Checkpoint 39

Peanuts pastiche cartoon

Checkpoint masthead graphic

Checkpoint 39 is a news and reviews zine published by Peter Roberts, 87 West Town Lane, Bristol, BS4 5DZ, UK. Subs are 10/40p (2nd Class & Europe), 6/$1, 8/R1, 8/$A1 (foreign airmail). Sample copy free.

Agents are: (USA) Charlie & Dena Brown, 3400 Ulloa St, San Francisco, Calif.94116; (Aus) Robin Johnson, Box 4039, Melbourne, Vic.3001; (RSA) Nick Shears, 52 Garden Way, Northcliffe 4, Johannesburg, Transvaal.

Cartoon and heading by: Don Allen. News from: Gerald Bishop, Joanne Burger, Graham Poole, and others.

Restormel Press Publication: 85. 3rd June 1973. Australia in '75! mi rides...


SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA: (Gerald Bishop) "There is a two month session of sf films at the National Film Theatre in London's South Bank Arts Centre. The season runs from May 27th to July 19th with films from Fritz Lang's classic Metropolis (1926) and Frau im Mond (1928) to the 1972 films Andromeda Strain, Silent Running, and Omega Man.

"The majority of the films are English or American; but foreign films include the Trieste award winners, The Andromeda Nebula (USSR, 1958) and The End of August at the Hotel Ozono (Czechoslovakia, 1966). There are two all-night retrospective showings: Jack Arnold (Creature From The Black Lagoon, Incredible Shrinking Man, &c) and George Pal (War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, &c).

"The season also includes two discussion programmes. An Sf Forum will be held on June 2nd, at which Philip Strick, Peter Nicholls, and Brian Aldiss will discuss sf as both literature and film, and it is expected that Harry Harrison will also be present. On June 28th Philip Strick will lead an investigation into 'The Search For Terror' as part of the Film '73 conference."

Gerald also encloses a massive list of times and places for each film – I'm afraid I simply don't have room to print it here (find out from the NFT and remember that only members of the BFI/NFT may buy tickets); the Sf Forum, however, is in NFT 2 at 4pm on Saturday, June 2nd. The Jack Arnold all-night show is in NFT 1 at midnight on Saturday, June 16th. The George Pal one is not until July 14th.

AUSTRALIA IN '75! A bid for California from Chuck Crayne will also appear on the TORCON voting ballots for the 1975 Worldcon, so make sure you vote for Australia in 1975 if you're a TORCON member.


BSFG Newsletter 3/5 (14pp:1/8o:d) Vernon Brown, Pharmacy Dept, Univ of Aston, Gosta Green, Birmingham, B4 7ET. (free to Brum Group members – 50p p.a.) The Brum Group newsletter doesn't actually contain much news, nor, sadly, is it entirely legible; there are a couple of reviews, a straightforward report on the latest meeting, and an index to past issues.

Bweek 16 (6pp:A4:d) Seth McEvoy, Box 268, E.Lansing, Mi.48823, USA. (UK Agent: Hartley Patterson – 5/40¢) Formerly Seth's half of Amoeboid Scunge, Bweek contains the fannish mixture of silliness and news and appears fortnightly. Results of the Abner Poll are included: Sgt Saturn was voted Favourite Author and Planet Stories Favourite Prozine; a survey of readers' ages showed a range from "under 0" to "6,234 years". Recommended.

Forthcoming Sf Books 13 (6pp:A4:d) Joanne Burger, 55 Blue Bonnet Ct, Lake Jackson, Tx 77566, USA. (8/$1 airmail) Lists of new sf releases in the US.

Gegenschein 9 (22pp:¼o:d) Eric Lindsay, 6 Hillcrest Av, Faulconbridge, NSW 2776, Australia. (?) A one-off issue consisting entirely of locs on what is normally a genzine – quite interesting, though.

Instant Message 125 (10pp:A4:d) NESFA, Box G, MIT Branch Post Office, Cambridge, Mass.02139, USA. (membership of NESFA: $4 p.a.) Unusually, this issue is neatly & even attractively produced and the news items seemed more interesting (and certainly more accessible) as a result. Why can't it always look like this? Still mainly of local interest, but the group is generally active. Spelinng isn't too good, however.

Inworlds 5 (10pp:A4:d) Bill Bowers, PO Box 148, Wadsworth, Oh.44281, USA. (UK Agent: Terry Jeeves – 5/40p) A monthly fanzine about fanzines, Iw is always interesting and contains fmz reviews and letters. Recommended.

Kwalhioqua 6 (26pp:A4:d) Ed Cagle, Route 1, Leon, Ks.67074, USA. (50¢) Another monthly fanzine and a fine, though messy one, Kwalhioqua contains a variety of brief articles, a good letter column, and is pervaded by the idiot humour of its editor. Distinctly recommended.

Locus 141 (10pp:A4:d) Charlie & Dena Brown, 3400 Ulloa St, San Francisco, Calif.94116, USA. (UK Agent: Pete Weston, 10/£1.50 airmail) A fairly typical issue of this sf newszine, though this Locus also contains a Harry Warner Jr column. Regular (fortnightly) and recommended.

Maybe 25 (20pp:A4:p) Irvin Koch, 835 Chattanooga Bk.Bldg., Chattanooga, Tenn.37402, USA. (50¢) "Artwork" in this issue reaches an all-time low – it's appalling, only equalled by some of the stuff in the latest RQ; however, the miserable lack of layout that had always characterised Maybe & rendered it unreadable seems to have been partly corrected – possibly I'm clutching at straws? Mixture of articles and letters within – it's a pretty frequent fanzine, if nothing else.

Son of the WSFA Journal 86 & 87 (both 10pp:A4:d) Don Miller, 12315 Judson Rd, Wheaton, Md.20906, USA. (12/80p) An sf news & reviews zine, mostly the latter. The 87th issue also includes a quarterly prozine index. Not essential, but often useful.

Touchstone 3 (20pp:¼o:d) David Grigg, Box 100, Carlton South, Vic.3053, Australia. (free) A nicely produced personalzine, Touchstone is quietly entertaining and well-written. Recommended.


Hmm, I managed to bomb through that lot more rapidly than I'd intended – still, it's difficult enough keeping up with all the fmz that arrive, let alone giving detailed reviews of each one. Ethel Lindsay recently noted that she'd received 77 fmz so far this year; my figures show that I've been sent no less than 153 fmz since January 1st, not counting apazines...


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

June: Hardback: Bland & Briggs: The Mole In The Mountain (Lindsay); Cape: Tristar (Aldiss, Moorcock, Ballard), The Time Of The Crack (Tennant), War (LeClezio), Breakfast Of Champions (Vonnegut); Deutsch: Experiment at Proto (Oakes); Gollancz: The Gold At Starbow's End (Pohl), Rendezvous with Rama (Clarke), To Here And The Easel (Sturgeon); Longman: The Earth Is Near (Pesek); Weidenfeld & Nicholson: The Time Traveller: A Life of H.G.Wells (McKenzie).

Paperback: Arrow: Electric Crocodile (Compton); Corgi/Sf Collectors Library: Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury), Dragonflight (McCaffrey), Fantastic Voyage (Asimov), More Than Human (Sturgeon); NEL: Equator (Aldiss), Podkayne of Mars (Heinlein); Pan: Day Million (Pohl); Panther: Children Of The Lens (Smith), Player Piano (Vonnegut); Penguin: A Cure For Cancer (Moorcock), The Wanting Seed (Burgess), The Manchurian Candidate (Condon); Mayflower: The Eternal Champion (Moorcock).

US Imports: Ballantine: The Land Of The Night (Hodgson – 2 volumes)

SFBC: One Step From Earth (Harrison).

AMERICAN SF BOOKS: (compiled by Joanne Burger)

June: Hardback: Arbor: Operation Nuke (Caidin), Hazard (Browne); Chilton: Hiero's Journey (Lanier); Doubleday: Follow The Whales (Biemiller – juv), Martian Chronicles (Bradbury), Complex Man (Farca); Harper: Mars & The Mind Of Man (various), Showcase (Elwood); Putnam: Pan Sagittarius (Wallace); Random: Herovit's World (Malzberg); Seabury: The Invincible (Lem), Memoirs Found In A Bathtub (Lem); Simon & Schuster: An Exaltation of Stars (Carr); Walker: Nail Down The Stars (Morressy).

Paperback: Ballantine: Imaginary Worlds (Carter), Time Transfer (Haiblum); Berkley: The Shape Changer (Laumer), Memoirs Of A Spacewoman (Mitchison); Daw: Oceans On Top (Clement), What's Become Of Screwloose? (Goulart), Bernard The Conqueror (Lundwall), Rhapsody In Black (Stableford); Dell: Mythmaster (Kelley); Fawcett: The Gods Themselves (Asimov); Lancer: Infinity 5 (Hoskins), The Unreal People (Siegel); Pb Library: Death Angel's Shadow (Wagner); Penguin: Gothic Tales Of Terror (Haining); Pinnacle: Nowhere On Earth (Elder), Pearl Of Patmos (Lord); Signet: The Nine Billion Names Of God (Clarke), What Entropy Means To Me (Effinger), Earth's Other Shadow (Silverberg).

SFBC: Forerunner Foray (Norton), The Sf Hall Of Fame, Vol II (ed.Bova).

FANTASY BOOKLETS: Phil Harbottle, ex-editor of Visitors of Tomorrow, is publishing a series of 'Fantasy Booklets'. These are mainly reprints of J.R.Fearn &c. and are 12 pages each and lithoed. They are available at 12p each (4/40p) from Phil (32 Tynedale Av, Wallsend, Northumberland). First few titles are:

Wings Across The Cosmos (Fearn), Sword In The Snow (Tubb), Eternal Re-Diffusion (Johnson & Russell) & Pre-Natal (Fearn), The Great Illusion (Binder, Williamson, Hamilton, Gallun, & Fearn – the round-robin story from Fantasy Magazine where the last chapter was written first), and Death God's Doom (Tubb). Passage To Saturn (Williamson) is for June.


MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE BSFA, THINGS WERE HAPPENING... (News from the Secretary, Graham Poole): "Fred Hemmings, Malcolm Edwards, and Peter Nicholls were all elected onto the council of the BSFA at the AGM on April 22nd. Fred, as you all know, was one of the leading forces behind this year's OMPAcon and produces his own fanzine, Viewpoint, the latest issue of which has been delayed due to con organizing. He has also been elected onto the Committee and so hopefully his presence will soon begin to show. Malcolm Edwards needs no introduction – his transformation of the BSFA journal, Vector, speaks louder than words. And finally, but not least, comes Peter Nicholls who is the Sf Foundation Administrator and present custodian of the BSFA Library. A forceful array of new talent hits the BSFA Council!"

THE ITALIAN CONNEXION: The Sf Fan Club of Mestre (Casella Postale 8, 30173 Mestre (2), Italy) have written to ask for fan 'collaborations'; I think they want to translate material from English-language fanzines to publish in their own forthcoming zine and they'd also like to trade material and generally make contact. Write if you're interested.

THE BRITISH FANZINE AWARD is calling itself 'The Nova' (Melbourne mobsters take note) and will be presented annually at the Brum Group's Novacon; the award is non-democratic, being presented by a panel of judges. Members of Novacon III (50p to Stan Eling, 124 Galton Rd, Smethwick, Warley, Worcs.) may, however, nominate fanzines for consideration – send them to: Gillon Field, 109 Windsor Rd, Halesowen, Worcs.

BOOK REVIEWS (I'll try to find space for them next time, but that's not what I'm here to say – in fact it isn't me at all, it's Gerald Bishop yet again...) "I've been appointed sf (and related bumph) press consultant to a number of major UK publishers, to arrange the distribution of review copies of books. If you edit a fanzine with a review column, write to Gerald Bishop, 1B St.Luke's Av, London, SW4 7LG, for details."

THE PIT: Into the Pit go Ian Williams and Bernie Ackerman (RSA) unless they renew fairly swiftly.

AND THE PENDULUM: One more issue only for Richard Cotton, Ian Maule, Chris Fowler, Ken Faig (US), William Sheck (US), Rob Purcell (US), Julien Raasveld (Bel), and Rune Forsgren (Swe). Love to see those renewals...


CHECKPOINT II 39

from:

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

Printed Matter Only/Return Requested, if undelivered.