J.G. “Huck” Huckenpöhler (1941-2022)

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Mike Glyer

Huck and Victoria Huckenpöhler at an Edgar Rice Burroughs event. Fan Cole Richardson is in the background to the left.

By Martin Morse Wooster: J.G. “Huck” Huckenpöhler, a long-time fan and official in the Burroughs Bibliophiles, died on August 26 in Washington, D.C. He was 81.

Huck worked for the National Science Foundation as a science resources analyst between 1964-1996, compiling reports about the numbers of people getting different kinds of scientific degrees. He later monitored three long-term contracts the NSF had with three universities.

He was one of the most serene fans I have known. I never heard him complain about anything, not even routine aches and pains. His happiness derived from his strong and enduring 57-year marriage to his wife, Victoria, and from his love of fiction, particularly the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Huck had many hobbies. He loved German culture, including the novels of Karl May and German beer. He had a deep appreciation of German operettas and knew all the composers most people know and many that were obscure.

He loved military history and earned a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University on an 1866 battle between Prussia and Austria where the winning Prussian general was an observer at the battle of Gettysburg and adapted strategies from victorious Union generals. In 1991 the Washington Post interviewed him about the Gulf War, which he said “has gone so much better” than U.S. efforts in World War II and Korea.

Huck also had a substantial Spanish-language stamp collection and acquired a love of Latino culture from time spent in Puerto Rico when he was young. Huck started attending Worldcons at NyCon III in 1967 and was an expert calligrapher who for many years inscribed the award certificates handed out in the Worldcon masquerade.

But his greatest love was for the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. A biography in the 2018 Escape Velocity program book says he first discovered Burroughs from the Tarzan comic strips of Burne Hogarth. But this piece Huck did for ERBZine says he began to collect Burroughs in 1959 and in the 1960s would browse Washngton D.C.’s once-abundant used bookstores looking for books for his collection.

Huck liked other authors, including Otis Adalbert Kline, the adventure fiction of Lin Carter and the books Kenneth Bulmer wrote as “Alan Burt Akers” featuring Dray Prescot. But Edgar Rice Burroughs was his primary interest.

Huck was the recording secretary of the Burroughs Bibliophiles for 31 years, and was an active member of the Panthans, the Burroughs Bibliophiles’s Washington chapter. At Capclaves and Balticons, Huck would usually staff the tables the Bibliophiles had and was always happy to talk about Burroughs with anyone.

He frequently attended national Burroughs conventions. In 2011 the convention, although sponsored by the Washington-based Panthans was held in Pocatello, Idaho where Burroughs once worked there in a general store. Idaho State Journal reporter J.G. O’Connell interviewed Huck, who argued that Burroughs was “the grandfather of science fiction” who “wrote about organ transplants before they’d ever been performed, aircraft with autopilot before there were airplanes and tissue cultures before they were commonplace in laboratories.”

In 2012 the Postal Service issued a stamp honoring Edgar Rice Burroughs on the centennial of the publication of Tarzan of the Apes. The first day of issue ceremony was in Tarzana, California, and the Los Angeles Daily News interviewed Huck, who had 29 cachet envelopes ready to be stamped. Huck told the Daily News he was “glad to see” Burroughs “get the recognition he deserved.”

I’ll miss Huck, whose love of Edgar Rice Burroughs brought him a lifetime of happiness.

The Fan Who Had a Disease Named After Him

Posted on August 30, 2022 by Mike Glyer

By Rich Lynch: Once in a while, just for the fun of it, I do Internet research to find out what happened to science fiction fans who were active in past decades. And with Chicon 8 now looming on the temporal horizon it seems appropriate to tell you about someone whose relatively brief stay in fandom began in the same year as the second Chicon.

His name is Joel Nydahl, and back about the time of that Chicon he was a 14-year-old neofan who lived with his parents on a farm near Marquette, Michigan. He was an avid science fiction reader and at some point in 1952 decided to publish a fanzine. It was a good one.

He named it Vega, after the bright star, and after a modest first few issues it gained enough acclaim where he was able to get contributions from some of the most famous fans of the day: Marion Zimmer Bradley, Dean Grennell, Juanita Wellons, Lynn Hickman, Bill Venable, Jack Harness, Wilkie Conner, Fred Chappell, Shelby Vick, Gregg Calkins, Bob Tucker, Robert Bloch, Bob Silverberg, and Harlan Ellison. By the middle of 1953, Vega had become known as the best monthly fanzine and for a crowning achievement (after huge amounts of effort and no small expense) Nydahl published his 12^th issue as an over-the-top ‘annish’ to mark a full year of its existence. At 100 pages of top-notch material and with a wonderful three-color cover by Margaret Dominick it was something the likes of which had rarely ever been seen in fandom before.

A photograph of young Joel Nydahl charming a “cobra” (a vacuum cleaner tube with a horseshoe crab shell balanced on top) out of a wastepaper basket.

But there had been a cost. Even though it had resulted in “letters of the wildest praise”, as Nydahl described it, there was never another issue after that – he dropped from sight and departed fandom. Nydahl much later wrote that “I remember only that once the Vegannish was in the mail, I had no interest in putting out a thirteenth issue; nor, strangely, did I have an urge to read any more science fiction.” His departure from fandom was so precipitous that the cause became known as ‘Nydahl’s Disease’, which according to Fancyclopedia 3 is “the diagnosis of any fan who gafiates amid or immediately after any big fannish project”.

Nothing further was heard from Nydahl for another 48 years and then, at the 2001 Philadelphia Worldcon, he resurfaced. Several weeks prior to the convention he had been located by an Internet search and had then been contacted via email by both Robert Lichtman and Ted White. This had intrigued him sufficiently to where he decided to attend Philcon because, as he described it, he found he was interested “in meeting old friends and rehashing old times with individuals whom I fondly remembered”. Nydahl was at the convention for only one day, but his presence was almost immediately noticed with amazement by several fanzine publishers and fanhistorians who were there. And after that he was gone again, back to his life in mundania as head of the English Department at Broward College in Florida. But he left us all a parting gift, an article in Lichtman’s fanzine Trap Door (issue 21, March 2002) which described in detail his brief career in fandom and what he had experienced during his one day at Philcon. It’s a good read.

Photo of Joel Nydahl posted with his family obituary.

And now, twenty years later, I found Joel Nydahl’s obituary in a web search – he had passed away on May 15, 2019 “following a brief illness”. Turns out that after departing fandom in 1953 he had turned his attention to academia and other interests. Following graduation from high school he went on to earn a degree in English from the University of Michigan and some years later a doctorate in American Studies. His obit describes him as having had a “sense of adventure and curiosity [which] took him from his hometown of Marquette, MI, to more than 15 countries around the world where he lived and taught English”. The obit concluded by stating that: “Joel had a terrific sense of humor, occasional corny jokes included, was a loving and sensitive husband and will be greatly missed and always loved by his wife and their many friends.”

I’m glad I got to meet him, if only briefly – I was one of those amazed fan publishers and fan historians at Philcon. We talked just for a couple of minutes, as he was heading off to try to find someone he knew during his days in fandom. I remember that Ted White took a photo of the two of us, but alas I can no longer find it. No matter, the memory of the encounter is enough.

I’m writing this because I want you all to remember him too. Vicariously, in this case, as I very much doubt there are many people left in fandom who have ever met him in person. Joel Nydahl was one of the many notable fans of the fabulous 1950s, and fandom was blessed by his presence. He was a bright shining star – just like Vega.

Note: You can read Joel Nydahl’s Trap Door essay at fanac.org: https://www.fanac.org/fanzines/Trap_Door/Trap_Door21.pdf. Issues of Vega are also online at fanac.org: https://fanac.org/fanzines/Vega/

Alexei Panshin (1940-2022)

Posted on August 21, 2022 by Mike Glyer

Alexei Panshin. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter.

Pioneering sf critic and Nebula-winning novelist Alexei Panshin died August 21 at the age of 82. His son Tobiah Panshin made the announcement on Facebook.

Alexei suffered a sudden cardiac arrest on Wednesday. He passed away today, peacefully.
He had many sayings he liked to quote to me, most of which he made up himself. A common one was, “How can we sink, when we can fly?”
If any part of him persists in the infinite reaches of this universe, I suspect that he is flying now.
Condolences or well-wishes to our family may be sent to [email protected]

Panshin was hooked on science fiction at the age of 10, thanks to the Boys’ Life serialization of Robert Heinlein’s Farmer in the Sky. After receiving a typewriter as a high school graduation present in 1958 he began teaching himself how write science fiction stories, and from then on thought of himself as a writer and not just another science fiction reader.

Panshin’s first fiction sale in the late Fifties would actually be a non-sf story to Seventeen magazine, “A Piece of Pie”, written during his time attending the University of Michigan. But in Ann Arbor he also connected with sf author Dean McLaughlin at a college bookstore, and started picking his brains relentlessly for whatever he could tell him about the science fiction writing world. McLaughlin soon introduced him to the leaders of the forthcoming 1959 Worldcon in Detroit. Panshin attended and began to make connections with other pro writers, whose ranks he aspired to join. He even bought an hour of time from the convention’s Guest of Honor Poul Anderson at auction for $25, and talked to him about his ambitions. Later in the fall he met Harlan Ellison at a pro party, whose words were less encouraging. Wrote Panshin: “When Harlan and I were introduced, he fingered my blazer on which I had spent no less than $20, and said: ‘So you want to be a writer. The first check you get, ditch this and buy yourself a continental cut suit.’ He didn’t know me very well. I haven’t owned a suit to this day, continental cut or otherwise.”

Alexei Panshin (L) with Mike McInerney at 1966 Worldcon. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter.

A confirmed fan of Robert A. Heinlein, he wrote him a fan letter in 1948 and was excited to get a postcard in reply.

Later Panshin was inspired to do a deep analysis of Heinlein’s work that would make science fiction history in several ways. Having seen Panshin’s sercon articles in the Hugo-winning fanzine Yandro, Earl Kemp invited him to write a book about Heinlein for Advent:Publishers.

Robert Heinlein didn’t answer the letter Panshin sent him when he was researching the book. Instead, Heinlein wrote to publisher Earl Kemp threatening to sue Advent and Panshin if it came out. Advent immediately withdrew the book from its plans. Panshin turned around and wrote a piece for Yandro entitled “Lese Majesty”—”an offense against the King”—setting forth the situation. As a result, throughout 1966 Heinlein in Dimension would appear in pieces in four different fanzines. (The complete Heinlein in Dimension has been posted by the author at the link.)

The fanzine appearances of Heinlein in Dimension made Panshin eligible for the very first Best Fan Writer Hugo, presented at NYCon 3 in New York in 1967. He won. That year Advent’s publishers also changed their minds and signed him to a contract for Heinlein in Dimension which appeared in 1968.

In 1968 Panshin again got enough votes to be a Best Fan Writer finalist but was granted his request to have his name removed from the ballot. “I thought someone else should win the next one, and hoped to set a precedent by saying that one was enough.” Besides which, in 1968 Harlan Ellison had also withdrawn as a Best Fan Writer nominee because he wanted to be identified solely as a pro.

And in 1968 Panshin had two new novels published, Star Well, first of the Anthony Villiers books, and Rite of Passage, which would win the 1969 Nebula for Best Novel. (Not that it was as easy as it sounds. Rite of Passage was rejected 13 times before Terry Carr accepted it for his new Ace Specials line.)

That year he also was one of the signers of the famous 1968 Galaxy Vietnam War ad – on the antiwar side, of course.

There would eventually be three published books in the Villiers series — Star Well, The Thurb Revolution, and Masque World. A fourth volume entitled The Universal Pantograph, never appeared, reputedly because of conflicts between the writer and his publisher, joining the list of works in a series that fans await for years and speak of longingly, usually to be disappointed. (A rare exception being the Demon Princes series which Jack Vance eventually finished).

A byproduct of the Villiers series was Larry Niven’s admiration for the term “thumbrunner” which Panshin coined for one of the books. Niven wished he had thought of it first, regarding it as far superior to the word he made up for his own stories about “organleggers”.

Panshin and Cory Seidman married in 1969. In the Seventies and Eighties, the Panshins would work together both on fiction – Earth Magic (1978) – and two major sf critical books, SF in Dimension (1976) and The World Beyond The Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence (1989), which received a Hugo Award for Best Related Work. As Alexei said in his autobiography, “It may tell you something about us that our initial wedding present to ourselves was the acquisition of the four-volume boxed set of Joseph Campbell’s The Masks of God.”

Panshin is survived by his wife, Cory, and sons, Adam and Tobiah.

A great many of the author’s personal essays and critical articles are collected at his website The Abyss of Wonder.

Update 08/22/2022: First two paragraphs substantially revised.

Robert Self 1966-2022

Posted on August 9, 2022 by Mike Glyer

By Arnie Fenner: Publisher, entrepreneur, and showman Robert “Bob” Self died as the result of an accident at Mono Lake in California August 3, 2022.

Bob had a background in the entertainment industry and worked behind-the-scenes with a number of magicians, comedians, and illusionists. In 2003 he and his wife Rani—a professional costume designer for various TV series including The Orville—formed Baby Tattoo, Inc., a company that published high-quality books devoted to contemporary artists and also organized intimate live events that connected artists and entertainers with fans and patrons including Baby Tattooville (the first artist-focused convention) and Beyond Brookledge of which the LA Weekly said, “The best way to describe Beyond Brookledge is that it’s as if somebody fit the L.A. Opera and Burning Man into the Magic Castle and then had a three-day slumber party.”

Bob curated a number of exhibitions at the Riverside Art Museum and the Oceanside Museum of Art, including shows devoted to the work of Oliva De Berardinis and Jordu Schell and a major retrospective of Michael Whelan, “Beyond Science Fiction”, and produced books chronicling both. Bob was a founder of the Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! convention and helped make the Spectrum Awards ceremonies lively, unique, and memorable; he and Orbit Books Creative Director Lauren Panepinto co-hosted the gala for Spectrum 26 in Kansas City and Bob had arranged for the ceremony for #27 at the original Magic Castle in Los Angeles.

Bob Self was quite literally bigger than life, a huge personality, both inimitable and ultimately unforgettable; he delighted in all manner of art and artists and he was an enthusiastic cheerleader for the entire creative community. He is survived by his wife Rani and children Margaret and William, and a legion of friends and admirers.

Nichelle Nichols (1932-2022)

Posted on July 31, 2022 by Mike Glyer

Nichelle Nichols aboard the SOFIA flight in 2015.

Actress Nichelle Nichols, who played Star Trek’s iconic Lt. Uhura in the original series and in movies, died of natural causes on July 30 at the age of 89.

She began her career as a singer and stage actor in the 1961 musical Kicks & Co. She also appeared in the role of Carmen for a Chicago stock company production of Carmen Jones and performed in a New York production of Porgy and Bess. On the West Coast, she appeared in The Roar of the Greasepaint and For My People and the James Baldwin play Blues for Mister Charlie. She toured as a singer with the Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton bands. Her first film role was as an uncredited dancer in Otto Preminger’s Porgy and Bess (1959.)

Nichols initially crossed paths with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry when she was cast in a 1964 episode of his earlier TV series The Lieutenant, her first television role. The two had a fleeting romance that turned into a longtime friendship. She was brought in to audition for Star Trek (after the second pilot) – originally reading for Spock, as the Uhura character she would ultimately play had not yet been written.

However, by the end of the first season of filming the original Star Trek series, having been worn down by repeated slights and indignities and having been offered a role in a musical that would be Broadway bound, Nichols gave Gene Roddenberry her resignation. Roddenberry asked her to reconsider over the weekend, during which she met “her biggest fan,” Martin Luther King, at an NAACP fundraiser, who told her in no uncertain terms that she could not quit the show.

“Yes, Ms. Nichols, I am that fan. I am your best fan, your greatest fan, and my family are your greatest fans…. We admire you greatly ….And the manner in which you’ve created this role has dignity….”
I said “Dr. King, thank you so much. I really am going to miss my co-stars.” He said, dead serious, “What are you talking about?” I said, “I’m leaving Star Trek,” He said, “You cannot. You cannot!”
I was taken aback. He said, “Don’t you understand what this man has achieved? For the first time on television we will be seen as we should be seen every day – as intelligent, quality, beautiful people who can sing, dance, but who can also go into space, who can be lawyers, who can be teachers, who can be professors, and yet you don’t see it on television – until now….”
I could say nothing, I just stood there realizing every word that he was saying was the truth. He said, “Gene Roddenberry has opened a door for the world to see us. If you leave, that door can be closed because, you see, your role is not a Black role, and it’s not a female role, he can fill it with anything, including an alien.”
At that moment, the world tilted for me. I knew then that I was something else and that the world was not the same. That’s all I could think of, everything that Dr. King had said: The world sees us for the first time as we should be seen.

What is popularly believed to be TV’s first interracial kiss—between Nichols and William Shatner—also occurred on Star Trek, although earlier examples exist.

She reprised her character in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (promoted to Lt. Cmdr.), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (now a full Commander), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Nichols also voiced Lt. Uhura on Star Trek: The Animated Series. Her other voice work included the animated series Gargoyles and Spider-Man. She also voiced herself on Futurama.

Other film SF roles included Ruana in Tarzan’s Deadly Silence with Ron Ely as Tarzan, High Priestess of Pangea in The Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space, Oman in Surge of Power: The Stuff of Heroes and Mystic Woman in American Nightmares. Nichols played a recurring role on the second season of the NBC TV drama Heroes.

Nichols became the first African American to have her handprints immortalized at the TCL Chinese Theatre. The ceremony also included other members of the original Star Trek cast.

In 1976, along with the other cast members from the original Star Trek series, she attended the christening of the first space shuttle, Enterprise, at the North American Rockwell assembly facility in Palmdale, California.

In response to her criticism of NASA’s lackluster efforts to include women and minorities in the Astronaut Corps, NASA contracted Nichols to undertake major recruitment blitz. The recruitment drive she led in 1977 drew applications from more than 2,600 women and minority astronaut hopefuls. Among those hired from the diverse applicants were two trailblazers: the first American woman astronaut to travel into space, Sally Ride, and the first African-American astronaut to do so, Guion “Guy” Bluford.

Asteroid 68410 Nichols is named in her honor.

Nichols was one of the original Trek cast who got a close personal look at The Final Frontier when she rode with the SOFIA telescope to the edge of space in 2015.

Surprisingly, this flight was made only months after she recovered from a stroke.

In 1994, Nichols published her autobiography Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories. She also authored two sf novels, Saturn’s Child and Saturna’s Quest.

She was one of the women to whom Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1982 novel Friday. Paintings once owned by Robert and Virginia Heinlein and displayed in their home included a portrait of Nichols as Star Trek’s Lt. Uhura, by Kelly Freas.

Nichols married twice, first to dancer Foster Johnson — they were married in 1951 and divorced that same year. Johnson and Nichols had one child together, Kyle Johnson. She married Duke Mondy in 1968. They divorced in 1972. A brother, Thomas Nichols, died in the 1997 mass suicide of the Heaven’s Gate cult at Rancho Santa Fe, near San Diego.

In early 2018, Nichols was diagnosed with dementia, and subsequently announced her retirement from convention appearances, although that did not take effect until later. She participated in the San Diego Comic-Con in July 2018 where she received an Inkpot Award.

She was the subject of a contested conservatorship proceeding between her manager, a friend, and her son. The conservatorship was finally granted to her son Kyle Johnson. Today he wrote on Uhura.com – Official Site of Nichelle Nichols:

Last night, my mother, Nichelle Nichols, succumbed to natural causes and passed away. Her light, however, like the ancient galaxies now being seen for the first time, will remain for us and future generations to enjoy, learn from, and draw inspiration.
Hers was a life well lived and as such a model for us all.
I, and the rest of our family, would appreciate your patience and forbearance as we grieve her loss until we can recover sufficiently to speak further. Her services will be for family members and the closest of her friends and we request that her and our privacy be respected.
Live Long and Prosper.

Eric Flint (1947-2022)

Posted on July 17, 2022 by Mike Glyer

Eric Flint at Book Expo in 2011. Photo by and copyright © Andrew Porter

Prolific and distinguished author and editor Eric Flint died July 17 at the age of 75. David Weber made the announcement on Facebook.

Flint was frequently hospitalized for health problems in recent years. In 2019, he had to leave the NASFiC/Westercon/1632 Minicon where he was one of the guests of honor to be treated for pneumonia (though he did one of his panels by Skype from a hospital bed.) Before that he had cancer surgery in 2016. In 2017 had to forgo his GoHship at Balticon 51 due to a previous case of pneumonia. This May, he told Facebook friends he was in hospital for a staph infection.

Flint’s incredible career in sff was all the more remarkable for having essentially started after he reached age 50.

Flint spent many years as a longshoreman, and then machinist, as well as serving as a labor organizer and member of the Socialist Workers Party, before beginning his writing career.

With his short story “Entropy, and the Strangler” he won the fourth quarter of the 1993 L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest. However, it was another four years before his first novel, Mother of Demons, was published by Baen Books. He only moved into writing full-time in 1999.

Since then he has published over 70 novels, many in collaboration with other authors including David Freer, David Drake, David Weber, Ryk E. Spoor, Mercedes Lackey, and more.

Beginning in 1999, he became the first librarian of the Baen Free Library, working with Jim Baen to determine whether the availability of books free of charge on the Internet encouraged or discouraged the sale of their paper books. In a 2001 article in The Industry Standard — primarily composed of quotes from Harlan Ellison railing against e-piracy — Flint took a very different tack: “’The real enemy of authors – especially midlist writers – is not piracy,’ says Baen’s online librarian Eric Flint. ‘It’s obscurity.’ Two-thirds of the e-mail Flint has received since the Baen Free Library began posting books is from readers who purchased books they initially downloaded from the site.”

Flint also helmed Jim Baen’s Universe, an e-zine published from 2006 until 2010.

The success of Flint’s 1632 series led to creation of The Grantville Gazette, now edited by Walt Boyes, which reached its 100th issue in 2022.

The 1632 series also earned Flint a Special Achievement citation from the Sidewise Awards for Alternate History in 2018 —

for his ongoing encouragement of the genre of alternate history through his support of the community and writers developed around his 1632 series. In 2000, Eric Flint published the novel 1632. Following the publication of the novel, Flint has encouraged an extensive on-line community to expand on his vision and explore the ramifications of alternate history through discussion and publication of fiction and non-fiction that builds off his original work, resulting in dozens of stories and novels and helping to launch the careers of many authors.

And he was a five-time Dragon Award nominee for novels he co-authored in the 1632 series, winning last year for 1637: No Peace Beyond the Line written with Charles Gannon.

Flint’s resume as a labor organizer for the Socialist Workers Party did nothing to keep him from being embraced by the many conservative authors connected with Baen Books. And during the Sad/Rabid Puppies contretemps of the last decade he wrote several maddeningly even-handed essays such as “Do We Really Have to Keep Feeding Stupid and his Cousin Ignoramous?” He also tried to get people to see things as he did on the topic of “The Divergence Between Popularity and Awards in Fantasy and Science Fiction”, an essay which helped trigger the development of the Best Series Hugo proposal in 2016.

Flint donated his archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University in 2008.

Some of Flint’s convention guest of honor appearances not already mentioned were at the 2010 NASFiC, ReConStruction, and as guest of the 1632 Minicon held in conjunction with the 2020 NASFiC in Columbus, OH.

He is survived by his wife Lucille, their daughter Liz, son-in-law Donald and his grandchildren.

[Thanks to Jeffrey Jones for the story.]

Eric Flint at Book Expo with co-author Charles Gannon. Photo by and copyright © Andrew Porter

Robert Lichtman (1942-2022)

Posted on July 6, 2022 by Mike Glyer

Moshe Feder, Robert Lichtman, and Elaine Stiles at ConFrancisco in 1993. Photo (c) Andrew Porter.

Acclaimed fanzine fan Robert Lichtman died July 6 at the age of 79. He was an 18-time FAAn Award winner — six for his fanzine Trap Door, 10 for his letters of comment, and twice scored “Number one fan face”. Trap Door also was a two-time Hugo finalist. (Issues 21-34 can be downloaded from eFanzines.com.)

Lichtman was born in Cleveland in 1942. His family moved to Southern California in 1951, and he lived there until 1965, except for a six-month period in 1961 spent living in (mostly) Ray Nelson’s attic in the Bay Area.

He discovered fandom in 1958 when he encountered Robert Bloch’s fanzine review column in an issue of William Hamling’s Imagination. That same year he produced his first genzine, PSI-PHI, coedited with Arv Underman.

After discovering fandom, he joined LASFS. He even became one of the international members of the short-lived Young Science Fiction Readers Group (YSFRG) formed in 1960 for the British Science Fiction Association’s under-25 members.

Upon graduation from university, he returned to the Bay Area, settling in San Francisco just in time for the beginnings of what he called “the Hippie Era.”

He reflected on his early life in a File 770 comment last year:

Now and then I wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn’t discovered fandom at 15. My parents wanted me to become a banker, a concept that made me want to throw up. (I came sorta close 1965-68, when I worked for credit rating agency Dun and Bradstreet as a “credit analyst.”) I didn’t meet my previous wife, the mother of my four sons, via fandom (through Stephen Gaskin’s Monday Night Class, instead, when I was being a semi-hippie living near but not in Haight-Ashbury) — but having them in my life, and so supportive, I count as a happy blessing. Before her, there was Margo Newkom, whose name might be familiar to some of you. She was a “Berkeley fringefan,” and also very funny and smart (and beautiful). We never married, but we had some good years together.

In 2000 he married his second wife Carol Carr; she died in 2021.

Robert Lichtman in San Francisco in 1966. Photo (c) Andrew Porter.

In the Seventies Lichtman and his girlfriend (soon to be his wife, and six months pregnant) followed friends to live on The Farm, a 1,700-acre commune in Tennessee. Although he was largely inactive in fandom throughout that decade its myths returned to mind now and then. Lichtman wrote, “Sometimes we would get together and laugh about how we’d more or less ended up in ‘the love camp in the Ozarks’ of which the notorious Claude Degler wrote over half a century ago — though we were on the Highland Rim, not in the Ozarks. Close enough, we thought.”

Lichtman at booth at an American Booksellers Assn convention. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter.

He stayed there until the summer of 1980 when — after the end of his marriage — he moved to Glen Ellen, California and began working with Paul Williams (the one who began Crawdaddy) on his Entwhistle Books publishing venture. Lichtman had experience doing sales and promotion for the Farm’s publishing wing, The Book Publishing Company. Through Williams he started seeing issues of Dan Steffan and Ted White’s fannish fanzine Pong. Lichtman wrote a letter of comment to it, and soon found himself back in fandom.

In 1983 he started publishing Trap Door. Beginning in 1986 he took up the office of Secretary-Treasurer of FAPA, fandom’s oldest amateur press association (founded in 1937). By the end of the decade he was once again such an integral member of fandom that he was voted the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund delegate of 1989 and attended the UK Eastercon. (Some of his extensive notes towards a trip report are here.)

Prior to the advent of the internet he regularly edited collections of hard-to-come by fanwriting and made them available . These included a collection of F. T. Laney’s fan writing titled Ah! Sweet Laney!, a fanthology drawing from Lee Hoffman’s fanzine Quandry titled Some of the Best from Quandry, and a collection of Walt Willis’s “Fanorama” columns (from Nebula, the British SF magazine) titled Fanorama.

He also edited Fanthology 92, Fanthology ’93 and Fanthology 1994, which were published by others.

When the internet finally caught up to him, he produced a PDF edition of Jack Speer’s Up To Now, a history of fandom as of 1939, (available on eFanzines.com).

Lichtman was a pillar of Corflu, the annual fanzine fans convention, where he was often honored. In addition to all the FAAn Awards he won there, in 1992 he was named Past President of Fan Writers of America (fwa), and he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at Corflu in 2020.

Samanda Jeude (1952-2022)

Posted on July 3, 2022 by Mike Glyer

Samanda B Jeude, who helped create the early convention disability access services organization that became Electrical Eggs, died July 3 at the age of 69.

Jeude was predeceased by Donald (Dea) Cook, her husband of more than 30 years, in 2018.

Jeude’s account of her life and fanac was featured by Camille Bacon-Smith in Science Fiction Culture, an account that might be too grim for anyone else’s obituary, but it was part of Samanda’s oft-repeated public testimony about her time and work in fandom.

As an infant, Samanda Jeude suffered a severe case of polio that led to years of surgery and “working through the pain” to achieve her goal of independence. Jeude says:

“When I was seven … I overheard my parents talking with the doctor . . . this was in 1959 …and the doctor said, well, let’s be realistic. No man is going to want to marry her, her body is twisted, it’s distorted, it’s ugly. She will never reach thirty, she will probably be on a body board by the time she would be in high school.”

Things began looking up in college. She was reading science fiction-by the bale, she says-and fandom found her.

“[S]omebody said, why don’t you come to a con with us. OK, fine, I’ll go to a con with you. What’s to lose? This was back in the good old days when you could get in for five bucks…. I think there were fifteen of us in the room. We walked into what was Rivercon I [1975].”

…Jeude continued to attend conventions and found, to her surprise, that people remembered her, and liked her for who she was rather than feared her disabilities. And through fandom she proved that long-ago doctor wrong on all counts: Jeude married Donald Cook and moved to Atlanta, where the couple worked on the four-year process of bidding for and holding the Atlanta Worldcon of 1986.

But her physical condition had begun to deteriorate. In 1984, at a symposium of doctors treating polio survivors, she discovered that her condition was not unique, and even had a name: post-polio syndrome. Still, Jeude refused to let her disability stop her:

“I got thrown into a [motorized) three-wheeler. And three weeks later we went to Rivercon… and everybody who saw me said, ‘Oh, we are glad to see you, you look great.’ A couple of total strangers came up to me and said, ‘Gee, you are as gorgeous as everybody told me.’ Total bullshit. And it suddenly began to sink in on me that this was a good thing. I wouldn’t be able to walk at conventions anymore, but l could go to them again…

“And about that time l met Esther Breslau. And Esther is also a polio survivor, but at this point she doesn’t have the syndrome. And we both were really ticked off that Baltimore [Constellation, the 1983 Worldcon] was trying their best and it was impossible to get around. So we started thinking about it [services for the handicapped at conventions] in ’84…. In ’85 …we did up some guidelines and Esther tried out the guidelines at Chilicon, which was the NASFIC. [LoneStarCon ]… We tested it at Confederation [Worldcon 1986]… and they gave us money to start up Electrical Eggs. And the name came because I was trying to tell somebody about my new electric legs, and I had the hiccups. Don said, ‘Great.’ Eggs are one of the strongest structures in nature, and yet it is very fragile. Perfect name for the organization.”

Jeude’s article “They Only Handicap The Best Horses” for the 1986 Worldcon program book (page 79) sought to make disabled fans visible and gave extensive recommendations for interacting with them at the con. Ahead of the convention they distributed a “Handicapped Access Form” in a progress report, canvassing members about any support they might need. (Bear in mind this is pioneering work using terminology of 40 years ago.)

The charter for Electrical Eggs so named was drawn up in 1986. The original user’s handbook written in 1985 was revised and improved in 1989. An Electrical Eggs UK group was established in 1995 and launched at Intersection, the Worldcon in Glasgow. Special art and logos were designed for Electrical Eggs by Jack Meacham and Frank Kelly Freas.

Camille Bacon-Smith ends her passage about Electrical Eggs with this valedictory:

As Jeude explained:

“A long time ago, when I was writing, I told Gordy Dickson I wanted to pay him back for all the enjoyment I’d had from his books, and Gordy’s response was, ‘Never pay back in fandom, pay forward. Don’t thank me, thank the people who are going to come into your life you’re going to like …’ So I figured, Egg was my way of paying forward.”

In the process of paying forward, a woman whose Life doctors wrote off when she was seven has achieved status and prestige in her science fiction community. In doing so, she has made life better for that community.

Samanda Jeude at DeepSouthCon 50

Apart from the disgraceful way some sought to belittle Jeude during her unsuccessful TAFF candidacy in 1995, she was revered by most other fans. She was guest of honor at Rivercon XVIII (1988), Chattacon XVII (1992), and Balticon 31 (1997). She won Southern fandom’s Rebel Award in 1991 and was presented the Georgia Fandom Award at Dragon Con in 1994. She received the Big Heart Award, our highest service award, at the 1992 Worldcon.

Greg Jein (1945-2022)

Posted on June 28, 2022 by Mike Glyer

[[Greg Jein, one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed creators of miniatures used in filming, died May 22 at the age of 76. Jein was twice nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar for his work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1941. He also was an Emmy nominee for his visual effects work on Angels in America. He worked on a multitude of genre films and tv shows, and for the Star Trek franchise he built a Klingon starship, a Ferengi spaceship, plus studio models, props, and landscape miniatures. He generously participated in local LA Worldcons, Westercons, and Loscons. Craig Miller knew him for many years and has given permission to reprint this tribute from Facebook.]]

By Craig Miller: Back in the early 1970s, almost certainly in the home of John and Bjo Trimble, I met a guy, Gregory Jein, with a big interest in movies and special effects miniatures. He was friendly and funny and somehow simultaneously grumpy. And, as I and everyone else discovered, he was really, really, really good at building miniatures.

Greg and I became friends. And stayed friends. Yesterday afternoon, I heard that Greg had passed away. Greg had been sick with a variety of ailments for the several ears but I hadn’t realized he was that close to the edge. Though, we hadn’t seen each other since the start of the pandemic. I’d called him a couple times earlier this year but we never connected. Now I’m really sorry I didn’t try harder.

Miniatures aren’t as big a part of movie making as they used to be. CGI has taken over a lot of what used to be done with miniatures, not always for the better. But especially during the science fiction boom of the 1960s (with Star Trek) through the 2000s, they were everything.

Greg and I used to get together for lunch all the time. I’d come over to where he (and, on some pictures, his crew) were building the Mothership for Close Encounters or spaceships for Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan or a scale model of Hollywood for 1941 and Greg would show me what they were working on before we headed out to eat.

And he’d tell irreverent stories. How, on 1941, they’d built a full Hollywood street in something like 1/8th scale (so still huge) and how Steven Spielberg, the film’s director, suddenly wanted to be able to see “movement” in some of the windows. To make it seem more real. But he wanted it for that afternoon. Greg told him he didn’t think it would be possible but Steven asked him to try. They were using the then-new and then-really-expensive-to-rent Louma Crane to shoot and didn’t want to keep it longer than necessary. So Greg got a dozen or so of those toys where you pull down on a central string and the arms and legs wiggle up and down and hung them in some of the windows. Steven came back from lunch and laughed. He got more time.

Another 1941 story. The film went way over time and way over budget. The script kept getting rewritten. Greg showed me the latest version one day when we were having lunch. It said “Revised 12th Draft”. Greg, ever irreverent, printed up a bunch of tee-shirts for his crew and friends. He gave me one.

Greg was responsible for a number of “jokes” (or, these days, Easter Eggs) in films. Most famously, you can clearly see the silhouette of R2-D2 hanging upside down from the Mothership when it crests Devil’s Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Other things not visible among the nurneys on Mothership are a VW bus, the shark from Jaws, and a cemetery.

Greg was a terrific guy, quite beloved in Hollywood both for his enormous skills and because he was just a great person to spend time with. Or get Christmas Cards from. I’m going to miss him.

Frank Olynyk (1942-2022)

Posted on June 13, 2022 by Mike Glyer

By Mike Glyer: Longtime Ohio fan Frank Olynyk died February 24 at the age of 79. Frank, who attended Worldcons for over 50 years, was an inveterate con photographer who contributed scores of pictures to Fanac.org. He also subscribed to File 770 for decades, generously allowed me to publish some of his photos, and sent items for the daily Scroll.

Frank Olynyk was born in Toronto of Canadian parents, but raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He stayed in the city to get his college education at Case Institute of Technology (renamed after a merger Case Western Reserve University). He took a Masters in Computer Engineering, writing a thesis entitled “The Intertranslation of Algol and Fortran”, and received his PhD in Computer Science at Case Western Reserve University in 1969.

How early did Frank find fandom? Early enough to have his birthdate listed in the 1976 edition of Bruce Pelz’ Fan Birthday Calendar. Early enough to be listed as a member in the 1969 St. LouisCon Worldcon Program Book — the earliest one of many in which his name appears (or probably could appear since before then Program Books were rare and usually did not run membership lists.)

The family obituary says after completing his education he obtained his U.S. citizenship, then went to work at Chi Corporation, which Case Western had created to handle their computer needs. There he was a computer systems programmer, technical developer, and senior manager for almost 30 years. One of his first responsibilities was creating the Fortran compiler, which translated software code into usable machine code. As one person remembers, Frank was “Truly an inventive genius, he was a very bright individual and major contributor to Chi’s success.”

As a fan, Frank attended many conventions that he documented as a photographer. Notably, along the way, he also spent two years collecting the signatures of all 31 women dedicatees of Robert A. Heinlein’s Friday and presented the signed copy of the book to Heinlein for his birthday in 1986.

A copy of the signatures of *Friday* dedicatees Olynyk collected as a gift for Robert A. Heinlein. (From the research of Farah Mendlesohn.)

Active as he was in fandom, that interest was dwarfed by his work researching original military records and publishing books on the topic of fighter pilots of the world, their aircraft and squadrons. His goal was to establish all who were “Aces”, pilots credited with destroying five or more enemy aircraft in air-to-air combat.

American Fighter Aces Association officers state that “Frank Olynyk was the world’s most knowledgeable historian regarding the fighter aces of the world; his volumes of U.S., and some British, aerial victory credits far exceed anything produced by officialdom; he will be irreplaceable.”

Frank Olynyk’s 700-page book Stars and Bars: A Tribute to the American Fighter Ace, 1920-1973 was published in 1995, a concise list of the 1,301 U.S. Aces credited with five victories, along with photos and bios. It soon sold out, and was never reprinted, although Frank kept constantly researching and updating his databases.

After Stars and Bars, Frank began a years-long collaboration with prolific air-wars author Chris Shores of Great Britain. An ambitious series of six volumes entitled A History of the Mediterranean Air War, 1940-1945 was published starting in 2008, involving several co-authors, and the final volume will be published in 2023.

Additionally, Frank took it upon himself to organize an Aces page linked to Find-a-Grave.

Olynyk was of Ukranian descent. Mindful of the date he died – February 24 — the family obituary comments that “it is ironic that this was the evening of the apocalyptic invasion of the Ukraine by Russian forces.”

[Thanks to Rick Kovalcik for the story.]

Update 06/15/2022: Added photos of Frank Olynyk taken by Andrew Porter at DisCon III in December 2021.

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