1 August 1986 – as advertised (or for those of you not working on the Harvey Calendar, 14 December 1986)
GUFFSTUFF 3 is produced by Eve Harvey, UK administrator for GUFF. For those of you who've never heard of it, the acronym stands for either the Get Up Fan Fund or Go Under Fan Fund, depending on your point of view, which is set up to raise sufficient money to exchange periodically European and Australian fans. Administrators for the Fund, who are only too pleased to receive your donations, are:
Australian – Justin Ackroyd, PO BOX 2708X, Melbourne, Vic 3001
European – Eve Harvey, 43 Harrow Road, Carshalton, Surrey, SM5 3QH, UK
THE STORY SO FAR...
Yes, I know I said the next issue was due out 1 August 1986, but that was before I decided to send most copies out with Wallbanger. Good sense when thinking of GUFF's finances, but very bad sense when thinking of the time it always takes me to actually post out copies of Wallbanger once I've finished it. The upshot being that many people wouldn't have received their copies of GUFFSTUFF until after the deadline.
If this all sounds very familiar, you're dead right. This was the introduction to GUFFSTUFF 2, and since the same applies now why waste a good excuse (made so much easier with the benefit of wordprocessors so I didn't even have to type it again! ). The main problem is that I get Wallbanger all written and printed, but then can't summon up enough enthusiasm to actually collate and post out the copies. So very often there's a gap of several months between receipt by those people here in London that I can hand it to, and those poor souls who have to await the vagaries of my postal schedule. Still, since I've now stopped producing Wallbanger, I'll have to think up some more excuses.
THE RACE IS ON...
Attached is yet another voting form for those of you who haven't voted. The following people can ignore this, make paper planes, or otherwise decide on alternative arrangements to dispose of the unwanted sheet, because you've already voted:
D Franson, D Collins, M Glicksohn, O Whiteoak, D Langford, J Nicholas, J Hanna, P Wells, M Tudor, A Thomson, J Hibbert, D Rowley, D M Sherwood, P & T Nielsen Hayden, J Maule, R Gregg, S Francis, R Jackson, S Wagar, H Langford, R Lavender, R Lichtman, R Salomon, J Steward, J Kaufman, N Shears, R Macinski, N Trant, K Freeman, A Porter, M Feder, G & L Pickersgill, J Dallman.
Come on the rest of you, there's not much time left so get your ballot forms and money to me. Votes will be counted on 31 January 1987. Just one plea, though; I love to receive your money, but if you're paying in foreign currency, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't send a cheque. It will cost me more in bank charges to cash it than the cheque's worth. Cash is another matter, with that I can wait until I've collected enough to make it worthwhile.
SPECIAL THANKS to Patrick & Teresa for distributing GUFF ballot forms with Taffluvia and to everybody else who have been sending them out.
TRIP REPORTS...
Not much news on the trip report front. Second part of my own report appeared in Wallbanger 13 which is available to anyone who requests it. Third part due out after Christmas. In Guffstuff 2 I said of Joseph Nicholas's report that his 'notes still lost and his 'real soon now' appears to be receding even further into the future'. I received a correction from Joseph, who said, "My notes remain as intact as they ever were; what's been lost some years ago, is the lengthy first draft that was written up from then. And since then, of course, I've been back to Australia for another, longer visit, which means that producing a trip report is not simply a matter of recreating what's lost but of synthesising two rather different experiences. This not unnaturally takes time. But I have a word processor now, and that does make actually writing the thing somewhat easier...". So I stand corrected, but I still can't give you any idea of a schedule I'm afraid. As for my own report, I plan (god willing) to have it completed before next August – famous last words!
WHAT AM I BID FOR....
I'm pleased to say that this time I've actually received some bids! Whoopee! As I said last issue, those items for sale go to the highest offer immediately or first-come-first-served in the case of an equal price. Unfortunately, the two offers I did receive came after the items in question had already been disposed of elsewhere. Sorry about that folks and my apologies to Sue Francis who wanted Jack Dann's 'Junction', and Walt Willis who wanted Bob Shaw's 'Ship of Strangers'. Better luck next time.
Unfortunately the last copies of Bob Shaw's Eastercon speeches 1974-78 went to Nick Shears, Walt Willis and Sue Francis, but we've still got a few copies of the 1982-84 edition.
On the auction side, the following bids have been received unopposed and so have won outright:
- McArthur's Universal Corrective Map of the World (the last copy available). Sue Francis, £1
- Vortex issues 1-5, John Dallman, £7.50
Second-round:–
For those items with more than one bid, we now go into a second and final round of bidding.
1) Science Fiction Review Walt Willis bid £20 for all 18 issues (an average of £l.11 per issue. Nick Shears bid £2 per copy for issues 50, 54 and 56. For fairness, the average per item price will be used as the bid for these 3 issues from Walt. His bid for all the other issues will be reduced pro-rata by £3.33 to £16.67 and he has won them outright. For the rest he now has 2 options: a) let Nick take them, or b) enter competitive bids just for these 3 issues.
2) Joseph Nicholas has also entered one bid of £20 for a package of items as follows:
- Ornithopter issues 1, 4, 5, 6
- Boy's Own Fanzine
- Bunchy Watches Fanzines 1
- Fanew Sletter issues 71-90 inclusive, 93, 94, 98, 99
- (i.e. 30 items giving an average price of 67p each)
No competing bids were received for Bunchy Watches Fanzines, Boy's Own Fanzine and Fanew Sletter, so Joseph has won these outright for a price of £16.75. Using his own words, "some scabby anti-socialist bounder" has sought to top him since Irwin Hirsh has entered a bid for Ornithopter – A$1 (50p equivalent – but you don't say which issue Irwin?). The procedure now is the same as explained above for Walt and Nick should Irwin wish to enter another bid, otherwise Joseph wins.
3) The last competing bids were from my very own John Harvey, who bid £4 for the Tynecon II package, having seen Irwin's measly offer of A$3 (£1.50 equivalent).
Come on folks, let's have some more bids. The deadline for my receipt of second round bids is 2 January 1987, with results in GUFFSTUFF 4 which will be out on 1 February and contain final voting results. Overleaf is an updated list of items for auction, and some for sale with minimum prices. The procedure will be the same as last time. Auction material will go automatically to uncontested bids, otherwise a second round of bidding will ensue to decide the outcome. Should I receive more than one offer for items that are listed for sale, first choice will go to the person offering the highest price; if there is more than one at the same highest price, first-come-first-served will reign.
For Auction
Wonderfully, triffic, authentic material (doesn't anybody want to help me clear some space?). Look, I'm typing this whilst hearing on the news that an old Rembrandt has just been sold at Sotheby's for £7.25m, and there's this poncy British guy telling me that "there's lots of money sloshing around the economy at the moment." Let's see some of it, eh?
Humour from Down Under
- The Mini Footrot Flats (handy pocket-sized cartoon book by Murray Bell)
- The Vedgymight History of Australia (C. Below – the only 'true' history)
Convention Memorabilia (available as whole packages for each convention only)
- Novacon 11 – Programme Book, Courageous New Planet (short story by Bob Shaw)
- Seacon '79 – Programme Book, ALL PRs, Programme, Issue 5 of daily News Sheet
- – A few Programme Books on their own
- Seacon '84 – Programme Book, Programme, PR4
A Few of Those Elusive Fanzines
– Australian
- LEIGH EDMONDS: Ornithopter issues 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
- Rataplan issues 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
- Bugs 2
- IRWIN HIRSH: Sikander 1-4 inclusive (October 79 – March 81)
– British
- KEV SMITH: Dot 7 (August 1979)
- Ellipsis (June 1982)
- SIMONE WALSH: Seamonsters 4 (August 1979)
- PAM WELLS: Nutz 1 & 2 (both 1983)
- STEVE HIGGINS: Stomach Pump 1 & 2
- DAVE WOOD: Xyster 3 (January 1984)
- JIM BARKER: Helpmaboab 3
Yet More Fannish Greats
- BY BRITISH: Special edition of British fanwriting of the 1970s produced by Ian Maule and Joseph Nicholas in 1979 – taken with Mood 70 an overview of what Britain produced in the 70s; a time often viewed as one of the 'Golden Ages' of British fan writing.
TRIFFIC SCI-FI STUFF
– General
- Deep Space (Eric Frank Russell – 1954 Fantasy Press)
- News From The Sun (J.G.Ballard – Interzone limited edition)
– Magazines & Related Items
- SF Digest 1 (NEL's dying gasp of their 70s SF Monthly – 1976)
- Fantasy & Science Fiction – December 1979
- The Best from Fantasy & SF – 12th Series (Avram Davidson)
- The 3rd Galaxy Reader – H L Gold (ed)
- Omni Book of the Future – Parts 1 – 5 (i.e. a complete run) The weekly library of scientific fact and speculation – the world's most incomplete part-work!
– Paperbacks (minimum of 50p bid per paperback)
- Piers Anthony – Night Mare (Orbit)
- Greg Benford – Across the Sea of Suns
- James Blish – A Clash of Cymbals
- Earthman Come Home
- A Life for the Stars
- Marion Zimmer Bradley – Darkover Landfall
- S R Delany (Sam to his friends!) – Out of the Dead City
- The Towers of Toron
- City of a Thousand Suns
- Amabel Williams-Ellis & Michael Pearson (ed) – Tales from the Galaxies
- Harlan Ellison – From the Land of Fear
- Charles Harness – The Venetian Court
- Fritz Leiber – Gather, Darkness
- Stanislaw Lem – Solaris
- Julian May – The Adversary
- J R R Somebodyorother – The Hobbit (no, seriously folks, it's the real thing)
- J E A Tyler – The Tolkien Companion
- John Wyndham – The Chrysalids
- Roger Zelazny – The Dream Master
– Hardbacks (come on now, how many of us can actually afford hardbacks at their official prices?). All these are as new.
- Dave Langford – War in 2080 (the very rare unsigned edition) Not only do you get this fantastic book, but also, completely free of charge, the special erratum list with such great corrections as "page 50, 3rd line from bottom, insert after '... blast damage.': in the words of its opponents, "This fiendish weapon kills people and spares property!". Originally this was sold separately at 10p + 10p postage with profits going to TAFF. We at GUFF headquarters, however, are less mercenary and will give it away FREE OF CHARGE! Not bad, eh?
- L Ron Hubbard – Mission Earth Volume 2 – Black Genesis – Fortress of Evil A yet rarer, signed edition. For those completists amongst you, the signature on this reads RIP – ME, L RON HUBBARD. For authentication purposes, we can vouch that this was signed at Novacon 16 held in Coventry 1986 and any rumours that this has anything to do with a rather drunken SF Editor at Gollancz are merely scurrilous.
- George Turner – In The Heart or In The Head (1985 Hugo Nominee)
For Sale
– Lots of BoSh
- Serious Science: Bob Shaw's Eastercon talks 1982-1984 Shaw Fund edition A few more of these available..............£1.50
- Live! Bob Shaw's original rendition of: Up the Conjunction (Skycon 1978), Eau de Clone (Seacon 1979). Available now on C90 tape from GUFFtel....£6.50(min )
Thanks go this time round to Ian and Janice Maule for their kind donation of a box of books and the "By British" fanthologies, and to Dave Langford for War in 2080 and a rather curious item of brewery advertising material for Swan lager!
That's all for now folks – next issue out February 1 1987 which will proudly announce the 1987 GUFF winner who will come over for Conspiracy in August. Before then, though, don't forget to assist my postman's fitness campaign by swamping me with bids to be received in my sweaty little paw by 2 January 1987, or just vote, there's still time.