vol. 4 no. 3 june 2005 alexiad -...

Vol. 4 No. 3 June 2005

ALEXIAD(!7+=3!)) $2.00

Recently I heard that a young woman had gotten into trouble for dying her bulldogpink and was facing legal difficulties in being accused of cruelty to animals. While Ithink what she did was pretty silly I also think her accusers would do much better tospend their time promoting the cause of all the shelter animals killed each year for lackof homes. According to the Humane Society website there was a minimum of 6 millioncats and dogs in shelters, half of which didn’t make it out. That’s three million toomany. And so I decided that I would devote my (soapbox) editorial this time to speakfor the shelter animals. That cute little purebred animal in the pet stores probably camefrom a puppy or kitten mill and was raised in horrible conditions. If you urgently desirea purebred animal you can always go to a dog or cat show and get a pet quality animalfor less than you would pay for an animal likely to be prone to health problems. Racinggreyhounds make excellent pets. Many popular breeds have rescue groups eager to findhomes for animals.

I also looked at the website of Christian County Animal Shelter for as long as I couldstand it. I will let them speak for themselves.

All our pets are in need of homes NOW and time is running out for many ofthem!

We have kittens and puppies coming to our facility on a daily basis! Theresimply is not enough room here for all of them. Please help these little furballs!!!!Our kennels are always full of larger dogs too and they deserve a home as well!Please consider a new family member today!!

This is a heartbreaking web site. It gives the figure of 15 dogs and 45 cats per person! But I can believe the figures. Joe and I have turned away over fifty cats and four dogs. We simply don’t have the resources to care for more than fifty cats. The plight of themilitary pets is especially heartbreaking. Yet we have six rescues, no space for more. I had to quit looking at their website because it was simply too painful. Wullie andSarang have the spots we might have given to a military pet. I have responsibility forthem. I’m not taking them back to the shelter to make room for a military pet.

Table of ContentsEditorial. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Reviewer’s Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Frank Gorshin.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Hadrian the Seventh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6The Prisoner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Triple Crown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Book ReviewsJTM Banks, The Alchemist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12JTM Beatty, The Batman Handbook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17JTM Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11JTM Diamond, Collapse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16JTM Gellis/Lackey, Ill Met by Moonlight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13JTM Gellis/Lackey, This Scepter’d Isle.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13JTM Koch, The Breaking Point.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15JTM Laumer, Imperium.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14EBF McGrath, The Twilight of Atheism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19JTM McKernan, Shackleton’s Stowaway. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

JTM Miéville, Iron Council. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12JTM Stross, Iron Sunrise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11JCS Winchester, The Meaning of Everything. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Candy Bar ReviewsJC Butterfinger Crisp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19JC Nestle Crunch with Peanut Butter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Fanzines Received. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Hugo RecommendationsJC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21JTM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Con ReviewsJTM Xanadu 8/DeepSouthCon 43.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Random Jottings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Letters.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Dainis Bisenieks, Cuyler W. “Ned” Brooks, Sue Burke, Colleen R. Cahill, RichardDengrove, E. B. Frohvet, Alexis A. Gilliland, Marty Helgesen, John Hertz, Robert S.Kennedy, Lloyd Penney, AL du Pisani, George W. Price, John Thiel, Milt Stevens, TaralWayne, Taras Wolansky, Martin Morse WoosterComments are by JTM or LTM .

Trivia:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Art:

Sheryl Birkhead. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20, 21, 23, 34Paul Gadzikowski. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 36Alexis Gilliland.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 12, 30Trinlay Khadro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 22, 25ConGlomeration 2005 will be August 12-14, 2005 at the Clarion Hotel and ConfernceCenter in Louisville. The Guests of Honor are Mark Zug and John Hudgens. Membership is $25 until July 23, 2005 and $35 thereafter and at the door.

ConGlomeration/Attn: RegistrationP.O. Box 32095 Louisville, KY 40232-2095 http:// www.conglomeration.org

The 136 Running of the Belmont Stakes is June 11, 2004.th

The 80 Running of the Hambletonian (1st leg of theTrotting Triple Crown is Augustth

6, 2005 at Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, NJThe 50 Running of the Yonkers Trot (2nd leg of the Trotting Triple Crown) is Augustth

20, 2005 at YonkersRaceway in Yonkers, NYThe 113 Running of the Kentucky Futurity (3rd leg of the Trotting Triple Crown) isth

October 1, 2005 at the Red Mile in Lexington, KYPrinted on September 27, 2009Deadline is August 1, 2005

Reviewer’s Notes

There’s a new skiffy movement, the Mundane SF Manifesto, calling for realistic sciencefiction without space drives or other impossible things. *YAWN* More dreary politicaltracts to go over publishers’ transoms, looks like. Look for yourself at:

http://www.mundanesf.com

June 2005 Alexiad

RANDOM JOTTINGSby Joe

Oops! The Mark Twain story is ofcourse, “The $30,000 Bequest”, not $10k. Sorry about that. You’d think that a co-heiress to five milliard marks could do betterthan a principality with an army of two footand one horse — read the story to find out. In fact, read Twain in general.

I was watching Kentucky’s own D. W.Griffith’s Intolerance: Love’s StruggleThrough the Ages (1916) and noticed thatobviously the Mountain Girl (ConstanceTalmadge, who under another name playsMarguerite de Valois; hey, with gargantuansets and a cast of thousands Griffith had toeconomize somewhere) from the Babyloniansection is an ancestress of Xena. The scenewith her discovering Cyrus’s army on themarch, racing in a chariot to warn Belshazzar,and then fighting bravely in the futile defenseof Babylon (presumably the alternativeending where she is only wounded and isrescued by her lover The Rhapsode (ElmerClifton; who was also First Assistant Directorfor that sequence; I told you Griffith had toeconomize somewhere) is the real one)demonstrated that. Also in the sequence isElmo Lincoln, later to play Tarzan, as TheMighty Man of Valor, Belshazzar’sbodyguard.

I got the Kino edition ($29.95) to replacethe el cheapo Alpha Video one ($9.99).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0006864/

As Henricius Barbatus said about anotherfilm which shared the topic of one ofGriffith’s sequences: “Ecce sanguis, cruor,

homines boni malique, mira multa edepol —ex his fiet post duo milia ferme annorumspectaculum cinematographicum memoriadignissimum!” (Lingua Latina OccasionibusOmnibus (AUC MMDCCLVII), Pagina LV.)

[Eheu inferno: “Blood, gore, good guys,bad guys, and plenty of ooga-booga — boy,this is going to make a heck of a movie inabout 2000 years!” (Latin For All Occasions(2004), Henry Beard, Page 55)]

The Pole at last.On April 26, 2005, British explorer Tom

Avery’s Ultimate North expedition reachedthe North Pole after thirty-seven dayssledging, recreating the Peary expedition’sspeed and route. Avery and his team: MattyMcNair (a 52 year old woman!), AndrewGerber, George Wells, and Hugh Dale-Harris,used sledge dogs and arranged to receivesupply drops at the longitudes at whichPeary’s support parties had turned back.

This was, of course, somewhat hardersince Avery did not have advance parties tocut a path. And there is the question ofPeary’s not having allowed for lateral drift .. .

(Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster forthe additional material.)

I congratulate you on theattainment of the Pole!

http://www.thepoles.com

I’m skeptical about Meisha Merlinbooks. (This is a publisher, not anauthor.) These, however, I’m notskeptical about as to content. MeishaMerlin is bringing out The VirginiaEdition: The Definitive Collection ofRobert A. Heinlein. This is a completecollection of all his fiction, as close to theoriginal text as is humanly possible,along with several volumes of letters,speeches, and other items.

http://www.meishamerlin.com

Of course, there are serpents in theGarden. The edition costs $2500, and thebuyer has to buy the complete set. Thefirst book to be published will be I Will FearNo Evil.

Congratulations to Leah Gadzikowski ongetting her Juris Doctor degree on May 14,2005.

And speaking of art, take a look at BuzzAldrin’s Conspiracy Smackdown:

http://thrdgll.tripod.com/buzz.htm

Meanwhile, of course, his former barberis selling Neil’s hair. As the man said, “I’vegot a bad feeling about this.”

OBITS

We regret to report the death of BillBowers, faned, WorldCon Fan Guest ofHonor, and all-round decent fellow, on April17, 2005. When I first got into fanzinefandom in the seventies, Bill’s Outworlds wasamong the leading zines around; splendidlyproduced, containing both serious articles andsparkling fun. He was Fan GoH at Iguanaconin 1977 (sadly, overshadowed by the decisionby the Pro GoH Harlan Ellison® to protestthe failure of New Mexico to ratify the EqualRights Amendment). He straggled along inthe eighties and nineties, recounting dolefullyhow one job after another ended prematurely. As a sideline, he began producing another

fanzine, Xenolith ,which was morefrequent and morepersonal; his listingsof his books read,movies seen, consattended and so on inthe previous year wasa highlight of thisproduction. Morer e c e n t l y , h edistributed Xenolith50, a DVD of thel i v e - a c t i o nproduction of thezine.

H e w i l l b emissed. I may nevers e e a n o t h e rOutworlds again —Gary Grady wants topublish the last one

he was working on but I’m told there may besome problems. (Someday when the stars areright I’ll tell you the story about thesubscription check and what we finally didabout it.)

We regret to report the death of HaroldWooster, father of Martin Morse Wooster, in

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on May 20, 2005 atthe age of 86. Harold wrote papers withRobert Heinlein and was the Air Force officerin charge of such matters as the Dean Drive.

Our condolences to Martin.

MONARCHIST NEWS

His Serene Highness Prince Rainier IIIof Monaco, Rainier Louis Henri MaxenceBertrand Grimaldi, died April 6, 2005 in theprincipality. Born May 31, 1923 to PrincePierre of Monaco, Duke of Valentinois (néCount Pierre de Polignac) and PrincessCharlotte of Monaco, Duchess of Valentinois,Rainier succeeded to the rule of Monaco onMay 9, 1949, on the death of his grandfather,Prince Louis II; his mother being the natural,legitimated child of Louis II. Rainier wasbest known for having been the husband ofhon. Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite starGrace Kelly; there were three children,Princess Caroline Louise Marguerite,Princess of Hanover (wife of the male-lineheir of George III, Prince Ernst August vonHannover), Princess Stephanie M arieElisabeth, and the successor, His SereneHighness Prince Albert II of Monaco(Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre Grimaldi). He held the French and Belgian Croix deGuerre and the Bronze Star; he had been achevalier of the Legion d’Honneur and of theSovereign Military Order of Malta.

The new Bishop and Patriarch of Rome(called in the west “Pope”), Benedict XVI,like his predecessor John Paul II, traces a lineof episcopal consecration back to HenryBenedict Stuart, the Cardinal called Duke ofYork (the Jacobite pretender “Henry IX andI”).

Among the attendees at his inauguralmass on April 24, in the official Bavariandelegation, was Franz, Herzog von Bayern,the Bavarian claimant and Jacobite pretender. W ho, next week, took part in acommemoration of the liberation of Dachau,the concentration camp he had been in duringWorld War II.

Alexiad June 2005

ONCE UPON A TIMECommentary by Joseph T Major

on The Prisonerhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061287/

For those who haven’t been introduced,“The Prisoner” is a very mysterious andthought-provoking television show that wasproduced in 1966-7, developed by andstarring Patrick McGoohan. The protagonist,referred to in scripts as “P”, is an agent ofsome undefined covert agency. In theopening of the show, he is seen resigning andgoing home to pack for a vacation. However,some people (and part of the mystique of theshow is that it is never specified whom)kidnap him and transfer him to an isolatedplace known as “The Village”; a somewhatsappy, somewhat sinister resort. (Part of the“mystique” was its use of this typefacefor signs; this True Type Font is called“Village”, appropriately, and it is availableas an Internet download.)

Harlan Ellison® described the show as a“novel for television”; it had a defined runand a conclusion (of sorts). However, theproduction sequence was less orderly that itseemed at the time, and the story arc suffered;many of the speculations would apparently beno more than artifacts of the fan’s wishes, theway that immense fan fiction story arcs arisefrom a happenstance of two characterslooking at each other.

This in mind; the stories present a conflictof P against the unusual and often sinistermanagement of The Village. Everyone isnumbered; P is “Number Six”, a designationhe rejects but which has become applied (seebelow about Six of One). Having numbersfor names is a standard tactic for anonymityand dehumanization, in literature and in life.

Sometimes P manages a small triumph,sometimes the Village wins. It’s easy toassume a “story arc” in the sense of BabylonFive but, again, due to the way the showswere produced and shown, such speculationsare more speculation than probable intent.

In the end, after a personal struggle, Pcomes out victorious. Except that the vieweris immediately presented with evidence thatthrows it into question.

When I was a kid watching this as it cameout, it was immensely fun. We speculatedabout how it would come out and what wasgoing on. (Still doing the latter.) My friendJim Lockyer (a fellow with a wonderful

drawing style, a similar sense of humor, anda habit of blending shows, all reminiscent ofPaul Gadzikowski) drew a cartoon thatcombined The Prisoner with Mission:Impossible, Hogan’s Heroes, and the comicstrip “Freddy”. Number Two was Oberst a.DWilhelm Klink (Werner Klemperner); as hewould put it, “Nobody escapes from theVillage!” And what happened at the end withMr. Phelps and the tape recorder . . . I wish Ihad that now. Jim was very strange.

Recently, I finally got the one set I didn’thave of the A&E release of episodes ofPatrick McGoohan’s series The Prisoner;namely Set Three (with Disk 5 and Disk 6). The series is now available a ten-disk set, butit didn’t come out until I started buying thetwo-disk ones. Such is life.

The disks follow the order preferred byA&E, which is:Disk 1 “Arrival”

[Also, the Alternate Version of“The Chimes of Big Ben”]

Disk 2 “Free for All”“Dance of the Dead”

Disk 3 “Checkmate”“The Chimes of Big Ben”

Disk 4 “A. B. and C.”“The General”

Disk 5 “The Schizoid Man”[Also an interview with BernieWilliams, the production managerfor the series]

Disk 6 “Many Happy Returns”“It’s Your Funeral”

Disk 7 “A Change of Mind”“Hammer into Anvil”

Disk 8 “Do Not Forsake Me Oh MyDarling”“Living in Harmony”

Disk 9 “The Girl Who Was Death”“Once Upon a Time”

Disk 10 “Fall Out”[Also on-location footage and ThePrisoner Video Companion]

Like most shows these days, The Prisonerhas developed a subfandom of its own. Ipresume there is Prisoner slash, but thus farit has mercifully escaped my attention. Thereis a Prisoner fan club, called Six of One.

http://www.sixofone.uk.orghttp://www.netreach.net/~sixofone/

It has the unique and fascinatingadvantage of being able to hold a conventionin the setting of the show, Sir CloughWilliams-Ellis’s exotic resort, the Hotel

Portmeirion in Wales. (There is a Prisonergift shop there, set in the building which wasused as the exterior of P’s flat.) “The Masqueof Mandragora”, a Fourth Doctor (TomBaker) story of Doctor Who, was filmedthere.

http://www.portmeirion-history.co.uk/There seems to be controversy regarding

the ethics of the directors of the club.

There are many fine websites discussingthe show, and as I have said, the show itself isavailable on DVD. Rather than discuss themin detail, I will try to give a brief intro, andthen add my comments, some of them quiteoddball.

“Arrival”In the script, the character is referred to as

“P”. P is seen driving to a location in Londonwhere he resigns from some unspecifiedorganization. He drives home then, preparingto go on vacation, but a man following him ina taxi blasts sleep gas through the keyhole. When P wakes up he is in a resort in anunspecified place. An edited version of thissequence of events is used for the openingcredits of all but two of the subsequentepisodes.

The resort, or as it is referred to, “TheVillage”, is extremely isolated and has certainhigh-technology features that prevent any sortof departure. As noted, the inhabitants areknown only by numbers; the head of theVillage is known as “Number Two”. In theopening credits, as he walkes through theplace and out onto the beach, P shouts toNumber Two — well, let’s quote:

“Where am I?”“In the Village.”“What do you want?”“We want information.” “Whose side are you on?”“That would be telling. We want

information . . . information . . .INFORMATION.”

“You won’t get it!”“By hook or crook, we will.”“Who are you?”“The new Number Two.”“Who is Number One?”“You are Number Six.”“I am not a number! I am a free man!”[derisory laughter]

There is some argument that, when asked

“Who is Number One?” Number Two is infact saying, “You are, Number Six,” whichmakes little sense, but does seem to bereinforced by an incident in the final episode,of which more later.

P’s name is never given and McGoohan ison record as rejecting the most commonthesis, that he is John Drake fromMcGoohan’s previous series, Danger Man(Secret Agent in the U.S.), but again there isother evidence to the contrary. GeorgeMarkstein, who played a significant role inthe development of the show (and is the manseen in the opening credits; P storms into anoffice, throws a resignation letter on his desk,beats his fist on the desk spilling tea, and thenstorms out, leaving the character played byMarkstein rather nonplussed), thinksotherwise, for example.

This sets the stage for subsequent events,complete with an escape attempt by P, a tourof the Village for P given by Number Two, achange of Number Two (to George Baker,also known as Tiberius in I, Claudius), andseveral of the distinctive slogans and motifsof the Village introduced, including the giantmysterious bouncing weather balloon knownas “Rover” that captures potential escapees.

(Part of the mythos of the making of theshow is that “Rover” was supposed to be acomplex machine, but the prop built for thatpurpose went to the bottom of the ocean. Again, this is discounted, but there arepictures purporting to be of the machine-Rover. Whenever “Rover” bounces by,everyone stops, frozen in terror. This isbecause the weather balloon was being pulledbackwards by a cable, and then the shot wasreversed to make it look like it’s bouncing inthe other direction.)

“Free for All”In “Arrival”, it was explained to P that

there were elections in the Village, and in inthis episode there is an election for theposition of Number Two, which P ispersuaded to stand in (in spite of the“international” nature of the Village, thelanguage is English, and the facilities areveddy British, so P is not running for theoffice). P proceeds to win in a landslide, butfinds out that the whole affair is hardly as itappears, though it might expected to be thatway.

This episode presents a recurring theme,of the Village as farce, a set-up designed toentrap one man. We rarely see anyone else

June 2005 Alexiad

being questioned or otherwise tricked, and noone else in such detail.

“Dance of the Dead”The setting here is a giant costume party.

It’s been pointed out that while everyone elseis in fancy dress, P wears an ordinary tuxedoand looks, well, rather like John Drake. Aftervarious unpleasant encounters, P ends upconfronting Number Two, a woman this time(Mary Morris, who also appeared in the TVversions of Sir Fred Hoyle’s A forAndromeda and Andromeda Breakthrough)as happens every now and then. At thecostume party she plays the second mostfrightening Peter Pan ever (the mostfrightening one being Robin Williams). Inthe course of the confrontation he tears up ateletype machine. Why? I’m not quite sure,myself.

“Checkmate”This begins in a live-chess game,

including a piece which starts moving on its,or his, own, and gets in trouble. (DidMcGoohan ever read The Chessmen of Mars,with its dramatic live-fire jetan (Barsoomianequivalent of chess) game?) This display ofinitiative and defiance inspires P to startlooking for others who might want to escape. They manage to organize an escape planwhich is almost successful. The subplot,however, has to do with a woman who is inunrequited love with P and could break up theplan. However, it fails for other reasons. You’d think that the place would have hadgood offshore security and in fact it does.

“The Chimes of Big Ben”This time P does get away. He smuggles

himself and a woman out of the Village, theytravel across country and finally get toLondon, but then they slip up by making agross and elementary blunder, usingEuropean instead of Greenwich time. In thisepisode, P locates the Village in the BalticStates, which one would think would entail arather more severe regime, not to mentiongiving away one of the questions of theopening [P: “Whose side are you on?” No. 2:“That would be telling.”]

“The General”The entire Village, except for P, is

enthusiastically involved in Speed Learning,a means by which an entire semester’s worthof university courses can be learned

hypnotically in three minutes. Anyone whohas read Brave New World might havealready encountered the argument that suchlearning would only impart raw data, notunderstanding. This program has beendevised by someone called “The General”,and The General turns out to be a (poorlyprogrammed) huge mainframe. (This wasduring the era of early cybernetics, whencomputer size and power were not seen in thesame relationship as we have now.)

The episode begins with everyone beingsummoned to take the second lecture of theprogramme, which does raise the question ofhow it was that P missed noticing the firstone. It also shows another example of thegeneral herd-mindenesses of the people in theVillage (no, “Village People” is a differentthing entirely). Finally, it has the oddcharacteristic that many of the people do nothave numbers (e.g., the Professor, theostensible host of this lecture programme).

For curiosity buffs, one of the actors inthe episode is named Ian Fleming, but sincethe author had died some time before this wasfilmed, it isn’t him doing a anti-theme guestshot. (It is well known that McGoohan wasconsidered for the role of James Bond, butturned it down, and subsequently DangerMan strove to reverse the violent and sexualcliches of the Bond movies.)

“A. B. and C.”If computer learning won’t work perhaps

virtual reality will. Number Two proposes tobring P through a situation in which he willencounter people who might have beenresponsible for his decision to resign, in theexpectation that he will reveal the reason tothe people in the simulation, and to the realpeople monitoring it. P rather handilydiscovers that this is going on and (again inhis John Drake tuxedo) reverses the terms ofthe engagement, working up to an absolutelyoverwhelming demonstration of the controlhe has gained over Number Two and hisassistant.

Throughout, P always maintains that heresigned “for peace of mind”. In this episode,in the dream sequence he hands Number Twosome travel brochures; just as, in “Arrival”,we saw him packing them for a holiday. Partof their problem, therefore, is that they areasking P for an answer he can’t give, becausethey won’t accept the answer he has given.

“The Schizoid Man”

This has a very grand questioning ofidentity. P is conditioned (this was at theheight of Skinnerian behaviorism; Alex of AClockwork Orange would have an interestingtime in the Village) to believe he is someoneelse, and then assigned to take over theidentity of Number Six, a person who looksand acts exactly like P. For a veteranintelligence agent, he doesn’t seem to beaware of security checks.

“Many Happy Returns”Another episode which presents the

argument that the Village is an elaboratestage set up to get P and only P. He awakensand finds the Village entirely deserted. Thereseem to be ground security features, so hebuilds a raft, gets picked up, and after someadventures ends up back in England —where, in a manner which suggests that hisformer superiors are and are not in cahootswith the Village, ends up being parachutedback in. (In this episode, apparently theVillage is in Morocco, according to anavigational chart and some pre-GPS (pre-sextant!) position-finding by P.)

The person who speaks as Number Twoin the opening credits is not the Number Twowe encounter at the end. Even this is a give-away; the identity of Number Two is moreproof that the whole world seems to have it infor P.

“It’s Your Funeral”In “Free for All” there was a democratic

election for the position of Number Two. Here we have an old-fashioned assassinationplot, which P learns of and then has to foil,out of fear of reprisals. Perhaps the plottershave confused their location with somewhereelse; this hardly seems to be a trap. This isconsidered one of the weaker episodes. Interestingly, the hand-over is attended by anumber of other people who are identified asformer Number Twos but who have notappeared in other episodes.

“A Change of Mind”This is one of the more Villagers-as-sheep

episodes. P is accused of being “unmutual”and is pressured into being mentallyreconditioned. One would think this is sort ofagainst his point. Everyone else wants toassail a target who is “unmutual” (it’s likebeing the one kid in school who doesn’t likefootball), and perhaps not unsurprisingly, inthe end he manages to turn the fury of the

mob against someone else.

“Hammer into Anvil”“A. B. and C.” ended with one big twist

of who was in control; this practically beginswith it. The new Number Two is responsiblefor the suicide of another Villager underinterrogation. By an elaborate phonyinvestigation reminiscent of Mark Twain’s“A Curious Experience”, P ends up gettingNumber Two to report himself for failure.

Given his confidence in deft strategemsby which P pulls off this ploy, this episode isone of those which is usually dated later. Ithardly seems likely that P could do this to themocking, cunning Number Two of “Dance ofthe Dead”, for example.

“Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling”Another high-technology epsiode. P is

drugged (something that happens an awfullot) and his mind is transferred into anotherman’s body. (See also The Avengers episode“Who’s Who” and the Bugs Bunny cartoon“Hot Cross Bunny”.) All unknowing, hewakes up in his old flat, not noticing anythingwrong until he looks into the mirror. However, lacking the ability to positivelyidentify himself, being in the same position asSteed and Mrs. Peel in “Who’s Who”, butwith a worse result, after dealing with hisformer superiors he ends up back in theVillage, where he turns the tables on the mindtransferers, like Bugs did in “Hot CrossBunny”, albeit with better results for the guywho built the thing.

This episode had a different guy (NigelStock) being P so Patrick McGoohan couldgo shoot Howard Hughes’s last favoritemovie, Ice Station Zebra. Maybe he couldhave teamed up with the armourer from theBond movies (Desmond Llewelyn) trying anew way to identify the mind in that body:“In which P looks different in the morningand Q gets a brain wave,” to parody the introsof the Mrs. Peel Avengers shows.

“Living In Harmony”At first, this seems like a Western version

of the show, with P or someone who looksexactly like him resigning as a sheriff, ridingoff into the sunset, and being dragged off toa ghost town where everyone has onlynumbers. As seems to be the case, he ismanipulated into a crisis — and thendiscovers it is only another simulation, albeitmore realistic than the one in “A. B. and C.”

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and harder for him to take over.CBS refused to show this episode in the

original run, either because of hints at druguse, hints of un-Americanism (showing theWild West in a negative light), or because itwas just too confusing (i.e., there are noopening credits and it’s even less clear what’sgoing on than usual). Also, McGoohan kepton getting saddled with proposed loveinterests for P, as with the woman in thisepisode, and often had rather drasticresolutions.

“The Girl Who Was Death”And if you thought “Living In Harmony”

was confusing, this seems like an episode ofThe Avengers; P in his former job findshimself assigned to resolve another agent’sgrotesque murder (he was blown up by anexploding ball while playing cricket; talkabout a sticky wicket). This investigationinvolves getting poisoned in a pub (his glasshelpfully says “You have just been poisoned”on the bottom), a car chase with a target whocan derange his inner-ear balance by remotecontrol, a profoundly fatal market square, anda lighthouse which doubles as a ballisticmissile aimed at London (come to think of it,isn’t that the basic idea in the James Bondbook Moonraker?) It turns out that whileostensibly telling a bedtime story, P is toyingwith the latest Number Two.

McGoohan is toying with the audiencehere; the actor who played the agentmurdered in the initial scene is named “JohnDrake”. (Checking in the Internet MovieDatabase reveals that his career dates back to1954, so it isn’t a one-off nom de film.)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0236936/Moreover, this episode was originally

written for Danger Man.

“Once Upon a Time”By now it seems obvious that P is trying

the patience of the people behind the Village. (They must try his some time.) A veteranNumber Two, last seen in “The Chimes ofBig Ben”, is arguing with his superior about“Degree Absolute”. This turns out to be anisolation facility in which Number Two andhis assistant, the ever-present ever-mutemidget Butler, go through role-playing eventswith P to investigate his life. Or perhapswhat he should have lived through. Again, Pturns the scenario against Number Two, andhaving broken him (during the filming, LeoMcKern had a nervous breakdown), is

allowed to meet Number One. (For what it’sworth, the episode was originally titled“Degree Absolute”.)

“Fall Out”In a confusing cascade of incidents and

examples, P is presented to an assembly ofmasked and robed men and honored by apresentation with different scenes and stagesof rebellion, including that by the failedNumber Two and a happy-go-lucky fellowdesignated Number Forty-Eight. (Thepresident of the assembly, incidentally, isplayed by Kenneth Griffith, Number Two in“The Girl Who Was Death”, and the otherfailed rebel by Alexis Kanner, “The Kid” in“Living In Harmony”[and also was in thewretched 1988 travesty Nightfall basedextremely loosely on Asimov’s story] —since that person died at the end of theepisode, he can’t be the same person, but isthe President the former Number Two?) Then, he is allowed to finally visit NumberOne, who is wearing a monkey mask underhis mask and beneath that — he looks like P! Then, in a gunfight, P, Number Two, Number48, and the Butler escape the Village in anarticulated lorry (semi-trailer in American)and drive to London, going their separateways there, and the show ends with P drivingoff in his beloved Lotus auto . . .

(If they drove to London on the A20highway, then the Village is in Kent, on theEnglish Channel, in which case all P had todo to escape would be to row out to sea for amile or so.)

Some NotesBesides P, there is one character who

appears in every episode, The Butler (AngeloMuscat). As usual, there is an abundant loadof speculation about his every habit, from hissolemn servitude regardless of superior to hisnever speaking. The character who appearsin the next most number of episodes, asidefrom the two people in the introduction, isThe Supervisor (Peter Swanwick), director ofthe mysterious control center underneath theVillage, and conductor of P to hisappointment in “Fall Out”.

There were sixteen different NumberTwos, including two who repeated (ColinGordon in “The General” and “A. B. and C.”and Leo McKern in “The Chimes of BigBen”, “Once Upon a Time”, and “Fall Out”),three women, and two episodes with twoNumber Twos (“Arrival” and “It’s YourFuneral”).

Patrick McGoohan directed five episodes(“Free for All”, “Once Upon a Time”, and“Fall Out”, and as “Joseph Serf”, “A Changeof Mind” and “Many Happy Returns”) andwrote three (“Once Upon a Time” and “FallOut”, and as “Paddy Fitz”, “Free for All”).

Clough Williams-Ellis appeared as anextra in the show.

One point that undermines many of the“story arc” speculations is that the showswere produced in an irregular fashion. McGoohan originally intended to do onlyseven episodes: “Arrival”, “Free for All”,“Checkmate”, “Dance of the Dead”, “TheChimes of Big Ben”, “Once Upon a Time”,and “The Schizoid Man”. Since “Once Upona Time” ends with a cliffhanger, there oughtto have been an eighth episode.

Then Sir Lew Grade, the head of theproduction company, wanted more episodes;a total of twenty-six, in fact, two shortseasons (“series” in British parlance). Sixmore episodes were filmed: “A. B. and C.”,“The General”, “Many Happy Returns”, “It’sYour Funeral”, “Hammer into Anvil”, and “Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling”. Thefirst series [season] would have ended with“Once Upon a Time”.

Then the people involved came to anagreement that the show wouldn’t go twoseries [seasons] (that’s about the best way Ican put it) and after a pause (marked by thedeparture of George Markstein) the last fourepisodes shot: “A Change of Mind”, “Livingin Harmony”, “The Girl Who Was Death”,and “Fall Out”. The reader will notice thatthey deviate from the Village setting invarious ways. It would seem that much of the

“story arc” speculation would be in the mindof the beholder.

Two unproduced scripts exist. One had Pand a miner trying to dig their way out of theVillage. The other had a pilot crashing inThe Village, and in the course of the episodeP learns that the Village is indeed in theBaltic States.

On the A&E disk set, the episode order is“A. B. and C.” followed by “The General”.They have the same Number Two (ColinGordon). The argument is based on the orderin which they were shown and NumberTwo’s comment in “The General” about theirbeing old acquaintances. This doesn’t seemlikely to me. In the opening of “TheGeneral” he identifies himself in the usualfashion as “The new Number Two,” but inthe opening of “A. B. and C.” he identifieshimself as “I am Number Two.” In “TheGeneral”, he is calm, relaxed, and sure ofsuccess; in “A. B. and C.” he is nervous,expecting the worst, and that final scene getsa big bang out of a little cordless phone.

There are a number of tie-in novels,including a new series that is now beingreleased. The original novel, The Prisoner: IAm Not a Number! (1969) was by Thomas M.Disch, it had a rather different “arrival”sequence to the one shown in the show (as Irecall, it had him being taken off a train), andspecifically had P being John Drake.

There was also a graphic novel by DeanMotter and Mark Askwith published by DCin 1988: The Prisoner: Shattered Visage. Itinvolved P and the Number Two of “Chimesof Big Ben” and “Once Upon a Time” beingin the Village twenty years later, and focusedmainly on the actions of several newcharacters (as is usually the case withsharecropped sequels). It is not very highlyregarded.

A Prisoner fan club, The Unmutual (seeabove about “A Change of Mind”), whichsponsors Prisoner events, has with exquisitetiming set its annual symposium, PM2005, atPortmeirion on Sunday, 7th August 2005 . . .don’t bother checking, that’s the Sunday ofInteraction. Be seeing you, just not there.

http://www.theunmutual.co.uk/

Some Wild-Ass SpeculationsI don’t mean the usual, about how P is

John Drake or really Number One or the like.The Village is run by U.N.C.L.E.The United Network Command for Law

June 2005 Alexiad

and Enforcement, headed by the idealistic,wise, and resourceful Alexander Waverly,and including such talented agents asNapoleon Solo, Ilya Kuryakin, and AprilDancer, is a multi-national, extra-governmental organization whose workinglanguage is English. It employes advancedtechnology in the furtherance of its mission. It is not on anyone’s “side” but has intimatere la t io nsh ips with a ll partic ipa to rygovernments.

Just the sort of outfit to investigate why atop man in security should suddenly andinexplicably quit and go off on a cruise. Tostart work with THRUSH, say? (For thoseunaware of the “Man from U.N.C.L.E.”universe, “THRUSH” was the bad guys, asort of multi-national criminal group.) “Whois Number One?” “Alexander Waverly.”

Of course, one could argue that theVillage could have been run by UNIT (fromDoctor Who with the Third Doctor (JonPertwee)), in which case BrigadierLethbridge-Stewart would be Number Oneand P might try one day to get away fromRover by stepping into a call box that justhappened to appear there and find himselfbeing chased by Daleks . . .

Number Two of “Chimes of Big Ben”and “Once Upon a Time” is thebarrister Horace Rumpole

This speculation is fuelled because, ofcourse, they happen to look alike. [Bothplayed by Leo McKern, but let’s ignore thatfor the moment.] This Number Two betraysa legal mindset, his portrayal of theinexorable judge in “Once Upon a Time”shows that. Rumpole, of John Mortimer’spopular and amusing Rumpole of the Baileyseries, for all his skills, is apparently verypoorly paid — most of his cases areminimum-fee Legal Aid work — and hedisplays a singular indifference to bills orlegal consequences; you’d think he had avery high-level patron somewhere. Finally,at the end of “Fall Out”, P and the Butler dropoff Number Two and he goes over to theHouse of Lords — obviously, to see how theTimsons, London’s most inept criminal clanand Rumpole’s bread and butter, have beendoing in their latest appeals. Does Rumpoledream of having She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed(the Mrs) mind-transferred with a morecompliant woman?

“It was all a dream”The shows St. Elsewhere and Newhart

had little else in common, aside from high

skill on the parts of the performers andproduction, but each used the same trope fortheir ending; it was revealed to all have beena dream! Noticing that the very final scene of“Fall Out” is P driving along in his Lotusautomobile, the same scene used as theintroduction, and that many of the events inthe Village have a dreamlike quality, it hasbeen speculated that in fact the entire show is,like St. Elsewhere and Newhart, just a dream. Which leads to . . .

The Village is a part of the MatrixImagine, if you will, P on a drive in

pouring-down rain, pulling up behind adeteriorating block of flats, being shown intoa room where he meets a very large colouredman in a leather coat who says, “Have youever had a dream that you were so sure wasreal? What if you were unable to wake fromthat dream? How would you know thedifference?”

Arguments that this show or that is reallyset in the Matrix and that at any moment Neoand Trinity may find themselves being chasedby the Men in Black or doing roller disco atXanadu are amusing. Given the dreamlikesystem (not to mention such items as “A. B.and C.” and “Living in Harmony”) and theway the Village seems to move around (theproofs at separate times that it was inLithuania, Morocco, and Kent are all equallyvalid), and the unusual focus of the place, onecan well imagine that it was a Matrixsubroutine and that P is really in a pod allalong. (“Do you hear that, Number Six? That is the sound of inevitability. It is thesound of your death. Goodbye, NumberSix.” “I am not a number! I am a freeman!”)

Just remember:

Questions are a burden to othersAnswers a prison for oneself

Be seeing you.

THE CAT CAME BACKCommentary by Joseph T Major on

HADRIAN THE SEVENTHby Frederick Rolfe, “Baron Corvo” (1904)

A Pope making nations fall and reshapingthe world by personal example! Can anyoneimagine anything so absurd! And a non-Italian? Only someone intimately associatedwith the structure and administration of thepapal hierarchy could have a chance! Don’t

be . . . er, ah, can I look that over again?Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis

Mary Rolfe, known also as “Frederick, BaronCorvo” (a self-assumed title), is one of thosewriters who is less than the sum of his parts. He painted as well as wrote, and indeed hiswriting displays a painterly flair for visualdescription. He wrote history as well asnovels, did scientific research . . . and yetnever quite seemed to matter.

Part of it, I would venture to say, is thathe put a little too much of himself into hisworks. This was so obvious that whenEnglish playwright Peter Luke adapted thisbook into a play, he “cut out the middleman”and made the central character Rolfe himself. Rolfe in many ways blurred the line bothways — he was as much of a fantast about hispersonal life as he was apt to put himself intohis own works. (As the editor of the editionI have points out, describing a painting of St.William of Norwich where all of the 150figures in the painting, including the saint,have Rolfe’s own face. And you thoughtDarrell K. “I can only draw the one face”Sweet was bad.) As also in prose, where theprotagonist of this novel has the generalcareer and apparently many of the personalattitudes of the author.

For what it’s worth, while most of hisworks were published as by “Frederick,Baron Corvo”, in keeping with the theme ofthis one, the author’s name was given as “Fr.Rolfe”. The naïve Gentle Reader waspresumably supposed to presume that thatwas “Father Rolfe” and not “FrederickRolfe”.

His prose style is most reminiscent of thatof E. R. Eddison, and like Eddison, his worksinclude strong and complicted beliefs. Eddison’s Willezumacht would be quite outof keeping with Rolfe’s eccentric veddyEnglish Catholicism

Well, so to begin.

In mind he was tired, worn out, byyears of hope deferred, of loneliness,of unrewarded toil. In body he wasalmost prostrate by the pain of an armon the tenth day of vaccination. Bodily pain stung him like a personalaffront. “Some one will have to bemade miserable for this,” he once saidduring the throes of a toothache. Hewas no stranger to mental fatigue: butwhen to that was added corporealanguish, he came near collapse. His

capacity for work was constricted: themere sight of his writing materialsfilled him with disgust. But, becausehe had a horror of being discovered ina state of inaction, after breakfast hesat down as usual and tried to write . ..

And so on, in a lenghty and affectiveexplication of the pain of writer’s block. Tobreak out of it, our hero George Arthur Rose(the patron saint, the legendary hero, thenational flower . . . talk about “symbolicallyEnglish”!) puts aside his writing materialsand his little yellow cat Flavio and looksaround for something to read. Fiction fails,so he turns to the news, which at least has thevirtue of being depressing. Russia is inchaos; the Tsar has been overthrown andkilled, the officials of the old governmentbeing massacred, and the common peopleeven worse off. They don’t even have aLenin to at least provide some order to themassacres. (That’s one way to get yourinfodump; have a character look upsomething he doesn’t know.) Ascommentary on this reign of terror Georgesays to his companion, “But we’re allChristians, Flavio, and this is only one of themany funny ways in which we love oneanother.”

And then, whilst meditating on the funnyways in which Christians love one another, hegets another example; visitors, a bishop whohas been a friend, and a more senior official. Which somewhat puzzles George, since isn’tthe College of Cardinals shut up in conclave? They explain that the Conclave has taken abreak, and then start quizzing George over hislittle problems. It seems he is the sort of manwho can’t get along with superiors; thoughgaining the admiration of some, he earned thedisdain of others. Then, in his varied careers,he seemed to have an infallible talent forgetting the short end of the stick. But he haspersevered; he has been called to thepriesthood, never believing otherwise, and allhis other employments have been only shifts,to keep mind and body together until then.

They seem willing to make an apology. Apologizing entails not only the long-awaitedpriesthood, but restitution for his variouslosses to unfunded church projects in the sumof £10,000. (Comparisons are hard to make;but earlier in this chapter, in search ofsomething, anything to read George borrowedthree books, one “a nameless sixpenny

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shudder”; that restitution would buy fourhundred thousand of those books, so applythat multiplier to the price of a cheaphardcover.)

What exactly was Cardinal-ArchbishopCourtleigh doing before he went to Englandto visit George Arthur Rose? The nextchapter deals with the Papal election. LeoXIII died July 20, 1903, which whencombined with the date of the headnote, inRolfe’s splendidly eccentric rendering “xxij.Jul. 1904” indicates that Rolfe set it in thehere-and-now, like Morris L. West in TheShoes of the Fisherman (1963) for example.) The conclave is, perhaps fortunately, notparticularly divided by politics, religious orsecular, so it is a matter of their ownjudgment to determine who seems best fittedto step into the shoes of the Fisherman andsteer the church through the shoals of theworld. Which, however, doesn’t seem clear. In fact the conclave becomes deadlocked.

No candidate seemed “right”; none couldbe elected; the College of Cardinals thenvoted to set up a board of compromissaries. One of them is Cardinal Courtleigh fromEngland. As a relief from the problem of thevacant seat, he mulls over rather a differentproblem, that of a candidate for thepriesthood who has been repeatedly swindled. And then, seeing someone oddly familiar . . .the Cardinals adjourn the Conclave, sneak outinto the world (presumably the bad precedentof Viterbo, where the Conclave lasted threeyears, until local authorities took steps, hasbeen modified even further than it was at thetime), and come back again, their numberssomewhat augmented.

The newly ordained Father Rose ishonored, if curious, when he is admitted tothe Conclave as yet another staffer. It’s quitethe moving time, then, when all aresummoned to the Sistine Chapel (in yetanother example of his eccentricities, Rolferenders it “Xystine”) to hear the name of theelected pope. After a moment, George hasthe sort of feeling that usually comes fromdreaming one is in a public place, lost andnaked:

George did not take the Latineasily from an Italian tongue: hefound himself translating, ReverendLord, the Sacred College has electedthee to be the Successor of St. Peter.

Wilt thou accept pontifically?“Reverend?” he thought. Why not

“Most Eminent?” He instantly turnedto the bishop, with another questionon his tongue. The bishop waskneeling behind him. The crowd alsowas kneeling. Why in the world didnot he kneel too? Why should hehesitate for a moment? He facedround once more, a single black figurewith an alert weary white face, aloneand erect in the splendour of violet. He glanced again at the canopies.

It was on him, on him, that alleyes were. Why did he not kneel?

Again the voice of the Cardinal-Archdeacon intoned, “Reverend Lord,the Sacred College has elected thee tobe the successor of St. Peter. Wiltthou accept pontifically?”

There was no mistake. The awfultremendous question was addresed tohim.

And he accepts. This is of course theultimate wish-fulfillment dream. About theonly character, off hand, who outdoes thisfulfillment is Jurgen in his eponymous novel(Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice (1919, 1920))who, having got into Heaven by claiming tobe Pope John XX, has a conversation withGod wound up by God’s disappearing,whereupon Jurgen, on a fancy, sits on theheavenly throne. (But God was created byKoschei the Deathless as a favor to Jurgen’sgrandmother, and several other levels ofsubordination also exist, leaving no one incharge . . .)

Rolfe uses an interesting trick here. Upuntil now, George has been “he” and “him”;now the pronouns are capitalized, and thefirst person is plural. Having accepted thegreat burden, He is now prepared to bepresented. And how:

They brought Him before the altar;and set Him in a crimson-velvet chair,asking what pontifical name he wouldchoose.

“Hadrian the Seventh”: theresp o nse cam e unhesita tingly,undemonstratively.

“Your Holiness would perhapsprefer to be called Leo, or Pius, orGregory, as is the modern manner?”the Cardinal-Dean inquired withimperious suavity.

“The previous English pontiff wasHadrian the Fourth; the presentEnglish pontiff is Hadrian theSeventh. It pleases Us; and so, byOur Own impulse, We command.”

Then there was no more to be said. . .

Though in fact there is a great deal moresaid, by the Pope himself, as he beginsmaking some very far-reaching changes. Thefirst being something that seems very trivialnow, yet at the time was extremely radical.

Until the Unification of Italy in the 1850s,the Pope was a significant secular as well asa religious ruler. Renaissance historians willrecall the manipulations and maneuvers ofAlexander VI and Julius II, and the Frenchrevolutionaries deprived Pius VI of hispatrimony, and for all that Napoleon madePius VII attend his coronation, the PapalStates remained the satellite Kingdom ofRome until Napoleon’s position in Italycollapsed absolutely. But the people of thePapal States had joined the uprisings in Italyin 1848 challenging the authority of il Papa-Re, the Pope-King, their spiritual andtemporal monarch. In the wars of Italianunification of 1859-1860, the Savoyard rulersof the Kingdom of Sardinia ended upannexing substantial parts of the Papal States,with the remainder preserved by a Frenchgarrison. Which was called home in 1870,there being a more pressing need, and asnature abhors a vacuum, so did the Savoyardhosts stream into the Eternal City. Thereaction of Pius IX was to shut out the world,so to speak, not even going into St. Peter’sSquare, much less outside the Vatican, anddeny that the Italian kingdom had anyauthority in the matter.

Now, Hadrian VII is determined toreverse this policy; first by trivial matters asbeing presented to the outside on a balconyfacing out into the city, then more substantialones, like a progress on foot through thestreets of Rome. Perhaps because no one canbelieve it, Hadrian’s progress is well-receivedand untroubled.

Papal coronations, when there were Papalcoronations, were elaborate affairs conductedwith elaborate ritual that was burdened withsymbolism. Not surprisingly, Rolfe letshimself go describing the enthronement andincoronation (still more arcane and exquisiteterminology), up to the foreshadowing ratherextravagant proclamation: “Receive this tiara

adorned with three crowns, and know Thyselfto be the Ruler of the World, the Father ofPrinces and Kings, the earthly Vicar of JesusChrist our Saviour.”

The theme of the subsequent chapters issummed up in the text:

The Pope laughed. “You shallknow that George Arthur Rose hashad plenty of time for thinking andscheming. His schemes never came toanything, except once; and hecertainly never schemed for this. Butyou understand perhaps hat the lasttwenty years have rendered Hadrianconscious both of His abilities and Hislimitations, as well as of Hisrequirements; and hence He is able ata glance to describe in detail what Hewants. When He wants something,without knowing what He wants, Heasks questions . . .”

Note the differentiation between GeorgeArthur Rose (“he”) and Hadrian VII (“He”). It might be considered an affected MultiplePersonality Disorder, but from this and laterincidents it can be seen that the Pope ismaking a distinction between his personalidentity and his official one. He has beensummoned to a post of great importance, andmust therefore put on the proper vestmentsthereof.

There is the matter of Hadrian’s soundingout who might be well-disposed towards HisPontificature. Being called to the Papacy ona summoning with an uprising of good-will isall well and good to start with, but for thelonger-term there will need to be a betterbasis for His reign. Interrogating hisbenefactor Bishop Talacryn (the friend whocame to see him when he was only Mr Rose),he learns the names of the Compromisaries(who might be among that party), and thensets about expanding it, firstly by summoningsome English priests and an Americanlayman that He thinks well of, and secondlyby appointing Talacryn himself a Cardinal inpetto (i.e., secretly). He has had plenty oftime for thinking, after all.

On another level, there is the question ofa personal life, insofar as a Pope has apersonal life. In some ways it is simplified;Hadrian directs that his personal apartmentsbe as spare and uncluttered as possible. Inthe “thinking and scheming” department, Herewards some people who had been of help to

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him in his former life:

“Look here, Mrs. Dixon. Do youremember cooking two dinners oneChristmas Day? One, we ate. Theother, you carried under your apron tosome carpenter who was out of work. Don’t you remember who caught youpretending that you weren’t spillingthe gravy on your frock?”

St. Elizabeth of Hungary, anyone? (Whocarried dinners to the poor under her dress.) And Hadrian contrasts himself with Mrs.Dixon, in her uncomplicated direct goodnature and kindness, much to hisdisadvantage. Somewhat more in the staffdepartment, He rewards more generously acouple of young men who had been hisfriends, having them summoned fromEngland to Rome to be His gentlemen-in-waiting — and bringing His small yellow catFlavio. Even strangers in need receive Hismaterial help; it rather makes one think of theperegrinations of Kirill I through Rome inThe Shoes of the Fisherman. (What with thegeneral acceptance of violent protestnowadays you are unlikely to see anyonemore important than your local alderman onthe streets unescorted, and probably not eventhat once the local greenery fans getthemselves in gear for a Statement.)

On the more general measure, He has aquarrel with Courtleigh over decorum:

. . .The Pope produced a small greenticket on which was printed, Churchof the Sacred Heart — Quest Road —Admit Bearer to — Midnight Service— New Year’s Eve 1900 — MiddleSeat 6d. “This comes from YourEminency’s archdiocese,” he said.

The cardinal looked at the thing,as one looks at the grass of the field. There it is. One has seen it all before.

“We disapprove of this,” said thePope.

“What would Your Holinesssuggest then to prevent improperpersons from attend ing theseservices?”

“Improper persons should beencouraged to attend. No obstacleshould be placed in their way.”

He goes on to admit (confess?) to havingactually been to schismatic services,

observing how “improper persons” wereadmitted, because “improper persons” neededto be. (He could cite Matthew 9 about“publicans and sinners” and dining withthem, but doesn’t. Courtleigh should know itanyhow.)

He also rebukes Courtleigh forexaggerated statements of the number ofCatholics in Australia. Robert Silverbergused a version of this rebuke in his Nebula-winning story “Good News from the Vatican”(Universe 1, 1971).

For a bigoted Englishman, Hadrian isremarkably free of the contemporarystrictures on religious matters. Several of thevarious papal letters and other decreesdescribed have a very liberal attitude aboutthem, which at first seems to be at odds withthe strictures on Socialists, the French, andthe like. It’s a reminder that an author is of apiece, but the piece needn’t be the piece thateveryone else has. For example, from hisEpistle to All Christians:

“It is in no man’s power to believewhat he list. No man is to be blamedfor reasoning in support of his ownreligion: for he only is accountable. ‘Other sheep I have, which are not ofthis fold’; and these deserve more careand live, but not cheap pity, norinsulting patronage, nor irritatedpersecution; for if, as has been said, aman shall follow Christ’s Law, andshall believe His Words acording tohis conscientious sense of theirmeaning, he will be a member ofChrist’s Flock although he be notwithin the Fold. And, though Weknow that he understands Christ’swords amiss, yet that is no reason forOur claiming any kind of superiorityover an honest man, the purpose ofwhose heart and mind is to obey andto be guided by Christ. Such an one isa Christian and Our good brother, aservant of God; and if he will haveU s, We, b y v ir tue o f O urApostolature, are his servant also.”

A Pope who wishes to open no windowinto men’s consciences, that is to say. And hedisdained Queen Elizabeth!

Another topic that comes up in thisconversation is the divergence betweentemporal and spiritual matters. Morespecifically, spending on buildings. When

Hadrian says, “Yes, the cathedral — a futilemonument of one vain man’s desire fornotoriety. How many lives has it ruined? One at least, We know.” he is speaking ofhimself; earlier on he had described toCourtleigh and Talacryn, in his long recountof his financial misfortunes, a case where hehad been contracted to provide illustrationsonly to have his patron decide to build acathedral instead. This personal injury seemspetty, though being broke and starving doesmatter to at least the starving one. What wehave here, though, is a transfiguration ofunfortunate personal events into a generalanalysis of the causes; there is somebitterness in it, there is also a thoughtfuljustification. Hadrian has ideas about what todo with the temporal treasure.

Temporal matters aren’t neglected, thoughagain the eccentricity displays itself. Whenwe see Hadrian canonizing Alfred the Great,Henry VI of England, and Mary Queen ofScots, he manages to get off a typicalEnglishness. Should St Mary Queen andMartyr be revered in England, since she wasrightful monarch of that land too? Hadriancites both English law and English myth tothe contrary.

This Pope was crowned “Father of Princesand Kings” and begins to correspond withthem. The portayal of Wilhelm II would nothave been generally received then and evenless so a little later. Looking back on it, thebiggest problem is that it adheres too much tothe attitude of “all the good people agree withMe”. (The comparison that most readilycomes to mind is, of all things, van Vogt’sEmpire of the Atom (1957) where everyonefalls in line whenever Lord Leader MedronLinn makes policy.) For all that many of theideas here are good — he talks Wilhelm intoaccepting the autonomy of Poland, somethingnot quite up to German opinion then — thewish-fulfillment is a little too strong here. Many of the ideas here are not bad ideas,understand, but there is just a little too muchreadiness to accept. (Another example is thereckless abandon with which the localsabandon their beliefs for those of the time-travelers in Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire series(1632 (2000) and sequels).)

As more generally. Hadrian beginsintervening in foreign policy, so to speak, ina series of public statements addressed tovarious other countries. Again, while hispoints are not without interest, and surelythere would be acceptance of his messages,

would they be so universally accepted? Well, there isn’t universal acceptance.In “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary

Offenses”, Mark Twain says in a colorful andvery much of his time rebuke regarding therules of literature as relating to dialogue,“They require that when a personage talkslike an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship’s Offering inthe beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talklike a negro minstrel in the end of it.” Onewonders how he would have dealt with theseexamples of the same person communicating:

“It’s a gospel truth, comrades. Ihad used to fhat ye might call knowthe Pope a few years ago fhen he wasjust George Arthur Rose and not apound-note in his purse. I wasrunning the Social Standard oot o’ myown pocket, and many’s the bit o’work I’ve let him have. He was tryinghis hand at journalism then, and geyglad to get it . . .”

“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR ,Since our late esteemed interview

when I had the pleasure of addressingyour lordship on the subject ofSocialism, I have been anxiouslya w a i t i n g th e fa v o u r o f a nacknowledgement of same. In casethe subject has slipped your memoryI could remind you that I informedyou previously on behalf of the LiblabFellowship that we were not averse togive our careful consideration to anyproposal that you may see fit to make. . .”

Nowadays we would make distinctionsbetween left-brain and right-brain. From hispresentation here, one could reasonablywonder if Comrade Jeremiah “Jerry” Sant ofthe Liblab Fellowship has either half. Rolfespares no measure in describing hisunpleasantness, of his envy of anyone betterthan him in any fashion, his vast will andhalf-vast ability. Whether or not one couldmake out Sant’s boundless conceit, unbridledenvy, and personal ugliness, so explicitlylimned, to be universal in the socialistmovements of the time, as a character he is ofa type that is unfortunately all too common.

When he had fhat ye might call knownGeorge Arthur Rose, he had also met awoman who had a unrequited passion. The

Alexiad June 2005

Pope has mentioned, off-handedly, an attemptto seduce him in his earlier life. Theportrayal of the seductress is another exampleof Rolfe’s literary skill; she is an erotomanic(the most notorious such example, mostrecently, is that of the woman who kept onbreaking into David Letterman’s house), inpassionate love with George Arthur Rose andjust knowing in her heart that he returns thatlove, for example:

“DEAREST DEAREST GEORGIE

For although you have no morethe old sweet name my heart is everfaithfull and will not let me call yoube any other. Does it not remind youof that day when the floods were outin the meadows and you and I andJoseph were coming home from theBellamys, and you lifted me in yourstrong arms and carried me throughthe water that covered the path. HowJoseph laughed. He never thought itworth his while to take care of me asyou did. But I know that it wasbecause you loved me and my heartwent out to you then and never hasbeen my own since. . .”

Mrs. Crowe’s unrequited love has thrownher into company with Jerry Sant, and hehopes to use her to blackmail the Pope intoacceding to his wishes. Indeed, he proposesthat they go to confront the Harlot ofBabylon, and much to their surprise, he is notparticularly moved.

Hadrian is a little more successful inmoving more powerful people. The eventstha t were c rucia l then often a reincomprehensible to later readers. Given thedegree to which the Papal administrations haddenied the reality of the secular rule of Italy,the reactions to Hadrian’s far-reachingconcessions — renouncing all claims tosecular rule — seem incomprehensible. Butthat was a crucial issue back then.

Similarly, the results of the meeting withKaiser Wilhelm hinge on matters that werefar more important then than seem the casenow. The new German Empire had launchedan effort to diminish Catholic influence innational affairs; for the All-Highest SupremeWarlord of Germany to respect Catholicismagain is a climbdown.

One is rather concerned about other faiths. There is almost no mention of the Orthodox,though presumably they would fall under the

rubiric laid down in the Epistle to AllChristians. The Pope quotes Arnold ofRugby on recognizing the divine spark inman (presumably he did not have to look forthose qualities in Brigadier-General Sir HarryFlashman, V.C., etc., Rugby’s most notoriousexpellee).

As for those outside Christianity, there isno mention of, say Buddhism or Hinduism. Islam (which, as was common back then, isimproperly called “Muhammadanism” — Isuppose it could be worse and it could bestyled “M ahometanism”) gets politetreatment; this is a Pope who feels neither theneed to convert by the sword (or more in thespirit of the day, the Lee-Enfield) norgrovelingly dhimmically apologize for theCrusades. As for the Jews . . . when Hadrianis determined to walk about Rome, theCardinal Secretary-of-State invokes thespecter of assassination, seeing as the city is“full of Jews and Freemasons”. He himselfseems more calm, and no such irruption israised against Him, but later on it comes outthat He used to revere Little Saint Hugh.

Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (c1246-1255) is one of the blood-libel saints. Oneexample of the absurdity of the charge is thatHugh was described as having been“scourged, crowned with thorns, andcrucified”, which is more the sort of behaviorof a Christian determined to blaspheme. (Theway that the “witchcraft” of the witch-crazeand the Satanic play of seventeenth-centuryFrance is based on the concepts ofChristianity as imagined by someone withinthat belief who wished to reverse it.)

It is hard to reconcile thought and actionsometime. (As with the case of H. L.Mencken, who unburdened himself of anti-Jewish sentiments to his diary, and publiclydeclared that the U.S. government shouldpromote and subsidize the immigration ofJewish refugees from Hitler, on the groundsthat they would improve the fabric of thecountry.)

This Pope has to do that. While theChurch seems to be flourishing under Him,the world is less so. Revolution has reducedRussia to chaos; again, this only slightlyanticipated the disorder in 1905, which wasonly kept from turning into events ashappened in 1917 by the minimal credibilityretained by a Tsarist government that hadn’tbeen resoundingly defeated on its coreterritory, instead of just off in the Eastsomewhere. France too is in disorder. The

history of the Third Republic seems to havebeen a constant jumping from one crisis toanother; it had not been that long ago thatGeneral Boulanger had had but to put forthhis hand to become absolute dictator ofFrance. (Fortunately, like so many would-betyrants of France, he was a rubber lion;instead of riding into the National Assemblyand like Bonaparte dispersing the legislature,he spent the night with his girlfriend.) Sosuch a chaotic collapse was not implausble;surely it was feared at the time.

The response is not quite plausible,especially now. Hadrian has definitiveopinions on what are the nations which havethe ability to rule still. By an amazingcoincidence, these leaders are meeting atWindsor Castle, deciding what to do aboutthe world crisis: the King of England(Edward VII was, as we know, most energeticand effective in promoting British foreignpolicty), the German Kaiser (Wilhelm wasmost energetic, but as for effective, well), theKing of Italy (Victor Emmanuel was not quitethe equal of either and his portrayal is a bitoptimistic), the President of the United Statesof America (all that needs to be said is“Bully!”), and the Emperor of Japan (hereRolfe’s cultural knowledge falls down; Meijiwould never have left the Land of the RisingSun).

The Pope asks them to come to Rome,where He proceeds to divide up the world ina manner that would have left His less saintlypredecessor Alexander VI startled, thoughperhaps that one’s boy Cesare Borgia wouldhave understood. For those who thought ofthe White Man’s Burden as civilizing, thatgift might have been a great responsibility;for those who thought imperialism meantbeing a license to abuse lesser beings, itwould have been a wonderful gift; and forthose who decried imperialism, it would havebeen a great defeat and proof of their beliefs. One imagines what Mr. Ulyanov inSwitzerland would have said.

Hadrian is less successful in his personallife. One thing that has not changed is thatnewspapers will gladly disseminate scandalabout the powerful, and apparently Hadrianhas a lot of explaining to do. That has to beJerry Sant, and He summons the man and hiscollaborator Mrs. Crowe to discuss matters. Sant is clear enough in his demands. ThePope owes him twenty thousand pounds foractual loss and inconvenience, and if he doesnot pay, “Then Ye mean ta pit some more

about Ye in the papers?” (At least there’s nothing of altar-boys; the

one incident which looks like it might have abasis, a charge that Hadrian was seeingwomen, turns out to have a resolution thatwas set up at the beginning of the book; avery skilled piece of plotting. Whereas thescene where Hadrian, discussing matters witha sculptor, commissions a crucifix in whichthe body of the Figure is based on a sculptureof Antinous, Emperor Hadrian’s boy-love,well . . .)

This entire scene is a painful descriptionof belief beyond influence. If the book is awish-fulfillment dream (and there is a greatdeal of that in it) it is at least one where theauthor realizes that some people can’t beconvinced. Many of us have encounteredpeople like Jerry Sant, who are aggressive, ofstrong beliefs, and willing to disseminatethem while unwilling to accept anydisagreement.

His collaborator is similarly anotherpicture; desperate for some sort of resolution,Hadrian asks Mrs. Crowe to the confessional,only to find that even there her erotomaniawon’t admit of the customary use of theplace. She is supposed to be working throughthe merely human interlocutor to God; sheremains fixed on her Georgie, unwilling toadmit that he (or He) is not what sheexpected.

They leave, dissatisfied. The world hasfailed to live up to their two severalexpectations. Jerry Sant will take steps toresolve that.

The Pope still feels the need to justify Hisactions. Or rather, the odd life of GeorgeArthur Rose, and in a typical, lyric, and oddscene he does exactly that. Yes, thedifference is significant, the Pope takes offthe Fisherman’s Ring, and as George ArthurRose launches into a defense of his life in thedays when he had to scratch for a living. Heis making a distinction between the personand the office, which is a traditional Catholicattitude, though rarely taken to suchextremes. The reader will note both the skillused in portraying the scene and the degree towhich the writer takes personally hisdisagreement with the world.

And in fact, Jerry Sant does take steps toresolve his disagreement with the world. Hadrian has taken the final step of beingresolved with the Italian ruler; havingestablished a substantial trust fund for thedevelopment of Italy (using Vatican treasure;

June 2005 Alexiad

another “modern” concept), He finally meetspersonally with Victor Emmanuel, and allgoes well when, in yet another processionthrough Rome . . .

Jerry Sant shoots him.The dying Pope forgives his assassin (he

certainly would have understood theforgiveness of John Paul II for Mehemet AliAgca), receives the last rites, and passesaway. If martyrdom is the ultimate wish-fulfillment . . .

It’s only fair to note the employment oftechnology, often not even superfluous. Some is merely using what’s available, themost striking example being that Hadrianmakes gramophone recordings to dictateletters and to make a permanent record of theinterview with Jerry Sant and Mrs. Crowe. (Probably a good idea, all things considered.) One example, however, is beyond this.

In his frenzied self-justification as GeorgeArthur Rose, temporarily, he says “I inventeda score of things,” and proceeds to describehow he couldn’t find a venture capitalist; hisdiscoveries were repeated by others withbetter funding, until there were only four left. And what shall he do with them: “I shall givethem to — that doesn’t matter. It shall bedone to-day.”

Sir Iulio, the effervescent Italian PapalGentleman-in-Waiting, is going to getmarried, and Hadrian (having put His ringback on and resumed His office) has someconcern about what he shall do. Afterlistening to an enthusiastic and eagerdescription of the Beloved, He beginsdiscussing photography:

“. . .Well now: think of negatives. They are dense in places: clear inplaces; and in other places more orless dense. Understand? Under thenegative you put a certain paper; andexpose it to light. Light goes throughthe clear places and stains the paperblack; it partly got through the moreor less dense places; and stains thepaper grey in various graduations oftint. It fails to go through the denseplaces and leaves the paper white. There is your photograph, a littleblack a little white and many differentgreys. Understand?”

“Yes, Santità.”“Your photograph is an image of

the form, the contours, the modeling,

the morbidezza, of the object beforeyour lens. It lacks one thing. It hasnot colour. The process has tralatedcolour into monochrome. Do you seethat?”

“Yes, Santità.”“Your white means a blend of all

colours; and black means the absenceof all colours. Then grey shold meansome colours, of this quality or that,of this quantity or that, according tothe clarity or the density of the grey. Understand?”

“Yes, Santità.”“Your negative is black and white

and many greys.”“Yes, Santità.”“Then undestand that all colours

lie hidden in the black and white andgreys of the negative. In the black, lieall colours; it produces the positivewhite. In the white lie no colours; itproduces the positive black. In thevarious greys, lie various colours —why are you jumping about? Keepstill and listen, wriggling lizzard thatyou are! What do you want to do?”

“To liberate those poor colours.”“So does everybody. At least,

everybody wants to photograph incolours; so they paint on the backs ofthe films; and they play the fool withtriply-coloured negatives. Only oneman in the world knows that thecolour already is there — already isthere, my boy — stored in the blackwhite grey negative; and that theblack white grey ordinary negativewill give give up its imprisonedcolours to him who have the key. —Well now; take the second envelope. The key’s there; and it’s yours. (Don’t stare like that!) There arethree other things as well, which maybe useful. . .”

Now that’s science fiction — ahypothesized advance in technology makinga change in society. Rolfe himself developedsome photographic devices. Incidentally, SirIulio gets more and more excited as Hadriandescribes the processes, making for a comicsubtext to the serious discussion of optics andother such matters.

This is a very tricky book to deal with. From a writer’s point of view, Rolfe’s writing

skills are noteworthy; his power ofdescription is striking, to be noted and (it is tobe hoped) emulated. His word usage is thatof a painter — very visual, employing oddand striking language, and detailed.

The author’s personal views are asforcefully expressed. Some of these areeerily prescient, others strongly wishful, andmany somewhat backwards. His views ofdoctrine may be a little personal. It’s well toremember that this is stemming from realC a t h o l i c d o c t r i n e , a n d n o t t h emisunderstandings of it that persist in somuch of literature today.

The world sighed, sobbed, wipedits mouth; and experienced extremerelief.

The college of Cardinals summedHim up in the brilliant epigram ofTacitus. “Capax imperii nisiimperasset.” He would have been anideal ruler if He had not ruled.

Religious people said that He wasan incomprehensible creature. Andthe man on the motor said that thepace certainly had been rather rapid.

Pray for the repose of His soul. He was so tired.

FELICITER

FRANK GORSHIN1934-2005

Obituary by Johnny Carruthershttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm0331319/

I guess you could say that I’m inmourning today. While surfing the web, Ilearned that Frank Gorshin died Tuesday May17 at the age of 72.

Batman was one of my favorite TV serieswhen I was a kid. Come to think of it, I stilllove the series, and I really wish it would bereleased on DVD. As I got older, I noticedthings that went completely over my headwhen I first watched it. Some things that Ioriginally took seriously now became thesource of chuckles. (“Some days, you justcan’t get rid of a bomb!”)

The Riddler was probably my favoritevillain on the series. (It wasn’t until I was ateenager that I truly began to appreciateCatwoman; she was probably my secondfavorite.) I always found the Riddler moreinteresting than the Joker. His riddle cluesstruck me as showing more intelligence and

creativity than a joy buzzer or a pie in theface.

I also loved the Riddler’s costumes,mainly because of the question marks. WhenI was in college, I adopted a question mark asa personal symbol, and the Riddler was oneof the main influences in that decision.(Theodore Sturgeon and his “ask the nextquestion” philosophy was another influence.)

I have even used “Riddler” as an internetuser ID. It’s also my nom du guerre with theAmerican Cryptogram Association. In thecase of the latter, “Riddler” is a particularlyappropriate choice. In the comics, theRiddler’s real name is Edward Nygma. E.Nygma — quite appropriate indeed for agroup of cryptology enthusiasts.

Frank Gorshin was my favorite Riddler.When John Astin portrayed the Riddler in oneBatman two-parter, there was someting thatjust didn’t seem quite right. I suppose itseemed more like Gomez Addams in a brightgreen suit. My least favorite Riddler was JimCarrey’s version in Batman Forever. Carrey’sportrayal was more a pale impression ofGorshin’s performances. He didn’t seem todo anything to make his version of theRiddler uniquely his.

My favorite Riddler after Gorshin is JohnGlover. And if you can’t remember Gloverplaying the Riddler, he played the part inBatman: The Animated Series. I likedGlover’s voice performance because it was sod is t inc t ly d ifferent from Gorsh in’sperformance. Where Gorshin was manic,Glover was calm. Glover’s Riddler looked athis confrontations with Batman as a chessgame, but like Gorshin’s Riddler, there wasstill the compulsion to send Batman riddleclues announcing his crimes ahead of time.

But as I said, for me, Frank Gorshin willalways be THE Riddler, the one by whom allother portrayals of the part will be judged.And this brings me back to my original point. . .

I remember a friend telling me severalyears ago that Gorshin had the rather dubiousdistinction of appearing on The Ed SullivanShow the same night that The Beatles madetheir first appearance on that show. Thedubious part of this distinction was the factthat Gorshin was the act that followed the FabFour, which meant that he probably had onlya fraction of the audience that the actimmediately before the Beatles had.

While reading some of the obituaries forGorshin, it didn’t surprise me to discover that

Alexiad June 2005

he had been nominated for an Emmy for hisperformance as the Riddler. I suppose whatdid surprise me was learning that he alsoreceived an Emmy nomination for what isprobably his best-known role after theRiddler — Bele in the original STAR TREK

episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.”I had the opportunity to meet Frank

Gorshin several years ago. It was in 1999,when he was one of the guests at DragonCon.He was originally scheduled to give a talk,but he was recovering from recent throatsurgery. Instead, he showed an episode of theSci-Fi Channel series Black Scorpion. Heguest-starred in this particular episode —again as a villain, and again with adelightfully manic performance.

Later, I got his autograph, and I told himhow he had been at least a minor influencefor me. Yeah, I know, it was probablysomething he had been told before. Beforethe convention was over, I also bought aget-well card and left it at his table.

One of Gorshin’s last performances wasin the season finale of CSI. As luck wouldhave it, I missed most of it, and he didn’tappear in the part that I did see. (Well, I canalways catch the rerun.) There was one nicetribute at the end, though. After the last scene,there was a card which said:

In Loving MemoryFRANK GORSHIN

1934-2005

PODKAYNE OF THE ESCHATONReview by Joseph T Major of

IRON SUNRISEby Charles Stross

(Ace; 2004; ISBN 0-441-01159-4; $23.95)Hugo Nominee

Reviewed in Alexiad V. 3 #5

This is not a direct sequel to SingularitySky, but is set in the same universe. It’s alsoan old fashioned space opera done withcyberpunk technology and procedures.

To explain the spreading of humanityacross the spatial spheres, Stross creates a . .. being, outside of space and time (weird),styled the Eschaton, that one day picked up90% of humanity and scattered them to thestars. Much confusion ensued.

Confusion becomes even moreconfounded when the far-flung humansdevelop space travel. Unfortunately, thisEschaton did not bring about an end of

conflict. The iron sunrise of the title, forexample, is one of those cute little weaponsystems that have been developed. It’s allvery simple, just dump iron into yourenemy’s star, with a result straight out of“Inconstant Moon” (Larry Niven, 1971).

As a result, we have a chase story. Oneexpects to see short fat bald Englishmen inBlack here and there, as investigator RachelMansour and fleeing Woman Who KnowsToo Much Wednesday Shadowmist navigatethrough a starscape of mind control,interstellar intrigue, smart technology, anddumb luck.

Perhaps from there being all thatmechanical intelligence around, there is arefreshing lack of dumb behavior among theauthorities. Yes, this book is in some ways athriller novel of its era — but it’s a sciencefictional era. John W. Campbell would havebeen pleased. (And not a conventionalthriller, where the authorities are impotent butthe lone scorned hero wins the day, either.)

The finale is marked by cruelty, treachery,and valor, not to mention bureaucraticbackstabbing. Stross is redeeming the honorof science fiction, as opposed to fantasy withrayguns and spaceships.

MASTER AND COMMANDERReview by Joseph T Major of

JONATHAN STRANGE & Mr NORRELLby Susanna Clarke

(Bloomsbury Publishing; 2004;ISBN 1-58234-416-7; $27.95)

http://www.jonathanstrange.comhttp://www.bloomsbury.com

Hugo Nominee

There seem to be two kinds of novelsabout the first decade and a half of thenineteenth century in England that are beingread by Fans: 1) deliciously witty tales ofstrapping young bucks being tamed byforward young ladies, after some ratherboorish behaviour; 2) naval tales withinfodumps running out the characters’ . . . er,well, infodumps. I’ve read all of “C. S.Forrester” and Dudley Pope, and if it weren’tfor Dewey Lambdin’s all too occasional talesof the lecherous, cat-keeping, and greedyCaptain Alan Lewrie I would be desperateenough to start reading “Alexander Kent”.

The tea-and-crumpets view of Britainunfortunately persists; reading StephenLawhead’s Avalon (1999) for example wherethe true heir and reincarnation of Arthur

becomes king in such a land — in the realworld, in Blair’s “Cool Brittania” or itsequivalent he would be humiliatinglyignored. This is hardly a contemporary or anAmerican attitude. Jane Austen, say, orCharles Dickens described a very detailedand intricate world; the Regency fans we seeat Worldcon can testify to that. That it was asmuch of a creation as Zimiamvia or Amtor isless acknowledged. That in mind, I’ll have tosay that this is what Dickens would havewritten if he wrote a magical work. (AChristmas Carol is a ghost story; this wouldbe Amadis of Gaul according to Dickens.) Ithas the customary Dickensian menage ofeccentrics, oddballs, and whatnot.

It’s 1807. Nelson has died gloriously offthe coast of Spain, but Wellesley has not yethad the opportunity to make his mark there. The Yorkshire Society of Magicians isoffered a deal; if this Mr Norrell can provehe’s a genuine magician, they will disband. He does and they do. The statues in YorkMinster having that rather less than amiableconversation proves rather convincing.

From there, Mr Norrell goes to London,where he blunders around trying to speak toH.M. ministers. Without interest, one cannotget preferment. For some reason I’mreminded of Walter Karig’s Zotz! (1947),where a man with a power of his own makesthe trek from Washington office to office. Fortunately Mr Norrell is luckier than Karig’sProfessor John Jones (for one thing he has aname that doesn’t sound like he’s registeringat a hotel with a woman he’s not married to),as he finally finds a patron by a rather radicaleffort; raising his fianceé from the dead. Shedied not long before they would have beenmarried, getting him a thousand pounds ayear. He really loved that.

With the help of a mysterious Man inGreen with thistledown hair who appears outof nowhere, Mr Norrell brings MistressWintertowne back to life, she becomes LadyPole, her husband Sir Walter becomes MrNorrell’s patron, and all is well.

Maybe not. One magician brings forth a second, and

Jonathan Strange comes to public note. Heforges a dubious relationship with Mr Norrell,who gets sent to Spain, where a doubtingArthur (Wellesley, Lord Wellington) askswhat the devil this magic can do. Well, it canprovide instant roads for the army to marchon, but not stick around for the Frogs to use. Brigadier Gérard would classify that as

another English trick, or perhaps tell the storyof “How the Brigadier Was Sent for aSorcerer”. And then from Spain to Belgium. . .

Nitpick: unless Clarke is willing to bendhistory farther than it should go — movingBrussels to the Americas temporarily isn’t?— there wouldn’t be three people at theDuke’s table at the night of the battle ofWaterloo, namely the Duke, his Spanish aide(and Trafalgar veteran) General Alava, andMr Norrell [Page 450]. Colonel GeorgeScovell, The Man Who Broke Napoleon’sCodes (by Mark Urban, 2002, reviewed inAlexiad V. 1 #3), would, should, also bethere, so they could play a hand or two ofwhist to pass the time.

The let-down after the peace causesstresses, and none more than between oureponymous heroes. Jonathan Strangepublishes a book on magic and then departsfor the Continent. Mr Norrell doesn’t carefor that, and as a result all the copies ofStrange’s book start disappearing or comingup blank. Adding to Strange’s problems is aprolonged encounter with Lord Byron. Andwhat happens when you meet someone whois mad, bad, and dangerous to know? Melancholia (nowadays it’d be called“depression”).

However, when wizards get into blackmelancholy, it’s BLACK . The entireneighborhood in Venice where Strange isliving now has perpetual night. That doesdepress property values.

Meanwhile, the faerie who helped bringMistress Wintertowne back from the majorityhas now adopted another career, which ismaking Sir Walter’s black servant Stephen aKing. Since Great Britain happens to have aking at the moment, albeit a little off in thehead, as we see in one chapter, this might bedifficult. Over all, of course, looms thelegendary Raven King, who in the twelfthcentury subdued all Northern England andruled it for three centuries, thanks to hismagic.

Finally, things sort of drift off . . .1

I am a little curious as to how, after theRaven King captured all of Northern Englandin 1110 and held on to it for three centuries,the history of the country developed in theexact same way. And indeed for all itspotential, magic seems to have made littledifference in British history. If Mr Norrellcould fool the Frogs with dummy blockading

June 2005 Alexiad

ships, don’t you think Prince Rupert wouldhave summoned up A Midsummer Tempest(by Poul Anderson, 1974) to confound Blakeand the other Parliamentary Generals-at-Sea?

Indeed, one wonders if the heirs ofJonathan Strange & Mr Norrell are going tobuild a school for the teaching of magic, onewith its own special train leaving Londonfrom platform 9 ¾ and other features.

The faeries are the heartless, flighty sortsof conventional legend, but somewhat morepowerful. (They don’t seem to be troubledby iron, sunlight, and the like.) Also stillaround, not driven out by Christianity, and infact they seem to be baptizable, which meansthey have souls; think The Merman’sChildren (Anderson, 1980), though thesefaeries seem to have a better grip on theirOther World.

1. Clarke sure does love them footnotes. One footnote runs over several pages,telling a story that one character beginsand is prevented from continuing further.

OIKS AND AWAY!Review by Joseph T Major of

IRON COUNCILby China Miéville

(Ballantine/Del Rey; 2004; ISBN 0-345-46402-8; $24.95)

Sequel to Perdido Street Stationand The Scar

Hugo NomineeArthur C. Clarke Award Winner

Somehow the Modern Anti-GlobalisationPermanent Activist comes to mind. Youknow, one who adopts the image of being aProle Revo from shaven head to steel-toedboots.

But he shaves his head with a surgical-

steel razor, hand-forged, hand-ground, andhand-sharpened in the Swiss Alps by a firmof professional cutlery makers with eightcenturies of experience, and waxes it withorganic beeswax produced by a commune ofFrench apiarists who have forbidden theplanting of any gene-engineered plants withina radius of fifty kilometres. The boots arehand-made to order on hand-carvedindividual lasts by an anarchosyndicalistcooperative of Basque cobblers who breedtheir own cattle for the leather and mine theirown metals for the toecaps and eyelets. Notto mention the T-shirt made from 600-thread-count fair trade cotton grown by Egyptianfellahin using ancient methods handed downfrom the Pharaohs and spun by Quechuaweavers in authentic Inca ways . . .

This book is like the earlier books in thisseries; it has characters who are finely drawnand motivated, worlds with explicit, detailed,nuanced descriptions, stories which live up toMark Twain’s immortal stricture “That a taleshall accomplish something and arrivesomewhere.” (“Fenimore Cooper’s LiteraryOffenses”)

It is all so ugly.The world of New Crobuzon is devoid of

beauty, grace, and elegance. It is a crudemechanical realm, without any effort by itsinhabitants at art or decoration, and nofeelings by its inhabitants that might bejudged kindly, gentle, loving, or attractive. Sheer bloody realism with none of this oldsensitive pretty-pretty tripe, in other words.

The world wherein New Crobuzonfesters, er exists is going through an era ofupheaval. In the first section, a band ofrevolutionaries plot in the slums of the town,howling out their rage at the state of theworld. (It’s all very reminiscent of theanarchist movements of the nineteenthcentury, which like the anti-globalizationmovement of today worked hard atpersuading everyone that they weredangerously psychotic.)

Then, one of them escapes and after some wandering through the festering lands, gets ajob on a remarkably brutal railroad, one thatis reminiscent of a Stalinist project in thatthere is no pay, no community, and nopurpose. With somewhat better fortune thanthe zeks, the rail workers rebel, and evendefeat an army that strikes at them with thefinest of steampunk technology. Thisjuggernaut, the people themselves or their

train, or perhaps both as one, the Iron Councilof the title, begins a journey through thehellish twisted terrain of the lands outside, allthe better to get back at the oligarchy.

The oligarchy in New Crobuzon respondsby cracking down, and sure enough therebellion spreads. The fighters of the ParisCommune er New Crobuzon Collective arefaced by dire creations both magical andchymical, and when news from the IronCouncil arrive are about at the end of theirrope.

Then, finally, the Iron Council arrives,just as the militia of New Crobuzon is aboutto triumph. All lies in the hands of JudahLow the golem maker (how original) and heholds everything in his hands . . .

Here, more than before, Miéville mixestechnology and magic. His weaknessescontinue to plague him, the perpetual train ofthe Iron Council seems just a bit magical inits function. Similarly, the races, whether thefantastic or the Remade, seem just a bit tooimpossible when looked at closely, if you canlook at them closely without throwing up.

There is a conclusion, of course, but noneof that pretty-pretty tripe about anyonecoming out well. Oiks and away, ‘ats memotto.

MASTERS OF THE METROPOLISReview by Joseph T Major of

THE ALCHEMISTby Iain M. Banks

(Orbis; 2004; ISBN 1-84149-155-1;£17.99)

Hugo Nominee

If Carolyn Janice Cherry were to write aspace opera in the style of Richard PatrickRuss, this is the sort of space opera she wouldwrite. Of course, you probably know them as“C. J. Cherryh” and “Patrick O’Brian”. Asyou know, Gentle Reader, these works areladen with a writing technique called“infodump”, wherein much is directlyexplained to the reader, a methodology mostnotoriously demonstrated in the famed story “Masters of the Metropolis” by RandallGarrett and Lin Carter.

This publication, for example, is writtenusing a computer program of a type called“word processing”, which enables the writerto not only type but format his prose and evengo back to correct errors without usingcorrection fluid. Correction fluid, of course,

was a whitish substance that could be paintedon paper to cover errors . . . I think you getthe idea.

Cherry(h) is also well-known for a habitof introducing alien words with no referentsinto the text, making confusion even moreconfounded, although these are invented alienwords, not real (but obscurely or evenincorrectly used) cliquent, lambent, telic, andpreterite terms flung like a bayamo-sped jeridinto the reader’s argute, compulsory visage,as one other critic puts it about another writer. They looked horribly like children.

Banks has created here a vast andcomplex universe, full of different alienraces, humans with great and complexcapabilities yet still retaining their humanity,enormous intrigues and conflicts spanningeons and parsecs. It’s a universe where thecharacters live in it, not remain somehowunconnected. Somehow, though, for all thatBanks tells us about things in detail, thedetails seem to slip away when the readerlooks at them.

Oh well. Fassin Taak finds himselfwrenched out of his ordinary life anddispatched on a mission. Given that themission starts with him talking to his uncle,who is having his memories drained out ofhim preparatory to his demise, and has beenreshaped into a walrusoid, you get an idea ofhow extraordinary to us this “ordinary” is. Yet, again, Fassin lives in and is of this world.

The mission ships him across the stars,into relations with exotic, yet perfectlyconsistent, nonhumans (they’re familiar tohim so calling them “aliens” seems a bitmuch), finding mind-blowing devastations. He survives and learns to survive . . .

It’s an exotic universe that would beworth exploring on its own. Fassin is hardlya neurotic, inept ninny, he does what he canto survive and is affecting and interesting;you’d like to meet him. He doesn’t panic.

Similarly, his universe is one of greatdepth and detail. It has texture, it’s not one ofthose places where it was raining on theplanet that day. Only the parts don’t quiteseem to come together.

Thanks to David Herrington for lendingme a copy.

THE TEMPESTReview by Joseph T Major of

THIS SCEPTER’D ISLE

Alexiad June 2005

(Baen; 2004 ISBN 0-7434-98899-5; $7.99)and

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT (Baen; 2005; ISBN 0-7434-9890-9; $25.00)

by Roberta Gellis and Mercedes Lackey

A Domino factum et est mirable in oculisnostris!

“. . .We Englishmen happen to havemade an ideal of Elizabeth. With thatdelightful capacity for making ourown ideals and maintaining them inthe teeth of realities, we have chosento forget the fact that no sovereign ofordinary intelligence could havehelped being gilded by the reallyabnormal galaxy of talent whichillumined the age of Elizabeth. It wasthose gigantic geniuses who made theglory of England then. Englandhappened to be personified byElizabeth. Therefore, in English eyes,Elizabeth was great and glorious andall the rest. . .”

— Fr. Rolfe, Hadrian the Seventh

But, Denoriel Silverhair might point outto His Holiness, the galaxy of talent that Hecites had the liberty to operate as they willedthen. Should certain strictures have beenenforced, these writers — even He Himself,or George Arthur Rose anyhow — wouldhave been silenced, one way or another, in aRuled Brittania (by Harry Turtledove, 2002)under dominion domestic or foreign.

The Sidhe courts are dependent upon themortal world, cold iron or no. So, when aVision is given regarding the red-haired oneof This Scepter’d Isle, it falls to DenorielSilverhair, wizard and warrior, to go protectthe red-haired one, who doesn’t seem to bearound yet. The effect of the Inquisition(they do expect the Spanish Inquisition) isfatal to the Faerie life, as the late Faeriecourts in the Hispanic peninsula could attest. He doesn’t like the idea at first: “I am awarrior, not a nursemaid,” he says, provingthat Dr. Bones McCoy had faerie blood (aSTAR TREK™ fact I bet you never knew).

The Hungarian nobleman Lord Denno isa rum sort, a foreigner doncha know. However, he does have a bit of a dab hand athelpin’ out his Grace Thomas Howard, Dukeof Norfolk, and seein’ to the King’s byblowby Bessie Blount, Henry FitzRoy. Even if thelad doesn’t seem to be the red-haired one, he

needs protecting — and Denno, or Denoriel,is the one to do it.

Against threats both natural and human. It seems that Denoriel’s demi-siblings fromthe Unseleighe Court Pasgen and Rhoslyn(Good King Harry ain’t the only one who’sbeen sleeping around) are having it in for thelad, and Denoriel is at quite a spot of botherto save him from one unseleighe peril afteranother, beginning with a child-swap andgoing on to more dire straits. (Their lord isVidal Dhu. Gorey fellow, ain’t he?)

While Denoriel bounces back and forthbetween the Overworld and Faerie, and thevarious intrigues and executions of the Tudorcourt work their bloody way through, theworlds converge on the surprisinglycomprehending Henry FitzRoy, Duke ofRichmond and Somerset. Not to mention thelittle red-headed girl who calls him “Da”, forall that her father is his, too . . .

The protectors of Faerie and its enemies,both mortal and more-than-mortal, are Ill MetBy Moonlight in the gardens of HamptonCourt. Having escaped the normal fate ofKing Henry’s courtiers (i.e., he did not havean axe fall on his neck), the fellow they callLord Denno, and God or his Goddess helphim if he ever encounters “fellow Magyar”Count Francisco Ragozy de Saint-Germain(who, though broadly and deeply talented,wise, rich, well-educated, experienced andimpotent has the amazing ability to getembroiled in the most perilous and dangerousof circumstances time and again, aschronicled by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro), has topilot the Lady Elizabeth through the hazardsand ailments of normal life, not to mentionchildhood sicknesses, and also the prospect ofbeing attacked by beings of the UnseleigheCourt.

It’s not all violence and nasties; theportrayal of the Bazaar of the Bizarre,Faerie’s shopping mall, is amusing andinteresting. (Fortunately, we do not meetSkeeve, Aahz, and the rest of the gang fromAnother Fine Myth and the rest of Asprin’sseries . . .)

The authors present a detailed andinformed portrayal of the Overworld, er ofEnglish social mores and deeds in the days ofGood King Harry. Similarly, the faerieelements Underworld are fully informed ofthe tradition and use it wisely, carefully, andin keeping.

Their portrayal of people both real (Henry

FitzRoy, Elizabeth) and fictional (Denoriel) isone showing genuine love, affection, andconcern. The Sidhe are only human after all— well, where that counts.

It is fair to note that there seems to be abit too much magic being tossed around. While it’s all too well to make Pasgen andRhoslyn clever, cunning, imaginative, andpersistent — at least it makes them realpeople (so to speak) and worthwhile villains— at the same time the plot often hinges onmelodrama, with the merely human eventsbeing almost irrelevant, and the Faerie onesnigh comic-bookish.

These are books that can be read; with astory that begins somewhere and arrives atsomething, with personages that are alive,and can be distinguished from corpses and . .. well, I liked them, and will be waiting whenthis tale is . . . [To Be Continued]

This judgment I have of youthat you will not becorrupted with any mannerof gift, and that you will befaithful to the State, andthat, without respect of myprivate will, you will giveme that counsel that youthink best.

Elizabeth R.

ALL TOGETHER NOWReview by Joseph T Major of

IMPERIUMby Keith Laumer

Edited by Eric Flint(Baen; 2005; ISBN 0-7434-9903-4; $25.00)

Contains Worlds of the Imperium (1961),The Other Side of Time (1965), and

Assignment In Nowhere (1968)

In 1965, former U.S. Foreign Serviceofficer [John] Keith Laumer published thebook Embassy, a novel of some incidents inthe life and career of a military attaché. Which don’t seem to include, it seems, savingthe day at one post after another from theblunders of an incompetent superior who thentakes all the credit, but that’s another story, orperhaps a whole series of them. In the end,our hero is ready to go to his new posting inStockholm, while his fianceé admires her newengagement ring. I bring this up because,you see, the protagonist of that novel is one

Colonel Brion Bayard, which also happens tobe the name (and rank) of the protagonist ofthese novels — the first of which begins inStockholm!

Like so many of the “classics” of elderdays, these novels are comparatively short. The paperback edition of Worlds of theImperium I have (Ace Books; 1962, 1973;95¢) is 176 pages. By way of comparison,that work takes up one hundred sixty-twopages of this volume (466 pages total).

However, it is worth noting that thisvolume restores the original serialized versionof Worlds of the Imperium , which containedsome passages inexplicably cut. That is, mostreaders who have previously read it will findsomething new all the same. (There will be afew who read it in the Fantastic Storiesserialization of February-April 1961, but eventhey will now have a hardbound text on goodpaper.)

The concept of travelers betweenalternative worlds was, of course, hardly new. The best-known writer in that area was H.Beam Piper, who had done his ParatimeSeries beginning with “Police Operation”(Astounding, July 1948), albeit he was thenconcentrating more on his “Terro-HumanFuture History” of works such as SpaceViking (1962, 1963) and Little Fuzzy (1962). It wasn’t as if one could get an exclusivereservation on a concept, after all.

So . . . Colonel Brion Bayard is walkingabout enjoying the wonders of Stockholm,but being decidedly nagged by the fact that heis being followed. Then the followers jumphim, drag him into a truck, and then into astrange vehicle indeed. When (after somesurprising but not very practicable heroics)the vehicle arrives at the end of its journey,he finds himself — in Stockholm!

But not quite the Stockholm he wasassigned to. Here is where the reallyparatime stuff comes in. In 1893, two Italianscientists, Giulio Maxoni and Carlo Cocini,made a discovery about the fundamentalnature of time. For some reason, they seemto have felt that the local authorities weren’tup to the task, and as in other worlds a fellownamed Marconi (those names are suggestive,aren’t they?) would do, after Cocini’s deathin an accident during development, Maxoniwent to England. While Marconi became aMarchese in the Italian peerage and anhonorary Knight Grand Companion of theRoyal Victorian Order, Maxoni received apeerage and 1,000,000£.

June 2005 Alexiad

The alt-Kaiser of this timeline may havebeen less aggressive or less insecure than ourWilhelm II; the German and Britishgovernments agreed to stave off a destructivewar by slightly revamping the constitution ofthe German Empire to make the lower Saxonprince who just happened to be King of theUnited Kingdom and his other realms anddominions beyond the seas also GermanEmperor. (The point of divergence betweenthe two timelines, they have determined, is1790.)

The new federation discovered thatevidently timeline travel is not the safestthing in the worlds. All around them is a vastand trunkless, er devastated area, called withgood reason The Blight. For a long time, theexplorers of this Imperium had had to contentthemselves with travel to far-distanttimelines, ones where technology was hardlyas developed (thus not being destroyed by themalign effects of the Maxoni-Cocini drive). Then, they found one timeline in the Blightwhere this technology hadn’t been developed;but then there had been a devastating world-wide war.

However, the inhabitants of that timelinehad been a little suspicious, and may have gothold of some Imperial technology, combiningit with some of their own. (That sound youhere is Verkan Vall trying to keep his peoplefrom running around screaming “TheParatime Secret is out! The Paratime Secretis out!”) Namely a destructive bomb of vastpower and lingering effects. Which doesnaturally concern them.

Their covert investigations in the othertimeline turned up a chief suspect, a warlordof sorts. However, the happenstance ofevents in their line had not had his equivalentborn. Fortunately, not too long ago theydiscovered yet another timeline in the Blight,which in fact contained a man with the sameoriginal name, appearance, and indeedgenetic background as “HIS MARTIAL

EXCELLENCY , DUKE OF ALGIERS, WARLORD

OF THE COM BINED FORCES, M ARSHAL

GENERAL OF THE STATE, BRION THE FIRST,BAYARD , D ICTATOR.” (Page 41)

Thus the rather unsolicited removal. Colonal Bayard might well suspect that therewere the same, or much the same, people indiffering timelines, inasmuch as the directorof the service (he’s getting interviewed at thetop) is one Freiherr Manfred Albrecht vonRichthofen, and one of his subordinates, alsopresent, is one Hermann Wilhelm Göring.

(Evidently Laumer thought it too arcane toinclude the one intermediate commander ofJG 1 Richthofen, Wilhelm Reinhard.)

It’s not as if he can go back. Would oneturn down the opportunity to be an absolutedictator, warlord of the remnants of acrumbling world? As readily as a postman,Bayard decides to take the job. The fact thathe gets invited to a party where a gang ofmilitia from the third time-line attack, leavingbehind a dubiously-fuzed atomic demolitionsmunition with which they hoped to nukeStockholm, killing Bayard and his newgirlfriend, helps.

So Bayard, scion of Blight-InsularTimeline Three (ours), or B-I Three, is offfrom B-I One (the Imperium’s), to replace theBayard of B-I Two and try to stabilize thesituation. Imagine if suddenly one morningBeria, Molotov, Khrushchev, and suchpersonal staffers as Poskreybshev thepersonal secretary and General Vlasik thebodyguard had to deal with a suddenpersonality change in the Great Stalin, andprobably some apparent memory loss, too.

It turns out that Brion the First, Bayard, isnot quite as advertised, but others are thesame way, and after some rather hair-raisingadventures (given the tense trip through theBlight in a jury-rigged timeline-vehicle thatRichthofen takes, I wonder if Laumer knewabout the time that the B-I 3 Manfred vonRichthofen crashed his plane landing near hisbrother’s, trying to rescue him?) ColonelBayard finally becomes reconciled to his newsituation. His new girlfriend helps.

As I’ve said, the text of this editionrestores the text of the original serializedversion, presumably combining it with theadded material for book publication. It’s niceto have any hardback edition, much less anedition more in keeping with the author’sintent.

Bayard has settled down, married his newgirlfriend Barbro, rescued the dictatorBayard’s loyal butler Luc to be his loyalbutler (they could get good wine moreconsistently) and all is well. But thenintruders from The Other Side of Timeintrude, and Bayard finds himself in an emptyworld. Which soon gets filled by beings froman alternative evolution. Think Sawyer’sNeanderthal Parallax, though these guys, theHagroon, would probably think Ponter Bodditwas a big-time wimp. Fortunately a thirdintelligent race of alternative hominids popsin (isn’t this getting just a bit crowded?) and

then matters start getting really hairy (uh,right), with time-travel and the like becominginvolved . . .

Among the striking scenes in this workare the presentations of how it looks in theBlight; ones reminiscent of those views thatVerkan Vall would see through blinks in thefield around his Ghaldron-Hestor conveyor. Though if Vall had seen the devastation, hewould have commented that the First Level(the one where Earth’s resources wereexhausted and all lines but the Paratimersdestroyed themselves one way or another)can be pretty bad.

Richard Curlon, fisherman, is in a prettybad shape, boat sinking, threatened bymobsters, when a fellow named Bayardshows up and requisitions him for anAssignment In Nowhere. There is what mayseem to be a rather grating continuity errorhere; his name is John in the first chapter andRichard Henry Geoffrey Edward in thesecond and subsequent ones. Or, as we shallsee, perhaps a subtle significance.

Curlon is a significant fellow himself. Last descendant of the Plantagenets (I wonderwhat the descendants of Charles Somerset,natural son of Henry Beaufort, Duke ofSomerset and great-great-grandson of John ofGaunt, a substantial and titled family eventoday, would think of that?) he seems to be aintersection of many important time-lines. The mission, and he has no choice about notaccepting it, has to do with restoring thebroken sword of his ancestor Richard I,replacing a look-alike alternative on anothertime-line (where have we heard this before?)and finally having an encounter with astrange alternative in the past . . .

In the final chapter, Richthofen andBayard are talking about history, and bothwonder why they had been thinking thatRichard I of England had lived a long andsuccessful life, instead of dying in a pointlesssiege at Chaluz. Lord Darcy or Master SeanO Lochlann did not come by to clear mattersup, however. This also may explain theshifting first name.

The introduction by Harry Turtledove isa good lead-in to the curious notions thatstem from this road not taken of crosstimetravel. As when the hero of MichaelMcCollum’s A Greater Infinity (1980, 1982)found that his paratime-travelling new bossesdid not at first comprehend the concept of“spacesuit” . . .

The return to print of these interestingadventures is to be noted. Some people mayhave a certain grating feeling at the implicitacceptance of prolonged imperial andcolonial power; presumably, in B-I One, V. I.Ulyanov was an insigificant nuisance, AdolfHitler a street bum, and so on. Assumingthey existed, which is not certain. Bayardfound no trouble entering the service of theImperium, for they honored and acceptedbravery and self-sacrifice, values he foundwere being derogated in his timeline.

Welcome back.(In 1971, Laumer suffered a severe stroke,

which left him semi-paralyzed. More to thepoint, the stroke also caused a substantial andvery negative personality change. (We stillremember the story about him elbowing theman out of the way in the elevator atRivercon.) He continued to write until notlong before his death in 1993, but his workwas considerably inferior. Such as ZoneYellow (1990), the fourth (or fifth?)Imperium book, which reruns the idea andplot of The Other Side of Time with adifferent kind of bad guy outtimeliners. Completists might feel neglected or offendedby its absence from this volume, but it’sreally not worth it. Really.)

WHO WILL BE EATEN FIRST?Review by Joseph T Major of

SHACKLETON’S STOWAWAYby Victoria McKernan

(Alfred A. Knopf; 2005:ISBN 0-375-92691-7; $15.95)

Few men could be moreforbidding than Ernest Shackleton ina rage, and now, squarely facingBlackboro, his huge shouldersbunched, Shackleton berated theyoung Welsh stowaway mercilessly. Blackboro was terrified. Bakewell,H o w, and M cLeod , s tand inghelplessly by, never had expectedanything of this nature. But then, atthe height of this tirade, Shackletonpaused abruptly and put his face upclose to Blackboro’s. “Finally,” hethundered, if we run out of food andanyone has to be eaten, you will befirst. Understand?”

— Alfred Lansing, Endurance

Caroline Alexander (in her book, alsotitled Endurance) reported how Blackboro, or

Alexiad June 2005

as it’s spelled here, Blackborow, had repliedcheekily to Shackleton “They’d get moremeat off of you,” and in the splendidFirstsight Films production Blackborow(Celyn Jones) replies thus to Shackleton(Kenneth Branagh). Not quite here. [Incidentally, even here the casting iswonderfully well on the mark.]

I rather fancy this is a Young Adult novel;for one thing, the cover illustrations (the backhas the Hurley picture of Blackborow withthe ship’s cat Mrs. Chippy on his shoulder)are printed on the boards. And given itssetting, and contemporary constraints, there isno need for it to be located thus, but . . .

McKernan has focused her story on someof the lesser-known members of the ImperialTrans-Antarctic Expedition. The story beginswith two sailors down on their luck in a SouthAmerican port; Blackborow and his palWilliam Bakewell. Then Shackleton’sexpedition comes into harbor, and two menare discharged for drink. Bakewell, aCanadian from the Province of Michigan(yes, I know, but he was faking being“Imperial”) was hired on as permanent staffbut Blackborow was too young. However,Bakewell and his new friends didn’t think so,and they took him along . . .

The familiar events take on new life underher writing, including some of the sadderones, as when the unfit dogs and the ship’scat had to be put down. Similarly, McKernanis almost brutally frank in describing thefreezing and amputation of Blackborow’stoes. (Did he ever meet Admiral Peary? They might have had an interestingconversation.)

Towards the end, McKernan has to splither tale, and she includes scenes from otherpoints of view, such as of Timothy McCarthy(one of the crew of the escape boat JamesCaird), Tom Crean (see Michael Smith’s TomCrean (2000)), and Bakewell. Sheinterleaves the elements of her tale to someeffect, as when she describes Shackleton’sfirst attempt to get through to the castawayson Elephant Island from both sides — it wasso close, but the ice had already closed uparound the island.

The description of the sufferings of thecastaways might be considered too hard forsome children. McKernan portrays movinglytheir constant strain, the efforts by whichFrank Wild kept them going, and thedoggedness with which Shackleton kept ontrying. (She also mentions smoking; give her

points for realism.)McKernan deserves credit for mentioning

the loose ends; describing Shackleton’s plansto go to Ross Island and rescue the otherparty of Shackleton’s Forgotten Men (byLennard Bickel; 2000), telling what happenedto the men she featured, and generally leavingan impression that they went on after thestory ended. (The sort of thing that makessome people wish that Tolkien had left in thelonger Afterword to The Lord of the Rings inwhich Samwise tells his children whathappened to the rest of the Fellowship.) Aswhen McKernan describes how Blackborowheld his daughter Peggy in his lap to listen toa radio show about the Endurance expedition,and when the show got to a description oftheir having to shoot the dogs, she knew hewas crying.

She credits the aid of the Blackborow andBakewell families, and lists as sources anumber of the familiar books, includingBakewell’s, Hurley’s, Hussey’s, andWorsley’s memoirs, Roland Huntford’sbiography, and of course South by Shackleton(and Sanders) himself.

. . . Blackborrow, whose toes were sobadly frostbitten in the boats, had tohave all five amputated while on theisland. With insufficient instrumetnsand no proper means of sterilizingthem, the operation, carried out as itwas in a dark, grimy hut, with only ablubber-stove to keep up thetemperature and with an outsidetemperature well below freezing,speaks volumes for the skill andinitiative of the surgeons. I am glad tobe able to say that the operation wasvery successful, and after a littletreatment ashore, very kindly given bythe Chilean doctors at Punta Arenas,he has now completely recovered andwalks with only a slight limp. . .

— South

ANARQUIAReview by Joseph T Major ofTHE BREAKING POINT:

Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murderof José Robles

by Stephen Koch(Counterpoint; 2005:

ISBN 1-58243-280-5; $24.95)

There is a story which they tell

about an old Southern planter beingdriven to town. The coachman,noticing a horsefly on one ear of thehorse, flicked it off with a quick snapof his whip. When you’re hot, you’rehot, and so he proceeded to annihilatea grasshopper sitting by the side of theroad.

The planter was intrigued by thisdeadly accuracy and pointed to ahornet’s nest hanging from a tree bythe side of the road. “Can you trythat?”

The driver shook his head. “No,sir. A fly, he’s a fly, and agrasshopper, he’s a grasshopper, but ah o r n e t ’ s n e s t , n o w t h a t ’ sorganization!”

The writer John Dos Passos was amember of the Communist party in thetwenties and early thirties. Since I firstencountered him in National Review it wasn’tall that surprising to learn this. But whatmade Dos (as they called him) make thatshift? What screams did he hear in the nightand where did he hear them?

In this book, the author of Double Lives(1994, 1995, 2004) tells the frightening storyof how two authors were confronted with thereality of evil: one denied it, the otherrealized it, and yet the one who made themoral choice did not prosper.

José Robles Pazos was one of the peoplewho fought for democracy in Spain, or atleast the people who described it put it thatway. He had prospered since that day in1916 when he met John Dos Passos nearMadrid, but gave it all up to go home whenthe fighting started. He became a seniorofficer under the Loyalists, assigned to liasingwith the International Brigades.

Another supporter of the Republic wasPapa. Ernest Hemingway, that is, and for himthe Spanish Civil War was just like being ina great big safari. (One point Koch makes isthat after the “victory of fascism”,Hemingway continued to travel thereunharmed and unconcerned.) Neverthelesshe was surrounded by Communists, includinghis then current squeeze, Martha Gellhorn. Koch describes Hemingway’s infidelity andcruelty in terms worthy of Paul M. Johnson’sIntellectuals (1989).

When they traveled there, then, Dosdecided to look up his old friend José Robles. Who, however, had disappeared. This book

tells of how Dos Passos tried to find out whathad happened, and how Hemingway kept ondrinking, shooting, and, er, having sex,showing what a hairy-chested macho man hewas, while surrounded by Communists.

Robles had disappeared one night, just aspeople in Moscow or Kiev would disappearone night. Dos tried a number of maneuversto get to the bottom of this; from their failureone gets the idea that there was anorganization behind all this.

Koch concludes by describing theirseveral declines. The collapse of the SpanishRepublic as Stalin decided he had got aboutall he could get out of the situation, thedecline of Dos Passos’s literary reputation,Hemingway’s literary rise and fall combinedwith his increasingly driven and suicidal life: these make for a melancholy and eeriecontrast. Was it all connected in the end?

Annoyingly, the book has no index andscatters its bibliography amid the copiousfootnotes (see one below). Anyone lookingfor evidence on how, say, the Anarchistscould somehow have rallied and defeated theCommunists and their organization, and thenthe Nationalists, and then so on, will have tolook carefully. Why they couldn’t is howeversomewhat more obvious.

LITERARY NOTE

2. Hemingway rarely named hislater heroes very felicitiously: there’ssomething a little stilted and fake innames like “Philip Rawlings” and“Robert Jordan”. . .

— The Breaking Point, Page 305

I thought there was something stilted andfake about the author of The Wheel of Time! (And sure enough, “Robert Jordan” is apseudonym; his real name is James OliverRigney, Jr.)

AKU-AKUReview by Joseph T Major of

COLLAPSE:How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

by Jared Diamond(Viking; 2005; ISBN 0-670-03337-5;

$29.95)

Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997) played asignificant role in the collapse or lack thereofof some of these societies, but other factorswere involved also. The author of Guns,

June 2005 Alexiad

Germs, and Steel now returns to the otherside of that topic; having shown how societiessucceed, he discusses how they fail.

Diamond begins close to home, as it were,describing his memories and experiences inMontana; both the breathtaking vistas and theundesirable consequences thereof. Thoserange from yuppification to heavy-metalpoisoning (and he means the actual minerals,left in mine residues, not the music, no matterhow bad it is). But Montana is hardly anexample of a “failed” society, in spite of itsproblems.

The failed societies he discusses areglobe-spanning and range over a broad sweepof history. Easter Island, for example, whichsome of us at least were introduced to in ThorHeyerdahl’s Aku-Aku (1958). No matterwhat Heyerdahl’s beliefs were, he went outthere, collected information, and published.

Easter Island, Rapa Nui, once upon a timewas heavily populated and had a vast varietyof flora and fauna. But when Europeanscontacted it, they found a treeless, devastatedplace. Diamond describes the process thatled from one state to the other. (Unfairly, hepresents a “rapacious capitalist” view in theearly chapters and only later provides thenuanced, realistic “common heritage” view inthe back of the book.) The Rapa Nuians cutdown all the trees, which led to the extinctionof the various bird species and an inability tobuild boats, further restricting their foodchoices.

Fletcher Christian took the Bounty outinto the wilds of the ocean, and discovered anunoccupied island. But Pitcairn Island hadbeen populated before. Why did theinhabitants of that and its neighbor islandperish? There seems to have been flourishingtrade among Pitcairn, Henderson Island, andMangareva Island, each having a resource theothers lacked — and then the trees onMangareva ran out. No more canoes, nomore trade, eventually no more people on theother two islands.

Pitcairn Island had a little war of its own,and the Mayans had bigger ones, it seems. As with Arther Ferrill’s The Fall of theRoman Empire: The Military Explanation(1986), points to conflict as a significantcause of the Mayan collapse of the eighth andninth centuries. Not the only one, but afurther consideration.

Restricted food choices are the topic ofthe next few chapters, which discuss the fateof the Greenland Colony. Which may have

learned too much from Iceland. In Iceland,the environmental balance is so fragile thatany change is likely to be for the worse — theisland was deforested by the early settlers(see above about Easter Island andMangareva), which meant that it was soonde-topsoiled, too. Having learned this lesson,the Norsemen applied it in Greenland. Whichmeant, for example, that when the Little IceAge kicked in and it became too hard to keepcattle and sheep, they didn’t want to emulatethe skraelings and eat fish, so they starvedwhile the Inuit flourished. Why Peary, whowent native, did better than Nares, whoupheld the traditions of the Royal Navy (youknow, “rum, sodomy, and the lash”) in otherwords.

Not all is bad, as Diamond cites the casesof two island systems that did manage t okeep their environments and political systemsstable and healthy: Tikiopia and Japan. Yes,he cites a tiny Pacific island with a populationof about a thousand in parallel with themighty Empire.

In each case, the society adopted drasticmeasures to ensure stability. On Tikiopia, thepopulation is controlled by various measures,from sending young men off on journeyswhere Safe Return Doubtful, down to puttinghot stones on pregnant women’s bellies. Asfor Japan, Diamond cites the TokugawaShogunate’s policy of re-forestation as ane x a m p le o f i n t e l l i g e n t , d e s i r a b l eenvironmental management.

In the modern era, Diamond begins bydiscussing the affair of Rwanda. Given hisapproach, it is easy but facile to follow theargument ad Starship Troopers and credit thesource to population pressure. And hedoesn’t regard it as the sole cause, albeit hecredits it, and given the topic of the book it isjustifiable to discuss that factor.

The next chapter is a real-world “compareand contrast”. Flying over Hispaniola, it ispossible to see the boundary between Haitiand the Dominican Republic. Haiti isdeforested, the Dominican Republic isn’t. Here, Diamond argues, it was a combinationof cultural and political factors that led to thisdisparate development.

The compare-and-contrast extends to thenext two chapters, where China and Australiaare discussed, each with their variousdevelopmental and population dynamics. The Australians seem to have been overfondof farming Like The Poms Did, which stylewasn’t quite exactly suited to the climate of

Australia.Finally, Diamond discusses in detail the

application of all this to the rest of the world.

Several of Diamond’s attitudes can becalled into question. He seems to have aremarkable overfondness for authoritarianleaders, from the tai-i-seishogun TokugawaIeyasu on down to el Benefactor, RafaelMolina Trujillo of the Dominican Republic,a man with a personality cult on a level withStalin’s.

On a more theoretical concept, in one ofthe less-well conceived sections of the book,Diamond discusses the famous wager ofJulian Simon and Paul Ehrlich over rawmaterial prices, and states that in spite ofSimon’s victory, Ehrlich was still right. (Ehrlich’s problems stem from his applyingthe population dynamics of insects, his fieldof study, to human populations. This was,after all, a man who predicted in the latesixties that India would be destroyed byfamines by 1975, and hasn’t done muchbetter since.)

In general, Diamond can be seen toapplying his expertise perhaps too generally. He doesn’t go as far as the single-causists(e.g. Mark Kurlansky, who in Salt: A WorldHistory (2002, 2003) attributes all worldhistory to salt); the variety of topics hediscusses makes a single-cause explanationunfeasable. Yet he does tend to discountexplanations outside of the causes he doesdiscuss.

Scientists outside the lab often show adismaying fondness for autocratic politics. The performances, or antics, of folks asrespected as Einstein and Oppenheimer intheir admiration for Stalin would make theapocalyptic predictions of tyrannicalScientists’ Councils found in pulp SF — theautocracy of Professor Parham, Ph.D. — allthe more plausible; the diktats and deeds ofeugenicists from Margaret Sanger on down(see War Against the Weak: Eugenics andAmerica’s Campaign to Create a MasterRace (2003) by Edwin Black for examples ofhow democratic liberal societies can strive tooutdo Nazi dreams) argue further in supportof this thesis.

HOW TO GO BATSReview by Joseph T Major of

THE BATMAN HANDBOOK:The Ultimate Training Manual

by Scott Beatty

(Quirk; 2005; ISBN 1-59474-023-2;$15.95)

In the tradition of The Forensic Files ofBatman (2004) [reviewed in Alexiad V. 3 #6]and The Action Hero’s Handbook (2002)[reviewed in Alexiad V. 2 # 1] is this work, acombination of them. Imagine yourselfsitting on the filthy pavement of Crime Alley,Gotham, crying over the bullet-riddled bodiesof your parents. What will you do? Thiswork explains what and how.

Like the Moensch book, this volume isbased in fact; Beatty has researched how todo the fantastic things Batman does, and thisexplains how to do them. Should you have tofight a room full of thugs, for example, thisproffers some useful advice:

Step 6: Get ready for multipleattackers. Real fights aren’t choreographed likethe ones you see in action movies.Thugs don’t wait their turns as youspar with them one at a time . . .

— The Batman Handbook, Page 113

Other useful fighting tips range from thelikely (how to disarm a gunman at closerange) to the unlikely (how to keep fromgetting poisoned by Poison Ivy’s poisonouskisses) to the odd (how to keep from gettingfrozen by Mr. Freeze, which can also beuseful in mundane places like out in thewoods in winter). Also the way to defeatCatwoman’s whip, which does not touch onhow to keep her out of his Bat . . . well nevermind.

Besides fighting, other handy tips includebasic criminology, such as how to avoidcontaminating a crime scene. The Boulder,Colorado police department should have hadsomething like this before they went to theRamsey house to see about the murder ofJon-Bénet. The section on interrogation endswith a question of understanding theRiddler’s riddles. (With Zodiac and BTK tomind, the Riddler’s habit of sending outadvance notices of his crimes now seems lessimprobable.)

In addition, this book contains variousbiographical bits, including such items as thequestion of sidekicks, selecting, training, anddealing with them, with particular attention tothe history of the three boys who were (are)Robin: Dick Grayson (now Nighthawk),Jason Todd (now deceased), and Tim Drake

Alexiad June 2005

(now Robin). Or, tips on how to maintain asecret identity.

With a light hearted delivery (includingillustrations of all our old friends in action) ofserious material, this book is interesting andreadable. (One demurrer; in the list ofessential background books, I’d prefer SirSydney Smith’s Mostly Murder to MiltonHelpern’s Where Death Delights.)

AIR CONDITIONINGTrip Report by Joseph T Major

Xanadu 8/DeepSouthCon 43April 8-10, 2005

I had had some auspicious premonitions(Right!!!) when a co-worker told me that hehad been in a three-hour traffic jam goingthrough Nashville. Also, the bridge on theinterstate highway I-65 south of Louisville isunder repair, and down to two lanes(sometimes one). Nevertheless, I shut downon Thursday afternoon, did the final laundry,and we went to bed.

Friday, April 8, 2005Louisville — Bowling Green — Nashville

On Friday morning we went to Dooley’sBagels for breakfast, then took off south toBowling Green. In spite of those highwayconcerns, the trip was easy, we got to theBowling Green County Attorney’s office,then had lunch with my cousin Pat Chism, notparticularly unmoved by the cancellation ofJAG (Pat is a JAG Naval Reservist, with aless interesting life than Harm, much lessMac).

His wife could have met us but shecouldn’t make it; reluctantly, we went onsouth towards Nashville. There was someroad building along the way and we failed tomake one turnoff, but we agreed to see therelative later.

I should have asked for an even-numberedroom. As it was, I demurred upon learningthat a room refrigerator would be $10 a day,perhaps I shouldn’t have. Or was it beingbehind guest Connie Willis as we checkedin?

Got our luggage up to the room, thenwent down to check out the situation. MikeResnick was out and about, while Tom &Anita Feller were doing their work. KhenMoore was lazing around watching DanCaldwell doing what he had done. Roger &Pat Sims reported that their house hadn’t

been blown away by last year’s hurricanes, soperhaps there’s hope.

This time, it seems, there was a computererror and our memberships just hadn’t got in. The advance of technology makes it possibleto make mistakes quicker and morethoroughly than ever before. Debbi Hussey,professional restaurant-finder, got us checkedin.

Thanks to Ops for letting me keep mymedicine and freezer package in their fridge,by the way.

While we talked to Mike, he saw SueFrancis and told her that they had had a goodrest, thank you, and what would they do forRiverCon next year? (Mike is, shall we say,less than entranced with the currentconvention in Louisville.) Sue and, later on,Steve (Francis) demurred.

There were a few minutes to kill and wewent to Borders’ on West End, where I gotthe Hugo-nominated movie The Incredibles. We trickled back and stopped in to see HankReinhardt commit mayhem on innocentpaper towel tubes; he was demonstratingsword procedure, with Guy Lillian amongthe enthusiastic spectators. Outside wasRichard Dengrove, who makes a policy ofcoming to DSC no matter where it is.

Opening Ceremonies went off almost ontime. Dan introduced the guests, whichbeside Mike and Connie included “UncleTimmy” Bolgeo, and encouraged everyone tohave a good time at the parties.

We spent a little time at the CincinnatiFantasy Group party, which as it happenedwas down the hall. There was also theTriNocCon party (DSC 2006). The partieswere very orderly — with the usual mess ofconversation and a few drinks, but nothingwe couldn’t handle.

And so to bed.

Saturday, April 9, 2005Nashville

Next time at that hotel, if there is a nexttime, as I mentioned, I’ll ask for an even-numbered room. The sunlight woke us up atseven — we were on the east side of thebuilding.

The hotel breakfast room was nice. Whilethey didn’t have much in the way of thingsthat required cooking, you could have toast(white or whole wheat), English muffins, orbagels. They had fruit; apples, bananas,various juices. There was also dry cereal,

oatmeal, and cinnamon rolls. Milk, ofcourse, to go with the cereal but there wasnothing keeping me from drinking it by itself. And coffee and tea.

The room was filling up by the time wegot there — the traditional DSC heartstournament continued in the atrium, by theway — and so when Richard Dengrove camedown he joined us, and we had some verynice conversations.

At noon, Amy Sturgis spoke on the topicof “Rowling and Tolkien”, avoiding the socommon attitudes that if one is good the othermust not be, that neither is any good but<insert obscure author> is great, and so on.

Tim Lane and Elizabeth Garrott got infor the day and managed to see a few things. We accumulated a substantial stack of booksat the Larry Smith table (his wife was runningit), $216 worth. They paid off their sharebefore they left.

I saw the beginning and ending of thepresentation by Toni Weisskopf [Reinhardt]on the topic of What’s Coming Next fromBaen? She had seemed to think that what Ihad written and submitted to them back inSeptember (as Evelyn Leeper had suggested)would at least have interesting details. Staytuned.

(In the middle I stepped out to meet mycousin Joe W. Giles, former president of theAssociation of Tennessee Music Directors. Joe’s first job was at a Methodist church,which is interesting since he is anEpiscopalian, and doubly so because theminister was his and my cousin John B.Sessoms.)

I wasn’t feeling all out so I went back toour room to rest up before our event, and thenwent to meet Guy & Rosy at the end of theirfund-raiser. The Faneds Dinner wassplendid. Unfortunately Roger and Pat Simshad a more pressing engagement. You guysmissed a really good place. We gave Guy &Rosy Lillian and Richard Dengrove a ridedown to Noshville; Tom & Anita Feller andDebbi Hussey had gone ahead, and much toour surprise, we were joined by NaomiFisher, her brother, and her and Pat’s newdaughter Grace. If it weren’t for a differentmeeting in another town for another outfit,Pat Molloy would also have been there.

We discussed the dearth of new faneds,what worthwhile items were out there, andother such relevant topics. One of which washow GOOD the place was. Kudos and happyawards to Debbi for recommending the place.

Afterwards, after dropping our passengersoff at the hotel, we went to Davis-Kidd. Since Larry Smith didn’t have the two Hugonominee novels, Jonathan Strange & MrNorrell and Iron Council, I got them there.

We looked in on the parties, but we hadhad our party for the night.

And so to bed.

Sunday, April 10, 2005Nashville — Hopkinsville

Again, up early thanks to the inadequatecurtains. Breakafast in the breakfast roomwith Richard, and then out and about to seewho and what there was to be seen.

The winner of the 2007 DeepSouthConbidding is Bob Embler’s OutsideCon,September 7-9, 2007, in Clarksville,Tennessee. Fortunately for the campinglychallenged, there is a hotel not far from thecamping grounds.

The Fanzine Panel had a certainproportion between the panelists and theattendees. Admittedly, one was a ringer,namely Lisa. And Richard Dengrove wasthere too.

Tim Bolgeo kept on insisting that emaildistribution was the only way to go and surerecipients wouldn’t mind in the slightestpaying the printing bills. Guy kept onemphasizing the desirable physical feeling ofan actual mailed and printed zine. I don’t liketo point this out, but reading fanzines on aPDR is reading small text with no formatting.

They did put us up against the panel withConnie Willis and Mike Resnick. Grrr.

Then there came Closing Ceremonies. Dan explained that what with half his staffleaving and a certain exhaustion, the nextXanadu, date to be announced, would morelikely be a relaxacon. And with that the partywas over.

After leaving we went to see my cousinVaden the lawyer, only getting lost twice. Ishould have gone down West End, notBroadway. For history buffs, Vaden’s fatherwas captured in the Battle of the Bulge,having a better time than Kurt Vonnegut.

The next cousin we wanted to see wasunwell, so we headed off north to see cousinBennett and his wife Edwine, both of whomare ailing. Most people their age are dead,and they are living at home, so there’s that. We recalled a few good old times, then wereoff to Mayfield to see Lisa’s aunt and uncle.

Or maybe not. As we got close to

June 2005 Alexiad

Clarksville, I noticed that the Check Enginelight was on. I tried to get in touch with myyounger brother (he teaches at Austin PeayState University, which is where I got mycomputer science degree) but he was out;instead we drove very carefully toHopkinsville, ate dinner there and then calledBennett’s sister Mae and told her about herbrother’s state and ours. She very kindlyoffered us hospitality.

Told Mae about Bennett and all the otherfolks in Nashville until we began yawning.

And so to bed.

Monday, April 11, 2005Hopkinsville — Clarksville — Hopkinsville

We took the car out to the dealer’s in themorning. It turned out that the Check Enginelight was a minor thing, but the airconditioner needed a part they didn’t have. So we had to spend an extra night there, andcouldn’t get to Mayfield to see Lisa’s auntand uncle.

We went to the local flea market and Ifound a DVD of Eternal Sunshine of theSpotless Mind for a very reasonable price. That’s two Long Form Hugo Nominees.

The mother of some friends from mychildhood had died, and Mae was going tothe visitation. Lisa and I did so a little later,after our shopping trip. Remembering a kidwho sat in the shed in back of your housebellowing out a song about Marilyn Monroeand Brigitte Bardot, and seeing a grave,white-haired, successful adult who is thesame kid plus forty years is, well, science-fictional. They remembered me too, andwere as surprised to see me as vice versa, alsograteful.

I called my older brother, who alsoremembers Breck and Mike, and he informedme that he was on the way to eat dinner withour younger brother and his wife, if we werenearby we could make it. We were and wedid.

Got home very late, and told Mae aboutall the wonderful things that had eventuated.

And so to bed.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005Hopkinsville — Louisville

Up late again. We had a most pleasantbreakfast with Mae, then loaded up our carand left with many thanks on both sides forthe dealer’s. But we had to wait an hour for

the part to come in. It came in, with thequalification that it would take two hours toinstall. At least it’s all on warranty.

We got in a good bit of reading before thehose was installed, but all too late the car wasin our hands again, and we went home, witha dinner stop at Bunbaker’s in Elizabethtown,through intermittent rain, to find six lonelyfelines emitting Piteous Mews™ of greeting.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005I had to recover from my travels.

TRIPLE CROWNby Lisa

Once again there will be no Triple Crownwinner. I can’t say that I’m really sorry thistime, as the alternative would have been forAfleet Alex to suffer what probably wouldhave been a fatal fall .And at least AfleetAlex had been in the Derby. He wasn’t somefresh horse turning up just in time to spoil aTriple Crown bid. It should also be notedthat Afleet Alex doubles as a cancer fundspokescreature. I can’t begrudge him his winafter the terrific feat he managed. It evokedmemories of Alysheba and his similar feateighteen years ago. I never thought I wouldsee such a feat again but I have. I like suchfeats much better than I like the alternative.

CANDY BAR REVIEWNestle Crunch With Peanut Butter

Review by Johnny Carruthers

Hershey isn’t the only companyproducing limited edition candy bars. Nestleentered that arena a few months ago with theCrunch With Peanut Butter Bar.

Structurally, the bar uses the same moldas the Crunch With Caramel Bar. The base ofthe bar is the Nestle Crunch bar – milkchocolate with crisped rice. A layer of peanutbutter rests on top of the Crunch bar base,enclosed with a dome of plain milk chocolate(no crisped rice here).

Overall, the taste of the bar is rather likea Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup that has hadcrisped rice added to it. (That’s a variationthat Hershey hasn’t tried yet, but I am certainthey will given enough time.) Unfortunately,there isn’t enough peanut butter in this bar. The flavors of the chocolate and the crispedrice overwhelm the flavor of the peanutbutter. And it is a creamy peanut butter, sothere is no additional texture to differentiate

it from the other ingredients.The bar might have been better if there

had been more of the peanut butter filling, sothat the peanut butter flavor would be moredistinct. Another way it could have beenimproved would be if the peanut butter wascrunchier, such as the inside of a Butterfingerbar. This would have given the bar anadditional crunch.

The Crunch With Peanut Butter Barwasn’t bad. It just didn’t have something thatwould make it stand out. If Nestle decides tobring it out for another run, I hope they do alittle tweaking to make it stand out.

CANDY BAR REVIEWButterfinger Crisp

Review by Johnny Carruthers

I first saw the Butterfinger Crisp bar onthe shelves sometime last year. I’ve tried anumber of them over the past few months,and it does make an interesting addition toNestle’s product line.

The center of the bar is several wafers(vanilla flavored, I’m guessing) layered withthe same peanut butter filling that comprisesthe center of the Butterfinger bar. This iscovered in milk chocolate, and sprinkled ontop is what appears to be more Butterfingercandy bits.

The original Butterfinger bar has a hardcrunch when you bite into it. TheButterfinger Crisp bar, on the other hand, hasa more delicate crunch to it. The wafers seemto offset the crunch, giving it a more mutedsound (at least to my ears).

The wafers also give the bar a slightlydifferent flavor. As I said, they seem to bevanilla flavored, because that is the flavorthat hits my tongue when I first bite into thebar. The peanut butter flavor isn’t as distinctas it is in the original Butterfinger bar duringthe initial bite. The peanut butter flavorbegins to assert itself after a few seconds, andbecomes more dominant as I chew. Meanwhile, the chocolate takes a moresupporting role, providing a backdrop againstwhich the flavors of the peanut butter andwafers display themselves.

The Butterfinger Crisp bar is now aregular part of the Nestle candy bar productline. If you want to try it, you don’t have torush out right away in the fear that itspresence on the shelves is only temporary. You just have to find a store that carries it. Which, from what I have seen, is most of the

stores that usually carry Nestle candy bars.

THE TWILIGHT OF ATHEISM:The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in

the Modern Worldby Alister McGrath(Doubleday; 2004;

ISBN 0-385-50061-0; $23.95)A book review by E. B. Frohvet

The basic premise of this book is thatatheism is a failed experiment of the 19thCentury.

Professor McGrath argues, with somejustice, that a large part of the originalmotivation behind atheism was politicalrather than theological, e.g., Karl Marx. Those who resented an arbitrary, top-downpolitical system in which they were deprivedof any role, quickly transferred that hostilityto the institutional churches that were partand parcel and defender of that status quo. Ina secondary sense, ivory-tower intellectualswho embraced atheism did so from a naïvebelief in the perfectability of humanitythrough reason. Remove the arbitrary,dogmatic morality imposed by religion, andthe human race would invent better systems.(See, e.g., Wells, In the Days of the Comet.) In short, no one had actually tried an atheistsystem. Now we know better. The SovietUnion failed because it was so detached fromthe realities of human needs and ambitions.Arguably, at least one factor in which itavoided reality was depriving citizens of thereligious outlets many desired.

So far, so good.However, McGrath — a self styled failed

atheist who has returned to Christianity — having concluded atheism is a failure, isconveniently satisfied to ignore any realitythat conflicts with his idea. The sexual abusescandal of the last decade is not mentioned atall: it’s irrelevant to his premise. Theworldwide network of Islamic terrorism, orany of a dozen other examples of barbarismdriven by religious fanaticism, are not theauthor’s concern. The professor citesapprovingly, as proof of the decline ofatheism, the rapid growth of Pentecostal andcharismatic churches and cults, with theiremphasis on emotion, spontaneity, “speakingin tongues”. That these churches aresimplistic, theologically vacant, andpatronized mainly by the poor and ignorantwho are easily manipulated, does not troubleMcGrath. Anything, it seems, is better than

Alexiad June 2005

atheism.The worst fault of this book is that it

defines atheism as a movement — i.e.Communism — determined to impose itself,rather than a personal decision. There’s aconnection, surely, but it’s not the lockstepidentity that McGrath apparently sees.

The author does make the interestingpoint that the Protestant Reformationindirectly encouraged atheism, by what hecalls the Disconnection of the Sacred. Influential Protestant reformers, as Zwingliand Calvin, preferred plain whitewashedchurches so as not to distract from thepreaching; but, “The dull, joyless andunattractive churches of Protestantismconveyed the subliminal message that theGod who was to be found in them sharedthose disagreeable characteristics.” There’ssomething to that.

THE MEANING OF EVERYTHING:The Story of the Oxford English

Dictionaryby Simon Winchester

(Oxford University Press, 2003,260 pages/indexed, $25.00,

ISBN 0198607024)Reviewed by Jim Sullivan

The British Philological Society decided

in the mid-1800s that they wanted to producea new English dictionary. After a series offalse starts, the program got underway.

“It was 12 May 1860,” writes the author,“— and though most of those involvedthought their work would come to fruitionwithin the following decade, it was in fact tobe 68 years and three weeks from that startingdate before the great work finally saw thelight of day. The Rules were in place, theteam was assembled, and now, that latespring day, the clock had finally startedticking.”

Samuel Johnson, the good English doctor,had produced a dictionary over a hundredyears earlier in 1755. But that contained amere 43,500 described words. Moreover, itsdefinitions were sometimes more complicatedthan words being described. And NoahWebster had produced his dictionary inAmerica in 1828 with 70,000 words.Therefore, the Society decided that a newer,more comprehensive dictionary was required.And so in 1860 work was begun in England.

Over a few years, with different editors,part-timers mainly, and lots of difficulties, the

book’s progress slowed almost to a stop. Itscomplications pointed to the need for afull-time editor. That’s when James Murray,an informally educated wordsmith, holdingno earned university degree, was discoveredand appointed editor. He resumed work onthe dictionary and in an organized manner,too. Several sub-editors and numerousvolunteer helpers from all over theEnglish-speaking world, including fromAmerica, Canada, Australia, and NewZealand, were added.

Mostly, he wanted quotations, from theseunpaid helpers, in which various words of thedictionary were used. Many of these peoplewere eccentrics. A case in point: the mentallyderanged, convicted murderer who wasserving a life sentence in prison. And hebecame one of the best contributors to thedictionary. Most of these far-flung volunteerssent in thousands of quotations.

And so, work moved forward, if at aglacial pace. Moreover, the decade or soplanned for the dictionary’s completionended and more time passed. The PhilologicalSociety eventually approached severalprominent publishers to get quotes forprinting and publication of the dictionary.

Now publishers of consequence were notinterested in what was rapidly becoming thelongest running book project ever undertakenin such an obscure field. Even Oxford Pressconnected to the famous University inEngland, though accustomed to publishingacademic books with minimal sales and littleor no profit, turned the project down.

At long last, however, a wealthyEnglishman who liked the idea of the newdictionary and who was well connected withOxford prevailed upon its Delegates, theboard that ran Oxford Press, to take on thedictionary project. After much wrangling, acontract was signed, but, of course, the newmanuscript didn’t come to the printers asscheduled. As a consequence, Murray, itseditor, was pressured to produce the workwith less than his usual thoroughness. Heresisted, though he took a verbal batteringfrom those Oxford people. And he did not cuta word from the book.

And so, months, years, and decadespassed. Eventually, because of delays, OxfordPress began publishing the dictionarypiecemeal and selling it by subscription. Thefirst part of the letter ‘a’ was brought out andsent to subscribers. The purchaser would geteach portion as it was printed till the

dictionary was complete. But even thesesmall sections came out only once a year, ifthat often.

In 1928, a celebration, described withinthe book, was held for the publishing of thefinal sections of the dictionary. By this time,the original name, “A New English Dictionaryon Historical Principles,” had been changedto the “Oxford English Dictionary,” or OEDas we know it today. Oxford Press had putup most of the money and had taken thebiggest risks, so they deserved the namesake.The dictionary’s many parts, containing15,900 pages, 414,826 words, and 1,824,306illustrative quotes (out of the over 5,000,000quotes submitted by volunteers), werehardbound into thirteen volumes. But by itsvery nature, it was never finished. Soon,supplemental books encompassing newwords that had recently entered the Englishlanguage were being published. In the 1980s,a completely new edition of the dictionarywas brought out. It was comprised of twentyvolumes. And no t long afterward,supplemental books for it, were being printed,too.

The first set was estimated to have cost375,000 English pounds. That seemedreasonable to the parties involved. . After all,it was thought to have been one of the finest,most monumental, and truly important effortsfor any language in history.

An even more current OED is beingcompiled as you read this review. It has somany words that its publisher, OxfordUniversity Press, is seriously thinking of notpublishing it in book form, which wouldrequire at least forty volumes, but of bringingit out in digital form only, for use on theinternet.

Simon Winchester has previously writtenKrakatoa among other tomes. He divides histime between the U.S and Scotland.

Recommended for English speakerseverywhere.

FANZINES

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Nice Distinctions #9 March 2005Arthur D. Hlavaty, 206 Valentine Street,Yonkers, NY 10704-1814 [email protected]://www.efanzines.com

Opuntia # 56.3 April 2005, #57 May 2005Dale Speirs, Box 6830, Calgary, AlbertaT2P 2E7 CANADA

Plokta V. 9 #2 November 2004, V. 10 #1March 2005The Cabal, various places (but mainlyAlison Scott, 24 St. Mary Road,Walthamstow, London, E17 9RG UK)Hugo NomineeOr to be precise, SkypeCaptain and the

June 2005 Alexiad

Plokta of Tomorrow and Never Mind theBollocks, Here’s the New Plokta. LPs? Heck, I remember 78s!

Spiritus Mundi #207 April-May 2005Guy H. Lillian III, 8700 Millicent Way#1501, Shreveport, LA 71115-2264 [email protected]’s apazine for SFPA, with his reporton Xanadu.

Vanamonde # 578-587John Hertz, 236 S. Coronado Street, No.409, Los Angeles, CA 90057-1456 USA

Visions of Paradise #102Robert Michael Sabella, 24 Cedar ManorCourt, Budd Lake, NJ 07828-1023 [email protected]://visionsofparadise.blogspot.com/

The Zine Dump #8Guy H. Lillian III, 8700 Millicent Way#1501, Shreveport, LA 71115-2264 [email protected]://www.challzine.net

REAL OR NOTby Rodney Leighton

Joe wondered what I considered a for realfanzine. As it happened, the day before thelatest issue of Alexiad appeared I received apackage which had a customs sticker whichdeclared that it contained twenty fanzines. Surely not, I thought, it ain’t very thick. Butmy friend can count.

The package contained Banana Wings#20; Trap Door #23, eight issues of TheDrink Tank, and twelve issues of VegasFandom Weekly. Challenger #12 was largerthan the entire package. Which doesn’t havemuch relevance but it interested me.

I read everything I wanted to in thesefanzines within two days.

Banana Wings is a good solid paperfanzine. I couldn’t find any indication thatany portion of it is available on the Internet. But I also have never seen any indication ofhow one gets dumped off their mailing list. In any event, I would have personally wishedfor good old North American sized paperrather than that legal-sized stuff Brits preferbut this is a good solid publication which I satback in my chair, puffed on my pipe, andenjoyed reading, mostly. There were a fewarticles and sections which did not interest me

but I would guess I read thirty of the thirty-five pages with interest.

Trap Door is a good solid fanzine whichis apparently partially available via ether or issoon to be. It is a nice size to hold whilelounging in the chair and smoking a pipe. Itcontains much good reading. I had alreadyread the Silverberg piece since it was in theFAPA mailing I got; it was interesting thefirst time. There is an article on visiting anuclear reactor which I skipped due to lack ofinterest. Everything else was good. Mygracious, that Carol Carr is a wonderfulwriter! It was a tad weird reading the HarryWarner loc. I might do a The Knarley Knewscolumn on this one.

Conversely, while I appreciated my friendprinting them off the net and sending them tome . . . well, I believe she printed them toread herself . . . I did not find much of interestin either of the ezines. This is probably morea reflection of interests than of content;although, obviously, content is what makes afanzine of interest. In The Drink Tank,publisher Chris Garcia runs some very shortstories, about a paragraph, which are cute. Later issues include some locs; locs areusually of interest. Not much else in theseeight issues for me. Issue one proclaims:“I’m a big fan of SteamPunk, Jazz, El Santo,Calculators, and Frank Wu.” Okay, good foryou. He claims to have been around fandoma lot but apparently had not heard of VictorGonzalez until recently and either he orLloyd Penney doesn’t know how to spell BillKunkel’s name. Well, I’ve seen Lloydmisspell it elsewhere. Other than those nits .. . hey, he does a tribute to Mimosa completewith photo of Nikki & Rich.

The twelve issues of Vegas FandomWeekly ranged from a single sheet to eightpages. I would imagine fans in Vegas andfans who wish they were really like it. I can’timagine what value it would have for anyoneoutside Vegas. Typical of any Katz fanzineI have seen it has various intriguing layoutsand a number of amusing comments. Of late,Katz zines include photos. This one is noexception. This zine is actually what I pictureas being the ideal fanzine to be online: trackit down, call it up, look over the photos, readan occasional bit, and then go find a for realfanzine to enjoy. I did enjoy seeing thepictures of Bill Kunkel . . . that’s how it isspelled, Lloyd, trust me! . . . and some other folks; Aileen Forman has not bad legs. Therewere a few written items of interest; an essay

on apas which ran most of a page and abiography of Joyce Worley Katz whichruns an entire page in which she isproclaimed one of the three greatest femalefans of all time. Don’t jump on me Robert;I ain’t arguing. It did seem a tad amusingto me to see someone proclaim his wife assuch. Arnie also provides a good essay onexploring fandom on the internet.

Given Arnie’s habits, I would suspect thisfanzine is already history. If I had Internetaccess, it is something I would check outonce a week, read some bits, check thephotos, and go look for something else.

It took me about the same amount of timeto go over the eighteen issues of the twoezines as it did to read Claire Brialey’s essayon fan writing, fan awards, and fanzines.

Does any of this mean anything? Probably not. Are these two fanzinesrepresentative of what is available on line? Not necessarily; I know that, for instance,Gegenschein is on there and that is a for realfanzine when it is on paper. I have nointerest in seeing any other issues of either ofthese ezines. Which is, I suspect, a matter ofpersonal interest. I know there are fanzinesout there that I would be happy to read ifsomeone should print them off and ship themto me. Including some other Katz zines. Someone told me there are over 100 sffanzines on the Internet. Sounds absurd tome. But who knows?

Banana WingsClaire Brialey and Mark Plummer, 59Shirley Road, Croydon, Surrey, CR0 7ES,[email protected]

Trap DoorRobert Lichtman, Post Office Box 30,Glen Ellen, CA 95442-0030 [email protected]://www.efanzines.com/TrapDoor/index.h

tm

The Drink TankChristopher J. Garcia, 1401 N. ShorelineBoulevard, Mountain View, CA 94043-1311 [email protected]://www.efanzines.com/DrinkTank/index.

htm

Vegas Fandom WeeklyArnie Katz, PMB 152, 330 S. Decatur

B oulevard , LasVegas, NV 89107-2804 USA

[email protected]

http://www.efanzines.com/VFW /index.htm

HANDICAPPING THE HUGOS

The final ballot for this year’s HugoAwards was announced right around Easter.Even though I saw it online a day or so afterit was announced, I think I really startedpaying attention when I received my ballot inthe mail last week. Sometimes, it’s easier tostudy the ballot when you aren’t staring at acomputer screen.

Last year, after looking over the ballot, Iposted my initial choices for the 2004 Hugos. After last year’s Hugos were announced, Ishould have posted a comparison of mychoices to the actual winners. It wouldprobably be good for at least a laugh or two,since my record at picking the Hugo winnersis far from stellar. Sometimes, I almost thinkthat announcing my choices for the Hugos isthe kiss of death for my picks.

Well, even if my choices are the eventualwinners, that isn’t going to stop me. So,without further ado, here are my choices.

2005 HUGO AWARDS:

BEST NOVEL: Given that this year’sWorldcon will be held in Glasgow, I supposeit isn’t too surprising that British novels makeup most of this category. I may have to go

Alexiad June 2005

with the only one that I can even rememberseeing in the bookstores.

*** Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell bySusanna Clarke

BEST NOVELLA: I will probably go withthe only one of the nominees that I have read.It doesn’t hurt that I have thoroughly enjoyedprevious stories featuring that featured thesame lead character.

*** “Elector” by Charles Stross

BEST NOVELETTE: I’ll have to go with theonly nominee that really grabbed myimagination by the throat when I read it.

*** “T he Vo luntary State” byChristopher Rowe

BEST SHORT STORY: I’m going with theResnick story, partially because of its allusionto Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Barsoom stories,and partially because I thought it was a goodstory. Oops, make that one of the Resnickstories. I forgot he has two stories nominatedin this category this year.

*** “A Princess Of Earth” by MikeResnick.

BEST RELATED BOOK:

*** No choice — at least not yet

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION,LONG FORM: I like most of the nominees inthis category — I’ll have to double-check, butI think I nominated four of the five. If I haveto choose just one, though, I think I’ll go withthe most incredible one of the nominees. (Punintended.)

*** The Incredibles

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION,SHORT FORM: No contest here. I have beena fan of Angel since the first announcementthat the series would be spun off from Buffythe Vampire Slayer. One thing I loved aboutboth series is how Joss Whedon would throwsomething at the viewers that would be evenless expected than the Spanish Inquisition ina Monty Python sketch. Turning the leadcharacter into a muppet has to rank amongthe biggest gigglefests Whedon has ever

given the fans.And yes, two episodes of Angel were

nominated this year. I will be putting “NotFade Away,” the series finale, as my secondchoice, and I won’t be disappointed if it wins.

*** “Smile Time” — Angel

BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR: I reallyhope that this is the year that Dr. Schmidt’slosing streak finally ends. I’m also hopingthat the Hugo voters won’t automatically votefor Gardner Dozois just because this is thelast year he will be eligible.

*** Stanley Schmidt

BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST: Sadly, oneof the nominees died earlier this year. I had achance to meet Mr. Freas a couple of times.Wonderful artist, very nice gentleman, and Isuspect he will be the sentimental favoritethis year.

*** Frank Kelly Freas

BEST SEMIPROZINE: The last timesomeone other than Locus won in thiscategory was 10 years ago — the last timeGlasgow hosted the Worldcon. It will beinteresting to see if history will repeat itself.

*** Interzone

BEST FAN WRITER: This category hasgone beyond getting itself into a rut. Afterseeing the same person win this category forthe last 16 years, that rut is well on its way todigging a grave for the category. I want to seesomeone else win this year. At the moment,I’m still making up my mind as to which oftwo nominees I want to see win it more.

*** Steven H Silver or Cheryl Morgan

BEST FANZINE: Flip of the coin here,because there are two nominees that Iparticularly like.

*** Challenger

BEST FAN ARTIST: As is usually the casewith this category, I like most of thenominees. I also know several of them, whichserves to make it even harder to choose justone.

*** Teddy Harvia

BEST WEBSITE: Every Worldcon has theoption to create a Hugo in one additionalcategory. Interaction has decided to use thatoption, and this is the additional category. ABest Website Hugo has been awarded oncebefore, at ConJose in 2002. It proved to beone of the more popular categories that year,which is one of the reasons Interaction haschosen to award it again. (Part of me suspectsthat this may be the prelude to making it apermanent Hugo category.)

None of the nominated websites are onesthat I visit on a regular basis. I’ll have to gowith the site that I’ve probably visited themost.

*** SciFiction(http://www.scifi.com/scifiction)

JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BESTNEW WRITER: This isn’t a Hugo, althoughis uses the same nominating and final ballotsas the Hugos. Unfortunately for me, I’m notfamiliar with any of the nominees — not anunusual occurance for me, I’m afraid.

*** No choice — at least not yet— Johnny Carruthers

BEST NOVEL:

4. Iron Council by China MiévilleDetailed but unremittingly ugly world

and complex but pointless plot.3. The Alchemist by Iain M. Banks

He tried, creating a great coherentuniverse with a likeable protagonist, butsomehow nothing was quite clear as towhat the devil was going on.

2. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell bySusanna Clarke

A valiant try at a Dickensian novel offantasy, but has Dickens’s flaws ofplotting without his flair for characters,and thoughtless background to boot

1. Iron Sunrise by Charles StrossThe people are doing something, and

you know what they’re doing, theuniverse is odd, different, but coherent,and you know what’s going on.

In other recommendations:

Best Fan Writer5) No Award

4) Cheryl Morgan3) Claire Brialey2) Bob Devney1) Steven H. Silver

Best Fan Artist5) No Award4) Frank Wu3) Steve Stiles2) Sue Mason1) Brad W. Foster

Best Fanzine5) No Award4) Emerald City3) Banana Wings2) Plokta1) Challenger

(Yes, I know I left one off each list. Ihave my reasons.)

— Joseph T Major

AWARDS

2005 Nebula AwardsBest Novel: Paladin of Souls by Lois

McMaster BujoldBest Novella: “T h e G r e e n L e o p a rd

Plague” by Walter JonWilliams

Best Novelette: “B asem ent M agic” byEllen Klages

Best Short Story: “C oming to Term s” b yEileen Gunn

Best Screenplay: The Lord of the Rings: TheReturn of the King

A double-header for Bujold, and PeterJackson has another one for his trophy shelf.

2005 Sidewise Award NomineesShort Form“The Ashbazu Effect,” by John McDaid “Five Guys Named Moe,” by Sean Klein “The Gladiator's War: A Dialogue,” by Lois

Tilton “The Heloise Archive,” by L. TimmelDuchamp Ministry of Space, by Warren Ellis “Red Hands, Black Hands,” by ChrisRoberson

Long FormThe Plot Against America, by Philip Roth

The awards themselves will be presented

June 2005 Alexiad

at InterAction in Glasgow. (Ministry ofSpace is a graphic novel, which is why it is inShort Form.) Our thanks to Steve Silver, whosent out notice.

(Don’t worry, they could always vote “NoAward” in the Long Form!)

http://www.uchronia.net/sidewise

CON NEWS

Ditto 18 in Milwaukee, WIOctober 14-16, 2005

Brew Meisters: Henry and LethaWelch

Brew Crew: T r i n l a y K h a d r o ,Henry Osier, GregR h i n , G e o r g i eSchnobrich, DickS m i t h , L e a hZeldes-Smith

Bottle Cap Inspectors: Laverne D e Faz ioand Shirley Feeney

Hardware Consultant: H o w a r dCunningham

Location: B e s t W e s t e r nAirport Milwaukee (877) 461-8547

Room Rates: Mention Ditto forConvention Ratesof $84.96 single or$94.96 double.F e a t u r i n g as p a c i o u s i n n e ratrium swimming

pool, lounge, andgame area.

Memberships: $35Make Checks to: Milwaukee Science

F i c t i o nConventions, Inc.(MSFCI)

For more information contact:Henry Welch

1525 16th AvenueGrafton, WI 53024-2017 USA

[email protected]

Alexiad June 2005

Letters, we get letters

From: John Hertz March 31, 2005236 S. Coronado Street, No. 409, LosAngeles, CA 90057-1456 USA

Every medium has its own merit. Peoplewill see what writing does. E-mail is alreadyrevealing this — the hard way, but “allcontributions gratefully received.”

Thanks for the kind words in Alexiad V.4 #1.

May 23, 2005

Thanks for Alexiad 4/2.Another book Don Quixote’s friends save

is Tirant lo Blanc, of which an Englishtranslation was published in 1984 — and Imustn’t fail to commend Nabokov’sposthumous lectures on Don Quixote.

From: John Thiel April 21, 200530 N. 19th Street, Lafayette, IN47904-2950 [email protected]

The mundane individual in AlexisGilliland’s cartoon on Page 15 of the latestissue has his wires a bit crossed — computersare the devil to operate, not the Devilhimself.

There’s so much about Greeks in thisissue that it puts me in mind of the TrojanHorse. That was a good thing to havehappened, contrary to writings about it. Itwas beneficial to Troy and looked good intheir public squre. Their rather secularexistence was made more expansive andworld-conscious, too. It was a culturalconfusion leading to progress. In that way, itresembled the computer.

You wouldn’t, by chance, have

recently got a Trojan horse viruson your computer?

—JTM

From: Taral Wayne April 25, 2005254 Dunn Avenue Apt. 2111,Toronto, ON M6K 1S6 [email protected]

Overall I don’t meddle in fan politics anymore. It almost never does any good, createsill-will, and uses up time that could be usedmuch more productively. (Like by watchingre-runs of The Simpsons.) But Torcon beingso close to home, and having briefly raisedsuch hopes, seems to be an exception. I keeptalking about it, and asking people whathappened. Everytime I hear more, I think Iunderstand a little more. Probably it’s anillusion. Be that as it may, recent scuttlebutthad Torcon absconding with pass-alongfunds, accused various people of hiding thebooks from scrutiny, and suggested a broadpopular sentiment that no Canadian, or atleast Torontonian bid should ever be allowedto succeed again. So I started askingquestions again.

Evidentally the books were in the keepingof the chairman until rather recently whenthey were placed in the hands of the treasureronce again. Larry Hancock had left theconcom shortly after Torcon, and the booksgiven to the chairman Peter Jarvis. Over thenext 18 months or so it developed that Peterleft much to be desired as fall-back treasurer,and many things that should have been donehadn’t. Now that Larry has the books again,he says the wrap up should be finished soon,and refunds to volunteers in the mail thissummer. As for the pass-along funds, they’vebeen already passed along . . .

This is good to hear. It still leaves a lot of troublesome back-

biting. Depending on who I talked to, it wasX, Y, & Z who messed everything up, or itwas A, B, and C. I frankly found itimpossible to lay responsibility on someindividuals, knowing them as I did. But Iwasn’t eager to asume others (who I didn’tcare for personally) were to blame either.There was someone to vouch for everyone.But cancelling all the finger pointing outtended to absolve everyone of the blame,which doesn’t exactly seem right either.

Here’s my guess to what happened, witha minimum of vilification. Torcon sold itselfon the basis of past worldcons in Toronto,

and a tradition of great fanac. However, thatwas the past, and the Toronto fandom oftoday wasn’t able to assemble a workableteam. Instead, it filled important jobs withodd applicants who had often never workedtogether. As a result — weak leadership, poorcommunication between departments, anotable lack of harmony among some of theconcom, and a committee largely out of touchwith the norms and expectations of fandom.

Things could have been done better. Itwas a lack-lustre artshow and a small dealersroom. The program book was a throwback tothe 70's. Other problems, like Kelly Freasbreaking his hip, were plain rotten luck. Still,it wasn’t a total failure. Torcon had a coupleof points in its favour, if you happen to becrazy about costume shows and Hugoceremonies. It would seem that if there’s alesson to draw here, it’s not to look at the bid,or at past glories, but at the team that will becharged with the responsibility of actuallyrunning the worldcon that the voters mustevaluate.

If in ten years there’s another Toronto bid(heaven forbid!) it might well be unfair toburden it with the mistakes of Torcon III.Then again, fandom deserves better thananother worldcon with unknown chairmenand principal department heads withambiguous experience. We better be surewho’s behind the dishes of M&M’s andplatters of cheese before we vote.

Yes, this goes for Calgary too, whateverI said before.

Tim Lane went to NoLaCon 2and had a good time, even thoughthe convention management wasimprovised on the fly (i.e. thecall from Mike Glyer on a Sundayafternoon inviting me to be onthe Simak panel). I had a goodtime at TorCon in spite of suchthings as the programmingmixups. All the same, you havevalid points there, not just forCanadian cons but U.S. ones.

“This goes for Calgary too”;what about Montreal?

—JTM

From: Cuyler “Ned” BrooksApril 21, 20054817 Dean Lane, Lilburn, GA 30047-4720 USA

Thanks for the April Alexiad. Excellent

reviews, especially of the stories inDangerous Visions — I know I read them atthe time, but not one was of the quality that Iwould remember in any detail.

I am always surprised at these accounts oftaking blood from the fingers — the part ofthe body most likely to come in contact withinfectious matter and most inconvenienced bybandages, and well supplied with nerveendings. I remember as a child having bloodtaken from the earlobe — much moreconvenient.

The way I have to do itinvolves getting blood on a teststrip, so I don’t think an earlobewould work so well.

—JTM

Perhaps the German name fledermausstarted the notion that the bat is a flyingrodent. I don’t know that I have ever seen abat other than in films or TV — they arenocturnal after all, and good at not beingseen. I never seen the possum here except asroadkill.

From: Alexis A. Gilliland April 21, 20054030 8 Street South, Arlington, VAth

22204-1552 USA

Thank you for Alexiad #4.2, whicharrived shortly after the 78-year old CardinalRatzinger was elevated to become PopeBenedict XVI. Lots of spectacle on the TV,including the funeral of his predecessor, butwhat you see appears to be what you get andthere will likely be few surprises in storeunless the new Pope lives to be 100. Joe’s“reviewers notes” on the first page inspired acartoon which is enclosed along with someothers. Given his prodigious output of bonafide book reviews, a heads-up might beappropnate when he strays from the paths ofrighteousness by attempting humor. Anecessary straying, that, not unlike thestonemasons building a cathedral, who had totake a break from carving saints to chisel agargoyle or two in order to stay sane. Andspeaking of books, I signed the contract withRenaissance E Books and proofed andreturned the emailed text of The RevolutionFrom Rosinante. I hadn’t read it for awhile,and it struck me as a very retro view of thefuture. Oh well, maybe retro sells.

I thought the way the books

June 2005 Alexiad

were structured was interesting. For anyone who hasn’t read theRosinante series, they overlap inan interesting fashion, thesecond starting midway throughthe events of the first, showingth em fr o m a d if fer entperspective, and similarly withthe third. Glad they’re gettingback in print — well, “print” asbroadly defined.

—JTM

Grant McCormick describes the humaneye at some length, and uses its shortcomingsas an argument against Intelligent Design.Given that ID is really a half-assed counterargument against evolution, it also has themachine shop problem; namely what agencyis responsible for executing all thoseGod-created IDs? Me, I always liked the ideathat evolution was God’s solitaire.

Marty Hegelsen, while admitting thatMatthew, Mark, Luke and John composed aset of texts of Jesus that were necessarilyincomplete, is puzzled by my letter, whichsimply argued that a secular text of Jesus(based largely on the history of Josephus)might also be valid. The actual life of Jesussurely provided the basis for any number ofdifferent texts, but the incorporation of theGospels into Christian dogma meant thatthere was an institution with a vested interestin those Gospels, which effectivelysuppressed all alternate texts. The HolyInquisition was indeed instituted in the 13thCentury, but the Church has always had othermeans of enforcement, which it rarelyhesitated to use. Thus, when the needs of theChurch were in conflict with the facts of thelife of Jesus, it was the historical facts thatgave way to provide the well edited and ultrasanitized version that the Church had to have.For what it’s worth I understand thatMatthew’s text of Jesus is not consistent withthat of Luke.

What else? Sen. Bill Frist and hissenatorial GOPs are considering the “nuclearoption” against the filibuster — they say onlyagainst judges, but the precedent will surelybe used against other filibusters. Which is notnecessarily a bad thing, seeing how well thec o u n t r y w a s g o v e r n e d w h e nfilibusters/protracted debate were the law.Bob Dole has it right when he reminds themthat the GOP isn’t going to be in powerforever, and they oughtn’t to mess with the

rules for a piddling advantage.

From: E. B. Frohvet April 22, 20054716 Dorsey Hall Drive #506, EllicottCity MD 21042-5988 USA

An area Korean Presbyterian church is atodds with the community. It’s located on anarrow side street in a residentialneighborhood. The (mostly white) neighborswere fine with it as a little local church.However, with the expansion of the Asiancommunity, the church is now drawingworshippers from outside the area and evenoutside the county. The church is doing fourservices each Sunday — five for Easter — atintervals of 15 minutes. The effect on localtraffic can be imagined. The church wants toexpand their facilities and parking, arguingthis will actually improve the situation, asthey won’t have to rush people in and out tomake room for the next service. Theneighbors, not surprisingly, see a bad trafficproblem getting worse. There seems to belittle room for compromise. No one hasopenly played the race card. Yet.

I have never been much interested ingeneology. (Tom Sadler seems to be involvedin it to the exclusion of being in fandom anymore.) A cousin traced the German side ofthe family six generations, to Bavaria,Hesse-Darmstadt, and Alsace. The Irish sideappears always to have been Protestant,arguably from County Cork; though myfather always insisted there was someadmixture of Welsh in the lineage. Perhapswe are distant cousins.

Regrettably, I have not read any of thebooks reviewed this issue; except DangerousVisions, my copy of which was lost or givenaway many years ago (and of course the oneI reviewed).

It seems superfluous for me to reiteratethe view that NOT having Worldcon overLabor Day weekend has lots of advantages. Of the supposed Montreal bid, allow me topoint out that the U.S. government intends tophase in requirements for American citizensto have a passport to re-enter this countryfrom Canada . . . For the sake of arbitrarydiscussion I will look up Collinsville, IL.

Trinlay Khadro: See, now I had notconsidered that aspect of chocolate barswith/without nuts. Since I almost never eatcandy (once a year I buy a bag of Reese’sPeanut Butter Cups for Halloween on the offchance of trick-or-treaters, and wind up

eating most of it myself) this area does notgrab my attention.

Well, I did get TAFF and DUFF ballots.Voted on the former, shrugged off the latteras there were no candidates I knew about.

Whatever the deficiencies of S.M.Stirling’s “Nantucket” series (begin withIsland in the Sea of Time), it does observecorrectly some of the small print ofestablishing a sustainable technology. Forinstance, salt. Lots of salt, and not just forspr ink ling on the highway duringsnowstorms. A reliable source of Vitamin Cis another. The huge advantage of startingoff with modern machine tools, even simpleones, like lathes and drill-presses.

It seems to me that EricFlint’s “Ring of Fire” is better,simply because it lacks Stirling’sWillezumacht. However, it alsoruns into the publisher ’sinsistence on collegiality, whichtends to encourage consistencyerrors.

Henry Welch: Thanks for the update. Knarley Knews usually reaches me early inodd-numbered months, and Alexiad ineven-numbered months. These two are far themost regular and reliable fanzines I receive. I would just expand on Joseph’s comment:Having a deadline can be a burden, but nothaving one can mean that the editor keepsputting it off precisely because no one hasany expectations, and therefore there’s notime pressure. Time pressure is not a badthing — ask any surgeon.

George W. Price: Thank you. My order isin the mail.

Milt Stevens: If Kristin Kreuk is for rent,where do I bid? (Yes, I know, I like to lookat pretty girls. I’m a pig. The difference is, Iknow I’m a pig.)

Temar in A Wizard ofEarthsea, Lana Lang in Smallville. Hm. She has a younger sister.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0471036/

I am looking forward to LynMcConchie’s visit here in Maryland inmid-May. We will probably spend a lot oftime cruising book stores and catching up onfannish gossip. Supposing that anything I docan be described as “fannish”, which manywould reject.

Parked in my lot even as I write: A mobilepet-grooming salon on wheels, to which alady in the opposite building just deliveredher dog. I have to deliver myself to, e.g., thebarber; but the pet groomers will come to mydoor. Something to be said for being a pet;they don’t have to go shopping or do laundry,either.

Regrettably, my health is disgustinglynormal. My cholesterol is borderline —mainly due to the American MedicalAssociation having dropped by ten pointswhat they consider “normal” — and mydoctor wishes I would exercise more and lose20 pounds. (My doctor, by the way, myprimary care physician, is a woman. Am Iembarrassed? No, why should I be? She’s adoctor: she’s seen any quantity of ugly nakedpeople.)

I looked at myself in themirror while getting my latestsmall-bowel X-ray, and noticedthat in the hospital gown Ilooked like my own grandmother.

— NKM, er JTM(Nancy Katheryne Mabry Major)

Death to French gerbils.

I’m not going to ask why youhate French gerbils.

— LTM

From: Joy V. Smith April 28, 20058925 Selph Road, Lakeland, FL33810-0341 [email protected]

http://journals.aol.com/pagadan/JoysJournal/

Thanks for the fan, Antarctica,monarchist, awards, etc. news. I’m afraid Ithink that five million dollars is a little highfor restoring the Nimrod expedition hut.

What a fantastic and thorough review ofHarlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions! I don’trecall reading it,but I know I’ve read some ofthe stories; I remember the two Jack theRipper tales. I really enjoyed your review . ..

Well, thank you, but it wasn’tmuch more than a generaloverview. The book reallydeserves a far more detailedexamination, in light of itssignificance.

Alexiad June 2005

Lots of other interesting reviews,

especially History on Trial: My Day in Courtwith David Irving by Deborah E. Lipstadt.I’m afraid I’m unaware of that though Iusually pay attention when I comeacrossrevisionism. Btw, I saw an interestingdocumentary recently about conspiracytheories and those who believe that we neverput a man on the moon. Nope — despite allthe evidence and explanations — no onechanged their minds.

Fascinating review of A Public Betrayedand its examination of the Japanese cultureand the media. I’m still stunned. I thought theJapanese had higher standards. Prisoners ofthe North by Pierre Berton sounds interestingtoo. I wasn’t aware of any of the five peoplehe profiled.

Re: your Health Issues. Have your fingershealed yet? I’m glad things seem somewhathopeful. All the best to your lower abdomen.

Thanks to E.B. Frohvet for his review ofEdwin Hubble: Mariner of the Nebulae.(Wonderful title!) I learned a lot about himand the science of his time. I always enjoy thecandy bar reviews too. I think I won’t bothertrying Take Five. As a matter of fact, I passedit up recently and chose a Skor bar instead(just one of my favorites).

Re: Letters. Thanks to Ned Brooks for hisquery about the radioactive scrambled eggs.(I was probably too awestricken to wonder.)Uh, Joe. What happened in the last ModestyBlaise book. (I never did read them all.) ToJohn Hertz, I read Don Quixote in a Spanishclass (I read it in English); I was alwaysproud of myself for having accomplishedthat. Thanks to Dale Speirs for his 1913 and1949 quotes. I always feel a sense of reliefwhen reading old quotes from Roman times,etc. To Lloyd Penney, what is thesignificance of Travis Tea? Thanks much toRod E. Smith for the background on flightrated equipment. (It’s so easy to jump toconclusions.)

Btw, I enjoyed Christopher Anvil’s storiesand bought the recent reprints. I have some ofhis old paperbacks too. I think I looked atAlien Siege, but can’t remember much aboutit. That may have been the one that I fledfrom. Re: the PublishAmerica lifetimecontract. I think it’s only seven years; andI’ve signed seven year contracts. I want toadd my recommendations fo r TheIncredibles. Be sure to get the DVD versionand see the two cartoons — “Jack-Jack

Attack” and “Bounding”. Along with all theinfo and illos, I enjoyed The Day of theBoomer Droogs. (Was that triggered byDangerous Visions and/or Burgess?)

No no no our droog Harlanhad nothing to do with it, it waslike that old veck Fred Pohl onthe droogs in the States andwhat happened when sometraveller from like the fardistant future let them havesome really bolshy toys for theold ultra-violence. [Pohl’s story“The Day of the Boomer Dukes”,that is, about a naïve time-traveler who wanted to join theMafia, and rather imprudentlyasked a street-gang for help.]

— JTM

From: Trinlay Khadro May 1, 2005Post Office Box 240934, Brown Deer,WI 53224-0934 [email protected]

H m m ,m a y b e t h e r es h o u l d h a v ebeen a bettingpool on “justhow bad willRevenge of theSith be?” Iimagine it’ll bebetter than thelast two but notas good yet asthe first (middle)three.

R ev ie w e r ’sNotes: “There’sa baka [idiot,smart/dumbass]in every bunch .

. .” There’s always going to be someone soobsessed that they’re going to miss the jokeanyway.

So many ‘real’ things are written in ahumorous slant I’m not surprised that somepeople are confused.

Re: Chinese team reaches the top ofDome A in the Antarctic. Wow. How d’yasay “Huzzah” in Chinese?

Condolences to Rod Smith on his loss.Re: Ellen Reibold — my cousin out in

California is fighting breast cancer and

recently finished her rounds of RadiationTherapy. It’s a hard thing being so terribly illand at such a young age.

Re: Dangerous Visions — well, the 60swere odd like that. And well, having seensome dancers performing in the skin tightleotards and pondered why they evenbothered with “costuming”.

Re: The Last Kingdom re Uhtred’sarranged marriage — after my divorce manyyears ago I suspected that I’d have donemuch better in an arranged marriage. I couldhave done worse, but I think my parents careabout me, and would have done better.

Re: A Public Betrayed: in contrast (there’s always our press which tells us morethan we’d ever want to know about MichaelJackson and Britney Spears and runs theREAL news as a tiny banner across thebottom of the screen. It’s even worse if onedoesn’t have cable. . .

The local paper isn’t much better.

Paris Hilton, Scott Peterson &Amber Frey, Ben & Jen forvarious values of “Jen”, MarthaStewart . . . the list goes on. Remember when it was O.J.? The 24/7 Simpson Trial NewsChannel?

As for stereotypes both the positive andnegative can be stereotypes. And Everyonehas negative and positive qualities which incombination make us all human.

My friend, Deb, had her first colonoscopy— she reports “the prep was the worst.” Shewas surprised you had the procedure sanssedation.

Re: Last Roll Call — “Sarah’s fifth cousin twice removed” Holy cow! Who aren’t yourelated to? (Or don’t know how you arerelated to them.)

Thanks for the Bat articles — though Isuppose we can add that they’ve also inspiredBatman™. ( Some of the nature centers andmuseums sell kits to build Bat houses. I’msure there’s even bat-house plans on line.

Re: Shakespeare — I wonder if thatEldest Daughter was already caring for thewife, which could explain the disposal ofproperty in that direction.

Brad Foster: My dad says “If it sounds toogood to be true, it is.”

Re: my comment re: making socks: I’vegot sock making down now — and I’mmaking several things to sell (by mail or at

cons and art shows) including the origamidragons (my own design), iPod cozies (or anypocket tech: I just need measurements), cellphone bags as well as purses, hats, scarves,etc. If anyone is interested write or email me!

Joy Smith: My great-uncle, who wasmulti-lingual, was with the US Army inEurope when the camps were liberated andthey used him to translate survivor accounts. As various relatives passed away his lettershome got trashed — I would have liked tohave them and historians have been wantingletters from the war.

E.B.: well, y’know what happens whenyou play a country record backwards.

John Hertz: Kids who read usually haveparents who read and vice versa. KT taughtherself to read at 2 ½ years age. I was readyto burn the ABC book (I’d read it to herhundreds of times in a few days . . .) and shestarted reading newspaper headlines.

When I was four there was anarticle about me in theHopkinsville paper. Somethingabout having read aloud from acopy of Popular Mechanics at aparty where a reporter was. Thetitle of the article was:

“Boy 4 ½ Has Read Since He Was 2"

Sheryl B.: one of the “big things” at somelocal clinic is the L being printed off by thecomputer to avoid errors from handwritingconfusions. Though why the pharmacistwouldn’t think to call and ask “I can’tdecipher this; what did you mean?” . . .though perhaps all the calls to the doctor werethe reason for the printouts.

Lloyd: Have you tried second-handbookstores? Most of our Pratchett bookscame from Half-Price Books and thenlending, borrowing, and trading with friends.

Robert K: Went to see Zatoichi at thetheater this summer. Wew got a kick out ofthe Busby Berkley type tap dancing in getafinale.

I may be more sensitive to gas priceslately since my income has gone down. I’vealways felt it seemed high.

Rodney: Perhaps it’s more that peoplewith their own suffering, in many cases,become more aware of the suffering of othersand thus more likely to be perceived as “thegood people”?

Or in some, illness renders doing evil into“too much trouble.”

June 2005 Alexiad

Taras: In any large city ANYWHERE in US,Canada, or New Zealand or even the UK, ifyou put out a casting call for African-American, Asian, Maori, Native Americanroles you’ll get plenty. There may not be asmany Big Names in those classifications butthey exist. Granted some may be “can passfor” but on screen, in my humble opinion,that’s close enough.

Keep in mind the majority of gays live as“double income no kids” . . . less outputprobably for health insurance and the likethan the family across the street, one incomeand four kids.

IMHO if someone takes on theresponsibility and obligations of marriagethey should also have access to the rights.

Martin H. & Sheryl B.: Laminate thoseinstructions . . . just in case.

Chuck L.: re comment to RichardDengrove — More like “the problem ofpeople who say they take the Bible literally”is that even as translation the usually favoredtranslation (King James Bible) is pretty horrid— more written to keep an English Kinghappy than providing a reliable translation.

Liked Fired, You Are and MissedOpportunity and Joy of High Tech — thoughI really rely on my Palm Pilot. No real newshere.

From: Martin Morse WoosterMay 2, 2005Post Office Box 8093, Silver Spring,MD [email protected]

Many thanks for Alexiad 20.E.B. Frohvet doesn’t think very much of

my accomplishment of getting two fans intofandom. I suppose I should explain that myclub (the Silver Spring Science FictionSociety) isn’t meant to be a large club. It’ssupposed to be a place where fen who likeeach other can get together once a month andhave a nice dinner and a good time. I onlyrecruit people when membership falls off.Moreover, my club isn’t supposed to be alarge club that runs cons or publishes books.It’s just a small fun group. I’m sort of proudof the fact that I haven’t had to recruit forover a year.

But I do agree with Frohvet that it’s morethan curious that neither he nor I have gottena TAFF or a DUFF ballot lately. I docontribute the minimums to these two fundswhenever I’m sent a ballot. Perhaps thepeople who are running them think that only

faanish fen should be allowed to cast ballots.I’m of the opinion, by the way, that TAFFhas outlived its usefulness, since it’s far easierto get across the Atlantic than it was whenTAFF was created over 50 years ago.However, my view of TAFF has improvedsince I read James Bacon’s trip report,Worldconomicon which I believe is the firstTAFF report in 20 years. (None of theAmerican delegates — good faanish fen thatthey are — can be bothered to produce one.)

I thought Joe’s review of DangerousVisions was quite a good idea, except that abasic question remains unanswered — howmany of the stories are worth reading now?How many have dated irrevocably? I haven’tread the anthology in 25 years, but my guessis that the Bloch, Farmer, Delany, Dick,Niven, Anderson, and Sladek stories stillwork, while everything else are artifacts ofthe 1960s. I would also guess that Spinrad’sstory was well told and a little pulp, sinceSpinrad has always been someone whocombines somewhat radical content withtraditional storytelling techniques. Spinradlearned a lot from his yeas as Scott Meredith,and has always been a good storyteller.

I was surprised to see Joe make someerrors. I thought Ben Bova, not Campbell,bought The Forever War and “The Gold atthe Starbow’s End.” I thought both Pohl andHaldeman made clear that they were NotCampbell Writers. Joe also says that HarryHarrison and Tom Holt wrote The Hammerand the Cross; I thought that Harrison’scollaborator was Tom Shippey.

As for David Irving: of course his lawsuitwas idiotic, and the courts were right towhack him for it. But I’m really bothered byLipstadt trying to suppress Irving’s right tospeak. Isn’t the best way to fight badarguments to offer better ones?

Check the dates, but thestories began simultaneouslywith Bova’s getting named aseditor, so I doubt he had boughtthem right out of the pack. You’re right, it was Tom Shippey.

What Lipstadt objected towas Book TV’s “balancing” thecoverage of History on Trial withan appearance by Irving, andthen, when she objected,dropping her and keeping Irving!

— JTM

From: Rodney Leighton April 24, 200511 Branch Road, R. R. #3,Tatmagouche, Nova Scotia B0K 1V0CANADA

Thanks for Alexiad 4/2 which appeared onFriday. Along with my monthly shipment of4 MIRA novels. It was a good week for mefanzine wise: Wednesday brought FOSFAX211 and in between a bundle of fanzinesarrived including Trap Door 23, BananaWings 20, and a slew of printed off the ethereditions of a couple of zines, neither of whichheld much of interest. I still have somethings to read in FOSFAX.

Here’s a for real loc. First one in awhile. May be the last one for awhile. Theemployer says he has lots of work andfunding so I expect that when the next coupleof issues arrive I will be crawling out of bedabouit 5:00 a.m., or earlier; heading off forwork half an hour after that and home sevenor eight hours later too exhausted to do battlewith this machine.

Believe it or not, I read one of thoseDangerous Visions editions; well someportions of one. It was paperback. Don’tknow where I got it. I recall some of thestories you describe. “Jeffty Is Five” was inthe one I read; I thought it was cute. I guessif I ever make it to Louisville and needsomething to read after I run out of fanzines,I might find a book or two that is of interest. Only the Berton book in this issue would nothave been of some interest to me. Well, thatyou reviewed. I very much doubt that EBFwould have any more interest in the book Ireviewed than I would have in the one he did.

We once lived in a house which had a lotof bats in the crawlspace. I know there are alot of folks who think I have bats in the belfry. . . they used to leave at twilight to starteating mosquitos. Quite a racket. We triedone counting one time; I believe we reached120 something.

Ah, Martin . . . thanks for the advice butit would not work with me. For one thing,although I haven’t always adhered to it, Itruly believe a fanzine is a product of a lot ofwork, energy, and money and if someonemakes you a gift of a copy you should send aresponse. Unless other agreements are inplace. John Hertz is cool with sending mebundles of Vanamonde and hearing from meonce in a blue moon. In the second place, Iam no longer receiving any fanzines I don’twant. It has been ages since I received a

fanzine out of the blue; any that I didn’t wantI asked to not be sent any more. There werea bunch I was ambivalent about; the editorshave apparently all realized that and kickedme off their mailing lists. I was unconcernedwith whether FOSFAX appeared or not but Iwas happy to see it; read quite a lot with moreto go and they will get a loc. And, well,surely you recall the time that I sent you a fullpage letter in response to a two sentence note. Brevity and conciseness are only words in thedictionary. I once was accused by a womanwhom I was . . . seeing . . . of having diarrheaall over the typewriter.

I picked up a copy of the March issue ofPlayboy. Not for that ugly Paris Hilton onthe cover and not for the articles. I admit thatI wanted to see the Debbie Gibson layout. Having admired her eyes and other attributes,I read some stuff. In the Playboy Advisor Idiscovered a letter describing a techniquetaught to me around twenty years ago by theaforementioned female escept she had aslightly different version. This letter wassigned . . . M.W., Silver Spring, MD. Hmnnnn . . .

Mr. Kemp is more than welcome to putsome or all of the issues of his fanzine onpaper and ship it/them to me. I’ll send backa response. Might even do a review of somesort. I think I need another one or two TheKnarley Knews columns to fill out the year. I might do one on Trap Door although I noteRobert is talking about going partiallyetherized. I don’t think that’s a word. Mightdo one on Banana Wings although I note that#21 is now out and anyway they booted meoff their mailing list with neither warning norexplanation.

There’s a loc in there by some guy I’venever heard of who mentions that he sent abunch of letters requesting copies of fanzinesand not one person responded. And “Andcorrespondents wonder why fandom doesn’tgain new blood.” I know how he feels. Adecade or so ago Vicki Rosenweig informedme, via The Frozen Frog, that she was underno obligation to inform me that she did notwant me on her mailing list. But mostpublishers simply ignore you. It is especiallyaggravating . . . unless one is in a good moodand finds it amusing . . . to be ignored by apublisher and shortly afterward see a loc or acolumn by that person moaning and wailingabout the lack of new people in fanzinefandom.

Alexiad June 2005

Ah, but they have to be theright kind of people. After thenotorious Nashville Corflu, Iread a comment by one of thepeople there — the organizer, Ibelieve — that they didn’t wantto bring in a lot of new people,just the right kind of people.

But there is also another aspect of this:most publishers provide no reasons for notsending fanzines. Only one or two that I haveevern encountered have given a reason fornot sending the first requested issue. And noonehas ever informed me that I was in dangerof being removed from the mailing list orwhy I was. Banana Wings provides a briefdescription of how to obtain a copy which,unless they have changed greatly, willactually work in their case since writing aletter requesting a copy was how I startedreceiving copies. No where is there anyexplanation as to why Rodney Leighton nolonger is mailed copies nor is there anyexplanation of what might cause anyone to beexpelled from the mailing list. I am left tospeculate.

Fortunately that is the only one I actuallymiss. If I minded no longer receivingOpuntia; Challenger; Argentus and the othervarious fanzines that are still being publishedbut not coming my way I would be terriblyupset that I was removed from the mailinglists of these fanzines with neither warningnor explanation and would then expand myanimus and disgust to include all of fandom.

Which would, of course, be silly not tomention unfair. But this is what I tend to do. I recognize how silly it is to blame all offandom for one person or event. But that isthe way it is.

There are other matters totake into account. I know, forexample, that Guy Lillian has hadfinancial restraints on his fanac. Hardly anyone got a printed copyof the latest Challenger.

— JTM

Anyway, the grief seems to be easingsomewhat; the depression that has beenbugging me seems to be lifting a bit; fanzinefandom seems like fun again. But. Well, it’sgetting close to silviculture season. I have afeeling loccing is going out the window untilnext winter.

From: Rod E. Smith May 11, 2005730 Cline Street, Frankfort, KY40601-1034 [email protected]

Speaking of the Marx Brothers, andgetting the joke . . .

Irving Thalberg was the wunderkind ofMGM during much of the studio’s heyday.He was so brilliant, and so obviously good atwhat he did, he had most people intimidated.Early in the career of the Marx Brothers hecalled a meeting with them in his office, toevaluate their potential. When he got therethe Brothers were sitting around Thalberg’sdecorative fireplace in their underwear,roasting potatoes.

Thalberg not only Got It, he Liked It.Because no-one else would joke with him!For as long as he lived, the Marx Brothers gotpretty much whatever they wanted. It wasn’tuntil after he died that their careers started adownward slide. (Yes, that’s a matter ofopinion, since admittedly, everything after ANight at the Opera is a lesser work to mostMarx fans.)

He not only Got It, he sentout for butter. What about thetime with the cigars?

On eyes: I thought the blind spot wascaused by the optic nerve being attached tothe front of the retina instead of the back. Ilike to design species, and have several —some developed from genetically-engineeredhumans — for an “after the fall” scenario.Besides fixing the blind spot I also made thecarpal tunnel larger, and so forth.

With all the Hugo-nominated contributorsin the latest issue, I need to renew my buttonproclaiming me “Hugo award nominee forbest chocolate-chip cookie.”

I wonder if Joseph T. Major (respondingto Martin Morse Wooster) knows thereactually was a Captain Nice TV show, backin 1967? (I believe there was also at least oneissue of a companion comic.) WilliamDaniels played the title character. This wasthe same year as the rather similar Mr.Terrific. (Ironically, a super-poweredcharacter who took the name of one fewnon-powered Justice Society of Americacharacters.)

Yeah, I remember CaptainNice and Mr. Terrific (“He tried

to cure the common cold.”). Bothof which shows only lasted half aseason. Nowadays that’d be agood long run. They were onopposite each other, as I recall;premiered on the same day andhad their last shows the sameday.

Captain Nicehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061239/

Mr. Terrifichttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061281/

E. B. Frohvet mentions the guy in Seattlewho ruined a couple of conventions. I havefannish friends there and was getting almostreal-time reports. I don’t remember all thedetails (can ask if anyone wants them) butthink he was actually a main-office managerin the hotel chain. Which is how he managedto bollix contracts with two different hotels(in the same chain). I believe he was eitherfired or transferred sometime later.

Alexis A. Gilliland mentions humansaffecting the Earth’s climate. There is atheory, based on data from ice cores, treerings and such, that either the last ice agerestarted or a new one was starting severalcenturies back. However, there were enoughpeople in Europe at that time that they burnedenough wood to create a significantgreenhouse effect and sent the ice fleeingback northward. (If you can call a few metersa year “fleeing.”)

A particular mountain in Europe has beenpopular with artists for thousands of years.Back in the Seventies I remember readingabout a project which compared the foot of aparticular glacier (taking season into account)shown in works of this mountain downthrough time. Until the middle TwentiethCentury the ice was trending downwards,indicating a cooling climate.

JTM (I think) mentions in a comment toJohn Hertz’s letter paying as much forpostage as for a book. Most bookstores canorder any book in print. I happen to be luckywhen it comes to books not in print; PoorRichard’s, in downtown Frankfort, is just twostreets over from where I work. They havethousands of used books, and are veryaccommodating about ordering what currentworks they don’t have in stock. And theirretail price includes shipping. LexFA has hada couple of nice economic suicide missionsthere, with the downside that we usually haveto drag at least one person out of the attic

(where most of the old books are) at closingtime.

Poor Richard’s is a wonderfulplace, we go there every time wego to Frankfort, but I’ve neverseen (say) South With Scottthere or at any other usedbookstore.

Sheryl Birkhead mentions pain keepingher from cons. At ConCave Samanda Jeude’sfriend #5 told some of us that her post-poliosyndrome is causing her so much pain she hasalso given up on cons.

She also suggests using e-Bay to sell myold books and magazines. Well, despite myrepeated statement that I would never dobusiness with a company whose name is inpig-Latin, I recently joined.

Richard Dengrove talks about TheDaVinci Code and other popularizationswhich include the Knights Templar or similargroups. Many years ago I read the bookKolchak’s Gold, about a historian (IIRC)searching for the lost treasure of the Czars.Apparently quite similar in theme (I haven’tread any of the newer works to compare) buttoo early to catch the wave.

Chuck Lipsig mentions people who takethe Bible literally. What bugs me about themis that the Bible itself says not to. (Argh. Ithought the admonition to not trust thewritten or spoken word, but to think forourselves was in Hebrews, but naturally Ican’t find it now.)

I enjoyed the two-part Mirror Universestory on Enterprise. Of course, part of thecharm of this was watching a Constitutionclass starship running roughshod overeverything in its path. If only the originalseries had had the financing to film suchbattle scenes.

Roddenberry wouldn’t haveliked it.

— JTM

When it came to exploring space,President John F. Kennedy had vast ideas.Problem is, every president since has hadhalf-vast ideas.

— Stickmaker

From: Colleen R. Cahill August 26, 20045112 Huron Street, College Park, MD20740-1725 USA

June 2005 Alexiad

[email protected]

Thank you for both the 4.1 and 4.2Alexiads. It has been a while since I sent in aLOC — not due to disinterest, but because oflife. In December the construction on ourhouse expansion was almost done and withfurniture deliveries, last minutes changes andmoving stuff around, it is still chaos here. Inthe middle of all that, we took a trip toLondon, England: Dennis for work and mefor fun. This was my first time there and Ienjoyed the Tower, the British Library andthe British Museum (I asked for the ElginMarbles and was told they are called theParthenon Marbles now). My highlight wasat the Royal Observatory where I got to seeJohn Harrison’s clocks, made almost 200years ago and still running. If anyone hasread Dava Sobel’s Longitude, you willunderstand my excitement: these are theclocks that solved the enormous 18th centuryproblem of determining longitude.

The trip to London was fun, but five daysafter getting back, we flew up to Salem,Mass. to visit friends. Again, I enjoyed lotsof history, but by the time we got back, I wasmighty tired of being in planes. Since I amflying to Raleigh, NC for a business meetingas I write this, I guess I got over that feelingeventually. It is my hope that Dennis and Ican travel to other historic sites in the USsoon, but I would prefer to drive there, as theflying bus is getting old.

Robert Kennedy's comment on theHistory Channel having errors about theKnights Templar did not surprise me. I findsome of the shows on that channel are eitherincomplete or misleading in their presentationof information. It is frustrating to be given a“fact” with no background or support; kind oflike a book with no footnotes.

My thoughts and prayers are with Josephon his continuing health issues. Like manyothers, I preferred to be knocked out for mycolonoscopy. When I woke up and said “seeyou in ten years” I got a shock: because myfather had colon cancer, I get to do this everyfive years! Joy.

Thank you for the kind words. I really don’t know what this isabout drugs. It’s like in gradeschool where the D.A.R.E.presentation (“Pavelik Morozov –Live Like Him!”) is delayed tosecond period because first

period all the boys are gettingtheir Ritalin™.

To Trinlay, I hope your sock heels turnedwell — it took me a while to figure them out,but now turning the heel is my favorite partof knitting socks.

Lloyd Penny’s comments on Nigerianspam and lotteries rang a bell with me. Imoderate SF-LIT, a listserv at the Library ofCongress and 80% or more of the messagesare of that ilk. Too bad none are real: if even1% would pay off, I could live a life ofleisure. Since it is a moderated list, I don’tshare these tidbits of financial gain with themembers of the list.

And speaking of email, I laughed at PaulGadzikowski’s The Joy of High Techcartoon, because I DO still telnet to my email. . . and I even use Pine, which is my favoriteemail reader.

And so do I, and so do I . . .— JTM

From: Dainis Bisenieks May 11, 2005921 S. St. Bernard Street,Philadelphia, PA 19143-3310 USA

I continue to make big bucks at home inmy spare time, proofreading Wildside Pressreprints. As usual, I read for sense, atmentally-moving-lips speed; twice recentlysense required adding or deleting a negative:an error, I’m sure, of the printed book, buthow would fidelity to that text serve thereader? I rather preened myself on correctingan allusion to “Casablanca”, making it“Casabianca”. Who he? One who did notlike all the others hotfoot it out of there; I’msure you would recognize the words.

And under fire from the BillyRuffian herself, too. (See DavidCordingly’s The Billy Ruffian,reviewed in Alexiad V. 3 #5.)

VICTORY OR DEATH

In the latest batch were several works byP. G. Wodehouse, from around 1920, andrather a revelation. We think of the typicalWodehouse character as a feckess young manof independent means who must evade theattentions of matchmaking aunts. SuchWodehouse characters do not change. Buthere, in several novels, the mating game isplayed through to its conclusion.

Misperceptions occur and are overcome;characters rise above their shortcomings,excepting those who fall by the wayside.

These are still comedies, of errors inparticular; often the long arm of coincidencestretches forth in the neatly plotted comingsand goings and encounters of the characters. This we accept and revel in, as long as thewriter keeps up the pace, which in one novelhe does but in another, not.

The Adventures of Sally is the good one. Sally is a spirited young woman with a gift ofthe gab: in joshing, in repartee, and in gettingpeople to open up and part with their secrets. She experiences ups and downs, but is neverdown for long. In short, an ideal Wodehousecharacter. Several men figure in her life,whose true worth she must fathom. She mustdeal, too, with her brother Fillmore and thepeople in his life, all of them in theater. Asthe story develops, a production is a sparklingsuccess, and he has dreams and plans forhitting the really big time. His friends, quitejustly, worry that he will overreach himself,and a telegram comes to Sally: HAVE YOUBEEN FEEDING FILLMORE MEAT? (What was that line about Shaw, “Somedayhe’ll eat a steak, and then God help allwomen”?) . . . No, he is not actually avegetarian . . .

I laughed. As to that, there is an episodein which Sally bursts into irrepressiblelaughter, and I thought that was a splendid bitof characterization. Well done, too, was theepisode in which she gets some very shockingnews; the conduct of the bringer of news(who had of course no inkling of what itmeant) is worthy of note, too.

And what values come to be accepted? Nowhere in these words, but: follow yourstar, pull your weight, and stick by yourfriend. IN a pinch, no honest employment isto be disdained. At one point, money (aninheritance) having come and gone, Sallyreturns to work as a taxi-dancer. Crucial butsalutary misunderstandings arise from this. Could we disagree? What are wealth and“social status”? What is climbing the ladderof success? The climber tends to spurn thosebelow.

The Coming of Bill falls utterly flat. Aman from Bohemia (and a dabbler inpainting, who must learn better) and a womanfrom Society marry; over a span of years,crisis develops. Trouble — for the reader —is that they get very earnest about it, and thatis not Wodehouse’s forte. He is one of your

ominiscent authors. The soul of eachcharacter is an open book to him, and in thatbook he reads to us, sometimes for over apage, which is way past the limit. Cut to thechase!

But the chase is awfully, awfully long inAnn Radcliffe’s The Italian, and so is“reading in the book.” Furthermore, everycharacter speaks like a book, except membersof the lower classes, who speak like humanbeings. The question of worth and socialstanding is raised and settled in the traditionalmanner, viz., the heroine, whom the hero wasgoing to marry regardless, turns out in theend to have credible ancestors after all . . .This will be read out of curiosity, as a periodpiece.

I don’t know why; that’s theplot of about half the RegencyRomances out, and in its modernequivalent (“money” for “credibleancestors”) as much for thecontemporary ones.

I surmise that the text goes back to a 19thcentury reprint in which the long esses of theoriginal were changed to ordinary ones, butwith far from complete success; some effs, ofcourse suffered too.

My fate, which I accept cheerfullyenough, is to labor behind the scenes; once ina while a printed acknowledgment comes myway. In this, I may boast, I have hit the bigtime: the Note to the Text in the latest (for themoment) “typographically preferred” Lord ofthe Rings. I did my regular re-reading in theprevious one and took notes. For instance,Treebeard says “Turn around,” departing inthis instance, ad not before nor anywhereelse, from the British usage “round”. I spokeup for “my gaffer” vs. “the Gaffer” but do notknow how this was settled. I have not seenthe actual books and don’t know when I will.

With genuine horrors afflicting the world,it is probably error in me to be affected by theawful things done by publishers; and yet wedo want truth, not error, presented in the rightwords in the right order (and rightly spelled,too). Just the other day, I saw a bio ofAsimov where in the capsule history of SFwe find consistently the spelling “Gernsbeck”and various errors of fact and interpretation. Elsewhere, two blocks of type, totaling twopages, are out of sequence. Asleep at theswitch!

If I had been Ann Radliffe’s subeditor, I

Alexiad June 2005

would have queried the words spokensibilantly which in Italian have no sibilants.

More seriously, the old-fashionedsuffering heroine is not my type. I ratherfancied one to whom these words werespoken:

“Your ladyship has taught this unworthyperson to do everything thoroughly. Youhave taught her that if one eats poison, oneshould lick even the dish.”

And one in another book, who heard this:“There’s something about this that

reminds me forcibly of that remarkable scenewhen we broke into my engine room. It hasyour personal signature. My grandmotherhad a phrase for it — something about late,and a dollar . . .”

In real life, to be sure, I’d feel desperatelyunequal to any of that ilk. Equality: a statethat permits one to declare: “My view of youmatters” as well as “Your view of mematters.” Or: “I can’t write you off; don’tyou write me off.”

Jack Vance’s work has been mentioned;dire deeds are done in most of his novels. Think of all the characters who have losthome or at least one parent. Begin the listwith Kirth Gersen . . .

I had some trouble dislikingthe Demon Prince Harold AlanTreesong (The Book of Dreams)after he went to his high-schoolclass’s twenty-fifth reunion andthoroughgoingly humiliated allthe people who had humiliatedhim in school. Fortunately forthe folks from Frankfort HighSchool, in 1997 I was happilymarried, in a good job, had nohenchmen at my command, andhad not written a first draft ofa fantasy epic back then and hadit abstracted.

Reading of the St. Nazaire raid in 1942:The Year That Doomed the Axis by Henry H.Adams, I found the statement, “No fewer thanfive Victoria Crosses . . . were given for thisoperation. Never had so large a proportionbeen given.” It says there that 611 were onthe expedition. But at Rorke’s Drift in theZulu War there were over 350 men (Morris,p. 397) and eleven were awarded the V.C.

Actually Captain Stephenson’scompany of the Natal Native

Contingent deserted except forCorporal Michael Anderson, whowas shot while trying to desert. So it was eleven out of about ahundred and fifty.http://www.rorkesdriftvc.com

I recall how the passing of AlbertWoolson had been noted in AmericanHeritage (October 1956). I have all but one(October 1957) of the hardcover editions ofthat magazine, also index volumes coveringthe first twenty years, all obtained on thecheap. The collection peters out after a fewyears of softcover publication; I have notbeen searching assiduously. If I were to buya unitary 50-year index, it would cost metwice my expenditure for the lot.

A welcome recent acquisition has beenThe Complete Upmanship by Stephen Potter. A sample passage: “One must be able clearlyso suggest either that one is absolutelyhealthy or, alternatively, never really freefrom pain. The two styles MUST NOT BEMUDDLED.”

The essence of one-upmanship is, ofcourse, to achieve the maximum effect withthe minimum substance. So I might make avirtue of sticking to the good ol’ typewriter,guaranteed never to crash and wipe out amonth’s work . . .

But I am pleased to observe that theupmanship practiced in fandom is the kindwith substance: actually Knowing theAnswer. Thus, one might cite ImperialJapanese Navy or S. S. ranks without givingtheir equivalents. But of course aSturmbannführer is a major. (I looked it upin Andrew Rollo’s The Armed Forces ofWorld War II.)

In school I was the kid who knew theanswers, which won me no points with myclassmates. My most cherished episode ofKnowing the answer came in 1968 or ‘69,when I was a volunteer digger near theWestern Wall. Somebody had found a pieceof brick or tile with LXF impressed upon it. “All right, who knows?” said the supervisor. “Legio Decima Fretensis.” I promptly said,following with the translation, “Tenth Legion,‘Fretensis’”.

Which Stephen Dando-Collinssays in Caesar’s Legion (2002;reviewed in Alexiad V. 2 #1) wasC a e s a r ’ s T e n t h L e g i o n ,unfortunately almost certainly

incorrectly. It’s a pity, as theman has a real feel for depictingthe life of the legionary.

— JTM

I could, like the “innocents abroad” whosailed on the Quaker City with Mark Twain,have had a souvenir of my stint at theexcavations. One day, toward the end, I sawa small bulldozer clearing off some totallyuninteresting masses of dirt, south of theramp leading up to the entrance to theMoslem precinct. And it knocked a chipfrom a corner of one of the stones of theWall! The next morning I went to the spot,found the chip, hefted it . . . and threw itaside. To take it seemed like a needlesscomplication . . . and I can still tell the story.

From: Robert S. Kennedy May 18, 20051779 Ciprian Avenue, Camarillo, CA93010-2451 [email protected]

Thank you for Vol. 4, No. 2. It wasmailed on a Thursday and arrived on aMonday — much better.

The last episode of Star Trek: Enterprisewas a great disappointment. It ended not witha bang, but with a whimper.

I am completely and totally disgusted —Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars did notmake the HUGO ballot. Some others Inominated did make the ballot. But, notFarscape and that is incredibly revolting. That’s not even to mention ALEXIAD , Joe,and others I nominated that didn’t make it.

The rain season is from July 1 throughJune 30. On March 23, 2005, we officiallyreached the second wettest season sincerecords have been kept — 34.95 inches ofrain. There has been a little more rain since,but not enough to set a new record. Thewettest season was 1883-1884 with 38.18inches of rain. The Los Angeles Daily Newssaid: “The last winter that it rained harderthere were no cars or airplanes, Chester A.Arthur was President and the population ofLos Angeles was just over 11,000.” Thegreat Camarillo flood of February 6, 1998,only rates as part of the season in 7 place. th

That’s when my street turned into a river, itwas well up over my front lawn, the backyard was flooded, and I watched the trashcans float off. There was really bad floodingand damage in other areas of the city andCamarillo made the TV news as it was

flooding.Back in November 2004, Lloyd G. Daub

in an e-mail mentioned that he had receivedan advance copy of Old Man’s War by JohnScalzi. Lloyd indicated that Cory Doctorowthinks well of the novel. It turned out to be a2005 book and I finally obtained it fromInterlibrary Loan. I recommend it highly andplan to nominate it for a HUGO. I might bewrong, but Scali may be eligible for the JohnW. Campbell Award.

One of my all time favorite movies is TheTruman Show staring Jim Carrey. So, Ipurchased the DVD. The extras are not allthat great. But, as for the movie itself, asGary K. Wolfe said in his review in LOCUS(July 1998): . . . this time Winston gets out.”

Well, now I’ve watched the SpecialExtended DVD Edition of The Return of theKing, all four hours and ten minutes of it, aswell as one of The Appendices for TheFellowship of the Ring. Now, all that’s left towatch are the rest of The Appendices, fivemore DVD’s.

So, it lookedlike Tru Callingh a d b e e nresurrected fromthe dead. J If Ihad not beenw a t c h i n gsomething elseon Fox earlier inthe w e e k , Iwould not haveknown about it. It was not in theTV Guide and,as far as I know,there was noother publicity. D u r i n g t h eFarscape panel

at LOSCON 31, a panelist who seemed to bevery conversant with TV programming wasfirmly convinced that Tru Calling was reallydead. But, On March 31, 2005, there was atwo part Tru Calling that was advertised asthe season premier. They were obviously justtwo programs and not one whole. Anyway,it was good to have it back. (Oh, did theyhave us fooled!) On April 14, Tru apparentlydiscovered Jack Harper’s secret when theywere in the art museum. However, I couldnot understand what she said. I have thisproblem sometimes, usually with female

June 2005 Alexiad

voices. (This can also happen at the movies.) Even if I back up the tape (I tape almost allthe TV programs watched and watch them atmy convenience) and turn the sound up full,I still cannot understand what is said. Anyway, the series finale was pulled and itappears that the last Tru Calling was on April21 . (When it comes out on DVD, maybe thest

missing episode will be there.) They replacedit with that piece of crap, The Simple Life. AsTV Eyes said when I looked Tru Calling upon the Internet — “It deserved to be treatedbetter, and so did we!”

They thought it would dobetter with Friends gone. Whatis it about Paris Hilton, anyhow? She seems mostly to be famousfor being famous.Tru Calling

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364817/Paris Hilton

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0385296/

Johnny Carruthers: If you know whatTru said was Jack Harper’s secret, it will beappreciated if you can tell me. dreamwatch#6, and then #7, were obtained at thenewsstand to see if I wanted to subscribe. Ibroke down and called in a subscription. Itwas to start with #9. But when I cried thewoman said they would start it with #8. We’ll see as #8 has not as yet been received. (Well, it’s only been three weeks.)

Lisa M ajor: I’m a bit confused by yourcomment: “I looked through the photographsuntil I came on a man roughly my father’sage and could only stare. Across a gap ofnearly four hundred years, I was looking ateyes identical to my father’s.” A photographnearly four hundred years old?

The four hundred years refers tothe time distance between myselfand my Welsh ancestor.

— LTM

Joseph T Major: AAA membership cardthat expires on February 29, 2006? That’s agood one. Probably a product of the publicschools. Or maybe an alternate Earth?

After reading your review of The FamilyTrade by Charles Stross, the book wasobtained from Interlibrary Loan. I then spentan enjoyable evening reading it. I have justone question. Given that the people in thebook are “world walkers”, why are there only

two worlds?

In the second book, TheHidden Family, there is a thirdworld, and possibly more tocome.

— JTM

Excellent review of The Dragons ofExpectation by Robert Conquest. “I told youso” is an understatement. I especiallyenjoyed Chapter VI (“Slouching towardsByzantium”). Also, his deconstruct of JohnKenneth Galbraith and Ted Turner/CNN(Chapter XIV). Martin Morse Woostermight enjoy the first paragraph of ChapterXVII (p. 191). I do feel that Conquest shouldhave made mention of Walter Duranty. But,Duranty was missing. In 1999, Conquest wasinterviewed by Brian Lamb on Booknotes (C-SPAN) about his book Reflections on aRavaged Century. I have the interview onvideo tape. It’s still available from C-Spanon DVD/VHS.

“There are strange things done in themidnight sun — By the men who moil forgold . . .” Robert W. Service has been myfavorite poet ever since I found my father’sfour books (published from 1909 to 1921) ofhis poetry when I was about 15. I still havethe books. Prisoners of the North has beenordered from Interlibrary Loan.

Grant C. McCormick: I gave a copy ofyour “Why Our Eyes Are A Pain” to myophthalmologist.

Sheryl Birkhead: What’s this about“budesonide” for IBS? I take Dicyclomine(generic for Bentyl).

Milt Stevens: I too enjoy the Stargateshows which I just started watching at thebeginning of Stargate Atlantis. It is myunderstanding that the next season will be thelast for Stargate SG-1. Yes, The Chroniclewas excellent. So, of course they cancelled itjust as they did Farscape.

Chuck Lipsig: Welcome back.

From: Milt Stevens May 18, 20056325 Keystone Street, Simi Valley,CA 93063-3834 [email protected]

While reading the obituaries in AlexiadV4#2, it occurred to me how obituariesfrequently make people look far less colorfuland controversial than they were in real life. Take for instance G. M. Carr. She was

known for promulgating the G. M. CarrTheory of Egoboo. It stated that it didn’tmatter what people said about you as long asthey mentioned your name. It is unknownwhether this led to her becoming the onlyperson in fannish history ever to get theirhead stuck in an elevator door at a worldcon. Nobody ever figured out how she did it. Hertheory undoubtedly led to her futzing up oneFAPA egoboo poll. In those days, you wereallowed to vote a certain number of points inseveral categories to any member. She votedall her points to herself and came in firstplace. The rules were changed after that soyou couldn’t vote for yourself. She was wellknown as a badass feud fan and quite capableof becoming the enemy of those who had noenemies. She started a campaign againstWalt Willis for being un-American. Sinceeveryone knew Walt Willis was a native ofBelfast, North Ireland, nobody had everthought that his being un-American wassurprising.

Joseph seems to be learning that whenyou pull some people’s legs they come off.Granted, the Marx Brothers joke should havebeen obvious. Back when I was in highschool, it was sometimes said the MarxBrothers consisted of Groucho, Chico, Harpo,Zeppo, Gummo, and Karl. It’s an old joke. However, it’s fairly easy to fool people withspecific references to books and magazinesthat never existed. Sometimes, thesereferences become widely circulated. TheContento Index found it necessary to tellpeople that Spicy Horror Stories neverexisted, but Spicy Zeppelin Stories really did. Over the years, I’ve written quite a fewhumorous articles about improbable soundingscience fiction stories that really existed. I’vehad a couple of people ask me if there reallywas a published science fiction story titled“Onslaught of the Druid Girls.” Yes, therewas.

I don’t mind that much pullingpeople’s legs and having themcome off. It’s when I do thatand their heads come off thatbothers me.

“Onslaught of the Druid Girls”was by Ray Cummings and was inthe June 1941 FantasticAdventures. They don’t writethem like they used to.

I haven’t thought about Dangerous

Visions in a long time. I bought it inhardcover when it first came out. I didn’t buyit because I was interested in taboo breakingscience fiction. I bought it because peoplewere talking about it. Looking over this listof the stories, I find I only remember four ofthem for the stories themselves; “The DayAfter the Day the Martians Came,” “GonnaRoll the Bones,” “Jigsaw Man,” and“Eutopia.” I think I figured out what theproblem was in “Eutopia” somewhere on thefirst page. I thought it was pretty obvious.

There are a couple of the other storieswhich I remember for reasons other than thestories themselves. I remember “Go, Go, Go,Said the Bird,” because I thought it was asilly title. I didn’t remember anything aboutthe story itself. The only reason I remember“Aye, and Gomorrah . . .” was becauseGordon Eklund published a Cultzine titledFrelking in the Woodshed. I’d read theSatyricon before reading Dangerous Visions,so I knew eunuchs were receptive to anal sex. So what’s so dangerous about this story?

Sonya Dorman, author of “Go,Go, Go, Said the Bird”, died onFebruary 15. Fortunately shelived to see her story published.

— JTM

From: Lloyd Penney May 21, 20051706-24 Eva Road, Etobicoke, ONM9C 2B2 [email protected]

Thank you for the newest Alexiad, issue20, I believe. It’s Saturday night, and I’m athome alone, because Yvonne has spent thelast few days in Washington, attending the2005 International Space DevelopmentConference, and she comes home tomorrow.It’s a long weekend here, Victoria Day, so atleast I get to spend a day and a half with her.So until I pick her up at the airport tomorrow,here’s a letter of comment.

Reviewer’s notes . . . British fans oftenthink of American fans as humour impaired.I think there’s too many humour impairedpeople everywhere, and just as many peoplewho are simply too eager to be offended, andrage against something usually imaginary.These people are best ignored; otherwise,you’d become just as easily enraged as theyare.

As a Canadian, and as a member of theBritish Commonwealth, I can say that Charles

Alexiad June 2005

Windsor has spent too much time among hismother’s Corgis, for he married a womanwho looks like one. Meow! A six-pack ofmice and a saucer of milk for me and mycatty remark. The upset monarchists can geta life, and I list them under those too easilyoffended.

The idea of the Last Dangerous Visionshas shifted to being one of great promise toone of being a cruel joke. I read DV andAgain, DV a long time ago, and enjoyed themthen. I’ve read a lot of Harlan Ellison®’swork, fiction and anthology work, and I’veno doubt I might have the same opinion ofthem were I to read them again. And, as Ihave for a similarly long time, I’d like to seeLast DV, but would those stories stand thetest of time, should that fabled anthologyevery see print? I think I might like to see it,just out of sheer curiosity. Then we couldtruly complain about the quality of the storiesinstead of speculating about their bad quality.I suspect this would also be a reflection onMr. Ellison®’s abilities as an anthologist.

Glad you enjoyed the Pierre Berton book.Many Canadians miss him. He was largerthan life, in his television, radio andnewspaper presence, and by his physicalpresence. I believe he was 6’9” or 6’10”. Ithink I may have told you in a long-past locthat I met him in a department storedowntown; I had to look way up from myown 5’4" to meet him eye to eye. TheCanadian media industry, such as it is, hasreaped a huge benefit from Berton’s presencein it all these years.

As I look at the list of fanzines, I see BillBowers listed. A shame he passed awayrecently; are we ever finished with what wewant to do? If we could live until we weredone, we’d live forever. And that would bejust to pay off the taxes. . . I look forward tothe final issue of Outworlds that shall beproduced posthumously by fans who admiredBill’s work, and his ability to publishfannishly.

Re the Hugos: Indeed, Joseph, we’ll findout how we did nomination-wise inSeptember some time. Hope still springseternal.

Well, I may be up fornomination in one more categoryat L.A. We can but try.

The locol . . . Martin Morse Woosterwonders about Sturgeon’s Law and the fact

we’re growing older. That sensawunda getstougher and tougher to find, and we reminisceabout it more than we report on it. The olderwe get, the more we think that Ted Sturgeonwas an optimist. That’s why should I want tobuy new books, where is a rarity these days,I would look at the reviews in Locus andEmerald City to see what’s good and what’sso-so. He’s also right in that you don’t haveto loc every fanzine you get. I don’t. Justalmost every one, and sometimes they pileup, and I loc the lot. There are some zines Ijust don’t know what to say or even how torespond, so I say thank you, and go on to thenext one.

To Trinlay . . . of course, the name BakkaBooks refers to the bakka in Fremen legendin the Dune books. The bakka is the weeperwho mourns for all mankind. When thecurrent owner purchased the store from theprevious, he changed the name slightly toindicate a new beginning, and the store isnow Bakka-Phoenix.

I think I may have mentioned thepossibility of a Calgary Worldcon in thesepages. Or it might have been elsewhere, but Idid mention it somewhere, based on meetingsome of the Calgary Convention Centrestaffers at a travel trade show here, and lettingthis event slip. It is possible that John shiftedhis plans of such a Worldcon to supporting asudden Montreal bid. Perhaps Taral is underthe impression that John was the puppeteerrunning Torcon 3, and it’s just not true. Iknow John was unhappy over the fact that hewas not a senior person on the committee, oran advisor to the chairman, but was anassistant department head. In fact, theMansfield on the senior BoD was LindaRoss-Mansfield, who replaced me on theboard.

E.B. Frohvet’s mention of Alan Shepard’sambition reminds me of something Yvonnetold me this weekend on the phone fromWashington. Shepard wanted to meetLindbergh; Yvonne has met Erik Lindbergh,the grandson, in the past, but this weekend,she met Burt Rutan and Buzz Aldrin. Someambitions have a common thread.

Well, Star Wars is done, and Star Trek isdone, at least for some time. As much as Ihave enjoyed them both, it’s time to wrapthem up. It marks a milestone for me . . .myentry into fandom came just a few monthsafter the first Star Wars movie came out in1977. As some coincidence, Episode I is onthe CBC right now, and a look at Jar-Jar

Binks conjured up a reminder of Cecil theSea-Sick Sea Serpent. I’ll put it down tofatigue . . .

So, now kids, wind up yourlids,

We’ll flip again real soon,With Beany-boy, *hee hee

hee*And your Obedient Serpent. .

.A Bob Clampett Car-TOOON!Those were the days, my

friends. The things of our youthhave that special freshnessbecause they remind us of whenwe were young. (Of course itwas fannish; the “lids” werepropellor beanies.)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052492/— JTM

My loc . . . the first fans would look at ustoday, and label us the worst-possiblefakefans. Basic fannish credentials changewith time. Buffy and Angel brought in a lotof people I have little in common with, but Ihad little in common with local fans in 1977.I am happy to report that for once, myemployment situation is static. Still with theGlobe and Mail, and still with BBW,although I am on another daytimeassignment. I may not be working fulltime,but two part-time assignments seem to fillingthe gap admirably.

I will wrap up; I hear fireworks burstingoutside in an early celebration of the longweekend. Take care, and I am so lookingforward to seeing Yvonne again tomorrow.

From: Richard Dengrove March 8, 20052651 Arlington Drive, #302,Alexandria, VA 22306-3626 [email protected]

It’s no wonder you’ve gotten in trouble

when you make satirical statements on theweb. It is amazing how few people have asense of humor.

Over twenty years ago, my office wasputting on an open house. Since my agency isthe Food and Nutrition Service, I thought itwould be great to put up a quote by LeonardoDaVinci: “Man is merely a conduit for food.”My boss forbid it. She gave as a reason veryfew higherups have a sense of humor.

Also, very few people have the slightest

empathy for people outside their group. Ihave to agree the New Leftists and theHippies who wrote Dangerous Visions didn’t.It needs no comment.

On the other hand, how close were you,Joe, to the New Left? Were theypro-Communists? My experience was theywere pro-Communist only when theCommunists were the rebels. They werepro-Ché because he was a rebel, and pro theViet Cong because it was rebelling againstthe evil U.S. government.

Other Communists, they were not reallypro. Moscow and Peking was viewed withsuspicion if memory serves me right. Iremember when a professor, an Old Leftradical, introduced a top Communist Partytheoretician in class, a Dr. Aptheker.Aptheker got booed.

The problem may have been that theHippy/New Left were not all that differentfrom other Americans, although they wereproclaiming it and believing it. I notice thetales in Dangerous Visions presume you cansate your desires and live happily ever after.Unhappiness only comes from lack ofsomething. OK, it was sex in the case of theHippy/New Left as opposed to money formost Americans.

It would have been really revolutionary ifDangerous Visions had pointed out that somedesires are insatiable. Certainly, the desire forsex seems to be. However, I imagine thereaders would have hated it. John Lennoncould only sing “no possessions” becausepeople didn’t listen to the words.

Of course, we are as parochial as theDangerous Visions crowd. Are the Japaneseany worse than us? Are the Japanese mediaany worse, as the book, A Public Betrayed,claims? Our media certainly gangs up on theweak. Our media certainly covers upatrocities at times. Our media certainlyrailroads innocent men. I know because I livein Washington and see it done everyday.

On the other hand, I agree with MartinMorse Wooster that young people will not beable to correct it because they can’t write.That is the main thing I have against theyounger generation, lack of coherentsentences.

I agree with him too that we cannotexpect them not to webhack and emailhack,and be ‘60s fans. They have both feet in thenew world. Even us old farts have one foot init.

However, the web and email have not

June 2005 Alexiad

wiped out the need for coherent sentences. Infact, there is a more desperate need now: tomake sense out of world that grows moreincoherent by the year.

It strikes me as basicallyephemeral. Not the conventionbut the chat, here today, gonewhen the site expires. Not thefanzine but the blog, lost amongthousands of other diaries (youdo remember the proposal for aBest Blog Hugo?). We have gonethrough the Singularity of time-binding; it used to be all-past,now it’s no-past.

— JTM

Among the things that has complicatedour world is the Priory of Sion Hoax, aspopularized by Dan Brown in The Da VinciCode. It certainly confused me. I found out a19th Century historical novel that, I thought,first mentioned the Priory of Sion wasprobably itself a hoax.

A propos of the Priory, Robert Kennedywanted to know how to get the RobertRichardson’s Gnosis article. I guess he couldwrite away to the remnants of the old Gnosis.However, it seems to have been reprinted athttp://www.alpheus.org/html/articles/esoteric_history/richardson1_print.html .

While Dan Brown has made the world toocomplicated, so have I. I did for TarasWolansky. I have to tell Taras I am not anAtheist, like him; but, like him, I believeChrist lived. The question was whetherJosephus’ writings are good evidence thatChrist lived. There is a difference betweenthat and whether I believe Christ lived.

Also, I made the world too complicatedwhen I talked about the novel Battle ofDorking. I didn’t mean that it had to havefuture technology to be science fiction. I wasjust wondering whether it had, and was morelike the science fiction we are familiar with.

Finally, I am going to complicate theworld further, and I can understand if Josephdoesn’t understand me. Donald Morris mayhave been thorough; but that does not meanhe wouldn’t have excluded any hub bub overthe eclipse during the Zulu War. An eclipsemay have carried cultural baggage that madeit seem even more insignificant than ammobox straps. . . Maybe not.

On the other hand, I misunderstoodJoseph. I thought that his animosity toward

PublishAmerica was animosity toward smallpress. It turns out to be vanity press. It mayspecifically be PublishAmerica, especiallyafter the statement someone there made aboutscience fiction.

We are not against small press. I don’t have any real objection tovanity presses that are honest aboutwhat they are and what they can dofor their customers.

— LTM

Anyway, that’s it for my comments fornow.

From: Sue Burke May 25, 2005calle Agustín Querol, 6 bis - 6 D,28014 Madrid, [email protected]://www.sue.burke.name

Monarchist news from Spain: ThePrincess of Asturias, doña Letizia, whomarried don Felipe with splendid celebrationlast spring, is pregnant. The child, expectedin November, will probably be heir to thethrone of Spain — probably. Like any goodSpaniard, the baby will arrive withcontroversy.

Article 57, paragraph 1 of the SpanishConstitution, specifies this succession to thethrone:

“the earlier shall precede the moredistant; within the same degree, themale shall precede the female; and forthe same sex, the older shall precedethe younger.” So, if this baby is a girl, and Their

Highnesses later have a boy, he’s the king,and she’s just a runner-up.

The Constitution will probably beamended, but an amendment must be passedby two-thirds of both the Congress and theSenate, whose members must then stand forre-election, then they must pass it again, thenit must be approved by a general referendum. So far so good; everyone supports equality. That re-election bit is tricky, and there areother amendments under consideration to theConstitution which are more controversial,but if only royal succession was on thereferendum it could become a plebiscite onthe Crown. . . . Politicians prepared tosquabble.

But the happy father-to-be diffusedtensions when he smiled and said, “There’s

generation ahead of the baby, so there’s nohurry.” This kind of level-headed thinkinghas endeared the royal family to its subjects. The Prince doesn’t care if it’s a boy or a girl,by the way, and he hopes for “more than twoand less than five” children — three or four,in simple math.

What should the future king or queen benamed? In quick surveys, a number ofpeople proposed Pelayo for a boy andCovadonga for a girl, uncommon but nottotally weird names. In 722 in Asturias, anobleman named don Pelayo led ahistorically decisive victory over the Moors atCovadonga, originally called Cova Dominica,or Cave of Our Lady, an ancient site ofworship to the Virgin Mary. Legend says sheprovided don Pelayo with a miracle, althoughother historians credit don Pelayo with athorough understanding of the terrain, whichallowed him to ambush the enemy. Thevictory at Covadonga by don Pelayo isconsidered the founding moment of theSpanish kingdom.

Crown Princess Mary ofDenmark is pregnant, due inOctober. Princess Mathilde ofBelgium, Duchess of Brabant ispregnant, due in October. DoñaLetizia, Princess of the Asturiasis pregnant, due in November. Crown Princess Mette-Marit ofNorway is pregnant, due inDecember. Amazing how thatworked out.

Should Wills name his firstson Cerdic, then? Or Hengst? How about, to satisfy Scotsopinion, Kenneth?

— JTM

By the way, there was another Basqueseparatist bombing this morning in Madrid,but it missed me by 7 kilometers — noserious injuries, in fact. I’m guessing that thecloud of smoke passing overhead right now isfrom a grassfire. There’s a drought this yearthat is already serious and could becomedisastrous.

From: George W. Price May 29, 2005P.O. Box A3228, Chicago, IL60690-3228 [email protected]

I find I must amend Advent’s offer in the

April Alexiad of a $20 price forpre-publication orders for Joe Major’sforthcoming Heinlein’s Children: TheJuveniles (to be published at $25). Ordersfrom Canada must not only be paid in U.S.dollars, the check must be payable on a bankin the U.S. — either a U.S. bank, or a U.S.branch of a Canadian bank. Or use aninternational money order payable on a U.S.bank. The reason is that Advent’s bank nicksus $10 for cashing a check that won’t gothrough the U.S. clearinghouse. As before,send checks to Advent at P.O. Box A3228,Chicago, IL 60690.

* * * * *Alexis Gilliland — responding to Brad

Foster’s wondering why his father had to payincome tax on his Social Security andmilitary pension, instead of just deducting itat the source — notes that you can have thegovernment make a deduction, but it won’t befor the exact amount owed. You still have tofile a return and pay the balance or get arefund. In this case, I must admit, thebureaucracy knows what it’s doing. Thegovernment has no way to know what otherincome you might have, nor what yourexemptions and deductibles might be, sothere’s no way it can calculate the exactamount owed. And it’s not just pensioners;the same applies to government workers,including active-duty military personnel. Everybody has to file.

Department of Mixed Blessings: A monthago I was startled to receive a tax refundcheck about one-third larger than I hadcalculated. It was followed by a letter fromthe IRS stating that I had made a mistake incalculating the tax on our Social Security. Well, I was glad to get the money — but thebuggers didn’t say what the mistake was! Soif I can’t figure it out for myself, I’m likely tomake the same mistake next year. One moreargument for abolishing the income tax andgoing to some sort of national sales tax!

I started using TurboTaxefiling a couple of years ago andsuch problems don’t seem to bebothering me anymore. Now if Icould only remember to get theDeluxe Edition right off . . .

— JTM

From: AL du Pisani June 1, 20059 4 5 G r a n d P r i x S t r e e t ,Weltevredenpark 1709, Republic of

Alexiad June 2005

South [email protected]

I am reluctant to once again write a letterbemoaning my lot in life. That is what hadhappened last time, and I had to tear up theletter for dripping too much self-pity. I hadhoped to write a cheerful letter, in which Icould lightly run over what have beenhappening to me since my last letter.

(Was in a non-serious car accident — Iwas not hurt, and my bakkie suffered lightdamage. Broke a tooth and had to have itpulled. Still at the same job — now workingeven longer hours than before, but at least Iam now getting paid overtime. And that inanother two weeks I will be going on holidayto my family in the Northern Cape. I am solooking forward to it.)

Unfortunately, during the past week or so,I have been involved in incidents at work thatmake me worry about keeping my job. I havebeen trying to get out of the job, on and off,for the past three years, but I do not like thepossibility of getting fired from it.

The job market is picking up again, andthere does seem to be a possibility thatsomebody with my background, race, culture,sex and training being able to get a job. Ihave just been too busy to actively look for anew job. I do have my CV out in the market,but will need to go and beat the bushes, to geta new job.

Now for some news from South Africa: Ihave mentioned the Shabir Shaik corruptiontrial in previous letters. After eleven monthsof on and off trial, judgement is beingdelivered. So far the judge has been talkingfor two days. Looks as if he will take anothercouple of days to finish. The big question isif Shaik will go down, and if he will takeJacob Zuma (the current vice President ofSA) with him.

I have heard an interesting tidbit twoyears ago, when attending the synod to whichmy congregation belongs, nogal. Accordingto this tidbit, just about every MP in SouthAfrica, especially the junior ones, istechnically bankrupt. See, when all the newMPs got to parliament, the banks were fallingover each other to grant these new MPs anoverdraft facility on their cheque accounts, togrant credit cards, to grant them vehiclefinance and home loans. So eager, that theydid not notice that every one of the four bigbanks granted the same people the same verygenerous debt packages. And the MPs went

and accepted all of what was offered.So, a couple of years down the line, the

banks start to find out that the MPs are havingdifficulty in repaying their debts. Which iswhen they found out that these people’s debtsituation is a lot worse that what they hadanticipated. It is so bad that they cannotattempt to move against any one of the peoplein trouble, because once you move againstone, you have to move against all, and theyhave the power to revoke that bank’s bankinglicence.

And I thought the US Houseof Representatives bank scandalwas bad! (They had to close it.)

Talking about money: About eightmonths ago, the current monolithic R5 coinwas replaced in new issue with a new twotone R5 coin. There have just been twoproblems with the new coin: For one, most ofthe coin operated machines do not accept thecoins. For another, the coins themselves arestill scarce. I touched the first new R5 coinsome four months after the date it wasintroduced. It have become more commonsince, but most of the R5 coins in circulationare still the old ones.

About three months ago, all bank notesstarted to be replaced with a new issue. Thiswas launched with lots of fanfare, and anadvertising campaign instructing people to beon the lookout for Makoya Moolah. Strangelyenough, these notes have been a lot easier toget hold of than the new R5 coins. At themoment, all the bank notes in my wallet areof the new type.

Education in South Africa seems to begoing ahead, even as it slips behind. Forinstance: It appears that the governmentDepartment of Education is spending 95% ofits time in trying to destroy “traditionallywhite” schools. This is about 5% of allschools, and are schools that have mostlywhite teachers, and a tradition of excellence.(Even if only in comparison with the rest ofschools.) These are schools that require allpupils to speak one language, for instanceAfrikaans. And these are schools that have aconcept of discipline: Pupils are there to betaught, and they are supposed to behave.

In my congregation there is a lawyer thathas had 93 cases in which he represented aschool board against the Department ofEducation. Where the Department tries toforce schools to do something they do not

want to. He has lost one case on atechnicality. The government have respondedby changing the law, so that they are allowedto force schools to do things the school doesnot want to do.

Here is the good point: Every single oneof those schools has a waiting list of pupils,white and non-white, waiting to come in. Iam living in an area where government havebeen negligent in supplying the schoolsnecessary for the current population, andwhere there has been an explosion in newbuilding over the past five to six years. Yetevery single school is full. And about half ofthe pupils come here from Soweto. Theirmothers may be domestic workers, but theyinsist that their children will be getting adecent education. Even if the children have tocatch four taxis in the morning, taking fourhours to get to school. This is so bad that Iam told that there are three schools with acapacity of 800 pupils each, standing emptyin Soweto. This is because the parents do nottrust those schools, and associated teachers, todo a good job.

And the schools: SouthAfrica is sure catching up withthe US! (This is not a goodthing.)

In the area a new low cost housingdevelopment, Cosmo City, was recentlylaunched. It was expected that this would leadto an influx of black people into a mostlywhite area. Strangely enough, only half of thepeople buying the initial developmentproperties have been black. The rest aremostly white and coloured. Which mean thatmy church has to pay attention to thedevelopment, as a matter of urgency.

Strangely enough, the two items in mylife currently giving me the most energy are the meetings of SFSA, and of my localcongregation.

Now, I am a member of the DutchReformed Church (Afrikaans: NederduitsGereformeerde Kerk or NG for short.) Thishave been one of the three (white) sisterchurches that most Afrikaners belonged to.(To become a member of the Apartheid eraB roederbond, one pre req u isite wasmembership on a congregation of one of thethree sister churches. The others were, Ithink, to be male, Afrikaans speaking andmarried.)

Now there have been talks about church

unity between the three sister churches, butthe internal cultural and dogmatic differenceshave been too much. However, the NGchurch was the white member of the NGchurch family, comprising of the colouredNG Mission Church (NGSK), the black NGChurch in Africa (NGKA), and the IndianReformed Church of Africa (RCA). Andthese four churches have been in talks aboutre-unification since 1965. Which was in theheart of the Apartheid era.

Now, one of the ways for people to saythings the Apartheid government did not like,get away with it and get decent newscoverage, was for a church leader to say it.And for a bunch of years during the 1980'sone of these activist church leaders had beenDr Alan Boesak, of the NGSK. Unfortunatelyfor the man’s political ambitions, at the timethat the government transfered from the oldNational Party to the ANC, Dr Boesak raninto some trouble. For one, it became publicthat for the second time, he had been cheatingon his wife. (He could convince the churchcouncil of his church that the first time hecheated on his wife, it became public due togovernment operatives trying to discredithim.)

This time the government was supremelyindifferent to what he had been up to, as ithad more important fish to fry. And this timehis wife did not stand by him, and heeventually divorced her and married the(white) journalist he had been having thefling with. Now, one strange thing in thechurch order of the NG church family, is thatyou can only be a minister while coupled to acongregation. (There may have been one ortwo exceptions, if they were in synodalservice, but all those jobs were starting to bephased out, and is today almost completelyphased out.) And Dr Boesak’s congregationtold him that they would accept hisresignation.

That would not have been the end of it,except that the Foundation for Peace andJustice, of which he was one of the directors,ran into some trouble. See, one of theScandinavian countries that have beendonating money into the Foundation forpoverty alleviation, came to have a look atwhat had been done with the money. And theFoundation could not tell them. Which lead toDr Boesak ending up in court, and sent to jailon fraud charges.

He has come out of jail since then, havebeen granted amnesty (while he vigorously

June 2005 Alexiad

maintains his innocence), and have becomecoupled to a new, rural congregation. Andseems to be on his way to becoming a majorplayer in the church once again.

Why did I tell you this story? (I hope thatit interests you.) Because it is relevant today.You see, one of the things he had beeninvolved in, as Moderator (leader of thegeneral synod, i.e. all congregations in thechurch) of the NGSK, has been theConfession of Belhar. This was accepted in1984, declared Apartheid a sin, and called forunity in the NG church family.

After his removal from the church area,the NGSK and NGKA merged into the VGK(United Reformed Church), and accepted theConfession of Belhar as a statement of faith.Except that this merger did not complete:Half of the NGKA rejected the Confession ofBelhar as a statement of faith, and is stilloperating as a entity.

Now my church has gotten into the mess,trying to have unity talks with the threeparties. Where accepting the Confession ofBelhar is a prerequisite for unity the one way,and is a stumbling block, the other way.When my General Synod put out a statementof intent to talk seriously about unity, andmentioned the problems, this was receivedenormously negatively. Until some of thepeople talking to each other found out noneof the other parties had actually read thestatement.

Oh, and guess who is driving a movementto unify the NG church family? If you say DrAlan Boesak, you would be right.

So, why am I telling you about this: Togive you an idea of that which is currentlygiving me energy. It is enormously satisfyingto work for a voluntary organisation that isactive and dynamic. A place where what I dogrants my life meaning.

As I do not get that from my job. And, onthe SF side, we have not yet become insaneenough to launch our bid for a Worldcon.(But watch this space!)

Thank you for providing me a window topeople with similar interests to mine.

Thank you for providing uswith a window on a differentpart of the world.

— JTM

From: Taras Wolansky June 1, 2005100 Montgomery Street., #24-H,Jersey City, NJ 07302-3787 USA

[email protected]

Alexiad 4.2: “Too dumb to be seriousand too otiose to be a joke.” Joe, some ofyour jokes are so inside that you’re the onlyone who understands them! (The advantageof being your own editor.) Reading thoseMarx Brothers obituaries, I would havetw ig g e d t o t h e f a c t t h e y w e r eparodies/alternate histories but, knowing littleabout the real biographies (or even the realfirst names), I would have gotten few of thejokes.

“The Norwegian researchers at TrollStation will conduct observations duringthe upcoming Antarctic winter.” Another“extinct” species rediscovered!

Review of Dangerous Visions (1967) — “Riders of the Purple Wage”: “A non-starter . . . another iteration of ‘post-scarcity’ theory”. As if human wants willrun out. Or, in other words, in a “post-scarcity” economy all the readers of Alexiadwill have personal starships — and willgrumble about renting only a continent andnot the whole planet, as in Jack Vance’s“Ullward’s Retreat”. Vance is one of thewise ones.

The post-scarcity economistsforgot that land was inherently”scarce”. Theobald doesn’t evenmention the issue in Teg’s 1994. As for the other point, he shouldhave read Pohl’s “The Man WhoAte the World” as well as “TheMidas Plague”.

Turns out, when the post-scarcity folksspeak of all wants being satisfied, they meanall wants they approve of.

Review of “Eutopia”: “An outfit sendingpeople on investigations to other time-lineswould, one would think, have proper

briefings for its investigators, and takecare that they be properly trained”. Compare the movie, Stargate, which I walkedout on, with the TV series, Stargate SG-1,which is unfailingly intelligent (judging froma random sample of about 20 episodes). Ellison himself edited a story in Again,Dangerous Visions about an explorer whotravels to a parallel world in whichlobotomized humans are treated like farmanimals, meets the (lobotomized) local analogof the woman he loved — and immediatelyhas sex with her. My impression fromEllison’s intro to the story was that heinstigated the author to write that idioticscene. It’s “In the Barn”, by Piers Anthony. Figures.

“What was new, thrilling, exciting, andshocking then is now trite, old, andirrelevant.” This is why Ellison’s abortedLast Dangerous Visions is the greatest literarycrime in the history of SF. Many authorsnever bothered to retrieve their work from thecardboard boxes under Ellison’s bed, becausethey knew time had long passed them by. Insome cases, careers may have been aborted aswell.

Review of Charles Stross’ The FamilyTrade: “Their family relations have all theamiability and affability of a snake pit”. Not really a Piper influence there; and ifZelazny then indirectly Philip Jose Farmer. Zelazny’s “Amber” series, with its murderoussiblings, was inspired by the backstory ofFarmer’s The Maker of Universes and TheGates of Creation, themselves probablytaking inspiration from the Jacobean revengetragedies.

Piper took much of thepolitics of Lord Kalvan fromItalian Renaissance politics, sothat sort of behavior wouldfollow suit.

Review of Bernard Cornwell’s The LastKingdom: I’ve heard it said that the mythicalViking horned helmet came from an over-literal interpretation of medieval images, inwhich Vikings are presented as devils.

“To the Last Roll Call”: Interesting thatyou say the last Civil War veteran died in1956. I have a clear recollection from mychildhood of watching a black and white TVnews report of the death of the last Civil Warveteran. It must have been one of the fakeConfederate veterans you spoke of.

Joy V. Smith: “James P. Hogan isrecommending Holocaust denial sites?!” Hogan has some cranky views, aboutVelikovsky and whether HIV causes AIDS,but this would be a surprise. Or is it one ofthose “guilt by distant association” deals; e.g.,P lanned Parenthood publishing Nazieugenicists back in the 1930s?

Eugenicists: have you readWar Against the Weak? AndHogan’s webpage has a link tothe IHR’s.

— JTM

John Hertz: I’ve read Don Quixote. Then again, I think it was assigned readingfor a college course.

Jim Sullivan: (Review of Will in theWorld.) My own reading of Shakespeare’ssonnets makes me doubt the story that “Willseems to have fallen in love with a youngmale aristocrat”, though it’s possible thatfellow fell in love with Shakespeare. Compare the “homosexual” sonnets with theclearly heterosexual ones. The former, for alltheir stylized praise of male beauty,repeatedly urge the young man to marry. (Iimagine the young man’s father slippingShakespeare a few pounds to put that in!) The latter show more of the jealousy andvividness of real, sexual love.

All this is assuming that there is anybiographical content whatsoever in thesonnets. As critics have pointed out,Shakespeare was writing in a genre: neitherthe young man nor the dark lady, nor “greasyJoan”, may have actually existed. On theother hand, it is a problem for Oxfordians thatseveral of the sonnets play games with theword/name, “Will”.

Milt Stevens: “Some of the darkestpeople I’ve ever seen were East Indians.” Same here; when we talk about colordiscrimination, we are really using aeuphemism.

“Forbidden Planet could easily havebeen the first episode of Star Trek.” Myfirst thought was: it was the first episode. That is, Forbidden Planet is the immediatesource for Star Trek; the more distant sourcebeing A.E. Van Vogt’s Mission to the Stars(“Lost: Fifty Suns”, “The Storm”, “TheMixed Men”). My second thought was: Forbidden Planet did it better. My thirdthought was: A.E. Van Vogt did it better,too!

Alexiad June 2005

From: Martin Helgesen June 1, 200511 Lawrence Avenue, Malverne, NewYork 11565-1406 [email protected]

That was an interesting retrospective ofDangerous Visions. I remembered some ofthe stories but had forgotten some others socompletely that I didn’t recognize thedescriptions of them. Incidentally, theFundamentalist fantasy writer best known forThis Present Darkness and its sequel Piercingthe Darkness is Frank Peretti, not Charles.

In discussing Deborah E. Lipstadt’s bookHistory on Trial Joe observes that we liveunder “a legal system where procedure iseverything and factual content is nothing.”Nat Hentoff, in a Village Voice columnentitled “Terri Schiavo: Judicial Murder. Hercrime was being disabled, voiceless, and atthe disposal of our media,” gave manyexamples of Judge Greer and the appealscourts ignoring facts and quoted Ralph Naderas saying, “The court is imposing processover justice.” The entire column is availableat:http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0513,hentoff,62489,6.html

Grant C. McCormick concludes his essayon the eye by saying, “The eye has long beenused as an argument against evolution (‘Whatuse is half an eye?’). I think it is onlyappropriate that it be used as an argument forevolution instead.” I haven’t read much about

the evolution controversy, partly because Ihave no problem with the idea that God usedevolution as an instrument of creation.However, as I understand it, the argument isthat the various components of the eye haveno evolutionary survival value by themselves.They have to work together. From the pointof view of someone who believes that Godcreated the universe his objection based onways in which the eye could have beendesigned better is one aspect of the generalquestion, “Why did God create the universethe way He did?” One answer to that questionis, “We don’t know”, a reply that shouldgladden the heart of any agnostic.

Alexis A. Gilliland refers to me as “MartyHegelsen”. My name frequently is misspelledand mispronounced in many ways and itdoesn’t bother me. I mention it now only saythat that particular misspelling appeared oncein MINNEAPA. Doug Hoylman noticed itand commented, “Marty Hegelsen? You kantbe serious.”

As for “over and out”, I know what it hasbecome in practice, but using the officialdefinitions, it is contradictory. Here is a sitewith an official list of radio prowords:http://basic.armystudyguide.com/ctt/113-571-1022.htm

Joe says to Sheryl Birkhead, “The catswould be astonished that I was three times asmuch as them.” Does that mean he has 27lives?

Joe says to Milt Stevens that the guys

doing ST: Enterprise could have had LeslieNielsen as Starfleet Admiral Adams. LeslieNielsen already appeared in a science fictionmovie, The Creature Wasn’t Nice akaSpaceship aka Naked Space. That last titleobviously was intended to evoke thoughts ofthe Naked Gun movies. That’s why I boughta cheap, remaindered DVD with that title. Itis bad, nowhere near as funny as the othermovies.

It was initially released in1981 and retitled when theothers came out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082213/

Lloyd Penney mentions watching theoriginal Star Trek. I watched the first episodeof Star Trek and didn’t see it again formonths. That was not a choice. My ArmyReserve unit met the day it was on and I sawthe first episode only because there was nomeeting scheduled that week.

I strongly agree with Robert S. Kennedyabout the distinction between “sex” and“gender”. When I first saw mentions of“gender studies” I said it was a veryspecialized branch of grammar. I did knowwhat the users meant, but I reject it. However,considering that the phrase “have sex” can beused with a specific meaning (cf. Clinton,passim) his comment, “Words have gender,

people have sex,” presents interesting ideas.How do words do it?

How can you deny words theirright to sexual expression intheir own fashion?

— JTM

Joe asks, in connection with my statementthat I keep a small jar of preserves forsandwiches in hotels’ ice buckets while atcons, “What happens when the hotel’s icemachines run out, thanks to the con’sdemands?” That’s never happened to me. Irefill the ice bucket in the morning when themachines have refilled themselves. I usuallycheck it again in the late afternoon.

See you at ConGlomeration,we hope.

WAHF:Lloyd Daub, with various items ofinterest.Rykandar Korra’ti, with a report on theNorWesCon fanzine lounge.

June 2005 Alexiad

AN ANDROMEDA STRAINby Paul Gadzikowski.

EMAIL I NEVER FINISHEDREADING

From: [email protected]: Sent: 13 April 2005 02:33Subject: URGENT REQUEST

Compliments, With humble heart andspirit I commit myself this day to write to you asking for your benevolent and kindconsideration of my plight for assistance .Iam making this contact on behalf of myfamily not minding the consequences buthoping that you will understand our predicament and come to our aid and assistus. I would also want to apologize for anyinconveniences or embarrassment this mightcause your person, as we neither know eachother personally nor have had any previouscontact or correspondence .

This letter to you is as a result ofinformation and esteem recommendation Ireceived from the local branch of theInternational Chamber of commerce, on yourcredibility and reliability with regard tobusiness dealings. Indeed it may come to youas a surprise but it was borne out of mysincere desire to share a mutual businessrelationship with you. First, your strictestconfidence in this transaction is highlysolicited.This is by virtue of its nature asbeing utterly confidential and top secret withits success based entirely on mutual trust,cooperation and an uncompromisable highlevel of confidentiality

In unfolding this proposal, I want to counton you, as a respected and honest person tohandle this transaction with sincerity, trustand confidentiality. I have decided to seek aconfidential co-operation with you in theexecution of the deal described Hereunder forthe benefit of all parties and hope you willkeep it as a top secret because of the nature ofthis transaction. I came to know of you in myprivate search for a reliable and reputableperson to handle this confidential transactionwhich involves the transfer of a huge sum ofmoney to a foreign account requiringmaximum confidence.

I am Mrs. MALGORZATA WOJYTLAwife of deceased JOHN PAUL II, who untilhis unfortunate death on the 2d of April 2005was the Bishop, Patriarch and Pope of Rome. Among his personal effects was a bankingaccount in THE BANK OF ITALY in thesum of €127,000,000 (ONE HUNDREDTWENTY SEVEN MILLION EUROS).

Due to the banking laws and personalrules of the Republic of italy I amhandicapped in removing this sum to myhomeland in Poland. I wish to have thisfunds, which have lingered for long in thebank transferred overseas as soon as possibleas there recent eyebrows being raised asregards the funds and further leaving themoney in the bank here might jeopardize myclaim to it. I write to solicit for yourassistance in helping provide a trusted bankaccount where tax will not take a large toll onthe money as I have completed all necessarydocumentation to the release of this fund. . ..

Co-Editors: Lisa & Joseph MajorCo-Publishers: Joseph & Lisa MajorWriters, Staff: M a j o r , J o s e p h &

Major, Lisa

Art: What we are mainly looking for issmall fillos. Your fillo will probably bescanned in and may be reused, unless youobject to its reuse.

Contributions: This is not a fictionzine. It is intended to be our fanzine, so beinteresting.

Material in Alexiad is copyright © 2005. All rights reserved. Upon publication, allrights revert to the original contributor, butwe reserve the right to use any item morethan once, unless otherwise specified by thecontributor. All letters sent to Alexiadbecome the property of the publishers. Anymaterial by the editors is available to otherfanzines if they provide proper credit andsend a copy.

Available for The Usual (letter ofcomment, trade, contribution). Sample issueavailable upon request. Back issues $1;subscription $10/year. Alexiad is alsoavailable by email in either text or AdobeAcrobat .pdf format.

ALEXIADc/o Lisa & Joseph Major1409 Christy AvenueLouisville, KY 40204-2040 [email protected]

vol. 4 no. 3 june 2005 alexiad -...

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