SF Commentary 99 50th Anniversary Edition Part 2 July 2019 80 pages Cover: Randy Byers: ‘Morning Glory’. Photograph. SF COMMENTARY 99 * 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION, PART 2 July 2019 80 pages SF COMMENTARY No. 99, 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION, PART 2, July 2019, is edited and published in a limited number of print copies (this edition only) by Bruce Gillespie, 5 Howard Street, Greensborough, VIC 3088, Australia. Phone: 61-3-9435 7786. PREFERRED MEANS OF DISTRIBUTION .PDF FILE FROM EFANZINES.COM: http://efanzines.com or from my email address: [email protected]. FRONT COVER: Randy Byers: ‘Morning Glory’ Photograph. BACK COVER: Ditmar (Dick Jenssen): ‘Dancing Almond Bread’. DJ Graphic. ARTWORK: Sheryl Birkhead (pp. 11, 18, 23, 25); John Bangsund (pp. 52–4); John Foyster (pp. 56–8); Denny E. Marshall: ‘Ritual of the Woods’ (p. 79). PHOTOGRAPHS: Cat Sparks (p. 3); Randy Byers (p. 4); Merv Binns (p. 5); Elaine Cochrane (pp. 8, 9, 10); Laurraine Tutihasi (p. 14); Sheryl Birkhead (p. 27); Giampaolo Cossato (p. 35); George Turner (p. 55); John Foyster (pp. 63–5). 3 THE GLITTERING PRIZES 37 FEATURE LETTERS 37 Gerald Murnane: Breakthrough at the age of 79 4 I MUST BE TALKING TO MY 39 Mars and Beyond: Patrick McGuire, John FRIENDS Litchen and Greg Benford Bruce Gillespie 42 Always Coming Home: Yvonne Rousseau (and Ursula Le Guin) 4 TRIBUTES 44 Patrick McGuire: Polite and detailed 4 Gillian Polack pays tribute to Vonda McIntyre disagreements 5 Bruce Gillespie and Yvonne Rousseau pay tribute to Gene Wolfe: 6 Peace, reviewed by Yvonne Rousseau 50 NOVA NOT OUT: 7 Ron Drummond’s dream narrative in tribute to A REALLY INCOMPLETE AND VERY Randy Byers PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE NOVA MOB, 8 Bruce Gillespie and Elaine Cochrane: 1970–2018 Farewell to Harry Bruce Gillespie, with much help from Kim Huett, Julian Warner, 10 LETTERS from Alan Stewart, Leigh Edmonds, Mark Plummer, and Robert Day :: Franz Rottensteiner :: Sally Yeoland Steve Jeffery :: Andy Robson :: John Litchen and inadvertent help from John Foyster and John Leigh Edmonds :: Judy Buckrich :: Bangsund Dick Jenssen :: Alex Skovron :: Jennifer Bryce Cy Chauvin :: Doug Barbour :: William Breiding 66 YVONNE GETS HER KNEES THUMPED Gregory Benford :: Gillian Polack :: Yvonne Rousseau Sheryl Birkhead :: Dale Speirs :: Murray Moore 68 BRUCE GILLESPIE’S NOVA MOB DIARY Mark Plummer :: Stephen Campbelll :: ENTRIES AUG. 1970–OCT. 2017 Lloyd Penney :: John Hertz :: Casey Wolf :: AND MUCH OTHER INFORMATION Jeff Hamill :: John-Henri Holmberg :: FROM KIM HUETT Damien Broderick :: Giampaolo Cossato :: Ray Wood :: Patrick McGuire 2 The glittering prizes: Continuum 15, June 2019 Continuum 15 took place in June, long after most of the material was written for this issue of SF Commentary, which should have appeared on 1 January 2019. But the Continuum Committee got wind of the existence of a Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of SF Commentary. So they awarded me the Eternity Award for (I assume) a lifetime’s achievement. It was a complete surprise, especially as the only other winner is Mervyn R. Binns, whose achievements in fandom make mine seem puny. Many other prizes were given at either the Opening Ceremony (on the Friday night of the convention) or the Awards Ceremony (on the Saturday). Details can be accessed at either the Continuum website or the Australian Science Fiction Foundation site. I was particularly pleased to see that Alan Stewart won the A. Bertram Chandler Award for lifetime achieve- ment, and Kaaron Warren won the Peter McNamara Award. The Ian Gunn Award for unrecognised efforts in fandom went to Lucy Sussex and Julian Warner, for keeping the Nova Mob going for 21 years. (The history of the Nova Mob appears later in this issue of SFC.) Photo below taken by Cat Sparks (who also won a couple of awards at Continuum): (l. to r.): Bruce Gillespie, wielding the giant hourglass that is the Eternity Award; Helena Binns; and Merv Binns, the only other winner of this award. 3 50th Anniversary Edition, Part 2 I must be talking to my friends Whence disappeared 2018 (and the first half of 2019)? it was to be one magazine. Then the page length It has seemed like a month to me. There have been a few stretched to 160-plus, so it had to be divided into two. highlights in 2018, especially the 50th Anniversary Then I found I had promised to include some articles gathering for ANZAPA, the 48th Anniversary meeting of that still didn’t fit. So the 50th Anniversary Issue now the Nova Mob, and Jean Weber’s Big Birthday Bash in stretches to three issues, of which this is the second. All February 2018. I had more freelance indexing jobs than three should have appeared on 1 January, but they expected, but far fewer fanzines produced than I had haven’t. I had little paying work in the first half of the planned. Only two issues of SF Commentary in 2018, year, but now have been offered some indexing projects. whereas I needed to produce five issues to empty the Someday this fanzine will be finished. folder of unpublished manuscripts sitting on disk. Still, Almost all the rest of this column was ready by I did catch up on ANZAPA Mailing Comments in Decem- December 2018, so you will find very few letters written ber. That had seemed an impossible task in October. about SFC 98. Thanks very much for the recent letters So my life has been filled by work ... and fanzine that have poured in. Some people, such as Leanne production ... and reading books, listening to music, and Frahm, Gerald Smith, Jeff Hamill, and Gerald Murnane, watching films and TV series ... have written actual letters — the ones you put in an and the 50th Anniversary Issue of SF Commentary. First envelope, attach a stamp, then flip into the pillar box. Tributes Gillian Polack pays tribute to Vonda McIntyre (1948–2019) Every day a part of me is still looking for emails from Vonda McIntyre. I knew her through emails and through Vonda McIntyre. meetings online. We never met. (Photo: Vonda is one of a half-dozen writers (who include Randy Byers.) Sherwood Smith, Deborah J. Ross, and Judith Tarr) who reached into my life when it was bleak and ... made it make sense. I will talk about the others at other times: it’s Vonda who has left a void, so I’ll tell you how she, personally, helped restore balance. Vonda read my writing. She didn’t offer platitudes. She read my writing. She proofread it. She copy-edited it. She typeset it. Vonda knew that learning mattered to me, so she explained how to set up a manuscript to make it easier for typesetting for an ebook. I only had a year of this apprenticeship, but in that year I learned more than eight publishers had taught me. It’s not that publishers don’t want writers to learn: Vonda understood that I cared and took the time to teach me. She also let me know that I can write, despite my ten thousand self- doubts. The self-doubts return and return (for so many reasons), but Vonda’s confidence will echo beind them and remind me that my doubts are not the reality. Before then — long before I met Vonda in Book View 4 Café — was Vonda’s writing. I grew up reading it. I won’t she visited Melbourne for the Monash Writers’ Work- stop reading it. I’ll talk about that some other time in shop at the beginning of 1977. She seemed a quiet, self- some other place. It doesn’t surprise me a jot that Vonda contained person. I didn’t get to speak to her much, but saw the values I always put into my fiction, given that her guidance at the Writers’ Workshop was much valued. when I was a child I loved the politics she put in hers. I I didn’t meet her in Seattle in 2005, and I’m pretty sure want to talk about these things. I want those emails and she did not attend any of the Melbourne world conven- that calm voice and I want her generosity in my life again. tions. I value her fiction, and regret not having written Some people leave holes when they go. Vonda has left a much about her novels and short stories. Throughout void. the SF community, her work her always been greeted with awe. I’m glad that Gillian has been able to write such [Bruce writes: I met Vonda McIntyre only once, when a precise and heartfelt tribute to her.] Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) leaves us me. On the other hand, they had had some sort of dispute with the Convention Committee during Aussie- con 2, so maybe they thought I was a committee member. I favour the former explanation, because Gene and I exchanged letters in the period after Aussiecon 2. From everything I’ve read, he became famous as a genial and amusing convention speaker and panelist, as well as a staunch defender of the importance of science fiction and fantasy. So another of the very greatest of the great generation of SF writers (which includes Le Guin, Russ, Disch, Aldiss, Wilhelm, and Silverberg) has left us. My own favourite Wolfe novels are Peace and The Fifth Head of Cerberus; I’ve also greatly enjoyed many of his short stories and novellas, especially because they need to be read at least twice. Please find below a few extracted quotations from some of the people who have written about Gene Wolfe’s life and work since he died. Their contributions are followed by a masterpiece review by Yvonne Rousseau.