Checkpoint 22

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Checkpoint is a fortnightly news and reviews zine published by Peter Roberts, 87 West Town Lane, Bristol, BS4 5DZ, UK. Subs are 10/40p (2nd class & Europe) and 6/$1 or 8/R1 (foreign airmail). Sample copy free. Agents: US – Charlie & Dena Brown, 3400 Ulloa St, San Francisco, Ca. 94116. Australia – David Grigg, Box 100, Carlton South, Victoria 3053. RSA- Nick Shears, 52 Garden Way, Northcliff 4, Johannesburg, Transvaal. Back Issues are 4/10p or 6/50¢ (seamail): (vol I) 0,1,4/5,6/7,8/9; (vol II) 00,0,1-7, 9-21. Quantities vary. News this issue from: George Wells, John D.Berry, Terry Jeeves, Pete Weston, Gerald Bishop, Charlie Winstone, Brian Temple, Ian Maule, Seth McEvoy, and Eric Bentcliffe. Restormel Press Pub. 66.

HUGO AWARDS: The following awards were presented at the LACon banquets

These were taken from Wabbit Twacks!! 4 (sic), the daily newssheet of the LACon, and were kindly forwarded by George Wells, Checkpoint Hero.

fanzines received

Antares News 2 (4pp:A4:d) Sezar Erkin Ergin, Bakanlikar, PO Box 56, Ankara, Turkey. (10 IRCs p.a.) This is the newszine of the SFFC, a new Turkish sf club which has recently added a new area to the fan world. Information inside includes Turkish fan and sf news, notes on fanzines received, and letters, Half the issue is in Turkish, half in good English. It's produced monthly and the price includes membership of the SFFC. Useful for anyone seeking far-flung contacts.

Antares News 3 (as above)

Antares News 4 (as above)

BSFG Newsletter II/3 (16pp:octo:p) Vernon Brown, Pharmacy Dept, Univ. of Aston, Gosta Green, Birmingham 4. (50p p.a.) The Brum Group news sheet has turned into a miniature clubzine, this issue containing a poem by Charlie Winstone, letters, and write-ups of a group discussion on Star Trek and the Speculation III conference by Stan Eling. Also within are notes on future meetings and a sort of quiz. This is yet another sign that the Brum Group has become a power in the land and the price includes membership, so it's well worth considering if you've ever thought of dropping in on a meeting.

*Fiawol 1 (4pp:A4:d) Arnie & Joyce Katz, 59 Livingston St, Apt 6B, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA. (5/$1) With the transformation of Focal Point into a fully fledged fanzine Fiawol has sprung phoenix-like from the ashes of the old fannish newszine to carry on the fight against Locus' monopoly and to uphold the traditions of Fanac. This, the first issue, contains a couple of short editorials and a good crop of fannish news. I recommend it highly, though I'm a little dubious about its chances of continuing at the moment.

*Fouler 7 (30pp:¼o:d) Greg Pickersgill & Roy Kettle, Flat 1, 62 Elsham Rd, London W14. (10p) In the Checkpoint Fan Poll Fouler was the fanzine most people wanted to see revived and here, unexpectedly, is the seventh issue – nearly a year after the sixth. It has the same vigour and viciousness as before and, apart from the letters, is not at all dated. There is the usual introductory fiction (of a sort) by Roy and Greg and some pitiful and pointless fillers by Rat and Gannet fandom. More interesting oddments are John Brosnan' s 'You Know You're Someone When...' (fill in a name and an insult) and the unexpurgated Audrey Walton attack on Fouler's editors. Centrepoints are Greg's fanzine reviews, 'Eyeball', and the letter column, 'Heap'. Recommended if you are a British fan (it's insular) and enjoy such as Private Eye or Oz.

Iseult 2 (52pp:¼o:d) Lisa Conesa, 54 Manley Rd, Whalley Range, Manchester, Ml6 8HP. (15p) The fact that Lisa edits two thick fanzines, the other being Zimri, seems indicative of her inability to sort good material from bad and thus present a coherent fanzine. The covers of this issue are a neat example: a fine Eddie Jones and an atrocious Brian Robinson. Inside there's a mass of material from at least thirteen contributors, mostly fiction and verse, but also book reviews (George Hay) and – well – oddments. Beryl Mercer's 'March of the Mad Onions' is reprinted from Badinage 1, by the way. The readers, to judge from the LoCs, seem to enjoy the magazine; but I much prefer Zimri at the moment, though it's early days for both titles.

*Locus 117 (11pp:A4:d) Charlie & Dena Brown, 3400 Ulloa St, San Francisco, Ca.94116, USA. (10/$3.50 – airmail) This is Hugo-winning, large circulation, regular newszine from America. It concentrates on book news and short reviews, thus annoying fannish fans, though it also covers conventions and other large-scale fannish happenings. This issue, in addition to the usual, contains a full write-up of the DUFF results and a list of fanzines received. Recommended.

*Locus 118 (as above.) Some fine cartooning, plus a write-up on Clarion.

Lurk 2 (36pp:¼o:d) Mike & Pat Meara, Flat A, 5 Kedleston Rd, Derby, DE3 1FL. (50p – sample free) This appears to be one of the more promising of recent British fanzines, having already formed some sort of personality of its own. The main item is a transcript of Pete Weston talking about Speculation from the 1971 Novacons I found it interesting, though its appeal may not be obvious to the non-faned. There's a Chessmancon report, somewhat pedestrian perhaps, and the Speculation photo pages. Lurk is an OMPAzine and contains mailing comments of no interest to outsiders; it is possible to direct these to both the audiences of a genapazine (Warhoon is an example) and this should be an aim to bear in mind. Developing, and worth considering.

*MRU 125 (42pp:A4:p) Waldemar Kumming, 8 München 2, Herzogspitalstr.5, Germany. (5/DM6) Here's an opportunity to examine one of Germany's best fanzines, since Munich Round Up 125 is an international edition published for the Eurocon and contains the same material in four languages, including English (MRU is normally all in German). This issue is devoted to the artist Agnes Auffinger with an interview and eighteen prints of her fantastic and eerie drawings. Not, obviously, a typical issue, but still a good one.

News From Bree 8 (9p:¼o:d) Hartley Patterson, Finches, 7 Cambridge Rd, Beaconsfield, Bucks. (free) Normally concerned with Tolkien matters, this issue contains a Eurocon report from Hartley and thus has a wider circulation than usual. The rest is letters.

Norstrilian News 3/2 (6pp:¼o:d) Robin Johnson, GPO Box 4039, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia. (5/50p – airmail – I'm UK Agent) Good coverage of Australian news – and there's quite a lot of it nowadays – with a few reviews and snippets from outside.

Osfan 3/2 (4pp:A4:d) Gigi Beard, 6218½ Hancock Av, St Louis, Mo.63139, USA. (free?) The remnants of the Osfa clubzine that used to be a genuine challenge to Locus in the days of yore. Some information for locals and two pages of pathetic nonsense.

Starshambler 3 (10pp:¼o:d) Mike O'Brien, 158 Liverpool St, Hobart, Tas. 7000, Australia. (free) There's an interesting piece by the American Mike O'Brien on doppelgangers and on the Creative Anachronists; but the rest is little more than filler items, I'm afraid. Not without value, however.

FANZINE NEWS: Charlie Winstone (71 George Rd, Erdington, Birmingham, B23 7QE) intends to produce Calliope, a fanzine devoted to sf, s&s, and fantasy poetry; contributions wanted. // Paranoid, says Ian Maule, has folded; he wants to spend more time on Maya. // Gannetfans Brian Temple and Thom Penman are intending to produce Dark Days and Spindrift respectively; Brian at least would like material (22 Kirton Av, Newcastle-on-Tyne, NE4 9HH).

the sercon page

BOOK NEWS FOR SF FREAKS: (a regular column by Gerald Bishop):

SEPTEMBER / Hardback: Allen: 2nd Stage Lensman, Children of the Lens, Masters of the Vortex (Smith). Collins; The Lord's Pink Ocean (Walker). Dobson: Star Watchman (Bova). Faber: Rx For Tomorrow (Nourse). Gollancz: Pstalemate (del Rey), The Space Merchants (Kornbluth & Pohl). Hutchinson: Elric of Melnibone (Moorcock). Joseph: Five Pieces of Jade (Ball), The Mistress of Downing Street (Harris). McG & K: 334 (Disch). Macmillan: This Suitcase Is Going To Explode (Ardies). NEL: An Asimov Double (Starr). S&J: The Dreaming Earth (Brunner), Bug-Eyed Monsters (ed.Cheetham), Tales From The White Hart, The Lost Worlds of 2001 (Clarke), Trilogy of the Future (ed.Wollheim – Simak/Vance/Delany).

Paperback: Arrow: A Case of Conscience (Blish). Mayflower: The Queen of The Swords, The Mad God' s Amulet (Moorcock). NEL: Dune, Dune Messiah (Herbert). Pan: The Pollinators of Eden (Boyd). Panther: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Dick), Foundation, Foundation & Empire, Second Foundation (Asimov). Sphere: Macroscope (Anthony), Neutron Star (Niven), The Ice Schooner (Moorcock), Tandem: Let The Spacemen Beware (Anderson).

SFBC: The 11th Galaxy Reader (ed.Pohl).

Gerald Bishop.

THE EUROPA AWARDS: The following awards were made at the first Eurocon held recently in Trieste;

Artist: Karel Thole (Italy) Comic: Lone Sloane (France)

Prozine: Nueva Dimension (Spain) Fanzine: Speculation (UK)

Non-Specialized Magazines Viata Romaneasca (Romania)

The idea seems to be 'pick a bit of everything' and the open voting was supplemented by 'representative judges'. Pete Weston says that his award has been described as "rather like a Victorian table-leg, complete with baroque carving and dark brown varnish." Ah, I envy you. Peter...

CALL ME 'SIR': Another Pete Weston report: "I've just received confirmation from the University of Birmingham that I'm now an approved lecturer for their Extra-Mural Department (you remember – the same crew who organized (?) this year's Spec-III conference).

I shall be giving a series of twelve lectures on sf, with Jack Cohen, and I'm quite excited at this chance to do what Philip Strick has been doing for the last three years in London.

The course will cover most of the major writers – and I see from the university prospectus that I'm talking on someone called 'Hein' (he says wryly). It should attract some outsiders besides members of the local group, and if successful it'll probably be repeated or expanded into later terms."

the fannish page

BERRY INTERESTING... (Some items of news from John D.Berry in the USA): "News? Somehow I never really think in terms of news. Jay Kinney is moving to San Francisco; there was a big going-away party for him at Arnie & Joyce Katz's last weekend, and I guess he's on his way by now. He's going to do more underground comix, since he knows a lot of artists in San Francisco, and that is the real focal point of the comix (most of the printers are in SF or Berkeley), :: Cultural news-notes just this minute I heard an ad on the New York radio for AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, the film made from the British tv show, Monty Python, which I saw when I was visiting Toronto last winter. The film is opening in NY, which is, as far as I know, its first appearance in this country. :: I suppose you already know this, but Arnie & Joyce have started a newszine, Fiawol, of which two biweekly issues have come out. It's limited to four pages, and it's going to be nothing but a newszine, not a small genzine the way Focal Point was. After all, FP and Potlatch are still both alive; FP just had a new issue. They have also published The Incompleat Terry Carr ($1) and the results of the 1971 Egoboo Poll (for the calendar year 1970), with writeups by Annie, rich brown, Jay Kinney, and Joyce. They're going to revive the Poll, but they are taking my suggestion and making it cover the 'fannish year', ie. from worldcon to worldcon, instead of the calendar year. So there will be ballots for a new. Egoboo Poll distributed after the LACon. (To catch up, this year's poll will cover the entire period from the end of 1970 to the LACon.) :: I quit my position as fanzine reviewer for Amazing, and the last column is on the stands now. Ted is going to reprint The Enchanted Duplicator, in four parts I think, then resume fanzine reviews with the new reviewer being Ed Smith. I haven't seen any of Ed's reviews, but Ted was quite happy with the sample column he did. :: There are, incidentally, a number of freaks, musicians, artists, and so on in Ted's area in northern Virginia (suburban to Washington, DC), many of whom are also sf fans. They seem to get together a lot informally, and Ted said a couple of them were thinking of forming a regular sf club. Probably along the lines of the original Fanoclasts in NY, informal, friends-getting-together, in contrast to formal sf clubs (of which there is already one in Washington, the WSFA). Why, hell, Ted almost had me convinced to move to Virginia late one night when I was there."

JEEVES ACROSS THE WORLD: Terry Jeeves' daughter Pauline was married on August 12th in Letchworth. "She and husband have now emigrated to Australia (Melbourne) so the Jeeves (in the guise of Bishops; have started to infiltrate Australia." Ah yes, I can just see Terry disguised as a bishop... Erg 40, incidentally, is duplicated and about to be posted and Terry is making spare cash doing artwork for a couple of local firms.

BIRMINGHAM GROUP: The Brummies get together at 8pm in the Imperial Centre Hotel, Temple St, on the first Friday of the month for informal meetings and the third Friday for formal meetings. Programmes Sf Quiz (Oct 20th); Post-Novacon (Nov 17th); Dan Morgan (Dec 15th). See 'Fanzines Received' for contact addresses and the like.

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FANS MARRY FANS: The following weddings have, are, or will be taking place; congratulations, of course, to everyone. Eddie Jones and Marsha Elkin, currently in America, are planning to settle over here after the ceremonies. Phil Rogers and Doreen Parker have invited several fans on their honeymoon. Charlene Komar and Bill Kunkel were married by a fannish minister of the Universal Life Church (from Fiawol 1).

FANS OF ROBIN JOHNSON will be glad to know that he's over here from Australia for a month or so (Sept 8th to Oct 4th). He's based in Buckinghamshire, can be reached c/o ANZ Bank, 71 Cornhill, London EC3, and intends visiting fannish centres (even Birmingham).

FANS OF SETH McEVOY should already know that he's the new OE of APA-45, just beating Don D'Ammassa by seven votes to six. The latest mailing, says Seth, was the 32nd and had only 389 pages with four of the 25 members not participating. OMPA, despair... The waiting list for APA-45 is fifteen strong. Seth also notes that he has been appointed US Agent for the Tolkien Society.

FANS OF ERIC BENTCLIFFE may well have seen him recently, since he's been out a-visiting "mainly with those who favour Harrison above all; but with Ron & Liz Bennett, Tony & Marge Edwards, and The Jeeves as well. We even called to see Mal Ashworth in Appletreewick, Ron & I, but he was out... or hiding. Had a very pleasant weekend playing cards on the Shorrock lawn – dealer's choice, of course... a most invidious idea of LiG in which the game changes with each dealer. We ended up playing Harrison Chang, the main rule of which seemed to be that every time it was Harry Nadler's turn to play he picked up 36 cards! I gather he has now dispensed with the sling, however..."

CoAs: Ian Maule, 13 Weardale Av, Forest Hall, Newcastle-on-Tyne, NE12 0HX.
Andrew Stephenson, Flat 4, 12 Norfolk Rd, Maidenhead, Berks SL6 7AT.
Dany Frolich, 1933 Joann PI, New Orleans, La. 70114, USA.
John D. Berry, 35 Dusenberry Rd, Bronxville, NY 10708, USA.

CHECKPOINT II 22

from:
Peter Roberts....
87 West Town Lane
Bristol, BS4 5DZ,
United Kingdom...

Printed Matter Only

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Converted to digital form by Dave Langford, June 2006