Wynn Manners Oakland University Rochester, Michigan I think the main objection to New Maps Of Hell was not its source -- Amis is as good and legitmate a source as anyone else, and has as much right to speak his piece as does Steve Pickering or Judy Merrill or Algis Budrys. The objections to his ideas were so intense because of the sense of authority they gained, simply by being published in a-mass-circulated paper back book. Not that much s-f criticism gets very large circulation; and none has had the circulation New Maps Of Hell had. And by golly, people believe books and fans didn't want Mr. Amis's personal image of s-f to become the accepted image of an authority. I'm far from a "fannish fan" -- in fact, it rather pickles me pink to see Steve tear into them so nastily. But please, Steve, you've got it backwards: it's for you as a sociologist (sociology is supposedly a science now, isn't it?) to prove your assertions; not for the fannish fans to disprove them. But I must say you've got them over a barrel -- who can disprove your "data" and "statistics" when you haven't shown any? And dare I wonder if you have any......? By and large, I'm afraid Steve does a pretty slam-bang-'em-up-job of creating a McCarthyian bogeyman that just doesn't exist -- and preaching hard and furiously against it. But as nasty a sermon as I preach vs. what a pernicious fellow Cthulhu is, it's not going to do much good since Cthulhu just ain't -- and neither is Pickering's "fannish fan." Incidentally, how fannish fans invade one's perogative to write mature material I fail to see. I'll grant that most fannish fans are immature, and I'll agree that they and their publications are far from intellectual. But lack of intellectualism doesn't equal anti-intellectualism. Their lack of intellectualism is to be expected since most of them are too young to be mature yet. However, however immature they may or may not be, they certainly don't stop anyone from writing mature material; and since all it takes to get it printed is a bit of money for supplies and postage, and access to a ditto or mimeo, I see no restriction. Every fan, intellectual or non-, has to either get his stuff in print himself or locate (or be located by) someone of like tastes who'll print it for him. It isn't as if there's some kind of monopoly in fandom. Anybody can write, print, distribute, as long as he's willing to expend the time, effort and money. I'm afraid Steve's last paragraph -- where he touches on labels -- hits his own nail on its own pointy point. He, too, is an individual who likes labels -- namely, that of anti-intellectualism; and he too constructs a "Wonder Picture of What those Fools Really Think in 'Fannish Fandom' Circles." [pp. 38 - 40, "Your 5 Cents Worth," Letter 4, NO-EYED MONSTER #10, Winter 1966- 67]
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