F - The pseudo middle initial of Speer, pronounced foo sometimes, maybe signifying "Fascist Speer", and maybe just intended to head people off before he created John A Bristol; by analogy with Forry the "J", the "F" or "F" is a nickname for Juffus. F is otherwise the most important initial in fandom, beginning as it does such words as fantasy, fan, FooFoo, fonepole, fotografy, file, future, fiction, feuds, --well, read on and see for yourself.
fan - Short for "fanatic", Wiggins says, but he probably just consulted the mundane dictionary. Professional editors like Palmer call all people who buy their magazines pretty regularly, fans; and indeed the term is so used by the scientifictionists who merely write letters to the editor and collect pro mags, but the fen of fandom have a more restricted meaning in mind.
With introspects such as fans are, it's natural that there should be a lot of speculation on what and why fans are. Medhurst surveys the following theories: Gernsback's idea of developing potential scientific genius in his readers; the idea that fans are a separate species, perhaps Star-Begotten (or Slans); that stfanaticism is the result of frustrated sex impulse; and that fans are young men in blind alleys of life, "seeking escape from the humdrum, workaday world". Widner said he thinks the essential thing about fans is that they have an ideal of a better way of life and want to change things; but this hardly sets them apart from millions of non-fans. A theory well received is Norman Stanley's "sense of fantasy", a taste for the imaginative analogous to the "sense of" humor. Probably a complex of characteristics goes into the fan type. We show some significant variations from average in geografical distribution, national extraction, age, sex distribution, intelligence, introversion, and suchlike factors. The IPO made no attempt to isolate an essential characteristic whichby all fans mite be distinguished, but said that "A real fan fulfills practically all the following requirements: He buys and reads most of the professional fantasy magazines / this was when there were less than half a dozen /, collects them, and writes the editors. He subscribers to at least one fan magazine. He corresponds with other fans. S-f fandom is his ruling passion. He has probably tried his hand at writing, either for fan or pro magazines or both".
Dislike of the common connotations of the word "fan" has led to the suggestion of various substitutes for it, such as "stefnist" and "imaginist".
fanarchists - Those who oppose the existence of a general or even regional fan organization on the grounds that it has insufficient functions to justify the work involved. They accept the desirability of locals. Fully articulated, the theory is a species of rugged individualism which asserts that fen acting singly or in small natural groups can accomplish more with the same amount of work than they can thru a super-organization. Their attitude is mainly a reaction against the uncritical organizing instinct of young fen who say we gotta organize to get anything done and in organization there is strength and an organization will help coordinate us, without having any but the vaguest idea of the referents behind their word, and often trusting in false analogies.
fanationalism - Despite it's minuteness, fandom is in its decide or so of existence developed a distinct national spirit, similar to the nationalism of modern states. The idea of a national government, covering all the slan race and nobody else, is seen in the many drives for a general fan organization. The ideal of a homeland is exemplified in dens, science fiction houses, clubrooms, and finally in proposed Slan Center and Foundation. This dictionary is a work in the national language; another facet of the same thing is the plugging of Esperanto as Science Fiction's Tongue of Tomoro. In the matter of a national religion, we have ghughuism and FooFooism but most truly religious is the question for a Purpose for fandom and the idea of swearing on your honor as a fan. The fanish idea of the mission of the nation has been satirized in fan fiction about the setting up of a Fantastocracy, and the like. Racial superiority is implied in the claims of star-begottenness and slanhood. A national literature complete in all fields has encouraged work in fan and fantasy drama, narrative poetry, music and so on. National heroes have had tough sledding because of our iconoclastic bent, but a few near-deities has emerged. Expansionism is expressed in recruiting activity. A number of distinctive fan folkways are described scattered thru this encyclopedia.
Fancon - Name given a gathering in Bloomington around he end of 1943; possibly not intended as a distinctive proper name.
fandom - The world in which fans move and have their being. Physically, it mite be imagined as comprising all the science fiction houses, and all fans' dens as well as other storage space and equipment that they use in fan activity, and convention halls and streets and eke park benches while groups of fen are in possession of them. Unincorporated territories include the possessions of mere scientifictionists.
Fandom began around 1930, when correspondence between fans had reach some proportions, and a few clubs came into existence. In the following years fan magazine took form and gathered audiences. About 1935, fandom became an independent organism, and has passed thru the stage of First Fandom, First Transition, Second Fandom, Second Transition, and Third Fandom, as Speer so quaintly calls them. There are now about 500 people associated with fandom in some small way, of whom a hundred mite be called real fans; the disappearance of a selected twenty of them would probably mean the end of fandom as now known.
From time to time, people will stand up and ask what is the purpose of fandom. The Michelistic reply is that fandom should join the Leftist movement and work for a scientific-socialist world state. Other semi-Michelistic replies are along similar lines. Speer maintains that fandom as fandom should influence the world only thru its influence on the individual fans, who may be influential men some day. Some have believed that stimulation of science is our chief justification. Probably the majority believe that the pleasure derived from fan activity is justification enuf.
fanfab, fanference, and similar words - Variant forms of words beginning with con-.
fan fiction - Sometimes improperly used to mean fan science fiction, that is, ordinary fantasy published in a fan magazine. Properly, the term means fiction about fans, or something about pros, and occasionally bringing in some famous characters stf stories. It may refer to real fans by name Tucker nudged Brackney, who was nursing a "black eye"e;, or may be about types, especially Joe Fann. The background may be either fantastic, as Joe Fann into Space, or mundane as in Murder at the Chicon (tho this piece is fantasy under Speer's decimal scheme, describing events which we know didn't happen in our time-line). Fictitious elements are often interspersed in account of fan activities, which may make them more interesting, but plays hob with a truth-seeker like Thukydides. Round robins have been attempted in the fan fiction field.
Joe Fann - Joe originated as somebody to whom to credit lines in Le Zombie that Tucker thot up and wished some reader had remarked. Then someone, apparently Elmer Perdue, possibly more than one person, began sending Tucker postcard from all over the country, signed Joe Fann. Joe was finally adopted by fans in general as the fans' idea of the typical fan.
He is a young fellow, not long out of his adolescence who would like to set the world on fire, but isn't sure how to go about it. He hasn't had much experience with he opposite sex, but shows a great eagerness to learn. He gets grand ideas about putting out forty-'leven different super-duper fanzines, of which one or two may materialize in unprepossessing formats. He reads all the pro mags thru his thick lensed glasses, even when they are a dozen a month, and write detailed letters of criticism to the editors, especially picking out flaws in science, and goes into an ecstatic trance when one of them is published. He thinks fans are the swellest people on Earth, and would murder his grandmother for only to go to a convention, but since he hasn't any grandmother, he'll ride the rods if necessary. He puts stf into everything he says and does-- his work, school papers, den, n' everything. He's a good deal of a dope. Fortunately, the picture is not true to life.
fannes - Pronounced same as "fans", but used in written to mean fem fans.
Fanny - Fantasy-News's pet name. Other fanzines have laid claim to it, but haven't lasted long enuf to establish rights.
fantast - Roughly the same as "scientifictionist", but indicates a larger interest, both as regards other types of fantasy, and fantasy outside the prozines and the well-know books.
fantastic - Properly should mean merely pertaining to "fantasy", but its connotations in general language have made it seem to indicate irresponsible flites of fancy, causing fans to object to such a name as Fantastic Adventures, even tho it is appropriate in the case. In fact, we object to Fantastic Adventures period
fantasy - A general term covering science-fiction, weird fiction, and pure fantasy; also sometimes used interchangeably with pure fantasy. Other subdivisions of fantasy in addition to the three above have been proposed, such as political fantasy, but are not generally recognized, so that the entire field remains somewhat arbitrarily divided between these three. Excluded from the class, fantasy literature, are certain types that logically would seem to fall within it; there has been general assent to Tucker's exclusion of salacious fiction with a fantastic background; religious imaginings are generally ignored when fantasy is considered (tho in early fantastories religious elements were sometimes present); and fairly tales and children's animal stories, tho they will be classified as fantasy, do not come within the fantasy fan's field, unless they get into another medium like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Some stories have fantastic elements which however do not influence the action itself, which is of the run-of-the-mill sort (for example, a detective story in which criminals steal an invention); such stories are not fantasy but are said to have fantastic elements or be fantastic, to a certain extent, and are proper subjects for noting in bibliografies, etc. Stories in which seemingly fantastic elements turn out to be hoaxes, like The Stolen Bacillus, are not fantasy; but the device of it was all a dream" is so conventionalized that its occurrence at the end of a story does not remove the tale from the fantastic classification, likewise the device of a stranger telling a story which the reader is not asked to believe. Scientific inaccuracies come under the general heading of literary license, and an s-f story does not become weird or pure fantasy because of them; similarly, statistical investigation (looking to see what is on the site where Heinlein built his Crooked House in Los Angeles) does not change the classification.
Of the making of definitions there is no end, but a great obstacle in compiling them is that some are definitions of science-fiction only, while other apply to the whole field of fantasy but may be written from the viewpoint of a particular type; thus to August Derleth, Weird Tales author, all science-fiction, and other fantasy as well, is merely an outgrowth of the old Gothic romance from which Poe made his departure. The original FAPA Constitution spoke of fantastic and highly imaginative literature". Earlier, in Fantasy Magazines, Wollheim said, ... science fiction is that branch of fantasy, which, while not true of known present day knowledge, is rendered plausible by the reader's recognition of the scientific possibilities of it being possible at some future date or at some uncertain period in the past. Weird fiction is that branch of fantasy dealing with supernatural or occult subjects, which is rendered plausible by the reader's recognition of the fact that there are people somewhere who at present, or in he past, did believe, or do believe, in the truth of the ideas therein and is therefore willing to concede the truth of these things for the period in which he is reading the story. ... pure fantasy is the branch of fantasy, which dealing with subjects recognizable is non-existent and entirely imaginary, is rendered plausible by the reader's desire to consider it as such during the period of reading." Speer, using a three-dimensional time scheme, defines mundane fiction as that which takes place in the present or the historical past, involving only the operation of known natural laws, and with the events lying within the bounds of what we know happened in the past of our history or is true of the present day; and fantasy as all fiction that lies outside of any of these boundaries.
A more illuminating definition for the non-fastast mite be a listing of the subjects included within the field. On the time scheme mentioned above, a decimal classification has been developed embracing the following subjects: The Future-- Space travel; Extra-terrestrial life and adventures on other planets; Extraordinary astronomical phenomena (e g, destruction of earth); Castastrophies on civilization (intensified Ice Age, plague, sole survivors, our barbarous descendants); Political, social, and economic life (oppression and revolt, matriarchy, decay of man). The prehistoric Past-- Prehuman life; early man; Legendary civilizations; Early historic cultures. Time-spanning (including going forward and back in time, changing the past or the future, suspended animation, and might-have-been worlds). Impossible by contemporary science-- Supernatural elements in the know world (wishes, charms, occult arts, curses, miracles, cults, haunted places and things, ppoessesion, beings of religions of medieval tradition, and of modern conception); Unrationalized permutations and alterations (humanoid animals, unliving things personalized); Science's cosmology denies (as in subjective idealism); Life after death; Adventures in mythological worlds; Mythologies of modern conception. Extrapolations taking place in the present or the known past-- robots; Atomic energy; Invisibility; Super-speed; Duplications of persons; matter-radio; Television, spy ray, and projector; Laboratory creatures; Strange animals and plants; Non-carbon life; immortal (for Supermen; ESP; Mind transference; Hypnotism (for old stories); lost Amerind and Arctic lands; Earth's core; Subterranean life; Subsea civilization; Fourth Dimension and two-dimensional; Macrocosm; Microcosm; Littleness. Substantially the same heading are arranged in Russell's classification system under these headings: Extraterrestrial events and settings. Terrestrial events and settings-- The past; Utopias; Future civilizations; Future wars; Future barbarism or Dark Ages; Submarine life; Natural catastrophes. Scientific advances, discoveries, inventions-- The physical sciences; The biological sciences; The social sciences; Psychology and telepathy; Time travel; Large-scale engineering feasts; New lands on Earth. Supernaturalism; The powers of evil. Supernaturalism: The occult. Supernaturalism: Mythology. Pure fantasy. The categories of the Yearbook classification are too horrible to reproduce here.
Historically, fantasy began with primitive myths, then religious stories and on thru tales of fays, little men, and the like, paralleled by the darker superstitious stories of ghosts, ghouls, vampires, etc. In all countries, too, there are early stories, told for pleasure, of flites to other worlds, as well as the imaginary voyages", utopias", and imaginary wars and battles" under which Sam Russell says fantasy is still often classified by scholastics. The weird tale developed sooner and more highly than s-f. Science-fiction could not truly begin until the age of science, and may be said to have started at the end of the Eighteenth Century, when writers like the American Charles Bockden Brown added the element of plausibility thru a scientific explanation to the Gothic scary story. The three fathers of science-fiction are Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, and HGWells. The latter explored almost all of the fields now exploited in science-fiction magazines, and raised s-f to the level of a literary type. In the decades around 1900 many writers touched fantasy at times --Burroughs, HRHaggard, &c. By the World War, mundane magazines published science-fiction occasionally , and there were a few minor all-fantasy periodicals. Weird Tales began in the early twenties, and in 1926 Hugo Gernsback launched Amazing Stories, first of the Big Three pros.
Fantasy Magazine days - 1935, 1936, and thereabouts -- the First Fandom. So called because Fantasy Magazine was the unquestioned Number One fanzine of the period, and reflected its interests pretty accurately.
Fantasy Productions - A cooperative ofMorris Dollens and other transplanted MFSers in LA, to experiment around with making fantafilms, blueprint reproductions, and other things.
fanzine - (Chauvenet) - An amateur magazine published for fans.
The first fanzines were club organs, published mainly for member and a few non-locals who mite be interested. First important fanzine was The Time Traveller, 1932, which was absorbed by Science Fiction Digest and the combined mag shortly renamed Fantasy Magazine. Subscription fanzines blossomed thereafter at a quickening rate, and in 1932 came the newsie and around 1940 the individ fanzine.
Originally the names of fanzines were simply descriptive; The International /ISA/ Observer, the Science Fiction Fan, Fantasy-News, etc. Gradually the stock of such names ran low, and titles were taken form anything pertaining to fantasy to feed the insatiable publishing mania of sffans: Polaris, Le Zombie, the Lovecraftian, usw. Eventually the apparent reference to fantasy was lost completely, in such tittles as Sweetness and Light, Milt's Mag, FAFA-zine, and Fanewscard. However, these three stages overlap, and new pubs still appear with explicit titles. Many fanzine also have pet names.
The Check-List of fanzines by title uses a code indicating the editor, format (size of pages), approximate pageage per issue, method of reproduction, and type of contents. The Yearbook also gives announced periodicity, address, and price (most common price is 10 cents per copy, three for 25, but they have ranged form perhaps 20 cents to 2 cents, no counting those distributed free or merely exchanged). The Check-List also gives variant names of a given zine, summarizes dates by volume and number, and includes information and rumors on proposed magazines that never appeared or got beyond the dummy sage (which are legion), and titles merely humorously suggested.
As to announced periodicity, there have been one hourly fanzine, several dailies (both of these continuous for only shot periods), newsweeklies, triweeklies, montlies, bimontlies, quarterlies, annuals, one-shot publications, and frankly irregular ones. Unfortunately, most of the others are irregular too, generally appearing much less often than their announced frequency, and suffering such a high mortality rate that the mag that reaches an anniversary issue is a real achievement.
The contents of fanzines include fiction, editorial stuff, departments, poetry, articles, and art work.
Fan magazines are the great vehicle of thot in our republic of letters, and our most characteristic product.
FAPA - Pronounced variously [efeipiei], [faepe], and [fapa]. The Fantasy Amateur Press Association, constituted in 1937 by Wollheim, and Michel. Others soon joined, up to it's constituional limit of 50 (changed to 65 in 1943). The FAPA's first year was stormy with party politic and sociological feuds, and its third year, 1939-40, was marked by the Interregnum. Thereafter the profets of the Third Fandom came into control, and it prospered to become the longest-lived successful fan organization.
It is primarily an agency for distributing to its members publications put out by its members at their own expense. This it does by mailings every three months. Members are required to be active in some way, writing or publishing. There are annual elections in June of a president, vice president, secretary-treasure, and official editor (he also does the mailing), who cannot held the same post again for five years. Other officials are the official critics, laureate committee, and ballot counters. Red tape is at a minimum.
FAPAzine - A fanzine published thru the FAPA; sometimes a synonym for individ fanzine. The name was used as the official title of a thing by Perdue.
Fascism - Fascism, according to my knowledge of it, is the desire of certain inhabitants of an economically straitened state to return that state to a usually mythical pervious golden age, by whatever means of violence and prejudice may best be used." --Pohl.
It must be remember that ... fascism is purely destructive in its aims ... to reduce labor to the status of slavery; to wipe out any and all social reforms, to halt the advance of science ... And what is the purpose. To maintain forever wealth and power in the hands of those who now have it. Fascism is 20th century reaction" --Lowndes. In justice to Lowndes, it should be explained that the Marxistic interpretation of fascism is that it is the last effort of the class in power to prevent a revolution, by sponsoring the bringing on of a foreign war to which to divert the people, by appealing to their patriotism, and also to use up the surpluses of overproduction and maybe win new marks to be exploited; with the further advantage that a large, well-disciplined army would be useful tin putting down any revolt. Rothman defines it much more simply Speer says he believes in state socialism, but he does not realize that that is fascism".
Speer sometimes used the nickname Fascist Spear" because of his pseodu middle initial and because, having mistaken ideas about such subjects as world trade, and an Emersonian liking for the strong man, he supported the have-not" powers in their Ethiopian, Spanish, and Austrian adventures. >From time to time he issued denials that he was a fascist concerning the US, but rather believed in socialism of the New Deal. The Wollheimist party was probably aware of these denials at the time of the 1938 FAPA elections, when they charged him with being an avowed Fascist", and therefor opposed to freedom of the fan press, etc. His 1938 opinion Fascism was that it was simply a highly nationalistic socialism that arose in the have-not countries and will pass as soon as they become haves." The Futurians continued from time to time to try to prove him a fascist or a fascist unconscious", but Lowndes finally retracted, and the change was head little more.
Data entered by Peter Barker