Q The criticisms of Q's existence as a member of the alphabet, tho many
and eloquent, are all refuted by the consideration that without it
there could have been no QUANDRY.
QSFL The Queens branch of the SFL. Queens is the borough of New York in
which Flushing, Long Island City, etc are located, but membership has
included fans from other boroughs and even from Newark and area.
Originally established late in 1937, the QSFL was made up of young fans
like Taurasi [!!]. When the Wollheimists joined, the name was changed to
GNYSFL; after this broke up, the QSFL was reestablished under a new charter, and
pretty much run by the Triumvirs for several years. With good publicity from
the proz, it gathered a large number of stfnists, some of whom became fans.
They even set up an offshoot, the Newark SFL.
Brief infamy came when the January '41 meeting, one of record size with
around 60 stfnists and pro celebrities, was the occasion of rough stuff; Dick
Wilson and another Futurian attended and the Triumvirs, Racic, and Mrs Sykora
tried to throw them out, to the disgust of the celebrities. The manager of the
hall finally put everybody out.
The QSFL lapsed during the war but was revived in September 1946, after the
FPWESFC, by Sykora.
QUADRUMVIRS (Speer) Dubious latin meaning four who share authority and rule.
Don Wollheim, John Michel, Fred Pohl, and Doc Lowndes, the Futurian
leaders. They fought for Futurian causes in fairly close concert during 1938
and afterwards, tho in October '38 those holding FAPA office resigned and
announced the temporary defeat of their ideas, after which the Triumvirate came
into the headship. But the combination held together at least until the end of
1940.
QUANDRY (Hoffwoman) The famous fanzine published by Lee Hoffman of Savannah
Ga. before she gafiated for the first time. Q was the rallying point
of Sixth Fandom as Spacewarp was of Fifth. It was notable for many things,
especially: calling Tucker forth to walk the Earth again; publishing the
outstanding material by Walt Willis which inspired the WAW With the Crew in '52
movement; and inspiring 7th Fandom, which was prophesied by Bob Silverberg in
the pages of Q and begun when the black-bordered Quandry arrived at Harlan
Ellison's. The Quannish was the thirteenth (first anniversary) issue of Q, one
of the hundred-page fanzines; you can recognize it by the cover done in plaid
ink. And Quandrical publications were those Leeh published.
QUASI-QUOTEMARKS (Speer) It frequently is impossible or inconvenient to quote
a speaker's exact words, and not vital to do so. In such a
case, you may merely give the substance of what he said; and in place of
quotation marks, use quote-marks with a hyphen under each- ">like
this"> instead of qualifying the quotation with a clumsy phrase
like "or words to that effect". Such quasi-quotemarks indicate that you will be
answerable for the substantial meaning and implications of the quotation but do
not have the exact wording available or have altered the original construction
and wording to fit conveniently into your sentence structure. Example: "But,
'Every intensely active fan I know is some kind of disgusting
character' says Miske." "He said he ">had just
been too busy">." (In the first example Miske's actual wording
was, "I know of no fan who ranks as 'intensely active' who is not some sort of
disgusting character." In the second, original "have" is changed to
">had">.) Your K. Breul has been unable to
trace the rumored connection between Speer's introduction of the
"> in fandom and Fletcher Pratt's use of the European quotemark,
the three-em dash, for the same purpose in his historical works.
QUEENSIES Members of the QSFL who supported the Triumvirs' policies, as
opposed to the Futurians who were the Quadrumvirs' faction. Many of
them were not well-known as fans, but attended the last two PhilCos before the
wartime suspension. It was supposed that they would vote the Triumvir's way,
but because of this suspicion and their numerical strength the non-Queensies saw
to it that few votes were actually taken at the PhilCos.
QUIBBLING What you accuse your opponents of doing when it's you that's doing
it.
QUIZZES Ordinarily presented in fanzines without offer of prizes, except maybe
the egoboo of mention in the next issue. Sometimes quizzes are part of
membership requirements of organizations, and in the SFL they gained the degree
of B Stf.
Quiz questions may be about the present or past of pro writings, fandom, or
science. Speer gives an example: "With what issue did Wonder Stories go large
size for the second time and what was the cover-copper on that issue?" More
recently quizzes have been answered in a different part of the fanzine where
they appear; here, obviously, the egoboo of being right is all in all, as in
mundane magazines' quizzes. A variation on the classic quiz was introduced by
John Berry, a professional police officer; the "Who'd Be a Goon?" series offered
complete fannishly-oriented mysteries, with all clues 'n everything supplied.
Object was the explain the conclusions reached from the evidence supplied.
QUOTE-CARDS Cards, usually of index-card size or a bit less, with some motto
instinct with Hidden Meaning ("Basingstoke"). First used by the
London Circle at the SuperManCon in 1954, where a batch that Vin¢ Clarke had run
off were passed from hand to hand among fans or, more fabulously, passed out to
pedestrians on the street by an intrepid and respectable-looking fan while his
confederates lingered in the middle distance to watch the civilian react. This
fine fannish recreation was continued at the SFCon with a flock of Hurkle-blue
quote-cards manufactured for the occasion by Redd Boggs and DAG. In autumn 1954
damon knight, "The Bergenholm of the Quote-Card", made them into short snorter
quote-cards and began circulating them in letters. (The modifier derives from a
fad among service personnel, during World War II, of collecting money from
exotic lands and having it autographed as souvenir.) By the end of the year
home-made -- i.e. typed rather'n mimeoed -- quote-cards became popular. The
field branched out into miscaptioned photos, and odd items like sweepstakes
tickets, religious-crackpot tracts, pieces of wall paper, reproductions of
artwork and an infinite lot more. Jean Linard's epiphenomena are a relative of
the quote-card.
A number of fans have objected to the short-snorter q-c on such grounds as
trouble keeping up with the things, poor taste of some items, questionable value
as faaaanish stuff, ktp. The fad had sunk to a low level by the end of 1958.
QUOTE-COVER (Boggs) A cover which is filled with interlineation-style
quotations rather than art work, etc; also known as coverquotes,
quotelines, quovers. They evolved ultimately from the list of fanzines and fans
on Art Joquel's FANFILE #1 (1941) reprinted on Chauvenet's FANZINE DIGEST (April
'42), but in their current period of fad were popularized by the Insurgents with
Wild Hair #7 (June '51). Rotsler was probably the main carrier-on of the
Insurgent coverline idea -- "coverline" was the name Burbee, Laney, and Rotsler
used for them, but "quote-cover" rapidly became the general expression. Art
Rapp wanted to use "beardmutterings", but damon knight's invention under this
title has prior right.
QWERTYUIOP Typewriter etaoin shrdlu. Ted White used it as a publishing house
name, and at one time ('56-58) it seemed that at least 50% of all
published fanzines appeared with this frank. He has steadfastly disregarded
suggestions that it should be qwertyuiop ½ or ¼, for abbreviation is a
recognized privilege of fan publishing houses.
= = = = = = = = = =
R The remark on this letter in the manuscript is too utterly silly to copy.
READING The fan's first activity is reading the proz and fantasy books (or,
really first, the scientificomics). After he starts subscribing to
fanzines, he may find that he no longer has time to read the proz; this was
especially true of the British fans during the war, when the supply of US proz
was cut off anyway. Some fans even find it necessary to choose carefully which
fanzines they shall read because of the lack of time to read them all; and this
created the demand for a fanzine digest.
REAL SOON NOW When the MSFS/DSFL was going to have: a convention, a decent
fanzine, an active membership, a properly run meeting and many
other fine things that didn't quite happen. Term created by Martin Alger in
1950 to describe the excitement evident in the voice of George H Young when he
spoke of the con to be held in Detroit RSN.
RECRUITING A heartbreaking job. Aside from publicity, some fans go to work
on their personal acquaintances, flooding them with supply of proz
and presently fanzines, only to have them turn away with an evasive or pitying
look. Other recruiters send letters and fanzine samples to writers of promising
letters in the readers' sections of the pro mags, getting little or no response.
The N3F WelCommittee was originally set up to do this sort of thing. According
to the IPO, most fans of 1938 got in touch with fandom by answering ads of
fanzines in the proz; only a few thru personal contacts. Later personal
contacts and publicity of club meetings played a larger role in spreading the
infection. Cons and large locals like the old QSFL -- or hyperactive ones like
WSFA and the Nameless Ones -- encourage the stfnist to become an active fan once
he's wandered into our toils.
REGALENGTH Same as legal length of paper -- 8½x14 inches. The root word is
"regal", not "regular". This format was adopted because the long
stencils and paper were cheaper per square unit of letterage, and stencilling
time was supposed to be reduced. Collectors object to it because it doesn't fit
into filing places well.
REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS Organizations of fans, or federations of locals and
state organizations in one of those regions into which
the US is usually divided. Despite such inclusive proposals as those in the
Battle Creek Constitution of the N3F, there have been only two such so far, the
MWFFF and the Dixie Fantasy Federation. Their chief function would seem to be
regional conferences (like the MidWestCon, Westercon, etc) but it was suggested
that they take such duties as news-gathering and recruiting.
REPRODUCTION The making of more than one copy of a publication; the means
used in doing so. (That's the meaning we're going to
define, at all events.) As our chief method of communication is the fanzine,
methods of producing these are an important fannish concern. Standard methods
are mimeoing, dittoing, hektoing, and lithography, supremacy passing
historically from letterpress-printing to hektoing to mimeography as fandom's
ingenuity and size varied. Great resourcefulness has been displayed in
discovering new and unusual means of duplication; they include linoblock,
silkscreening, rubber stamp, photography, photo-offset, blueprint, and even
teletype tape, dog-tag printer, and sonodisc. And some fanzines, like Bill
Rotsler's letter-substitutes, are not really duplicated at all, but merely
passed around or displayed in the original typescript or as carbon copies.
REVIEWS Fantasy books, plays, movies, radio programs, comics and the like are
reviewed in fanzines; and, especially in individzines type alpha, non-
fantasy works that interest the publishers, particularly music, movies, ktp, are
described. An important function in reviewing fantasy in other media seems to
be to get it on record, perhaps for the someday bibliography; certainly little
other function is served by reviews of radio and TV shows. Reviews of stf books
are a slightly different matter. An effort has been made to get them published
on uniform sized paper so that they may be bound into a booklet to use as a
guide when combing the second-hand bookshops or looking thru a library.
RIGHT TO BUY WEAPONS IS THE RIGHT TO BE FREE Slogan of the Weapon Shops in AE
van Vogt's series; cf Article II
of the US Bill of Rights. The Weapon Shops held that men always had the sort of
government they wanted provided they had some way to prevent outright
intimidation by authority; atomic guns from the Weapon Shops provided that way.
It is a source of fannish gaglines like "the right to buy women is the right to
be free".
RIVERSIDE DIVE An apartment at 299 Riverside Drive, New York 25 NY. Dick
Ellington, Art Saha, Pat Werner, Bill Donaho, and from one to
one dozen others at various times. They finally got evicted for playing jazz
and all sorts of crazy carryings on like that there, a short time after the
NYCon II.
ROBOT ( Capek; from Czech robota "servitude") Mechanism which carries
out a series of actions without the need for supervision; exact line of
demarcation between robotic and automatic machinery has not been drawn but would
doubtless classify as robots those capable of reacting to an emergency in some
other way than stoppage. Robots differ from androids and humanoids in not
necessarily resembling people.
ROCKET The only general symbol of science-fiction, says Dan McPhail, and the
only known way of accomplishing interplanetary travel, which is a number
one scientific ambition of fandom. Many fans in early days joined rocket
societies such as the ARS or BIS to back or perform experimental work on
rockets; and when the war gave great impetus to rocketry, some fans formed
definite plans to join the research which, they hoped, would lead to
construction of the first space ship -- in our time.
BUCK ROGERS STUFF What you are asked about when you mention stf to non-fans.
"-What, you read that crazy Buck Rogers stuff?"- Crazy is not
used in the bopster connotation. When Philip Nowlan wrote (in the August '28
and March '29 issues of Amazing) about the adventures of Anthony Rogers, an
American World War I pilot transferred to the XXV Century (via a mine cave-in
followed by suspended animation), neither he nor editor Gernsback dreamed of the
frightful curse they were releasing on the stfnal world's public relations.
Nowlan merely developed the idea that rocket guns (like the bazooka of 14 years
later) and guerilla tactics would be hard for an enemy to handle with nothing
but atomic weapons and aircraft, a thought which has occurred to modern military
theorists too. Unhappily Captain Rogers lost his original Christianame and
acquired the better-known one in a comic strip which was both the eponym and
epitome of all the thud-and-blunder stf that ever poured from hackish typers,
which is why you're still likely to find people, sufficiently shocked,
expressing their horror in the sentence quasi-quoted above.
ROSCOE The One True Ghod, incarnate in the form of a beaver. (This mystically
expresses the fact that all true fen are busy little b's.) Revealed by
the Prophet Art Rapp in '47, His religion -- Roscoism or the Rosconian Faith --
rapidly swept thru fandom, converting the elite group to its Insurgent credo and
arousing the False Faiths of Ghu and FooFoo to a brief revival. Barring
interference by Oscar (the Evil Principle, represented as a mCLASS=""
Rosconians enjoy the Reality of Fanac, the Hope of Egoboo, and the Promise of
Bheer. Chronicles of the future Rosconian Empire have been produced by various
fans, even depraved Ghuists. Roscoe's Mighty Two Front Teeth and Slapping Tail
are terrible weapons against the evildoer. Holy days are the Fourth day of July
("that's the day when Roscoe flies a fiery spaceship in the sky") and Labor Day,
the date of Roscoe's Birth. Conventions are frequently held to celebrate these
Sacred Occasions, and fen meeting there quaff libations of beer and other
beverages in Roscoe's honor.
Unlike various false ghods Roscoe has no official color and leaves
ritualistic forms of reverence to the discretion and imagination of his
worshippers; for, being the True Ghod, he of course does not need to be
confirmed in his position by bombastic pronouncements such as Ghuist and Fooist
use to trumpet their ghods' pretensions. Certain references in the Birch Bark
Bible [the Rosconian Scriptures] suggest that allegiance to false ghods delivers
misbelievers to Oscar, who created false ghods as well as mimeos that overink,
cheap stencils, hangovers, and other banes of fannish life. Liberal Rosconian
theologians, however, point out that this is merely a consequence of submitting
to Oscar, since after 200th Fandom Roscoe will save all fans simply because they
are fans.
ROSEBUD (Welles:Tucker) Originally the name of a boy's sled, and Citizen
Kane's last word. It got into fandom when a character in Doc Lowndes'
interminable fanfiction serial, Trigger Talk at Green Guna, murmured that
just before kicking the bucket. The cry was repeated to Liebecher by Tucker
under circumstances which gave it a special (and very kteic) fannish meaning.
ROTATION PLAN In 1950, after a series of conventions had taken place in the
Eastern half of the continent, a cry went up for a Pacificoast
convention in the name of fairness. It was also thought that some formula for
describing eligible convention sites should be adopted, to prevent a
preponderance of local fans voting the Worldcon for their region year after
year. The idea finally adopted, at the PhilCon II, provided for conventions in
the East, Middle States, and West ("orderly progression westward") successively,
with conventions outside the US not counted as stages in the rotation.
Acceptance was general and the idea was one of the customs formalized by WSFS.
ROTOGRAVURE Sometimes used for a dittoed or hektoed picture section in a
predominantly mimeographed magazine, from the use of the
rotogravure process (a sort of intaglio printing) to produce photo-illustrated
sections in ASF circa 1944-47 and in mundane newspapers still earlier.
ROTSLER WENCHES, BABES or NUDES Conspicuously mammalian young ladies like the
one over there. Some sneer at Bill for being
unrealistic, but he claims to know "several" femmes thus endowed. ("Altho not
as many, or as well, as I'd like...") Oh, and Genuine Rotsler Girls should be
mentioned, if only to say that they aren't by Rotsler; they're by Mary Wilson,
drawing under the pename of Pancho Picasso. [not shown]
ROUND ROBIN A story each installment of which is by a different author.
The usual type consists of alternate segments of half a page or so.
In subzines, however, success has attended longer works, each chapter of which
was by a different author. There were some by Pros in the old Fantasy Magazine,
including one which for novelty's sake was written backwards -- last installment
first, that is.
The gimmick, of course, is to leave things in such a mess at the end of the
installment that it takes brainwork on the part of the succeeding author to
solve the problem and get on with the story. Some of the more famous round
robins have been "If I Werewolf" in Spaceways, "The Challenge from Beyond" (in
two versions, one by stf authors and one by weirdists) in Fantasy Magazine, and
the "Great Stf Broadcast" / "Stf Broadcasts Again" pair in Spacewarp. More
recently Stellar offered "The Death of Science-Fiction" in which US Victory in
World War III spawned a Gestapo-like Sedition Control Authority. Various fans
represented themselves & friends fighting it melodramatically.
RUSSIAN SCIENCE FICTION Another field in which our chums from the Volga
contest leadership. Russian stf tends to be clankety-
clunk and rabbit-from-the-hat, and ends on a strong upbeat note (or else, one
gathers): Yefremov's "Lake of the Mountain Spirits" fires off a nice series of
Mystic Experiences and other aberrations, which the hero at length shows to have
been caused (in the best 1930-Gernsback style) by mercury vapor from deposits in
the surrounding mountains. He is promptly overjoyed to have found such a
treasure trove for the Soviet industrial system.
Equally, attacks on US stf are in order; notable was one in which
Literarturnaya Gazeta of Moskva, a serious literary magazine, whopped us (27
March '48) to this effect: "To support the propaganda of the mighty imperialist
war machine [that's our armed forces they're describing] 'scientific
fiction' of America shamelessly threatens with atomic scarecrows" declared
Bolkhovtinov and Zakharchenko, citing RF Jones' Renaissance as "a
monstrously open fascistly-tending story". (It involved a machine which sent
children "with any superhuman quality" to a world parallelling ours.) This,
they opined, was "fantasy" and the product of "lurid imagining." "The authors
of all these arch-reactionary, clamorous-jaunty pages... cannot hide their fear
of the future which encompasses the capitalist world", said the Gazeta.
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