THE TWENTY-THIRD WORLD SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION
took place over the 27th/30th August weekend in
the plush and highly priced (£5 for a bottle of
gin) surroundings of the Mount Royal Hotel, Marble
Arch, London, Some 350 delegates from many
different countries attended the gathering, only
the second to be held outside the North American
continent.
Cleveland-Cincinnati-Detroit (TriCon) won the
right to put on next year’s worldcon (see page
11).
Hugo Awards were won by Fritz Leiber, Gordon
Dickson, John W. Campbell, John Schoenherr, Peter
George, Ballantine Books and Robert & Juanita
Coulson. (Full details on page 9).
The Convention's many speakers were excellent, the
panels were excellent and the films, with the
exception of the professional Zotz, shown on the
Friday afternoon, were excellent. The Delta films,
The Castle of Terrors and Breathworld, were
particularly notable. The Convention Programme
Booklet was neatly produced and ably illustrated
(of course!) by Arthur Thomson. There were,
however, criticisms of two of the advertisements
therein.
The eleven pages which follow are devoted to a
sketchy and speedily produced report, personal
impressions and quickly taken notes, on the
weekend. I look forward to reading more reports,
each with a better coverage, a coverage well
deserved by a weekend's gathering during which
feuds and minor irritations were completely
forgotten, a convention which can only be
described in glowing superlatives and which
represented the very best in the microcosm of
science fiction fandom.
OVERHEARD: He can't plot his way out of a wet
paper bag. ::: Room ten at 5.30. ::: I ordered a
bottle of gin from room service and they charged
bar prices. Did they send up any peanuts? ::: What
has John Rae written anyway?
LONCON II, the 23rd World Convention, had a
rousing send off on the evening of Thursday 26th
August, the day prior to the conclave’s official
opening, when some seventy fans and professionals
gathered extemporaneously at the traditional
meeting point of London fandom, the Globe in
Hatton Gardens. Not since the comparable meeting
of 1957 had the City public house enjoyed such a
jostling throng composed of such names as Michael
Moorcock, Thomas Schluck, Eddie Jones, Bobbie
Gray, Peter West, David Redd, Tom Boardman Jr.,
Langdon Jones, Charles B. Smith, Dick Eney, Pete
Taylor, Frank Arnold, Don Geldart, Graham M. Hall,
Chris Priest, John and Marjorie Brunner, Arthur
and Olive Thomson, Boyd Raeburn, Forry Ackerman,
Dave Kyle, Ron Ellik, Terry and Carol Carr, Mack
Reynolds, Poul and Karen Anderson, Harry Harrison,
Brian Burgess, John and Joni Stopa, Bob and
Barbara Silverberg, Fred and Carol Pohl, Sandra
Hall, Ted White, Ben Jason, Lois Lavender, Al
Lewis, Ken Cheslin, Jean Bogert, Barry Bayley, Ben
Stark, Wally Weber, Ted Forsyth, Ella Parker,
Jimmy Groves, Peter Mabey, Bob Bloch, Don
Wollheim, Fred Prophet and Ethel Lindsay.
Many of the above also attended a party at the new
home of Charles Platt, also attended by Michigan's
Jim and Susan Caughran amongst others. A very
memorable evening, especially notable for the fact
that Harry Harrison had his car impounded by the
police for illegal parking.
THE CONVENTION ITSELF opened on time, at 8 pm. on
Friday 27th August as Chairman Ella Parker,
looking fresh, pert and spruce despite her working
into the early hours of previous nights, welcomed
especially the many attendees who had travelled
from afar. To a call from the back of the hall
that someone could not hear Ella quipped, "You
can't hear ME?" and immediately set the tone of
convivial informality that was to prevail
throughout the entire weekend. Ella introduced the
Convention Committee to the audience (each member
appeared from the back of the stage, carrying his
own chair. Ella remarked “As you see, this is a
Do-It-Yourself convention."); and then called upon
first Ron Ellik and later Tom Schluck to help her
in introducing other notable attendees. In
addition to the many names mentioned in the
paragraph above the following were also present
and were introduced: Rolf Gindorf , Walter
Ernsting, George Scithers, Guest of Honour Brian
Aldiss, Ina and Norman Shorrock, Michael
Rosenblum, Eric Bentcliffe, Ron Bennett, Eric
Jones and Judith Merril.
HARRY HARRISON introduced his talk ‘SF – The
Salvation of the Modern Novel’ by promising that
he would make no mention of meat pies, immediately
ducking as pies were thrown at him by Brian Aldiss
and Tom Boardman. Appearing somewhat loath
actually to begin his talk Harrison invited Brian
Aldiss onto the platform in order to say something
serious. Aldiss merely said “Greybeard costs
18/-." Harrison at last got down to stainless
steel tacks, postulating that for SF to be the
salvation of the modern novel must be a funny
idea. But is it? In his opinion modern novelists
have driven themselves into a corner. Basically
Harrison’s argument was that only in sf, "can an
author express the idea he wishes to communicate"
as far as really saying something is concerned. He
cited George Orwell and Nevil Shute as two
mainstream writers who have made excursions into
the field in order to communicate particular
ideas. They could not have written these books
outside sf, said Harrison. The modern novel must
write of something of importance. Sf and sf ideas
are important by the very dint of this being a
scientific world in which the results of
scientific achievement have a definite impact upon
people. SF alone can point the way, said Harrison,
concluding that the modern novel is dead. “Don’t
be afraid to say. We are right. They are wrong."
From the audience Judith Merril pointed out that
SF comprises modern thinking but not modern
literature. Harrison did not altogether agree,
pointing out that SF is the harder to write. The
SF writer, he said, has to generate a completely
new idea and then write well. The modern general
writer "has it made." The world, his setting, is
there already for him to use. The SF writer has to
formulate entirely a new world. John W.Campbell
asked whether a writer should concentrate upon the
idea to the possible detriment of his writing or
whether he should concentrate upon "beautiful
prose with lousy ideas" and which should an editor
accept, to which point Harrison answered neatly,
"You should do as you have been doing." Irene
Boothroyd asked how much SF is slanted emotionally
at the woman reader, mentioning that in her
opinion the amount was not very great. Campbell
said that this was a matter of basic economic
fact. SF's readership is 95% men, therefore there
is a 95% slant towards the male reader. Also men
writers far outweighed the number of women
writers. Pete Taylor suggested that Campbell
produced his magazine in two sections, one slanted
for men and costing 47½ cents and the other for
women and costing 2½ cents. Harry Harrison
suggesting that there could be a small space on
the back cover for hermaphrodites! Here the
general discussion reverted to the question of
whether an editor should concentrate upon good
writing or good ideas. Campbell said that as he
reads personally every story submitted to him he
sees all types of stories, with good and poor
ideas and good and poor writing. Whilst he could
possibly do better he has to try for the optimum
in writing style, grammatical construction and
story telling in order to choose the best story
for the circumstances.
I'LL APOLOGISE here and now for the lack of detail
in the reports which follow and which concern the
Saturday programme items. By Saturday the number
of attendees had grown considerably and in
particular this was a day upon which the majority
of one-day attendees dropped into the convention.
There were so many old friendships to renew and so
many new ones to make that at times it became a
definite battle, usually against personal
preference, to leave any conversation and fight
one's way through the milling groups in the lobby
and lounge towards the convention hall. Invariably
I just didn't make it!
SATURDAY MORNING opened with a short panel
discussion, chaired by Brian Aldiss, in which
Walter Ernsting, Franz Ettl, Josef Nesvadba and
Josef Dolnicar talked on "SF in Europe,"
mentioning mainly that the majority of sf on the
Continent was translated material and that the
only British author who had not as yet been
translated but who might be well received was John
Newington.
FORRY ACKERMAN stood in for Geoff Doherty and
spoke on SF of thirty years ago.
ALL THINGS TO ALL FEN was the title of the fan
panel, composed of Beryl Henley, Doreen Parker,
Irene Boothroyd, Dave Busby and Charles Platt. I
was somewhat surprised to learn that I was
supposed to be moderating this panel as I had
declined the invitation to do so. A panel
moderator needs special balanced skill which, as I
know from experience of a Peterborough Convention,
I simply do not possess. Accordingly, I declined
again. Phil Rogers and Ina Shorrock took over. I
was engaged in a hard drinking session in the bar
when Charles Winstone came up and said that I was
being paged in the hall. I went along, taking my
drink with me. Phil Rogers dragged me up on to the
stage removing my drink from my hand as he did so.
"Just what I need,” he announced taking a sip and
immediately declaring in injured surprise, "It’s
only orange juice!” It was, too, and he handed it
back. Beryl Henley seized me before I could sit
down and presented me with a large toy inflatable
plastic elephant and said something about a token
of something I was too confused to catch (or
hadn’t you noticed? I'm very grateful for the
elephant, though. Andrew has fallen upon it like a
long lost buddy and it has already become his
favourite toy). Mainly, the panel discussed the
differing quality of fanzines and how much
enjoyment each panel member has gleaned (or in the
case of Dave Busby not gleaned!) from
reading fanzines, from contributing to fanzines
and from the social world of fandom as a whole.
THE AFTERNOON PROGRAMME opened with a
Transatlantic Quiz, the United States team losing
to "The Rest of the World.” Although ahead 14-12
at the half-way stage, the USA were finally beaten
by 26 points to 20, the breakdown on scores being
as follows (points awarded here denote clear-cut
responses In some half dozen instances more than
one team, member answered correctly
simultaneously): United States: Forry Ackerman 8,
George O. Smith 4, Wally Weber 3, James Blish 3.
Rest of the World: James Groves 13, Sydney Bounds
6, Thomas Schluck 2, Ken Cheslin 2. Terry Carr was
in the Chair and Doreen Parker the scorer.
JOHN BRUNNER spoke on "How to Get High Without
Going into Orbit," analysing sf in a most erudite
fashion throughout a hour long extremely meaty
talk. Brunner analysed the elements in sf which
are also found outside the field and how and why
they are and can be important to sf. Basically,
there are the expansive elements of the vast and
the exotic and there are the restrictive elements
of ordered life and ordered worlds and of wishful
thinking. It requires a talent far beyond mine
even to report Brunner whose exciting use of
vocabulary and whose command of the English
language make him a speaker well worth hearing
(which is to say nothing of his ideas). As Michael
Rosenblum remarked, "From listening to John, I get
the feeling that one day I’m going to be proud to
have known him.”
THE EVENING FANCY DRESS PARTY was well attended by
many worthwhile costumes, possibly the best and
most thoughtful array of sheer creativity it has
been my pleasure to see at some dozen conventions.
These costumes ranged in standard from the very,
very, good down at the bottom of the scale to the
prize winners at the top. The prizes were awarded
as follows: Most Beautiful Costume: John and Joni
Stopa as The Elementals; Most Monstrous Costume:
Tony Walsh as The Delegate from Jupiter; Most
Authentic SF Costume: Peter Day as Nicholas van
Rijn; Most Authentic Heroic Fantasy Costume: Ian
and Betty Peters as John Carter and Dejah Thoris
(This was the Bob Richardson Memorial Award).
Heather Thomson, daughter of the mighty Atom, took
the prize for the best costume from a girl under
12 years of age, and Harry Harrison’s son, Todd,
now a veteran con attendee in his own right took
the award for the parallel boy's category. It is
notable that a representative of the national
press asked Tony Walsh to walk down to a nearby
Wimpy Bar in full costume…."But you'll be in the
Daily Express!" Tony refused.
OVERHEARD: I don't know whether or not this is the
best convention I’ve ever attended, but it
certainly is the hottest!
DICK ENEY chaired the Sunday morning professional
panel, "A Robot in the Executive Suite," upon
which appeared Judith Merril, Robert Silverberg,
Ken Bulmer, Terry Carr, James White and Poul
Anderson. Quickly defining that a robot is but a
programmed computer, Anderson said that computers
could be best employed for work not fit for human
beings to do, such as garbage collection, working
with radioactive materials or in subscription
departments of magazines. Life Magazine, he said,
employs IBM computers to conduct its subscriptions
department. He told the story of a particularly
humid New York day upon which one of the Life
computers got a little out of hand sending some
three thousand subscription renewal notices to one
man who happened to be a sheep herder living out
in the wilds of Montana. The local post office had
to take a special truck out to the sheep herder
who was at time out tending his sheep. He returned
to find his porch piled high with sacks of
letters. He went through them all and then sat
down and sent a cheque to the magazine’s President
with the attached note, "You win!” Judith Merril
wondered how a robot would edit a SF magazine and
Ken Bulmer looked at robots from "the other end of
the scale" where experience is the whole point of
human existence. Once one has done something,
postulated Bulmer, this can never be repeated - in
terms of experience. A robot, a machine, could tap
these experiences with pleasurable experiences fed
directly into one’s brain. Anderson said that the
problem concerning machines was not the
robots·themselves but, as always, Man. If robots
ever reached the point where they would try to
make us chromeplated replicas of themselves then
this would be something that man has done to
himself. We should, he reasoned, be careful about
the pockets of life into which we introduced them.
Bob Silverberg suggested that we should isolate
our fear of robots which he claimed was not a fear
of robots putting road sweepers out of work -
"We've lived with that problem since the
Industrial Revolution" - but more a fear of the
berserk computer, the computing machine which
begins to programme itself, where the control is
taken from our hands. Anderson felt that such an
occurrence was unlikely, saying that we could
always pull out the plug or refuse to read such a
machine’s silly advice, concluding that a
computer's main worth is to give good advice in a
complex situation, presenting the optimum way of
doing something in a given set of circumstances.
He admitted that there are problems impossible for
a robot to solve, but felt that a properly
functioning robot would manage to get members of a
panel into a convention hall on time at 10 a.m.,
and would ensure that an audience of seventy and a
panel of five would function at an optimum level.
BANQUET TICKETS FOR THE THIRTY-FIVE SHILLING ($5)
MEAL had been sold out by the end of the
Convention's first day and with the seating
limited to 150 there were reports of tickets being
offered for sale by as much as £4, though it is
not known whether there were any takers. The menu
was: Consommé aux Etoiles; Filet de Sole Sullivan;
Contrefilet Rose Perigourdine, Crottled Greeps and
Pommes Amandine; Peche Jules Verne. Coffee and a
glass of Pere Jean wine (for the traditional
toast) rounded off an excellently prepared but
sparsely presented meal. Opinions of those
approached upon the matter seemed well united,
that the proportions were small, that the service
was disappointing, that the meal was overpriced
and that those who came into the hall for the
after-lunch speeches only, had well saved their
money. Particularly as the standard of the
speeches was in no way comparable with that of the
meal.
OVERHEARD: Young man, not only have I visited it,
but I have dropped unequal weights from the top of
it!
TOM BOARDMAN, the banquet's Toastmaster, gave the
news that the Gemini II spacecraft had finally
come to earth, some fifty minutes previously,
after its record breaking flight, an announcement
heartily applauded by the assembly. It was worthy
of reflection, said Boardman, that one attendee
had been asked by the same press who would report
this fact to appear in a public place in fancy
dress. In introducing the Worldcon's Guest of
Honour, Brian Aldiss, Boardman said that it was
difficult to find something new to say about a
writer whom he had first met in 1957, whom he had
re-met in Harrogate in 1962 and who was now
co-editor of. SF Horizons, a former Hugo Winner,
an ex-President of the BSFA and a writer known to
all to stand “hips, trunk, shoulders, arms and
head alongside anyone you want to mention."
BRIAN ALDISS first made reference to the passing
Boardman, "A nice guy. You'd never know he was a
publisher, would you?" He had wondered what to do
and say, continued Aldiss, intending to prepare a
feast for the gathering. He had been thinking of
admitting to being Kyril Bonfiglioli but then he
had turned up, he had thought about giving the
low-down on an estimable professional sitting
amongst the audience, about what really happened
to the old manuscripts submitted to Ted Carnell,
how a famous Hollywood monster is to publish the
Forry Ackerman Magazine, why Fred Pohl has the
British edition of Galaxy delivered via the
North Pole - in a rowing boat, about Mike
Moorcock…."No, I couldn't tell you about him ….",
why Harry Harrison has had to leave Denmark, why
Arthur C. Clarke has had to stay in Ceylon,…but,
said Aldiss, Harry Harrison gave the same talk at
Birmingham. Instead Aldiss reviewed the changes in
sf since the last London World Convention, in
1957.
At that time, said Aldiss, the dominant mood was
still embodied in the paranoiac stories of the
type written by A.E. van Vogt, in which the hero
is the victim of a worldwide conspiracy, but in
the end he licked the lot of them. Asimov was
somewhat similar but his hero would undergo a loss
of identity and a loss of memory. He would still
go on to lick the lot. Orwell reversed this,
although his story was still basically that of van
Vogt. Here the hero underwent the loss of identity
at the end of the story.
Nowadays there are other, perhaps more healthy
problems. We have the satire of Vonnegut and the
"inner space" of Ballard. The space is objective,
said Aldiss, but man is more and more in the
centre. These are stories of man reacting upon his
environment rather than the environment reacting
upon man. Also today, Aldiss continued, we are now
in the age of the common spaceman. He parodied a
recent earth to satellite conversation in which an
astronaut had been talking to his wife. "How are
you?" "I'm fine, honey. How are you?'' ''I'm fine,
honey, just fine." "And how are the kids?"
"They're fine, too." As you see, Aldiss remarked
drily, the age of the common spaceman.
He had been, he went on, recently looking up a
copy of a 1955 Galaxy - which had just arrived in
this country - and he quoted a descriptive
passage in which stars appear as holes in a black,
velvet curtain, commenting that the oratory of ten
years ago seems humorous today, “like the works of
Henry James - but funny.” This makes for better
SF, Aldiss said, for we must change with changing
conditions.
All this, he concluded, was the speech he had
prepared, which he had been rehearsing naked in
front of a full length mirror. However, he now
realised that he was unable to give the speech he
really had intended to give, for John Brunner had
given it the day before.
OVERHEARD IN A HOTEL LIFT, a super-automatic piece
of machinery whose every press button seemed to
possess a will of its own: This is just like being
trapped in pinball machine.
TAFF DELEGATE TERRY CARR was introduced by Tom
Boardman who explained briefly the organisational
workings of the Transatlantic Fan Fund. Terry Carr
suggested that a speech should preferably
commence, with a humorous anecdote as an audience
hook. He had one lined up, he said, and had
actually been telling to someone during the
afternoon, at which time he had suddenly found
that he had forgotten the punchline. This is what
the convention was doing to him. A convention, he
said, combines the House of Lords, a circus, the
Association of Antiquarian Beekeepers - though he
had never seen an antiquarian bee - and a Roman
orgy. But oh to be in England now that it is
worldcon time, he said. He had seen committee
members rushing about as though they were going to
a meeting with the Red Queen. Ella Parker, he
added. He had seen editors looking for new talent,
huckster's hawking, neofen talking, old timers
sitting in corners and talking of the good old
days and Polton Cross, and the Hugo nominees, the
Hugonauts, sweating and just waiting to get to the
presentation of the awards. He then went on to
announce that the nomination period for candidates
in the TAFF campaign to send a winner to the 1966
Worldcon was now open and that it would close on
1st December. Voting would then continue until a
13th April deadline
ARTHUR C. CLARKE followed, entitling his talk, “
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Stanley
Kubrick." He had been commissioned to write a book
about space for Time-Life and had met Kubrick in
New York with the idea of an epic space film on
the lines of How The Solar System Was Won. Kubrick
had bought five of his short stories but had
eventually settled upon only one, whereby Clarke
immediately bought back the remaining four at a
thousand dollars apiece. The provisional title of
the film, "Journey Beyond the Stars" had now been
changed to "2001 - The Space Odyssey," with the
screenplay by Kubrick and Clarke, based upon a
novel by Clarke and Kubrick. It is difficult
showing convincing extraterrestrials, said Clarke,
and it was not true that Peter Sellers was going
to play them all. ''Though Peter was willing," he
added. The film will be shot in Cinerama and if a
month's scheduled shooting takes place as planned
next spring, at which time will also appear the
book (which is not yet finished), then the film
should be released around Christmas 1966. Clarke
said that he hoped it would become the
contemporary space travel film, the Destination
Moon of the 1970's. In closing he held up a nail
from the Bounty and a piece of the heat shield
from the Apollo space craft. These were, he
explained thoughtfully, two artefacts with less
than 200 years between them.
THE PROGRAMME’S PROMISED MYSTERY SPEAKER turned
out to be Robert Bloch, much to the delight of the
assembly. "I'm so pleased to be here today in...
er," Bloch began, referring to a card, "London."
He said that he was feeling a little drunk -
''George 0. Smith breathed on me" - and mentioned
that he was in London to make a new film, "Mary
Poppins Meets the Wolfman." But it's nice to be
here, Bloch said. It’s nice to see Karen Anderson,
and What's His Name. And John Campbell, "whose
editorials I've been ghost writing for years." He
said that he had had a rough trip over. He hadn't
realised just how rough it had been until he saw
the captain heave the anchor, and he’d also had an
accident with his luggage when the port feIl out.
He'd seen Westminster Abbey, the poor man's Forest
Lawn, and had visited the Tower of London, though
there he'd been disappointed. He'd wanted to see a
Beefeater and had found himself talking to a
vegetarian. Back at the hotel, he said, someone
had come up to him and had asked for money to the
Willis Fund. "But how can I be sure," he'd asked,
"that this money will get to Willis?” "You can be
sure of it," he’d been told, "l am Willis." Bloch
went on to talk about some of his relatives.
“Relatives run in my family,” he said, "Especially
when they see me coming.” For example there was
his cousin Mildred. “He’s a nice, fellow," said
Bloch, telling of the time Mildred had had his
spine removed and had had to be taken home in a
bucket. He was, he concluded, very glad that he'd
come. “I’ve made my peace with God,” he said. "He
surrendered two weeks ago.” Quite a talk.
FORRY ACKERMAN spoke about the Big Heart Award,
saying that after the death of E. Everett Evans
certain individuals had got together to honour
those who work in fandom is often left
unrecognised. He spoke of previous winners, Rick
Sneary, Bjo Trimble, James Taurasi and Sam
Moskowitz. This year, he said, the award is being
made to someone at this side of the Atlantic.
Although, Ackerman said, there, is no particular
fandom in Italy or in France, there is a
considerable fandom in Germany and there is one
man who has done more than any other for German
fandom, a man whose heart is so large that it
embraces East Germany as well as West Germany. He
called upon the Award’s first recipient, Bob
Bloch, to make the award to Walter Ernsting, the
"Father of German SF." In doing so Bloch said
briefly, "Don’t do as I did - pawn it." Ernsting
said that he was too overcome with emotion to make
a speech. "This is a big surprise," he said, "and
my heart is too full. And when my heart is great,
then my mouth is small." He thanked those
presenting the award for recognising German fandom
and said that he felt that the Award was given to
German fandom rather than to himself personally.
THE SPEECHES had at this point been running for
exactly one hour, and it was now time to present
the Hugo Awards for the best and most able sf, of
the past year. Robert Silverberg, who said it was
both an honour and a pleasure to have the task of
presenting the Hugos then gave one of the most
humorous speeches of the weekend, this humour
depending entirely upon his manner of delivery. He
first spoke of the agonies of Isaac Asimov who two
years before had been in a similar position and
who at the time had mentioned that he had never
won a Hugo. As he had made presentation after
presentation Asimov had grown gloomier and
gloomier. He had wrestled a little with the Award
winners, trying to take from them their
statuettes, and as the presentations had
progressed Asimov's anguish had grown and grown.
Then finally he had come to the last sealed
envelope. He had torn it open and had found his
own name.
"I have my Hugo," Silverberg said." It is a little
smaller than this one here. But it's a nice Hugo.
I like my Hugo." The delivery here, with a pause
between each sentence, was perfect. Silverberg's
Hugo, he explained was presented in 1956 for "The
Most Promising New Author." Brian Aldiss had won a
similar Award in 1959, but as this category had
since been discontinued he supposed that Aldiss
was still the most promising author in SF. He
remembered, he said, the evening when he was
awarded a Hugo, how suspense had mounted and how
he could not eat the meal because of his wanting
to come to the Awards. He had remembered Arthur
Clarke discussing the future history of the world
and how his own torment had mounted as Arthur
progressed through the 1960’s and 1970's. "You can
imagine how I felt by the time Arthur reached
2953," Silverberg said. But, he continued, he
would not keep the present award winners in
suspense any longer. "I have the names right here
in this envelope," he announced 'turning out his
pockets one by one as he searched for it.
Eventually he found it and waved it about…slowly.
The envelope was marked, Silverberg said, "Top
secret. Destroy before reading." Very
deliberately, Silverberg opened the envelope.
“Here are the winners’ names,” he said. "Oh, that
reminds me." He had asked Ella Parker what he
should do if he personally did not approve of the
names on the sheet, but he had promised to read
them faithfully. Silverberg then made the
presentations of the Hugo Awards, the full details
of the voting being as follows:
BEST NOVEL: The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber (Ballantine Books) 52
votes. Davy
by Edgar Pangborn (Ballantine Books) 48 votes. The Planet Buyer by Cordwainer Smith (Pyramid
Books) 34 votes. The Whole Man by John Brunner (Ballantine Books)
26 votes. No Award. 14 votes.
BEST SHORT STORY: Soldier Ask Not by Gordon Dickson in Galaxy. 60
votes. Once A Cop by Rick Raphael in Analog. 47 votes Little
Dog Gone by Robert F. Young in: Worlds of
Tomorrow. 27 votes. No Award. 30 votes.
BEST MAGAZINE: Analog. 63 votes. Worlds of If. 35 votes. Fantasy & Science Fiction. 34 votes. Galaxy. 30 votes. No Award. 12 votes
BEST FANZINE: Yandro edited by Robert & Juanita Coulson. 69
votes. Zenith edited by Peter Weston. 35 votes. Double
Bill edited by Bill Bowers and Bill Mallardi. 28
votes.
BEST· ARTIST: John
Schoenherr 58 votes. Ed Emshwiller 56 votes. Frank Frazetta 26 votes. Jack Gaughan 22 votes. No Award 12 votes.
BEST PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books 54 votes. Ace Books 50 votes. Pyramid Books 33 votes. Victor Gollancz Ltd. 20 votes. No Award 11 votes.
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION: Dr. Strangelove 99 votes. The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao 41 votes No Award 33 votes. Mary Poppins 1 vote (write-in).
Peter George, on whose novel, Red Alert, the film
Dr. Strangelove was based, was awarded the drama
Hugo, the only award of this year’s seven to
remain in this country.
OVERHEARD: It was like opening the Daily Mail and
discovering that Carol Day had run off with Rip
Kirby.
TED WHITE, Assistant Editor of The Magazine of
Fantasy & SF spoke on "How to Plot Your Way
Out Of A Paper Bag," saying that his title came
from a remark that J. G. Ballard could not plot
his way out of a paper bag. There seems to be an
element in sf who are simply not able to plot.
They are reactionary. Whilst they look to the
future they stick to twentieth century writing. We
seem to abound in writers who do not know their
craft and who seem to be filling especially the
British magazines with “stories which start
nowhere and go nowhere." White agreed that it is
time for a "new look in sf," something exposes the
inner consciousness, though he admitted that every
time he heard mentioned Ballard’s name he thought
of' Philip K. Dick who has been doing the same
thing longer and better, for a lengthy period of
time exploring schizophrenia and other realms of
unreality. It is nothing new, White suggested, to
peg a story upon psychological cases, citing
Raymond Chandler as one who was writing such
stories at a time when Sf was in its infancy.
There is a tendency, White continued, for SF to
copy mainstream fiction, but mainstream fiction is
by its very definition very limited, (White
defined mainstream fiction as any which could not
otherwise be readily classified, something which
did not fit into any category of genre fiction).
Mainstream fiction is merely the same story over
and over again, the story of John and his wife,
both of whom live down the street. White
said that he read for entertainment therefore he
demanded a good, rousing story. SF could provide
entertainment for him if it so wished for it had
its root in the adventure of the pulps. And it was
adventure that he wanted, White said, adventure in
its broadest terms, giving as an example Tolkien's
sweep and scope. This, he said, is adventure. "Let
us not lose sight of the fact," said White, "that
we are story tellers, not preachers and not
psychotherapists.”
FROM CRADLE TO COLLECTOR was the title of the
Sunday evening panel which featured as Moderator
Ted Carnell (the weekend's best co-ordinator of
opinion) who was more than ably supported by
authors Jack Williamson and Fred Pohl, Tribune
critic Doug Hill, Mayflower Books buyer John
Watson, reader Chris Priest, publisher Ron Whiting
and Penguin Books editor Tony Richardson. The
panel mainly discussed various aspects of
reviewing and the manner in which reviews affect
sales. Ron Whiting said that a bad review was not
as detrimental as one might think, saying that it
was better to be talked about in such a manner
than not being talked about at all. He would like
to see, however, more than a mere small box at the
bottom of a page devoted to sf. He pleaded for
more constructive reviewing and asked that a
reviewer did not simply seize upon one small bad
point and base his review upon that. Jack
Williamson said that poor reviews could have their
compensation. He recalled that one of his books
had been panned as "a space comic strip.” He had
been immediately contacted and commissioned to
write a space comic strip which had run for three
years! Frederik Pohl said that all SF could expect
in most papers was the small boxed reviews and
that it was only in the SF magazines that one
could hope to meet understanding. He deplored the
one word reviews given in most papers and
mentioned that he had once seen a box review of a
Horace Gold book labeled merely 'Good.' The
following week the same book had been, because of
a lack of memory, reviewed again. This time it had
been Iabelled ‘Terrible.' Pohl also expressed the
opinion that too many writers write for other
writers and for reviewers rather than for the
readers. Tony Richardson said that only rarely do
reviews have any effect upon editorial policy for
usually he sees material direct from hardcover
publishers before the books are published and
reviewed. Richardson also felt that SF
should be reviewed by someone with a special
sympathy for the genre. Often, he said, the point
of the book was missed completely by a mainstream
reviewer. Chris Priest said that the fan saw the
whole spectrum of reviews, from Amis to the
fanzines but that the fanzines could not be taken
as a true criterion because of one-author
prejudices. Doug Hill pointed out that a reviewer
is not a critic. He spoke of his own approach to
reviewing, mentioning that he keeps in mind a
picture of a young reader, probably a student, who
would wish to get the best value for his
two-and-six.
THE REVIVAL CEREMONY of The Most Noble and
Illustrious Order of St. Fantony which took place
on the Sunday evening suffered somewhat from lack
of rehearsal but as this was the first meeting of
the Order for some eight years and as Knights and
Ladies had gathered from the far flung reaches
this was both understandable and excusable. One
nominated knight, who shall, in order to avoid
embarrassment, remain unnamed, failed the strict
initiation test but the Order was pleased to
elevate into its ranks the following honoured
worthies: Ethel Lindsay, Ken Bulmer, Ted Carnell,
Ken Cheslin, Dick Eney, Harry Nadler, Phil Rogers,
Tom Schluck and Tony Walsh. BSFA Librarian Joe
Navin was also nominated but was unable to attend
the Convention.
THE OFFICIAL BUSINESS MEETING OF THE TWENTY-THIRD
WORLD SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION began at 10.45 on
the Monday morning with only some sixty attendees
present, though this number grew somewhat as the
meeting proceeded. Dave Kyle, the principal
speaker on behalf of the Syracuse bid for the 1966
Worldcon, asked the audience to give Syracuse its
chance. Was the TriCon (the United three mid-west
cities) afraid of competition? he asked. He asked
for fair play and a ballot returned on fair
competition and not on default. This proposal, for
Syracuse to be able to put in a bid, had to be
made under the strict terms of the Convention
siting's Rotation Plan which otherwise would
automatically award the 1966 siting to Tricon,
Syracuse bidding, as it were, out of turn. Ben
Jason, speaking for Tricon, said that he did not
wish to oppose the Syracuse bid. Accordingly, both
sides were immediately able to state their
respective cases and the ballot was taken,
resulting in the extremely narrow win for TriCon,
as follows: Tricon 60 votes, Syracuse 49 votes,
The Virgin Islands 1 vote, Vienna 1 vote, No vote
1 vote.
The Meeting was then handed over to
Parliamentarian George Scithers who, for some two
hours, chaired the discussion on suggestions to be
made to the Hugo Awards Committee.
Dave Kyle spoke on the First Fandom organisation
and paid tribute to founder member Don Ford, who
died earlier this year.
THE MAN ON A WHITE HORSE was the title of the
Monday afternoon panel which was moderated by
Charles E. Smith and which featured Rolf Gindorf,
John W. Campbell Jr., Mike Moorcock, Joe Patrizio
and John Brunner. Campbell said that every theory
man has ever formulated has proved wrong and that
the pragmatic view must be taken. We should ask
"Will it work?" Joe Patrizio asked whether this
would reveal the truth. What is true? he asked.
Many stories are written, he said, in which man
reacts against what is thought to be true.
Campbell repeated that we must ask "Will it work?”
Brunner emphatically disagreed, saying that we
should ask, “Will it work well?” Brunner said that
slavery works but that it is very inefficient,
also making the point that if man has no more than
territorial instinct, as a sparrow chasing others
from its nest, then he is not qualified to be the
master of this planet. Campbell countered with a
plea for unorthodox ideas, saying that orthodox
ideas have plenty of opportunities.
PROJECT ART SHOW provided a treat of all types of
modern sf and fantasy artwork, the worst items on
show being extremely good. Judges Don Wollheim,
John Brunner, Ted Forsyth and Tom Schluck awarded
the prizes as follows: Best SF Illustration: 1.
Eddie Jones "At the. Tips." 2. Jack Wilson "The
Plattner Story." 3. Michel Jakubowicz "The Streets
of Ashkalon." Best Fantasy: Joni Stopa "Mermaid."
2. Eddie Jones "The Undead." Honorable Mention to
Eddie Jones' Fellowship of the Ring illustration
"A Map For Adventure." Best Cartoon: Arthur
Thomson's "Ixprl's Acme Repairs," with an
honorable mention to Yoshie Ikemdri's "Reverse
Limbs Primitive Men." Various Eddie Jones
illustrations won the prize for the best entry in
the Astronomical Art section. Best Experimental
Art: Cynthia Goldstone's "The Gillgooneys," with
an honorable mention to Jean Claude Rault’s
“Winds" and “Stone Desert." Children's Fantasy:
Jim Cawthorn's illustrations from stories by Alan
Gardner, with an honorable mention to Tony Glynn’s
illustrations from "The Wind in the Willows." Most
Promising Artwork: Michel Jakubowicz. Open Award:
William Rotsler's "Warrior" and "Our Hidden Self."
Judges' Choice: Eddie Jones "At the Tips," the
first time ever that the PAS judges have made
their award to the winner of the best SF
Illustration section. There were no entries in the
photographic section.
CONVENTION SNIPPETS: Con membership was c. 650,
attendance c. 350 (reported on BBC as 400) :::
Saturday's auction realized £28.17s, Sunday's £51.
17s. 1d ::: Auctioneers were Ted Forsyth, Phil
Rogers, Lang Jones, Charles Smith ::: Room parties
were the swingingest ever and were often sponsored
by groups or given for groups, First Fandom (the
Rosenblums), TAFF, St Fantony amongst them. For
their party TriCon bought £60's worth of beer.
Brag parties were thrown by Dick Eney and Phil
Rogers. At one party I saw Joni Stopa drink a
whole bottle of whisky in one draught ::: Ted
White's talk began 6 minutes early ::: Actor
Christopher Lee was present and how near the
Rolling Stones group came to attending we shall
probably never know ::: Press coverage was
appalling, the Sunday Times naming Miss Fay Parker
as Chairman ::: Names from Fandoms Past abounded,
amongst them Doug Webster, Julian Parr, James
Parkhill Rathbone, Laurence Sandfield, Chuck
Harris, Tony Glynn, Tony Klein and Bill Harry :::
This issue is dedicated to the dedicated people,
namely the convention committee of Ella Parker,
Ethel Lindsay, Jim Groves, Peter Mabey, Keith
Otter and George Scithers who were responsible for
such a fabulous weekend. Many, many thanks. |