THE
VARGO STATTEN
MAGAZINE:
‘NEW WORLDS TO CONQUER’
The ‘Vargo Statten Science Fiction Magazine’
lasted for nineteen issues from January 1954 to February 1956,
it was an odd eccentric publication filled with dubious pseudonyms
and dodgy plotlines… but it included first stories by a young
Barrington J Bayley, and fiction by EC Tubb.
Andrew Darlington remembers it issue-by-issue
‘Imagination sucks’ says Beavis to Butthead. ‘It hurts when I use my imagination.’
The first three issues of ‘Vargo Statten Science Fiction Magazine’ were large-format so they reach out across the newsagent’s display to grab your attention. The vivid Ron Turner launch-issue cover is artfully quartered, bottom right a streamlined green spaceship rockets past a formation of three dark worlds, bottom left a spacesuited figure fires his blaster at two giant menacing killer-bots, top left – violet wash, a tentacled plant-monster coils towards another defiant spacer, while the most commanding top-right image is a dramatic hero, squinting down the sights of his hydro-blaster which noses out across the page, disrupting the other images, he’s protecting the swooning blonde slave-girl, manacles still encircling her soft white-skinned throat. He wears a yellow-spacesuit, she wears… very little. Cold stars glint behind them. Together, the images form a collage of all the elements that conspire to adolescent pulse-pounding fantasy. Two-fisted tales of cosmic adventuring, daring deeds on hostile worlds pitted against monstrous adversaries. ‘Aided and abetted by a girl too beautiful to be true.’
Elsewhere ‘Authentic SF Monthly’ is already up to no.41. ‘Nebula’ – which takes out a full-page ad in that launch issue, had published its sixth issue. While ‘New Worlds’ was between issues, the most recent being no.21. Fan activist Captain KF Slater gives the new magazine venture a wary welcome, admitting ‘it would be hypocritical of me to say that the name ‘Vargo Statten’ fills me with unalloyed joy.’ While ‘Nebula’ ‘bids this new magazine welcome and hopes that it will become a powerful force in introducing many new readers to British science-fiction’, with the qualifying proviso that it ‘is devoted to rather less advanced types of stories than ‘Nebula’, being designed to appeal to younger readers of the field’ (‘Nebula’ no.7, February 1954). Yet, boasting ‘All New Stories: No Reprints’, and ‘An All-British Production’, the next editorial claims that first issue of ‘Vargo Statten Science Fiction Magazine’ quickly ‘sold-out’. It would go on to last for eighteen more issues published on the third week of each month until February 1956 when – supposedly, it was a printing strike that brought an end to the magazine’s life. An odd eccentric publication filled with dubious pseudonyms and dodgy plotlines. But if it’s not always fondly remembered, it nevertheless found space to include first stories by a young Barrington J Bayley, and startling fiction by EC Tubb.
In “Beyond Zero”, after the Atomic War, demobbed Nick Farrish falls in with scientific engineer Clayton Brook who tricks him into an Absolute Zero chamber he’s assembled. Yet, instead of dying, Nick finds himself frozen within a sub-plane that ‘vibrates to a different resonance,’ and in which time runs at an accelerated pace. With the connivance of the sub-world’s master-scientist he eventually re-emerges in a far future Earth which is in the process of being abandoned, to confront Clayton, who has discovered immortality and become the despised Eternal despot. The characters are scientific ciphers, the dialogue consists entirely of pseudo-scientific techno-babble. The story defies all the normal rules of literary criticism.
Of the short stories, “The Pendulum Of Power” by Armstrong Alexander is announced as part of the editor’s policy of printing first efforts by hitherto unpublished authors. The Venutian Great Power has invaded Earth, but developed an unhealthy taste for whisky, cream buns and beefsteaks. Anticipating stolen treasure they find only a crucifix and a Bible. In “Breathing Space” by D Richard Hughes, a renegade starship intent on decimating Earth mistakes a helium-filled dirigible for an anti-grav weapon, so calls off their nefarious plans. Both stories would have been summarily rejected by the ‘Eagle Annual’ as too silly by far.
There are three more fiction pieces. In Simpson Stokes’ “The Super Disintegrator” a newsman reports on experiments into IT – not information technology but instantaneous transmission, which again inevitably malfunctions leaving inventor ‘Julius Frant’s molecular being spread out to infinity.’ And John Wernheim’s “The Copper Bullet” resurrecting the discredited idea that sub-atomic particles are miniature solar systems and that – threatened by nuclear fission, they retaliate by killing the physicist responsible. At least there’s an attempt at character-humour with the introduction of intolerably smug detective Mortimer Quinn.
Meanwhile ‘Morley Carpenter’ is also a Tubb guise, in which he puts his pilot through a series of simulations in “Test Piece”, only to discover that the pilot himself is a test-android destined for the war against insectoid Martians. And then he’s Anthony Armstrong (in nos.4 and 6) and George Holt too (in nos.6, 8 and 11 and more). Although starting out as a prolific writer of pulps, Tubb was already showing evidence of abilities lifting him above his contemporaries. “Skin Deep” (in no.8) is agitational fiction that would slot easily into the finest magazines of the time. When Jud Glendis becomes the first human to orbit the moon, space radiation alters his skin pigmentation. To further ram home this racial metaphor Tubb then thrusts Jud into a hazardous journey home to the segregated American Deep South within the threatening shadow of lynching, only to be rejected on colour-grounds by his intended bride. The language is extreme, intentionally so, for the message is stark, remarkably and commendably so for the pre-civil rights 1950s. A similarly satiric slant is present in “The Answer”, in the magazine’s final issue, where two time travellers from the far future attempt to make sense of that 1950s present. As a meat-eating cigarette-smoker himself, Tubb has fun jibing at the absurdity of both, as well as tea, traffic pollution, war and cricket. Until the final reveal shows Clarice and John to be a post-human evolution, from a time when those same illogics have brought about violent human extinction.
Then, very much in the Tubb style, Alfred Hind contributes “Hollister And Me” to no.3, introducing two likeable rogue ‘ragtimers’ smuggling Jovian silica moss aboard a Lunar-Earth flight, with disastrous results, as it begins to devour the tube lining and hull insulation. It’s rollickingly enjoyable, clear through to the turn-around poignant self-sacrifice resolution. Could this be an undiscovered Tubb alias? Apparently not. Also known as Thomas Rochdale, Hinds had made sales to the scurrilous ‘John Spencer’ titles and one to ‘Authentic SF’.
While in his ‘Vargo Statten’ contribution, nuclear war disrupts the world’s protective ionic shell allowing cosmic rays to induce evolutionary mutations in animals, insects, and even metals. Despite his genius, Carson Rhodes, world-leader of the beautiful new post-war civilisation, is overwhelmed by cataclysmic events. The population shelter underground as weather-control machines collapse, leading to the dénouement that this is not the future but the distant past, something already clumsily signalled by the story-title – “Before Atlantis”. Elsewhere within his cast of grotesquerie there’s “The Master Mind”, a Man Who Fooled The World, as the result of a Fantasy Club wager. And the mysterious arrival of Onia, a blue-skinned girl from a molecularly interlocked parallel world, this plotline from “The Others” comes with a Positivist camouflage provided by Max Planck and a character named Eric Temple (a reference to John Taine’s writer alias).
Nottingham-born John S Glasby was another hugely prolific writer, known largely through pseudonym. Although he lurks behind the ‘JJ Hansby’ alias in no.3, readers may have been unaware that they’d already been reading him elsewhere in a number of even scuzzier magazine titles, as AJ Merak, Victor La Salle, Ray Cosmic, Max Chartair, Randall Conway and others. Set in a world of harsh post-atomic desolation “Ugly Duckling” is one of his stronger pieces, in which the despised and abused mutant Alvan Gregson awaits the first Martian ship to land… and recognises his misshapen identity in their alien forms. Glasby returns in no.9 with “A World Named Creation” in which two spacers are forced to crashland on an unknown world which seems to be fractured into contrasting time-zones. This intriguing concept, worthy of various New Wave interpretations, is only betrayed by the religious overtones of its dénouement.
When all else is lost, there is Barrington J Bayley, who would become a more proficient writer than anyone else in this magazine’s sorry history. By the time of Michael Moorcock’s ‘New Worlds’ he would be contributing audacious tales of stunning originality. Born 9 April 1937 his first publication coincided with his seventeenth birthday. With precocious ambition that could be explained by reading Olaf Stapledon, “Combat’s End” in no.4 anticipates his broadscope aspirations with war between sentient galaxies, and an unfortunate spaceship caught up in the death throes of our own. Following a second tale –“Cold Death” in ‘Operation Fantast’ (no.17 March 1955), he returned to ‘VSSFM’ for “Last Post” in no.12 (April 1955). Yet it’s tempting to conjecture that an impressionable teenage Bayley was reading these issues, and stashing away ideas he’d later expand into realms of wonder. His “The Seed Of Evil” – in ‘New Writings In SF no.23’ (November 1973), has two adversaries pursuing each other through time beyond, not entirely dissimilar to Vargo Statten’s sad “Beyond Zero”. While Tubb’s use of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to govern the uneven distribution of probability seems to prefigure Bayley’s novel ‘The Grand Wheel’ (1977). The connection is tenuous, but not entirely impossible.
A more direct link takes the character from Bayley’s three-and-a-half-page short-short “Fugitive” (in Vol.2 no.2) intact all the way into his novel ‘Soul Of The Robot’ (Doubleday, 1974). ‘Jasperodus was on the run – but then, Jasperodus was a robot. He could withstand the horror which obliterated living tissue.’ That fumbled adolescent idea must have germinated across the years from the ‘British Space Fiction Magazine’ into those far more sophisticated realms to come. What began here, would grow int a novel of astounding imagination.
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All the miles and the years, the starshine and the moonfire:
the deep blacknesses filled with the red and yellow and white,
the ruby and gold and diamond; everything speeding past
against the majestic silence of the galactic starblaze’
(“A World Named Creation” by J J Hansby, no.9)
The drop to pocketbook digest size was compensated for by black-and-white photographic inserts – ‘our Art Supplement’ leading off with the ‘dramatic story, now re-told for our readers’ of the ‘It Came From Outer Space’ movie. In what is obviously an early example of targeted media cross-promotion the highly compressed plotline of the classic Sci-Fi movie, is followed in no.5 by stills from ‘Creature From The Black Lagoon’ and the plot of ‘Them’ retold in story-form, with the ludicrous proviso that Warner Bros Studio ‘has asked that we do not divulge the actual nature and description of the monster insects.’ Retaining the onscreen shock-value as a teaser to induce readers into the actual cinema.
Reading through the issues now it’s sometimes necessary to remind yourself that story-setting dates such as 1967, 1970 and 1990 still lie in the future. There’s been no Yuri Gagarin first-man-in-space moment, the Moon-landing is still a wild future away. Although Dr John Porter of the Royal Greenwich Observatory contentiously concedes that ‘there is no reason why men should not go to the moon.’ Instead, on the Science News pages, Dr H Percy Wilkins has observed what appears to be a twenty-mile natural bridge on the Moon. And Radioactive rain falls in the Birmingham area five weeks after US Pacific hydrogen-bomb tests. While Pluto is still considered a planet, newly discovered as recently as February 1930 – just twenty-four years previous. And Mercury is still thought to be gravitationally-locked, one hemisphere eternally facing the sun, the other eternally cold with ‘spacial frost’. There is lichen on Mars, and the classical clarity of the steady-state theory prevails over the tasteless convulsions of the Big Bang.
Everybody smokes cigarettes. Except scientists and Professors who clamp the stem of a briar pipe between their teeth, in order to denote gravitas. They are financially independent due to a stipend from wealthy family connections, have an extensive library of esoteric volumes and a man-servant as well as a private laboratory in which to conduct outlandish scientific investigations which predictably end in dire and terrifying results. In other tales, spaceship engineers sweat and have oil-stained faces, as though they’re crewing a Pacific tramp-steamer. They smoke cigarettes too, but use Jovian hempweed tobacco.
‘We of the British Science Fiction Magazine are striving to produce science fiction in such a form that the fiction takes precedence over science’ it editorialises. ‘We want to have our offerings readable, and so help, with the many other magazines in this field, to establish science-fiction on the same ‘matter-of-course’ basis enjoyed by the mystery and romantic groups’ (in no.10). Although critical equivalence on par with romantic fiction seems a curious aspiration to set the control for.
John ‘Jonathan’ Burke was another prolific writer whose career has subsequently slipped beneath the astral-radar. Born in Rye in March 1922, and a former public relations executive, he wrote under a range of name-variations. His brief but fast-action “Free Treatment” in no.8 has a Luna-to-Earth beam-me-up matter-transmitter incident, resolved by benevolent extra-dimensional intervention, that inadvertently leads to a three-pronged war between Earth and its colony-worlds Mars and the predatory Venusians. Burke’s stories would continue to appear in a spread of magazines, including ‘Authentic SF’ and ‘Science Fantasy’ as well as producing novels, and the novelisation of the ‘Moon Zero Two’ (1969) movie.
Through to the magazine’s final issue. Spanning three-thousand-million years, smashing planets and wrenching suns from their course, “Second Genesis” is based around the now-discredited theory that planetary systems are formed from solar ejecta gravity-dragged by the close encounter of passing stars. Ixonian computators detect ‘a runaway high-temperatured star’ approaching their system. After thousands of years hibernation in the shattered shard of their world they face the devastating long-term return of this wandering sun, named Genesis, only to discover that new worlds – including Earth, have formed during their eternal sleep. Zios Valno shifts the other half of their world – Pluto, onto a collision course calculated to save them. But all will not go well. As for the magazine itself, there’s no future for the doomed Ixonians.
John Ashcroft, nostalgically writes a Guest Editorial for ‘New Worlds’ (no.131, June 1963), in which he affectionately recalls how Fearn’s ‘writing boosted my imagination into orbit… many wooden characters, often ludicrous ‘science’ and occasional self-contradictions didn’t entirely spoil the appeal of wild concepts described with occasional flickers of power or poetry.’ This younger version of Ashcroft was intoxicated by the ‘huge scope, vivid scenery, unforgettable characters, and a wealth of wonder!’ Some of which glows and sparkles like radioactive decay across each issue of the magazine that – almost, bears his name.
The final issue, taking the title over into February 1956, carries no clue that this is – in fact, the end. Instead, ‘Editorially Yours’ optimistically announces ‘our plans for the New Year are many and varied,’ and that ‘we certainly do not intend to take any retrograde steps.’ While the editor celebrates the magazine’s modest achievement. ‘Many ‘old-timers’ in the field were never shaken in their belief that the Space Age would come – amongst them being Walter Gillings, Leslie Johnson, John Carnell, and many others, with whom your Editor rejoices that so much has come to pass. Let us then look forward to 1956 and hope that even more Gargantuan strides will be taken in the twelve months which lie before us…’
Cosmic steps were indeed there to be taken. Even though this quaint little magazine would not be any part of it. The ‘Vargo Statten’ magazine had definite limitations, and could sometimes be laughably inept. Yet although imagination assumes many guises, it never sucks. It only hurts when you neglect to use that imagination to the full.
‘VARGO STATTEN BRITISH SCIENCE/
SPACE FICTION MAGAZINE:
ISSUE BY ISSUE’
January 1954 – ‘VARGO STATTEN SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE’ (vol.1 no.1), pulp-format (crown 4to) 68-pages. Price 1:6d. Scion Ltd, 6 Avonmore Rd, London W14. Edited by Alistair Blair Johns Paterson as ‘Vargo Statten’. Cover art by Ron Turner. With two short novels by John Russell Fearn ‘Beyond Zero’ (as Vargo Statten) and ‘March Of The Robots’ (as Volsted Gridban), serial ‘The Inevitable Conflict Part 1’ by EC Tubb, plus ‘The Super Disintegrator’ by F Dubrez Fawcett (as by Simpson Stokes), ‘The Copper Bullet’ by John Wernheim, ‘Breathing Space’ by D Richard Hughes (possibly Denis Hughes who wrote under multiple alias including Gill Hunt and Marco Garon), ‘The Pendulum Of Power’ by Alistair Paterson (as Armstrong Alexander). ‘Editorially Yours’, ‘Science Facts And Speculations’ discusses George Adamski book ‘Flying Saucers Have Landed’, ‘Rocket Mail’ letters from KF ‘Ken’ Slater and Terry Jeeves, ‘Fanfare And Suchlike’ by Inquisitor with ‘Who’s Who In Fandom: Kenneth F Slater’, movie review of ‘It Came From outer Space’, MEDCON
February 1954 – ‘VARGO STATTEN SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE’ (vol.1 no.2), with two by John Russell Fearn ‘A Saga Of 2270AD’ (as Volsted Gridban) and ‘Before Atlantis’ (as Vargo Statten), ‘The Inevitable Conflict Part 2’ by EC Tubb, ‘Invisible Impact’ by Arthur Waterhouse, ‘Test Piece’ by Morley Carpenter, ‘The Law Of The Nebulae’ by F Dubrez Fawcett. ‘Editorially Yours’, ‘Science Facts And Speculations’ discusses BBC radio serial ‘Journey Into Space’, ‘Rocket Mail’ letters from Stuart Mackenzie (editor of ‘Space Times’), ‘Fanfare And Suchlike’ by Inquisitor with ‘Who’s Who In Fandom: Eric Bentcliffe’, fanzine reviews ‘Space Times’ with Arthur C Clarke and verse, ‘Fission no.1’ with FG Rayer and Bryan Berry, ‘Space Diversions’ with Bryan Berry and EC Tubb, ‘Zenith’ by Harry Turner and Derek Pickles, and ‘Hyphen’ by Walt Willis. Books, Charles Eric Maine (‘Spaceways’), Judith Merrill (‘Shadow On The Hearth’)
May 1954 – ‘VARGO STATTEN BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE’ (vol.1 no.4), size-reduction to digest (demy 8vo) 128-pages, with three by John Russell Fearn, his ‘Art Supplement’ adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s ‘It Came From Outer Space’, ‘Reverse Action’ (as Vargo Statten, taking canthite to calm disorder on Pluto the ZM:10 exceeds light-speed, setting time in reverse, revealing Slade Jackson as the man who killed pilot Irwin Grant’s wife), and novelette ‘Alice, Where Art Thou?’ (as Volsted Gridban, an engagement ring with a Sunstone turns Alice into the Incredible Shrinking Woman, it’s the fault if robots on another microcosm world), ‘Forbidden Fruit Part 1’ by EC Tubb, ‘Combat’s End’ by Barrington J Bayley, ‘Illusion’ by Antony Armstrong (WIB assassin discovers his target has ESP mutations). With editorial and ‘Proposed Vargo Statten SF Fan League’, plus ‘Science Fact And Forecasts’ and ‘Supermancon’ essay, ‘Astronomical Telescopes’ essay by Lee Taylor, ‘Rocket Mail’, and ‘Fanfare And Suchlike’ reviews ‘Hyphen’ and ‘Haemogobin’, Space Times’, plus two ‘Robot Cartoons’ by Harris
November 1954 – ‘THE BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE’ (vol.1 no.7), 130-pages, first issue edited by John Russell Fearn (as Vargo Statten) and last from Scion’, with ‘Landing on The Moon 1977’ Art Supplement, ‘Dark Universe’ novelette by S Gordon, ‘Saturnian Odyssey’ novelette by Francis Rose, ‘The Conqueror’s Voice Part 1’ by John Russell Fearn (inoffensive henpecked Albert Simpkins constructs a Compulsion Machine, narrowcasting electrically-generated post-hypnotic orders) ‘One Good Turn’ by DA Morgan (arachnophobic Spider Stone crushes two alien bugs before realising they’ve saved his life), ‘The Deadly City’ by Ron T Deacon and Pete Baillie (the red Martians in their secret city are so scientifically advanced their wash-hand basin water is self-lathering and their green-tinted wine ‘tastes not unlike Chartreuse. Lak Nor intends creating android replica to infect and exterminate Earth intruders with Black Rot), plus ‘Science Facts And Forecasts’, Guglielmo Marconi, ‘Fanfare And Suchlike’ by Inquisitor with Walt Willis, Ken Slater, ‘Hyphen 9’, ‘Phantasmagoria’, ‘Orion 5’, review of ‘Project Jupiter’ by Fredric Brown and Frederik Pohl’s ‘Star SF Stories’, Science Cameos 3: James Clerk Maxwell, Rocket Mail, Vargo Statten Fan League
February 1955 – ‘BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE’ (vol.1 no.10) a further drop to pocket-book size, with ‘Galactic Impersonisation’ by Ken Bulmer (as Chesman Scott, almost the novel it’s billed as, like Fredric Brown’s ‘Arena’ a war between Earth and post-nova Alpha Centauri is decided by John Rollins and repellent Redfeather, brought together in Cossimnagore, then returned home by transmatter in the form of Chancellor Gandersteg to work for peace), ‘A Cold In The Head’ by Kenneth Foster (launched in Woomera, first man in space flash-lands at Salisbury, his burns healed by new immersive treatment), serials ‘The Conqueror’s Voice Part 4’ by John Russell Fearn (Simpkins arrested for murder of daughter Vera) and ‘Only Death Brings Peace Part 1’ by Ralph Gaylen (after 1950 movie ‘Rocketship X-M’, here in March 2000AD Rocketship X-2 fails, but Mt Palomar discovery of life on Mars hastens international effort to reach Mars), ‘After Twenty Years’ by Frank Rose (the World War provoked by Maralok of Venus rages while they’re imprisoned on Atlantic Island, emerging to find the ruins inhabited by childlike adults mutated by radiation through the weakened Heaviside Layer), plus Personalities Of Fandom 2: Ethel Lindsay ‘Fanfare’ on ‘Peri’, ‘Hyphen 11’, ‘Dizzy’ and review of JT McIntosh and Robert Heinlein, Science Cameos 6: Marie Curie, The Solar System 1: The Sun by Dan F Seeson, ‘Science Facts And Forecasts’, Rocket Mail, Cartoons, ‘The Aim Of Science Fiction’ policy
April 1955 –‘THE BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE’ (vol.1 no.12) Ron Turner art cover, with ‘The Black Occupier’ novelette by William E Bentley (‘danger was a woman’s shape, a finger on a trigger, a knife in the dark’ for Space chancers Murgo and Julian), ‘Maternal Nightmare’ by Maxwell M Commander (‘delightfully ironic’, radiation causes mutant births on Mars), ‘Last Post’ by Barrington J Bayley (the last survivor on Venus, under sonic attack, with only ‘Brainy’, his electronic companion), ‘A Matter Of Vibration’ novelette by John Russell Fearn (as Vargo Statten, an exploding experiment accidently thrusts Vera Morton into an unknown plane, invisible and with a freezing touch to returns to exact vengeance on the inventor’s son, Will Gregory), ‘Only Death Brings Peace Part 3’ by Ralph Gaylen (the Martians predictably intend to invade Earth, and destroy Phobos in a demonstration of power), ‘Murmuring Dust’ by John Russell Fearn (as Herbert Lloyd, previously published as ‘Microbes From Space’, 1939, cities collapse in dust, due to microscopic metal-eating creatures), plus ‘Editorially Yours’ reviewing ‘The Voices’ (BBC-TV 16 January 1955), ‘Fanfare And Suchlike’ with ‘Femizene 3 and 4’, ‘Bem 4’ (Bulmer, Jeeves), ‘Science Fiction Satellite’, Review of ‘Best From New World’ (Tubb, Alan Barclay, James White, Peter Hawkins, JT McIntosh, A Bertram Chandler) by Harry Cohn, ‘The Solar System 3: Mercury’ – with hot side and dark side, ‘Science Cameos 8: Ernest Rutherford’, ‘Personalities In Fandom 4: Ron Bennett’, cartoons
July 1955 – ‘BRITISH SPACE FICTION MAGAZINE’ (vol.2 no.2) blue cover, with ‘And Worlds Live Too’ interplanetary novel by Harry Cohn (a sentient Mars welcomes human colonists, saves the crashing M3 and resolves a three-way romantic dilemma), ‘Nova’ atomic short by Ron T Deacon and Pete Baillie (facing defeat, and against advice, Gar Resna triggers the oxygen bomb ‘and a new star is born’), ‘Leander’s Oracle’ space novelette by Frank Bassey (in the shifting Hesperian Twilight Belt with turtle-like Porrigi guides the Earth expedition discover the crater-valley of the Jaff, an eternal silicon-based ‘slag-heap’ calculating organism), ‘The Grey Avenger’ novel of Spacial Vengeance by Marvin Kayne (executed by being fired into space, rebel Eward Hilto returns. There’s even a ‘you are my son’ moment), ‘Only Death Brings Peace Part 5’ by Ralph Gaylen (Martians bubble the Sphere’s controls), ‘Here And Now (Part 1 of 5)’ serial by John Russell Fearn (as Vargo Statten, a 1975 ham televisionist accidentally picks up transmission from Marvia during a thunderstorm. Of three geeky Lone Gunmen, cold-blooded Bruce sees commercial potential and Chris Danvers hears her sing. But where in the ether is she?), plus ‘Editorially Yours’ about JB Priestley TV ‘You Know What People Are’ series, ‘The Solar System 5: The Earth’, ‘Personalities Of Fandom 6: Dennis Cowan’, ‘Science Cameos 10: John Herschel’, Harry Cohn’s book review: John Taine’s ‘Seeds Of Life’, ‘Science Facts And Forecasts’, ‘Fanfare And Suchlike’ (on Lucian of 120AD, ‘Femizine’, ‘Eye’, George Pal’s ‘Conquest Of Space’ and Tubb’s ‘Alien Dust’), Orion cartoon and Rocket Mail
September 1955 – ‘BRITISH SPACE FICTION MAGAZINE’ (vol.2 no.4) white cover, with ‘The Space Age’ by John Russell Fearn (Vargo Statten essay), ‘Genius’ an absorbing novelette by John S Glasby (as JJ Hansby), ‘There’s Many A Star’ by AR Cunningham, ‘The Bargain’ a excellent short story by Barrington J Bayley, ‘Visitant’ by Leo Dane, ‘Bems In The House’ something delightfully different by Kenneth Foster, ‘Imperfect Crime’ by Sheridan Drew, ‘Here And Now (part 3)’ by Vargo Statten (Professor Adam Dexter, president of the Scientific Association intervenes, Bruce is killed by ‘energy streams’ when he attempts to break the hyperspace barrier to Marvia’s plane, and Dave is arrested for his murder), ‘The Solar System 7: The Minor Planets’, ‘Personalities Of Fandom 8: Joan W Carr, ‘Science Cameos 12: George G Stokes, ‘Science Facts And Forecasts’, ‘Fanfare And Suchlike’ on Disney’s ‘Man In Space’, ‘Hyphen’ ‘Phantasmagoria 3’, ‘Camber 4’ with Terry Jeeves, ‘Andromeda 11’, ‘Jazz Parade’, review of Theodore Sturgeon’s ‘More Than Human’ and Fredric Brown’s ‘Angels And Spaceships’, Rocket Mail
November 1955 – ‘BRITISH SPACE FICTION MAGAZINE’ (vol.2 no.6) wrap-around pink cover identical to no.7 with number and contents simply overprinted, with ‘The Inner Sphere’ Scientific Novel by T Brissenden (a ‘flaw in Planck’s Constant’ at Lunar Experimental Station One causes a matter-scrambling expanding energy-sphere, until the neutronium core is blasted into space), ‘Lost Property’ by EC Tubb (as George Holt, Fennal picks up a briefcase on the tube, which belongs to the 3546 Temporal Travel Division), ‘Three Against Carbon 14’ by Joy O I Spoczynska (appallingly poor, Pluto is a world devastated by nuclear war, ‘Spacetrotter’ brings three survivors back towards Earth), ‘Hero Worship’ by Max Elton (humour, Captain Mark Tyme returns from the Venus jungles in his own ship, but finds ‘the solitude of space’ preferable to his reception), ‘Here And Now pt5’ concluding part of Vargo Statten serial (Marvia is exiled to Mars, released following the trial Chris uses Dave’s experimental rocketship to join her there – Earths are on different planes, not so Mars), plus ‘Editorially Yours’ and ‘Inhuman’ essay about the ‘experts’ perception of SF (duplicated in no.7), ‘Fanfare And Suchlike’ on Edward Everett Hale’s 1869 ‘The Brick Moon’, Bill Harry’s ‘Biped’, Terry Jeeves ‘Triode’, Alfred Bester ‘The Demolished Man’, Judith Merril, Science Cameos 14: James Dewar, Personalities Of Fandom 10: Don Allen, Solar System 9: Saturn and ‘A New Comet’, ‘Science Facts And Forecasts’ with Willy Ley, Gerald Reeman ‘Flying Teapot’ cartoon, and Rocket Mail
February 1956 – ‘BRITISH SPACE FICTION MAGAZINE’ (vol.2 no.7) pink cover, with ‘Second Genesis’ cosmic novel by Vargo Statten, ‘Temporal Fission’ Time Novelette by Walter D Hinde (Atomic Research Station accident throws friends into 2500AD Alabama, where, following the Great Catastrophe, blacks control white slaves and the church bans science), ‘Fugitive’ short-short by Barrington J Bayley (robot Jasperodus flees pursuers in 3368AD Birmingham), ‘The Day Of The Dogs’ novel of the future by Frank Bassey (exiled from his post-war tribe, ‘London had taken centuries to build, but only a single day to destroy’, Greg befriends Dog, finds an Ancient’s food-and-weapons store, then returns to defeat the Old Man), ‘The Answer’ short-short by EC Tubb (as George Holt), ‘Chaos In Paradise’ by Max Elton, ‘Time, Please!’ by Ron Deacon and Peter Baillie (a deadlocked East-West war, a super-computer diagnoses no solution, only extinction, calling Last Orders on the VSSFM itself!), plus ‘Editorially Yours’, ‘Fanfare And Suchlike’ with Commercial TV seen as Shepherd Mead’s ‘The Big Ball Of Wax’, fanzines ‘Camber 5’ ‘Femizine 7’ with Pamela Bulmer and ‘BEM 5’, Harry Cohn’s Book Review of John Taine’s ‘GOG 666’ and Alfred Gordon Bennet’s ‘The Demigods’, Science Cameos 15: Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen, Personalities Of Fandom 11: Nigel Lindsay, The Solar System 10: Uranus, ‘Science Facts And Forecasts’ photographs Martian vegetation, Gerald Reeman Vargo Statten cartoon, and Rocket Mail
‘THE MULTI-MAN: A BIOGRAPHIC AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC STUDY OF JOHN RUSSELL FEARN’ by Philip Harbottle (1968), meticulously researched and annotated study of Fearn by his greatest disciple, advocate and literary executor
‘VULTURES OF THE VOID’ by Philip Harbottle and Stephen Holland (1992, The Borgo Press) exhaustive history of British SF publishing 1946-1956 documenting the boom years of ‘mushroom’ publishing, including ‘Vargo Statten’ and the magazine that bears his name
SCION PUBLISHING, based on Kensington High Street, it also launched an early SF comicbook in 1951 – ‘Space Hero: Amazing Stories Of The Future’ featuring Brad Kane of the ‘Galactic Patrol’ and Space Commando ‘Commander Wade Kirkman, illustrated by Norman Light. Also ‘Sea Hero’ (1951), ‘Sea Devil’ (1952) with Terry Patrick artwork, ‘Electroman’ (six issues 1951-1952), and ‘Five Star Western’ comic (eight issues 1951-1952) with Norman Light and Ron Embleton art
ALL NEW STORIES:
NO REPRINTS: AN
ALL-BRITISH PRODUCTION
THE FULL CAST
Forrest J Ackerman – (2:3 (Profile)
George Adamski – 1:1 (review)
Nigel Aherne – 1:6
Poul Anderson – 2:5 (‘Brain Wave’ review)
Antony Armstrong – (see EC Tubb)
Isaac Asimov – 1:8 (‘Caves Of Steel’)
Pete Baillie – 1:7, 1:11, 2:2, 2:7 (with Ron T Deacon)
Frank Bassey – 1:9, 2:2, 2:7
Barrington J Bayley – 1:4, 1:12, 2:4, 2:5, 2:7
Alfred Gordon Bennet – 2:7 (‘The Demigods’ review)
Ron Bennett – 1:5 (‘Orbit’), 1:8 (‘Ploy’), 1:12 (fan profile), 2:3 (Fanfare)
William E Bentley – 1:12
Bryan Berry – 1:2 (review)
Alfred Bester – 2:6 (‘The Demolished Man’)
Robert Bloch – 1:7 (Hyphen), 1:9 (‘BEM’), 1:11 (‘Hyphen’)
Morton Boyce – 2:1
Ray Bradbury – 1:4 (photo-inserts and story of ‘It Came From Outer Space’)
T Brissendale – 1:8, 2:6
Fredric Brown – 1:7 (review of ‘Project Jupiter’), 1:8 (‘What Mad Universe’), 2:4 (‘Angels And Spaceships’)
John Brunner – 1:9 (fanzine ‘I’)
Ken Bulmer (as Chesman Scott) – 1:5, 1:10, 2:1 (in 1:7 as Off-Trail Magazines), 1:10 (wife in ‘Hyphen’), 1:11 (‘Hyphen’), 1:1 (‘Bem’), 2:2 (in Fanfare), 2:7 (Pamela Bulmer)
Jonathan Burke – 1:8 (as John Burke), 1:10 (review of ‘Alien Landscapes’)
HJ Campbell – 1:6 (‘Authentic’ editor, in Fanfare)
L Sprague de Camp – 2:5 (‘Lest Darkness Fall’ review)
John Carnell – 1:10 (review of ‘Gateway To The Start’), 2:1 (at Cytricon), 2:7 (Editorial)
Morley Carpenter – (see EC Tubb)
Joan W Carr – 2:4 (fandom)
HM Carstairs – 2:5
Jeffrey Lloyd Castle – (review of ‘Satellite E One’)
James ‘Jim’ Cawthorn – 2:3 (Fanfare)
Arthur C Clarke – 1:2 (fanzine), 1:5 (‘Childhood’s End’ review), 2:1 (vets Patrick Moore)
AV ‘Vincent’ Clarke – 1:2 (fanzine), 1:4, 1:5 (‘Space Times’), 1:9 (‘Hyphen’), 1:11, 1:12 (Aubrey Vincent Clarke as ‘Inquisitor’)
LJ Clarke – 1:9, 1:11
Harry Cohn – 2:2, (1:9-Personalities In Fandom series), (1:9-Book Review), (1:12-Review of ‘Best Of New Worlds’)
Maxwell M Commander – 1:12, 2:5 (as MM Commander)
‘Conquest Of Space’ – 2:2 (Fanfare review)
Douglas B Cookson – 1:11
‘Creature From The Black Lagoon’ – 1:5
AR Cunningham – 2:4
Leo Dane –2:4
Leslie J Davies – 1:8 (as Leslie Davies), 2:3
Ron T Deacon – 1:7, 1:11, 2:2, 2:7 (with Pete Baillie)
Douglas Dodd – 2:5
Sheridan Drew – 2:4
Max Elton – 2:6, 2:7
Paul T Evers – 1:9
F Dubrez Fawcett –1:2, (1:1, as Simpson Stokes), (1:3 Simpson Stokes Fanfare profile), 1:6 (feature on Tubb, Statten and Gridban)
1:4, 1:7, 1:8. 1:9, 1:10, 1:11, 1:12 (as John Russell Fearn)
1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4, 1:5, 1:6, 1:12, 2:1, 2:2-2:6 (serial), 2:7 (as Vargo Statten)
1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4, 1:5 (as Volsted Gridban)
1:12 (as Herbert Lloyd)
Charles Fort – 1:9 (in ‘Fanfare’)
Kenneth Foster – 1:10, 2:4
Ralph Gaylen – 1:10, 1:11, 1:12, 2:1, 2:2, 2:3 (six-part serial)
Walter Gillings – 2:7 (Editorial)
John S Glasby – 1:3, 2:4 (as JJ Hansby), 1:5 (as JS Hansby), 1:9
S Gordon – 1:7
Geoffrey Grayson – 1:6 (science feature)
Edward Everett Hale – 2:6 (‘The Brick Moon’)
Chuck Harris – 1:3
Malcolm Hartley – 1:9
Alfred Hind – 1:3
Walter D Hinde – 2:7
D Richard Hughes – 1:1
‘It Came From Outer Space’ – 1:4
Terry Jeeves – 1:1 (letter), 1:5 (‘BEM’), 1:6 (SuperManCon), 1:9 (Fan Profile), 1:12 (‘Bem’), 2:1 (Fanfare), 2:3 (Fanfare), 2:4 (‘Camber’), 2:6 (‘Triode’)
Leslie Johnson – 2:7 (Editorial)
‘Journey Into Space’ – 1:2 (BBC review), 2:7 (Editorial)
Marvin Kayne – 2:2
Damon Knight – 1:10 (in ‘Hyphen 11’), 1:11 (‘Hyphen’)
Henry Kuttner – 1:3 (book review)
Willy Ley – 2:6 (‘Science Forecasts’)
Herbert Lloyd – see John Russell Fearn
Stuart Mackenzie – 1:3 (fandom feature), 2:2 (in Fanfare)
Charles Eric Maine – 1:2 (review)
JT McIntosh – 1:9 (in ‘Operation Fantast’), 1:10 (‘World Out Of Mind’ review)
Shepherd Mead – 2:7 (‘Big Ball Of Wax’ review)
Judith Merril – 1:2 (review), 2:6
P Schmyler Miller – 1:3 (book review)
Patrick Moore – 1:1 (review of ‘Guide To The Planets’)
George Orwell – 1:11 (1984 in Fanfare)
Alistair Paterson (Alistair Blair Johns Paterson) – as editor 1:1 to 1:6, 1:1 (as Armstrong Alexander) Edward Peal – 1:5
Alister Pearson– 1:4 (essay as by Alistair Pearson)
Frederik Pohl – 1:7 (review of ‘Star SF Stories’), 2:5 (and Kornbluth ‘Space Merchants’ review) Fletcher Pratt – 1:9 (two book-reviews, ‘Double In Space’) FG Rayer – 1:2 (review) Francis Rose – 1:7, Frank Rose – 1:10
Ward Ross – 1:8
Chesman Scott (see Ken Bulmer)
Clifford Searle – 2:5
Dan F Seeson – 1:10-2:7 (The Solar System series)
Bob Shaw – 1:7 (in ‘Orion’), 1:9 (in ‘BEM’), 1:11 (‘Hyphen’)
Wilmer Shiras – 1:8 (‘Children Of The Atom’)
Clifford Simak – 1:3 (City review)
Capt KF ‘Kenneth’ Slater – 1:1 (letter and Fan profile), 1:3 (letter), 1:7 (ManCon), 1:9 (‘Operation Fantast’), 1:11 (letter)
Doc EE Smith – 1:11 (in Fanfare), 2:1 (in Fanfare)
Joy O I Spoczynska – 2:6
Theodore Sturgeon – 2:4 (‘More Than Human’ review)
John Taine – 2:2 (review of ‘Seeds Of Time’), 2:7 (‘GOG 666’ review)
Lee Taylor – 1:4, 1:5 (essays)
‘Them’ (film) – 1:5
Tony C Thorne – 1:6 (as Tony Thorne)
Mark Trent – 2:3
(as George Holt) 1:6, 1:8, 1:11, 2:3, 2:6, 2:7
(as Morley Carpenter) 1:2
(as Antony Armstrong) – 1:4, 1:6
AE Van Vogt – 1:3 (book review)
Werner von Braun – 1:7 (Moon Landing 1977)
Arthur Waterhouse – 1:2, 1:11
Silas Water – 2:3 (review of ‘The Man With Absolute Motion’)
HG Wells – 2:5 (Fanfare)
John Wernheim – 1:1
Jack Williamson – 1:5 (review of ‘Dragon’s Island’)
Walt Willis – 1:2 (review), 1:3 (profile), 1:5 (‘Enchanted Duplicator’), 1:6 (‘i’), 1:7 (ManCon and Hyphen), 1:9 (‘Hyphen 10’), 1:10 (‘Hyphen 11’), 1:11 (‘Hyphen Xmas’)
2 comments:
Your blog post on the science fiction history of Vargo was a captivating read! I found it fascinating to learn about the evolution of the genre and how it has shaped the imagination of readers and writers alike. By the way, if you're interested in exploring more science fiction novels, Aint Paying Full is a fantastic resource. They offer great deals and discounts on a wide range of books, including science fiction titles. It's a great way to expand your collection without breaking the bank. Thank you for sharing your insights and knowledge on this topic. Keep up the great work!
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Interesting blog post! While the focus may not be directly on frugalishness, it's fascinating to explore the connections between science fiction and the concept of frugality. Both involve envisioning alternative futures and making the most of available resources. Frugalishness encourages us to be mindful of our consumption and find creative solutions, just like science fiction often imagines societies where scarcity or resourcefulness are central themes. The parallels between these two concepts provide an intriguing perspective. Thanks for sharing this thought-provoking article!
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