Saturday, February 16, 2008
Sense of Wonder Stories No. 1
Rich Coad, Santa Rosa CA / Attractive new entry apparently meant to counter a dearth of sercon fanzines, although I'd argue that there's some fine sercon material out there (like Chris Garcia, I name Some Fantastic). After a clever Dan Steffan cover, Rich exults over Doris Lessing's Nobel Prize as a victory for the SF genre; I'd prefer an award to Sir Arthur, but who am I to argue with the King of Sweden? Cormac McCarthy's The Road, a Pulitzer winner, is praised, as are the works of Jay Lake, while the inexpressibly wimpy Last Mimsy, on the other hand, is justly condemned. Randy Byers begins matters writing about "EoSF", the stuff before Amazing, and Edison's Conquest of Mars, which desperately needs to be reprinted. Bruce Townley follows with a witty article on H. P. Lovecraft and Robert Lichtman writes on HPL's non-fiction. One wonders if these worthies ever saw HPL, Meade Frierson's epic homage. (Where did that Classics Illustrated cover come from?) Returning to the wizard of Menlo Park, Bill Burns contributes a terrific squib on Edison's electric pen, surely one of his most obscure inventions, but which led to the development of the mimeograph and thousands of lives wasted in publishing fanzines. The issue concludes with a nice tribute to Cele Goldsmith, the first in a series devoted to SF's great editors. Nice debut!
