity of life forms native to various worlds in the Lensmen universe. True Homo Sapiens is classed AAAAAA, whereas evil Ploorans (in what British writer and publisher David Langford calls “their horrid cryogenic metamorphosis”) register straight Zs to ten places. Any science fiction fan alive today who has not explored Doc Smith’s Universe of the Lens at a tender age is culturally deprived. Get your copy of now from the Internet or your friendly neighbourhood second hand book shop and begin your journey… “Two thousand million or so years ago, when two galaxies were colliding,…” You will never be the same. Subspace The novel Subspace Explorers (1965) is an expansion of the first 60 pages which were published as a novella in the July 1960 issue of Astounding. Subspace Encounter (1983) is a sequel to Smith’s Subspace Explorers. Non-series works Smith wrote three novels in separate universes that were different from those created for his series novels... Spacehounds of IPC (Amazing Jul–Sep 1931, 1947, Ace 1966); The Galaxy Primes (Amazing Stories Mar–May 1959, Ace 1965); and Masters of Space (written in collaboration with E Everett Evans and first published in 1976). Collections The Best of E.E. "Doc" Smith (1975) Have Trenchcoat — Will Travel, and Other Stories (2001). Doc Smith clones David Kyle, co-founder of Gnome Press with Martin Greenberg in 1948, wrote a series of novels based on three of the four Second Stage Lensmen, viz. The Dragon Lensman (1980) Lensman from Rigel (1982) Z-Lensman (1983). Between 1976 and 1985, Stephen Goldin spun out a series of ten books based on Doc Smith’s novella Imperial Stars. (The novella itself is included in the collection The Best of E. E. Smith published in 1975). Between 1978 and 1980, Gordon Eckland wrote a series of four books based on Doc Smith’s novella Lord Tedric. (Smith’s novella is included in the collection The Best of E. E. Smith published in 1975). Collaborations between living writers are often successful, but the same can’t always be said for living authors who take over a deceased author’s characters. Even when it works, there are differences that jar None of the clones mentioned above quite measure up to exemplary standards of primitive literature set by Edward Elmer Smith Ph D. Indeed, whereas the clones are out of print, his Lensmen stories are as widely read today as when they were written. Alfred Elton Van Vogt (1912-2000) Van Vogt’s first published SF story was (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1939), The story begins with the famous line, “On and on Coeurl prowled!” and depicts a fierce, carnivorous alien stalking the crew of an exploration spaceship. To drive the plot, Van Vogt introduces the idea of an all-encompassing system of knowledge that he calls Nexialism to analyse the alien’s behaviour. In his early years A E Van Vogt wrote mainly short stories. In the 1950s, many of those were cobbled into novels, or "fixups" as he called them, a term which entered the vocabulary of science fiction criticism. His first fixup was to combine Black Destroyer (1939) with War of Nerves (1950), Discord in Scarlet (1939) and M33 in Andromeda (1943) to form the novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950). The title is an homage to young Charles Darwin’s search for the boundaries of knowledge on HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836. Van Vogt’s space opera analogue The Voyage of the Space Beagle is ranked among the top ten science fiction stories of all time. That may be because its free flowing narrative includes a remarkable density of profound ideas relating to historians Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee’s vision of the cyclical nature of civilisation. Another successful fixup is The War Against the Rull (1959). Not all of van Vogt’s fixups fared as well. In Quest for the (1970), for example, he lost the plot completely. Nexialism, or “applied wholeism” as van Vogt described it in The Voyage of the Space Beagle, and revelations of the totalitarian police state that emerged after World War II were overarching themes that influenced his two most extraordinary novels, The World of Null-A (1945) and The Players of Null-A (1948). Null-A, or non-Aristotelian logic, refers to using intuitive, inductive reasoning rather than reflexive, or conditioned, deductive logic. Van Vogt wrote an inferior sequel, Null-A Three (1984) that I strongly advise his fans not to read. Lately, his estate has authorized author John C Wright to write a sequel to the first two Null-A novels. His novel Null-A Continuum succeeded brilliantly. Here is a brief synopsis: ‘Starting from the end of The Players of Null-A, we once again follow the exploits of Gilbert Gosseyn [pronounced Go Sane] as he discovers his origin and his true purpose. Can Gilbert unravel the very mysteries of creation itself in time to save the past and future universe?’ One of van Vogt's best-known novels, (1946), was originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction (Sep-Dec 1940). Using what became one of Van Vogt's recurring themes, it told the story of a nine-year-old superman living in a world in which his kind are hunted down and slain by Homo Sapiens. The best of his other stories of that ilk are… Asylum lead story in Astounding (May 1942) and its sequel The Proxy Intelligence (1968) as well as Research Alpha (1965) written in collaboration with James H Schmitz Most of the themes of Space Opera have been unashamedly filched from history (e.g. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) and ancient mythology (e.g. Homer’s Iliad). Van Vogt’s Imperial variations include Empire of the Atom (1957) Both novels tell the story of and its sequel, The Wizard of Linn (1962). mutant genius Clane Linn. The Weapon Makers (1947) tells the story of accidentally immortal superman, Robert Hedrock. The Weapon Shops of Isher (1951) was published after The Weapon Makers, but it reads like a prequel.. In the 1960s there was fierce debate at Melbourne University about the viability of the social structure of Earth’s Empire of of Isher. In The Weapon Makers (1947) Meteor Corporation is a front for the Weapon Shops, a permanent opposition to the Isher Empire based on the distribution of personalised weapons that can be used only for defence. Both the Empire and the Weapon Shops were established by Earth’s One Immortal Man thousands of years before the story began. Van Vogt said that many of his ideas came from dreams. I can believe that, as some of his stories are, like many dreams, unorganized to the point of incoherence. At their best, however, as in The Book of Ptath (1947), his writing has all the vision and imaginative revelation a dream can impart. Other van Vogt novels I can recommend are… The House that Stood Still (1950) Planets for Sale (1954) co-authored with his first wife, Edna Mayne Hull (1952) and its sequel, Lost: 50 Suns (1979) (1969) The Battle of Forever (1971) It is a truism that the only essential in learning to write is to write. As he hit his straps in the craft, Van Vogt systematized his writing method using scenes of 800 words or so where a new complication was added or something was resolved. Several of his stories hinge on temporal conundrums. My favorites are in The Weapon Makers and The Weapon Shops of Isher where there are time paradoxes embedded in apparently logical narrative.

Wikipedia reveals that Van Vogt acquired many of his writing techniques, including his skilful use of convoluted plot lines, from three books, ‘Narrative Technique’ by Thomas Uzzell and ‘The Only Two Ways to Write a Story’ plus ‘Twenty Problems of the Short-Story Writer’, both by John Gallishaw. Today, we describe such twists and turns of plot as Phildickian, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Philip K Dick himself got the idea from van Vogt; who, as explained above, had an 800-word plot change technique that exactly encompasses his readers’ attention span. Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992) The notion of independent with artificial intelligence subject to human restraint has been embedded in human consciousness since Asimov postulated his Three Laws of Robotics in 1939.

[The illustration is by talented Western Australian artist Stephen Grant who gave it to Bill Wright on the closing day of Swancon 29 in April 2003. It was first published in the October 2003 edition of Bill’s regular fanzine Insterstellar Ramjet Scoop]. Isaac Asimov has an honored place in fandom as one of the greatest science fiction authors of all time, but he also wrote popular science articles, and mysteries and fantasy fiction, demonstrating his versatility as a writer; and all that in addition to his day job as a professor at Boston University. He is best known for his and Robot stories written over his entire writing career, not always in chronological order. Together they comprise his Greater Foundation universe. Asimov became a published book author in 1950 with , the first novel in his Galactic Empire series. He followed up with the short story collection I, Robot that was much later adapted into a feature film starring Will Smith. Below is a list of some of Isaac Asimov’s science fiction works, categorized according to the universe in which they were written. The : The Caves of Steel (1954), the first Elijah Baley SF-crime novel; The Naked Sun (1957), the second Elijah Baley SF-crime novel; The Robots of Dawn (1983), the third Elijah Baley SF-crime novel; and Robots and Empire (1985), the sequel to the Elijah Baley trilogy. Galactic Empire novels: Pebble in the Sky (1950), about the early Galactic Empire; The Stars, Like Dust (1951), long before the Empire; and The Currents of Space (1952), still pre-Empire when the Republic of Trantor is still expanding. Original Foundation trilogy: Foundation, (1951); (1952), published as Ace paperback with the title The Man Who Upset the Universe; and Second Foundation (1953). Extended : Foundation's Edge (1982), a great story that explains a lot about the Foundation that is unanswered in the trilogy. Foundation and Earth (1986), last of the Foundation series; Prelude to Foundation (1988), occurring before Foundation; Forward the Foundation (1993), occurring after Prelude to Foundation and before Foundation. Lucky Starr series (as Paul French)

David Starr, Space Ranger (1952) Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercur (1956) Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids (1953) Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter (1957) Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus (1954) Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn (1958) Norby Chronicles (with Janet Asimov) Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot (1983) Norby Finds a Villain (1987) Norby's Other Secret (1984) Norby Down to Earth (1988) Norby and the Lost Princess (1985) Norby and Yobo's Great Adventure (1989) Norby and the Invaders (1985) Norby and the Oldest Dragon (1990) Norby and the Queen's Necklace (1986) Norby and the Court Jester (1991) Novels not part of a series (An asterisk * means the novel has minor connections to the Foundation series)

The End of Eternity (1955) * Nightfall (1990), a short story written by Isaac Asimov (1966), a novelization of the movie and novelised by Robert Silverberg. (1972) (1992) aka Child of Time, a short Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain (1987), not a story written by Isaac Asimov and novelized by Robert sequel to Fantastic Voyage, but a the plot is similar. Silverberg) (1989) * (1993) *, written in collaboration with Robert Silverberg. Short story collections I, Robot (1950) and Other Stories (1976) The Martian Way and Other Stories (1955) The Complete Robot (1982) Earth Is Room Enough (1957) The Winds of Change and Other Stories (1983) Nine Tomorrows (1959) The Alternate Asimovs.(1986) The Rest of the Robots (1964) The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (1986) Through a Glass, Clearly (1967) Robot Dreams (1986) Nightfall and Other Stories (1969) Azazel (1988) The Early Asimov (1972). Robot Visions (1990) The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973) Gold (1995) Buy Jupiter and Other Stories (1975) Magic.(1996) Isaac Asimov is undoubtedly one of the most prolific writers of all time. Too numerous to list here, he also wrote many mystery novels and short story collections; many books and articles on popular science; scores of academic essays, articles and papers on almost every branch of science; lecherous limericks and lurid observations about great men of history. Most risqué is The Sensuous Dirty Old Man (1971) by pseudonymous Dr. A. With unabashed frankness, Dr. A. explores every facet of the art of being not only a dirty old man, but a sensuous one at that: the leer, the snicker, the snort, the fatherly squeeze, the uncle-ish tweak, and the problems one encounters as a sensuous dirty old man, e.g. “What you say when the husband arrives.” It’s a guide to growing old disgracefully. Nothing is left to the imagination. Jack (John Holbrook) Vance (1916 - 2013) This tribute is from Australian writer editor and publisher Rob Gerrand Jack was one of the most important writers of the 20th century. He may be best known in the science fiction and fantasy world, but his work surpasses genre. He wrote more than 60 novels and 100 short stories, characterised by mordant wit, the lightest of touch in always finding the right word – sometimes inventing them – and using genre forms that nevertheless speak to us in the way all great writing does. He influenced and changed the field, and many writers pay tribute to his role in their own careers, including authors as disparate as Gene Wolfe, Ursula Le Guin and George R R Martin. His many awards included three Hugo awards, a Nebula, an Edgar, and a World Fantasy award for lifetime achievement. In 1997 he was made a Grand Master of SF, by the Science Fiction Writers of America. Such is the passion he engendered in his readership that 300 of them, me included, took part in the first internet-based creation of an “Integral” edition of any writer’s work, published in 2004 in 45 volumes. We went back to the original sources for all his writing – manuscripts where we could find them – and compared every print edition to restore Jack’s intentions, removing pulp edits and interpolations, and inadvertent changes arising from the numerous reprints. We found in the only public collection of Vance manuscripts, at Boston University’s Mugar Memorial Library, the original text of Strange She Hasn’t Written, one of three novels savagely edited and published as by Ellery Queen, this one originally titled The Four Johns. The manuscript was on the back of other Vance work. The Vance Integral Edition is the most accurate set of his texts, and is available in eBook formats. Jack was born in San Francisco into a wealthy family, but from age five, when his father deserted the family and left for Mexico, was raised by his maternal grandfather on a ranch near Oakley, California with his mother, Edith, and four siblings. He studied physics, journalism and English at the University of California in Berkeley, and also gained his lifelong love of traditional jazz there. He had a year with the US navy in 1941, including being posted to Pearl Harbor, from which he resigned “with prejudice” a week before the Japanese bombed it. He always had indifferent eyesight. He memorised the eyechart so he could join the merchant marine in 1943. At sea he wrote the stories that were published in 1950 as , set in a far future where technology has been forgotten and magic has taken its place. Or, perhaps, technology has evolved into magic. He met Norma Ingold in 1946 and they married, living together in San Francisco in a house Jack built, widely travelling the globe in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, including living for a short time in Australia in the 1960s. They lived for a time in Mexico with and his wife. Jack and Frank tossed up as to who would write a novel set in a desert or in an ocean. Frank wrote and Jack wrote , which while not as famous as the former, repays reading as a savage indictment of organised religion, told in Jack’s inimitable witty, amusing style, disguised as an adventure. He became legally blind in the 1980s after a failed operation for glaucoma, and wrote from then on with the aid of a computer, first with very large fonts, then with voice recognition software. Tributes have poured in, including from Georg R R Martin, who edited a tribute anthology to Jack in 2009. Martin described him as "one of the grandmasters of our genres, and IMNSHO one of the greatest writers of our times." He wrote that Sunday was "a sad day for fans of science fiction and fantasy. "I had the honour of meeting Jack a few times, but I cannot claim to have known him well. But he had a huge influence on me and my work, and for the past 50-some years has ranked among my very favourite writers. Every time a new Jack Vance book came out, I would drop whatever else I was doing and read it. Sometimes I did not mean to, but once you cracked the covers of a Vance book, you were lost.

"Vance's Dying Earth ranks with Howard's Hyborian Age and Tolkien's Middle Earth as one of the all-time great fantasy settings, and Cugel the Clever is the genre's greatest rogue, a character as memorable as Conan or Frodo (either of whom Cugel would likely swindle out of their smallclothes, had they ever met). “Vance left the world a richer place than he found it ... no more can be asked of any writer." Michael Moorcock told the Guardian: "For me there were two American fantasy writers who stood head and shoulders above the rest. One was and the other was Jack Vance. After Jack passed ninety I somehow hoped he had beaten the reaper. I hardly knew him but we had a fair amount in common, including taking pleasure in playing the banjo. His Dying Earth stories were an enormous influence, not only on me but also on fine writers like M John Harrison and China Mieville. He was a fine writer with an absolute lack of pretension who could have made his mark on any form he chose. I can only see his reputation continuing to grow." , outgoing president of the Science Fiction Writers of America, described Vance as "a genuine great in the field, one whose work captivated generations of science fiction and fantasy readers and writers, many of whom went on to be greats themselves. To say he will be missed is obvious. To say his influence will continue to echo through the years is a reassurance." Steven Gould, new president of the SFWA, said Vance was "one of the greatest science fiction and fantasy writers of the 20th century. For me, seized me by the throat at a young age and has never let me go." Hundreds of tributes have been posted on the website Foreverness, where his family posted the statement: "Recognised most widely as an author, family and friends also knew a generous, large-hearted, rugged, congenial, hard-working, optimistic and unpretentious individual whose curiosity, sense of wonder and sheer love of life were an inspiration in themselves. Author, friend, father and grandfather – there will never be another like Jack Vance." When you consider his work, the number of trail-blazers is extraordinary. After The Dying Earth he wrote To Live For Ever, and , and Tschai (originally published as ), each in their way pioneering a new style of science fiction. is the first sf novel to deal with the social implications of longevity, in a political and social way, and influenced how later authors would write about science fictional societies. Big Planet was one of the first to create a world, not in a fantastical Edgar R Burroughs way, but where the laws of physics and chemistry are observed, so that the peoples, fauna and flora are all credible. The sub genre followed. The Languages of Pao turns the ideas that language determines behaviour into a riveting political drama. Tschai is a classic of fertile creation and adventure. Later masterworks include , The Dragon Masters, The Last Castle, The series, Cugel the Clever, the , the Alastor series and the Cadwal Chronicles. Extraordinary short stories include Green Magic, The Men Return and . He also wrote mysteries and the very disturbing , seen as a forerunner for Howard Alan Treesong in the Book of Dreams. The Lyonesse trilogy is a feat of imaginative and literary creation that leaves almost every other writer dwarfed in comparison. You could swear the elder isles existed, and that Lyonesse is its true history. I have read all of Vance, most of his work at least twice, some more often. Few writers stand up to that repeated exposure. Each time I marvel at the splendid choice of words, the ever-fecund imagination, and the affectionate but black humour. I urge readers to seek out his works, many of which are available as ebooks at jackvance.com The great Jack Vance is silent. Yet still I hear his voice: witty, sceptical, fond, profound. He has seen it all, understood, and shared it with us most elegantly. Departed, yes, but ever with us. 31 May 2013 Rob Gerrand Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (1913 – 1966) writing as Cordwainer Smith Paul Linebarger’s father was a legal adviser to the Republic of China and a close personal friend of the founder of modern China, Dr Sun Yat-sen, who became young Paul’s godfather. His father moved the family to France and then Germany while Sun Yat-sen was struggling against contentious warlords in China. As a result, Linebarger had unparalleled cross-cultural childhood experiences. By adulthood he had become fluent in six languages and. at age 23 received a PhD in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University. He was Professor of Political Science at Duke University from 1937 to 1946 where he produced highly regarded works on Far Eastern Affairs. His academic career was interrupted by active service as a 2nd Lieutenant in World War II. In 1943 he was sent to China to coordinate military intelligence operations, where he befriended Chiang Kai-shek. At war’s end he had risen to the rank of major. In 1947, Linebarger moved to the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC where he served as Professor of Asiatic Studies. He used his wartime experience to write the book Psychological Warfare (1948), which is regarded by many in the field as a classic text. He was recalled to advise the British forces in the Malayan Emergency and the US Eighth Army in the Korean War. While he was known to call himself “a visitor to small wars”, he refrained from becoming involved in Vietnam but is known to have done undocumented work for the CIA. He travelled extensively, became a member of the Foreign Policy Association and was called upon to advise JFK. Those were Paul Linebarger’s day jobs. His extracurricular literary output was under the radar, in that he employed pseudonyms to safeguard his anonymity. He was "Carmichael Smith" for his political thriller Atomsk, "Anthony Bearden" for poetry, "Felix C. Forrest" for the novels Ria and Carola, and “Cordwainer Smith” for his science fiction. In 1966, most of his science fiction that had previously appeared in science fiction magazines under the pseudonym Cordwainer Smith was published in book form for the first time. All but five of the stories are about the Instrumentality of Mankind, ruled by the Lords of the Instrumentality who select themselves in relation to their survival skills in mental telepathy. There is the Lord Femtiosex who is just and without pity. There is the Lady Goroke who shows kindness to underpeople but only if kindness is lawful. And there is the Lady Arabella Underwood whose justice no man can understand. And there many other weird and wonderful characters among the Lords, less gifted humans, robots, memes, and animal-derived underpeople. Set in the far future, his two novels and twenty-odd short stories chart the history of an evolving civilisation over a period of fifteen thousand years. To Western readers his writing style is unique; but his Asian fans will identify Chinese narrative techniques. His writing more closely resembles poetry than the dry prose of conventional SF. At a basic level his stories are fun to read as adventure yarns that cast odd perspectives on the human condition but, for readers with the wit and erudition to perceive them and the patience to winkle them out, they are also full of historical references and complex literary puns. The stories exhibit a consistent morality whose principal themes involving cats, cruelty and children recur again and again. The scientific mainspring is faster-than-light travel between the stars and the consequent expansion of human kind throughout the universe. In this interstellar culture true humans are cocooned in privileged ease, the work being done by robots or by ‘underpeople’ who are animals genetically modified to have near-human intelligence and appearance. The Chiefs of the Instrumentality exercise more or less

benevolent dictatorship over all, where themes of love, courage, cruelty, hope, innocence and belief are played out in settings of astonishing richness and complexity. Smith’s Instrumentality stories have a seductive appeal to Australians, considering that much of the wealth of the galaxy is concentrated in the hands of a squattocracy on the planet Norstrilia (strine for Old North Australia). It is worth mentioning, too, that Australian SF fan and critic John Foyster (1941 – 2003) opined that Cordwainer Smith’s Instrumentality of Mankind was meant to represent the U.S. military-industrial complex. The linkage is hard to reason out; but, once the connection is made, it’s pretty obvious. Pictured opposite is the book cover for Smith’s most notable story, Scanners Live In Vain. Arthur Bertram Chandler (1912 – 198466) A. Bertram Chandler was a British-Australian science fiction author, writing under his own name and the pseudonyms George Whitley, Andrew Dunstan, and S.H.M. Born in Aldershot, Hampshire, England, he was a Sea Captain and AuthorA. Bertram Chandler merchant marine officer sailing the world in everything from tramp steamers to troopships. In 1956 he emigrated to Australia. He commanded various ships in the Australian and New Zealand merchant navies, and was the last master of the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne as the law required that it have an officer on board while it was laid up waiting to be towed to China to be broken up. Chandler wrote over 40 novels and 200 works of short fiction. He won Ditmar Awards (Australian science fiction achievement awards) for his short story The Bitter Pill (in 1971) and for three novels False Fatherland (in 1969), The Bitter Pill (in 1975), and The Big Black Mark (in 1976). He is best known for his Rim World series and John Grimes novels, both of which have a distinctly nautical flavor. His descriptions of life aboard spaceships and the relationships between members of the crew en route derive from his experience on board seagoing ships and thus carry a feeling of realism rarely found with other writers. Indeed, some readers say that his works are sea stories set in outer space, but they are more than that, being great Space Opera in their own right. In the mid-to-late twentieth century, his novels were read avidly by science fiction aficionados all over the world. They are still popular today in North America and Japan, although, sadly, not in Australia. Nevertheless, his name endures in his adopted country. Australia’s top award for outstanding achievement in science fiction, the A. Bertram Chandler Award, is sponsored by the Australian Science Fiction Foundation. The award has been presented annually since 1992 to a worthy recipient at each year’s Aussie Natcon. For links to Citations for past winners of the award, visit: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~asff/chandler.htm. Mervyn Binns, the second Chandler winner in 1993, recalls Bert’s visits to the Melbourne Science Fiction Club in the 1950s, 60s and 70s,.During that period he was a regular attendee at Australian science fiction conventions. In 1982 Mervyn attended Chicon IV, the 40th Worldcon in Chicago, where A. Bertram Chandler was Guest of Hono. He writes, “CHICON IV was my third Worldcon outside Australia and my first in the USA. It was great to see Bert Chandler as GoH. He was living in Sydney but I had seen him from time to time when he was GoH at local cons. “He had joined an Australian shipping line and was captaining ships carrying ore between New South Wales and South Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. He only once had some cargo to pick up in Melbourne. Then, his ship was moored in the Yarra River opposite where Aussiecon 4 (the 68th Worldcon in Melbourne in 2010) was held in 2010. He invited Paul Stevens and me aboard for a drink and chat. After consuming half a flagon of Tasmanian cider and a glass of port wine each and enjoying Bert’s conversation, we staggered off home. “It was wonderful for me to have been awarded the second A. Bertram Chandler Award by the Australian Science Fiction Foundation in 1993. It was a fitting reminder of my association with a bloke who it was a pleasure to know. I enjoyed reading Bert’s humorous tales and adventures but I believe his best effort was Kelly Country published by Penguin Books in 1984. The novel explores an in which bushranger Ned Kelly was not captured and hanged, but led a rebellion, becoming president of an Australian republic that morphed into an hereditary dictatorship.” I am indebted to Mervyn Binns for the text of Bert Chandler’s epic poem Kangaroos Don’t Smoke, which was originally published in September 1969 in M31 by Australian science fiction fan Ron Clarke. Kangaroos Don’t Smoke by A. Bertram Chandler Long, long ago, when the emus flew As he caulked the hull his days were full And koala bears had tails, With unremitting toil. Before that bloke called Captain Cook He trained his team in a nearby stream Had landed in New South Wales, For staying power and speed; Before that hound, the dingo, found And the one who took the lead Trees south of Capricorn, Was old and tough and dirty and rough Before the rabbits sexual habits And could weather a stormy sea Made graziers forlorn; And could steer by the sun, And weighed a ton, Long, long before steam, sail or oar And was nearly ninety-three. Surged under The Bridge’s span, There passed a race who left no trace He picked his crew from men he knew, -- The true, Marsupial Man. From men of ill repute Who laughed at Widge and spat off The Bridge, They tended their herds of platypi, Prepared, without dispute, Waxed fat on their termite farms, To forsake, the charms of the termite farms They lived a life that was free from strife, And the browsing platypi; Knew nothing of war’s alarms; Who wouldn’t say no to a kangaroo But they would not speak to their cousins meek, And who loved the wallaby. They snubbed the kangaroos, And a wallaby they just passed by At last came the day when they sailed away, With an elevated nose. Out, out, beyond the Heads, And the Platypi, as they passed by, They worshipped a God whose Name was Bod Stirred, groaning, in their beds, Who lived on the Bodgie Bridge And a sudden chill, foreboding ill, Where his temple stood -- it was made of wood; Swept over the Randwick crowd, And the Goddess known as Widge And the racing bears breathed fervent prayers Was worshipped too, in Woolloomooloo And the emus screamed aloud, With rites obscene and lush, And the Great God Bod shook where He stood And the things that were done -- though all in fun -- And tremors cracked The Bridge, Would make. even Mike Hammer blush. And in Woolloomooloo was great to-do So life went on, with dance and song As they sacrificed to Widge, And feasts beneath the moon And on every hand the fertile land Of termites’ legs and platypus eggs Shivered on Winter’s brink -- Scooped up with a gumleaf spoon, Said one small bear, to his cobbers there, And Cascade Beer shipped from Hobart Pier “ It’s koala than you think!” And plonk, and metho, too -- But the ship drove on, with laugh and song, But the wallaby they let go dry On, on, to the open sea; And they starved the kangaroo. In the golden light, in the noontime bright With torches bright in the. starry night The turtles roared their glee; The Bodgies lined The Bridge Twelve knots or more, as twenty-four While in Wooloomooloo the Widgie crew Stout flippers flailed the foam, Sang hymns in praise of Widge; Soon left the beach far out of reach But one was there. who did not care As they fared forth from home. For feasting and drunken play. There was Captain Pate, and Cho, the Mate “It’s time,” he said, “before I’m dead” And Chen, the Turtle King, “That I found the U.S.A!” And Bo’s’n Puff, and Chief Cook Ruff, He stored his ship for a lengthy trip And the Cabin Boy was Pring;. With provisions wet and dry, And they sang as the towrope stretched and rang With bags of silk full of platypus milk All through that first, fine day -- And slabs of spider pie, “ Oh, we’re the boys to make a With platypus eggs and termites’ legs And to find the. U.S.A.!” And eucalyptus oil; It was East they ran, and South they ran, Pring grasped the fact, was first to act Right down to the Barrier Ice, And he turned the turtles West, And turtles four Chen dragged ashore Said he, “We will run for the setting Sun To scrape them clean of lice, And the Islands of the Blest!” And turtles two went down with ‘flu “E’en so,” said Chen, “In the world of men And had to cease from toil None live who can say us nay, And were put to rest, till they convalesced We’ve defied the curses and dared Bod’s worst On the harsh, Antarctic soil. And found the U.S.A!” Of their dreadful plight through that long, cold night It was after dark when they beached their bark I do not care to speak -- On the wild Virginian shore, But the penguins know, and in voices low And they heard the whine of the porcupine And in accents far from meek And the bullfrog’s fretful roar; Still warn their wives, if they love their lives They saw the light of the watchfires bright To shun a tasty dish And they heard the tom-tom’s beat Of termites legs and platypus eggs And the war whoops loud of the Redskin crowd And stick to honest fish. And the tramp of marching feet. At last came the sun, and time to run Down to the coast with all his hoot Back North to round the Horn, Marched Big Chief Mud-In-The-Eye, And the turtles brave, met each mounting wave In his manhood’s flower, he was drunk with power, And put the whales to scorn; And his braves were drunk with rye. “More speed.” cried Pate, “We’re running late!” He cried to his squaw, “Go down to the shore “More speed it is!” said Chen, Before the torchlight fails, And his whip fell Crack on each scaly back Find out who they are, if they come in war, And the towrope rang again. Those funny men with tails!” It. was East they ran, and North they ran, They had signed on Pring because he could sing Right into the rising sun, And because of his E.S.P. But turtles twain fell sick again He Could read the cup, won at two Up And were towed -- they weighed a ton --- And practised telepathy. And turtles three got housemaid’s knee Before the squaw had reached the shore In their middle flipper joint; He had read the Indian’s mind. Chen used his goad in a savage mood He said to Cho, “We had better go – And bloodied up the point. Or we leave our scalps behind!” And the spider pie was old and dry “Too late, too late!” cried Captain Pate, And the platypus milk was sour, “We will meet our fate like men, While the platypus eggs walked round on legs We will stand and fight through the bloody night To see what they might devour; Till morning comes again, But the ship drove on ‘neath a tropic sun Trade blow for blow, to let them know And Ruff prepared a duff How well can a Digger die..” Of flying fish wings and jellyfish stings “Get that big galoot! Load bows and shoot!” Sour milk, and armpit fluff. Bawled Big Chief Mud-In-The-Eye. They saw no land on the starboard hand, The bowstrings rang and the arrows sang They saw no land to port, But the volley whistled wide. Just sky and sea to infinity Some fell to earth some fell in the surf, As the Bodgie priesthood taught; Some bounced off the turtles’ hide; But North they ran, and never a man. And then, in spite of the arrows’ flight Thought to bemoan his plight. The well flung boomerangs sped. They made no speed through the thick Gulf weed One missed its mark, came back in an arc Though the turtles laboured hard, And bashed in the Bo’s’n’ s head. But Chen, with his whip, still drove the ship Tuff’s blood flowed fast as he breathed his last; On, yard by painful yard; In salute he raised his arm. “We are lost!” cried Pate, “I know too late “Goodbye to my herds of platypi That the Will of Bod prevails!” And my happy termite farm! Then there floated by a slice of pie. Adieu, adieu,to the. kangaroo, And a copy of Weird Tales. Farewell to the wallaby!” He said no more. On that savage shore “Oh well,” said Cho, “I don’t mind if I do.” He was the first to die. And he pulled both long and deep... “Oh, Bo’s’n Tuf, we have done enough,” “It. makes me sad, and it makes me glad, Cried Pate. “I will sue for peace; And it makes me want to sleep... Lay your weapons by, Chief Mud-In-The-Eye, ...Would you think me a boor if I borrowed your And bid this slaughter cease. squaw, We come from a grand and austral land O Big Chief Mud-In-The-Eye? Where the happy emus fly; Would it blight your life if I stole your wife? We are cousins, too, to the kangaroo, Would you sicken, and pine, and die?” And we love the wallaby.” When the Big Chief saw Cho leer at his squaw. But Big Chief Mud laughed where he stood, He said, “It is time you went. And he whooped his best war whoop: You have wined and dined in royal kind “Your scalps’ll look fine on this belt of mine – And now you profane my tent. Besides, I like turtle soup. Go and play your tricks on your turtles six, I will use your tails as harvest flails, Save them for the kangaroo, With your skin I’ll sole my shoes. Or give them a try with the wallaby -- I’ll make your lugs into drinking mugs But get the hell out, and go!” From which to sup my booze!” I shall deal with my Mate.,” said Captain Pate, He whooped again, then frowned with pain “He. makes my blood to boil. And began, to cough and cough. But, before we leave, what do we receive. “Take heart,” said Pate, “He’ s in such a state. For our eucalyptus oil?” That he’ll cough his head right off!” “It gave me relief,” admitted the Chief, But it was Cho who knew what to do, And so was the bargain made. Who played according to Hoyrle. “Oho.,” said Cho, “Here’s a fine to-do He ran to the ship and packed his grip -- Now, what have we got for trade?” With eucalyptus oil. “Some tobacco seed is what we need,” As Big Chief Mud coughed where he stood Said Ruff. “And a bale of leaf. Cho rubbed the redskin’s chest, You can throw in a vat of rattlesnake fat The spasms ceased, Mud’s features creased And your necklace of eagles’ teeth…” And he clasped Cho to his breast. Chen tried to unload his turtle goad “O man from the sea, pay heed to me, For a jar of candied mice; You have saved your life, and mine. And it broke Pate’s heart... when Pring swapped the O man from the south, I will fill your mouth chart With honey and rhubarb wine!” For a gallon of strawberry ice. He called his braves and he called his slaves The gallant craft sagged fore and aft And he cried, “Pay heed to me! With the weight of goods abounding -- These brothers of mine tonight shall dine Jamaica Rum, and bubble gum, And wine right royally! And back numbers of Astounding Throw ants in each vat of rattlesnake fat! A baseball bat, and rattlesnake fat, Put snails in the rhubarb wine! And a necklace of eagles’s teeth, These brothers to me from over the sea And werewolves’ tails, and seven bales Shall learn how the Redskins dine!” Of the best Virginia leaf. So they stuffed their guts with monkeynuts At the break of day they sailed away And they washed them down with Coke. And bore to the South and East., Chief Mud-In-The-Eye breathed a grateful sigh, “At noon,” said Cho, We’ll heave her to Said, “What about a smoke?” And sit down and have a feast.” His pipe was lit, and he puffed at it And so it was done: ‘neath the midday sun While his squaw played on her lyre, They sat down to gorge and joke; Said Captain Pate to his bold Chief Mate, Then, with bellies tight, they felt just right “Great. Sod! The man’s afire!” And rolled themselves a smoke. “Here, chance your luck and try a suck,” But for cases rare, the Doctors swear, Said the Chief to Captain Pate. Drugs work according to plan. “You try it first, I. fear the worst,” Have they seen the effect of nicotine Said the Captain to his Mate. On the true, Marsupial. Man? For Pate, I must state, tried to make his Mate. “I was just a little hasty. And his Mate to make him back. You encase the leaf in a paper sheath? “By Bod!” swore Huff, You light, and you draw, and blow? “The bloody stuff is an aphrodisiac!” Oh, think of it! I have relit So they smoked no more till they reached the shore The fires of youth a new! Of Afric.’s southern coast, “But much as I hate, dear Captain Pate, Where they smoked a lot, taught the Hottentot To carp, to criticise, The duties of a host. We all of us need to carry this weed -- The lion is his pride ran off to hide But these bales are an awkward size.” Whenever they passed by. “You don’t need a tin to keep it in, “They can’t go too soon,” moaned the Cape Baboon, Every good biologist vouches “They’re worse than the tse-tse fly!” That Widge, indeed, has forseen our need – It was East they ran, and South they ran, For marsupial bints have:pouches!” Right down to the Barrier Ice, And so, that night, by the moonlight bright And penguin brides left their husbands sides There was feasting, and joy indeed, For a taste of the candied mice. There were termites’ legs and platypus eggs, It was East they ran, and North they ran, And the good Virgnia weed, Back to Australia’s shore, And Cascade Beer, shipped from Hobart Pier, And the Turtles sang and the towrope rang And plonk, and metho too —- As they sighted the Bridge once more. But never a pie for the wellaby, With spears in hand, a warlike band, Nor booze for the kangaroo. The Bodgies lined the Bridge. …………………………………….. “'Tis the Sons of the Beast!” roared the Bodgie Priest, “Oho,” said Oho, “Here’s a fine to-do Throughout the land, on every hand -- I think they mean us harm.” Full pouches were in sight, He rolled a smoke, then again he spoke, And not with smokes for the Bodgie blokes – “At least this’ll keep us warm!” But the outcome of that night. The High Priest cursed his very worst Without ado the gallant crew And pined for the fragrant weed; Were dragged from off their ship “Send for C’aptain Pate -- if it’s not too late – To where there stood the. Priest of Bod Advice is what I need!” With a hand on either hip. “I see that you burn, but you do not turn Pate pondered deep, almost went to sleep, To ashes, as you should...” Then his eyes lit up like rockets. “It’s only proof, Right Reverend Oaf “Don’t you suppose we could make us clothes? That our heads aren’t made of wood!” And in those clothes have, pockets?” The High Priest scowled, and the, High Priest, But explain to me this mystery growled, This smoke without a fire..,” “I shall have to run you in, The fumes that you see bring ecstasy For you should know, Bod tells us so, And fan the heart’s desire. That clothing is a sin!” But we’ve rattlesnake fat and a baseball bat, And a jar of candied mice, He cried, “Thou hast trod on the Corns of Bod, And rhubarb wine, and a porcupine, Thou hast spat in the nest of Widge! And a gallon of strawberry ice.” For heresy I sentence thee to ten years in the fridge!” “Do you think you can buy my clemency And so poor Pate went to his fate With all this muck, and trash? To pine ‘mid. the ice and snow, Go and. sell it to the kangaroo -- And he cried as he sighed for his penguin bride Perhaps he’ll pay you cash!’ In the happy long ago. “But we’ve werewolves’ tails and seven bales Of what the Free chum call tabac.— The High Priest cried, “Bod blast my hide! You inhale the smoke, and it works on a bloke There must be a way to cope! As an aphrodisiac.” But how can we stop fertility?” Then his eyes lit up with hope. The Priest’s eyes gleamed and his broad face beamed “If we wore a skin would it be a sin? As he thought of something tasty. A sort of cellophane... He said, “Perhaps you’ll forgive my lapse,

Should we have, trod on the Corns of Bod? All over the land, from every hand Would Widge account us vain?” The long, dark night swept in. He called for Cho, said, “You’ll have to go Gale, fire and flood razed the Bridge of Bod And put to sea once more; And the city made of tin -- I would have sent Pate, but it’s much too late, But each lesser breed still sowed its seed He’d take too long to thaw – And survived misfortune’s stroke, For never a bloke can have his smoke For the wallaby has a birthrate high While the gravid Widgies blubber; And kangaroos don’t smoke. Go forth, my son, find the Amazon, And bring us back some rubber!” L’ENVOI: Prince, if you fail to believe, my tale ………………………………… Go straight to the nearest Zoo And feast your eye on the wallaby And consider the kangaroo

Published by 2013 DUFF delegate Bill Wright for the Boston science fiction community Sep11, 2013