Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 52 — page 140: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION us, our Convention last Easter, or our Clubroom. I hope you will correct this impression in your columns. Bos’ panhandling sugges- tion that you should give “a page or two” each issue to plugging fan clubs (as if you weren’t doing better than that with your departments already!) is fine—except that you can see what you let yourself in for. Graham B. Stone, Director, Futurian Society of Sydney, Box 4440, G.P.O., Sydney, N.S.W., Australia. Mr. Stone and Mr. Bos—we leave it to you to fight out this thing! We're too far away to know what’s going on, but we hope nobody spills blood. OEDIPUS? First of all, I think the writing style of your editorial in the recent (September) Authentic is rather a bit too patronising—like a wise old father talking down to a small child. To me, the writing style was more akin to propaganda-style writing. My own disinterest in your mag stems from a bias to- wards American-type science fiction and American Big Name Authors. The other factor is the competition you have with all the many other stf magazines on the stands. Most readers of stf start out as “‘mass- readers”’ and buy all the stf mags. Then their reading matures and their tastes mature and they begin to specialise. One fan I know quite well only buys anthologies on the theory that all the best stories will eventually beanthologised. Another local fan here in town only buys pocket-books. I, myself, buy the top three regularly: Astounding, 139 Galaxy, and F&SF. I also occa- sionally buy SFA and Space S-F, and Rocket Stories, when they appear. I occasionally buy the odd other mag, too, if the line-up of authors looks particularly tempting. I buy any pocket-books that have material in them that I haven’t read before. I also belong to the S-F Book Club and take about 90% of their selections. Lronic. Toronto has a top fan artist named Dave Stone. To differentiate between his artwork and the top pro artist by the same name he uses the brush- name of DAVIS. Now I notice he may have to change his name again! Norman G. Browne, 33 Lyonsgate Drive, Wilson Heights, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Guess you must have an Oedipus complex, Norman! What’s wrong with a wise old father? You may be one yourself one day! (Not that we intended to sound patronising, of course.) Okay, you go on reading those Big-Name guys, but don’t forget that they were little guys once, and some of their best early work appeared in “‘little” magazines. HOME SECTION EUPHORIA Many thanks for a splendidly perfect magazine. Every monthly Authentic guarantees deeply satis- fied contentment, experienced solely upon having had my money’s worth. I loved the little lyrical tragedy — TRYST. One can repeatedly read this superbly poig- nant gem of literature, even to comiclooks.cormn