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Vol. 9 No. 5 October 2010

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

We were at Office Depot to pick up Joe’s family newsletter. Iwaited outside with my bag of books. Joe had been inside perhapsten minutes when I heard honking overhead not far away. I loweredmy book and stared in the noise’s direction, for I knew the honkingwas that of Canadian geese flying south. In a few minutes theyappeared and flew almost directly overhead. I marveled at theirmajesty and felt some sadness but not much since this summer wasso miserable, for to me the sight of the geese flying south has alwaysmeant the end of summer, whatever the calendar says. The geesehave always been my signal it is time to prepare for winter. I haveput away most of my short-sleeved shirts and gotten out my long-sleeved shirts. I kept out a few favorites. If I cannot find my boots byThanksgiving I will visit Rural King and buy a new pair. I love farmsupply boots. They have all kinds of treads. They do tend to be heavyand awkward but are unbeaten for walking on ice.

— Lisa

Table of ContentsEditorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Reviewer’s Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Family Ties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Haunted Mesa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Hugo Notes and Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Jockworld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9The Joy of High Tech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139/11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Paying the Piper III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Veterans News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Worldcon Notes and Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Book ReviewsLTM Anderson/Stall, Night of the Living Trekkies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9JTM Capuzzo, The Murder Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8LTM Graham, Stealing Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9JTM Kay, Under Heaven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6JTM Patterson, Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century 6JTM Roach, Packing for Mars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8JTM Turtledove, West and East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7JTM van Name, Children No More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

TV ReviewsLTM Hawaii Five-O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Candy ReviewsJC Godiva Maple Walnut Truffle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Con ReportsJ/LM ReConStruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Fanzines Received . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Random Jottings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Dainis Bisenieks, Sue Burke, Alexis A. Gilliland, Jerry Kaufman,Robert S. Kennedy, Fred Lerner, Lloyd Penney, George W. Price,Darrell Schweitzer, Joy V. Smith, Milt Stevens, Taral Wayne,Martin Morse Wooster

Comments are by JTM, LTM , or Grant.

Trivia: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Art:Alan Beck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 13Sheryl Birkhead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16, 17, 25Brad W. Foster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6, 16Paul Gadzikowski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Alexis A. Gilliland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 11, 14, 15, 18, 20Trinlay Khadro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Marc Schirmeister . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 9

JTM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10TW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20, 21

The 56th Running of the Yonkers Trot (1st leg of the TrottingTriple Crown) was July 11, 2010 at Yonkers Raceway inYonkers, New York. On the Tab won.The 85th Running of the Hambletonian (2nd leg of theTrottingTriple Crown) was August 7, 2010 at Meadowlands Racetrackin East Rutherford, New Jersey. Muscle Massive won.The 118th Running of the Kentucky Futurity (3rd leg of theTrotting Triple Crown) will be October 16, 2010 at the Red Milein Lexington, Kentucky.

The 55th Running of the Cane Pace (1st leg of the Pacing TripleCrown) was September 6, 2010 at Freehold Raceway inFreehold, New Jersey. One More Laugh won in 1:50.3, settinga new record for the track.The 65th Running of the Little Brown Jug (2nd leg of the PacingTriple Crown) was September 23, 2010 at the Delaware CountyFair in Delaware, Ohio. Rock N Roll Heaven won, setting a newrecord of 1:49.2 for each heat.The 54th Running of the Messenger Stakes (3rd leg of the PacingTriple Crown) will be November 6, 2010 at Yonkers Raceway.

The Breeders’ Cup World Championships will be November 5-6, 2010 at Churchill Downs.

Lisa’s Birthday is October 30, 2010Our Anniversary is November 22, 2010

Printed on October 7, 2010Deadline is December 1, 2010

Reviewer’s Notes

I am getting pickier as I get older. I’m not mentioning the matter ofbeing able to predict the plot of a book from looking at the cover. Imean like, for example, getting annoyed when an alternate history bookexploits the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Syndrome way too far.Thus I never finished Ian Tregillis’s promising new AH book BitterSeeds (2010) because it had a World War II a whole lot like the real one,but then the Nazi magicians managed to summon spells to break theDunkirk evacuation, so the British magicians sacrificed a whole pub fullof people to get the power to destroy the Seelöwe fleet in mid-channel.And it hasn’t made a difference up to then?

And meanwhile I am becoming more bound by the inconveniencesof life. As for example having to take the car in to get the oil changed(there was that long trip since the last time, understand), and the onlyavailable free time is 9:00 AM on Sunday. Which in turn interferes withmy laundry schedule . . . Maybe once I pay off the video camera I cando something about that.

— Joe

October 2010 Alexiad

RANDOM JOTTINGSby Joe

Someday I’ve got to start proofreading formore than grammar and spelling. In the reviewof Brutal Journey in the last issue, the commentabout the people chasing naked Spaniardsthrough their village should end, “They didn’twant them to die quickly.”

In yet more Piper news, the indefatigableJohn F. Carr has announced the publication ofan expanded version of “Time Crime”, theParatime story of the inter-timeline slave tradeand the efforts of Tortha Karf, Verkan Vall,Hadron Dalla, and others of the Paratime Policeto extirpate it and unmask the perpetrators.Perhaps he’ll even explain how Yandar Yaddthe journalist wasn’t jugged for his associationwith the Wizard Traders.

It’s however from Pequod Press, thepublisher of the sequels to Great Kings’ War,and can be expected to be expensive. There aretwo sequels planned, to be titled Time Troublesand Time Wars.

Why were people surprised when J. S.Carter (he is not a credit to his first name)managed to run the endowment of theIndependence Seaport Museum in Philadelphiainto the ground, or maybe the seabottom?Which puts their memorial vessel the USSOlympia (C-6, later IX-40) in peril. (Our visitwas in Alexiad V. 3 #5.) They’re seriouslyconsidering scrapping or sinking the ship,because the price of the repairs needed to keepher afloat exceeds the amount of the endowmentthat was left after Carter paid for his vacationhome and investment in boats. He also wrote apaper about why, how, and when it could be toomuch trouble to keep up an historic ship.

When Robert Heinlein was describing hisplans for the stories that would be published inThe Green Hills of Earth (1951; NHOL G.094)he cited some series in The Saturday EveningPost as the sort of thing he hoped to emulate:“Earthworm Tractor, Tugboat Annie, GunsmithPyne, Blue Chip Haggerty, etc. ) stories laidagainst a particular occupation or industry.”

“Tugboat Annie” is the best known, as therewas a movie and a television series, but thestories were written by screenwriter NormanReilly Raine, basing the hard-bitten boat captainon a woman he knew who did run not only a

tugboat but a company. The “EarthwormTractor” stories by William Haslett Upsonrecounted the comic adventures of salesmanAlexander Botts, as told in his rather maniccorrespondence with the home office. Therewas a movie, too. “Blue Chip Haggerty” was amachinist, not a stockbroker, and the writer RayMillholland was a machinist and writer. I can’tfind anything on “Gunsmith Pyne”.

Most of them have been out of print forsome time. The stories published in TheSaturday Evening Post and the others in TheGreen Hills of Earth aren’t.

How’s your Oc dollar balance?

http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/entertainment/2010/06/10/vintage-ads-thinking/#slide=53

This is an ad for a spindizzy! [The FTLdrive in James Blish’s Cities in Flight series.]

Victory for Classical Education over Football“Almost. There was a Titans game

last year where I asked why Cronus andHyperion weren’t playing.”

— ÉÜóùí Áëåðïý [Jason Fox](“FoxTrot”, September 19, 2010)

Ben Macintyre just might be thinking he’sbeing followed. Just when he published AgentZigzag (2007; reviewed in Alexiad V. 6 #5),about the Double-Cross Agent Eddie Chapman,Nicholas Booth published Zigzag (2007), aboutthe Double-Cross Agent Eddie Chapman. Now,just when he published Operation Mincemeat(2010; reviewed in Alexiad V. 9 #3), about thestory of the deception operation and the corpse,Denis Smyth has brought out DeathlyDeception: The Real Story of OperationMincemeat (2010; Oxford University Press;ISBN 978-0-19-923398-4; £16.99/$29.95), abook about you guessed it.

One thing Smyth does do that Macintyredoesn’t is to mention the theory that the bodywas not that of Glyndwr Michaael, but of asailor from the escort carrier HMS Dasher. Healso disproves it.

Blogger and retired Space Shuttle ProgramManager Wayne Hale raised a point about thespace program worth repeating:

I’m not sure it is so much the internetas the total inability of the social mediaworld to have give and takeconversations rather than flame wars.Compromise is the genius of thedemocratic system and we seem to havelost that. There were plenty of debatesabout how to structure the spaceprogram in the 1960s and they werefurious at times but rational decisionswere made and almost everyone agreedthat the selected way forward – if nottheir first choice – was at leastacceptable. Today nobody seems to beable to accept anything less than totalagreement with their position. Theinternet has contributed to that but it is

an attitude hardening of positions that isthe biggest problem.

http://waynehale.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/6/

Rocketry pioneer Robert C. Truax has diedin Vista, California, on September 21, 2010.Born in 1917, Truax entered Annapolis,graduating with the Class of 1939, and enteredthe Navy, reaching the rank of Captain. He hadconducted rocketry tests at the Academy,demonstrating a propulsion chamber to theBritish Interplanetary Society. He helpeddevelop various missiles and fuels after theSecond World War, retiring in 1959 to pursuevarious private interests related to rocketry.

OBITS

We regret to report the death of E. C. “Ted”Tubb on September 10, 2010, Edwin CharlesTubb was born in London on October 15, 1919and remained living there until his death. Hewas best known for his “Dumarest” cycle, along-running series of a lone wanderer’s searchfor his home planet, but he wrote over 140novels, many under pseudonyms, beginning in1951. He was Guest of Honor at HeiConInternational, the 1970 WorldCon, along withhonors from other cons.

MONARCHIST NEWS

We note the death of Carlos Hugo ofBourbon-Parma, Duke of Parma andPiacenzia on August 18, 2010 in Barcelona.Born April 8, 1930 in Barcelona to Xavier deBourbon-Parma and Madeleine de Bourbon-Busset (a descendant of Cesare Borgia), PrinceCarlos Hugo (Charles Hugues de Bourbon-Parma) was claimant of the Duchy of Parma inItaly (Carlo IV) and also Carlist Pretender to theSpanish Throne (Carlos Hugo I). His marriagein 1964 to Princess Irene of the Netherlandscaused a constitutional crisis there.

The Duke will be buried in Parma. The heirto his claims is his and Irene’s son Carlos(Carlos Xavier Bernardo Sixto Marie deBourbon-Parma) who was created a prince ofthe Dutch Royal family by Queen Beatrix (aswell as his Parma and Carlist pretences). Thenew Duke married Annemarie CeciliaGualthérie van Weezel civilly on June 12, 2010.The religious marriage was postponed due to theillness of the groom’s father.

We note the death of Friedrich Wilhelm,Fürst von Hohenzollern on September 16,2010 in Sigmaringen, Baden-Wurttemberg,Germany. Born February 3, 1924, the princebecame head of the Franconian branch of thefamily upon the death of his father, PrinceFriedrich Viktor Pius, in 1965.

The Franconian branch is senior to theBrandenburg-Prussia branch, being descendedfrom the older son of Burggraf Friedrich V ofNürnberg, Johann III, while the Brandenburgbranch is descended from the younger sonFriedrich. The prince’s successor is his sonKarl Friedrich Emich von Hohenzollern.

Alexiad October 2010

FAMILY TIESby Joseph T Major

The kinship organization of the family shipsin Citizen of the Galaxy (1957: NHOL G.134) isnot overly specified. There is a good bit on thegenetic aspect — restricting marriage within theship, promoting out-breeding — but only theconcept of “moiety” (at least on board the Sisu;other ships may use a different term) for groupswithin the family.

Shortly thereafter Heinlein declined to wolf-pack organization. It was thought then that in awolf pack, the alpha male would be the only onewho fathered pups. So, Valentine MichaelSmith was the father of all the children in theNest, and I have my suspicions about LazarusLong and his harem, er associates. (More recentresearch indicates that this doesn’t seem to bethe case for wolves, which would validate themore human-type family organization of theWolfriders in the Pinis’ ElfQuest —incidentally, by looking at the pack as shown inthe flashback of how Bearclaw (Cutter’s father)had died, I figured that they had lost somewhatunder a quarter of their adults in the past fewyears, putting Bearclaw’s leadership skills intosome serious question.)

But what is the relationship between Thorbyand his last girlfriend Leda, who saved him inthe dramatic proxy fight? I mean the kinshiprelationship. From reading the text, one findsthat Thorby’s great-grandfather Rudbek had oneson and more than one daughter. Only the sonand the youngest daughter had children,apparently; the son, Thorby’s grandfather, wasthe father of his mother, Martha Rudbek, whomarried Creighton Bradley and had ThorBradley Rudbek. (Known to his family as“Thor B.”, which became “Thorby” when hefell into bad company.) The youngest daughterhad a daughter, Leda.

Now Leda and Martha were, in spite of theage difference, first cousins. (Note again thatLeda is about the age of Martha’s son.) Mostpeople don’t recognize any further distinction.And then when I try to explain it . . .

“Oh, Leda and Thorby are second cousins.”No. Leda is the first cousin of Martha,

Thorby’s mother. Leda’s children, if any,would be Thorby’s second cousins.

Thorby is one generation removed from afirst-cousin relationship. Therefore, Thorby andLeda are first cousins once removed. Thorby’schildren, if any, would be Leda’s first cousinstwice removed. (Unless Thorby finally gets hisact together and marries Leda.)

J. R. R. Tolkien understood this sort ofthing. As Hamfast Gamgee observed:

‘You see: Mr. Drogo, he married poorMiss Primula Brandybuck. She was ourMr. Bilbo’s first cousin on the mother’sside (her mother being the youngest ofthe Old Took’s daughters); and Mr.Drogo was his second cousin. So Mr.Frodo is his first and second cousin,once removed either way, as the sayingis, if you follow me. . .’

— The Fellowship of the Ring, Book I, Chapter1 “A Long-Awaited Party”

That is, Primula Brandybuck’s motherMirabella Took and Bilbo Baggins’s motherBelladonna Took were sisters, and Drogo’s andBilbo’s grandfathers Mungo Baggins and LargoBaggins were brothers. Frodo is one generationremoved from his parents’ relationships toBilbo; as the Gaffer says, he is Bilbo’s firstcousin once removed and second cousin onceremoved. (Lisa has a relative like that.) Bilboand Frodo have family ties. We owe so much ofthis to Allan Barnett, a Shelby County boy andfriend of Tolkien’s.

This is one factor of Tolkien’s work that hismany emulators have significantly abandoned.And indeed, like their readers (it seems), peoplein SF&F have a less than optimal relationshipwith their progenitors and associates.

It wasn’t always the case; Richard Seatonwas raised by his father, while DorothyVaneman (later Seaton) had parents who couldbe held hostage by Marc C. DuQuesne in onethrilling moment until he discovered he hadfallen behind on the tech curve. In the otherseries, Virgil Samms and the Olmstead brothershad a truly complex relationship, being doublefirst cousins of identical-twin relationships.

(Incidentally, I have a real shocker for you:Kentucky law prohibits the marriage of firstcousins. Just thought you’d like to know. Itdoes permit the marriage of first cousins onceremoved (or my great-grandparents Mabrycould never have wed), so Thorby and Ledacould get married in Lexington, in spite of whathappened there to Mannie Davis . . .)

But now that we’ve grown up and got pastDoc Smith, the Hero has only the True Love(that pretty much sums up all the possiblecombinations there) and no other familialconnections of any kind. It’s not quite as bad asJohn Galt, who came into being when alightning bolt hit a power station, but it’s gettingthere.

That’s Science Fiction. In Fantasy, there area few more kinspersons possibly available:

The Aged Grandparent, who imparts theSecret Prophesy or a key element ofGnomic Wisdom to the Hero before dying.

The Parents, who are killed by the EvilOverlord in the Transformative Event thatleads the Hero to undertake the Quest.

The Brother, who always turns to evil,becoming the Trusted Lieutenant if notbeing the Evil Overlord himself.

The Sister, who exists to be kidnapped by theEvil Overlord.

Yet all the elder generation were onlychildren. You’d think that in the typical RusticVillage from which the Hero comes, everybodywould be some sort of relation. Now by modernstandards, the Hero has to be a AbandonedOrphan (so s/he can be the Lost Prince(ss), theRenegade Child of the Evil Overlord, or the

like) but would still have family connectionswith the relatives of the Foster Parents.

This is too modern a setup. I’ve seencomments about how nowadays the mostcommon family tree seems to be indeed tree-shaped; parents with no siblings and only onechild. However, these days there is acountervailing factor in that often said parentsare divorced and remarried, and indeed so aretheir parents, so that one child will have asmany as four parents and sixteen grandparents,all giving generous gifts to buy the child’sallegiance. And presumably, the child is not,like, into that children thing . . .

One feature that made My Big Fat GreekWedding (2002; reviewed in Alexiad V. 2 #2) socomprehensible to Lisa and me was that Toula(Nia Vardalos) had such a large family; nineuncles & aunts (each) and twenty-seven firstcousins. Change the ouzo to moonshine, theGreek Orthodox Church to the Southern BaptistChurch, and have the senile granny in blackcursing Yankees instead of Turks, and you’vegot us.

But more and more, an extended family islike Ian’s, an only child with only two firstcousins. (I guess each of his parents had asibling.) Or even less. So I guess SF is beingpredictive here.

(As for a personal reference, I wrote analternate-history novel. I suspect it won’t sellbecause it doesn’t have the obligatory kewl stufflike invaders from other places or planes,protagonists getting unstuck in time (onedimension or another), heros remaking theworld with future technology, or even the Naziswinning.

But anyhow, I had a scene set in a homewhere there was “mail on the table and bills onthe floor”. The “bills” happened to be two four-year old boys named William, arguing over atoy. The mother of one William was theyounger sister of the great-grandfather of theother. The two boys were therefore . . . getready for it . . . first cousins twice removed.)

OF HUMAN EVENTSCommentary by Joseph T Major

She closed her mind to the voicesaround her and stared at the map spreadon the table between the two greatcandlesticks, trying to imagine herselfhigh above everything, looking downlike a bird. Here was Tarr-Hostigos,only a little mark of gold on the


parchment, but she could see it all inimagination — the outer walls aroundthe great enclosure with the sheds andstables against them; the citadel, and theinner bailey; the keep, and thewatchtower, jutting up from the point ofthe ridge. And here, below, was theDarro, and she could see it glinting inthe sunlight as it rushed south to join theAthan, and here was the town ofHostigos, and the bridge and the town-hall and the temple of Dralm, and,beyond, the farmlands and the squares offields and the dark woods and the littlevillages. Oh, it would be wonderful tobe a bird and fly above everything, andlook down; ever since she had been ababy, she had dreamed . . .

A voice, harsher than the others,brought her back to the present she hadbeen trying to flee.

“King Kaiphranos won’t interfere?What’s a king for, but to keep the peace?Great Dralm, is all Hos-Harphax afraidof Gormoth of Nostor?”

Rylla tried to close her mind to thevoices around her in the tapestried room,and stared at the map spread in front ofher and her father. There was Tarr-Hostigos overlooking the gap, only atiny fleck of gold on the parchment, butshe could see it in her mind’s eye — thewalled outer bailey with the sheds andstables and workshops inside, the innerbailey and the citadel and keep, thewatchtower pointing a blunt fingerskyward. Below, the little Darro flowednorth to join the Listra and with it, thebroad Athan to the east. Hostigos Town,white walls and slate roofs and busystreets; the checkerboard of fields to thewest and south; the forest, broken byfarms, to the west.

A voice, louder and harsher than theothers, brought her back to reality. Hercousin, Sthentros.

“He’ll do nothing at all? Well, whatin Dralm’s holy name is a Great Kingfor, but to keep the peace?”

On January 5, 1960, H. Beam Piper finisheda story set in his ongoing future history series.The “TerroHuman Future History” was one ofa few; the concept of setting a set of not directlyconnected stories in the same universe hadbecome more popular since Robert Heinlein haddone that in his stories published during hisbrilliant initial years. Other writers, such asPoul Anderson, had taken the concept andworked with it, as David Falkayn and Nicholasvan Rijn give way to Dominic Flandry.

Piper’s history was darker, like Heinlein’sinitial future history, in keeping with the timeso f i t s c o m p o s i t io n , o r A n d e rso n ’s“Psychotechnic League” stories set in a post-nuclear future. Humanity had had a destructivenuclear war, but some parts of humancivilization had survived on Earth. They hadspread to the stars, only to find that the human

race had not outgrown politics or the inability tolive within it.

Piper created a vast and diverse universe.The planets and interplanetary organizationswere of all kinds. His using Renaissance Italyas a model led him to create a diversity ofgovernments, even if in the end he tended todecline to imagining a “Galactic Empire”. Theplanets were diverse, too.

It’s well to recall that the principal survivingcenters of civilization on Earth after the nuclearwars were in the Southern Hemisphere.Therefore, the people involved were notprimarily Northwestern European White Menwith broad shoulders and engineering degrees,as one might expect from imagining “TheMightiest Machine” done and redone.

The story finished on January 5, 1960reflects this. Other works in the series refer to(in passing) the planet Freya, known for itsparticularly beautiful women. This particularstory was set there, describing the discovery ofFreya and what happened afterwards.

The merchant adventurers of the spaceshipStellex are a varied group. They have pooledtheir resources and set out to find a planetsuitable for exploitation, preferably anuninhabited one which they can turn into afarming and ranching community. Discoverersof uninhabited planets get the rights to exploittheir discoveries; this group is looking tobecome a supplier to the planet Yggdrasil, aparticularly uninhabitable planet which ismineral-rich. The miners would like somenatural food for a change.

What they discover is a planet which theycall Freya. It seems almost perfect. Except, ofcourse, there is one inhabited continent. Anuninhabited planet can be exploited, or to bemore formal, claimed and used; an inhabitedplanet has beings with rights. (This theme wasexplored further in Little Fuzzy (1962). Howmany authors considered the problems of civilrights of other species? Besides Heinlein(“Jerry Was a Man”/”Jerry Is a Man” (NHOLG.054; Thrilling Wonder Stories November1947)), that is.)

It gets worse. The inhabited area is dividedinto a multiplicity of small political entities,usually in conflict. The ship’s crew makescontact, learns the local situation, and discoversthe source of of this extreme politicalfragmentation. While the political entities aresmall and disunited, there is an overarchingentity that dominates them through technology;specifically, the manufacture of “fireseed” —gunpowder.

This political structure is ripe for anoverturn. And an outside force seems to be theway to overturn it.

The story was rejected with amazing speed;One would think John W. Campbell would be aprime candidate for accepting a story about thedestruction of a false religion wielding politicalpower (think Gather, Darkness! (Astounding,May-July 1943)), but he had problems with it.The story lacked a center; there were too manyfeatured characters but no central character, andthere were too many subplots but no main plot.

As Campbell summed it up:

The problem is made as diffuse asthe cast of characters. (That, too, is trueof life . . . but makes for ineffective art.)

If he had made The Problem theHouse of Styphon, then, at a particularperiod, under particular circumstances,the reader would sigh, feel “Ah! Nowthey’ve licked the problem,” and be ableto rest content.

As is . . . where’s the climax in thisstory?

— Letter of January 20, 1960, JWC to KenWhiteQuoted in H. Beam Piper: A Biography(2008) by John F. Carr, Page 158

Piper seems to have reconsidered. The firstlong quote above is from the introduction to thisstory, “When In the Course —“ (1981). Thesecond is from the story titled “GunpowderGod”, published in Analog in the November1964 issue, later made into the opening chaptersof Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1965).

An analysis of the works of Heinlein willreveal that his default setting for stories was hisbirthplace of Missouri. Did Piper have centralPennsylvania in mind when he described in“When In the Course —“ the terrain of the oneinhabited continent of Freya?

Piper also seems to have taken Campbell’sadvice. Instead of the fifteen adventurers, thelater work focuses on two people; CalvinMorrison, the well-educated policeman whofinds that the bromance fairytale comes withseveral gritty considerations, and Verkan thetrader, the observer who becomes concernedabout the parallels with his own circumstances.But then, Verkan the trader is Verkan Vall ofthe Paratime Police, the protagonist of Piper’sprevious stories of that particular agency.

Not surprisingly, the plots begin divergingabout the time that Verkan the trader enters thestory, or when the explorers begin building thecontragravity lifters. The introduction of flyingmachines gives the Hostigi a new level oftechnological advantage. Making their owngunpowder is only a matter of doing somethingthat they have some familiarity in using, whilea flying machine is something entirely new totheir world-view.

Which may explain the comment the oneParatimer makes about Kalvan’s winning thebattles all by himself.

The final chapter of Lord Kalvan ofOtherwhen — perhaps the next to last thingPiper ever wrote — deals with Verkan Vall’sassumption of the office of Chief of ParatimePolice. While waiting for his wife to getdressed and ready — using an old domesticcliché — he muses about the parallel betweenhis circumstances and those of the priesthood ofStyphon in this timeline he has managed to gethimself embroiled in. (Most senior officials ofthe Paratime Police appear to have a hobbyrequiring a large stretch of land on anuninhabited, or scantily-inhabited, Fifth Level


time-line version of Earth. Vall was apparentlythe only one whose “hobby” involved gettingshot at.)

The priesthood of Styphon obtained controlbecause of a technological advantage; a pointwhich Piper tried to make in several venues.His abortive historical novel Only the Arquebus,for example, which would have featured theSpanish defeat of the French in Italy,gunpowder overcoming knightly chivalry.

The Paratime Home Time Line has atechnological advantage; its ability to travelbetween alternative time lines. This is used toestablish control in a variety of ways, fromoutright dominance of a culture through controlof a religion on down to mere commercialtrading. Piper violates the rule of televisiondrama where nothing that happens in oneepisode influences another; that is, events thathappened in previous stories are referened inthis one:

The Commission Director laughed:“You disappoint me! This Styphon’sHouse racket is perfect for penetration ofthat subsector, and in a couple ofcenturies, long before any of us retire,it’ll be a good area to have penetrated.We’ll just move in on Styphon’s Houseand take over the same way we did theYat-Zar temples on the Hulgun Sector,and build that up to general political andeconomic control.”

— Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, Chapter 8

The circumstances surrounding the Yat-Zartemples on the Hulgun Sector are recounted in“Temple Trouble” (Astounding, April 1951).The Paratimers had a history, procedures, andorganization. It could be argued that what weare seeing is “The Adventures of Verkan Vall”,in that there don’t seem to be any eventsreferenced that he wasn’t involved in.

Let’s look at the idea as developed byothers. The Imperium of Keith Laumer’sWorlds of the Imperium series (1961, 1965,1968, 1990) is somewhat more convenientlysituated in that at first, they seemed to be theonly time-line that had the travel method, set ina large space of devastated time-lines. Of thetiny number of surviving time lines in this areaof devastation, only one appeared to have evenhad one of the developers of their method oftime travel. Brion Bayard’s (ours) obviouslydidn’t, fortunately for our survival.

That being the case, apparently theImperium entered into trade relations with theviable distant time-lines. It is unfortunate, in away, that Laumer did not write about this more“normal” life, choosing to focus on moreextreme events where the fate of the entireworld if not the entire fabric of time-lines was atstake. (The worst case being the final book,Zone Yellow (1990) which was essentially oneof the previous books, The Other Side of Time(1965) with a different set of villains.) It wouldhave been interesting to see, for example, howvon Richthofen, Bayard, etc. would havehandled the problem of the temple of Yat-Zar.

Harry Turtledove’s traders in “Crosstime

Traffic” are just that, traders. They deal in,well, curious notions (the title of the secondbook) and do sociological research, thanks tothe vast variety of alternative political situationsthat they can observe. These are the “ordinaryevents” of Paratime; not surprisingly, the bookshave a number of references to and in-jokes onPiper’s work.

The traders in “When In the Course —“ aredoing precisely that, trying to find a planet tosettle and exploit. The story is part of theuniverse of the TerroHuman Future History; itis an explanation of a reference that had beenpreviously made, it uses previously explainedevents (the planet Yggdrasil, a heavy-metalsmining world where as noted it is not possible togrow or raise natural food).

Piper is engaged in universe-building here.The parallel would be with Heinlein’s conceptfor his “second future history”, the oneextrapolating a future based on the moreoptimistic viewpoints of the post World War IIperiod. The world that cast up NehemiahScudder was drawn from the dark Depressionthirties; this one was from the AmericanCentury. In the early days of this he explainedto his agent how he intended to go about this:

If possible, I want to build up abackground, as I did in Astounding, fora series of interplanetary shorts, laid inthe near future (the coming century, toabout A.D. 2050). The series willfollow the formula, somewhat modified,of the SEP [Saturday Evening Post]series such as Earthworm Tractor,Tugboat Annie, Gunsmith Pyne, BlueChip Haggerty, etc. ) stories laid againsta particular occupation or industry. Myseries will be laid against thebackground of commercial (notexploration nor adventure) interplanetarytravel. Continuity will be maintained bynames of places ) Luna City, Drywater,Venusburg, N ew B risbane, NewC h ic a g o , H o w - F a r ? , L e y b u r g ,Marsopolis, Supra-New York, etc., andby consistent use of techniques, cultural

changes , and sp e e c h c h a n g e s .Characters will shift for each story, but amajor character in one story may showup in a bit part in another.

)) Grumbles from the Grave, letter of October25, 1946, p. 105

This was what Piper did with an entireuniverse. His objection to writing the sequels toLittle Fuzzy was that he wanted to space out hisbooks further, to show the development of hisuniverse over a long period of time. There issomething to be said for this. It is longer-rangedthan that original concept of Heinlein’s, morediverse than James Blish’s Cities in Flight(which seems somehow to have evolved aculture remarkably similar to the Depression-eraAmerica of migratory workers in an improbablybrief time), and broader-scoped than Anderson’sPolesotechnic League (which, as striking as itscharacters are, is basically the lives of Nicholasvan Rijn, David Falkayn, and Dominic Flandry,each having several noteworthy adventures inthe Roman Republic become Empire in space).

The closest would seem to have beenAnderson’s other future histo ry, hisPsychotechnic League stories; next, perhaps,Asimov’s Foundation and Empire, which washamstrung by the quasi-Toynbeean theory ofhistory (or Theory of History) in its originalconception. Since then, Mike Resnick’sBirthright Universe has been the closestapproach to that schema (with its own result).

“W hen In the Course —“ fits into thisschema as the story of the contact with oneparticular planet, the reaction of its inhabitants,and the connection of the planet to theinterstellar economy. It has a political context;the explorers have to work within a legalstructure of their own. It discusses the politicalconsequences of technology, in that the Houseof Styphon created a particular politicalstructure through its possession of atechnological advantage, and in turn it wasbroken by the application of anothertechnological advantage.

Also, it ended. There wasn’t another go-round, and another, and another, with theopposition dragging new surprises out of itsheretofore unnoticed house of treasures. Thecomparison between Tuning’s Fuzzy Bones(1981) setting the reader up for yet moresequels, and Piper’s Fuzzies and Other People(1984), which comes to a resolution, can bemade.

It is interesting to note that, if the letter ofrejection as published in H. Beam Piper: ABiography is complete, that the question of“parallel evolution” never came up. The “whenin the course” part derives from the revelation atthe end of the story that Nancy Patterson, one ofthe adventurers, is pregnant by the Hostigiofficer Harmakros — who, obviously, in thiscase is a Freyan, a native of the planet, not aTerran from a different timeline.

(Piper fan Wolf Diehr figured out a solution.The story “Second Genesis”, available on theZarthani.net Piper fan site, tells the story of thesecond expedition to Doorsha and how itsexperimental space drive turned out to be more


effective than anticipated, taking the would-becolonists to a planet of another star. The firstexpedition was described in Piper’s story“Genesis”. As a throw-away line, one of thepeople staying behind says to the colonists asthey are about to leave that as the planet isdying, they’ll have a drinking party and thenbuild a smoky fire in a sealed room — settingup a scene from Piper’s “Omnilingual”!“Second Genesis” is written on a professionallypublished level [and if you’ve seen the storieson the fanfiction.net site that are sparing incapitalization and erratic in grammar, that’ssaying something] and actually adds somethingto the canon it follows without contradicting it.)

Readers don’t often get an opportunity to seea first draft. Seeing how a work could beadapted and modified for a different (but not allthat different) background is useful to the writer.Putting in the Paratimers seems to have been anecessity if the story were to sell at all.

“Second Genesis”http://zarthani.net/images/second_genesis.pdf

FOR US, THE LIVINGReview by Joseph T Major of

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN:In Dialogue with His Century

Volume I: Learning Curve 1907-1948by William H. Patterson, Jr.

(Tor; 2010;ISBN 978-0-7653-1960-9; $29.99)

This was supposed to be distributed, toacclaim and rejoicing, at the HeinleinCentennial in 2007. It’s not the first time a planhas gone wrong.

Patterson has had unlimited access toHeinlein’s collection of letters and otherpersonal papers. As a result we have athoroughgoing view of the world and his lifefrom his own perspective; as the subtitle goes, adialogue with his century.

In a grossly misinterpreted statement,Damon Knight said that Heinlein liked himselfand that was an asset in his characterization (InSearch of Wonder, Page 90). This book showshow much of his own personal experience wentinto his characters; not that they were all him,but that he drew on his own life to put life intohis characters.

Sometimes this was a bit close to the bone.The parallels between his grandfather Dr. Lyleand Dr. Ira Johnson of Time Enough for Love(NHOL G.171; 1973) and To Sail Beyond theSunset (NHOL G.201; 1987) are many; but,

again, one is not the other.For all that he had a small-town origin,

Heinlein grew up in Kansas City. This gavehim access to ways to break out of his marginalfinancial existence — his father made a decentwage but it had to support a large family.

After some effort, he made it to the UnitedStates Naval Academy at West Point, erAnnapolis. (Feeble attempt at “The Man WhoWas Too Lazy to Fail” in-joke noted.) It wasthe year he graduated that things got interesting.

Most Fans knew that Heinlein had beenmarried to Leslyn MacDonald; then he divorcedher and married Virginia Gerstenfeld. But onhis marriage license to Leslyn he gave hismarital status as “divorced”.

Heinlein had been engaged to a womannamed Alice McBee from back in Missouri.But she died, of either peritonitis or anautomobile accident (it still isn’t clear which).On the train back from graduation he had a verybrief affair, which seems to have encouragedhim, for he met up with his old high-schoolclassmate Elinor Leah Curry once he got homeand married her, all before his graduation leaveended.

It does not seem to have been the bestthought-out marriage. She refused to leaveMissouri, which is rather odd behavior for aNavy wife. Not only that, it wasn’t untilHeinlein got to his new post (on the USSLexington (CV-2), out of San Diego) that hewas asked where he wanted to apply for theRhodes Scholarship from. Since RhodesScholarship students were supposed to beunmarried, that put him out of consideration.And he had wanted to study astronomy atOxford (think the guy in “Blowups Happen”(1940, 1946; NHOL G.017)). Fancy that, RAHand JRRT going at it over religion . . .

From there, the man’s life is better known,and the career that led him to sickness, writing,engineering, politics, and back to writing iselucidated, but there are not many revelations ofthe same degree as before. Some of the thingsthat are found out can be somewhat . . .unpleasant, such as Heinlein’s surgery in 1944.(Which does rather knock a hole in the storywhere Grace Hopper outwits Heinlein, but that’smodern-values fantasy anyhow.)

The background of Take Back YourGovernment! (1992, NHOL G.049; original titleHow to Be a Politician) turns out to be moreinteresting even than it seemed. Heinlein spenta good bit of 1946 trying to sell the book. Butthen he tried to sell For Us, the Living (2003;NHOL G.004; reviewed in Alexiad V. 3 #1) forsome time after he got that publication credit, sohe was sticking to his own rule about sellingwhat one wrote.

Similarly, the personal matters we alreadyknew about, but now we know the details. Hisflings into naturism, his “pay it forward”philosophy, and the like were all known of, butin this we see them in action. And likewise hisprogressions across the continent, the end of themarriage that had been thought to be the firstand the beginning of the final one, and so on.

And so it comes to an end, with the greathope of publishing The Young Atomic Engineers

. . . er, Rocket Ship Galileo (1947; NHOLG.048) under his belt, new wife, new life.

The book has a number of petty errors inmatters outside Heinlein’s life, and Pattersonhas been at some pains to acknowledge them invarious fora, or forums. When there are errorsabout things that can be found by a littleresearch in public sources, the reader will havesome concern about the reliability of thosethings that can’t be so readily verified.

Beyond that, there is a rehabilitation process.Anything and anyone that RAH liked is good.Therefore, General Semantics is good. Moresuspiciously, the text portrays L. Ron Hubbardas a wounded veteran, because that’s how hepresented himself to RAH. Not quite.

Some minor points are elucidated. Howeveraccurate the portrayal of Virginia Heinlein inTramp Royal (1992; NHOL G.125) may be, itseems that she really went by “Ticky”. Notonly that, Heinlein wrote a story of “Ticky” thathe reused as the basis for the story of “Poddy”in Podkayne of Mars (1963, 1990; G.147).

That thoroughgoing access has problems inthat outside perspectives are slighted. Notalways, of course, as the descriptions byAsimov (In Memory Yet Green (1979)) and deCamp (Time and Chance (1996)) of life in theNaval Air Station Philadelphia are so wellknown.

Some of the formative events of Heinlein’slife have a strong, but focused light thrown onthem. For example, we know why he becamedisillusioned with religion. Yet, we don’t havethe full story, the outside perspective as it were.Our understanding of Heinlein is now morecomplete, but so often the context is shallow.

To some extent, this is inevitable. Thetestimonies of those who would have seen himfrom outside, of his contemporaries, are notavailable. L. Sprague de Camp described howin writing Dark Valley Destiny (1983) heacquired the assistance of Jane WhittingtonGriffin, and so looked into the people andculture of that part of Texas. But there werestill people in Cross Plains who rememberedBob Howard.

Many of the more controversial events ofHeinlein’s life took place in the later part of it,and from the treatment here, it looks as if wewill be getting his take on them. But there arestill people living who can discuss the other sideof such matters.

HORSING AROUNDReview by Joseph T Major of

UNDER HEAVENby Guy Gavriel Kay

(RoC; 2010; ISBN 978-0451463302; $26.95)

There seems to be a small but notinsignificant market for Chinoiserie; JacquelineCarey’s Naamah’s Kiss (2009; reviewed inAlexiad V. 8 #4) and this. It’s a change fromFantasyland, at least. Kitan is not quite China;albeit I suspect if one rode a long way into thesetting sun along the Silk Route one would getto Sarantium (of the Sarantine Mosaic novelsSailing to Sarantium (1998) and Lord of


Emperors (2000)).Not that Shen Tai (Shen T’ai) is concerned

with such things. He is mourning his father, thegreat general Shen Guo (Shen Kuo), in his ownfashion, by burying the dead of both sides in hisfather’s last triumph before his untimely death.The late enemy seems to have the opinion thathis piety is meritorious, too.

And even more so, the imperial princessoffered up to the barbarians as settlement of therecent unpleasantness. Who, seeing both sidesof the conflict, rewards said non-discriminatorypiety by offering Shen Tai two hundred fiftyhorses. What they call Heavenly Horses, steedsof noteworthy endurance and speed.

There are people in the Kitan empire whowould kill for just one of those Heavenly Horsesand Tai, endowed with an entire herd, findshimself extremely bothered. Not to mentionthat an old friend, with a special escort, came towarn him of something, only the escort killedthe friend before he could speak, followed byanother escort killing the first. This is T’angChina with ninjas, instead of Judge Dee, seemslike — and the second one is a woman, whoappoints herself his bodyguard.

From there we segue into a well-describedpicture of a different society . . . with murderouspolitical intrigue. Tai wants to go home butthings happen.

Like for example a version of the An Lu-Shan rebellion. Kay changed the names,sometimes not very much, but the tale of thebarbarian general with too wide a command andtoo much ambition is lifted all too closely fromhistory. (Now if only the people who write yetanother story about Belisarius would decide topick on this as their source material instead . . .)

On the other hand, the fate of Tai’s sister,who was adopted into the Imperial family andshipped off as an Imperial Princess Bride to yetanother barbarian tribe has its own points. Theyhave werewolves. (This is what makes it afantasy.) She has to find her way home.

While Tai has to keep from being killed byassassins, ambitious politicians, and/or soldiershacked off at his brother, the new primeminister. In fact, he ends up a little closer tothat than most people like.

And then, and then . . . after all this buildup,Kay goes to a rather curt summary of the climaxof the rebellion. Rather as if he didn’t want towrite that part.

Guy Gavriel Kay, by my observation, issomething of a mixed bag as a writer. He iseminently readable, no denying that. TheSarantine Mosaic was not only interesting, withstriking human portraits, but put an intriguingtwist on its historical model.

On the other hand, the Fionavar Tapestrybooks started off with a dull set of people andended up with a grotesque malformation of theArthurian legend (I can imagine Heinleinwriting about Arthur and Lancelot agreeing toshare Guenevere, but that was RAH). Tiganahad some interesting ideas but the climax was atrain-wreck of saving coincidences. And so on.

Here, too, the relationship between Tai andhis bodyguard is elegant. The story of the

drunk poet Sima Zian (pulling up Ssu-maCh’ien (Sima Qian) a few centuries, I take it)amusing — since we’re regarding Heinlein,Sima Zian takes the role of the mentor here,because Tai is very much the sheep ready forshearing. The story of the foreign pleasure girlis interesting on its own, but never really seemsto matter to the plot.

And as I said, Kay seems to have written hisstory so far and then decided to sum up, as if allthat political intrigue that took up so much ofthe book were trivial, and the principal plot hadto do with Tai’s falling for his bodyguard.

WAGES OF DESTRUCTIONReview by Joseph T Major of

THE WAR THAT CAME EARLY:WEST AND EASTby Harry Turtledove

(Del Rey; 2010:ISBN 978-0-345-49184-8; $27.00)

Sequel to Hitler’s War(2009; reviewed in Alexiad V. 8 #5)

Back in the early sixties, Cracked Magazinedid a satirical piece on the growingrehabilitation of Nazism in popular culture.(Fictional, I quickly add, they were onlyspeculating.) One example they gave was a“WWII Monopoly” game. As an example ofthe shifts involved, the title deeds gave amountsobtainable for plundering a nation, instead ofmortgaging a property.

As Adam Tooze indicates in The Wages ofDestruction (2007; reviewed in Alexiad V. 8#2), the Nazi economy worked pretty much likethat. If Hitler had not taken over the resourcesof Czechoslovakia in 1938, his economicproblems would have been greatly magnified.

Which is, to some extent, a driving force inthis sequel. Germany has not had the strikingsuccesses in this war that came early that theyhad had in our time line, the mighty Wehrmachthas no aggressive Panzerwaffe to drive throughthe enemy’s rear. Instead they are bogged downin France, entrenched in “The World War II —This Time It’s Personal!”

Turtledove’s kaleidoscope of charactersexperience the war at different levels. And theyaren’t always running into each other, as somereaders felt after reading Herman Wouk’s TheWinds of War (1971) and War andRemembrance (1978).

The war is developing in its own fashion.For example, recall, Poland is an unwilling allyof Nazi Germany. In other venues, the ChinaIncident is getting more and more tense. Andthe story of the unfortunate American who can’tseem to get out of the Reich develops with someunusual twists. And somehow it seems thatKapitanleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp and the U-30(which in this time-line, survived him) have theluck of Eugene Fluckey and then some.

As the war drags on in France and Spain, inPoland and Russia, and in newer venues such asNorway and Siberia, this war that came earlyhas the rest of the world burning itself out untilAmerica — well, I suppose we shall find outwhen this story is . . . To Be Continued.

THE GOODLY CREATURESReview by Joseph T Major of

CHILDREN NO MOREby Mark L. van Name

(Baen; 2010:ISBN 978-1-4391-3365-1; $22.00)

“A Jon and Lobo Book”http://www.childrennomore.com

Discussing Cyril Kornbluth’s “The GoodlyCreatures” (F&SF, December 1952), “WilliamAtheling, Jr.” [James Blish] commented thatthere was no need to have written the story as ascience fiction story at all, and said, “I for onewish Kornbluth had set it in the present, andsold it for two million dollars and a hamsandwich to a top slick.” (The Issue At Hand,Page 27) Reading about Kornbluth’s financialproblems (see C. M. Kornbluth by Mark Rich(2009; reviewed in Alexiad V. 9 #4) makes itclear he could have used the $2 million, andgiven his lack of connection to kashrut laws (heordered bacon and eggs at a Jewish resort andwondered what all the fuss was) he probablycould have used the ham sandwich, too.

There are other considerations in this case.I’m sure van Name means well, and by writingthis work as a work of science fiction, he avoidsbeing accused of racism. Children No Moretackles the serious problem of child soldiers.

Turning underage (in some cases in singledigits) children into soldiers is in some wayshorribly easy. It’s said that basic training tearsdown an individual and rebuilds him; childrenhave less to tear down and they haven’t learnedtheir limits. As van Name shows in the firstchapter when his trainees commit an atrocity.

This doesn’t focus on that, but on theproblem in trying to, well, tear down the soldierand make, or remake, the human being out ofthe members of a group of child soldiers.

However, some people, no doubt havingread of the Drakka, the Dorsai, the Slammers,and other mighty warriors of fiction, think thathaving an invincible army unit that doesn’t haveto be accounted for is just the ticket. Whichputs the retrainers in just a bit of a pinch.

Other factors are involved. Namely Jon andLobo, the immortal superman from the planetPinkleponker and his super ship. Jon’s beenthere done that, and he now has to stop othersfrom going the same way.

As I said, given the locus of most childsoldiers, writing this work as a work of sciencefiction avoided most potential accusations ofracism. Yet it means that the book will beprediscounted, as it were, that silly sci-fi trashabout talking squids in space and other childishtrivia, of no importance to the real world.

The focus seems off; we see little enoughabout the children (who remain mostly annondescript mass) and more about Jon’sprevious life as a child soldier, and how he gotover it, or had to get over it. It seems like onlypart of a work. Also, the techniques used seemrather simplistic.

The royalties from this edition are to bedonated to Falling Whistles, an organization


trying to do in real life what the characters ofthis book are trying to do in fiction, rehabilitatechildren in war. If I could only believe thatthese funds would be used to do that, and not tocondemn the United States and the UnitedKingdom for allowing seventeen-year-olds tojoin the armed forces, or Israel for draftinganyone at all.

Falling Whistleshttp://www.fallingwhistles.com

OUT OF THE SPIN PLANETReview by Joseph T Major of

PACKING FOR MARS:The Curious Science of Life in the Void

by Mary Roach(W. W. Norton and Company; 2010:ISBN 978-0-393-06847-4; $25.95)

What does one take when one’s wish ofbeing in the Planet Mars is granted? One’strusty sword and radium pistol, lest oneencounter unfriendly green men upon arrival?Perhaps a bottle of water, to make friends withthe indigenes with, and a Norman Rockwellprint, for them to become beumsed in studyingthe ramifications of, in order to not be a threat tohumanity within the expected existence of thespecies? Maybe complete sets of the works ofRichard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking, toshow hrossa what rational men really think? Orjust a copy of Edwin Lester Arnold’s LieutenantGullivar Jones: His Vacation (1905) so you canexplain to the locals why you wished you werein the planet and not on it?

In the real world, whatever that is, scientistshad little if not no idea what the environment ofspace was, and not being as blithe as Seaton &Crane, much less Weston, they set aboutresearching it as best they could. The amazingcontrivances and bizarre simulations that theytried in the quest after such knowledge are thetopic of this work.

Readers of The Right Stuff (1979), watchersof the movie (1983), or the dwindling few of uswho were there at the time will know that amonkey made the first flight for the US. Thosewho have perused Red Star In Orbit (1981) willknow how Gagarin, too, was Spam In a Can.Yet they will find new insights into these and

other well-known eccentricities if not outrightabsurdities of the Race Into Space.

One of Roach’s previous books bears themoribund title of Stiff: The Curious Lives ofHuman Cadavers (2003) and sure enough shedescribes the fates of human cadavers. Thekinds of crashes and such they were anticipatingweren’t the sort that crash-test dummies couldbe of much use in evaluating. On a somewhatmore lively topic she wrote Bonk: The CuriousCoupling of Science and Sex (2008; a goodchoice of words for the subtitle) and sureenough there are hints of the efforts at theHundred-Mile-High-Club.

The more sordid part of space explorationalso gets mentioned. That is to say, there arechapters on bathing (or not bathing), onconfinement, and on crap. There is a storeroomsomewhere in a NASA facility that has acollection of the astronauts’ bowel movements.Lucky Starr never had to deal with that!

THE COURT OF LAST RESORTReview by Joseph T Major of

THE MURDER ROOM:The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather toSolve the World’s Most Perplexing Cold

Casesby Michael Capuzzo

(Gotham Books (Penguin); 2010:ISBN 978-1-592-40142-0; $26.00)

http://www.vidocq.org/

In 1946, Erle Stanley Gardner took avacation from Perry Mason, so to speak. Hewrote a nonfiction article about miscarriages ofjustice. This provoked interest, and not longthereafter, Harry Steeger, the publisher ofArgosy magazine helped him found a privategroup to review such criminal cases, which theynamed “The Court of Last Resort”.

They did enough to make it possible to writea book about it, The Court of Last Resort(1952). Gardner resigned in 1960; Steeger haddiscontinued his magazine’s relationshipsomewhat before that. The organizationgradually dissolved.

The Vidocq society is a private associationof official criminologists. They meet once amonth at their offices in Philadelphia to discussexisting “cold cases”. Some are quite recent;others go back quite a ways.

The founding members of the Society are aninteresting lot. For example, an artist whomarried a stripper and had multiple affairssounds like the sort of person whoserelationship with police would be as a victim ofa crime. Yet Frank Bender (any relation to the“Bloody Benders” of Kansas frontier fame?) hasa stellar reputation as a genius of forensicreconstruction, beginning with his famous bustdepicting New Jersey murderer John Emil Listas he would have appeared eighteen years afterhe killed his family and vanished. Then awoman in Colorado watching America’s MostWanted saw this bust of a former neighbor . . .

His partner in the investigation, forensicpsychologist Richard Walter, was ratheracademic. There doesn’t seem to be any otherdescription for someone who takes eleven

classes in a semester because he was bored.“Jason Fox” perhaps? But Walter only got a 3.8average that semester. Afterwards he workedwith Dr. Thomas T. Noguchi (the original“Quincy M.E.”) and then started his own“Silence of the Lambs” investigation of thecriminally evil.

Walter and Bender worked together on theList case, but it took the Nero Wolfe-sizedWilliam Fleischer to make it a career. Fleischerstarted out in the U.S. Customs, made it as aprivate investigator, and just to be differentfunctioned socially, being for example apowerhouse of the Shomrim, the nationalJewish policemen’s organization. Such a niceboy.

Once together, Walter, Bender, andFleischer set about using Fleischer’s knownconnections to build up an investigator’sprofessional organization, so to speak. TheVidocq Society is limited to 82 full members,one for each year of Eugène François Vidocq’slife. Their inspiration was the first professionaldetective, who got his start on the other side asit were. The comparison should more likely bewith G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown, who said“Has it never struck you that a man who doesnext to nothing but hear men’s real sins is notlikely to be wholly unaware of human evil?”(“The Blue Cross”, September 1910)

The society meets on the third Thursday ofevery month. They investigate only “coldcases”, ones that have gone two years withoutan arrest, and ones where the victim had notbeen involved in criminal activity. (Thepurpose of the society was to clean up thatbacklog of unsolved murders; but so many ofthose are one gangsta popping a cap in another.)The 84 Vidocq Society Members (V.S.M.) andtheir associates are a diverse lot ofcriminological experts; for example, RobertRessler, one of the founders of forensic profiling(and I regret to say one of the few who seems todo it at all well) is a member.

The cases described here are recounted in astrictly chronological fashion, which means thatthe book jumps from one case to another as theydevelop, instead of describing one case frombeginning to resolution. This method ofexposition can be hard to follow. It is realistic;unlike the demands of the artistic unities, reallife is messy and multi-stranded.

Yet . . . so often, after the hero-story ends,the brilliant investigator tuns out to have asordid side. The way that Dr. Michael Baden(like Alan Dershowitz) covered for O. J.Simpson, or the famous blood-spatter analystHerbert Leon MacDonnell lent his prestige tothe effort to Free Mumia. (Since one recipientof the Vidocq Society Medal of Honor isMaureen Faulkner, widow of his victim andnemesis of her husband’s killer, and another isthe killer’s prosecutor Joe McGill, one ratherdoubts that the Society will join in the FreeMumia effort.) Or how profilers speedilypinned the Centennial Park bombing on RichardJewell, much to the mixed relief and annoyanceof Eric Robert Rudolph. I mean, you go to allthat trouble to launch a strike against theinternationalists of ZOG, and they say some


wimp wanna-be cop did it!The book also lacks an index. This along

with its exposition detracts from its readability.

HAUNTED MESAby Louis L’Amour

Commentary by Lisa Major

I would like to take advantage of my privatelittle pulpit to mention a scientific fantasy bookbased on Native American mythology. It isunfortunately out of print. It was not marketedto the SF and fantasy fans who would have beenits proper audience. The Western fans it wasmarketed to were not really that interested. Thebook in question is titled Haunted Mesa. Itsauthor was the late Louis L’Amour.

I first read Haunted Mesa more than twentyyears ago. I discovered L’Amour by chance. Myparents and I went to a yard sale where therewas a sack of books. I looked at them, saw theywere Westerns and went on to other things. Theseller, however, had seen my initial interest. Sheoffered to give them to me and I politelyrefused. She then resorted to blackmail. If I didnot take the books she would throw them away.That did it. Not even Westerns should end up inthe trash.

I figured I’d glance through them and donatethem to the library so that their fanciers couldbuy them cheaply. My mother was not happybecause I had promised not to buy hugeamounts of books but subsided when shelearned the circumstances. (Strictly speaking, Idid not break the promise. I didn’t buy them,after all. I rescued them.) They sat in my roomuntil a snowy day in which they were the onlyunread books. I took one from the sack and satdown with it. Within a few pages I was hookedand I was a L’Amour fan from then on. I defyanyone to read Haunted Mesa and say L’Amourdid not have a sense of wonder. He was a greatstoryteller. It’s unfortunate that his work gottypecast.

9/11by Lisa Major

On September 11, 2010 I listened in themorning to the memories of that horrible day.And across the nine years I remembered.Remembered the images of collapsing towers.People jumping knowingly to their deaths toescape being burned to death. The billowingcloud of debris which chased escapees.Refugees fleeing New York City, something Inever expected to see, any more than Hawaiianresidents expected to see Japanese planes intheir sky. The awful contrast between the day’sphysical beauty and the terrible images on mytelevision.

JOCKWORLDby Lisa

Cool time is upon us. No longer do I wearshort-sleeved shirts to exercise. Nor do I throwmy clothes down in front of the air conditioneruntil they dry enough to put them in the laundrybin. The cool feels good, after the long,

miserably hot summer. I have not recorded anysignificant changes in my weight but my bodycontinues to change. The stubborn belly fat isbeginning to yield. That is going to be a veryslow process. It has taken a year before I sawany change in the belly fat. However, with cooltime now here, Joe and I can walk in theafternoons.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING TREKKIESby Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall

(Quirk Books; 2010;ISBN 978-1594744631; $14.95)

Review by Lisa Major

At Raleigh I chanced to see a book titledNight of the Living Trekkies. The title intriguedme enough that I picked the book up. The firstpage was good so I put it in the buy stack atLarry Smith’s traveling bookstore. When Isettled down to read it, the book did notdisappoint. It was a funny romp through thecliches of both Trek and Star Wars fandom. It isa bit gory but no worse than the average militarySF novel. Don’t expect anything of socialsignificance from this book, because you aren’tgetting it. But if you’re looking for a fun readspoofing both fandoms, I heartily recommendthis book.

STEALING FIREby Jo Graham(Orbit; 2010;

ISBN 978-0316076395; $14.99)Review by Lisa Major

Unlike Living Trekkies, this book I activelysought out at Larry Smith’s. Jo Graham is afine historical novelist. And yes, I know herbooks sell in the SF section. Although they’resold as fantasy, her books are more historicalfiction than fantasy. Stealing Fire is set in thetime of Alexander the Great’s death and dealswith the aftermath of his death. Alexander doesappear in flashbacks but the focus is on Ptolemyand his inheritance of Egypt’s crown. If youhave any interest in fiction set in this period, Ithink you should at least take a look at this one.

HAWAII FIVE-OReview by Lisa Major

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1600194/

When I first heard there was going to be anew Hawaii Five-O my first thought was myusual disgust at the idea of tampering with aclassic show. But then I heard local radio hostsgiving favorable opinions of the show anddecided I would tune in to the pilot. It proved tobe a pleasant surprise. It was very different fromthe original, although it did keep the grandoriginal theme instrumental. The most strikingchange was the character of Danny Williams.He is no longer the quiet steadfast deputy buthas a sarcastic love/hate relationship withMcGarrett. It was great, however, hearing theline Book ‘em Danno again. I haven’t watchedagain but may. I’m planning a Novemberproject in which you try to write a novel in amonth. I don’t think I really have a chance of

actually finishing this but I think it would be funto try.

HORSE NEWSby Lisa

1998 Kentucky Derby winner Real Quietdied September 27 after an accident in hispaddock. He apparently reared up in hispaddock and slipped. He was fifteen and hadsired fifteen stakes winners. He was a son ofQuiet American, sire of Bernardini’s dam, anda mare by tough, determined little Believe It,who had the misfortune to race against Affirmedand Alydar.

Bernardini has his first stakes winner, a fillynamed Theyskens’ Theory. She won the Grade3 Sorrento Stakes. Currently Bernardini is inAustralia but will be returning in December,when I will remind Darley of the invitationissued earlier. Also, the colt by him whom Inicknamed Madoff has won his first race. Hisformal name is To Honor and Serve, but sincehe is by Bernardini out of Pilfer, I could notresist choosing Madoff as the nickname bywhich I would think of him.

And as year follows year,More old men disappear,

Someday no one will march thereat all.

Report by Joseph T Major

Remaining are:Australia

Claude Stanley Choules (109) Royal NavyPoland

Józef Kowalski* (110) 22 Pulk U³anówUnited Kingdom

Florence Beatrice Patterson Green (109),Women’s Royal Air Force

United StatesFrank Woodruff Buckles (109) United

States Army

* “WWI-era” veteran, enlisted between theArmistice and the Treaty of Versailles

National totals: U.K. 2, U.S. 1; Poland 1WWI-era. 2+1 men, 1 woman.


AS GOD IS MY WITNESS — Part 2ReConStruction, the 10th North American

Science Fiction Interim ConventionRaleigh, North Carolina, August 5-8, 2010

Trip report by Joe and Lisa

Thursday, August 5, 2010Greensboro — Raleigh, NCReConStruction

I was very clumsy that morning.In spite of this we checked out. I discovered

that I had mis-heard the password to the motel’sinternet connection. (It was “guest”.) Veryannoying. It was not a very long drive to thehotel, and wonderful things happened when wearrived. They checked us in, even though it wasbefore noon. Though there wasn’t arefrigerator, one arrived with blazingimmediacy, and the man even took my baggagecart back as well.

Then we went down to the conventioncenter. The entire con was in a very small area,since the Sheraton (where we were staying) andthe Marriott almost adjoined — the BranchBanking and Trust building was in between.The convention center had rooms that wereunder the street, including I think the Dealers’Room, and connections to the Marriott.

Registration was not exactly busy. Wesigned in and went to the Dealers’ Room, whichfor a wonder was not full of dealers sellingcomics, slashficzines, props, necklaces, signedpictures of actors . . . Larry Smith greeted usand we began enriching him. He had advancedcopies of Bill Patterson’s biography of Heinlein.He had sold out of these by the end of the day,so it was just as well that I got one then.

C. D. Carson had his Luna Society table inamong the fan tables. Not that far away, BenYalow was taking votes for the 2012 WorldCon.

2:00 PM LIT121 Classic SF: “Who GoesThere?”

John HertzCampbell’s story is one of trust and identity.

The creature can make a copy of any livingthing; and so it’s necessary for the men of theAntarctic research station to try to determine

who is real and who, well, isn’t.John kept on saying “Now if Joe might be a

monster . . .” I recalled how they had provenwho was a monster, and the next morning, aftertaking my blood sample, threatened it. Noresponse, so I am me.

It’s possible to walk to many decent eatingplaces in downtown Raleigh. This is a positiveboon for a convention. And so we ourselveswent to a place called The Oxford, which wasdecent, if a bit high-priced. Then, of course, itrained about the time we were through, so wedidn’t go anyplace else after getting back to thehotel, though we could walk most of the wayand stay out of the rain.

And so to bed.

Miles driven: 77Books read: Bellwether by the Female Person

From Colorado — er, ConnieWillis

Friday, August 6, 2010ReConStruction

2:00 PM LIT131 Baen Traveling RoadShow

Toni WeiskopfA big hall packed full of people as the

various Baen writers came forward andexplained what they had coming out. Alongwith the usual freebies. When I got my book, Istepped up to get it, Toni tossed it . . . over myshoulder. Oh well.

Sidewise AwardsLong Form: 1942: A Novel by Robert

ConroyShort Form: “The Fixation” by Alistair

ReynoldsThough we arrived too late for this. Steve

Silver was very emotive.

5:00 PM LIT122 Classic SF: Farmer In theSky

John HertzJohn discussed the intersection between

frontier ways and scientific advances that thisbook reflects. As I’ve written a rather longessay on this book myself, I don’t really need togo into it more here and now. Buy my bookfrom NESFA.

Ran into Taras on the way out. I had to pickup a prescription, so I suggested he come todinner with us afterwards. We went to a placeon the outskirts of town and discussed a numberof matters; I explained to him the composingh i s to r y o f “ W h e n I n t h e C o u r s e—“/”Gunpowder God”, the first part of Piper’sLord Kalvan of Otherwhen.

Bill Patterson M eet-n-GreetThey couldn’t call them parties, because the

hotel was against parties. I spent a good bit oftime listening to a helicopter pilot who had beenstationed at Fort Campbell talk about flying inthe area.

London in 2014 Meet-n-Greet

Since they’ve got a lock on it, the party, ermeet-n-greet was more of a preparation. JamesBacon was there, of course, but so were familiarfigures. Which means there will be anotherNASFiC in 2014. Probably out West.

And so to bed.

Miles driven: 14.5Books read: Truth and Steel by Thomas M.

Reid

Saturday, August 7, 2010ReConStruction

Got a picture of me with Bill Patterson as hewas going off to something.

2:00 PM LIT123 Classic SF: FrankensteinJohn HertzJohn explained the origins of the work in the

basis of Regency romantic thought (not to beconfused with Regency Romances). Theprogress of Natural Philosophy and of liberalpolitics seemed to offer much change. VictorFrankenstein was a natural expression of thoseideas. Yet he failed to follow through on hiscreation, he didn’t “humanize” the monster, andas a result it destroyed everything around him.

7:00 PM FAN014 Blogs and E-FanzinesChris Garcia, Jennifer LiangThey discussed the new Gernsbackian age of

non-paper communication. Jennifer is ablogger, and I believe Chris produced an issueof The Drink Tank during the panel.

There is a very nice place about two blocksfrom the hotels, a square with a number of goodrestaurants. Almost all of which were closed.On a Saturday night. They must work off theweekday lunch trade. We wandered over there,looked around, and found a place calledWoody’s that was open. I was tempted to ask ifMr. Smith was in, but declined.

And so to bed.

Books read: Passion Play by Beth Bernobich

Sunday, August 8, 2010ReConStruction

Up early and over to the Fanzine Lounge toget ready for the . . .

Faneds FeastRichard Dengrove, Arthur Hlavaty,

Bernadette Bosky, C. D. Carson, Chris Garcia,Rich Lynch, Nikki Lynch, and us.

This was at the Oxford, which has anadequate brunch buffet. We had a long andvaried talk about all kinds of things. Arthur &Bernadette had come to relieve my lonelinessthat one time the District had sent me toResearch Triangle Park, when they too had livedin the area, and this recalled the memories ofthat kindness. C. D. had various incisivecomments about aerospace affairs, which I hadthought was one of our traditions. Chris wasdisplaying his immense talent for enjoying life.

Closing CeremoniesWarren seemed a bit relieved. The


convention hadn’t seemed to need any disasterrelief, and he had come over to the FanzineLounge to chat a few times. Toni declaredthings closed, and we filed out of the room, thelatest node of the village of Fandom dissolvingand its components drifting off their severalways.

We departed for Cary, to see Darrian, thewidow of my cousin R.A. I know R.A.’s namesand if you had them you’d call yourself R.A.too. Afterwards we had dinner at an IHOPbefore settling in for the night.

And so to bed.

Miles driven: 24.8Books read: J im H e n son ’s R e tu rn to

Labyrinth #4West and East by HarryTurtledove

Monday, August 9, 2010Raleigh — Wilmington, NC — ChesapeakeVA

Checked out easily enough, hit the road forbreakfast at . . . a Cracker Barrel, then down theinterstate to Wilmington.

USS North Carolina (BB-55)The “Showboat” had teething problems, like

a few cars. She shook when under way.Someone had pull as after the war the ship wasdonated to the state as a monument. She’s notwhat modern definitions make out as“accessible” but someone who can get aroundcan go through the berthing spaces. The insidesare a bit more roomy than on the Cassin Young,which isn’t saying that much.

The gangway leads the tourist up to X turret,and that one tourists can enter. As with the cutelittle moppet ahead of us, who was lifted into itby her parents. The family that executes firemissions together stays together. The turret isnot that cramped in the rear, but looking at theguns indicates that it takes a lot of drill to runthose things. The scene in “C. S. Forrester’s”Sink the Bismarck where the man has a 14" shellfall on his leg and the turret is out of actionshows how that works.

More forward were the crew compartments.Privacy was a lost cause and by observation onecan conclude that other more current attitudeswould require even more personal adjustment.Some of the men had strange ways of getting offduty.

The conning tower was particularlycramped. They’d all have to worry aboutbumping into Uhura in a setup like that. Smallwonder that when engagements with units ofsimilar firepower became less likely, thecommanders moved into the CombatInformation Center, which is roomy enough forsomeone to pick up a dropped pencil.

The ship is a memorial to all the NorthCarolina war dead. They are listed in what hadbeen the wardroom, along with various othermemorabilia such as the original silver servicefor the armored cruiser North Carolina (ACR-12). This last is like the silver service for thepre-dreadnaught battleship USS Kentucky (BB-

6), which I’ve seen at the Kentucky HistoricalSociety museum in Frankfort, remarkably ornateand with naval motifs.

The North Carolina is remarkably open tothe public. We went all over the ship. Therewere exhibits pertaining to past and presentincarnations of the ship (the current one being asubmarine.) Most interesting to me were theplaques with memories of the ship’s crew.There were also alligators around the ship andsigns saying that the alligators were dangerousand not to feed them. I looked for them and offin the distance saw what might have been thembut was not sure enough to take the shot. I thinkI certainly got my exercise in climbing ladders.I was pleasantly surprised that my fear ofheights only kicked in three times. Perhaps theexercise is having collateral benefits. If youhave any interest in ships and/or the military,the North Carolina is well worth seeing.Admission is only twelve bucks per person.Every time I see a World War II ship I get anew appreciation of my father.

I finished Sentry Peak last night and havereturned to Sheffield’s Heritage Universe. I hadforgotten just what a craftsman Sheffield is.Heritage Universe is marvelous hard SF.— Lisa

Afterwards we drove north to Chesapeake.The last stretch was through some back roadsthat were lined by trees planted about a hundredyears ago or so. As a result we drove throughdim cool aisles of green. It was very restful, butthen there was no black ice, much less largevehicles needing every inch of the road to goover the speed limit. We checked into the hotelvery late and went to the nearby Golden Corralfor dinner.

And so to bed.

Miles driven: 427.8Books read: Witch-Queen of Lochlann by

George H. Smith

Tuesday, August 10, 2010Virginia Beach — Fairfax, VA

Got up in the morning, had breakfast at anearby retro café, did some shopping at the localBarnes & Noble, and went on to the Associationfor Research and Enlightenment, where mycousin Edgar Evans Cayce was with his wifeKatherine and daughter Gail. He’s ninety-two(he was born only two months before my ownfather) and still lively. He told us somethingabout life in Trinidad during the war, where hewas stationed.

Then we went down to the beach — I thinkLisa and I were the most-dressed people there.I wore my crocs, brought towels, took off mysocks before we went down to the beach,washed my feet and the crocs off before puttingthe socks back on, and prepared myselfmentally for the trip to the other side of thecontinent. We got photos of each other wadingin the Atlantic, understand.

There was a long traffic jam and I think Ishould have recalled what happened last timeand taken the bypass. Once we got by there we

could appreciate the verdant life of Virginia,marked by a substantial number of police trafficstops — for others, I quickly add — beforegetting to Fairfax.

My cousin Mary Jordan’s husband is notwell. They have a day attendant who is a goodand kindly man. Mary took us out to the localOutback Steakhouse and we caught up on thepast few years.

I learned a valuable lesson. Hot sand can bejust as bad as concrete for blistering feet. WhenI get back home I’m going to have a pair ofcrocs like Joe’s. The heat has definitelyreturned.

We have passed by so much history today.Cold Harbor, for instance. The countrysidetoday is so peaceful it is difficult to imagine thesounds of gunfire echoing around it. Yet ithappened. I have just finished readingTurtledove’s Sentry Peak, a clever piece ofwork dealing with an extremely alternate CivilWar.

— Lisa

And so to bed.

Miles driven: 233.4

Wednesday, August 11, 2010Fairfax — Washington DC — Fairfax

We slept late mostly because the early-morning rush hour traffic would be bad. ThenI missed the turn for the Metro station. At leastthe North Parking Garage had open spaces,reserved for state vehicles from 2 A.M. to 10A.M. Did I mention we got there about 10:30?And then the train into Washington.

Museum of American HistoryYou enter (going through the security

check), go into the lobby, turn right, and there itis. The statue of the victorious and triumphantG. Washingtonus Augustus Brittanicus OptimusMaximus Felix Pius, Restutior Respublicae,Pater Patriae, pres ii. It was thought back thenthat to present Washington as a Roman Emperorwas a good thing.

Other features of the first floor include theoriginal Star-Spangled Banner, carefullyrestored, exhibited under dim light to avoiddeterioration, copiously described, and so on.One of those informational placards contains a


declaration of an absolute prohibition on takingphotographs, so naturally someone tried to takea photo, and the security guy the museumstationed there had to warn him.

Earlier times had a different take on respect,which is why there is so much material cut outof the flag. (The way that Thomas Jefferson’soriginal tombstone was destroyed by manypeople each knowing that just one little chipfrom the thing wouldn’t be missed.) One ofthese souvenirs has survived and is exhibitednear the flag.

For all that the nearby exhibit of family lifegoes on about repression and silenced voicesand all that, the explanations of the War of 1812that can be found in the lead-in scrupuouslyignore the problems with fraudulent use ofAmerican certificates of protection againstimpressment, much less the desire of the WarHawks to liberate Canada from the iron heel ofthe British Empire, much against the will of theinhabitants.

The bottom floor is devoted more totechnology. There was an exhibit on theprogression of motor transport and another onlight bulbs and electricity generation. Lisaobserved that her father would find that part ofthe museum very interesting.

The top-floor exhibit on Lincoln has its ownnoteworthy items. Such as his very own rail-splitting wedge. It has his initials engraved in it,by his very own hand no less. Also his top hat.

There is an exhibit of photographs, welldaguerreotypes I suppose, showing Lincoln’saging. The War was very hard on him, thedeterioration and stress is plain to see.

Museum of Natural HistoryNatural History has many factors.

Dinosaurs, for example. There is a very largedinosaur exhibit on the first floor which is veryworth seeing.

Also spiders. These are alive, and one cansee the diversity of nature. Both these exhibitswere overrun by children, which was apotentially optimistic event, if they could onlykeep it up. (We had seen the gems and suchwhen we were there in 2001 and don’t thinkthey have changed.)

National Air and Space MuseumNot so much change here . . . they didn’t

have an exhibit on the Ares and Orion, forexample. Well, the Wright Flyer has beenmoved into its own section, with plenty ofexhibits on their research and development (andof course still nothing whatsoever about thedouble-dealing with the Langley Aerodrome).

The gondola of the recent round-the-worldballoon flight is on display in the atrium, alongwith a map of the trip. It wasn’t quite Cinqsemaines en ballon (1863), er Five Weeks In aBalloon (1869), but it was a mission requiringgreat effort and all the resources of art, science,and industry. Now when the guy does hisparachute jump from 120,000 feet . . .

Lisa took some pictures of the Capitol. I’dbeen there with the church choir, back when,and if we had had time we might have taken atour. Lisa also observed that it would be

possible to spend a month in the city, going tosee something different every day. We took theMetro back to Fairfax.

We had dinner with my cousin Pat Chism,his wife Dorothea, and her daughter Ashley.Cousin Mary went with us but she had to gohome early. Pat is an officer in the Navy JudgeAdvocate General corps but doesn’t haveanything much that interesting happen to him.As a civilian with the Warren County, KentuckyCounty Attorney’s Office, he had offered tohelp my niece learn about legal matters, whichwas very kind of him. (And now he’s going towork at the Huntsville Arsenal!)

And so to bed.

Miles driven: 22.9Books read: The Paradiso Files by Timothy

M. BurkeDo Unto Others . . . by MichaelZ. Williamson

Thursday, August 12, 2010Fairfax — Baltimore, MD — Frederick, M D— Gettysburg, PA — York, PA

I was awakened early by cramps. Down theinsides of my thighs, not to mention my back.The former I took care of, sort of, by soaking ina hot bath. The latter made packing interesting.I had hoped to get away early and this helped,albeit not in a way that I found particularlylikeable.

Beltway traffic is hideous. Even more sowhen it’s raining. You get run off the road bythe Special Assistant to the DeputyAdministrator of the Office of the AssociateDirector, who drives a big muscular SUVbecause he knows that if he can’t get in to workthe entire government will come to a screechinghalt. It took us an hour to get aroundWashington.

We met my cousin Leo Lackey at the TT’sDiner outside of Baltimore, another retro styledplace. Leo is retired and prepares taxes forextra money, like Robley, but not as old. Heresearches his own family (though the Majorsare connected to his part) and someday I mayask him about that ex-in-law of theirs. We hada most encouraging chat before going ourseparate ways, and he advised us to go throughFrederick. Even though it’s the headquarters ofPublishAmerica.

And of course we got misled getting off tomake a rest stop. Such is life.

Gettysburg Battlefield National MilitaryPark

The road north to Gettysburg goes throughpretty country, as Leo said, and once we got tothe park center we figured out what to do. Wehadn’t seen the East Cavalry Action area, whereStuart was supposed to back up Pickett’sCharge, so went there.

It’s only rather ordinary fields, but there isone extraordinary irony. Fitzhugh Lee’s brigadehad the 1st Maryland Cavalry Battalion, CSA.John B. McIntosh’s brigade had the 1stMaryland Regiment, USA and a company fromthe [Maryland] Purnell Legion, USA. This fight

could have been one of brother against brother.After that we went back through town and

out the Chambersburg Pike to see where theIron Brigade had fought. The area is heavilywooded and must have been the scene of quitea struggle. Lisa wanted to read more aboutthem.

Accordingly, we stopped off in town to lookat a bookstore to look in vain for a book on theIron Brigade. There’s only one bookstore but alarge number of antique shops there. Also a lotof con and pro signs on the casino proposal.

Once we were satisfied, we went on to Yorkfor the night. As it happened, there was aBorders there, so we went shopping and got acopy of a book on the Iron Brigade, beforeeating at the nearby Five Guys. (Here the GPSunit came into its own.)

And so to bed.

Miles driven: 195.1Books read: Murder at Yale: The True Story

of a Beautiful Grad Student anda Cold-Blooded Crime by StellaSands

Friday, August 13, 2010York — Elizabethtown, PA — St. Clairsville,OH

More cramps, and I stumbled into thebathroom without turning on the light. Smalldisaster there, but I survived. I think. Weloaded the car in the rain, had breakfast at theFriendly’s I had noticed yesterday, and then setoff to Elizabethtown.

Glidemaster the Triple Crown winner(Trotting Triple Crown, which is why you don’thear of it) stands at a farm in Pennsylvania.Driving through some remarkably steep ravines,we got there all right. Standardbreds are mostlybred by artificial insemination, which makes lifefor the stud seem rather less than fun.

After that, it was the open road to Ohio. TheSuper 8 was well positioned. To the north therewas a neat local place called West TexasRoadhouse (no relation to the bunchheadquartered here in Louisville) which hadpretty good food. I asked the manager and herecommended it, he turned out to be right. Tothe south was a Denny’s. Both were withinwalking distance, indeed adjoining.

And so to bed.

Miles driven: 294.2Books read: Heat: The Anthology Series

Volume I, edited by RussellDavisPatton: The Pursuit of Destinyby Agostino von Hassell and EdBreslin

Saturday, August 14, 2010St. Clairsville — Louisville

Breakfast at the Denny’s, then off on theroad home. For a moment, we thought of goingdown to Lexington, closing out the Horse Park,then having dinner at Columbia Steak House,but the motel refrigerator did not have a freezercompartment so my cold packs were only cool,and I was properly concerned about the insulin.


We stopped at a Love Truck Stop off of I-71and Lisa noted they had synthetic-fiber shirts.She wanted to get some.

Arrived at home. Grant was going out, sowe couldn’t take him out to dinner as reward forhis stewardship. Instead we went to of allplaces Texas Roadhouse (and yes, West TexasRoadhouse is east of here).

And so to bed.

Miles driven: 322.9

Sunday, August 15, 2010This day I did laundry.

Total mileage: 2500.1Gas bought: $303.90

Time out: 7:42 A.M.Time back: 3:48 P.M.

States passed through: 10+1 (KY, TN, AL,GA, NC, VA, MD,PA, WV, OH; DC)

The convention was small — only aboutseven or eight hundred. It was diverse, withenough panels to interest most people, or at leastmost of the people who go to panels. Thepeople who go for the parties seemed to be a bitout of luck.

It was interesting to meet Gary Farber and tosee Arthur and Bernadette again. The FanzineLounge was very large, and various peoplecame by. We spent a good bit of time thereourselves. If it weren’t so necessary to haveChris out and about, he should be doing more ofthis sort of thing. (Nikki Lynch noted that thepodcasters were very forward and assured. Ididn’t notice that anyone of that sort came in tothe Fan Lounge while we were there.)

Warren Buff seems to have been veryrelaxed and calm. There were no reporteddisasters, so perhaps he will work out in the conchair league. Chris Barkley worked hard for thepublications and such, but he did have time totalk about such things as his proposedhometown for Worldcon.

I didn’t raise the matter at the panel, butafterwards I told John Hertz who I thought hadthe best interpretation of the FrankensteinMonster. Who portrayed him as wanting to

have a normal life, do normal work, takeadvantage of his great strength; to speak fluentlyand volubly no less, wittily even; to be as hewished to be when his master made him. Whowas it? Fred Gwynne. You know, HermannMunster on The Munsters. (Which could havehim in the trademarked Universal Studiosversion of greenish skin, neck electrodes, andflat-topped head because the show wasproduced by Universal.)

James Bacon dropped off a review of TaylorAnderson’s Destroyermen: Into the Storm forChris Garcia. (Also reviewed in Alexiad V. 7#5.) Who informed him that there were threefollowing books. I think I mentioned that LarrySmith had them; certainly someone did. As Inoticed when looking at the paperbacks andnoticing that the subsequent volumes had indeedbeen bought.

Rusty Hevlin managed to make it. I can’tsay anything more.

There was a Krispy-Kreme Doughnuts placeby the hotels. And no Khen Moore to enjoy it.

For a large number of pictures, taken by ourregular contributor, Rod Smith, see:

http://www.rodsmith.onthisnet.com/images/ReConStruction2010/

I didn’t know I looked so tired the first day.On to Reno.

THE JOY OF HIGH TECHby Rodford Edmiston

Being the occasionally interesting ramblings ofa major-league technophile.

Things Change

The problem with absolutes is that they canbe disproven by a single exception. Manyancient philosophers and theologians deemedthe heavens to be perfect, uncorrupted andunchanging. The problem was, even they knewthere were exceptions.

Now, the ancients of course knew ofchanges in nature. There were cyclical changes,like the turn of the seasons, the phases of theMoon and the progress of the constellationsthrough the year. There were also the omens andportents, such as comets and “guest stars.”Those, however, were seen as divine exceptions,special events used to send a message.Unfortunately, there were also things in theheavens which didn’t quite fit the dogma.

The name Algol comes from the Arabic“ra’s al-ghoul” (head of the ogre) which wasderived from its position in the constellationPerseus. In that constellation it represented thehead of the Gorgon Medusa. Demon Star andBlinking Demon or Winking Demon are otherEnglish versions of ancient names for Algol. InHebrew folklore it was known as “Satan’sHead,” and was also traditionally linked withLilitu. A Latin term for Algol from the 16thcentury was Caput Larvae (Spectre’s Head).Algol is known as “The Fifth Star of theMausoleum” in Chinese astronomy, and alsobears the grim name “Tseih She” (meaning

“piled up corpses”) in Modern Pinyin. Perhapsthe oldest name is Sibi (Double-eye). Are youstarting to get the feeling that the ancientsthought there was something wrong with thisstar?

Why all the fuss? Under the right conditionsAlgol can be seen to change brightness with avery regular period. Those references towinking and blinking and the fact that so manydifferent cultures thought there was somethingevil and unholy about Algol tends to makemodern folks think the ancients did notice thecyclic dimming. That odd behavior made forsome uncomfortable questions. W hen theancients couldn’t answer those questions, theyblamed Algol. “Oh, it’s evil. It defies the will ofHeaven.”

The variability of Algol was first officiallyrecorded in 1667 by Geminiano Montanari. InMay 1783 he presented his findings to the RoyalSociety, suggesting that the periodic variabilitywas caused either by a dark body passing infront of the star, or else that the star itself had adarker region which periodically turned towardthe Earth. For his report he was awarded theCopley Medal. In 1881, the Harvard astronomerEdward Charles Pickering presented evidencethat Algol was, indeed, an eclipsing binary. Thiswas confirmed a few years later, in 1889, whenthe Potsdam astronomer Hermann Carl Vogelfound periodic doppler shifts in the spectrum ofAlgol. He determined that these changesresulted from variations in the radial velocity ofthis binary system, caused by the tug of one staron another. (A modern version of this process isused to find extrasolar planets.) Thus Algolbecame one of the first known spectroscopicbinaries. Algol is now known to be a three-starsystem, with two stars very close together, theirorbital plane lined up with Earth. The third starorbits the other two at a distance about two andtwo-thirds as far as Earth is from the Sun.

By the time the reason behind Algol’swinking was determined, of course, science —and many religions — had accepted that theEarth was not the center of the universe. Thisvery strong evidence that one star was orbitinganother confirmed what most educated peoplealready understood; that the Sun wasn’t thecenter of the universe, either.

Even after the telescope was used to openthe universe, many beliefs now known to beuntrue persisted. Galileo, himself, thought thatcomets were atmospheric phenomena. The veryword “meteor” comes from the ancient beliefthat those objects were due to some weirdweather effect. We snicker at the ignorance ofthe ancients, now, but they really had no reasonto think differently until more data wasgathered. That was a process which tookcenturies.

Of course, even if they’d had more data theyalso had a mindset which could very well haveprevented them from interpreting it correctly.You can see this in such things as Galileo’smisconception of the nature of comets, and therefusal of people who looked through histelescope to accept what they saw. Changetakes time.

Still, as people continued looking, they


continued to find more and more things whichcontradicted the static view of the universe.Change became the accepted standard. Thoughnot easily, and not universally.

Part of the problem — even today — is thatpeople have trouble understanding just how oldthe Earth is. As well as the fact that the universeis about three times as old. Actually, that’slooking at things backwards. All of humanhistory occupies such a small slice of time thatwe are essentially looking at a snapshot. Overand over again, you find examples of humansmaking decisions and taking action based on thesituation as it has been for the past few decades. . . then learning, to their distress, that thosedecades were atypical. Change is everywhere,and happens at many rates.

Even once the mutability of the universe wasaccepted, how often changes take place and howquickly remained serious questions. The ideathat constellations change over thousands ofyears would have outraged most of the ancients.Today, the field of paleoanthropology is used —among other applications — to date ancientstructures and artwork. By comparingalignments of structures and the positions ofstars in paintings and carvings with where thestars are today, we can get a very good estimateof when the ancient creation was made.Because the heavens do change, and in severalways.

The Earth’s axis has a slow wobble, whichproduces a phenomenon known as theprecession of the equinoxes. Because of thiswobble, the equinox and solstice points haveeach moved westward about 30 degrees in thelast 2,000 years. Thus, the zodiacalconstellations named in ancient times no longercorrespond to the segments of the zodiacrepresented by their signs. When the GreatPyramid was built there was no North Star,because the Earth’s axis was pointing towards adifferent part of the sky, one where — from ourviewpoint — there was not a distinctive star. Atthat time Polaris was well out of alignment withthe north pole. Astrological charts based onancient sky maps are literally thousands of yearsout of date.

Besides that, constellations can change dueto relative movements of stars and alterations in

the brightness and color of some stars. (Somestars change color cyclically, at various rates,something which the ancients may have known.Others change color slowly due to aging. Also,Mercury is infamous for flashing differentcolors when in the southeast, and in most timesand places humans paid attention to such thingsthe classical planets were thought to be specialstars.) During the course of history, a few starseven disappeared altogether, at least to theunaided eye. This reshapes constellations, untilmodern students of astronomy wonder just howyou can possibly get a goat or a fish out of that.(Not that the constellations have ever beenparticularly literal representations of whatever.)Ancient records of comparative starbrightnesses show that some have dimmed andothers brightened since those records weremade. This can be caused by many things,including a large, old star on its last legsabsorbing a smaller star or gas giant and beingrefueled.

Note that for these records to be properlyappreciated, a change in thought was required.For most of history, any difference betweenancient records and what could actually beobserved were blamed on bad observations bythe original author. However, we now knowthat many of those early writers were accuratelyrelating what they observed. Only when weunderstood that stars can change were we ableto use the information in the old recordsproperly. Today, those records which arethought to be accurate (determining whichdifferences are due to time and which to badobservations isn’t always easy) give usindications of how specific stars have changedthrough time.

The heavens are not the only parts of naturewhich change. On Earth, as above, the ancientsaccepted that there were both natural cycles andspecial events. These latter were things likestorms, sent to punish the wicked. However,there are continuous changes which are not soobvious as seasons and Moon phases.Earthworms slowly build soil from organicdebris, causing objects resting on the surface tobe submerged. Year after year, decade afterdecade, century after century, the worms work.There are other mechanisms which create soillayers, of course. Floods wash soil in, or removeit. Wind blows dust in or away. These processesgive a combination of steady and intermittentchanges.

Water features also change, both slowly andsteadily and sometimes dramatically. Ponds fillwith washed-in silt. Rivers wear away at theirbanks, changing their own courses. (If thoserivers are property boundaries, disputes result.Because those boundaries were set with theunderstanding that they would be permanentand unchanging.) Floods may fill in ponds, andbreach river banks to change the course of ariver or create a new lake.

One of the many revelations (andrevolutions) in geology occurred when someonerealized that an active and still growing volcanorose on top of distinct geological layers whichcould be found all around it. That meant theyalso ran under it. This in turn meant the volcano

came later . . . yet it was ancient in humanterms. Those sedimentary rocks below it weretherefore older still. Said rocks containingthousands of layers and being vastly thick. Yetthere were fossils in the layers, and the fossilschanged with depth. Those fossils in the upperlayers were often indistinguishable from currentliving creatures, but many from deeper wereunlike anything ever seen alive. If the deeperrocks were older, that meant life had changedthrough time. This realization of the concept ofstratigraphy provided one of the first hard cluesas to the real age of the Earth. Understandingthis required accepting the concept of change innature.

Even into the Twentieth Century the idea ofsudden change was resisted. (See my previousJOHT on the Channeled Scablands.) As weenter the Twenty-First, however, the concept ofpunctuated equilibrium has been accepted notjust in evolutionary theory, but far morebroadly. Simply stated, this accepts that innature there is a mixture of slow, steady changeand quick, short-term — and often random —changes.

Recognizing and accepting that changesoccur and finding explanations for thosechanges drove human understanding of theuniverse. In fact, it continues to drive it.

One of the accepted truths of modernscience is that the physical laws we know onEarth operate the same throughout the universe.However, evidence has recently led to asneaking suspicion that this may not becompletely true. MOND theory posits thatgravity becomes slightly less powerful withincreasing distance. (This is in addition to thelong-known inverse square law.) Other newhypotheses formed in an attempt to explainthings seen at great astronomical distancescontemplate that the differences are not due todistance but time, since the further awaysomething is the older our view of it is (due tospeed of light lag).

There’s a reason scientists are alwaysqualifying their statements, even about thingslong known to be absolutely true. That reason isthe repeated lessons in humility reality has dealtwhen we assume we know something forcertain. This caution, and the accompanyingself-checking mechanisms of the scientificmethod, are what makes science our best toolfor understanding the physical universe.

One of the more interesting re-evaluations ofwhat science has long thought true is a possiblechange in decay rate of radioactive substances.A stringent statistical analysis of measurementsof decay rates found a correlation with thedistance from the sun through the year. So farthe jury is still out as to whether this is evenhappening. If it is, the difference isinfinitesimal. Also, since the change occurs ona yearly cycle, it doesn’t have any effect onradioactive dating methods. Those generally areused to measure intervals of at least decades, soany annual change in decay rate averages out.

The real significance is that if this effect isreal, and we can figure out what is causing it,we can use it to design inherently safe fissionpower plants. Just build a core which is


normally subcritical, and turn on an acceleratorwhich increases the decay rate. If anything goeswrong, turn off the accelerator.

So, to commit good science, check yourassumptions at the door. Maybe you’ll learnsomething. To put it another way, those whoignore history will fall victim to it.

GO AWAY, SUMMERCandy Review by Johnny Carruthers

GODIVA MAPLE WALNUT TRUFFLEhttp://chocolatescifi.livejournal.com/

All right, tomorrow is the first day of fall —or is it the day after tomorrow? Either way, theautumnal equinox is upon us, and it is utterlyridiculous that the temperature should stillhovering around the 90s.

In other words, it’s still a problem gettingchocolate home without it becoming somethingof a gooey blob. In spite of that, I went toGodiva this afternoon to get my monthlyfreebie.

Actually, I had a plan in mind. I would pickup the chocolate, and enjoy it at a nearby table.I would take notes, and then those notes into anentry later. (Writing the entry at the mall ws notfeasible, because as far as I know, the only partof Mall St. Matthews that has Wi-Fi available isnear Starbucks, and that is at the other end ofthe mall from the Godiva store. I just didn’t feellike making the trek to Starbucks just for getconnected. Pen and paper would suffice quitenicely, thank you very much.

With the change of the season, Godiva hasa new selection of seasonal chocolates. After alldue consideration, I decided upon the MapleWalnut truffle. The new Chocolate Menudescribes it as "Maple walnut in white

chocolate."[NOTE: When I was making my selection,

the girl behind the counter mentioned that shedidn’t normally care for maple, but she likedthis truffle. She also mentioned that she reallyliked the walnut flavor. I filed that particulartrivium for reference while I was taking notes.]

The top of the Maple Walnut Truffle isdusted with a light brown powder. At firstglance, I thought it might be cocoa, but uponcloser inspection, it looks (and tastes) more likebrown sugar. Possibly maple sugar, reflectingthe filling.

After I took that first tiny bite, I noticed thatthe the description in the Chocolate menuwasn’t totally accurate. It looks as though theganache was dipped in chocolate twice. Thefirst time was in milk chocolate, and then it wasdipped in white chocolate.

The ganache blends the maple and walnutflavors together until they almost become a thirdflavor. Both elements are still clearlydiscernible, yet the fusion brings out something. . . well, different.

The two chocolate shells seem to be presentmore as a containment vessel for the ganache.Their flavor is more noticeable when you taketiny bites — like the kind of bites I take when Ido one of these fast and dirty reviews. (I think Imanaged to get 10 bites out of just one littletruffle.) The combination of the milk and whitechocolates blend well with the ganache, and ithink either alone would have worked equally aswell. I think a dark chocolate shell would havemore than likely overwhelmed the flavor of theganache.

I don’t indulge in walnuts all that often, sofor me, the walnut flavor in the ganache wasmore of something that registered as "notmaple" on my tongue. Unlike the girl behind thecounter, I do enjoy the flavor of maple, and hereit is a rich, strong maple flavor. When you takea bite, the flavor of the ganache is what firstdominates your tastebuds.

The chocolate, on the other hand, is the lastflavor to linger on the tongue. W hile the themaple/walnut flavor combination is dominantmost of the time a bite is in your mouth, it is thechocolates that are the last ones to take theirbows.

And once again, I have squeezed about asmuch analysis as I can from just one truffle.

FANZINES

Askance #21Steven H Silver, oops, John Purcell, 3744Marielene Circle, College Station, TX77845-3926 [email protected]://www.efanzines.com

Banana Wings #43 August 2010Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer, 59Shirley Road, Croydon, Surrey, CD0 7ES,[email protected]

Beyond Bree August 2010, September 2010Nancy Martsch, Post Office Box 55372,

Sherman Oaks, CA 91413-5372 [email protected] available for The Usual; $15/year, $20foreign, $10/year electronic.

Challenger #32 Summer 2010Guy H. Lillian III, Post Office Box 163,Benton, LA 71006-0163 [email protected]://www.challzine.net

The Drink Tank #255, #256, #257, #259, #260Christopher J. [email protected]://www.efanzines.com

The Drink Tank #258Taral Wayne, 254 Dunn Avenue Apt 2111,Toronto, ON M6K 1S6 [email protected]://www.efanzines.com

eI #51 August 2010Earl Kemp, Post Office Box 6642,Kingman, AZ 86402-6642 [email protected]://www.efanzines.com

Feline Mewsings #41 August 2010R-Laurraine Tutihasi, 2081 W OverlookStreet, PO Box 5323, Oracle, AZ 85623-5323 [email protected]://www.weasner.com/

Fish Out of Water #392, #393, #394, #395,#396, #397, #398, #399Marty Helgesen, 11 Lawrence Avenue,Malverne, New York 11565-1406 USA

Fortnightly Fix #15Steve [email protected]://www.efanzines.com

Lofgeornost #100Fred Lerner, 81 Worcester Avenue, WhiteRiver Junction, VT 05001-8011 [email protected]

MT Void V. 29 #7 August 13, 2010 — V. 29#14 October 1, 2010Mark and Evelyn Leeper, 80 LakeridgeDrive, Matawan, NJ 07747-3839 [email protected]@optonline.nethttp://leepers.us/mtvoid

New Toy #3Taral Wayne, 254 Dunn Avenue Apt. 2111,Toronto, ON M6K 1S6 [email protected]://www.efanzines.com

Opuntia #69.1E August 2010, #69.3 September2010Dale Speirs, Box 6830, Calgary, AlbertaT2P 2E7 CANADA

The Reluctant Famulus #76 July/August 2010


Thomas D. Sadler, 305 Gill Branch Road,Owenton, KY 40359-8611 [email protected]://www.efanzines.com

SF Commentary #80 “40th Anniversary Edition,Part I”Bruce Gillespie, 5 Howard Street,Greensborough, VIC 3088 AUSTRALIAhttp://www.efanzines.com

Vanamonde # 838-842John Hertz, 236 S. Coronado Street, No.409, Los Angeles, CA 90057-1456 USA

Visions of Paradise #155, #156Robert Sabella, 24 Cedar Manor Court,Budd Lake, NJ 07828-1023 [email protected]://www.efanzines.com

HUGO RESULTSFrom Ansible #278, September 2010

Best NovelPaolo Bacigalupi, The Windup GirlChina Miéville, The City & The City

Best NovellaCharles Stross, “Palimpsest” (Wireless)

Best NovelettePeter Watts, “The Island” (The New Space

Opera 2).

Best Short StoryWill McIntosh, “Bridesicle” (Asimov’s

January 2009).

Best Related Work Jack Vance, This is Me, Jack Vance!

Best Graphic StoryKaja and Phil Foglio, Girl Genius, Volume

9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs ofthe Storm

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long FormMoon

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short FormDoctor Who: “The Waters of Mars”

Best Editor, Long FormPatrick Nielsen Hayden

Best Editor, Short FormEllen Datlow

Best Pro ArtistShaun Tan

Best SemiprozineClarkesworld

Best Fan WriterFrederik Pohl

“Best Fanzine”StarShipSofa

Best Fan ArtistBrad W. Foster

John W. Campbell AwardSeanan McGuire

Congratulations to Brad W. Foster:

Apparently, The Windup Girl and The Cityand the City actually did tie. Curiously, Avatargot the fewest nominations, and was firsteliminated — it got fewer first-place votes (130)than it did nominations (174). Sadly, whileChallenger got the most nominations, it came inlast in the balloting.

The Unincorporated Man did not receiveeven twenty-one nominations. The fewestnumber of nominations to get on the Best Novelballot was 62, received by both Julian Comstockand Palimpsest.

I suppose I could say that the real winner ofthe Best Fanzine Hugo was Banana Wings.Alexiad received only nine nominations andneeded 36 to get on the ballot. Grump.

There has been a vociferous and hotly-argued debate on the various fannish newslistsover What To Do About the Best Fanzine Hugo.An analysis of how many people voted only the“winner” and no other fanzine would beworthwhile but probably not very possible.

As for their attitude, it was not verypleasant. The producers of the podcast urgedtheir listeners to vote for this thing, andafterwards congratulated themselves on theircleverness at having gained themselves anaward.

It’s not surprising the little personal itemthat Nikki Lynch observed. She was on apodcasting panel at ReConStruction. Sheinvited the podcasters to come on over to theFanzine Lounge. None of them did.

Some people did not like Fred Pohl’s gettingthe Best Fan Writer award. Someone even wentso far as to argue against his fannish credentials.

WORLDCON NEWS

The 2012 WorldCon will be called ChiCon7. It will be on August 30-September 3, 2012.They have the Hyatt Regency Chicago at 151East Wacker Drive as their complete site.Those who have been to the previous ChiConswill remember the place.

Guest of Honor: Mike Resnick

Artist GoH: Rowena MorrillAstronaut GoH: Story MusgraveFan GoH: Peggy Rae SapienzaIndustry GoH: Jane FrankToastmaster: John Scalzi

Congratulations to Bwana.

I suspect, though, that this will be one of thesmaller WorldCons. There is competition, andI don’t mean Burning Man or Pennsic.

They could always put the Astronaut GoHon a panel with fan Real Musgrave. Or has thatalready been done? Anyhow, this idea ofAstronaut Guests of Honor is an interestingdevelopment. Ghod knows, there’s few otherplaces left where astronauts get any respectthese days.

In the thinking ahead department, there isnow a Worldcon bid for New Zealand in 2020.Kiwis are yummy in Twenty-Twenty.

My mistake, the proposed 2015 bid is forLos Angeles, not San Diego. They at least canspell.

For the record, we are for the 2013 SanAntonio bid. I have a lot of relatives in that areaand on the way. Lisa wants to see the USS Kidd(DD-661) in Baton Rouge, and the WWIIMuseum in New Orleans. And there’sVicksburg, which I first saw in 1961.

As for 2014, the repairs to the USSConstitution should be done by then, and weshould be able to devote proper time to her andstill tour the USS Cassin Young (DD-793), andperhaps even finally go on board USS TheSullivans (DD-537) in Buffalo. In 2015, KansasCity should be interesting, and from there it’snot that far to the Kansas Cosmosphere, wherethe Liberty Bell 7 capsule is. (Think about thatfor a moment; I’d never have believed back thenthat it would ever be recovered.)

See you in Reno.


Letters, we get letters

I note in this issue that a politicaltrend is beginning. Alexiad is not aboutpolitics or political debate. I havenothing against politics. I listen topolitics on talk radio a fair amount.But I would like Alexiad to be a neutralplace where we all meet just as fans.So this issue will be the last one wherethe political trend will be allowed.

— Lisa

From: Martin Morse Wooster Aug. 14, 2010Post Office Box 8093, Silver Spring,MD 20907-8093 [email protected]

Many thanks for the June Alexiad. I wouldnormally be at my local sf club. Unfortunatelythe meeting is being held this month at theapartment of a Certain Fan. I’m not going toname him so that his name won’t show up in aGoogle search but . . .you know, a fan famed forhis Unjust Felony Conviction? Who won thecoveted Sub Orbital Fan Fund, awarded to thefirst fan that deserved a one-way trip into space?But who was then the subject of vigorous debateabout whether or not he would need a rocket togo into space but could “go ballistic” on hisown? So instead, I stay at home and fulfill theobligations given to me by the Fanzine ControlBoard!

I think that Lisa’s exercise plan is great!Keep it up, Lisa! I started doing yoga four yearsago and I’m still in level 1 and wonder if I willEVER move up. But on the other hand I thinkof all the hours of exercise I have had that Iwouldn’t have had. I hope to hear other goodnews from her in coming months.

I think of the Dilbert stripwhere they weren’t sure if Wallyhad been taking yoga classes, sothey asked him, and he said,“Suspicious you are.”

Taral’s comments on Kick-Ass wereinteresting. I thought it was one of the betterfilms of the year, as Matthew Vaughn at firstshows what happens when real pain andsuffering enter the cartoon world, and thenswitches the world into one where we can all getour superhero jollies in Saturday afternoon atthe cinema. I didn’t mind seeing a twelve-year-old kid gunning down people because it was justa comic book movie. But I was more concernedwith a 12 year old having a “potty mouth.” ButVaughn deserves more movies and I understandhe is doing an X-Men movie as his next project.Good for him.

Our equivalent of Ehrler’s was Gifford’s.When I was a kid, Gifford’s was an old-fashioned ice-cream parlor with nearly 40flavors and wooden wicker chairs. The businesswas fine but it ended up in the control of heirswho didn’t know what to do with the companyand ran it into the ground. Someone bought thename and the second Gifford’s says it has“operated since 1938" but it really hasn’t. Thenew Gifford’s is OK but not great. I prefer theice cream at Tropical Ice Cream in SilverSpring.

About the fanzine nominations: oh, so thepodcast doesn’t count? And what do we thinkof Australian fans who saw fit to nominate apodcast but didn’t nominate Bruce Gillespie?Wouldn’t Melbourne be a great place forGillespie to win a well-deserved fanzine Hugo?I hope Aussiecon 4 does the right thing andawards Gillespie a special Hugo. I can’t thinkof a more deserving winner.

Well, he got a Ditmar. So didDitmar himself.

— JTM

From: Fred Lerner August 28, 201081 Worcester Avenue, White RiverJunction, VT 05001-8011 [email protected]

Thanks, as always, for Alexiad.In your review of Paul Schneider’s Brutal

Journey, you contrast the “old portrait, ofconquistadores bringing the light of civilizationand knowledge to an ignorant and empty land”with the “new portrait, of sensitive indigenouspersons being crushed by unfeeling bestialconquerors”. What surprises me about suchcomparisons is the failure to recognise twothings: first, that the indigenous persons whoselands are being conquered themselves mostlikely conquered that land from theirpredecessors; and second, that what we modernsought to criticise about the conquistadores is notso much their violation of the rights of theconquered as their violation of their ownprinciples. In the course of that violation theydid as much damage (if not more) to their owncivilisation as to those whom they conquered.

Cabeza de Vaca protestedcruelties to the natives; so didothers, such as Diego de Landa.Were such concepts even in thevocabulary of the Mexica? I meanbesides “‘Cruelty’ means nota l l o w in g y o u t o d i s p a t c hmessengers to the Gods.”

Darrell Schweitzer’s retelling of Suetonius’Ghastly Dinner Party Joke story puts me inmind of the scene in À Rebours in which M. desEsseintes serves his guests a meal of blackfoods on black plates, served in a black-paintedroom by “naked negresses”. I wonder if thatnovel has today the reputation for naughtinessthat it had a few decades ago. I remember mydisappointment at the insipidness of its much-advertised decadence, which as I recall largelytook the form of an inordinate fondness for lateLatin poetry. That notorious dinner party isabout the only episode in the book that offeredanything to justify its reputation. (But perhapsthe Dover edition that I read, in which thetranslator was not named, did not do Huysmansjustice. No doubt you or someone among yourreaders will be able to instruct me on this point.)

I read his Là Bas and notedthat the biggest horror thenarrator felt didn’t seem to bewhat he saw at the Black Mass, butthat his girlfriend didn’t changeher bedsheets.

— JTM

From: Darrell Schweitzer August 28, 201066445 Rutland Street, Philadelphia, PA19149-2128 [email protected]

I am disappointed to see someone as smartas Martin Morse Wooster edging into the globalwarming denier camp. This would be expectedof a brainless fool like Ronnie Reagan (whothought a smog layer was ozone and it was“good for you”), or some blatantly lyingspokeman for the oil industry like Bush/Cheney,or even a religious nut of the Pat Robertsonvariety. After all, the core of the anti-environmentalist position is “Humans didn’tcause it, so why worry about air pollution or thedestruction of forests or oceans?” For Reagan,this made a certain amount of sense in that heseemed to believe that the end of the world wasat hand anyway, so there was no future to planfor. But I should hope our friend Martin can dobetter than that.

His remarks are particularly ironic as wecome to the end of, yet again, the hottestsummer on record. Most summers of late havebeen the hottest on record, each topping theprecious one. I can remember when summers inthe mid-Atlantic states used to be variable.There could even be quite cool days,particularly in August. It might go up into the90s or even into three digits for a couple days,then drop. Now, the “heat wave” starts in Mayand ends in late September.

As for why there was so much snow last


winter, that is readily explained. It wasn’tparticularly cold last winter, as anyone wholives in the region knows. It just snowed a lot.That is because the extended summer heat putmore moisture in the atmosphere, which thencollided with Canadian cold fronts, andproduced the snow. If the temperature goes upa couple more degrees, we will get unusuallyrainy winters, rather than snowy ones. In theseparts, at least, the maximum snowfall tends tooccur, not on very cold days, but when thetemperature is in the middle or upper twenties,just a few degrees below freezing. Martin willalso recall that the snows of Snowmageddonwere heavy and wet, and melted off quickly.

Global climate catastrophes predicted byenvironmentalists are already happening allaround us. Katrina. Massive deaths due toheatwaves in Europe. Last year, it was fires anddroughts in Greece. This year, fires anddroughts in Russia and Spain, with the effectthat Russia’s ability to feed its population hasbeen significently impeded. Massive floods inPakistan, on a scale never before seen. Expectmore of this. Expect such things to becomecommonplace, even routine. Expect storms tobe more frequent and more powerful. Expectsea levels to rise. I’d recommend you go seesuch low-lying cities as New Orleans andVenice while you still can. On the biologicalfront, expect the massive extinctions going onall around us to continue. Children a hundredyears from now may refuse to believe thathumans once co-existed with such strangecreatures as whales, polar bears, gorillas, tigers,etc. You can also look for tropical plant, animal,and insect species to continue movingnorthward (as they already are), along withtropical diseases.

Things will get really interesting when thetundras begin to melt, releasing huge amountsof trapped carbon dioxide.

Of course all this evidence is “anecdotal” inthe same sense that the instance of the Titaniconly anecdotally suggests that icebergs andocean liners are incompatible, but I fear that it isgoing to take a series of truly massivecatastrophes to cause any concerted action to betaken in response. Even then, there will bedeniers, but they are indeed like iceberg denierson the deck of the Titanic. (Another goodanalogy might be people who deny thepossibility of housefires while your house isactually burning down — with you and them init. People like that are merely uselessobstructionists. Shove them aside and work onputting the fire out.) It’s going to take thedestruction of cities, the displacement of wholepopulations, possibly a few island nationsdisappearing altogether, not to mention thedisappearance of the northern polar cap. In 2030or so, it may be a question for school children,“What is the only planet in the Solar Systemwith two polar caps?” The correct answer, ofcourse, is Mars.

Yes, some people will survive, and somewill even continue to live luxuriously, but it willbe an impoverished world, with lots of smallwars over diminishing resources. If thebreadbaskets of the United States and Russia

turn into deserts, and these countries becomefood importers on a large scale (they will havethe resources to do so), where will that leave theThird World nations now supported by charity?The answer is that large amounts of thepopulation will have to die. I do not think theywill go out quietly. Stephen Hawking hasallegedly remarked that the Earth could go theway of Venus, but I doubt it will go that far.Human civilization would collapse first, whichwould then give the planet some chance to healitself. But we could end up with the Earthbecoming like the watery Venus of SF’syesterday, possibly with only portions of it stillhabitable.

In America, we know what we have to do.The first thing is to defeat the Republicans. Getthem out of office, everywhere. The anti-environmental plank of the Republican platformCAN be used against them, particularly sincemo st child ren nowadays have beenpropagandized almost from birth into caring theanimals, the rainforests, etc. In a generation,though, the Republicans may deny they everwere anti-environmentalists, and try to blameglobal warming in the Liberals. One of theterrific ironies is that many of the environmentalprotection laws that Reagan and Bush (theyounger) worked so hard to dismantle datedfrom the Nixon administration. It takes time torealize how progressive Nixon actually was ...

I will add that it’s naive to think that merelyelecting Democrats will solve very much,because they can be just as greedy and short-sighted as anybody else. But surely the firstpeople who need to go are the ones who areavowedly anti-environmental.

I am not optimistic that the other nationsactually will cooperate. The world’s mostruthlessly capitalist countries, Russia and China,have no interest in following long-term goalsinstead of short-term profits. Their capitalism ismuch newer than ours, so they have noexperience in regulating it. India will followsuit, as will Brazil. It will not take long beforethe USA is no longer the world’s leadingpolluter.

So I think we must just expect catastrophe.Selfish, short-term interests will prevent anyserious global cooperation, and of course theproblem is too large for any one nation to takeon. If Louisiana goes underwater, maybe youcan invest in beachfront property in Arkansas.

In the great tradition of science-fictionalpredictions, expect these predictions to be tooconservative.

On another matter: All this discussion ofNapoleon Bonaparte calls to mind a discussionI had with Lee Weinstein recently, regarding theGreat Man theory of history. The inevitableprocess of the French Revolution required thatsomeone would become dictator eventually.This would seem to refute the “Great Man”theory of history. If Napoleon had not beenthere, the Revolution would have producedsomeone else. But the wild-card, the randomelement like the emergence of the Mule in theFoundation series, is that Napoleon justhappened to be a military genius. If he hadmerely been a skilled bureaucrat like Justinian

or a vicious political infighter like Stalin, hewould not have embarked on all those wars ofconquest. So this one aspect of his personalityDID make all the difference, very much in themanner of a Great Man.

Lee’s actual question was, “Did Napoleonactually accomplish anything?” The jury maystill be out on that one. The result of his militarygenius was that, like most conquerors, hebecame addicted to conquering, and couldn’tquit, even when at one point (after his returnfrom Russia) he had a clear opportunity to makepeace, relinquish his conquests, and go on rulingFrance. So the real effect of Napoleon was verygreat indeed: he managed to kill off so manypeople who therefore did not have children thatthe whole of subsequent history was different.He is also alleged to have made the Frenchshorter as a nation, as being too short to bedrafted came to be of distinct survival value. Iam not sure what the historical significance ofthe Code Napoleon is. It’s allegedly based moreon Roman law than English law, causing muchconfusion for lawyers in Louisiana, where tracesa modified version of the Napoleonic Code isstill used. But otherwise, Napoleon merelycreated one of the most ephemeral empires of alltime.

And of course there was his Legend . . . .

From: Alexis A. Gilliland August 28, 20104030 8th Street South, Arlington, VA22204-1552 USAhttp://www.alexisgilliland.org

Thank you for Alexiad 9.4, a nugget of goldamidst the dross of junk mail sloshing around inthe mail pan. In Random Jottings Joe says thatthe first of the “Atlas Shrugged” trilogy has abudget of a lousy $5,000,000 suggesting a stringof Ayn Rand B movies is in the works. Perhaps,if they truly catch the spirit of her story, thesemovies will have bureaucratic zombies eatingthe brains of unlucky capitalists. After all, Ayndeserves the best! In Jockworld, since Lisa has


embraced the joys of the active way, sheprobably should invest in a good pair of walkingshoes. Not with the idea of saving money onshoes, but with the idea of keeping her feethappy. Of course, if she has lost 28 pounds, Iexpect her feet have noticed the load taken offof them, so they may be happy already. Catnews: Squeak and Pest seem to be coexistingcomfortably, though they have not yet taken togrooming each other. Stay tuned.

In discussing the movie “Agora,” DarrellSchweitzer brings up the murder of Hypatia ofAlexandria, which was almost certainly done atthe order of the Patriarch Cyril, whoimmediately after her murder (her body wasflayed and burned to prevent identification)announced that she had left town. In support ofthe Imperial Prefect Orestes Hypatia had severaltimes debated Cyril on the issues of the day, andsince those debates are not included amongCyril’s collected works it may be assumed thatshe beat him. Cyril subsequently ran off orkilled (accounts differ) Orestes, and madehimself the de facto ruler of Egypt. The businesscommunity, which had been mostly Pagans andJews moved to the more welcoming venue ofConstantinople. Cyril’s legacy was thatAlexandria, which had been the leadingcommercial center of the Roman Empire,became a sleepy, pious backwater, and in 647,when Islam conquered Egypt, the Egyptianpeople (tired of state enforced piety?) mostlyrepudiated Cyril’s Coptic Christianity byembracing the new faith. In contrast,Constantinople stood like a rock, reforming intothe Byzantine Empire. Joe mentions theKhazars? They were a seminomadic Turkishpeople who embraced Judaism in the 8 th

Century to avoid having to take sides with eitherthe Islamic Caliphate or the ChristianByzantines. There was thus a Jewish Empire inthe Ukraine for several centuries, even if itdidn’t have many Semitic Jews as opposed toTurkish converts.

Perhaps not as many Turks aspeople think. The DNA evidenceindicates that the Ashkenazi Jewsare primarily of Middle Easternorigin. So much for ArthurKoestler.

Martin Morse Wooster states his position onglobal warming, which is essentially inagreement with mine in that neither of us thinkthat the “standard environmentalist solution”will work. Indeed, I do not think ANY solutionexists since repealing the industrial revolution isnot possible. However, while Martin acceptsthat the earth is warming, he is unconvinced thatthis warming is related to human activity, suchas burning lots of fossil fuels, and feels thatClimategate discredits the views of manyclimate scientists who do. Well, if you don’twant to believe the message, calling themessenger a liar is a natural response, butdespite all the emails showing how scientists(being human) wanted to show off their resultsto the best advantage no evidence has yet beenfound of either fraud or misrepresentation.

So let me layout my case for connectingglobal warming to human activity. In the courseof reading about the Permian extinction (TheMother Of All Extinctions, it ended 96 percentof species in the ocean and 70 percent of specieson land!) 251.4 million years ago, I learned thatthat extinction had been contemporaneous withthe formation of the Siberian Traps. TheSiberian Traps are a vast expanse of floodbasalts which today cover 770,000 square milesand may have originally covered as much as2,700,000 square miles. They have been datedfrom 251.7 to 251.1 million years ago, and theirvolume has been estimated to be between240,000 and 960,000 cubic miles. That wouldbe 600,000 cubic miles plus or minus a lot, over600,000 years plus or minus a little, which, bya neat coincidence averages one cubic mile peryear, though of course the volcanic eruptionsappear to have been on the order of 480 cubicmiles or more, and were accordingly spaced outin time. How does this compare with historicvolcanoes? In 1815 Tambora erupted about 36cubic miles of ash and pumice, about 12 cubicmiles of dense rock magma equivalent to theflood basalts forming the Siberian Traps. In1883 Krakatoa erupted about 7 cubic miles. In1991 Mount Pinatubo erupted a puny onc cubicmile. On the Siberian Traps website I found thisfactoid: “2000 cubic kilometers [480 cubicmiles] of lava releases 26 billion tons of CO2,about the same as one year’s burning of fossilfuel.” (Oh really? I don’t know about the lava,but that’s what I got by combining the worldproduction of coal and oil for 2008, treating thesum as (‘..arbon, and converting to CO2.) If weaccept the factoid as genuine then we arereleasing CO2 into the atmosphere 2000 timesas fast as happened during the Permianextinction. Of course, the Siberian Traps tookplace over 600,000 years, but figuring that theindustrial revolution has already been going fora while, and figuring that we have 130 yearsworth of coal yet to be dug, we get a ballparkfigure of 300 years times 2000 Permian CO2units/year, or 600,000 Permian CO2 units, aboutthe same amount of CO2 as was released by theflood basalts of the Siberian Traps. Which isinteresting in a scary sort of way, but quitepossibly bogus. Aside from the somewhatcontroversial evidence for global warming isthere any other evidence?

Apropos of nothing, August wasthe coldest in Britain forseventeen years:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/7974506/Coldest-August-for-17-years.html

— JTM

Returning to the Permian extinction, the lossof species in the ocean appears to have resultedfrom two things, the warming of the ocean,which disrupted the great ocean currents thatbrought oxygen to the depths and nutrients tothe surface and the acidification of the ocean

2 2 3caused by all that excess CO forming H CO ,carbonic acid. There also is speculation thatwarming on the ocean floor might have released

2additional CO that had been held as the solidhydrate (most recently seen plugging up BP’searly Top Hat attempt to cap the Macondo oilwell) in a sort of one two punch. The disruptedcurrents would have rendered the deep oceananoxic, permitting sulfurmetabolizing bacteria

2to thrive, thereby generating H S, the poisonoushydrogen sulfide. The increased acidity wouldhave affected all the various life forms, fromdiatoms to copepods to shellfish that rely oncalcium carbonate for structural support, and, ofcourse, the various higher life forms that feed onthem. So, in seeking other evidence, we can

2reasonably ask if CO levels are going up and ifthe ocean has started to acidify. The answer isyes, and yes, as reported in the August 2010issue of Scientific American. The baseline forocean pH was 8.20 before 1950, and in 1989 thepH was measured at 8.11 while in 2009 the pH

2was measured at 8.08. The atmospheric COhas been increasing ever since we startedmeasuring it in 1968 up on Mauna Loa, Hawaii,when it was 318 parts per million, and the valuerose to 340 ppm in 1989 and 376 ppm in 2009.

2The rise in atmospheric CO is manifestlycaused by humans burning fossil fuels, andwhilethere is ample evidence that higher levels

2of CO have been associated with higher globaltemperatures, the current global warming signalis ambiguous because it is noisy and, to date,

2short. However, the rise in atmospheric COwith the related fall in ocean pH isunambiguous, and the former will eventuallylead to increased global warming.

Is that all? In his book The Diversity of LifeEdward O. Wilson argues that we have enteredthe fifth great extinction in the geological recordas we humans convert the various species-richenvironments around the world to our own use.Converting the rainforest to grazing land wasintentional, but the acidification of the ocean hasbeen an unintended consequence of thein d u s t r ia l revo lu t io n , an un in te n d e dconsequence that has at least the potential torival the great Permian extinction. Will it? Idon’t know, but given that the Permianextinction took place half way through theformation of the Siberian traps, the answer hasto be a definite maybe. Certainly the change ishappening almost instantaneously in geologicalterms, and the system surely has enough inertiaso that it will resist any last minute attempts toapply the brakes. From which it follows thatwhile we happy humans may have started themovement towards global warming it is unlikelythat we will be able to stop it.

What else? It appears that the underwater oilspill from the Macondo well had a half-life ofabout three days because all that oil got eaten bymicrobes. Thus do germs make Obama lookpresidential.

From: Joy V. Smith August 30, 20108925 Selph Road, Lakeland, FL 33810-0341 [email protected]://pagadan.blogspot.com/


Yes, we have way too many vampire andwerewolf books, movies, and TV shows. (I’venever been tempted to write about them, btw.)I am curious about the early radio show withblack judges, policemen, doctors, et al. Andthanks for the interesting background on CyrilKornbluth; the Emden; and Napoleon, the silentmovie.

I also enjoyed your book reviews, especiallyChristopher Anvil’s War Games storycollection. (I think I now have most of hisstories and books, thanks to Baen.) I’ve pulledWar Games off the shelf and will reread it,along with your reviews of the stories.

I was somewhat surprised tolearn that Christopher Anvil hadbeen the most prolific contributorto Astounding/Analog before 1980,not Randall Garrett and his manynames. They’ve probably got a lotmore source material.

— JTM

Your ReConStruction trip sounds like fun;it’s great to connect with all those people andplaces. You covered a lot of territory, and youweren’t done! Thanks to Johnny Carruthers forhis science magazine reviews, along with hiscandy reviews, though Godiva truffles arepossibly too elegant to be called candy. Andthat was an intriguing look at the MarsChocolate Almond Bar, the clone of theSnickers Almond Bar. (I marvel at the moneywasted on name changes of stores, etc.)

I was pleased to see that there’s a collectionof Terry Jeeves’ articles and more! Thanks formentioning War Daze. And, of course, there’smore background on various subjects in theLOCs. My condolences to Alexis on thepassing of his two cats; it’s especially hardwhen it’s not natural causes... And thanks toSue Burke for her report from Spain. I enjoylearning what’s happening elsewhere.

Impossible to cover all the interesting andfun stuff found in Alexiad’s pages, but I wasstartled to see that I’d forgotten all about CobraTrap, and I ordered it from amazonimmediately. Without reading any reviews.Thanks, Joe!

From: Taral Wayne September 1, 2010254 Dunn Avenue Apt 2111, Toronto,OH M6K 1S6 [email protected]

For some time, now, I’ve watched the debateover Roman history rage. I greatly regret nothaving become involved, since I account myselfat least somewhat knowledgeable and certainlyvery opinionated about such matters. But, bythe time I noticed what was being discussed, thepoint of it all had long since been lost. Or atleast it seemed to me. So whatever they werediscussing — I very much agree . . . except forthe parts I disagree with.

I can contribute this, though. My collectionof Roman coins had acquired a new prize, anovel type called a Cistophorus.

Before you ask, “what the hell is aCistophorus, and must it be so hard to spell?” letme pontificate. The fact is, that Cistophorii(plural) were somewhat rare until recently,when my favourite dealer seems to haveacquired a considerable number. They faroutstripped my limited means to afford, beingpriced from $250 to $400! The best examplessold quickly. But the more worn or more poorlystruck ones stayed in the on-line catalog formonths, stretching finally to a full year. I askedthe dealer if he’d let the least desirable of hisCistophorii go for less than it was listed. Hewould. I’ll have to make two payments overtime, but I bought it for a mere $180.

The coin shows the portrait of the emperorTrajan on one side, and three legion standardson the other. On the whole, it’s a good strike,it’s only real problem is that the reverse wasstruck somewhat off-center and weak, so thatthe full inscription can’t be read.

Cistophorii have an interesting history.They were originally struck by the cities ofPergamum and Ephesus, on the western coast ofwhat is now Turkey, from around 175 to 180BC. The early coin showed the sacred chest ofDionysus on one side, with entwined snakes,and a carriage carrying Demeter and drawn bysnakes on the other. The people of Pergamumevidently held snakes in high regard. But in 133BC the king died without an heir, andbequeathed the kingdom to the RomanRepublic. At that period, the Romans didn’treplace local coinage, and left Cistophorii incirculation. In fact, even in the imperial period,the Romans tended not to interfere much withlocal affairs. It wasn’t until the death ofHadrian, in 138 AD, that Cistophorii finallydisappeared from the scene. But the Cistophorii

of the imperial period was a very different coinfrom the one of old. Somewhere along the line,the emperor and imperial devices replaced theoriginal mystic symbols. I became interested inwhen. Who was the first imperial egotist whofelt fit to remove Dionysus and Demeter fromtheir places of honour?

I expected the change must have come inlater Julio-Claudian times, but to my surprise itwas not so! According to my copy of Searscatalog of Roman coins, the imperial portraitsgo right back to the beginning. Augustushimself appeared on late first-century BCCistophorii. The notion occurred to me thatAugustus might not be the start either, and hewasn’t. Before his victory at Actium, theeastern half of Rome’s empire was in the handsof Mark Antony. You may recall that Antonygot on very well with the East, particularly withCleopatra and exotic notions of Orientalmonarchy. It was apparently he, and some ofhis associates, who first decided to advertise thelegitimacy of their rule by replacing the imageson the old Cistophorus with their own. They area curious type, neither like the coin of old, norlike the later imperial coin. Antony’s ratherbrutally masculine face had replaced the mysticchest of Dionysus, but for some reason he wassatisfied to be surrounded by the god’s snakes.

So what, exactly, was a Cistophorusanyway? It was a significantly larger coin thanthe Roman denarius. About the size of a modernquarter, and thicker. In fact, it’s original intentseems to have been a local replacement for theTetradrachm. It doesn’t appear to have had thesame value, however, weighing only threeDrachm, or three Denarii. It is most likely,then, that whatever its official tariff, theCistophorus circulated at the value of threeDenarii.

The final question is why it disappearedwhen it did. Possibly there was no specificreason, but most likely a reorganization ofRoman administration of that part of the empirewas responsible. There was a tendency for localcoinages to gradually die out as the empire wenton. The last local coinage that I’m familiar withwas the Alexandrine Tetradrachm. Althoughthis large, chunky looking coin from RomanEgypt was once silver, by Nero’s time it wasbronze with a silver coating, and by the end ofthe 4 century it was a just a small, crude chunkth

of “potin” bronze with a truly hideous portrait ofthe emperor Diocletian. The Tetradrachmvanished in Diocletian’s thorough reform ofRoman coinage in 393 AD. With it, apparently,also vanished the tradition of local coinage suchas the Cistophorus.

Given Bob’s participation in ‘70s fandom inToronto, I’ve been surprised that his books havebeen largely ignored by the fan press. I thinkAlexiad’s review of Julian Comstock: a Story of22 Century America is only the second onend

I’ve read. And it was no more enthusiasticabout the novel than the first. It’s all the morepuzzling that the critics outside of fandom thinkextremely highly of Robert C. Wilson.

As it happens, I had the privilege to read thenovel before it was published, borrowing a copyof the manuscript from Bob. I instantly


recognized it as one of his best novels, if not hisvery best. It was at least a very surprisingdeparture from the quasi-mystical cosmologicalideas that make up most of his novels. I think itlikely that the reviewer has profoundlymisunderstood the book.

To begin with, Bob had been doing a greatdeal of reading about 19 century America,th

particularly the works of an early juvenile writernamed Oliver Optic. In many ways, Julian wasinspired by Oliver Optic. But there was anothersource of Julian that the reviewer seems to havemissed, that might have been the key tounderstanding that he lacked.

The story is basically that of the emperorJulian, called The Apostate, who ruled forroughly two and a half years from 361 to 363AD. Julian was a traditionalist, who rejectedthe Christianity imposed on the empire byConstantine’s brood. When Constantine II died,Julian was left the sole emperor, and beganimmediately to end Christian privilege and theoppression of pagan beliefs. It was his desire toreturn the empire to the virtues and intellectualtradition of the past, as he understood it. Ofcourse, as a communicant of the EleusianMysteries, Julian would probably not have beenrecognized as quite kosher by Caesar or Cicero.Could Julian have changed the empire andprevented a Christian future? W ho knows? Isuspect not. He lacked the charisma andpatience, I suspect. Julian II died in a waragainst the Parthians, in any case, before he hadhardly begun. Some say he died with a Romanspear in his back, cast by a Christian soldier.

Robert C. Wilson’s Julian is also aRomantic, wedded to the idea of restoringancient virtues. And like the 4 century Julian,th

the reader suspects that the tide of history hadset against his 23 century namesake. Hisrd

efforts were doomed from the start.

There are other similarities. In the 4 th

century the most important vehicle for theexpression of power in Roman culture wasFaith. The emperor Julian attempted to counterthe belief of Christ with the belief in pagangods. In the context of our immediate future,this would hardly make sense. The conflict ofour day is between the fundamentalistmovement on the one hand, and the logicalinquiry of the secular world on the other.Wilson chose to show his Julian’s commitmentto the past not in religious terms, then, but in a

different, but still quintessentially Americanform. Cinema.

It is a puckish choice. But then JulianComstock is a puckish book. Wilson had neverwritten a major work in a humorous vein before,to my knowledge, marking this one as aconsiderable departure in more than one way.Many of the more amusing jokes are in fact in-jokes that very few readers could be expected torecognize.

The reviewer, however, chose to fixate on astereotypical fan obsession – is the scienceright? At that, the accusation is not evenaccurate that an energy poor future wasunlikely, and that the author didn’t account forcoal reserves. Wilson does in fact explicitlymention that civilization had had to fall back oncoal for portable energy. Not that theextrapolation of scientific progress in the futurewas ever the point of the novel.

Another complaint of the reviewer is thatJulian is not a very interesting character. This istrue, in so far as it goes. He is a bit tooidealized a characterization to get inside hishead. But this distance from a fullunderstanding of Julian is deliberate. He ismeant to be an idealization of someone that theactual protagonist does not fully understand.The novel is really about Julian’s sidekick,Adam, and his perception of Julian’s life.

In the end, Julian Comstock is a comedy. Itpresumes a world in which global warming hasbecome a fact, but one that humanity was ableto adapt to; and that the technical civilization ofthe present has suffered serious setbacks, buthas not vanished entirely. The author tells methat he purposely introduced a number a futuredevelopments that just seem odd or unlikely,because he believes the future will seem odd tous, and will appear unlikely. The novel does notaim to defend any particular future, but tosatirize the concerns of the present, in a formreminiscent of the 19 century. Julianth

Comstock is telling us that, in many ways, theconcerns of the America of 100 years ago is notall that different from the present, and may notalter unrecognizable in the near future.

Whether or not this is Wilson’s best novel todate is hard to say. Many fans undoubtedlyprefer his harder science works – such as theSpin trilogy. But Julian is probably more likelyto appeal to mainstream readers. It was myexpressed hope that it would be a break-throughnovel for Bob, so that he would come into thewider recognition that I have no doubt hedeserves. Move over Margaret Atwood; you’vemet more than your match.

Are you saying that Wilsonneeds to have giant talking squid inspace?

— JTM

From: Milt Stevens September 3, 20106325 Keystone Street, Simi Valley, CA93063-3834 [email protected]

In Alexiad V9#4, Lisa begins with somethoughts on going home again or not. I grew up

in the Los Angeles suburb of Sherman Oaks. Itwas an upscale place fifty years ago, and it isstill an upscale place today. My sister still livesin the house where we grew up, so I go downthere for visits once a year. The area around mysister’s house is about as it was fifty years agobut older. Down in the business district, thenewsstand I walked by every school day injunior high school and where I bought most ofmy earliest SF is still there. There is a bar oneblock north of the newsstand that was also therefifty years ago. All other businesses have beenreplaced and replaced again. Five miles north inVan Nuys where my sister and I went to highschool, the barrio of fifty years ago has grown toinclude the entire suburb. You don’t hear muchEnglish spoken in Van Nuys any more.

Joseph is on the subject of vampires,werewolves, and various other things that gocreepy-crawly in the night. I don’t think I haveencountered any stories where eitherwerewolves or vampires or both are aliens. Itwould be non-traditional, but tradition has littlepower in Hollywood when there might be acouple of bucks to be made.

The question “What will the children be?”got a bad rep by being associated with racism.However, there are some fictional situationswhere the question would be highly relevant.Gods and other mythological beings didsometimes produce offspring with humanwomen, although sometimes the results werenothing you would care to invite home to meetyour mother. Aliens might produce offspringthat would challenge the limits of affirmativeaction. I just had the strangest image ofmythological/alien speed dating. I really mustget out of this paragraph.

Julius Caesar and Brutus as brothers? Iwonder what they had against the father/sonrelationship.

I imagine the all black radio and televisionshow you mention was Amos and Andy. Irecall Calhoun being a lawyer even though hedidn’t seem to be the most reputable lawyer inthe world. An interesting thing about Amos andAndy was that just about every episode revolvedaround a moral point. Amos always suggestsdoing the right thing and never gets into anytrouble. Andy and Kingfish always try to dosomething smart but unscrupulous and alwayscome to grief by it.

So they wuz regusted. You gotit.

— JTM

The Ferengi in DS9 seem based on Amosand Andy. Odo pretty much takes the part ofAmos. Quark and Rom are always ready forsomething smart but unscrupulous. They neverdo well with it.

From: Lloyd Penney September 9, 20101706-24 Eva Road, Etobicoke, ON M9C2B2 [email protected]://lloydpenney.livejournal.com/

Thanks for the newest issue of Alexiad,


number 52. Even though the calendar still sayssummer, the kids are now back to school, andthe days are starting to cool down a little.Another indication of the time of the year is thatWorldcon has come and gone.

Aussiecon IV . . . well, I did get on the Hugoballot, and of the five nominees, I came in . . .fifth. Oh, well, it is an honour to be nominated,but I thought I might do a little better. I foundout quickly thanks to Cheryl Morgan and KevinStandlee and their team of reporters on TheHugo Awards.com, and A4 sound like it was agreat time for all.

My time was such that not only could I notread most of the nominees this year, but Icouldn’t download the various nominees asprovided by Aussiecon. The Vance book wonthe Hugo, which was a great present to give toJack Vance, now more than 90 years old.

I have tried my best to get myself some extraexercise, from walking to another bus line to godowntown, and walking a couple of blocksdown Spadina Ave. to get to the Globe and Mailin the evenings. However, I do spend a lot oftime, probably too much time, in front of thecomputer. Yvonne bought a new laptop for herlaw clerk classes, so I got her old laptop just intime for our big computer to break down and gointo the shop. This will get to you via my worke-mail.

Worldcon bids have arisen here and there .. . I heard Boston in 2015, LA in 2015, possiblySeattle in 2016, Kansas City in 2016 (one of thebid chairs is Diane Lacey of Toronto), Japan in2017, and now New Zealand in 2020. I expectthat the New Zealand bid will take place longafter we’ll be able to even consider that kind oftravel.

StarShipSofa did indeed win Best Fanzine,strange in that it actually a podcast, and likeElectric Velocipede, something that no one elseon the fan Hugo ballot had ever heard of orread/heard. I get the feeling there’s a whole newkind of fandom standing right behind us, andready to push us out of the way.

My loc . . . I had asked Janice Gelb to acceptfor me, but of course, she didn’t get to do that.Also, Russell T. Davies finally did get his Hugowith a win in Dramatic Presentation – ShortForm. And, I have received copies of Probefrom Science Fiction South Africa since myprevious loc. My thanks to Rich Dengrove re hisremarks on my locs. I am still enjoying writingletters, and I am pleased that at least somepeople enjoy reading them.

To John Purcell . . . in my latest adventureinto the depths of a used book store, I was ableto find Michael Moorcock’s two OswaldBastable novels, The Land Leviathan and TheWarlord of the Air. (I’m reading the first of thetwo right now.) The Warlord of the Air isconsidered to be one of the first steampunknovels. George Price’s comments on the Britishballad . . . I used to know all the words! DoctorDemento used to play that song a lot.

There’s a third one, The SteelTsar (1981), the title characterbeing one Joseb Bessarion (orIosif Vissarionovich) Dzugashvili.

Moorcock seems to be one of the“Good Lenin, Bad Stalin” types.“Oswald Bastable” was a characterinvented by E. [for Edith] Nesbit,so Moorcock is also following theexample of George MacdonaldFraser, though Bastable doesn’thave anywhere near as much fun orcharacter as Flashy.

— JTM

And, I am done. I will be going in to theGlobe and Mail early today to get this out toyou asap. The big computer will be back soon,and I can get going on more writing. Take care,see you again soon.

From: Jerry Kaufman September 12, [email protected]

Thanks for keeping us on the mailing list,despite my infrequent responses.

I found this issue a more than usuallyinteresting read, so I thought I’d better say so.

Right away, in Lisa’s first three paragraphs,I found she struck a chord of nostalgia and loss.I don’t miss places I used to work, but I dosometimes miss the neighborhood in ClevelandHeights where I grew up. It now seems likequite an exciting place to be a teenager, inretrospect (though I was eager to leave). (Ihaven’t been back in decades, so I can’t say ifit’s all been torn down to make way for emptyweed-filled lots or chic condos. Could go eitherway.)

We went by Lisa’s grandfather’sold farm while down in Mayfield onLabor Day weekend. I havepictures of myself in front of allthe homes the family lived in.

— JTM

I also have friends who took over a familyfarm, Marilyn and Cliff. Marilyn grew up there,but left for the big city (Seattle) where sheworked as, variously, a college teacher, businessconsultant and real estate agent. Cliff was apostal worker. But when Marilyn’s dad died,she started to improve and develop the farmrather than trying to sell it. Now the two of themare full-time farmers, growing organicvegetables and sorta organic beef cows. (Therequirements for certifying beef as organic are,I gather, much more difficult to meet.) The workand money they’ve put into that land isamazing; I couldn’t have done what they did.

Thanks, Joe for the close reading of Takeoffand all the details of Gance’s film, Napoleon. Isaw the latter not long after I moved here. (Ican’t remember if it was a showing at theSeattle International Film Festival or a theatricalrelease at the Egyptian Theater, one of our moredependable art houses.) I vaguely recall beingimpressed with some of the innovations likemulti-projector sequences, but not with thestory. At this remove, I can’t remember whatbothered me.

I enjoyed Darrell Schweitzer’s lengthy letter.Agora has been playing for a month or so at

another of our art houses, the Guild 45th, andI’m sure a couple of our friends have seen it.(Randy Byers and Luke McGuff come to mind— they tend to see a lot of new indie andforeign films.)

We will be at the Reno Worldcon (Suzle hastaken on a sub-committee position in theFacilities Department), so assuming her dutiesdon’t interfere with her schedule too much, weshould be able to join the FanedsLuncheon/Dinner/Whatever. (Also assuming itisn’t scheduled against any really cool programitems.)

From: Robert S. Kennedy Sept. 17, 20101779 Ciprian Avenue, Camarillo, CA93010-2451 [email protected]

Thank you for Vol. 9, No. 4.HUGOS: Once again nothing I voted for as

#1 ended up winning. Furthermore, almostnothing that I nominated appeared on the ballot.It was certainly a surprise that StarShipSofa wonBest Fanzine. I voted No Award before it. It isnot a Fanzine. Perhaps an even bigger surprisewas that Avatar didn’t win Best DramaticPresentation, Long Form. I had never seen anyof the other nominations so I rented MOON.Not bad, interesting concept. But not goodenough for a HUGO. Also, on severaloccasions they use incorrect radio usage (“Overand Out” – Correct usage is simple. But, theynever seem to learn.) I may quit nominating andvoting for the HUGOS as it appears to be awaste of my time.

Several nights I watched Mars through mybinoculars. No signs from John Carter oranyone else. What a disappointment.

They’re all busy; Llana of Gatholhas a Twitter account now andshe’s teaching the old folks how totweet.

I rather enjoyed www: WAKE and www:WATCH by Robert J. Sawyer even though he isnot among my favorite authors However, in thesecond book the comment by one of thecharacters that it would be great if a President ofthe United States wore a UN flag pin instead ofa US Flag pin made me gag.

I’m not particularly happy that the SyFyChannel has placed Eureka and Warehouse 13in the same universe. Also, Warehouse 13making H. G. Wells a woman is ridiculous.

It sure would have surprisedRebecca West, not to mentionAnthony.

— JTM

Well, The Unincorporated Man may nothave made the HUGO ballot. But, it did receivethe Prometheus Award. I read the sequel, TheUnincorporated War, and overall it was a goodread. However, I did have three problems withit. 1) Why would a Libertarian Party acceptHektor as its Presidential candidate? 2) Theauthors changed a part of the Declaration of


Independence (p. 441). 3) I don’t understandthe authors affinity for Islam. Apparently theybelieve that by the time depicted in their novelthat Islam will have evolved. Islam has notevolved since its founding and there is noreason to believe it will evolve in the future.

I was in the Friends of the LibraryBookstore when I spotted The Stars at War byDavid Weber and Steve White (2004) thatcontains Crusade and In Death Ground, theprequels to The Shiva Option. It was only$2.00. It’s an excellent read. Now I’ll have toobtain The Shiva Option.

Sometime back Joe made a reference to themovie Harry Brown. (It seems to me that I oncevoted for a Harry Brown for President. Oh,wait, that was Harry Browne, a different person.J). When the DVD came out on August 31 Irented it. The person at Blockbuster said that ifI had liked Gran Torino, I should like HarryBrown. I did like it and recommend it. But,you should probably read the description on theback of the box to see if you might also like themovie.

George W. Price: Since you enjoy ThomasSowell’s books I highly recommend TheCharacter of Nations (Revised Edition) byAngelo M. Codevilla (2009). Actually, I read itbecause Dr. Sowell recommended it in one ofhis columns in December 2009.

From: Sue Burke September 27, 2010calle Agustin Querol, 6 bis - 6 D, 28014Madrid, [email protected]_oregano.livejournal.comhttp://amadisofgaul.blogspot.com

What a surprise to encounter a reference toMartín Alhaja in last issue’s review of BrutalJourney. I first learned about the helpfulshepherd in a visit last summer to Cuenca inwestern La Mancha, founded by the Muslims inthe mid-700s. There he helped Christian soldiersenter the otherwise impenetrable defenses of thecliffside city by having them disguisethemselves as sheep and sneak past the blindguard at a city gate, according to a plaque there.That was in 1177.

And there was Martín in 1212 down inAndalucía helping the combined Christianarmies find a mountain pass for the Battle ofLas Navas de Tolosa. With a little research,though, I learned that that helper may have beenan apparition of Saint Isidro – but that seemsunlikely to me. Isidro, who is the patron saint ofMadrid, never left the city. How would he haveknown about the mountains of Jaén province?

But upon further research, I’m not sureabout Martín, either, since “alhaja” comes froman Arabic word and means “jewel” or“outstanding person,” and it’s not used as a lastname. There’s a lot of folklore here in Spain.Natives entertain themselves by pretending tobelieve it, but tourists take it seriously and evenembellish it.

Only in English-language sources could Ifind a mention of a cow skull in the MartínAlhaja story as a source of the explorer’s

surname, perhaps because to Spaniards,“Cabeza de Vaca” isn’t a strange name. It’s notthe only cabeza on the loose. Saint Isidro’s wife,also a saint, is known as María de la Cabezabecause her skull is a holy relic here in Madrid,and occasionally parents name their daughtersafter her. (A more popular name in Madrid,however, is Almudena or “City Wall” inreference to a miracle involving the Virgin.)

I have a copy of Cabeza de Vaca’sNaufragios y comentarios, and he doesn’tmention Martín. He does say that he curedsomeone by removing a blade from his side, butin general he accomplished his cures throughprayers like this: “The best I could beg of ourLord was that He be inclined to give health tohim and all others who needed it.”

Why did he head eventually west? Hedoesn’t say, but Indians had told FranciscoCortéz, cousin of Hernán Cortéz, about anisland west of Mexico populated by women andrich with gold and pearls. Francisco’s 1524report about it to Emperor Charles V describedit with language cribbed from Sergas deEspandián, a sequel to Amadis de Gaula, whichincludes an imaginary island called Californiapopulated by women warriors with goldenweapons. This is a clue to the way theconquistadores were thinking: they filled thegaps in their knowledge with fantasy literature.Cabeza de Vaca set out for America in 1527, sohe had probably had read that report.

(Incidentally, explorers eventually foundwhat they thought was an island west ofMexico, but it was barren and arid, and by the1540s they were calling it California, perhapsironically. Eventually they learned it was apeninsula.)

The speculation that Naváez would havereacted violently to a suggestion that he hadlearned something from the Moors is unlikely,since at that point the Moors still formed animportant element of Spanish society. (Jewswere despised, though.) The idea that therequirimiento had been learned from the Islamicinvasion of Spain is hard to understand, sinceTariq and his Arabic and Berber troops wereinvited to Spain in 711 by the Witiza faction ofthe Visigoths as mercenaries to help them defeatKing Rodrigo’s army and give Witiza’s son thethrone. No account I have of that battle or anysubsequent one mentions any protocolpronouncements.

All sources agree that the Visigoth overlordsfled north after they were routed, except for theWitiza allies, who soon learned that Tariq hadunexpected ambitions, but they could live withthat. The remaining Hispano-Roman populaceoffered little resistance, perhaps in hopes thatthe new Islamic overlords would be morecivilized than the old, warring, plunderingVisigoth overlords, and they were. ManyRomans and Visigoths converted to Islam fromall levels of society, especially the poorest, whobenefitted the most from economic and socialimprovements. Visigoth church authorities, likethe civic authorities, had used their positions forpersonal enrichment.

But the reference to the “Paradise of ThreeAbrahamic Religions Dwelling Together in

Harmony” proves that Spaniards must stopdishing out folklore to tourists and instead insiston real facts. The seven centuries between theconquest of the peninsula by Islamic troops andthe reconquest by Christian troops werecomplex, troubled times – but there was oftenharmony.

After the conquest, the new califateguaranteed the safety of the person and propertyof all people regardless of their religion, and itimmediately freed the Jews, who had beenforced to choose between conversion or slaveryby the Visigoth Christians. True, Christians andJews in Islamic territories had to pay specialproperty taxes and faced other restrictions, andwhile this may not be equality as we define ittoday, for it’s time it was remarkable. And ithad consequences.

Historian Ricardo de la Cierva is worthquoting, if only because he’s a former Francoofficial and calls himself “traditional in theproper sense of the term”: there’s nothing PCabout him. His Historia Total de España says:

“The Arabic culture of the Middle East,propagated in Islamic Spain, managed totransmit its learning to Christian Europe, whichwell needed it.... The most transcendentalHispano-Arabic influence was poured over theearly universities of Europe that germinated,like the Gothic cathedrals, in the 13th century.

“The kings of Castile promoted the creationof the decisive Translator’s School of Toledo inthe 12th century, prolonged by the efforts of thecultural teamwork of Alfonso X the Wise[1252-84], one of the essential people inmedieval European culture. All the ancientwisdom that Saint Isidore had communicated inthe first wave arrived at European universitiesby means of the Toledo School, where scholarsof the three monotheistic religions collaborated.. . Arabic terminology was incorporated intoEuropean science via Toledo.”

This is why you use Arabic numerals andcall stars by Arabic names.

Toledo is also where tourists usually learnabout this supposed paradise. Then some ofthem find out that the harmony had deep faultlines. De la Cierva spends long chaptersdetailing the shifting conflicts and armedconfrontations. As a result, these tourists cometo doubt the whole thing, unable to understandthat coexistence was complex, imperfect,irregular, and yet it deserves no cynicism.

Tourists also don’t generally realize thatToledo’s Three Cultures flourished underChristian rule. Islam had taught Spain’sChristians to live in harmony with other faiths,though Jews and Muslims were second-classcitizens, naturally. But eventually both Islamand Christianity fell into religious fanaticism,and the blood is still flowing.

Meanwhile, I’m reading a 2009 work offiction, Perlas para un collar, “Pearls for aNecklace,” by Ángeles de Irisarri and TotiMartínez de Lezea, two outstanding Spanishhistorical novelists. The book contains thirtystories of Jewish, Moorish, and Christianwomen in medieval Spanish, from Adosina in790 to Ester in 1484: saints, queens, slaves, wiseand foolish wives, and girls with dreams that


end in tragedy or come true. Those centurieswere complex, troubled times, but at times theyoffered genuine happiness.

From: Dainis Bisenieks September 24, 2010921 S. St. Bernard Street, Philadelphia,PA 19143-3310 USA

I was an early and a willing reader, gettingup to speed in several languages after my nativeLatvian, so I have no inner feeling for theexperiences of unhappy readers in Spanish orany other language. Are all of us here agreedthat at the sight of a word, its sound and sense(or at least its sound, by the most usual rules)leaps to awareness, needing no sequential C-A-T cat, attention. I have absolutely no troublewith homophones; principle and principal areutterly distinct. Errors tend to leap toawareness, though for paid proofreading I slowdown to mentally-moving-lips speed, just tomake sure. Grammatical coherence too, or thelack of it, signals itself. Yet we know howprevalent deficiency, or total inability, in allthese areas is. For many, the best that can beattained through practice — whatever that maymean — will not be all that hot. The movinglips and the pointing finger will not disappearfrom the world.

It is sad but true that in Spain as everywhereelse the makers of curricula feel obliged toprovide safe and moral reading. For the play ofthe imagination they do not provide. That isbest found in trash, though not only in trash.Comic books and comic strips. While someunforgotten O. Henry stories might have been inschool anthologies,, I can’t say I have theslightest recollection of anything that was inthem. I recall how in one class session, in juniorhigh it might have been, there was an analysisof how a story was experienced as it worked itsway to the climax. I did not have the wit to askwhat, if anything, a story has left to give on asecond reading. Indeed, there is damn little thatis re-readable.

Consider what is, after fifty or sixty years,unforgotten. My first two years in the States Iwas able to follow Dick Tracy in the Sundaycomics, fortuitously getting the back number inwhich Tracy met Sam Catchem. I rememberSam’s words as “I’m like olives, I grow onyou.” Of SF novels read around 1953, some areremembered, some are not. Of stories, fewerare remembered . . . but among them is thesource of “gentlebeings”, that useful word. Arecent edition of the Hoka stories is in mypossession, and one may wonder how muchmundane short fiction has lasted that long. (Apublic alone does not suffice; editors must dotheir stuff.)

Robert Bloch described how hewould avidly wait for each year’sPulitzer Prizes to see H. P.Lovecraft rewarded. And he wassomewhat disappointed by thepraise of The Store by ThomasStribling (1933), Lamb in HisBosom by Caroline Miller (1934),Now in November by Josephine

Johnson (1935), and Honey in theHorn by Harold Davis. (BetweenThe Good Earth and Gone with theWind, that is).

It is not given to everyone to be captivatedby something in which the spirit can rejoice andplay. Being a fan is to be captivated. Fromsuch things as Star Trek fandom I have alwaysbeen completely remote. But the impulse to addsomething to what I have received is nto absent.What might the coinage of the Third Age havebeen like?

I have lately been mulling over the nature ofRivendell. It has been remarked that as depictedby Tolkien and others after him, it is too small.Even a few hundred Elves need elbow room,and a larger past population must be considered.Holding by “homely house”, I envision it as notpalatial but collegiate. Quadrangles. It cannotmake the arriving visitor feel small, as palaceswith their grand staircases and state rooms do.It must be welcoming. Not least should itwelcome the visitor with hot baths. (Why am Ireminded of a scene out of That HideousStrength?) When Elves build, it it with all modcons. Indoor plumbing. I can’t quite imaginehot water pipes extended throughout. Yes, andcentral heating; I see it as a hot air system, withconduits extending through the undercroft andpassing up through hollows in the walls.Definitely no poky little fires in individualrooms, calling for no end of work by a servantclass which the Elves do not have. A largecentral furnace does not wood sawed andchopped up fine; it can take anything. TheElves have to be their own hewers of wood anddrawers of water. Plantations of conifers on theheights provide the one; the original builderstapped the heights upstream and brought waterthrough a flume, both for domestic use (settlingtank, sand filter) and water power: saws, lathes,washing machines, fans for the ventilating andheating system. Rivendell is an almost entirelyself-sufficient community, in which labor-saving devices and things made to last cut downthe hours of unavoidable work, leaving thedenizens free for what does nto feel like workbecause they love to do it. Every Elf is anartisan and cannot, by definition, have bad taste.

There cannot but be a flat-floored valedebouchng into the river valley in which rootcrops and grains can be grown, both to supportthe people and to be given to horses (and otherlivestock). Suffice it to say that the Elves havefarming down to a science and do not disdainfarm machinery. Grain in the ar must bebrought to the thresher, but that is powered, ofcourse, by water.

Every tree for miles up and down the valleyhas been planted there and yields somethinguseful; mulberry leaves for the silkworms, nutsor fruits in their season. The fruit liqueurs ofRivendell would be famous if they were not allconsumed locally.

Among imports I would name linen clothand metals. There must be paid for withexports; high-value products of craft, such astimepieces that announce the hour withbirdsong.

Nancy? Would this do inBeyond Bree?

— JTM

In my youth I was at a volunteer workproject not far from Vienna. One spring day weheard a startlingly loud bird call. “What wasthat?” As a born European, I was in a positionto explain. “Now if you were to render this inhuman vocables, what would it be?” What,indeed?

Damn! Once again I went to bed with anunfinished text on my mind. I then keep myselfawake, shaping sentences, revising . . .

You are all urged to read the review of ToveJansen’s work in the October Harper’s. Myson, too, has come to a deeper appreciation of itand is now passing it on to his girl friend.

From: George W. Price September 30, 2010P.O. Box A3228, Chicago, IL60690-3228 [email protected]

August Alexiad:The obituary for F. Gwynplaine McIntyre

notes that he translated back into English aChinese translation of a Fred Pohl story, withoutreading the original. I’m reminded of the classicstory of the pitfalls of computerized translation.One early program put a common Englishsaying into Russian, and another programtranslated the Russian back into English. Theresult was “Invisible, insane.” What was theoriginal? “Out of sight, out of mind.”

* * * * *Lisa says in “Jockworld” that she has

learned that “cheap shoes fall apart” quickly,and “expensive walking shoes cost much less inthe long run.” Yes. I’ve learned also that goodshoes don’t need “breaking in.” They should becomfortable from the start. Pay more, and saveyour feet a lot of pain.

* * * * *Alexis Gilliland amply responds to my

request for instances in which (as he hadclaimed) police were used as strikebreakers.

He starts with the “1886 Haymarket Riot, inwhich police violence triggered a nation-wideanti-red hysteria that destroyed the 8-Hour DayMovement.” Police violence? I had alwayssupposed that the central event in the riot wasthe bomb that killed seven policemen. Ano n-l ine excerp t from the C o lum b iaEncyclopedia says the bomb was thrown duringan anarchist demonstration. Only then did thepolice open fire, killing several more people.But there’s no word of any strike. Fouranarchists were hanged for “inciting violence,”even though there was no evidence that they hadthrown the bomb, or even knew who did; it wasenough that they were anarchists. That wascertainly shameful, but what has it got to dowith strikebreaking?

Next Mr. Gilliland cites the Harlan CountyWar in Kentucky in the 1930s, where the minersunion fought coal operators (and the fightingwas quite literal). He quotes Sheriff J. H. Blairas saying, “I did all in my power to aid the coaloperators.” Gilliland adds, “W hen that was


insufficient, the Governor sent in the NationalGuard to protect the mine owner’s property.”

A quick on-line check turned up a storyfrom Time magazine, May 18, 1931 (in thedepths of the Great Depression), saying that“with more than half the mines in the areaclosed down, organizers for the United MineWorkers of America circulated persistentlyamong the jobless miners, [exhorting] them toorganize. . . . . [P]olitically powerful mineowners [hired] small armies of deputy sheriffs,to protect their property. . . . Companycommissaries were raided for food. . . . .[C]ompany property was dynamited. Non-unionminers on their way to work were fired upon.Finally a deputy sheriff was shot dead.” SheriffBlair announced that “When ambushers openfire on my men they’ll shoot back and shoot tokill.” Hardly had he spoken when “threecarloads of his men were ambushed . . . .” Twodeputies and a commissary clerk were killed.The deputies returned fire “with their automaticrifles,” but “got only one of the 100 attackers.”Sheriff Blair then asked the state for aid, butonly after the governor also received “a petitionof 50 substantial citizens” did he act, sending350 National Guardsmen.

Oddly, if Time was correct, there was nostrike in the usual sense. The newly unionizedminers did not walk off the job; they werealready jobless. Presumably they raided thecommissaries because they were hungry.

Just based on this Time story, I am guessingthat the union men were trying to force thecompany to re-hire them and fire non-unionmen and that the violence was (initially, at least)entirely by the union men, ambushing thenon-union miners and dynamiting companyproperty. If Mr. Gilliland, or any other reader,has more information and a better explanation,I would like to hear it. (I’m too busy to researchthis any further.)

I couldn’t find anything relevant on lineabout Ford and John Bugas, but my memoryfrom general reading is that Ford’s“strikebreaking” consisted of protectingcompany property and ejecting — or trying toeject — “sit-down” strikers who occupied Fordfactories to prevent bringing in replacementworkers.

My overall impression is that Mr. Gillilanduses “strikebreaking” to include not justthuggery against strikers, but also more broadlyto include any resistance to thuggery committedby unions in organizing or striking. I hope I ammistaken, and that he does not feel that unionsare entitled to use intimidation and violence thatwould be criminal if used for other purposes.

In a legitimate strike the workers walk offthe job, put up a picket line to advertise theirgrievances, and hope that sympathy with theircause will persuade possible replacements tostay away, so that the company cannot findanyone else willing to accept that low a wage.They have absolutely no right to forcibly blockentry with massed pickets, beat up would-bereplacements, or destroy property.

Such violence might even be considered anadmission that the strike is not justified. Thevery fact that enough willing replacements are

available to break the strike implies that theexisting wages and working conditions are notout of line. For example, suppose the companyoffers $15 per hour, and the strikers demand$20. Replacements apply for the vacated jobs at$15 because they are now making only $12somewhere else. But the strikers violently driveaway the “scabs,” and thus win $20. They nowget $20 instead of $15, but only by preventingthose other workers from getting $15 instead of$12. That’s not an accomplishment to be proudof. This is part of why many free-marketeconomists say that above-market union wagescome at the expense of non-union workers, notout of profits.

(This obviously does not apply to the specialcase of professional strikebreakers who get paidmore than the strikers, and leave as soon as thestrike is broken. But most strikes have notinvolved anything like that.)

Mr. Gilliland also mentions “Mayor Daley’s1968 police riot that cost Hubert Humphrey theelection.” This seems totally irrelevant, since ithad nothing to do with any labor dispute. Andcalling it a “police riot” (as the Kerner Reportdid) vastly distorts what happened.

As the advance statements of the anti-wardemonstrators made clear, they came to Chicagofully determined to violently disrupt theDemocratic convention. They deliberatelyprovoked the police, and provoked, and thenprovoked some more, until final the police losttheir discipline.

Yes, the police can be faulted for giving into those gross provocations. But manyChicagoans (definitely including me) felt thatthe cops should have cracked down muchsooner, though in a more professional manner.For example, the mob — oops, the protestors —should never have been allowed to camp out inLincoln Park. Nor should they have beenallowed to gather in the street outside theConrad Hilton Hotel; streets are for traffic, notmobs.

Which reminds me of an example of mediabias which I have treasured all these years. TheJanuary 10, 1969 issue of Life magazine ran aphotograph of the police confronting the mob infront of the Hilton, captioned “Chicago riotpolice move in on demonstrators.” But thepicture shows no such thing. The police are in aline across the street, standing flatfooted (ifyou’ll pardon the expression), holding theirbatons crosswise at hip level, one hand at eachend of the baton. They are obviously standingstill, not “moving in” on anybody. Thedemonstrators (rioters, actually) are in posturesindicating that they are throwing things at thecops. The disconnect between what the captionsays and what the picture shows is staggering.The caption writer and his editor wereapparently seeing what they wanted to see, notwhat was really there. Special offer: I will sendany reader a copy of this picture upon request.

* * * * *Richard Dengrove, replying to Taras

Wolansky, suggests that “Since conspiracytheory explains the failure of ideologies, thereshould be a conspiracy theory to explain whyconspiracy theories fail.”

Many years ago I had a co-worker who waseven more right-wing than I am (hard to believe,but true), and he plied me with John BirchSociety literature. What came through loud andclear was that these people did not believe inscrewups. Whatever happened must have beenplanned to happen. If a policy turned out tobenefit the Communists, it could only bebecause the policy makers were secretCommunists. The Birchers simply didn’t allowfor the possibility of errors, misunderstandings,stupidity, and just plain old-fashioned royalfuckups that the Communists didn’t cause butwere quick to take advantage of.

One test for the likelihood of a conspiracy isto ask: To make it work, how many peoplewould have to be in on it? And is this a numbersmall enough to keep the secret? If it would takemore than a handful, then you can bet that atleast one of them would rat out the others, orcarelessly spill the beans. To be sure, there isalso the possibility that a conspirator doesbetray the others — and the rest of us don’tbelieve him.

* * * * *The last-page take-off on The Shadow

reminded me of something I noticed some sixtyyears ago. I avidly followed The Shadow on theradio in the early 1940s (Sunday afternoon,sponsored by Blue Coal). Around 1950, wellafter I had given up listening to the program, Icame across a copy of The Shadow pulpmagazine, which apparently ran a Shadow novelin each issue. Reading it, I was startled todiscover that Lamont Cranston had no occultpower of invisibility. Rather, he was a master ofdisguise and knew how to move stealthily andavoid being noticed. The Shadow was simply amaster sneak! Was the invisibility invented forthe radio program, and had it ever been part ofthe magazine series? A cursory on-line checkfound no answer; the history of The Shadowstories seems to have been very complicated. Inany case, the magazine version didn’t interestme enough to buy again. I assume it vanishedwith the rest of the pulps.

WAHF:Lloyd Daub, with various items ofinterest.Patrick McCray, with thanks.Cathy Palmer-Lister, with a punctuationquestion.


Cable providers are desperate for newcontent, as I discovered when I found theBarsoom Channel:

Dances With CalotsPadwar Kostbar Vinek, dispatched to a

remote station far out on the ochre-mossedplains of Barsoom, taken prisoner by the savageWarhoons, has a change of life . . .

“Kostbar Vinek, you stand charged withhaving entered the clan of the Warhoons,participated in their rituals, and perpatratedcrimes against the other peoples of Barsoom. Take your place upon the Pedestal of Truth, foryou are to be tried by a fair and impartialtribunal of your fellow-men.”

“NO! My name is Dances With Calots!”

Pirates of the Torquas: Corphal’sChestIn a stirring tale from the ancient days of the

Barsoomian oceans and their gallant mariners,Black Pirate Passerida finds he must travel tothe Sea of Toonol to recover the heart of themysterious lord of the depths, or he will perish!As we see when he summons forth men to servein this desperate venture . . .

“You’ll do, make your mark. Next!”“My wife ran off with my sorak and I’m

drunk for a teean and I don’t give a ass’s ulsio ifI live or die!”

“Perfect. Next!”

Who Goes There?In a remote atomspheric monitoring station

in the frozen north, between the hostile lands ofOkar and Panar, a team of scholars discover anancient craft that contains a legendary beast —the HROSSA! The feared sophist can tie anyman’s wits into a knot, and the warriors andscientists must find a way to silence it . . .

“Find anything, Padwar?”“Not a sign. We poked into every snowbank

within haads.”“Nesbar flushed an orluk.”“Sure did.”“Scare you?”“Not after I saw it was only an orluk.”

TEE Iak Bau Er, personal gorthan of the Jeddak,

chases down terrorist threats to the city in thisreal-time series, where every one of the tenxode-long episodes for the day has a real-timeclock rolling down the xats as Iak Bau Er carriesout derring-do through the crowded streets andthe empty seabottoms of Barsoom.

Survivor: AaanthorTwenty panthans strive to survive in this

reality show, where in the abandoned buildingsand waste spaces of this ancient city they facechallenges from apts, banths, ulsios, attacks bymarauding Warhoons, and in the desperateimmunity challenges, duels against each other tobe the sole Survivor: Aaanthor!

Revenge of the SithWhen panthan Sen Haiden attempts to

cleanse the Kaolian Forest of its giant stinginginsects, the effort goes terribly wrong. Soonevery city is invaded by the flying beasts, andthe bodies of the stung, swollen up and horriblydead, litter the streets. Now, Sen Haiden mustsummon up all the force of his will to undo hisdire mistake, before it undoes him.

Co-Editors: Lisa & Joseph MajorCo-Publishers: Joseph & Lisa MajorWriters, Staff: Major, Joseph, Major, Lisa,

& McCormick, Grant

Art: What we are mainly looking for issmall fillos. Your fillo will probably be scannedin and may be reused, unless you object to itsreuse.

Contributions: This is not a fictionzine. Itis intended to be our fanzine, so be interesting.

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