7: SciFi is Not for Sissies; Westercon 66: A Skeptic Comes Home

Art by Virgil Finlay

“The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.”  Harlan Ellison

Somewhere around 1970, HJ and I joined campus radio station KERS (which was where we met my notorious co-blogger).  I mainly functioned as a dj (and would turn pro at the local free-form station about a year later) and HJ joined the news team.  As a “newsman”, HJ quickly embraced one of the position’s greatest perks: access.  Even a college radio station news team was allowed almost anywhere FOR FREE.  As the months progressed, HJ became unhappy with the actual “assignments” he would get from the News Director, and before very long quit.  But when he did, he started his own news organization: Reality News.  All he had to do was tell people he was with Reality News, and that he filed reports to KERS, and doors would open like magic. 

The Mythopoeic Society is an organization promoting the study of “fantastic” literature.  It’s one of sci-fi’s many “sub-cultures”.  They established their own annual convention, called “Mythcon”, in 1970.  Due to various logistical issues, HJ and I had been unable to attend a convention since Baycon, but Mythcon 2 was happening at the Francisco Torres Conference Center in Santa Barbara Labor Day weekend, 1971.  HJ, SK and I decided to go, and recruited a fourth person, fan gal Donut C, to join us.  None of us had much money, but we did have our “press credentials”.  Something else we lacked was a usable vehicle, but since it was the early 70s, we figured this wasn’t a problem and that we could hitchhike. 

Unfortunately, when the time came, it seemed like every other college aged person had the same compulsion to hit the road with their thumb out: there was a huge line of people trying to get a ride out of town, PLUS there were four of us, which of course was a big problem.  So we decided to split up: SK and DC would be one “team”, and HJ and I would be the other.  This seemed to work as it didn’t take long for SK/DC to find a ride; HJ and I were picked up shortly thereafter.  So off we went, to our first “real” convention.  No, it wasn’t a World Con or even a Westercon, but it was a con nonetheless.  What could go wrong?  Little did we know that the next few days would include a night spent sleeping in a public bathroom, a beach community terrorized by a mysterious murderer, and most terrifying of all, naked pool antics.

Have made tremendous progress on Redshirts.  Scalzi is keeping the pace and hilarity at a fever pitch.  Have completed the main “novel” and am now in the “codas”.  Hope to have a final comment in the next day or two, then on to Hugo nominee #3.

To Be Continued

#6: SciFi is Not for Sissies; Westercon 66: A Skeptic Comes Home

(Editor’s Note: Though a huge science fiction and fantasy fan when he was younger, the author “gave up” the genre many years ago.  Last December, he unexpectedly began suffering from some kind of science-fiction related malaise, so he contacted one of this country’s few Scifictology Psychological Counselors, Dr. Akrabu, who has a practice in Sacramento.  Over the course of several months starting earlier this year, the Doctor finally made his diagnosis: a kind of debilitating anxiety called S[f]TD, Scienti-fiction Trauma Disorder.  The author was getting better when he relapsed last month after finding out this year’s Westercon was to be held in the capital city; his panic attacks returned as he was compelled by an unspeakable compulsion to attend the convention mixed with a deep rooted revulsion at the thought of going.  The Doctor’s prescription was clear: attend the convention, but first, read all five 2013 Hugo nominees in the one month remaining before July 4.  The author began blogging his thoughts and feelings June 1 and will continue to do so up to the convention.)  

SASSAFRASS Roots, the Rules of Outlaw Fandom, and Scalzi’s Redshirts

In the years following the 1968 Berkeley World Science Fiction/Westercon (Baycon), Happy Jack and I found ourselves attending Sacramento State College.  We linked up with a few other like-minded folk (including my partner on this blog), began searching out “mainstream” fans in the area, and slowly developed an approach and attitude towards the field that was somewhat skeptical and antagonistic.  We wouldn’t attend another convention together until four years later (though HJ attended the 1971 Westercon solo, where he met super fan Dale Gobel and super fan artist Scott McLeod), but in the meantime, we cobbled together an identity and approach to the field we called “Outlaw Fandom”. 

The Rules of Outlaw Fandom were simple:

1. You do not talk about Outlaw Fandom.
2. You do not pay to attend conventions.
3. Life is “living science-fiction” right here, right now; act accordingly.
4. Respect what’s real and mock what isn’t (and decide for yourself which is which).
5. As sci-fi god Kurt Vonnegut says, “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind” (inasmuch as #4 will allow).
6. Don’t be afraid of a little dancin’ and drinkin'.

Outlaw Fandom was a covert splinter group within Sacramento fandom’s most nefarious organization, the Sacramento Area Super Science And Fantasy Reading And Study Society (SASSAFRASS, established circa 1973), which is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this year.  Though most of its members pretty much regarded Outlaw Fandom with utter contempt and disavowed many of its activities, both factions managed to (barely) “get along” for almost a decade.  More on this next time.

When a book blurb extols the hee-haw-larious nature of the novel inside, I will generally drop it without a second thought.  Most supposedly funny things aren’t funny to me.  Most “sitcoms” and modern film comedies are tedious bores.  I can’t stand most comedians; they are not funny.  Please don’t tell me a joke – if I laugh, it is probably because I think you’re ridiculous, or I may be attempting politeness.  Etc.  So I started my second 2013 Hugo novel, John Scalzi’s Redshirts, with extreme trepidation.  When I finished Chapter Nine, page 105, yesterday afternoon, I was so convulsed with guffaws and surprise that I had to use every ounce of self-restraint I had not to wake up my sleeping father in the next room.  So far, Scalzi’s writing is pitch-perfect for what he’s trying to pull off, the story holds your interest from the start, and we’re taking a walk on the wild side to be sure.  No, there aren’t one-liners on every page, and really, to me so far, it’s shaping up to be much more than a “comic” sci-fi novel, but folks, if it continues like it started, and Scalzi can pull this off, there's a major thumbs up ahead.  WARNING: The less you know about this book, the better.  Do not attempt to find out anything about it.  If I find it is ultimately worth reading, I will tell you, but you DON’T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING BEFOREHAND! 

To Be Continued

#5 - On and Off the Throne (Ten at Fifty)

If I were a queen
And he asked me to leave my throne
I'll do anything that he asked
Anything to make him my own

"He's So Fine" - The Chiffons

The Chiffons were in fact the queens of the nascent "girl group" sound. "One Fine Day" in particular is a perfect exemplar of what the producers were always after, and retains its winsomeness in many settings:

So it's a grand irony that their first hit should be known to a great extent as the song "unintentionally plagiarized" in the making of George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord." Years after his passing, though, they remain active:

Even though for sheer excitement, Martha and the Vandellas' "Heat Wave" is hard to beat, much of the output of The Chiffons sounds exactly like the lodestone that would show the way to songs like "Where Did Our Love Go?"

(Sort of like a seventies redux band, Axl Rose and company had their big one in  at #6 for the year 1988 with the all-too-predictable rocker "Sweet Child o'Mine" - and, well, maybe there wasn't much room after that for more of the same... could his "sweet child" have been the persona singing the Chiffons song, abandoning her crown to be Axl's arm candy? - no, forget I mentioned it.)

Funny you're the broken one but I'm the only one who needed saving

"Stay" - Rihanna

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of pushing a preferred search target ahead of all others that would match a given text string. I mentioned earlier that "sw", a relatively narrowed consonant pair, was just about certain to match a pop group; from a browser with no history, entering "stay" in the Google search field, without even a space to indicate the word wasn't longer, prefers to send you either to "stay lyrics" or "stay rihanna". And that makes me wonder whether the webisphere just naturally pushes it up due to the constant querying of obsessive youth, hefty payments by the publisher for Def Jam Recordings (Rihanna's label) to the appropriate techno-dweebs, or some combination thereof.

So it's kind of amazing that this hugely successful song actually carries some gravitas in its calculating pop ballad appeal, diverging a little from the fairly insufferable formula material that she shares with Katy Perry, Beyonce, Madonna, Donna Summer, oh, no, it's the XFactor:

Suffice it to say that the guy's well off his throne in this love song.

5: Sci Fi is Not for Sissies; Westercon 66: A Skeptic Comes Home

1968 Worldcon: author Jerry Pournelle is in white

The Seeds of Outlaw Fandom

“Hashi or wine or music in measure, God piss on the man who bars other men’s pleasure.”  Poet Ismi Shihab in Throne of the Crescent Moon

“I don’t trust anyone who claims to serve God by beating up dancers and drunks.”  The Doctor, also from Throne 

When we got to the 1968 World Science Fiction Convention, Happy Jack and I split from my parents and went to the registration tables, and then set off.  I can’t recall too many specifics about this con, even though it had a huge impact on me.  I remember a lot of people walking around in wacky and extreme costumes, but even the folks who weren’t in “costumes” were a sight to behold, as this, after all, was Berkeley in 1968, and the previous year’s Summer of Love seemed to still be in full swing; this year’s assassinations and race riots seemed somewhere “outside” the Hotel Claremont’s walls far, far away.  Then again, maybe that was mainly my own state of mind, gob-smacked as I was by the fans, panels, hucksters, artists and writers that surrounded us.  That afternoon, we ended up outside at the Society for Creative Anachronism feast/bash, a completely mind blowing event with large hirsute men wielding all manner of ancient weaponry, kings and queens and squires galore, many beating on each other, and voluptuous women in provocative dress, some “openly” suckling their babies (my parents attended this event and the brazen breast-feeding was a common, derisive discussion point of my mother’s for many months after).    

So a double barreled blast of the World and Western Regional Science Fiction Conventions warped my young world.  It planted the seeds than soon sprouted into the Rules of Outlaw Fandom, which, five years later, were a covert part of one of fandom’s most nefarious organizations, the Sacramento Area Super Science And Fantasy Reading And Study Society (SASSAFRASS).  More on that later.

One down!  I completed Throne yesterday, and my impressions have not changed: solid old school sword and sorcery, decent writing, good characterizations, Arabian Nights-ish with a “modern” sensibility.  It grabbed me early on and I actually am looking forward to reading more in the series. 

On the other hand, I don’t see how anyone could nominate this for any kind of science-fiction award, and not just regarding its complete lack of sci-fi, but also regarding its fairly pedestrian writing “style”.  But then, after reviewing the Hugo nominees of 1963 a column or so ago, I guess this has always been the case.  But aren't there any better, "literary" sci-fi works out there?  After being away from the genre, I thought maybe things had changed, but it initially seems like it used to be: if a book is TOO well written, or written by a “mainstream” author, it is no longer considered “sci-fi/fantasy”, OR maybe current sci-fi fans WANT to keep their genre just about where it’s been for the last 50 years?  Maybe someone can explain this to me?  Well, I must admit I haven't read that large a sampling of current sci-fi, so maybe I'm way off base.   

In any case, I embarked last night on my next Hugo-nominated book: John Scalzi’s Redshirts.  

  

To Be Continued 

4: Sci Fi is Not for Sissies; Westercon 66: A Skeptic Comes Home

1968 Hugos: Philip Jose Farmer, Betty Farmer, Harlan Ellison and ?

By the time 1963 had come to an end, I was crazy for science fiction (and music, in equal measure, but that’s another story that incredibly intersects with this one at a Westercon two decades later).  As the sixties rolled on, I was obsessed with reading the genre’s “classics” and contemporary efforts.  I began exploring the world of fanzines and found out more and more about conventions, which sounded like crazy gatherings of bizarre, twisted fans and the authors and artists they adored; I couldn’t really imagine what a convention would be like, but longed to attend, which was not an easy thing in Sixties Sacramento.  I also began to meet a few like-minded folk who shared these interests.

One of these like-minded folk was Happy Jack, who I met in a 1968 summer photography class.  He was an even more voracious sci-fi/fantasy reader than me, and we tried to figure out how we could experience one of these conventions.  Incredibly, the 26^th annual World Science Fiction Convention was happening the last weekend in August in Berkeley, only about 70 miles away, AND it was to be combined with that year’s Westercon!  This promised to be a sci-fi orgasm that could not be missed!  However, we faced a rather large problem: HJ and I were just a little over legal driving age, but neither one of us yet had a license, let alone a vehicle to get us there.  As the summer wore on, we couldn’t figure out how to get to the Con, so I finally swallowed my idiotic teenage pride and asked my parents if they would take us!  Incredibly, they agreed.  And so, on that first Saturday in September, the four of us set out for the Hotel Claremont in Berkeley.

A Back Burnered Book

I’m making good progress with Throne of the Crescent Moon, and it continues to keep my interest and fill me with enjoyment.  Unfortunately, I am missing the two books I was currently reading, having to put them on the “back burner” until I complete the five Hugo nominees (or July 4 comes around if I don’t complete them, whichever happens first).  I usually read two books at a time, one fiction, the other not, and the current fiction is absolutely amazing, and I already “miss” it.  I think my co-blogger gave it to me; it’s hard to remember as I got it over a year ago and it just sat on my bookshelf.  I wasn’t drawn to it at first, as it didn’t seem to have much of anything that would interest me: a 600 page Civil War “novel” with small print that was written over 90 years ago!  I mean, c’mon Spence, your tastes have always been a bit hoity-toity, but did you really think I would read this thing?

So once again I am exposed for the arrogant snob I actually am.  Because I gotta tell you: Evelyn Scott’s The Wave is MAGNIFICENT.  First of all, as far as I know there is no other “novel” quite like it.  It is composed of vignettes/short stories/profiles of a never ending and never repeating cast of characters that lived and/or died during the War.  It starts with a guy on a small row boat near Fort Sumter.  Then it progresses through the months and years, touching on individual people’s experiences, as the war rages on, minor and historical moments all through the prism of that particular character’s experience:  “Important” people, “little” people, black people, white people, slaves, soldiers, even some foreign (!) people.  The Gettysburg section is amazing.  I’m about two-thirds through it, and I normally never recommend a book unless I’ve finished it, but this one so far is SO well written, and SO imaginative, you might want to at least research and consider it.

And as for you, Spence, if it was in fact your recommendation, here's a bit of a challenge: I’d love to read your review of it on this blog!

To Be Continued

Part 3: The Rocky Road to Westercon 66: Sci Fi is Not for Sissies

Hugo Gernsback

“Angel-touched or not, at bottom the girl was just another wounded child of God with a monster problem.”  Throne of the Crescent Moon

I’m loving this book!  Though what it has to do with science fiction, I have no idea.  When did Hugo nominations start going to sword and sorcery?  Maybe always?  Speaking of 1963, I think I better take a look at the Hugo nominations that year (none of which I’ve read): the winner, The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick, a classic of the sci-fi genre, or so I’m told; A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C Clarke, surely a “real” sci-fi novel if Clarke’s the author, eh?; Little Fuzzy by H Beam Piper (what is it with all the author initials?), evidently sci-fi; Sylva by “Vercours”, some kind of French language (!) sci-fi time travel fantasy; and, ah ha, there is precedence, The Sword of Aldones by Marion Zimmer Bradley.  So I guess fantasy has always had a place on these lists.

Of course, at the time of their nomination, I wasn’t really that serious about tracking down the nominees, not having even really heard about the Hugos in the first place.  There was enough to keep me busy with Famous Monsters of Filmland (RIP Forrest J Ackerman, who I had the pleasure of meeting at his home/museum, but that’s another story), Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, and the other “classics” I started discovering.  Little did I know that Amazing Stories’ creator Hugo Gernsback had some awards named after him, or that those same awards were bestowed at an annual science-fiction convention, or that in a few years I would actually attend a World Science Fiction Convention.

In any case, when I found the hard bound copy of Throne of the Crescent Moon at the used book store, I couldn’t believe the cover art (by Jason Chan); I felt like I was picking up a Young Adult novel (which is not in any way a “knock”), and I was a bit taken aback that THIS (?) was nominated for any kind of award.  The cover depicts an old fat bearded Moses-like man seeming to project some kind of light, and two fierce young male and female “heroes” wielding a two-pronged sword and fierce claws against some kind of vicious group of malevolent zombie-like creatures.  What was this, 1938, this was border-line embarrassing for a high-brow reader such as myself. 

But you know what?  Its combination of Robert Howard, The Grey Mouser, Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone, and, yes, of course, Game of Thrones, is working!  (I say “of course GoT" because nowadays that is the new fantasy gold standard that all current fantasy epics must somehow acknowledge, whether consciously or not, as Lord of the Rings was before it, and of course as LotR still is, too)  I’m only about a hundred pages in, but so far it’s really keeping my attention: it’s actually exciting and charming!  Good lord, what’s happening to me?       

To Be Continued 

The Rocky Road to Westercon 66: Sci Fi is Not for Sissies, Part 2

“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”  Isaac Asimov

It strikes me as serendipity that 1963, the same year my blog partner’s current music series references, is also the year I discovered science fiction/fantasy magazines.  Close to my house was the Stop ‘n’ Shop market, attached to The Chatterbox Café (where my mother and her friends often held court), next door to a “five and dime” that had a baseball card dispensing machine out front (a machine that also introduced me to Mars Attacks! cards).  The store had a magazine selection, and for some reason I took notice of an issue of Fantastic Stories of the Imagination.  I was a comic book fan already (just a year or so before this I discovered Marvel when this same market, which didn’t carry comics, for some reason had a shopping cart FULL of recent issues, like Fantastic Four #5, various Spidermans, Avengers, etc.) and DC’s sci-fi anthology comic Strange Adventures was one of my favorites, so I knew I liked the genre, but I hadn’t up to that point read any short stories or novels.

At any rate, whatever issue I bought, I loved.  This immediately kick-started a search for other magazines and books.  I discovered Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Fritz Leiber, Amazing Stories, HP Lovecraft, and Ray Bradbury.  (Little did I know that I would spend much joyful time talking to Bradbury at a science-fiction con or two.)   I already was a reader and fan of some “horror”; my father had begun reading me Edgar Allan Poe when I was six or seven; I still vividly remember his renditions of “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Cask of Amontillado”.  Whether or not this was appropriate material for my age is irrelevant; I loved it!  So several years later, when I heard about conventions, it was only natural that I would want to attend. 

Dr. Akrabu’s “command” that I read all 2013 Hugo nominees seems like an impossible task, but yesterday I bought four of them: Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312 and Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon for very reasonable rates at a local used book store, and John Scalzi’s Redshirts at Barnes and Noble, where I am a “member”, and so got a little discount.  I also found Mira Grant’s zombie series, but I have to confess something: realizing that Blackout (which also happens to be the name of another recent sci-fi novel by Connie Willis that I have actually read and enjoyed) is the third in a series, I opted instead to buy the first one, Feed, which was also nominated for a Hugo in 2011.  I am hoping that the Doctor will understand my reasoning, but in any case, this is what I will be reading.  So the only one I have yet to secure is Lois Bujold’s Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance. 

I have no idea how I am going to do this.  I think I will have to actually read many if not all of them simultaneously.  Is it even possible to read five novels at the same time and retain anything about them?  I started Throne of the Crescent Moon last night.  A blurb on the cover said fans of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser would enjoy this book.  Well, back in 1963 I became a huge Gray Mouser fan.  But would Fuller V.2013 still like this kind of thing?  Can the Fuller who adores Wallace’s Infinite Jest find satisfaction in this year’s Hugo nominee crop?

To Be Continued