SSFF CCoommmmeennttaarryy 8877 112299 ppaaggeess AApprriill 22001144 MICHAEL BISHOP FEATURE: MICHAEL BISHOP PAUL DI FILIPPO CONTRIBUTORS: Doug Barbour :: Greg Benford Larry Bigman :: Michael Bishop Ned Brooks :: Jennifer Bryce Jason Burnett :: Stephen Campbell Cy Chauvin :: Peggyann Chevalier Gian Paolo Cossato :: Paul Di Filippo Brad Foster :: Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) Leigh Edmonds :: Brad Foster Bruce Gillespie :: Steve Jeffery Jerry Kaufman :: Rick Kennett Carol Kewley :: David Lake Dave Langford :: Fred Lerner Patrick McGuire :: Tim Marion DJ Frederick Moe :: Murray Moore Richard Morden :: Ian Nichols Lloyd Penney :: Gillian Polack Mark Plummer :: Yvonne Rousseau Guy Salvidge :: Steve Sneyd Milt Stevens :: Steve Stiles Joe Szabo :: Tim Train Taral Wayne :: Robyn Whiteley Martin Morse Wooster :: Pete Young Cover: Steve Stiles: ‘Night Flight’ S F Commentary 87 SF Commentary No 87, April 2014, 129 pages, is edited and published by Bruce Gillespie ([email protected]), 5 Howard St., Greensborough VIC 3088, Australia, and http://efanzines.com/SFC/SFC87L.pdf. All correspondence: [email protected]. Member fwa. First edition and primary publication is electronic. All material in this publication was contributed for one-time use only, and copyrights belong to the contributors. Alternate editions: * A very limited number of print copies are available. Enquiries to the editor. Subscription rate: $A100 or equivalent. * The alternate PDF version is portrait-shaped, i.e. it looks the same as the print edition, but with colour graphics: http://efanzines.com/SFC/SFC85P.pdf Front cover Steve Stiles: ‘Night Flight’. Back cover Carol Kewley: ‘Venus’. Artwork Joe Szabo (pp. 68, 76, 78); Brad Foster (p. 70); Gian Paolo Cossato (p. 90); Dino Battaglio (p. 91). Photographs Helena Binns (p. 5); Richard Morden (pp. 7, 8); Bruce Gillespie (p. 10); The Age (p. 17); Murray Moore (p. 88); Steve Jeffery (p. 109); Jeff Kleinbard (p. 119). 2 Contents 21 MICHAEL BISHOP FEATURE Bruce Gillespie 21 Unaimed prayers: The Silurian Tales of Steven Utley: An essay-review 68 FIRST, THE LETTERS ... Michael Bishop 32 The Mockingmouse Stephen Campbell :: Dave Langford :: Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) :: A poem by Michael Bishop Rick Kennett :: Guy Salvidge :: Greg Benford :: Ian Nichols :: Lloyd Penney :: Larry Bigman :: Pete Young :: Tim Train :: Joe Szabo :: 34 Michael Bishop’s fantasies Patrick McGuire :: David Lake :: Jerry Kaufman :: Ned Brooks :: Paul di Filippo Gillian Polack :: Doug Barbour :: Martin Morse Wooster :: Cy Chauvin :: Brad Foster :: DJ Frederick Moe :: Peggyann Chevalier :: Murray Moore :: Gian Paolo Cossato :: Steve Sneyd :: Milt Stevens :: Jason Burnett :: 4 I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS Fred Lerner :: Robyn Whiteley :: We Also Heard From ... 4 Moving along after 27 years: The Melbourne SF Club The Editor 98 AND NOW THE FEATURE LETTERS ... 9 Babel The Editor 69 Planck dimensions 13 Falling off the edge of the world: Tributes Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) The Editor 98 Gentill Miles off course 18 The fanzine lounge of Babel: Reviews of Flag and Opuntia Yvonne Rousseau The Editor 103 Fan history and cultural history Leigh Edmonds 46 LISTS! LISTS! 106 Wherefore good talk about science fiction? Steve Jeffery 46 The three best of everything for 2013 110 In defence of comics Jennifer Bryce Steve Stiles 51 Oh no! Not a blog! 112 In defence of comics Mark Plummer Tim Marion 56 And now the lists (and a little bit of commentary): 117 The 13 days of Hallowe’en Favourite books, short stories, films, music documentaries, and CDs Tim Marion of 2013 3 I must be talking to my friends Moving along after 27 years If there are two images I’ll remember from 2013, one is of the carrying the boxes. I felt much better than I had when Elaine and back of Peter Ryan’s head as he disappeared down the steep I were stacking and carrying boxes when we moved house nine ladder-stairs from the Bio Box (the old cinema projection box) at years ago. the Melbourne Science Fiction Club carrying yet another box of fanzines. The top of his head bore the scars of carrying other boxes Why were I and quite a few other MSFC members taking part in down those stairs. Each time he went down he risked scraping the such an unlikely activity as filling and carrying boxes? Because of top of his head on an overhanging beam above the staircase. a very strange situation that had arisen at the beginning of October (see the Age cutting, p. 6). The Uniting Church of Victoria (formed The other image is of me pushing the box of fanzines into Peter’s in the sixties from the united Methodists, Presbyterians, and hands, him righting himself on the stair, and him turning around Congregationalists) faced a situation in which a secondary school still carrying the box — before descending the staircase. He said it ran had gone bust to the tune of $56 million. Nobody seems to a week later that the memory of the turn on the stairs still gave be very forthcoming about the size of the debt, who incurred it, him nightmares. or why it is irrecoverable. What an old Churches of Christ bloke like me would never have guessed is that the central organisation When I fronted up to the Melbourne Science Fiction Club on 5 owns all the congregations that call themselves Uniting Churches. December to help a bit with box packing and carrying, I re- (Each Church of Christ congregation controls its own property.) discovered my acute sense of vertigo. It was all I could do to The properties to be sold included St David’s Uniting Church, West clamber up those stairs to the Bio Box, then clamber down them Brunswick, the home of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club. just as awkwardly. There was no way I could carry a box on the stairs and not feel like tipping over. Thank ghod Peter Ryan was In 1985, after Space Age Books failed, the Club had to vacate the there on the same day. building in Swanston Street Melbourne, where they had the upstairs rooms. James ‘Jocko’ Allen, of the then rather small club, That was the second of three days in which I helped pack and and his parents attended church at St David’s Uniting Church. carry boxes. My main fear was of putting out the base of my back. They heard that an old lady, Emma Munro, had willed to the church Nothing like that happened. Thanks to the daily exercises that my a large amount of money, on condition that the congregation set chiropractor has suggested to me over the years, I had no trouble up a library within its buildings. Jocko’s brilliant idea was to ask 4 A combined fifty-year history of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club leadership and inspiration: Mervyn Binns (1950s–1980s) and James ‘Jocko’ Allen (1980s until now). (Photo: Helena Binns.) 5 for a home for the Melbourne Science Fiction Club’s library, provided we could also have space for other club facilities. That was 27 years ago. The people at St David’s have never complained about our presence (indeed, had welcomed us and other clubs and societies to use the church hall on various days of the week), or about the changes we had had to make to fit in the library. One of these was storing the fanzine collection (based upon the Bill Wright Collection, donated twenty years ago) in the Bio Box, which had to be outfitted with filing cabinets and new shelves. In the middle of 2013, a new committee took over the running of the Club, expecting to have an easy year. Instead, the committee, led by Natalie MacLachlan, found itself heavily laden with the worst crisis in the club’s recent history. The astonishing thing is that Natalie and the committee have met the situation with courage and every appearance of outer calm. They asked members of the club to turn up on particular days to pack the library and have it ready for removal on 7 December. I was one of the many people who turned up at various times to finish the job. The seemingly insoluble question was: how could anybody remove the filing cabinets from the Bio Box? How, indeed, did they get up there? I could not attend on the night when committee member Ternecio Monclova brought along a special removalist’s device that enabled him to lower the emptied filing cabinets slowly down the stairs. I hope somebody has taken a photo of this feat. If you want a full report on ‘Leaving a Church’, including some wonderful photos of the emptied library and clubrooms, I suggest you send your membership fee ($45) to the Melbourne Science Fiction Club, PO Box 110, Moonee Vale VIC 3055. There might remain no physical copies of the Ethel the Aardvark 169 (Decem- ber 2013–January 2014), but the editors, Richard Morden and Peter Ryan, could probably tell you how to download the PDF from the MSFC site. On 7 December volunteers were supposed to turn up at 7 a.m. to 6 Only the shelves and some sore backs remain to suggest that once there The library in boxes on the stage of St David’s Hall. (Photo: Richard Morden.) stood here a mighty library. (Photo: Richard Morden.) begin moving all the boxes to the driveway outside, from where Later I heard the rest of the story. The lift continued not to work, the removalists would stack them in their van. There was no way so the staff at the depot gave us a large room on the ground floor. I would get there by 7 a.m., if only because the trip by public All the Club’s umpteen boxes, except for the kitchen items, are transport takes nearly two hours from Greensborough.