Tag Archives: Eaton Collection

Hodgson Collection To Eaton

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Jane and Howard Frank have donated their collection of William Hope Hodgson papers, including unpublished stories, to the UC Riverside Libraries’ Eaton Collection. The gift will be commemorated at an event on April 16.

Born Nov. 15, 1877, in Blackmore End, Essex, Hodgson was widely known for his works in horror, fantastic fiction and science fiction when he was killed in April 1918, during World War I. He wrote numerous short stories, novels and poems, including “The House on the Borderland” and “The Night Land.”

“Scholars have lamented for decades that no collection of primary materials – correspondence, diaries, etc. – had ever come to light to allow for the depth of scholarly research that has been done for his contemporaries such as H.P. Lovecraft,” said University Librarian Steven Mandeville-Gamble. “The Hodgson collection, which was so generously donated to UCR by Jane and Howard Frank, finally brings to light those critically important resources that academics have been seeking for years.”

There will be lectures and a reception at the library on the 16th. Jane Frank will participate, speaking about their acquisition of the collection, and how that led to the two books she edited on Hodgson, for PS Publishing/Tartarus Press, 2005, The Wandering Soul: Glimpses of a Life – A Compendium of Rare and Unpublished Works, and The Lost Poetry Books of W.H. Hodgson.

The archive of Hodgson manuscripts, letters and photographs was once owned by the late Sam Moskowitz.

Jane Frank believes the collection will shortly be available to scholars and researchers and hopes that the donation will spark new studies of Hodgson’s stories and poetry.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

Tarpinian: 2013 Eaton Conference in Progress

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Professor Philip Nichols giving his lecture on the script writing styles of Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison

Professor Philip Nichols giving his lecture on the script writing styles of Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison

By John King Tarpinian: Every two years UC Riverside hosts the Eaton Science Fiction Conference. I’ve had attended in past years when they gave their Lifetime Achievement Awards to Ray Bradbury (2008) and Frederik Pohl (2009).

Conferences over the four days would start at 8:30 a.m. and continue until 8:30 p.m., running in six rooms at once. If one can get Sci-Fi overload this would have been the place to be. A list of topics: “Gods, Monsters in Science Fiction Television,” “Queering the Genre,” “Octavia E. Butler,” “Superhero Controversies in Comics and Television,” and so on and so forth. Larry Niven and David Brin are among the writers in attendance. For a more detailed list of the event meander over to: http://eatonconference.ucr.edu/

This year’s Lifetime Achievement Awards are going to Ursula K. Le Guin (2012), Ray Harryhausen (2013) and Stan Lee (2013). They will be honored at the Saturday evening banquet.

On Friday I took a day trip to hear a lecture by a friend of mine, Phil Nichols, a UK Professor from the University of Wolverhampton. Phil lectured, along with Julian Hoxter & Michael Joseph Klein who gave papers on scripts in Science Fiction. Phil specifically talked about the diverse script writing styles of Ray Bradbury & Harlan Ellison. Ray’s scriptwriting was honed by writing Moby Dick for John Huston but his first official script was for It Came from Outer Space. Harlan’s style was developed in the early 60s with is TV writing from the Alfred Hitchcock Hour through Star Trek and a script for Masters of Science Fiction.

As in books, Ray used metaphors for camera direction (sample scripts were shown on the screen), what today is called a spec-script. Ray’s scripts would allow for more input for the director. Harlan, on the other hand, would number each scene and have very specific directions as to shooting the scene. Harlan would go as far as to specify if a scene was an interior or exterior show.

I was not consulted when they selected the dates for the conference so after having lunch with my friend that was it for the day. She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed was off on a photo safari in Death Valley and guess who had to get home to walk the dogs? Maybe the best end to a good day was getting a souvenir LASFS bookmark.

2013 Eaton Conference poster.

2013 Eaton Conference poster.

Eaton conference panel schedule.

Display at 2013 Eaton Conference.

Display at 2013 Eaton Conference.

Display at 2013 Eaton Conference.

Display at 2013 Eaton Conference.

Display at 2013 Eaton Conference.

Display at 2013 Eaton Conference.

 

Klein in Hospice

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Legendary fan photographer Jay Kay Klein is in a hospice with terminal oesophegeal cancer reports Laurraine Tutihasi, who spoke to the person who placed him.

Klein recently made news when he donated his photos to UC Riverside’s Eaton Collection.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

John Hertz: Klein is Big, Door is Dear

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By John Hertz: Jay Kay Klein, the photographer of science fiction, has donated his photographs to the Eaton Collection. Shipments are arriving. It is best to arrange such things while one is alive.

Klein shot all of us – sounds tempting, doesn’t it? – fans and pros. He was there, usually with several cameras. In monochrome, color, stereo, he took a hundred thousand photos.

The Eaton Collection, on the Riverside campus of the University of California, is the world’s largest publicly accessible holding of s-f, with books, prozines, fanzines, ephemera. Terry Carr’s, Rick Sneary’s, and Bruce Pelz’ collections made Eaton the largest in fanzines. The Klein photos are a perfect match, and in their own right an element – I use the word deliberately.

Since seven years were needed for a preliminary index of the Pelz collection, Eaton librarians delighted in finding Klein’s photos carefully identified. Perhaps I may be allowed to say that when I talked with him by phone about it recently he chortled. It had not been by the power of his mind alone that he laid hands on pictures as needed.

How good are they?

Look at the Photo Yearbook in the 75th Anniversary issue of Analog (January-February 2005). The photos are Klein’s. See in particular his portraits of Campbell, Heinlein, Moore.

He’s been as valuable a reporting photographer as a portraitist. Look at the Asimov Appreciation in the June 1992 Locus. He can write, too. He recounted the memorial gathering, then gave the closing reminiscence, after Hartwell, Gunn, de Camp. Asimov “loved to have someone top him if possible. Seldom possible.”

Photography is an extraordinary combination of an artist’s vision and of fact. Of this Jay Kay Klein has been illustrative.

No one can top an act like that, but I promised to say something about Selina Phanara’s door. It arrived safely, was placed duly, and is enjoyed muchly.

Eaton is eager to make its resources available. It has a Website and a copying service. Visits in person are welcome.

Two Eaton archivists studying a Klein shipment.

Selina Phanara’s door in place.

Eaton Geeks

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When an earlier generation of wowsers derided that “Crazy Buck Rogers stuff” they weren’t kidding. When today’s journalists pitch into geeks and nerds it’s hard to take offense although they’re writing in an identical tone — in contrast to the teenagers of First Fandom, the targeted group is, if not the majority, at least in the mainstream, so nobody’s self-esteem is likely to be bruised.

And lately, Wired magazine’s choice of the Eaton Collection as a Hotspot on a list of  “Geeky Destinations and Smart Side Trips” has encouraged writers to lovingly lampoon UC Riverside’s as a nerd’s treasure house of science fiction.   

John Weeks supplies an example in his column for the Contra Costa Times, “Geeks of the world trek to Riverside”:

Wow, what site is it? Hold on to your pocket protectors and listen. It’s the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Utopian Literature in the Special Collections Department of the Tomas Rivera Library at UC Riverside.

Even you wonks with thick glasses held together by tape can see the connection, can’t you? Nerds love comic books, which means they love science fiction and fantasy, which means they are bound to make a beeline to the Eaton.

The university itself has gotten into the act with a recent post titled “A haven for the spooky and geeky”. Unlike Weeks’ column, however, it is more than a cute exercise in verbal imagery, and offers substantive insights from an interview with Nalo Hopkinson:

The accolade in Wired recognized the often-overlooked connection between technological innovation and science fiction, said Nalo Hopkinson, a Jamaican-born writer of science fiction and fantasy who joined UC Riverside’s creative writing faculty this fall. 

Hopkinson pointed out that Bill Gates and Paul Allen, the co-founders of Microsoft, were science fiction buffs. British newspaper columnist Damien Walter recently reported that Chinese authorities have encouraged the popularity of science fiction, hoping to foster U.S.-style innovation. But the Chinese authorities got more than they bargained for when author Chen Guanzhong came up with a cogent political critique in his novel “The Prosperous Time: China 2013.”

Science fiction has been a powerful tool for social commentary since the days of “Gulliver’s Travels,” according to Hopkinson. 

“Science fiction and fantasy wrestle with the clash of cultures, with the way humans change the world around them, and who does the dirty work,” she said. 

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

Hertz: Of Drinks and Doors

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Selina Phanara's art on the APA-L room door. Photo by Karl Lembke.

By John Hertz: (Reprinted from Vanamonde 952) When I saw an empty Moxie bottle at the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society’s first meeting in our new Clubhouse, I should have guessed someone had been to Galco’s, a shop so much more famous for carrying five hundred kinds of soft drink than for its Blockbuster sandwiches that it’s less known as Galco’s Old World Grocery than as the Soda Pop Stop.  Galco’s has as many beers, six dozen kinds of bottled water, a hundred candies including Clark Bars, Nik-L-Nips, and Sen-Sen, but soft drinks are its fame, almost any so long as bottled in glass.  After guessing someone had been there, I should have guessed it was Marc Schirmeister.  Both guesses would have been correct.  But neither of those afterthoughts was a double-take – unlike understanding the empty bottle.

Among the points upon which I concur with Marv Wolfman is the assessment of this drink.  Galco’s owner John Nese once told a visiting couple who’d driven sixty miles “Try a Moxie, then try a Coke.  The taste is so pronounced, it just pops out.”  That’s very true.  Lloyd Penney says Klingons used to arrive from Montréal with cases of it.  Moxie = courage may come from what’s needed to drink it; or may be like Old Infuriator, the Algerian wine which the British Navy supposedly served because it was so bad it would make men fight anyone, see e.g. I. Fleming, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service p. 145 (1963).

Someone must have actually consumed a bottle of Moxie.  Well, astounding things happen at the LASFS.

This Clubhouse is roomy.  It has space for our 20,000-book library.  No patio; we left our home-grown lemon tree behind.  Also the Star Wars wallpaper Marjii Ellers hung neatly in one of our bathrooms.  The new painted-concrete walls are “live”, i.e. in the acoustic sense.  Quiet is not a fannish virtue; we’re talkative; I’d not have it another way; maybe we’ll hang arras.  Given our new neighbor across the street, we can tell people “Come to the LASFS and be close to power.”

Among the attenders was Dr. Melissa Conway, head of Special Collections at the Library of the Riverside campus of the University of California; among her six, with the Tuskegee Airmen and fifteen printing presses, is the Eaton Collection, world’s largest publicly accessible collection of SF, including the Terry Carr and Bruce Pelz and Rick Sneary fanzines.  I introduced her to Karl Lembke, Chairman of the LASFS Board of Directors.  During the meeting I sat next to Selina Phanara, who thanked me.  “Why?” I asked.  “Because I did something about your door?”  In 1999 this talented artist painted the APA-L collating-room door (Amateur Press Ass’n – LASFS) with a space ship and suns.  When I learned the Club was relocating I asked Dr. Conway if Eaton wanted the door.  She said “Yes, please.”  Lembke with a little help from his friends dismounted it and put in a plain one; he now arranged to get the Phanara door to Riverside.

In the festivities I brought greetings from Paul Turner and Tim Kirk.  Kirk often drew APA-L covers in the years he won five Hugos as Best Fanartist.  Turner had asked me to be sure and credit Pelz, who fanned Turner’s building-fund spark into flame.  Jerry Pournelle said “Don’t forget to credit Chuck Crayne.”  We all cheered Pelz’ widow Elayne, the LASFS Treasurer, who’d done more than anyone else to negotiate, close, and consummate the transactions that disposed of our second Clubhouse and brought us into this our third.

Freehafer Hall in the old LASFS clubhouse on Burbank Blvd. Selina Phanara's door art is visible to the right of the pillar. Photo by Taral Wayne.

Eaton Conference 2011

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Samuel Delany

The 2011 Eaton Science Fiction Conference that begins February 11 boasts a spectacular slate of speakers, beginning with authors Nalo Hopkinson, China Miéville and Karen Tei Yamashita. Hopkinson is the Jamaica-born author of Brown Girl in the Ring and The New Moon’s Arms; Miéville is the English author of “Perdido Street Station, The City and the City and Kraken; and Yamashita is an associate professor of literature at UC Santa Cruz and author of I Hotel and Tropic of Orange.

Samuel R. Delany and Harlan Ellison will receive the 2010 and 2011 Eaton Award for Lifetime Achievement in Science Fiction. Ellison, the 2011 recipient, is expected to attend the conference to accept the award.

Mike Davis, distinguished professor of creative writing at UCR, will deliver the keynote address. Other notable authors will participate, such as Greg Benford and Howard Hendrix.

Harlan Ellison

The conference will be preceded on February 10 by the Science Fiction Studies Symposium, which will explore the theme “The Singularity in SF Literature and Theory.” Scheduled participants include Neil Easterbrook, who teaches literary theory at Texas Christian University and is an editorial consultant for the journal Science Fiction Studies; Brooks Landon, professor of English at the University of Iowa and author of “Science Fiction After 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars”; and Rob Latham, who is a senior editor of Science Fiction Studies.

Both the Eaton Conference and symposium are open to the public. Admission to the symposium is free. The conference will be held at the Mission Inn and Spa in downtown Riverside. Registration is $165 for the entire conference or $75 for a single day. Student admission is $55.

[Based on the Eaton Conference press release. Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

Gerrold Coming to Star Trek Experience on 9/18

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David Gerrold will speak, attend a reception and autograph books at Riverside Metropolitan Museum in Riverside, CA from 1-4 p.m. on September 18.  Star Trek the Exhibition is a touring exhibit of authentic Star Trek sets, costumes, props from all five Star Trek television series and eleven Star Trek feature films. It opened in June and runs through February 28, 2011.

Gerrold’s events are open to anyone who purchases a general admission ticket ($15 adults, $12 children/seniors 65+).

On September 18 the museum also opens its new “Celebration of Science Fiction” display of Star Trek memorabilia from UC Riverside’s Eaton Collection.

[Thanks to Diana Glyer for the story.]

John Hertz: Fanzines at the Eaton Collection

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Flyer for John Hertz talk at Eaton Collection 

By John Hertz: Last month I gave a talk at the Eaton Collection on fanzines. Eaton is one of the Special Collections in the Rivera Library, Riverside campus, University of California; the largest publicly accessible holding of s-f in the world.

At the 2004 Worldcon, Fan Guest of Honor Jack Speer in presenting a Hugo Award said the fanzine remained the most distinctive product of the science fiction community. He knew; he’d been with us seventy years. It still is.

When Bruce Pelz died in 2002, Eaton already had Terry Carr’s and Rick Sneary’s fanzines. The Carr zines, thanks particularly to Robert Lichtman, were fairly well indexed. The Sneary zines were indexed. The Pelz zines had been beyond Bruce’s powers during his life. Early in 2009 Eaton finished a preliminary indexing. I had put in time – it’s only two hours’ travel by freeway or rail – bearing a hand.

To the uncivilized mind there are no interests but personal interests. If it doesn’t gore my ox I don’t care. If the book isn’t about me I won’t buy. The civilized mind is broader. My question for the day was, what good are fanzines to people who are not part of the s-f community, who may not read science fiction? Dr. Melissa Conway, head of Special Collections, had long been alert to it. What if drinking companions of King James’ translators had published amateur journals about the work, and the apple crop, and the latest songs? Kipling’s imagined glimpse in “Proofs of Holy Writ” is delightful, but its focus is close on the topic – as many people mistakenly think of fanzines. And, besides the resonating note of s-f, fanzines are a voluntary world of letters, where people write, and read, for love.

I had no trouble overflowing a display table with fanzines that come in my mail. Mike Glyer had kindly sent with me a few dozen of the latest File 770, which I gave everybody. In my audience were students, librarians and staff, and people who didn’t speak. Except the library folk, most had evidently never dreamed of such things. Those who knew s-f knew books, films, prozines. Why wasn’t there fiction? Why on paper? – as they wrote in paper notebooks. Why wasn’t there pay? – as they thought ahead to basketball. The usual. I didn’t mind at all. Two plus two made four last year too. We adjourned to fruit and cookies. None of File 770 was left behind.

Eaton had kindly made a flier which spoke of 50,000 Pelz fanzines. Was this a typo? We had long heard of 250,000. Actually there are about 70,000 – someone rounded down – but indeed something happened. Space. Pelz had a lot of fanzines, like many collectors had acquired others’ collections, and had never gone all through to organize the lot. A judicious retention of duplicates, the ideal policy, calls for comprehensive knowledge, beyond the powers of Eaton’s staff – I said Space, but it’s related to Time. Joe Siclari had always told Pelz he’d take anything Eaton didn’t. He and Dr. Conway confirmed this disposition. I asked Siclari “Have you provided for them in your will?” He changed the subject.

Future of Fanzines Past

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This article of mine was originally posted on Trufen.net in October 2004.

From-purple-fingers-to-pixel-flingers: When you go, your fanzines stay here – a rule made to avoid cluttering up all Eternity like one big Slanshack. So what will you do to make sure they have a nice warm home?

One solution is to donate them. Pick out a library that is building a fanzine collection. Three ambitious libraries have websites that let you step in and take a virtual tour of their fanzine holdings – UC Riverside’s Eaton Collection, Temple University and the National Library of Australia.

Eaton Collection: The niftiest and most fannish website shows off the Eaton Collection at the University of California, Riverside. Curator George D. Slusser, Ph.D. has put a lot of ingenuity into this display. On the front page, the animated rocket of Fanac blazes above a background that resembles a faded old Twiltone fanzine cover, complete with two rusty staples in the margin. Five icons link to the website’s main divisions – watch how they animate when you click on them!

The foundations of the Eaton Collection’s fanzine catalog came from Terry Carr, Rick Sneary, and Bruce Pelz. It is the most extensive fanzine collection available to researchers. When J. Lloyd Eaton donated his 6,000 hardcover sf books to UC Riverside he helped aim them in the right direction. Bruce Pelz gave them 190,000 fanzines. The collection also has Rick Sneary’s personal correspondence, a unique fanhistorical archive.

Slusser’s website shows remarkable sensitivity to fanzine fandom’s subtle nuances. You can’t get more “inside” than to quote Arnie Katz (from The Trufan’s Advisor) in making a point about print-versus-electronic fanzines. Equally delightful is Slusser’s impatience with the claims of teenaged faneditor Harlan Ellison: “[His fanzine’s] cover promises ‘Ponce de Leon’s Pants,’ a fantasy by Mack Reynolds, which is nowhere inside the covers. Why bother to copyright this stuff?”

Of course, Slusser isn’t completely perfect either – for example the Carr Collection page refers to “Bob Bergeron” as the editor of Warhoon and Linda Bushyager’s “Grandfalloon.”

Then there is the unintentional irony. When Slusser says “The Carr fanzines are stored in acid-free containers in acid-free boxes” I’m sure he means they were acid-free before Richard Bergeron’s prose was slipped inside.

Temple University: Another zine collection is on the opposite coast. Temple University (in Philadelphia) accepted donation of the Paskow Science Fiction Collection in 1972. It has grown since then to 30,000 volumes (plus other stuff, like manuscripts, they can only gauge by the cubic foot… sounds like my office!) Their catalog of fanzine holdings is available at the Paskow Collection’s modest website.

Lots of popular fanzines are represented, though like the Platte River the collection is a mile wide but only an inch deep. There’s one issue of Mimosa, two issues of File 770, the first three issues of Trap Door, and so on. There are whole handfuls of a few other zines, for example, seven issues of Dick Geis’ Psychotic. And a like number of issues of Locus — just none dating later than when Charlie Brown lived in Boston!

Surprisingly, some of the most prolific fanzines are missing entirely. There are no issues of Ansible at all. (But how long can the Paskow Collection be kept uncontaminated, when anybody with an internet connection and a printer can own a complete run?)

National Library of Australia: On the far side of the world, the National Library of Australia owns a fanzine collection with a different slant, primarily Australian media fanzines contributed by long-time Star Trek fan, Sue Batho (formerly Smith-Clarke).

Unfortunately, the webpage about her collection is full of grindingly earnest prose, a jarring contrast to Batho’s appreciation for good entertainment. The tendency begins with the site’s description of Batho herself:

“It would not be unfair to say that Susan Smith-Clarke is one of the founding mothers of media SF fandom in Australia. The accompanying history of Star Trek fandom shows that Susan Smith-Clarke has been involved in many ways and through many years with fandom.”

Z-z-z-z-t — Wha’? I’m sorry, I nodded off there. Not that the earnest narrative completely smothers the subject. Batho’s personal sense of humor peeks through whenever zines are called by their titles, though I suspect the writer picked up some of them with a pair of tongs, for example:

“In this collection, are a number of issues of The Captain’s Briefs….”

However, for newcomers to the field the webpage explains basic terms with unexpected fannishness. Its definition of fanzine reads:

“The actual word means a magazine produced by a fan. Fan itself means, of course, a SF fan, just as Fandom, the collective noun, means SF fandom and nothing else. A non-fan is a mundane, which is why the word does not need any qualification.”

Exactly.

Your Fate Is in Your Hands: When you decide to donate your fanzines, there will be two general questions to think about.

The first question is: Do you want to send them to the place having the most success in acquiring and presenting its collection, or do you want to strengthen a collection that looks like it needs a boost?

It’s not a casual decision. In researching this article I was disappointed to find nothing online about the fanzines held by Bowling Green State University’s Department of Popular Culture. They had an accumulation (it wasn’t organized enough to deserve being called a collection) when I attended there in 1975, most of it donated by Vern Coriell (founder of the Burroughs Bibliophiles.)

The second question is: How will you make sure the transfer happens?

You can do it in your lifetime (as Bruce Pelz did) or through a properly drafted will. By all means, avoid Harry Warner’s mistake of leaving them to the local church and hoping things work out!

One last thought — the representative from the Eaton Collection told John Hertz they are perfectly happy to receive duplicates of zines already in the collection, feeling that makes the holdings more accessible to researchers, the same as having more than one copy of a rare book.

Update 03/05/2009: Updated the links to the Eaton and Paskow collections.