SSFF CCoommmmeennttaarryy 9988 5500tthh AAnnnniivveerrssaarryy EEddiittiioonn,, PPaarrtt 11 114488 ppaaggeess AApprriill 22001199 THE STORY OF SF COMMENTARY BRUCE GILLESPIE * GILLIAN POLACK * BRIAN ALDISS POETRY BY ALEX SKOVRON * TIM TRAIN * DENNY MARSHALL * DANIEL KING TRIBUTES TO KATE WILHELM * STEVE SNEYD * RANDY BYERS * MILT STEVENS * FRED PATTEN * JUNE MOFFATT * DEREK KEW * MERVYN BARRETT THE STORY OF NORSTRILIA PRESS BRUCE GILLESPIE NEW BOOKS COLIN STEELE THANKS TO EVERYBODY, ALL 800 OF YOU! Cover: Elaine Cochrane: ‘Deep Purple’: embroidery. S F Commentary 98 50th Anniversary Edition * Part 1 April 2019 148 pages SF COMMENTARY No. 98, 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION, PART 1, April 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: Elaine Cochrane: ‘Purple Prose’: embroidery presented to Bruce Gillespie on his 72nd birthday. BACK COVER: Ditmar (Dick Jenssen): ‘Follow Me’. ARTWORK: Dimitrii Razuvaev (p. 24); Stephen Campbell (pp. 25, 43, 76, 82); Irene Pagram (pp. 27, 72, 74); Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) (pp. 26, 99); Tim Handfield (p. 75); Grant Gittus (p. 76); Geoff Pollard (p. 77); Cozzolino Hughes (pp. 79, 80); Marius Foley (p. 81); David Wong (p. 81). PHOTOGRAPHS: Randy Byers: ‘Rockaway Sunset’ (p. 4); Gary Mason (p. 7); Christopher Priest (p. 14); Gary Hoff (p. 16); Elaine Cochrane (p. 17); Lee Harding (p. 24); Richard Wilhelm (p. 35); Andrew Darlington (pp. 42–8); Kathy Sauber, University of Washington (pp. 52); Steve Cameron (p. 70). 2 Contents 4 CAROUSEL DAYS FRED PATTEN Alex Skovron JUNE MOFFATT DEREK KEW 7 I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS: MERVYN BARRETT 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION: Gordon Van Gelder Bruce Gillespie WHAT’S A FEW DECADES AMONG Dave Langford FRIENDS? Andrew Darlington Bruce Gillespie John Hertz 8 IN SEARCH OF PERSONAL JOURNALISM Ron Drummond Tom Cardy Gillian Polack and Bruce Gillespie Nigel Rowe 11 THANKS FOR THE THANK-YOU NOTE Brian Aldiss and Bruce Gillespie 65 15 THE STORY OF SF COMMENTARY POETRY CORNER ‘An Aussie poem, or, I Tim, therefore I Tam’: Tim Train Bruce Gillespie ‘Quoth the raven, ‘Steve Waugh!’’: Tim Train ‘Eight science fiction haiku’: Denny Marshall 34 ABSENT, NOT LOST: ‘The two travellers’: Daniel King TRIBUTES TO: 71 KATE WILHELM THE STORY OF NORSTRILIA PRESS Bruce Gillespie STEVE SNEYD RANDY BYERS 85 THE FIELD MILT STEVENS Colin Steele 3 Photo: Randy Byers: ‘Rockaway Sunset’. 4 Carousel Days Alex Skovron And one evening, constellating the dots of the morning star, all the lecture notes from the top deck of Civil Engineering foldered in my bag, the poems fattening my gaze skimmed beyond Delta Orionis my little black book with the bright red and I suddenly detected a tiny shifting spine, and I stared like some ridiculously of the sky’s slant, an opening that said — transported thing, a boy who’d disturbed look hard enough into us drizzling stars for a mere moment and twisted some key, and you will discover more of yourself glimpsing a doorway to a language meant than if you drank from an endless chalice (he was certain) for him alone. And each of the choicest rum. And I forgot about waking minute in carousel days to come the fragrant maiden, eighteen, next to me he would search to regain it, to translate (I myself only just barely twenty), forgot what, upon that starstruck roof, had stung the spring night’s rooftop seminar, transit his soul. He is there still, translating it yet. Weekend Australian, 9–10 December 2017 5 The 50th Anniversary Edition I must be talking to my friends What’s a few decades between friends? Dedications For reasons made clear in the following pages, this issue is dedicated to the memory of Philip K. Dick. For reasons equally obvious to my friends, this issue is also dedicated to Elaine Cochrane, who has had to put up with its production for 41 of the last 50 years. This issue would not exist as a print magazine without the generous financial support of an anonymous donor, whose message is simply: ’Dear, Dear Bruce. Pub your ’ish, Joe Phan.’ Thank you, Joe Phan. 6 Recently I was stopped in my tracks by a remark made over the stepping stone? Surely there will be a 60th Anniversary Issue in dinner table by Mariann McNamara. Mariann, along with her late 2029 and a 70th Anniversary Issue in 2039? husband Peter McNamara, has been an indefatigable supporter of my magazines for many years. What if Mariann’s implied question was not ‘Are you going to close the magazine now it is 50 years old?’ but ‘Why did you keep Me: ‘I’m just about to publish the 50th Anniversary Issue of SFC.’ publishing for 50 years?’ Mariann: ‘I suppose you’ll be closing down the magazine now.’ My first answer: There is only one reason for doing anything (apart from stuff you must do to earn a living): for the pleasure of doing I was astonished. I have never thought of stopping publication of it. I do amateur publishing: publishing for the love of it. I’ve spent SF Commentary. Surely the 50th Anniversary Issue is only a many thousands of dollars on my magazines over the last 50 years, and have rarely received more than a trickle of subscrip- tions, plus some generous donations. I still need to earn a living to keep it going. Recently (18 November 2017), Melbourne’s Age featured a car- toon by Michael Leunig. It shows one of Leunig’s little humble travellers standing at the fork between two branching paths. The signpost points two directions. One direction: ‘Who you are.’ The other says, ‘Who you should be.’ According to conventional wisdom I should have been a successful editorial director or publishing manager, long retired, supported by a large super- annuation nest egg. Who am I, though? Here’s my second answer to Mariann’s implied question. I am, above all, a fanzine editor, with one long-suffering wife, Elaine (we had our fortieth wedding anniversary on 3 March), and no nest egg. I have kept publishing fanzines because I’m no good at anything else. When I was in Grade 1 my teacher, Miss Risk, told me I was going to become a Great Writer. My career has gone downhill ever since. While I was at primary school I found that I could write fiction, but could not invent plots. I would re-use ideas from serials I heard on the ABC Children’s Hour, or even from comics. A story I wrote Bruce Gillespie in 1970, the year after launching SF Commentary. (Photo: Gary Mason.) 7 in Form 6 (Year 12), printed in Bacchus Marsh High School’s annual to be an atomic scientist, or an astronomer. One problem: I had magazine, is a quite good commercial SF story. But the idea I used no ability at mathematics, which I would have needed to become is completely unoriginal — and I knew it at the time. a scientist. If I had become a scientist I probably would not have published fanzines. (But Greg Benford did both!) So I was never going to become a writer of fiction. I was much better at writing opinion pieces. My favourite essay topic was not I spent four years at university training to become a teacher of ‘What I did on my holidays’ but ‘What I would like to have done history and English. Released into the school system, I discovered on my holidays’. I was not much good at teaching, so I escaped after two years. At the age of twelve I became a fanatical listener to pop music In 1971 I was offered a job in the Publications Branch of the and collector of Top 40 charts. At the age of twenty I discovered Education Department of Victoria, where I was taught all the classical music. But I cannot play music or sing. If I had been able elements of book and magazine editing. Eventually I became a to play Beethoven sonatas or sing like Roy Orbison, I would not freelance editor and indexer: a poor source of income, but a have had time to publish fanzines. satisfying way of making a living. In primary school I saw a film financed by a religious group. It And I could take up my true calling — publishing fanzines. was called God of the Atom. It demonstrated not only the catatrophic effects of exploding an atomic bomb over your average Let Gillian Polack (Canberra fan, academic, and novelist) take city, but also the principles of atomic fission and fusion. I wanted up the story: In search of ‘personal journalism’: Gillian Polack interviews Bruce Gillespie, 28 March 2010 Gillian Polack: Steam Engine Time and SF Commentary and magazine in 1966. I bought my first fanzines in 1966, when Merv your other work have some very enthusiastic followers (me Binns sold copies of Australian Science Fiction Review (first included). Can you give us some background on what you series) on the front counter of McGill’s Newsagency in the centre do to create a fanzine and who the readers are? of Melbourne. I found here brilliant writing about science fiction, and much else. Editor John Bangsund was one of Australia’s BRG: I always wanted to publish fanzines — magazines for science wittiest and most urbane writers. The two other members of the fiction fans about whatever one wants to write about, especially ASFR group were John Foyster and Lee Harding, who wrote science fiction — ever since I heard about them in an article in If brilliant reviews and review-articles.