Checkpoint 38

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Cartoon and heading by Don Allen. News this issue from: Gerald Bishop, Gerald Bishop, Gerald Bishop – also Joanne Burger, Dave Rowe, Charlie Brown, Keith Walker, Dave Kyle, Jay Cornell Jr, Mike Glicksohn, Aljo Svoboda, John Willard, Graham Poole, and others. Thanks to all.

Restormel Press Publication: 84. 19th May 1973. Distributed as an ANZAPA postmailing (a one-off sample copy only).

THE NEBULA AWARDS: (via Gerald Bishop)

Best Novel: The Gods Themselves (Isaac Asimov)
Best Novella: A Meeting With Medusa (Arthur C.Clarke)
Best Novelette: Goat Song (Poul Anderson)
Best Short Story: When It Changed (Joanna Russ)

SF COVER ART EXHIBITION: (Gerald Bishop) "The display of original Panther and Mayflower cover paintings by Bob Haberfield, Chris Foss, Mike McInnerey, and Ian Miller which was exhibited at OMPAcon was officially launched as a touring exhibition of cover art at a Press Reception in London on May 3rd (featured on the London ITV news programme Today). The exhibition now moves off on a tour of bookshops, libraries, and universities throughout the country until December. It can be seen at the following places during May and June:

May 7-12: Jarrolds Bookshop, Great Yarmouth.
May 16-22: Ivan Corbett Ltd, Durham.
May 29-June 2: Dillon's Bookshop, Kent University.
June 4-15: Claude Gill Books, 481 Oxford St, London.
June 18-22: Student's Bookshop, University of Keele.
June 25-30: Student's Bookshop, University of Lancaster.

There are still a number of dates available for the display to be shown in your area, so pressurize your local bookshop/library to contact Granada Publishing (Sales Promotion, St.Albans) for details."

MICHICON, A VERY SMALL AFFAIR (says ace reporter, Jay Cornell Jr) "It was marked by the appearance of Loren MacGregor (who was hitch-hiking from one end of the country to the other – Seattle to Falls Church, Va.) and old-time Michifan Martin Alger, inventor of the hallowed term "bug-eyed monster". A total of about 25 other fans had a good but quiet time at a Holiday Inn in the nothingness town of Monroe."

Conreports from the US (and Australia & Europe) are, by the way, always welcome...

SOMETHING TO MAKE ETHEL LINDSAY GAPE: The Equicon, a Star Trek convention in Los Angeles, reportedly had some 10,000 attendees; most couldn't see anything. Other conventions are now scared to mention any possible connexions with Star Trek...

HOAXES: (Don't read this bit, Ethel) Following startling revelations in British fandom, further reports are arriving. 'Seth McEvoy' is, in fact, Charlie Brown – "In between editing Locus and frequent trips to the bank, I decided to put out a humorous magazine, and created 'Seth McEvoy' as something to pass the time." (says 'Seth') However, Mike Glicksohn is, in fact, "Charlie Brown"; Mike & Susan will reveal the full story "as soon as we've won our third straight set of Hugos..." Meanwhile, Aljo Svoboda says in a recent letter that he is actually a hoax perpetrated by Aljo Svoboda...

FANDOM MULTIPLIES: Melica Jane Smith was born to Bob & Mary Smith on April 26th (10am precisely). Mother and baby are doing well – congratulations to all. Baby's first words were "Blunt is coming." reports Dave Rowe. Hmm...

TORCON 2 NEWS: (John Millard, Chairman of the 1973 Toronto World Convention sends some recent notes) "As of May 1st membership is 1400; 20 Banquet tables have been ordered, 300 rooms have been reserved. / Hotel Reservations: this is something we can't emphasize too strongly. We have lots of space available at present, but by convention time space will be very tight, not only in our Hotel, the Royal York, but all over the metropolitan area. So be warned – book your reservations early. / The Costume Show at TORCON will be under the able direction of Stewart Brownstein of NESFA. The presentation will be in a 'Theatre of the Round', so contestants should take this into consideration."

WHO'S WHO IN SCIENCE FICTION: Dave Kyle is preparing such a biographical reference book for an established London publisher, White Lion; any person who has contributed to the field of sf in any medium will be eligible to be included in this book. Some distinction will be made between pro and fan status; anyone interested (no cost, no obligation!) should write to Dave Kyle, Two Rivers, Hamm Court, Weybridge, Surrey.

THE WORLD OF FANZINES: Southern Illinois University Press have sent news of their forthcoming (November 1973) publication, The World Of Fanzines: A Special Form of Communication ($10, 208 pages) by Dr.Wertham (author of Seduction of the Innocent, etc). "This is a serious study of an unusual and unrecognized subject," says the blurb. More information later.

the sercon page

BOOK NEWS FOR SF FREAKS: (compiled by Gerald Bishop)

May: Hardback: NEL: A Second Asimov Double; Rapp & Whiting: Orbit 7 (ed. Knight); Sidgwick & Jackson: Age of Miracles (Brunner); White Lion: The Naked Sun (Asimov)

Paperback: Corgi: Star Trek 7 (Blish); NEL: Jizzle (Wyndham), Children of Tomorrow (van Vogt), The Small Assassin (Bradbury), The October Country (Bradbury); Pan: Mindswap (Sheckley), Tunnel In The Sky (Heinlein), Time For The Stars (Heinlein); Panther: Ubik (Dick), The End Of Eternity (Asimov), I Robot (Asimov); Picador: Smallcreep's Day (Brown); Sphere: The Sands Of Mars (Clarke), Expedition To Earth (Clarke), Three For Tomorrow (ed.Clarke); Target: Dr Who & The Crusaders/Daleks/Zarbi (all – Whitaker); Unicorn: Jade Man's Eyes (Moorcock)

SFBC: Out Of Their Minds (Simak)

AMERICAN SF BOOKS: (compiled by Joanne Burger)

May: Hardback: Delacorte: Breakfast of Champions (Vonnegut); Doubleday: The Billion Year Spree (Aldiss & Strick), Down Bound Train (Garnett), The Nightmare Reader (Haining); Dutton: The Winds of Altair (Bova – juv); Farrar: A Wind In The Door (L'Engle); Holt: Cosmic Laughter (Haldeman); Houghton: Half Past Tomorrow (Carlsen – juv); Knopf: The Clockwork Condition (Burgess); Little: Beyond Jupiter (Clarke, ill.Bonestell); Pantheon: The Green Gene (Dickinson); Putnam: Time Enough For Love (Heinlein), At The Narrow Passage (Meredith); Random: Paradox Lost (Brown); Simon & Schuster: The Second Crash (Ellis), Regiment of Women (Berger); Trident: Eros in Orbit (Elder); Viking: Forerunner Foray (Norton); Walker: Nova 3 (Harrison), Dar Tellum, Stranger From A Distant Planet (Berry – juv); Watts: Children Of Infinity (Elwood); Weybright & Talley: The Doomsday Gene (Boyd).

Paperback: Award: Battle For The Planet Of The Apes (Gerrold); Ballantine: The Trouble With Tribbles (Gerrold), The World of Star Trek (Gerrold), At The Mountains Of Madness (Lovecraft), The Lurking Fear (Lovecraft), The Shuttered Room (Lovecraft), Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos: Vol I & Vol II (both Lovecraft), The Bomb (Lovecraft), The Sundering Flood (Morris), Davy (Pangborn), A World Of Trouble (Toomey), The Making Of Star Trek (Roddenberry); Bantam: All Right, Everybody Off The Planet! (Ottum), Hell House (Matheson), The South Pole Terror (Robeson); Berkeley: Prostho Plus (Anthony), The Godmakers (Herbert), Five Other Novels (Herbert – ?); Camelot: How The Children Stopped The Wars (Wahl – juv), Matthew Looney in the Outback/'s Invasion of Earth/'s Voyage To The Earth (Beatty – juvs); Daw: Friends Come In Boxes (Coney), The Book Of Gordon Dickson, Mayenne (Tubb), 1973 Annual World's Best Sf (ed.Wollheim); Dell: The Black Star (Carter); Lancer: The Devil's Generation (Ghidahlia), Robots Have No Tails (Kuttner); Pelican: The Voyage of the Spaceship Beagle (Hardin); The Horn of Time (Anderson), The People of the Wind (Anderson) – Signet.

SFBC: The Sf Hall of Fame, Vol II (ed.Bova), The Overlords of War (Klein).

(Charles Fort's The Book Of The Damned has just been issued in the UK by Abacus paperbacks – the same people who publish Velikovsky)

Bweek 15 (4pp:A4:d) Seth McEvoy, Box 268, E.Lansing, Mi.48823, USA. (5/40¢) Amoeboid Scunge having folded, Seth is continuing with Bweek; it's a silly fortnightly fannish fanzine, occasionally containing news. Recommended. Hartley Patterson is UK Agent, by the way.

Cipher 7 (32pp:A4:d) Chris Couch, Route 2, Box 889, 1 Cymry Lane, Arnold, Mo.63010, USA. (35¢) Late, but welcome – this is Cipher's first annish; it's one of the better American fannish fanzines and this issue contains a fine Entropy Reprint from Terry Carr (Fassbeinder's "Reflections While Falling Backwards In A Swivel Chair"), an entertaining piece by Arnie Katz, and other good stuff from Harry Warner Jr and Doug Lovenstein – letters and great cartooning by Jay Kinney, Steve Stiles, Doug Levenstein, and Bill Kunkel make up the rest of the issue. My only complaint concerns the layout with pieces doubling back on themselves and continuing all over the place; otherwise, highly recommended.

Fanews 61 (16pp:A4:sd) Edgar Rüsing, 5868 Letmathe, Fr-Ebert-Str 7-9, Germany. (10/DM 4) Fanews returns with a new editor; sadly it's gone back to spirit duplicating and some pages are illegible. Nevertheless, it's a good, comprehensive German sf & fannish newszine. In German, however.

Haverings 55 (9pp:A4:d) Ethel Lindsay, 6 Langley Av, Surbiton, Surrey, KT6 6QL. (6/40p) This, as ever, contains brief comments on fanzines received – always interesting and often useful.

Instant Message 124 (6pp:A4:d) NESFA, Box G, MIT Branch Station, Cambridge, Ma.02139, USA. (?) New England's regular newsletter, mostly of interest to local NESFA members, but occasionally containing news of more far-reaching projects. Poor layout is off-putting, however.

Kangaroo Feathers 1 (22pp:¼o:d) David Grigg & Bruce Gillespie, GPO Box 5195AA, Melbourne, Vic.3001, Australia. (4/$3) KF is the new prestige publication for Australia in '75 and, though slim, it does indeed look vert fine; more importantly, the contents read well. They consist of reprints from the small circulation fanzines of ANZAPA: material by John Brosnan, Leigh Edmonds, Dennis Stocks, John Bangsund, John Foyster, and Peter House. Entertaining, amusing, and recommended.

Les Spinge 27 (13pp:¼o:d) Darroll & Ro Pardoe, 24 Othello Close, Hartford, Huntingdon, PE18 7SU. (free) A short, neat little fanzine, Spinge nowadays is mostly a personalzine; this issue contains a brief OMPAconrep, an article on dulcimers, and the letter column. Interesting.

Locus 140 (10pp:A4:d) Charlie & Dena Brown, 3400 Ulloa St, San Francisco, Calif.94116, USA. (UK Agent: Pete Weston – 10/£1.50 airmail) Another issue of the regular fortnightly newszine; Locus is mainly concerned with sf, but also contains plenty of conreps and a page of Rotsler cartoons on this occasion. Recommended.

Maule's Well 2 (2pp:¼o:d) Ian Maule, 13 Weardale Av, Forest Hall, Newcastle on Tyne, NE12 0HX. (free) Ian says he's going to produce this as a weekly personalzine... Hmm. Too short to be more than a statement of intent.

Maybe 23 (30pp:A4:p) Irvin Koch, 835 Chattanooga Bk Bldg, Chattanooga, Tenn.47402, USA. (50¢) Despite being printed, Maybe is a ghodawful mess – it's a wonder Irvin gets any contributors when they know that their articles, artwork, and even locs will be treated with no respect. Possibly there's something of virtue inside, but I'm not even tempted to look – past issues have not repaid examination, anyway. Sorry, squire; but why bother with something like this?

Norstrilian News Mar/Apr (4pp:¼o:d) Robin Johnson, GPO Box 4039, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia. (UK agent: me – 5/50p airmail) NN is the only Australian newszine; it's monthly and contains both sf and fannish news.

Outworlds 15 (81pp:A4:d&p) Bill & Joan Bowers, Box 148, Wadsworth, Ohio 44281, USA. (UK Agent: Terry Jeeves – 25p) As promised, Bill has returned to the mammoth Ow; with folding half-pages and triple pages, this comes close to the gimmicky, but I must admit that it finally looks both impressive and attractive. The contents vary: Andy Offutt is unusually good in an article on junk mail, Robert Lowndes and Poul Anderson are both interesting in their columns, and Greg Benford's fannish column in acidly amusing. J.R.Christopher's "Behind The Golden Bookcase" is a take-off of Hannes Bok – I'll pass judgement when I read the latest Bok novel in the Adult Fantasy series (Stephen Fabian's 'Bok' illo is exactly right, however); a large part of this issue is given over to a collection of verse and prose from Bill Wolfenbarger and I must admit that I'm not at all keen on it. It's mostly facile and whimsical in a style reminiscent of Brautigan – the latter barely keeps his work from being twee, but Woldenbarger goes right over the edge. Finally there's a good letter column and a few small oddments of no great merit. Ow looks magnificent and generally has a lot of interesting stuff within. Highly recommended.

Riverside Quarterly 5/4 (95pp:1/8o:p) Leland Sapiro, Box 40, Univ.Station Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. (4/$2) RQ is partly a fanzine, partly a journal of literary criticism, and it doesn't really succeed as either. As a fanzine it's simply too heavy, with the exception of Harry Warner Jr's fmz reviews; as a small magazine it's marred by some atrocious scribbles passed off as artwork and, more importantly, by its emphasis on writing of dubious worth (Poul Anderson, &c). Occasionally there's an article of interest, but even the discussions on Vonnegut and LeGuin in this issue seem tired, poorly constructed, and finally of little value. With this came The Sasquatch Saskatchewanian, a small fanzine devoted to semi-serious letters and clippings about the North American yeti.

SF Times 131 (52pp:A4:p) Hans Joachim Alpers, 2850 Bremerhaven 1, Weissenburger Str.6, Germany. (3.60 DM) A fine-looking, professional fanzine with some excellent artwork, SF Times concentrates on sf – mostly American. A large section is devoted to film and Franz Rottensteiner reviews a mass of paperbacks – more tolerantly than I anticipated, unfortunately. Lead article is Reinhard Merker's on Sf cliches. Generally interesting and recommended. In German.

Siddhartha 2 (10pp:¼o:d) Ian Williams, 6 Greta Tce, Chester Rd, Sunderland, Co.Durham, SR4 7RD. (free) More interesting than the first issue, Ian's personalzine is largely devoted to the OMPAcon. Amusing, well-written, and recommended.

Son of the WSFA Journal 78,79,80,81,82,83,84,& 85 (av.10pp:A4:d) Don Miller, 12315 Judson Rd, Wheaton, Md.20906, USA. (12/$2) These issues appeared between January & March – I seem to receive them in bundles. They're all concerned with news and reviews, largely the latter. SotWSFAJ is hardly essential, but occasionally interesting and sometimes useful. If you tried to sub through either of the ex-UK Agents (Peter Singleton & Brian Robinson) and received only silence, contact Don.

Starling 24 (28pp:A4:d) Hank & Lesleigh Luttrell, 525 W.Main 1, Madison, Wisconsin 58703, USA. (50¢) Nominally a rock fanzine, Starling has a fine letter column and excellent wartwork; articles, however are less interesting: Michael Carlson writers on Chandler, Joe Sanders on books, and Juanita Coulson on rock.

CORRIGENDA AND THE LIKE: My apologies for several recent mistakes, especially in the three issues immediately before OMPAcon. Thanks to Charlie Brown for pointing out an omission from the list of Hugo nominees, namely Dying Inside (Silverberg) and for correcting two mis-spellings in the same list: James Shull and Arthur Thomson (as Charlie says, "Shame on you for that one!"). Thanks to Dave Rowe & Andrew Stephenson for two corrections to the 'Best UK Fmz Cover' section in the Fan Poll: the cover for Zimri 4 should, of course, be credited to Harry Turner, and not Alan Hunter, whilst the cover to Macrocosm 3 should be credited to Dave Rowe and not Andrew Stephenson (Dave gets uppity about the mistreatment of fan artists – "Would 'Goblin Towers' have been credited to Terry Jeeves? Would you have Audrey Walton as editor of Speculation? – That's the last piece of artwork I do for your Cynic!"). Thanks too to Dave Rowe, Graham Poole, and Keith Walker for identifying the winner of the Ken McIntyre Award at OMPAcon as Dave Fletcher – hmm, I though his face looked familiar...

STARLIGHT RESEARCH is planning a series of publications in sf and fantasy some of which are intended as limited editions "for the fan". Should you have any thoughts on what material should be published and how, contact George Hay, 78 Downhills Way, London, N17 6BD.

CoAs:
Jerry Kaufman, 622 W 114th St, Apt 52A, New York, NY 10025, USA.
Greg Pickersgill, 209A Westbourne Grove, London W11.
Jim Goddard, Plovers Barrow, School Rd, Nomansland, Wilts. ((Nice one, Jim!))

THE PIT: Into the Pit this time, unless they renew, are: Jeff Appelbaum (US) and Merv Binns (Aus).

AND THE PENDULUM which allows only one more issue before swinging down on: Ian Williams, and Bernie Ackerman (RSA). Subscribers will find mystic numbers on the mailing labels indicating their last issue – other may note a scrawled 'S' (sample) or 'R' (review within), both of which are virtually the equivalent of the Pit.

CHECKPOINT II 38

from:

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

Printed Matter Only

Return Requested, if undelivered.

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Converted to digital form by Peter Sullivan, March 2006