PRICE: $3.00 by Third Class Mail

$2.00 in person

two . . .

as one

1

SECOND PRINTING:

200 copies July 1980

Printed by Bruce D. Litman

WEB EDITION:

Infinite copies June 1997

A COMPANION IN ZEOR

Copyright Information:- (Issue #1 June 1978)

All original artwork remains the property of its creator.

All letters received by Jacqueline, Karen or Katie will be considered potentially publishable material, and will be treated as such, unless the writer specifically requests he/she not be quoted.

Issue #1 - Printing History 200 copies First Printing

Copy mimeographed by Karen L. MacLeod

Artwork, Photographs and cover printed in Atlantic City, New Jersey by "Sir Speedy" Printers.

Senior Editors: Karen MacLeod

316 North Surrey Avenue

Ventnor, New Jersey 08406

Associate Katie Filipowicz

Editor/Lettercol 23 Oakridge Circle

Editor and Author's Wilmington, Mass. 01887

Column Editor

Sillstran Skies Article/Artwork by Stella Nemeth

"Occupants" by Gaylen K. Reiss

"Ambassador Utayzik" (Photo) by Karen MacLeod

Lettering and other artwork by Katie Filipowicz

COVER BY KATIE FILIPOWICZ

Many thanks to the "Ambrov Zeor" Staff - Especially Lisa Waters, Anne Golar and Jacqueline. Also thanks to Jan McCrossen and Jean Lorrah for their sage advice.

Content of Better Householdings and Gardens (c) 1978 by the contributors.

Also thanks to all others (who know who they are) for their moral support and confidence. --- Karen MacLeod

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(sic RBW ii)

---- CONTENTS ----

Lichtenberg

Karen MacLeod

Gribben

Filipowicz

Filipowicz

Announcements of interest are sprinkled here and there.

=================

Karen personally wishes to take this time to thank the many f/r/i/e/n/d/s/, e/n/e/m/i/e/s/, p/e/o/p/l/e/, f/o/o/l/s/, who spent precious hours stapling and collating this issue. Also thanks for helping with the mimeographing. Little did you know that you've now earned the title "staff member!" I couldn't have done it without your help.

Typing by: Katie Filipowicz, Karen MacLeod and Sharron Marshall.

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(sic RBW iii)

A SIME-GEN CONCORDANCE

SEVERAL YEARS FROM NOW, ABOUT THE SAME TIME THAT MAHOGANY TRINROSE APPEARS, I'LL DE PUBLISHING A CONCORDANCE/COMPANION TO THE SIME SERIES. JACQUELINE SUGGESTED THAT I MIGHT LIKE TO DO IT, AND OF COURSE, SHE FIGURED ME CORRECTLY. I JUMPED AT THE OPPORTUNITY.

RIGHT NOW, I'D LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU SIME/GEN FANS. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANYTHING AT ALL (SHORT OF A FULL-COLOR REPRODUCTION OF HUGH VALLEROY'S ARENESTI (sic RBW ARENSTI) DESIGN!) IN SUCH A CONCORDANCE, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE? I HAVE HAD AND WILL HAVE ACCESS TO SOME UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL THAT WILL ADD DEPTH TO THE BACKGROUND OF THE SERIES. AND I HOPE I CAN GET JACQUELINE TO ANSWER SOME QUESTIONS, SINCE SHE IS VERY CONCERNED THAT THE CONCORDANCE BE DONE PROPERLY.

VERY LITTLE HAS BEEN DECIDED AT THE MOMENT, ALTHOUGH WORK HAS BEGUN. THERE WILL MOST LIKELY BE A DICTIONARY-TYPE "LEXICON", MUCH LIKE THE ONE IN THE STAR TREK CONCORDANCE. PERHAPS WE WILL HAVE A FEW ARTICLES ON SPECIFIC ASPECTS OF THE SIME AND GEN CULTURES. MANY OTHER THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR ARE SUGGESTIONS FOR EMPHASES AND FOR OTHER FEATURES. IF ANYONE HAS ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SIME/GEN UNIVERSE, THINGS THAT HAVE BOTHERED THEM, I'D ALSO LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU. IF I HAPPEN TO KNOW THE ANSWER OR HAVE AN OPINION ON IT, I'LL BE SURE TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT.

THANKS, AND I HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON.

Cathy Filipowicz

23 Oakridge Circle

Wilmington, Massachusettes (sic RBW Massachusetts) 01887

PLEASE ENCLOSE A SASE (Self Addressed Stamped Envelope) when writing.

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1.

FIRST COMPANION

An Alternate Alternate Universe Sime Comedy

(c) 1978 by Anne Golar

"I don't believe you."

"What do you mean, how could you not believe me?"

"Are you going to stand there and tell me that there are really people with tentacles on their arms?"

"I don't believe you."

"What are you talking about?"

"What do you think the last several thousand years of this mess we're in has been all about?"

"But people with tentacles? That's science-fiction."

"You were captured by a Sime, you were held in a pen and you were bought by a Sime, me, and you still don't believe in Simes?"

"What's a Sime?"

"I'm a Sime, you dodo."

"You mean those crazy bracelets you people like to wear really don't come off?"

"What bracelets?"

"Those long skinny things that hang on your arms."

"Those are tentacles."

"Look, what do I know? I'm just a Gen on holiday from Out Territory."

"Way Out Territory if you ask me."

"I didn't, and if you will stop interrupting, I'll go on."

"I'm sorry. Please Continue."

"As I was saying, I'm just a Gen from Out Territory here to enjoy the scenery and get in some rest. Our guide decided to arrange a nice show for us. Some actors dressed up real funny and started to ride toward us screaming and yelling. Some of the people who I thought were also tourists turned out to be actors and fell down as soon as the raiders wound their crazy bracelets around the arms of the tourists. By the way, will I get to see myself in the movie you are making?"

"If you live."

"Oh, I intend to live for a long, long time."

"I don't see how."

"I exercise, eat wisely and take my vitamins daily. My doctor says I'm the healthiest Gen I have (sic RBW he has?) ever seen."

"Oh, you agree you're a Gen."

"Well of course I'm a Gen."

"Then, if you're a Gen, what am I?"

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2.

"A Gen with bracelets."

"I'm a Sime."

"There are no such things as Simes."

"But you're looking at one."

"Okay, okay, my mother used to tell us Sime stories and if I wasn't good, the mean old Sime was going to get me, but you look like a very nice fellow. Why are you trying, and what makes you think you can scare me. You are standing right in front of me and you are not going to convince me you're anything but what you are. That's being sick and you should see a doctor."

"I'm sick because I'm in need."

"Now there you go, you are well dressed, obviously wealthy, you do look quite thin and all I'd say you were in need of was a good meal."

"I'm in need of selyn, your selyn and I'm going to frighten you if it's the last thing I do."

"Why do you want to frighten me?"

"I'm a Sime and you're a Gen, and you're supposed to be afraid of me."

"Tough!"

"What?"

"I'm a Sime."

"You're a Gen."

"See, you don't believe me when I say I'm a Sime either."

"But you're a Gen."

"Prove it."

"You don't have tentacles."

"Well, neither do you."

"We'll skip that part. You have a field which tells me what your emotions are."

"That's no trick, I can tell what your emotions are too. You're exasperated, upset and angry."

"I'm not angry."

"Oh yes you are."

"Okay, okay, I'm angry."

"You still haven't proved that I'm not Sime."

"I'm beginning to think you are Sime."

"What do you mean, I'm a Gen."

"Oh go away and let me see what I can do about getting these stupid bracelets off my arms."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said they were stupid. They're really quite lovely."

"But you said they were stupid."

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3.

"That was rude of me."

"Then I don't have to take them off?"

"Not if you don't want to."

"That's good because I really didn't know how I was going to do it."

"They're really very nice, here, let me have a look at them. Oh, they're so warm and dry. That's right, wind them around my arms. That feels good; hey, you don't have to kiss me. I really didn't do anything!! Well, if you want to that much . . . Hey, you shouldn't kiss a man like that, but I can tell you the girls would love it."

"You're not dead."

"Why, should I be?"

"But I drew selyn, it was fantastic."

"So?"

"Well, I'll be! Say would you like to stick around for awhile. I'd like to talk some more about this."

"Well, I really have to get back to the tour."

"They won't miss you, believe me."

Well, it was getting a bit boring and you are an interesting sort."

"You can be my guest."

"Where is your house?"

"This way, Companion."

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(RBW Note. This was really a line of 6's and 9's superimposed on each other on a type writer, but it was similar to this symbol.)

AMBASSADOR UTAYZIK PAYS EARTH A CALL. SEE PG 11

[CZ01IL01.TIF]

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4.

A two page introduction to the Sime Series, huh? You've got to be kidding.

Well, the main postulate is that civilization as we know it destroys itself. At the time in which I am writing now, (in the Sime universe of discourse) nobody knows exactly how the civilization of the Ancients destroyed itself - it could have been pollution, radiation, deliberate genetic manipulation, invasion from outer space interbreeding with humans, magic run awry, or any number of more imaginative postulates. It's all academic anyway, since these people are involved in staying alive in the world they are born into.

The human race has mutated into two new forms, Sime and Gen. The Gens produce selyn, the energy of life which the Simes need to live but can't produce in their own bodies. The problem is that when the Sime takes selyn from a Gen, the Gen dies - and the Sime enjoys that killing.

This does not make for amicable relations between Sime end Gen societies, and in fact the entire world exists in a state of Sime-Gen warfare for uncounted centuries until, at last things settle down with the Simes living in circumscribed Territories carved out of the vast sea of Gen Territory.

And then a new submutation emerges - the Channels. The Channels are Simes who have the ability to take selyn from Gens without killing and later transfer that selyn to other Simes (who can not help but kill if they take selyn from a Gen), so that the ren Simes, the ordinary Simes, don't have to kill in order to survive.

The first such Channel of record is Rimon Farris, and at this moment, Jean Lorrah (of NIGHT OF THE TWIN MOONS and EPILOGUE STAR TREK fan fame) is industriously writing Rimon's story in a novel we have sold to Doubleday, called FIRST CHANNEL.

Rimon and his descendents (sic RBW descendants) established the Householdings, enclaves of freedom from the kill, living groups structured around a Channel, a number of Gens and a limited number of renSimes. The Gens voluntarily surrender the selyn they produce to the Channel who in turn gives it to the renSimes, and all is peaceful and friendly.

This is the setting for HOUSE OF ZEOR, the story of Klyd Farris, one of Rimon's distant descendants, and Hugh Valleroy a Gen, from out-Territory who discovers what the House of Zeor is, and determines to found his own Householding, House of Rior.

HOUSE OF ZEOR (Doubleday 1974/Pocket Books 1977) - I still have copies of the paperback available for $2. - is the real start of the Sime Series (or as Jean Lorrah insists, the Sime/Gen series) for a reason that is not evident in the book itself.

At the end of HOUSE OF ZEOR, Hugh and Klyd are close friends and allies (very much of a Kirk/Spock type of thing), however after the end of the book, as close as they are philosophically, they still come to a parting of the ways over a very fine point of philosophy. Hugh Valleroy founds the Distect, a group determined to see a world where Channels are not necessary and every Gen is trained to the point where no Sime can kill him - as are the Householding Companions who serve the Channel's personal need. And Klyd Farris founds the "modern Tecton" - whereby hangs many a tale indeed.

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5.

The "modern Tecton" is obviously a mistake (unless you grow up within it, in which case it is not so obvious, but still a mistake. (sic RBW missing right parenthesis.)

There's only one little problem. Any other system of dealing with the Simes' need of selyn will quite clearly result in the death of maybe half the people alive in the world - maybe more. This is the problem which confronts Digen Farris, great-great grandson of Klyd Farris, and also Sectuib in Zeor in his own right.

Digen finds a solution, his own personal solution, to this dilemma. It may not be your solution, but it's the only one he can live with. That story is told in UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER! which will be out from Doubleday June '78 and has no paperback release date yet (however, I do expect it will have a paperback since HoZ did finally make it into paper). UNTO will cost $10 from me by mail ($8.95 cover price) in the Doubleday edition. News of less expensive editions will be available through "Ambrov Zeor" (for info on that Fanzine, SASE Anne Golar, 40 S. Cole Avenue, Spring Valley, NY 10977).

MAHOGANY TRINROSE is the Sime novel I'm working on now (between chapters of Jean's FIRST CHANNEL), and it is the story of Ercy Farris, Digen's daughter, about 20 years after the end of UNTO. She becomes the first fully functional esper channel centuries before the world is really able to accept Simes outside their own Territory, let alone the idea that Simes can be even more powerful than they already obviously are.

This, then is the barest sketch of the Sime series as it now exists (Oh, I forgot OPERATION HIGH TIME, my first sold story, which was in IF MAGAZINE and now in reprint in "Ambrov Zeor" and CHANNEL'S EXEMPTION a novelette which is in GALILEO #4 - I have copies of that for sale, too). There are some apochraphal stories I wrote a long time ago which are also available in "Ambrov Zeor" along with some of Jean Lorrah's Sime stories about her own House of Keon.

This sketch doesn't tell you why you should read them, nor why I wrote them. As I see it, the emotional substance of the Sime Series is examination of, the fear/compassion axis of emotion that can exist between symbiots. The Sime mutation brings evolutionary pressure to bear on otherwise rather ordinary human beings to develop compassion or die. It is stunning how difficult it is to find true compassion untinged by fear in a human. But when you do find it, it is more precious than life itself. The Sime/Gen mutation is considered as another on the order of the differentiation into male and female, only the second such step ever taken.

The style in which I write emphasizes psychological problems with psychological action, and psychological resolution, rather than the standard action/adventure formula in which it is considered bad form to characterize or motivate. I aim my work basically at women between 18 and 25; though anyone who has been such an age should enjoy as well. I am constantly surprised at the number of fans who don't fit that description, surprised and delighted no end.

And that's two pages, and I quit.

Live long and prosper,

(c) 1978 JACQUELINE LICHTENBERG

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6.

NEED (c) 1978

By Laurel L. Danino

The urge is getting stronger;

I can't hold out much longer;

The selyn and the kill are the only things that count

My life is in the making, while the

Gen's there for the taking;

As time goes past the need I'm feeling steadily will mount

I look toward the heavens

I can only ask them why

To keep me from the barren grave

The innocent must die

I hold the Gens no malice,

And yet, as Need draws near,

I cringe at my own feelings, but

My course is all too clear.

I sense a Gen approaching,

My property encroaching

How dare he pass through land that I have staked out for my own!

I'll jump him as he's creeping

As though he's merely sleeping,

And kill him, satisfying Need; it's Need, and Need alone.

Again I've shunned attrition

As the Gen lay at my feet,

And guiltily I view the corpse

As I make my retreat

My Need is satisfied for now

And I'll go on my way

Until the urge becomes too great

To wait another day.

I must find some new answer;

This Need is like a cancer

And killing is a thing that must be halted from now on.

If Zeor is the new way

I'll try to get there some day

Before I have to kill and once again a Gen is gone.

Oh, Zeor, won't you tell me of

The things that I don't know

Of sun and light and happiness

And living in their glow?

And, what about Companions?

Are those things really true?

And Channels, tell me, Zeor,

Can they supply me, too?

And what about the killing?

Can I disjunct for good?

I never want to kill again,

I never thought I could!

I'm coming to you, Zeor,

Extend your hand to me.

I pray that you can help this one

Who's reaching out to thee!

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7.

Laurel Karen

Danino MacLEOD

UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER

Unto Zeor, Forever! I pledge undying love

Life in harmony between Sime and Gen

The dream I'm singing of.

Gentle Channel

Loyal Companion

House of Zeor!

With Companion and Channel Side by side, Hand in hand

Through the days and through the ages

Spreading peace through-out the land.

Oh my refuge

Sanctuary

Blessed Zeor

Oh to labor together

In unity, in grace

Blending one with the other

Into one enduring race.

Praise be Unto Zeor

Most sacred, holy home

Here and now I pledge Unto Zeor

Evermore, and nevermore to roam.

(c) 1978 by Laurel Danino & Karen MacLeod

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Both Unto and Need have original music, created by Laurel. We are trying to arrange details with Jacqueline on producing a cassette on which these and other songs related to the Sime/Gen Universe will appear.

If you are interested in purchasing such a cassette, should it become available, please send us a note telling us the price you would also like to see on such an offer.

If public reaction from our readers is favorable, we will proceed with the project by making arrangements with a recording studio as well to make this a quality tape.

Send your opinion and ideas to: Karen MacLEOD

316 North Surrey Avenue

Ventnor, New Jersey 08406

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8.

1978 (c) By Penny Ziegler

Jacqueline Lichtenberg has often said that anyone who enjoys her work will love Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Darkover" series. I discovered this truth in reverse, having been a Darkover fan long before I read House of Zeor (Doubleday 1974/Pocket Books 1977). Although each author has her own unique imagination and writing style, the common appeal of the Darkover books and the Sime stories invites comparison.

The two series share several themes which reflect their authors' interest in certain broad aspects of human relationships and culture. Probably this can best be seen by examining the characters in the various stories -- their experiences and the motivations behind them.

Two characters who present an opportunity for comparison are Andrew Carr in Forbidden Tower (DAW Books 1977) and Hugh Valleroy in House of Zeor. Both men find themselves thrust into unfamiliar, frightening situations, and for the same reason -- the love of a woman. Each must come to terms with some basic issues in his own development as a person and his place in the culture: trust of others, sense of self, sexual identity, the complexities of intimate relationships.

These men have lead fairly isolated lives, have, in fact, avoided closeness. Each finds himself in circumstances which demand that he interact intensively with others who do not share his world-view and who find it difficult to understand or respond to his needs and fears.

Finding their usual ways of coping inadequate to the task, both Hugh and Andrew are forced to re-examine the value systems which have guided past behavior. Then comes the painful process of change and growth. Each man starts his adventure concerned about what he must give to accomplish his goal; each ends up receiving an unexpected dividend -- a new awareness of himself and of his relationship to the people around him.

I must add that, in my opinion, Hugh is a much more perceptive character who starts out way ahead of Andrew and therefore, goes much further. In Spell Sword (DAW 1974/76) and through most of Forbidden Tower, Andrew can only be described as a real dumb-dumb. His lack of insight and refusal to accept the evidence of his own experience are infuriating. This is not necessarily a criticism. There are plenty of people like him around on twentieth-century Terra, so why not in the distant future on the other side of the Galaxy?

Another theme which appears frequently in the work of both authors is that of the burden borne by those whose gifts set them apart from their peers. Throughout the Darkover stories, MZB makes it clear that laran, the inherited psi power of the ruling Cromyn (sic RBW Comyn) caste, is a mixed blessing. This is perhaps most evident in the character of Regis Hastur (Heritage of Hastur: DAW 1975, World Wreckers: ACE Books 1971-77) etc, who finally comes to accept his special position but never learns to like it. In Sime, the Channel carries a heavy load of responsibility by vertue (sic RBW virtue) of a genetic trait for which he never asked. Yone Farris ("The Channel's Exemption:" Galileo #4) must deal with the pain and isolation this responsibility can bring when it conflicts with personal needs.

In both worlds, adolescense (sic RBW adolescence) is portrayed as a time of tremendous upheaval. This is more graphic in JL's stories, where the child destined to be Sime goes through the physical/psychological trauma of Changeover. The parallel on Darkover is threshold sickness, experienced by the developing telepath as his or her laran awakens. As mentioned above, these

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9.

two authors have distinctly different styles. JL's work has a free-flowing almost colloquial flavor. She is especially skilled at writing conversational sequences which both advance the action and provide background information without making the speaker sound like a history professor. In descriptive passages she uses line, color and form to create both a physical stage set and a feeling for the emotional content of the surroundings -- an impressionist painting.

In the Darkover books MZB's use of language is much more stylized. She shows great concern for the subtle meanings of words and phrases, for the small details of dress, facial expression, body movement. Her descriptions are like intricate woodcuts. (MZB does not always write in this style; cf: "Genuine Old Master" Galileo #5).

The real connecting thread, and I think the reason for the common appeal, is that both authors are concerned primarily with people. It is most important to them that each character be a complete, credible human being (or alien). The problems which confront these characters are universal issues with which every reader is familiar on some level. The setting may be unfamiliar, but we are able to put ourselves into these stories because the characters exist for us as real people and because we know the territory. We've been there.

I love to read; I frequently get deeply involved in a story as it develops. If it is a good story by a talented writer, I may get ideas which stay with me, discover new ways of seeing the world which I am able to incorporate into my own mindset. But in general, when I finish a book, it goes on to the shelf to make room for the next.

With the Sime and Darkover books, it's not so simple. Characters like Regis Hastur, Lew Alton, Klyd Farris and Hugh Valleroy, Damon Ridenow and Callista Alton, refuse to stay between the covers. They have become a part of my world, and exist independent of the parts of their stories which happen to have been told in print. When JL talks about her conversations with Digen Farris, I think she is referring to this way in which characters become so much a part of our experience that we count them among our friends.

I think this also explains why fans of these two authors keep demanding more, why they are inspired to create their own stories, poems, drawings and songs. A criticism of House of Zeor which I have heard several times is that it stops too soon. The reader wants to know the rest of the story, and there is no doubt that in his or her mind that the rest exists, if only at some future time in the author's subconscious.

The people that JL and MZB introduce to us, whether Channel or Companion, Comyn Lord or Free Amazon, transcend their stories. They take hold of our imaginations, invite us to re-examine our own lives in the light of their experiences, put us in touch with aspects of ourselves we did not know existed. Where else can you get that kind of turn-on for $1.95?

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FRIENDS OF DARKOVER:- Box 72 Berkeley, California 94701

Discussions of the Darkover books, along with other SF and fantasy, by newsletter, round-robin and meetings at various Science-Fiction Conventions. No dues, no monthly meetings.

For more information on the activities of FRIENDS, please SASE (send Self Addressed Stamped Envelope) to the address above for your information/ (sic RBW information.) The newsletter is also available on a trial subscription costing $1.00. 10 issues - $5.00 8/$4.00 and 6/$3.00. Make checks payable to FRIENDS OF DARKOVER. No cash please.

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** HOW TO SURVIVE ON B & WCS -- OR --

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'NIMOY'S HERE'?"

Star Trek America converted me to the ST fan movement. It was a real revelation for a person who had never even spoken face-to-face with a real fan before and who came to the Con with a great deal of trepidation. Instead of the expected unrestrained lunacy, I found calm, self-controlled people who were able to trust and be trusted.

A seat behind the Welcommittee table in the Space Traders' Room is a great vantage point for watching the Con pass in review. I ended up sitting there selling fanzines (for Jacqueline Lichtenberg) for something like eight hours, although I had come to the Con as an ordinary member. I spent the time matching faces with familiar names; watching bemused as Walter Koenig and other Guests slipped by me into the circle of tables; being stuck fast to my post while Leonard Nimoy made a surprise appearance elsewhere; becoming an instant Lichtenberg expert. Saturday seemed to be Star Wars day: hucksters pushing "Jedi light tubes", ubiquitous Brotherhood of Jedi Knights nametags, fervent wishes of "May the Force be with you" on buttons and T-shirts, three Princess Leias, two Darth Vaders, one herd of Jawas with twinkly eyes . . . and the Star Wars theme music being played every ten minutes. It's tiring but fun, as long as you don't mind subsisting on bagels and warm cherry soda! **

Among the speakers, I most enjoyed Joan Winston and Isaac Asimov, both of whom are so funny in their own ways. The Anniversary Ball was also enjoyable. A pretty fair magician entertained the tables in our area. The orchestra and its MC were excellent; they played quite a few numbers which didn't require couples to dance-- a boon for us singles. On Sunday night, I only watched part of the lengthy Masquerade, but I did meet some of the participants afterward. They were still in costume and in character, and their dignity and feeling of integrity was overwhelming.

A word to anyone out there who hasn't dared go to a Con because they're afraid they'll get lost in the crowd. I found that a ST Con can be as personalized as you want it to be; it's easy to find yourself in a small friendly group if you make the effort. As for me, I went alone, lost five pounds and my heart to Jacqueline Lichtenberg, and gained some new friends and attitudes that are going to be very important to me.

(c) 1978 Written by Kate (Cathy) Filipowicz

10.

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11.

ON BEING IN COSTUME

(c) 1978 BY: Gaylen Reiss

For about two years, I've invented and worn costumes in various Star Trek gatherings: worn some as "daily wear" and others in contests. So when I agreed to have a picture of myself in costume printed in this fanzine, I also asked if I could have the opportunity to write an article about how it feels to appear in costume. I've discovered that there is an intense curiosity among the large numbers of non-costumers as to what kind of person would do such a thing, and about what it's like to go through such an experience.

The most popular question by far is: "Where did you get the idea for that costume?"

Well, that's both easy and hard to answer. The easy answer is, "Everywhere." The hard part is trying to be specific. I get ideas while browsing through stores, jogging around a field, at work (!), and in bed asleep. Since I have a relatively unchecked imagination, and since I'm not trying to copy any known character, my only limits involved how much of my convention savings I wanted to dip into, how sure I was that a thing would hold together until the end of the contest, and what wouldn't totally convince my family and friends that I had finally gone off the deep end.

Believe me, they were worried for a while. Especially when they would make some casual remark like, "It doesn't really look that good with your nose and mouth covered," (which effectively negated the entire idea behind the costume) and I would suddenly lash out and call them stupid, right to their faces. Tempermental (sic RBW Temperamental) artist, I guess.

Initial ideas begat other ideas, and the costume grew from a small list of items which I knew I had lying around somewhere to the eyebrow-raising work I finally wore.

"How long did it take you to make it?" is another common question. For me, the idea or planning stage takes up about half the time required. I spend weeks just thinking about the costume, making sketches, listing ideas, going over stuff I already have, and laughing a lot.

One Saturday afternoon sufficed to purchase what I needed to begin, including whatever I found on my list of "possibilities" which might be useful. Then came three weeks or so of weekends and an occasional evening putting the stuff together (and taking it apart and putting it back together). My New York Labor Day costume wasn't even conceived until late July. It was completed only days before being packed in the suitcase for New York.

My costume, as opposed to other beautifully intricate but generally silent "Look at Me" costumes, was meant to have a reason behind it. I took a lot of time to develop a personality and background for my character. Since the Fikirian Ambassador was a pure telepath, there would be no regular speech allowed. I had no qualms about assuming the silent role because I'm more of a listener than a talker, anyway. That's one of the neat things about characterizing your own costume. You can

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accentuate one of your personality traits, or you can select a totally different aspect to live that way for the evening. Silent, crazy, forceful, loud, dignified, funny, sexy, obscene . . . the choice is yours.

You'll find "Vulcans" who dress/act that way because that particular lifestyle fascinates them. And in the safety of a masquerade contest, they generally don't have to deal with the prejudice such personal characteristics often receive during their everyday Human life.

I was truly surprised at the number of people who told me they thought staying in character -- by not talking -- must be extremely difficult. They knew they couldn't keep quiet for five minutes, let alone an entire evening.

Leonard Nimoy answers that type of question by saying that characterization, or "acting," is his craft; that's what he's being paid to be able to do. Similarly, my reasoning would be, "That's why I am doing this: to expose people to an alien. (sic RBW alien.") And I don't want to spoil the encounter for either of us.

For me, staying in character was made easier by much thoughtful planning. The alien's background gave me the reason to do what I was doing, and a strange-looking pen and a pad of paper gave me the means. I could forsee (sic RBW foresee) the most likely question ("Who are you?") and have the answer already written down, Legibly:

GREETINGS. I AM AMBASSADOR UTAYZIK, A TELEPATH FROM THE PLANET FIKIRIA.

("Oh, that's why you don't talk.")

SINCE TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION WITH ALIEN SPECIES IS DIFFICULT FOR ME, I AM SAVING ENERGY NOW BY USING THIS VISUAL MEDIUM.

("Visual medium, ha-ha. What are you going to do on stage?")

WHEN I AM PREPARED, I WILL COMMUNICATE TELEPATHICALLY WITH ALL WHO ARE PRESENT.

(Oh, (sic RBW "Oh,) wow!")

The most remarkable thing, however, about wearing a costume is the reactions you get from, ah, normally-dressed people. Adults usually say something sophisticated to their friends, like, "I thought Halloween was over," or the perennial favorite, "I hope it isn't catching." The older of the kids get right to specifics. "Boy is that ugly!" "What a bubblehead." "Hey, look at the lampshade!"

But it's the little kids that give you a clue to the reason for all the negative remarks. Fear. They're all afraid of anyone who's different. Two little kids who spotted me waiting for an elevator gasped and ran back around the corner, peeking out at intervals. Adults feel they can't run, so they strike back verbally. The fight or flight reaction.

And an alien's reaction to all this? If there is a prolonged contact, I've known some individuals to turn and hiss rather spectactularly (sic RBW spectacularly) at the remark and speculating about the type of person who would say such a thing works just as well.

Once, while wearing a not-quite-Starfleet uniform and my Star Trek convention badge, I was caught in an elevator with an elderly gentleman from one of the hotel's other conventions.

12.

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He asked me directly, "Young lady, could you please tell me just what is Star Trek?" And I proceeded to tell him, all the way down 12 stories, ". . . TV show . . . science-fiction . . . today's space program . . . universe of people helping each other . . ." (have you ever tried to "explain Star Trek" in 90 seconds? It's not easy!)

At the lobby floor, he got off without a word, but I can imagine him going over to his friends and exclaiming, "It's only a blasted TV show, for crying out loud!"

Sigh!

Besides the verbal comments on your costume, there are always the stares, ranging from a double-take by the guy you pass in the hall, to, it seems, EVERYONE in the main lobby.

Yes, at times it is uncomfortable, though the feeling diminished when I was walking with friends, even when they were in "normal" dress. At other times, I got a big kick out of the raised eyebrows and the suddenly terminated conversations.

And there are advantages to standing out from the crowd. My room-mates and I made numerous phone calls and main desk appearances the first day of the con, trying to get the hotel to send us the extra bed we needed. Nothing came. However, after the Futuristic Fashion contest, I went to the main desk, still in costume, and complained once more to an astonished desk clerk. During the next hour and a half, three (3) beds were delivered to our room.

I must say that the vast majority of the Humans at the Con were very helpful, though usually at the same time, confused. (Aren't you hot?" "Can you see OK?" "I bet you're hot in that thing." "Do you have your number?" "Are you hot?" "Can you hear me?" "Do you need anything special on stage for your presentation?" "Aren't you . . .)

Yes, I am hot, and increasingly thirsty, and bothered by aches in my head and back from the weight of the costume. I depend on previous nerve-wracking/hot and exhausting experiences I have had during live radio shows/karate class to help me cope with this situation. I wander around, near the door to the contest ballroom, looking for a breeze, subject to fire marshall (sic RBW marshal) edicts. ("I'm sorry, but you can't stand there." "I'm sorry, but you can't stand there, either.") Others express their own concern. "How do you breathe in that thing?" SLOWLY. "Aren't you hot?" A nod from me suffices to answer that one. To coin a phrase, "The air is the air. What can be done? (Anyone for a little Tri-ox?)

The evening contest is long. In New York, after the mini-Trek (kids) and the Star Trek sections, I am number 62 out of 67 in the fantasy section. After fantasy contestant #50 the judges decide to take a bathroom break.

Terrific.

Finally, it's my turn. The audience shushes remarkably for the late hour, and I am elated when it is obvious thay (sic RBW they) are trying to listen. My presentation lasts perhaps 75 seconds. The resulting applause is more than polite, less than the screaming reaction to the previous obscene stuff.

After another interminable wait, the judges decisions are announced. The winners are mostly from the 60's numbers. I am not one of them. But I am bouyed (sic RBW buoyed) by the appreciative comments

13.

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14.

I am still receiving. Many mom-and-kid duos come up to greet the Ambassador. One says that if the audiance (sic RBW audience) had voted, I'd have won. Another says that she wishes there was an honorable mention for my sake. I develop a half-curtsy half-bow that people take as a silent 'thanks.'

Before, during and after the contest, I have been the target of many camera buffs. Photographers should learn that people in costume, to my experience without exception, are very glad to pose for pictures. Go ahead and ask, instead of trying to snap one when your subject gets around to looking in your direction, which as a rule only happens when someone decides to walk in front of you.

Back at home and work, the main reactions I get when people ass (sic RBW see) my convention pictures are: 1) "Is that you?" and 2) "You mean you didn't win anything?" I was surprised at the latter, because I feel as though I did win something. But it is not money, or a trophy, or anything that I can show them.

When there are over 100 contestants and only 5 prizes, entrants must go through it all for more than that. For the fun and excitement? Look at the contestant who has sweated, unmoving, inside a costume for six to eight hours, and that is definately (sic RBW definitely) not the impression you'll get.

Serious costumers, like mountain climbers, do it "because it's there." They want to see, personally, if a certain thing can be done. And they strive to do it, in a way no one has done before, or perhaps closer to the original than anyone has ever done.

The prizes such contestants receive will never get dusty or tarnished sitting on a shelf, because these prizes are part of a dreamer's soul. Their dream has come true, you see. For a time, their alien was alive.

Don't ask them why they did such a thing. Ask yourself why you didn't. And if your answer is, "I Could never think up anything like that," or, "I'm not that crazy," you may well be right.

Dare yourself to dream! It is catching.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Ambassador Utayzik made another appearance to those in attendance at STAR TREK WORLD EXPO - New York City (February 1978)

His message follows:-

Greetings to you.

I sense that my appearance and my telepathic abilities no longer disturb you as they once did.

That is good.

During, my stay on your world, I have been studying human reactions towards alien life. Did you know that you may well be the last generation of humans to believe you are alone in the Universe?

It was long ago that my people first became aware of extraterrestrial beings. But, due to our primary mental development, we did not have the physical technology to allow us to leave our planet until much later. Only after we were able to fly above the thick clouds of my planet did we learn of the stars and of other worlds.

Yet, on any clear night, you can see the points of light which mark the homes of other civilizations. And your scientists are well on the way to developing the Rajbtlgd

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power necessary for interstellar flight --

Oh, forgive me.

I see I am projecting too much for you to accept, It is a risk.

So . . .

Let me leave you with this message:- LOOK TO THE SKY, MY FRIENDS. IT IS THERE THAT YOUR FUTURE EXISTS.

=================================================================

[CZ01IL02.TIF]

"It's addressed to 'occupant!' "

Inspired by "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" by the Carpenter.

15.

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16.

((The following are two true convention stories from Star Trek World Expo - February 1978))

STREETWALKING WITH JACQUELINE

LICHTENBERG

T'was the night before Monday, and all through the con,

Our food was delayed, we were hungry and wan.

At the Statler-Hilton, prices were so far out of sight,

That we went out, into the cold, dark night.

We walked, and we walked, and we walked some more.

"Is that restaurant open? I can't be sure."

"No, it's closed, just like all the rest. Maybe

We should have walked east, instead of west."

On Jacqueline, on Anne, on Sharron and Karen,

Walk on Pat, let's see if anything is open!

Five blocks, ten blocks, fifteen and more,

Looking, looking for an unlocked restaurant door.

Then we spied what looked like a restaurant, and Anne

Went to check it out and get the lay of the land.

"I just met ten of New York's finest," she said. "It's

Not a restaurant, it's a police station, instead!"

Hungrier and hungrier, we trudged on through the slush.

If someone had offered, we'd have eaten mush!

"Let's take a cab back and eat at the hotel,"

Was a suggestion that met with a bit of approval.

It met with approval, but only from us.

The cab driver looked leery as we stood in the slush.

"I can only take four, I'm sorry," he yelled.

And off into the night went the cab we had hailed.

Then what to our wondering eyes did appear,

But an open Chinese restaurant, whose door was near.

We dashed in, ordered, and sat down to eat,

Resting our poor, throbbing, half frozen feet.

"Where are we?" we asked of a passing stranger.

"Half a block from the Statler-Hilton," was the answer.

We had walked twenty blocks, an hour or more--

To get dinner, only half a block from our door!

PAT GRIBBEN (c) 1978

THE CASE OF THE

MISSING KEYS

-- By Sharron Marshall

(Turn page please for the Mystery . . .)

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THE CASE OF THE MISSING KEYS is Sharron's personal story. We had roomed together at the Con, and shared the idea that we should let Jacqueline, Anne and some others use our room to store their baggage in - since we were staying the night, and the others weren't. So our room became a reading room for Anne Golar, who locked herself away with the adventures of Sahaj Collected, and who became the keeper of the room, telephone answerer, and message taker. The hotel had messed up our billing, and had me, Karen, running between the Dealer's Room, the 15th floor (where the room was) and the Lobby Desk - trying to correct the malfunctioning computer, Now I will turn the typewriter over to Sharron who will continue with the narrative. . . .

It became a collossal (sic RBW colossal) practical joke on Jacqueline and me, who consequently got the biggest laugh. (I also tell this one better).

Monday morning I was working alone at the AZ table and around 11 am, Jacqueline came over. As she stood by the table she inadvertantly (sic RBW inadvertently) nudged the storage box under the table causing the cash-box, which was resting on top, to fall onto the floor, upside-down of course. I reached down to straighten it up, but Jacqueline asked that I give her the cash-box. I sat there and knew that I should not do it, but one does not argue with Jacqueline, so I relenquished (sic RBW relinquished) it to her. Jacqueline fiddled with it, picking up fallen coins and putting them back into the tray. She gave it back to me and left. My unease left too.

About 12:30 Jacqueline returned, and she was frantic. She had lost her room key, and attached to the ring with it was my room key! Jacqueline had asked me if I had seen them. I said "no," and she started prowling the Dealer's room, and then disappeared to continue the search.

Time flowed on as it will, and Karen kept dropping in and out telling me of the progress of "paying the bill" and telling me that at least we had her one key between us. She sure wasn't going to let that one out of her sight.

A little before five pm, Anne came down to close up and count the profits. While burrowing through the checks, loose bills and papers she came across the ring with the two keys on it! We finished picking up fast while I told Anne of the loss, then went up to the room where Jacqueline was waiting with Karen. Anne and I told Jacqueline the story, who, by the time we had the whole incident out - was clinging to the wall, having a laughing fit! What a way to end a convention!

These incidents of the last 24 hours sure weren't very ordinary, but they were a lot of fun. The Case of the Missing Keys was also my first slightly psychic experience, and probably won't be my last, as I understand that many of us in the group have had similar experiences.

(c) 1978 Sharron Marshall

3 Fayette Street

Waterloo, N.Y. 13165

Note: Sharron made her pledge to the Householding that Sunday and Monday. Apparently she doesn't regret it, as the story shows. Maybe there will be more adventures along this line at upcoming conventions.

17.

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18.

(C) 1978 by Jean Lorrah

This is a very brief introduction to the plot of FIRST CHANNEL, a Sime/Gen novel by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg. Perhaps in future issues I can discuss some of the themes of the book, which I have not even attempted to cover here.

As I tell my composition students, the best writing always stems from a question the author is burning to know the answer to. That is precisely how FIRST CHANNEL began, with my insistent demands to know, How did Rimon Farris ever learn to do that?"

The problem was, Jacqueline couldn't tell me, and the more I learned about the Sime/Gen universe, the more I saw how impossible it would be for a junct channel to discover how to take selyn without killing, let alone learn to transfer it to other Simes. Yet the fact that some time in the past of HOUSE OF ZEOR Rimon Farris did learn it is an established fact.

For months, I pestered Jacqueline with questions. Could it happen this way? No. That way? No. Then how? I don't know! But with each "no" came an explanation of why not, plus letters, unpublished novels and stories, and facts, facts, facts . . . until I, the inveterate tyer--up (sic RBW tier-up) of logical loose ends, suddenly realized how it could happen --- and I told Jacqueline.

At first I suggested that I write the story for "Ambrov Zeor," but Jacqueline said no, it was part of the pro series, and "some day" we might turn it into a novel. Not knowing Jacqueline so well in those days, I forgot all about it -- until one day last spring, when she telephoned me to tell me she'd sold her editor at Doubleday on the idea, and we were writing a novel!

At this writing, FIRST CHANNEL is still a growing entity; it's a little more than half-written, following the outline but also embroidering broadly upon it. It's a love story, a tale of young pioneers, a comedy and a tragedy in one. It takes place in a Sime Territory, where childhood sweethearts Rimon Farris and Kadi Morcot want nothing more than to grow up, get married, and live happily ever after.

Fate, however, won't let things be that simple: Kadi establishes as a Gen. The first third of the novel is an action/adventure story in which Kadi is sold at the Reloc Bazaar, Rimon goes after her to rescue her, he tries to take her to the boarder (sic RBW border) to release her into Gen Territory . . . but . . .

While readers new to the series may not expect it, I won't be spoiling the plot for those of you who are familiar with the Sime/Gen universe, as you have already guessed that Kadi must be a Natural Donor. Thus she is able to provide transfer fpr (sic RBW for) Rimon and survive.

That, of course, is the beginning of their problems. They make all the wrong assumptions, the worst one being that they can teach any Sime to take transfer from any Gen without killing. A second assumption, but the first to prove false, is that most Simes would want to learn to live without killing. Kadi, as a Gen, is regarded by most Simes as less than human; the fact that Rimon wants to live (sic RBW insert "with") her as husband and wife makes them outcasts from Sime society.

They deicde (sic RBW decide) to homestead in an area near the boarder, (sic RBW border,) where a variety of other outcasts and wanderers manage a marginal existence. The central part of the novel deals with their learning to live together, and finding a place in the community. Here they meet Abel Veritt and

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the people he has organized into a community called Fort Freedom. These are Simes who came from Gen Territory, who were followers of the Church of the Purity. They believe that the Sime nature is a curse, and that if they accept God's judgment and live good lives as Simes, their children will be Gen! When a child of Fort Freedom establishes, there is great rejoicing, and he is escorted to the boarder with prayer and thanksgiving.

I won't go into the complexities of Abel Verritt's theology, but as you might imagine, Rimon and Kadi, Sime and Gen living together without killing, seem like saints to the people of Fort Freedom. Everyone wants to learn to do what they do. But of course, Rimon cannot teach them.

It takes years before Rimon finally learns how to channel--before he discovers that he can transfer selyn from Gens to Simes. This long, painful learning process occupies the central part of the novel--along with fire and flood and wild Gen raids and all the other problems of pioneer life!

The third part sees Rimon's homestead turn into what will become the basis for the Householdings. The end of the book is both tragedy and comedy--tragedy as Rimon's confidence takes him too far, and he must face the truth of his Sime nature--a truth he has shielded himself from for many years. The result is his death.

He does not die in vain, however; his son Zeth Farris, is able to profit from his father's mistakes and establishes the House of Rimon on the principles that will later become the principles of Zeor. The New Way has been found; the pattern is set for the development of the system of Householdings to be seen in HOUSE OF ZEOR.

§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§

UNTO ALERT !!! (OR, OOPS . . .)

Now that Unto Zeor, Forever has appeared (hallelujah), we find that there might be some confusion over the term orhuen. It is implied in the phrasing in the Vocabulary section (see "Lortuen") that orhuen, like lortuen and torluen, is a sexually reinforced locked transfer dependency. T'aint so. Lortuen and torluen are consummated (brought to fulfillment) when the male/female matchmated couple go immediately from transfer to sex. Orhuen, a relationship between Sime and Gen of the same sex, is consummated through transfer alone. No sex is involved. In fact, it would be rather difficult, since the partners generally experience painful static discharge if they attempt to touch each other after transfer. If they desire post-transfer sex, the orhuen partners can seek out members of the opposite sex.

So to clear up any problems, you might think of orhuen as "a selyur nager locked transfer dependency between matchmates of the same sex. It is only slightly less powerful than lortuen/torluen."

And on page 64 of UNTO, find the fourteenth line up from the bottom and insert a comma between the words lortuen and occurring.

(And study this as a lesson in the importance of commas!)

19.

The SILVER YO-YO

AWARD

COMPANION IN ZEOR hereby awards its first SILVER YO-YO AWARD to the United States Congress and the Copyright office for the creation and adoption of the 1978 Copyright Laws.

Their totally confusing form of legalese has been traveling all over the East Coast before the Copyright was filed.

It all started with asking Anne and Jacqueline for the forms . . . and goes something like this:

Lisa Waters sent them to Karen from Connecticut to New Jersey.

From Karen they went to Jacqueline and Anne in New York, So the forms visited three States.

At this point, Jean Lorrah added to the correspondance (sic RBW correspondence) on the situation from Kentucky, and we still hadn't processed the forms (and this was in May)!

Jacqueline gave the forms to Katie Filipowicz, who lives in Massachusettes, (sic RBW Massachusetts,) for Katie to fill out and return to Karen in Ventnor, New Jersey.

So at this point, Katie sends the forms to Karen (get this, four States, and to Jersey twice!) who sent them to the copyright office in Washington.

So having some six people read the forms, no one seems to have the right idea of what the law means, and I think the forms saw more traveling than most of the Staff has!

So once again, thank you to the Congress, the Director of Copyright and the legal advisors who created the mess we were in. We doff our hat to you and present you with the SILVER YO-YO AWARD!!!

The Editors

§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§

AVAILABLE SOON:- THE DARKOVER JOURNAL OF PSYCHOGYNECOLOGY

(Project mentioned in Ambrov Zeor #6)

The Guild House of the Free Amazons, all of whom work in the "helping professions" are currently involved in this project. They request manuscripts, poems, comments and ideas as well.

For more information, SASE:- Joan Laucius

Arillin Guild House Council

37 Hastings Road

Kendall Park, New Jersey 08824

PLANNED RELEASE DATE: Summer 1978

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

DARKOVER GRAND COUNCIL MEETING: Sunday, July 9, 1978

Brooklyn, New York. Guest of Honor: Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Very Special Guest: Marion Zimmer Bradley

Registration: Advance - $2.50 Door - $3.50

Make Checks Payable to ARMIDA COUNCIL 1647 56th Street

Brooklyn, New York 11204 SASE to same address for more information.

20.

21.

"The Channel's Exemption":

Commentary

Jacqueline Lichtenberg's novelette "The Channel's Exemption" appeared in the pro magazine Galileo #4 during the summer of 1977. Set in the far future, the story describes the dilemma faced by Yone Farris, a channel, the only Sime in a group of Gens stranded on a Beacon Planet by the destruction of their spaceship. Confronted with an imprintation, or overwhelming fixed sexual desire, on Livya Jeter, daughter of a Sime-phobe, he is forced to decide among apparently conflicting codes of morality, with his own life, the lives of the entire party, and possibly the unity of humanity at stake. You can order a copy of Galileo #4 from Jacqueline (9 Maple Terrace, Monsey, NY 10952) for $1.75.

((To CAF. Eddie is interested in discovering WHY readers enjoy certain novels.))

I thought about it along the lines we've been discussing these books all along, and it seems to me that many of the same ideas are re-emphasized in CE, especially the idea of individual responsibility Yone Farris has an exceedingly rigid personal code of honor, and he upholds it at great cost to himself, with a heroism that is all the more heroic because it involves conquering himself rather than an outside enemy.

But a conflict exists. Quite possibly the further survival of the party he leads depends upon his ability to function--and the code of honor that he clings to is jeopardizing that ability. He must decide; is his personal honor more important than the lives of those who are dependent on him?

That's one side of the coin. Then there is Livya, who is much in the same situation. She, too, has a code--a code that has been pounded into her by her mother. The conflict on her side is between that code, represented by her mother, and the attraction she feels to Yone--plus the feeling that perhaps she, too, is now indirectly responsible for the welfare of the party, as Cheryl intimates.

Here, then, lies the reader's interest in the story. On one side we have the man who clings to his personal code which, although it may not be perfect, is better than any alternative he can find, and which is a painful thing in this situation. There lies courage. On the other side is the girl who realizes the things she has been taught are wrong, but alienates her mother and tears herself away from years of belief and indoctrination to do what she finally decided is right. That's another kind of courage, and it may be that in Channel's Exemption, the real hero is Livya more than the traditional Farris character.

* * * * * * * * * *

All letters copyrighted by their authors (c) 1978

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22.

((To CAF, parts of three letters cobbled together))

I'm confused. Why is what the Distect conspirators doing wrong? JL says (implies) that it's bad--but how and why? Personally I felt the story was very incomplete. A lot of info was just thrown away so boy could meet girl. I'd like to know what happened to the culture between HoZ and CE. At the present I'm only confused.

CE is a typical romance story. Boy loves girl. Girl can't stand boy--for reasons A, B, C. Girl learns error of her ways. They live happily ever after. Nowhere in any typical romance is there any reason that boy loves girl. Very often it's "love at first sight". Only of course, that's not love, it's sexual attraction. But that's what it's called. And that's basically what's happening in CE. It is a typical boy meets girl story, only since it's SF, he needs her for slightly different reasons.

Whether or not you consider it a "love" story depends on what your definition of love is. Certainly, Yone is feeling more than lust towards Livya. Perhaps it is just imprintation. But I see imprintation as a form of love. It involves a long term commitment towards the beloved, for one thing. I realize that imprintation as we have been seeing it, is physical compulsion, at least in part. Still there is a psychological need involved too.

In the real world people fall in love for lots of reasons, and not all of them make a lot of sense to outsiders. They fall in love because they are lonely or because they need to get away from their birth home. None of this matters as much as what they do with their commitment once they have made it.

The real problem Livya and Yone are going to have is that Livya is a child. I think we, as a culture, are finally getting away from the idea that child-brides are appealing. I recently reread the Claudine series by Collette. Another child-bride, but Claudine was an individual even at 16 and at 18 she was both an individual and a woman. Livya is a blank slate. This is the real problem with CHANNEL'S EXEMPTION.

You care about Yone; you like him. The last thing I want for that overburdened man is another burden. And that is what Livya is.

So perhaps CHANNEL'S EXEMPTION isn't a love story after all but a story about a compulsion, and an unhealthy compulsion at that!

Mostly I think that CE was JL's attempt at discussing/showing how imprintation works in a professionally published story. To show how illogically it works sometimes she made Livya a nonentity. Yone passed up a mature, vibrant woman who had Companion capacities equal to his needs to settle on an untrained child.

*****************************************************************

What do they call Sime Territory in Spain? Andle-lusia

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23.

Dianna Matlosz, Box 265 RFD #3, Reedsburg, WI 53959 ((To JL))

The best I can say about "The Channel's Exemption" is that it stands well alone; there is no need for the reader to have any knowledge of your earlier work (witness my situation), the story is intriguing despite the lack of "fine-point" definitions. And, despite the undoubted temptation, you successfully avoided drowning it in politics--Tecton versus Distect (as yet, both these mean nothing to me, salt and pepper would mean as much). You were so successful that I am very unsure as to which, if either, you intended to be "right". As for the real story--what happens between Livya Jeter and Farris, or perhaps more significantly, to Livya alone--it was perfectly reasonable. It was true enough, the situation was plausible. Even the dialogue defined the conflict in the character well. All in all, I found it very satisfying--up to the last ten lines.

The ending was awkward for me. Granted, both Livya and Yone are in an awkward situation; she's accepted the responsibility for her action but is not all that sure she wants to make the commitment that action will involve and Yone, having just asserted that he has no right to talk to Livya Jeter because of his vow to abide by the Tecton "Principles" is suggesting that they have just such a "little talk". (That still doesn't prove the "Principles" wrong, of course, just that Yone has decided to side-step them, given the oppoortunity; (sic RBW opportunity;) maybe he shouldn't have.)

What would have happened if he had not met Livya half-way? What if she had had the opportunity to take the final steps to that commitment alone, just as she had accepted responsibility? On her own, by her own choice. Seventeen isn't too young for that, rather, it's the age for such commitment, the yearning for it--for some purpose, a dedication of self to a greater end--something more than self. She had the potential for the strength that would have required, but its expression was thwarted. She comes off the weaker for it. Is that weakness a complement suitable to Yone Farris's kind of strength? No. That is what I find unacceptable, and untenable.

The "exemption" is implied in the closing scenes of HoZ with Hugh, Klyd, and Aisha. "Exemption" theory is very sexist and elitist. It's sexist in that women have no choice and must bow to the channel's whim. It's elitist in that it deals with a channel's affliction.

Yone sees prejudice in Mother Jeter's attitude, and yet I saw it in his attitude toward Brian Inikar and the Distect group. Apparently the Tecton training Yone had is more important to his being than survival.

I felt the experiences of all the "Channel's Exemption" characters. They were real, viable individuals, trying to live together.

((The following is a letter written by a Sime fan who found she had an initially negative reaction to "Channel's Exemption". It was meant as a Devil's Advocate piece, a specifically feminist

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24.

reaction. But when she'd finished writing it, she realized she had made some interesting points. What do you think?))

I can't understand why Jacqueline wrote such a sexist story as "The Channel's Exemption". How can she, a woman, create a society where innocent women are forced to submit to men simply because these men apparently have a fixation on them? Through her characters, she protests that this is NOT legalized prostitution. Of course it isn't; it's legalized RAPE. Yet Yone and the Inikars all expect Livya to submit, despite her fear and supposed revulsion.

And what kind of society has she created where a man must take a wife for purely sexual reasons--whether she is emotionally or intellectually compatible at all? I might accept the situation if Livya had knowingly placed herself in a position to Imprint Yone Farris or had otherwise attempted to attract him physically. But she does not.

What reason can Jacqueline have for writing a story using this situation? Why must she demean and use women in this manner? Why must she help to perpetuate the traditional male view of women as purely physical objects, available when needed to serve some requirement of the male?

((OK, I confess, I wrote that letter. I sent a copy to Jean Lorrah, hoping for some reaction. What followed was a three-way discussion, with Jacqueline scribbling in the margins of her carbon copies of our letters. Whenever you see a column of comment in elite type next to a letter, that's the Sectuib writing. Underlined phrases in the text indicate what she's commenting on. You may have noticed that the transfer situation at the end of HoZ--channel, untrained Donor, nearby Gen woman--resembles Yone's first transfer after the crash. Yes, Klyd is imprinted on Aisha.))

Perhaps I can straighten out some of the problems you're having with the Sime/Gen universe--or maybe add to them. The sexist argument is easily dispensed with: the story is "Channel's Exemption", not "Male Channel's Exemption". Imprintation can happen just as easily to a female as a male channel. However, Jacqueline is fixated on Farrises, and female Farris channels don't live long; hence she ends up writing mostly about men. CE is about a clash of cultures--which is what the whole series is about. By Yone Farris's day, the culture Livya came from is unusual--but he respects it. In fact, he almost kills himself respecting it. Moreover, he overcomes the imprintation--by the time the story takes place what Yone is suffering from is the CD's plus love. Besides, while the law is open-ended, and thus permits rape, I doubt if any channel could commit rape--or any nonjunct Sime, for that matter. What the law is for is to prevent charges of rape from a person who cooperated, and then changed his/her mind--and if you want to know how a woman can rape a man, if she is physiologically stronger, as a Sime is than a Gen, and if she knows male physiology, yes, it can be done! Ugh, yick--but it can be done. Such matters aside, a true rape--the sexual assault on an unwilling victim--would do

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nothing to assuage the channel's problems. It would, if he could go through with it at all, probably throw even a Tigue (who are all female) into vriamic fibrillation.

Thus, although out-Territory Gens perceive channel's exemption as condoning rape, it is actually protection from the charge by a seductee who discovers that his/her power over the channel is gone, and that the channel has no intention of setting him/her up for life, or marrying him/her, or whatever. While the channel's own spouse would not scream "adultery", the law also protects him/her against such charges by the spouse of the seductee.

Maybe I'll have to write a story in which an innocent man is "forced to submit" to a female channel simply because she has a fixation on him!

As to the second charge, that in Sime/Gen society a man must take a wife "for purely sexual reasons--whether she is emotionally or intellectually compatible at all"--where did that come from? Yone wants to marry Livya because he has fallen in love with her; in fact, that he wants to marry her is one of the things that shows he has gone beyond the imprintation. He doesn't want just sex--he wants a life together. And I cannot at all follow the logic that poor Yone ought to be stuck permanently with any woman who deliberately placed herself so as to have him imprinted on her!

One of the problems with CE as it appeared in GALILEO is that the editors made Jacqueline change the ending. In the original version, the last three paragraphs read as follows:

She started around the boulder to the tent door.

He met her half way.

And that's the way it was between them for the rest of their lives.

Could you ask for a more feminist ending? However, in order to get the story published, Jacqueline had to take it out.

You're not ready to Qualify TN-1 until you realize the deadly power you hold over a channel. And the more ignorant you are, the more harm you can do, quite by accident--which is what happened to Yone Farris. Livya--a potential TN-1--was totally ignorant, while the Donor who tried to help Yone was only partly aware of what he was doing. Between them, they put the poor man into the shape he was in at the beginning of the story. They didn't mean to--but, you know, if anybody was raped in that story, it was Yone, psychically.

I often wonder if a Donor's fear (JL Note. valid) is as much of hurting the channel through ignorance, as in being hurt themselves. (Yes I know, TN-1's had better not have either fear. Maybe those are the concerns of a TN-2 (JL Note. yes, I think so & we don't nave any stories about them) not ready for TN-1?)

I gather that imprintation normally lasts until turnover, then is gone. Well, Yone tells Cheryl that this is a "permanent Imprintation", (JL Note. no, just until he gets her pregnant, then it will fade) and she says that Livya is no "match" for him. To me, that sounds like he

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is somehow stuck with her for good; is it his way of saying euphemistically that he's in love (JL Note. no way, but he will be) with Livya? I also see no indication that he has gotten over the Imprintation at all, unless he has and doesn't know it. Or is that the way these things work? Psychological alone after that first turnover day, whereas before it's actually physical? The imprintation is dispelled with one (JL Note. sometimes, but not usually with Farrises) act of intercourse? Or is it just the CD's (JL Note. CD's usually take more than one also) that are dispelled? (Obviously, since Klyd doesn't require Aisha with him for life, there is some form or way to remove the imprintation, or at least his form of imprintation.) (JL Note. the pregnancy alters her fields and releases him) Yone's musings in the third paragraph could indicate either one or the other.

Just realized that by "overcomes the imprintation" you probably mean that it's not important to Yone anymore, because he's fallen in love and would want Livya anyway. It's funny, but I just didn't (and still don't) read the story that way. Even that ending would not have made me read the story that way.

As to imprintation--the imprintation itself is totally psychological. The CD's are physical. Imprintation is a desire for a specific person; that combines with a Sime's normal post-syndrome sexual desire, which is both physical and psychological. In a normal channel, an imprintation lasts until turnover; Farrises are exceptions to everything, of course--a Farris can find an imprintation renewed at his next transfer, but I think Klyd's problem was that his next transfer was with Hugh, and let us not go into the ambiguities in that relationship here. Leave it that I perceive it as Hugh's unintentionally re-imprinting Klyd on Aisha each time they come in contact, okay? However, there is another aspect to imprintation which I suddenly know, although I never thought about it until right now: the Gen upon whom the channel is imprinted must have some kind of interest in the channel. Aisha has developed at least an admiration and respect for Klyd's restraint in the brief time she has known him, and besides, Hugh has been telling her all about him. And he is a fascinating person. So she looks on in morbid curiosity, but also with a natural interest in the channel--and I suspect sympathy, which might be enough in itself, plus that human compulsion toward the exotic. There must be some kind of positive emotion from the Gen in order for the imprintation to take place. Livya has at least curiosity about Yone, and an adolescent's sympathy for the outcast, plus also the adolescent's fascination with the exotic--hence she plays a role in the imprintation. Then, on the journey, she grows up and becomes capable of loving. If she had remained a kid, never gaining the maturity which allowed her to break with her mother, Yone's imprintation would have worn off, and he would have found some willing woman among the travelers with whom to work off the CD's. But she sticks

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around, becoming more and more attracted to Yone--and remember, whenever she's near, her nager is affecting him.

We are all responsible for our actions, even those we commit out of ignorance. Sometimes others can shelter us, but eventually life catches up.

A good Donor doesn't fear hurting either the channel or himself in personal transfer. Sometimes somebody gets hurt, just as sometimes somebody gets hurt driving a car or swimming or flying a plane or running track or whatever it is that exhilarates you. If you're a TN, transfer is exhilarating, and you're concentrating on doing it right, not on getting hurt.

You think imprintation is entirely psychological, and I just composed a definition for it as totally physical! Care to bet that it is sometimes one, sometimes the other, but Generally both? (JL Note. actually, the two mean the same thing)

Oh, I love the idea, that the Gen involved in the imprintation must have some interest in the channel--some sort of receptivity that makes his/her field seem "attractive". (JL Note. yeah, I dig that, too) That would explain why sometimes an imprintation happens, and sometimes it doesn't. (All right, one possible explanation.) If the channel's sex drive or whatever is so grasping it would latch onto anything of the opposite sex indiscriminately, ech. (Which is exactly what I assumed had happened, when I read the story.) (JL Note. It CAN happen, but it is regarded as pathological. It is result of the "unnatural" Tecton development.)

Oh, and I think we're both assuming that the Gen has to be right there at transfer. Aisha isn't, she comes running up during the first hand-holding scene. And Livya is "the first woman near Yone after Valyu performed the first donation". (JL Note. Come on, now, it's a small glade. Livya wasn't far either & she watched the whole thing)

Two more lines in ChE that intrigue me. Right after Cheryl calls Valyu "that incompetent fool", (JL Note. translation, Lorsh) Yone says, "It probably would have happened anyway." (JL Note. He LOVES her, karmic recognition, alias "love at first sight") Implying perhaps that he was somehow pre-disposed to get imprinted, on Livya? The other line is during Yone's musings at the beginning, when he thinks, "Few more months and we'll be back in civilization". Is this just wishful thinking, or can the people in civilization do something for him? (JL Note. sure, a decent Donor & an assignee who knows her job)

Here's how I would currently answer the question, "What the heck is imprintation?": Ordinarily, after a transfer to satisfy personal need, a channel's sexual energies are

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aroused. If the Donor or a nearby Gen are of the opposite sex, and if precautions aren't taken, Imprintation may occur. There are many levels and degrees (JL Note. right) of imprintation, with Farrises (JL Note. The harder working, more developed channels are in greater danger. Tigues are probably immune.*) (as usual!) being subject to the deeper variety. What happens is that the channel's sex drive is locked, through his secondary selyn system, (JL Note. I'm not too sure) into the fields of the Gen. Only that one particular Gen field remains "sexually" attractive, so that only that one person can be a satisfactory sex partner. (JL Note. right) In Yone's case, the imprintation will last until he gets Livya pregnant. (JL Note. right) Then, her selyn production rate will change, her fields will alter, and he will be released. (JL Note. right)

If Livya got pregnant by ANYBODY (JL Note. nope) it should remove the imprintation. I wonder what Yone's reaction would have been if he saw her and some guy going off into the bushes together--encourage them, or attack the guy. (JL Note. He'd be within his legal rights to attack and even kill) Can you imagine the alternate Sime universe if Hugh had got Aisha pregnant right after the end of HoZ? How much of the bitterness between Hugh and Klyd would this have assuaged? (JL Note. Klyd probably would die)

((Hugh and Klyd's relationship after HoZ was not an untroubled one. A growing philosophical split over the form of the Sime/Gen Union was exacerbated by Hugh's reluctance to send Aisha to Klyd. Aisha eventually did go to him and conceived a child, but this child was not Muryin. Klyd's daughter Muryin later succeeded him as Sectuib in Zeor.))

Still can't see how Muryin got conceived, (JL Note. Yes, by his wife (brave woman, considering what happened to all his other wives)) unless it was after Aisha went to Klyd. What is the channel's reaction to offers of sex from another person, as Cheryl does for Yone? CAN a male channel manage, or is he impotent? (JL Note. The Sime universe is not founded on a "mechanistic" view of reality, but on the "eternal soul" and karmic view, basically Kabbalistic, though I didn't know that when I was a kid and invented the Simes.)

What is the simple thing a Donor can do to prevent imprintation? You say imprintation is a function of the secondary system, (JL Note. That's "made simple". Of course it's secondary/primary interaction and psychology) and really

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shows up only in Firsts. Yone's Donor wasn't a First. I can see what a good Donor could do to prevent a locking of the channel's PRIMARY system onto some Gen--just alter the selyn consumption rate at the appropriate time. But I still don't see how a Donor can control the channel's SECONDARY system, which is only for flow and storage. (JL Note. Donor controls imprintation by not letting the channel's brainwaves lapse into a theta type rhythm, I think--which, of course, destroys a lot of the joy of transfer!)

((*A comment on this from Jean: Tigues are not immune to imprintation, although they're not nearly as sensitive as Farrises. However, a Tigue is almost paranoid about imprintation; she dreads anything that removes her self-control.))

One of the first lessons a Donor must learn is not to imprint a channel of the opposite sex on himself; this is a difficult lesson, as he will naturally feel sympathy for the channel in need. Under the Tecton, a Donor's first few personal transfers are undoubtedly with a same-sex channel. Even in the householdings, before Unity, where it would not be considered a mortal sin for a channel and Donor to have sex after transfer, obviously a Companion has to know how not to put a channel in that compromising situation, nor does he want someone he likes but isn't sexually interested in panting after him because he was careless.

I don't see how imprintation can be anything but psychological. If the channel had been sexually deprived for several months beforehand, there might be a physical effect that would increase the sexual dependency--a factor that would determine whether the imprintation could be worked off in a single sexual session, by a channel who was regularly active, or would take the full two weeks to turnover, by a channel who had been celibate in recent months. The Gen's attitude would have a great deal to do with it, too. As for pregnancy ending an imprintation--bah, humbug! Klyd did not become one bit less imprinted on Aisha while she was pregnant with Hugh's child.

Again, it is both psychological and physical in that the Gen's psychology affects the Sime's physiology--and of course a Gen's psychology also affects his own nager physically. But it is what the Gen thinks and feels that is the clue to the whole thing.

Now, in HoZ and CE we have two rare cases of a channel being imprinted on someone other than his Donor. In both cases the Donor is of the same sex as the channel, and inexperienced. As to neither of the women being on top of the pair as the transfer takes place--with a Farris in need, she'd only have to be in the same state! Remember the extreme sensitivity of Farrises at all times, but especially in need.

I think Yone's line, "It probably would have happened anyway," indicates that with Farris sensitivity and Livya's sympathy, even a Donor with far more skill than Valyu could not have prevented the imprintation under the circumstances. As for getting "back to

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civilization," that means back to the Tecton and back to people who know Zeor techniques. He would hook up with some 4+ Therapist (like Imrahan before Digen got his tentacles on him) and easily break the imprintation--remember, Zeor has techniques to break even a Lortuen. Probably one good transfer from a 4+ Donor, in privacy would end the imprintation all by itself. Come to think of it, Yone is an atypical Farris and an atypical Lichtenberg hero--he's being shorted and he still has a sex drive!

Privacy--a Sime's privacy--is not possible in either of the transfers under discussion. In a householding and later in the Tecton, all personal transfers take place in selyn-shielded rooms, so that no one else's nager can possibly interfere.

One thing that confuses me about your comments on my letters to Jean. In one letter, I commented that Yone has fallen in love with Livya (Jean's comment, actually), and you wrote, "no way, but he will be". (JL Note. Different definitions of the word "love") In my second letter, I quoted another section from that same conversation Yone had with Cheryl, where he tells her that the imprintation probably would have happened anyway. To that, you wrote, "He loves her. Karmic recognition alias 'love at first sight' ". I doubt you're being inconsistent, (JL Note. good girl!) so how's this as an explanation: Yone is a very perceptive type, when he allows himself to be. At that instant, he knows that the set-up has been there all along for him to fall in love with Livya, karmic necessity and all that . But he's been fighting it (JL Note. right) and destroying himself, and he really isn't in love with her yet, though he should be. (JL Note. right) Should be love at first sight, but isn't. (JL Note. right) (Except, does not his own fate require that he go through this whole mess and learn from it?) (JL Note. also right) Feeling her there outside the tent, being in sympathy with him, makes him love her more. (JL Note. appreciate & admire)

Back to another explanation of imprintation, then. Certain conditions are present: Gen of opposite sex handy, Donor not doing his job, hard working First Order channel, some sort of receptiveness or positive attitude on part of Gen, some sort of psychological pattern (JL Note. the condition MZB calls "barriers down". See Heritage in particular) on part of channel. Basic karmic necessity for both of them to have this happen, although it seems that the Gen has less reaction to this than the channel. (JL Note. Gens are harder to read, but it is there.) (Or is this a reason for Livya's attraction to Yone?)

Until turnover, this Gen is only satisfactory sex partner. Problem: for some channels, after turnover inhibits the sex drive, imprintation doesn't come back at next transfer. Klyd's does and Yone's does. Is it because that particular pattern is locked in (JL Note. locked in)

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and reappears with the sex drive, or is it accompanied by some further action on the part of the Donor? (Jean's idea (JL Note. I don't get that, but you could make a good case for it.) that Hugh keeps re-imprinting Klyd on Aisha.) Jean also says the imprintation will fade with time. (JL Note. Sure, if you live that long) Wouldn't the CD's actually make it stronger? You say that back in civilization, a good Donor and an assignee who knows her job could straighten Yone out: meaning, get rid (JL Note. Get rid. See UNTO, Zeor techniques of breaking a dependency.

But not in primitive conditions & it would be a dire risk to Yone's life) of the imprintation, or just alleviate the CD's? The former would mean that there was some way out besides getting Livya pregnant.

Since Yone alone has to get her pregnant to release himself, it follows that there are distinct physiological and psychological parts of imprintation. Her fields change with pregnancy, releasing the physical tie. The psychological satisfaction of conception, of the joining to produce a new life, must be the thing that releases the channel psychologically. (Or just any old pregnancy would do the trick.)

How about a female channel, would she have to get pregnant to release herself? (JL Note. yes) (Great way for a female Farris to kill herself, (JL Note. yes) wind up with an imprintation.)

OK, so in esoteric terms, the release would come when the Personality had learned so and so, and the soul had grown in such-and-such way (JL Note. You're getting close.) (rather, when BOTH souls had grown, etc.). The release is accompanied by the above events on the material plane.

((Would anybody care to try to hit the nail right on the head?))

((Another note. Anytime you see any speculation on such things as "What happened after HoZ?" and "What if Aisha got pregnant right away?", remember that all of this constitutes stories and happenings in alternate Sime universes. Yes, even if Jacqueline or Jean are the ones doing the writing. Only when it is published professionally does any story or bit of information become part of the primary Sime/Gen universe. Anything else is always subject to change.))

((Yet another note. I'd like to know how you feel about this section on "Channel's Exemption". We might be able to put together other groups of letters on certain topics, if people are interested. Let us hear from you about UNTO, for instance.))

*****************************************************************

"Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity." ALBERT EINSTEIN

*****************************************************************

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GENERALLY SPEAKING

Here, at the same time the second Sime/Gen novel sees publication, comes a second fanzine dedicated to the discussion of the Sime universe. Our format is quite different from that of Ambrov Zeor, our "big sister." CZ exists as a means for you, the fans, to get to know each other as people. We want to keep you in touch and involved with the latest developments in the Sime series and to provide a gateway into other sf universes and their fandoms for you to explore. Companion's material will include both serious discussion and fun stuff, such as jokes, puzzles, fan anecdotes, recipes, funny poems and con reports.

Of course, the editors don't intend to write all this! We will publish whenever we collect enough material, hopefully at least four times a year. We really DO want to hear from all our fellow Sime fans. Send reviews of books and short stories (1-3 manuscript pages), articles on recommended authors (2-10 manuscript pages), and letters of comment (any length) to Katie Filipowicz. Send fan fiction (Sime oriented), artwork, and everything else to Karen MacLeod. Every accepted contribution gets you a free copy of the issue it appears in. CZ is truly meant to be a fans' zine. Help us keep it that way.

A word about our cover. We'll be mysterious about the design and ask if anyone can figure out what it means. It's very Tecton-ish; Distect supporters would NOT like it. But the slogan . . . that's Zeor idealism.

Unto Zeor, Forever - Yours in Similarity and

Diversity --

Karen MacLeod Katie Filipowicz

316 N. Surrey Ave. 23 Oakridge Circle

Ventnor, N.J. 08406 Wilmington, MA. 01887

SENIOR EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR

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AD Today I would like to tell you about the country of Prydain. I just know you will like it.

YOU Now wait just a little minute. I don't like being told what I'll like. I have never heard of Prydain. And as for liking the author, I don't see how I can because I don't even know who it is.

AD Sorry. The author is Lloyd Alexander.

YOU All right. Now, where is this Prydain place anyway?

AD I don't know.

YOU You mean you are going to tell me about a place and you don't even know where it is?

AD That's right. Where it is really doesn't matter. We won't be going there. I just want to tell you about a story that took place there.

YOU What's the story about?

AD It's about a boy growing up in Prydain.

YOU That doesn't sound very exciting. What's this boy do? Is he a prince or the son of someone famous or something?

AD His name is Taran and he's a Swine Guardian Aide.

YOU He's a what?

AD He's an Assistant Pig Keeper.

YOU You expect me to spend my time reading about an Assistant Pig Keeper growing up? You have got to be kidding.

AD There are lots of other interesting characters involved.

YOU Such as?

AD Well, there's King Math, two princes: Gwydion and Ellidyr, a Gurgi, princess Eilonwy, an enchantress named Archen and three others called Orwen, Orddu and Orgoch, a dwarf named Doli, Fflewddur the king who wanted to be a bard, a giant cat, a small giant, a talking crow, some uncommon common people, a few zombies, Arawn the Death Lord, a mirror that isn't that can tell Taran what he most wants to know if he knows how to read the answer, a black cauldron, . . .

YOU Stop! If all that is in the story, how long is it?

AD Oh, about 1,203 pages.

YOU That would be a VERY thick book.

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AD I suppose it would be if it were one book. It's really five books.

YOU I still don't know what the books are all about.

AD I told you. They are the adventures of an Assistant Pig Keeper named Taran growing up in Prydain. If you want to know some of the background, read the "Author's Note" in the front of each book.

YOU You have left a lot of questions unanswered. How can there be a mirror that isn't, and a small giant, and how did zombies and a Death Lord get mixed up in this? What happens to Taran? Does he marry the princess and live happily ever after?

AD I'll never tell. You'll have to read the book.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

All right, enough of that. Now for a little more "in depth" look. These books are more than just the adventures of Taran, Assistant Pig Keeper, and his friends and enemies. They are the journey of Taran from a boy to a man. He learns to expand his world, to leave the familiar and explore the unknown. There is a covering of more physical (land) area as well as a covering of more mental "area". He learns to put himself in the place of others, to see things through their eyes. He learns that he is capable of doing things he thought he never could. He learns that people are much more valuable than things and that that which appears at first to have little value can come to be the most precious of all. Growing up, Taran finds, is both joyful and sad. Some of the choices made along the way, such as the one at the end of the series, can be both. He also finds that growing up is something which does not happen just because one has reached a certain age or has done particular things. Growing up is a process of becoming more than you were yesterday and reaching for that which you can become tomorrow. It is a process which never really stops.

Here is the list of the books. You can get them at any bookstore that sells paperbacks (unless you are rich and can afford the hardback editions) or at your local public library. Look in the children's section.

By Lloyd Alexander.

THE BOOK OF THREE

THE BLACK CAULDRON

THE CASTLE OF LLYR Published by Dell Publishing Co.

TARAN WANDERER

THE HIGH KING

There is also a book of short stories about Prydain. I have this in hardcover. THE FOUNDLING AND OTHER TALES OF PRYDAIN, Holt, Rinehart and Winston. There are two Prydain picture books, COLL AND HIS WHITE PIG and THE TRUTHFUL HARP.

[CZ01IL03.TIF]

Amber (c) 1978 by Amber of Dragonhyrst and MJR

Sacramento, California

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by

(c) 1978 Stella Nemeth

Janet Morris is the author of three books in what seems to be an ongoing series. Like much of the fantasy written by women they are both fantasy and science fiction. The locale is a far future planet that is not the earth.

Silistra is an unusual planet. Its people look primitive but aren't. Silistra has a world-wide culture based on cities and Wells. There is a secondary culture in the wastelands, but that too is unified as a single culture. The Silistrans have had a high technological civilization in the past and remember where it led them. Now they have chosen a different path. Most Silistrans have some ability with psi powers, usually foreseeing, Some have a great deal of ability including the ability to affect the future. The Silistran culture encourages these gifts. The people are very long-lived, but suffer from a low birth-rate, as most women are fertile with a limited number of men.

The books are narrated by Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi, a young woman who is half human and half godling. (Her father comes from another planet.) Estri begins as a willful child and becomes a person who has exerienced (sic RBW experienced) her boundaries by stretching them and testing them. She is placed in situations where only super human effort will allow her to succeed. She is forced by these situations into developing the super-human powers that are inherent in her genetic makeup."

In addition to Estri there are several interesting characters in the trilogy. Sereth, once Seventh of the Slayers Guild, becomes a bandit chief, and later servant and enemy of Silistra's ruler. He is a mixture of savage monster and sensitive lover and friend. Like Estri he is forced out of the comfortable life that he had made for himself and the experience forces him to grow.

Khys, the true ruler of Silistra, is, like Estri, half human and half godling. He is extremely old and was a child during the last days of Silistra's technological past. Nevertheless he looks and acts like a man just entering his middle years. He developed the hide system just before the military crash of the planet's civilization and led the Silistrans during their long wait underground and their return to the planet's surface. His powers are enormous, but because he has had no equal during his long lifetime he has had no reason to grow into his real strenths. (sic RBW strengths.) In addition as a god among mortals he has become cruel and arrogant. He doesn't like the changes that time is bringing to Silistra and tries to keep Silistra static.

Estrazi, Estri's father, is not often seen in the books. He appears twice at moments of crux. Outside of his desire for Estri to have a particular child by a particular man, it is impossible to figure out just what he is attempting to do with Estri. It is possible, even likely that all of her adventures are the result of his manipulations. Certainly many of them seem to be. Estrazi's powers and abilities are far greater than those that Khys or Estri control.

Chayin is the leader of the horse-clan peoples, the Parsets. He also is part godling, but on a lesser level than either Khys or Estri. His people have an interesting culture that is not a simple analog to earth horse-clan cultures. Chayin is strong and weak. Prince and Lord of a ruthless people; gifted foreseer; and bedmate to both Sereth and Estri.

On Estri's 300th birthday, she receives two messages that have been kept for her by the Day-Keepers. One

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message is a cube-tape from her mother showing Estri's conception and including a message of love for her child. With cube-tape is a ring belonging to Estri's father. A mother has the right to demand one favor from her child in payment for having given birth to the child. Estri's mother orders her to find her father. The ring is the only clue to his whereabouts.

Estri leaves home on a quest to find her father. During that quest she is forced to depend on her own strengths and those of the allies that she makes on the way rather than the strengths that society provides. Her success in locating her father's planet only entangles her in a new problem. This time she must prove to her father's people that she has the right to remain among them. She succeeds as a result of luck and hard work.

Having fulfilled her mother's demand and having given her father his ring Estri finds herself returned to Silistra. She is returned, not to the civilized part of the planet but to the lands of the Parsets, clothed only in a jeweled cloak. She also has a helsar, a crystalline teaching device intended to waken her super human powers, now that she has proved her right to them. First, of course, Estri must survive among the Parsets. She begins as a slave of Chayin, and

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fights her way into a status equal to his. Together with Sereth they battle their way to the stronghold of the dharen Khys. Although they succeed in arriving at their destination they arrive defeated. During the battle Estri causes a disturbance in the time-space continuum which results in the arrival of hundreds of helsars.

Khys uses his powers to force Estri, Sereth and Chayin into submission at a time when all three of them are weak from hunger and battle. He puts Sereth among his sworn men, returns Chayin to his people as a sworn vassal and, through the use of a band of restraint, he subdues Estri and turns her into a docile creature without a memory of her past.

Estri has a child by Khys which she promptly abandons. The last book in the trilogy is more about Estri's hard fight to regain her memory and the use of her powers than about anything else. Both Sereth and Chayin had attempted to dominate Estri in the past. Both find the new docile Estri impossible to accept. Through rebellion and artifice they contrive to regain Estri's freedom and their own.

Janet Morris is a good writer. Her characters are interesting. Her backgrounds are complex intricate things. Her plots are involved and fast-paced enough to keep you turning the pages. But there is one thing wrong with these books.

Those of you who are familiar with science fiction might be aware of a series of novels written by John Norman, called the GOR books. The problem with Janet Morris is that she has been bitten by the GOR-bug.

Let me explain. John Norman writes books where the only plot device is the dominance of men and the masochistic submission of women. His men revel in being sadistic brutes; his women revel in "true" masochistic womanhood. For some reason Janet Morris has also taken up this theme.

It would be easy to dismiss Janet Morris's books as I have dismissed John Norman's if the authors were of equivalent talent. But they aren't! Norman writes laughable sophomoric books. Morris has talent. And then

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37.

there is Estri, who I care about, and who does not revel in her degradation but fights is. (sic RBW it.) Estri is a strong woman, a supremely talented woman who finds herself in difficult circumstances where she doesn't have control. She regularly falls into the power of a stronger man, usually when she is ill or otherwise weakened. Estri is a character who grows in powers, in abilities, in her own sense of herself throughout the three books.

Still she is constantly raped, constantly forced into degrading positions. Not all of these situations are learning situations. Most of them exist for their titillating aspects. There is for example, a gratuitous rape scene in the third novel that made me especially angry. Not only was it unnecessary for the continuation of the plot but in my opinion it was counter-productive.

What can one do about a series like this one? In my case I am going to wait out one more book. At the end of WIND FROM THE ABYSS Estri is in a position where additional rape scenes would be difficult to explain. I am going to see what happens next.

Janet E. Morris, HIGH COUCH OF SILISTRA, GOLDEN SWORD, WIND FROM THE ABYSS

Reviews (c) 1978 by each

review's author.

Pamela Sargent

CLONED LIVES

Fawcett, c 1976

Pamela Sargent is a relatively new author, first appearing in the magazines in 1971. Her first novel, Cloned Lives, was published in 1976, and her first short story collection, Starshadows, was published in 1977. Cloned Lives is about the first human clones--five of them--and the world's reaction to them (and, their reactions to the world). In the book, and in each of the stories, the most memorable thing is not the setting or the plot, as in a lot of sf, but the characters.

Characters, well defined and motivated, are the main focus of Sargent's work. Some authors could write a story or novel about clones and deal almost exclusively with the technology which produced them. Not so Sargent. She goes into detailed description of the cloning in the first part of the novel, but that technical description is not as important as the character development. She deftly explores the feeling of the clones toward themselves, the other clones, and the outside world in the form of "regular" people. Sargent is much more an explorer of speculative psychology than of speculative technology.

SF deals too much with the bright shiny toys of the spaceways. Let us welcome now one of the writers who deals with people.

PATRICIA RUSSO

Tanith Lee

VAZKOR, SON OF

VAZKOR

QUEST FOR THE

WHITE WITCH

DAW, 1978

In January and February, DAW Publishers released the second and third novels which complete the trilogy begun by Tanith Lee in The Birthgrave. The two books, entitled Vazkor, Son of Vazkor and Quest for the White Witch are a measure of the popularity generated by The Birthgrave. It has been said that Ms. Lee is fast becoming one of the top female SF and fantasy writers around today. I would prefer to drop the "female" and add that these two additions to her credits should aid the growth of her reputation as a fine author.

In the first novel we were introduced to a nameless heroine (a survivor of the infamous Old Race) in search of her identity and the understanding and skill to use her god-like powers. In Vazkor, we meet the infant son she had abandoned earlier, now fully grown. He is savage, a tribal brute, a product

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of his environment. He soon discovers the truth about his conception and embarks on a quest of revenge, searching for the mother he never knew, the woman who stole his birthright and his honour. In the third and final book, Quest, we watch as Vazkor grows more skilled and fully aware of his powers, the legacy left him by his witch mother. The conclusion is rather shocking . . .

Tanith Lee is not lavish with her prose. Rather, she is a master of succinct descriptions which serve as a stepping stone for an active imagination. The result is a richly woven tapestry that entices the reader. Despite all the wondrous sights, Lee does not overdo it. She seems to follow the old maxim "too much of a good thing."

Recently, I've heard several people compare Tanith Lee with Ursula K. LeGuin. Like most comparisons I can only partially agree with this one. Both Lee and LeGuin are female SF and Fantasy writers. Both have a similar style and quality. There are moments when I found myself thinking of C. L. Moore, and Andre Norton also. One thing I'd like to note in particular is the convincing way Ms. Lee writes about women. That is one thing all too lacking in today's SF and Fantasy, even among other women.

One last word. Don't let the covers deceive you. Although Tanith Lee has created a society overrun with decadence, this is not Gor. Ms. Lee is much too fine a writer to take that route.

STACEY LYNN BILOTTA

JUDITH AND HERBERT

KOHL

THE VIEW FROM THE

OAK

Scribner, 1977

If you enjoy Edward T. Hall, you might also like this book. It takes Hall one step further. Instead of cultures it explores the use of the senses in different "universes".

There is a discussion of how space is perceived. What is a flat world like? and Can you hear space? and How do other life-forms perceive space? are questions brought out in this section. There is a section dealing with time change. Some interesting questions from this section are: How long is a week? What is a moment of life? This book is an excellent, easy-to-read introduction about the use of the senses in "other worlds" for beginning SF/fantasy writers. Some of those with more experience might find it useful, also. I was reading this alternately with THE HIDDEN DIMENSION (E. T. Hall). The two went together rather well. The last section was especially interesting because it showed how several "worlds" can exist in the same space, with the inhabitants of each not even aware of the others. This book is in the "Sierra Club books for children" series. Children from about 12 to 100+ will enjoy reading it.

MARCIA J. RISTOW

Marion Zimmer Bradley

THE FORBIDDEN TOWER

DAW, 1977

The Forbidden Tower is the eleventh in MZB's series of novels about the planet Darkover. The heavily individualistic Darkovan culture, dependent on the leadership of a caste of telepaths, rose from the survivors of the crash of a colony spaceship and once enjoyed a period of higher technology based on psi talents, but is at the time of FT in a state of decline. It clashes with the modern, bureaucratic culture of the Terran Empire, which has re-discovered the lost colony after a period of two thousand years of isolation. FT is the story of four people, 3 Darkovan aristocrats and a Terran, who for personal reasons fight the restrictive entrenched rules for the training of telepaths and the use of psi abilities. This is very much a psychological novel, focusing in on the intimate details of the life and love of this group. One character, Callista, is the most REAL woman I have ever met in an sf novel. FT would richly deserve the Best Novel Hugo for 1977.

CATHERINE A. FILIPOWICZ

38.

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THE HUGOS

The Hugos are the Achievement Awards of science fiction, voted annually by the members of the World SF Convention. This year's worldcon is Iguana Con, to be held Aug. 30-Sept. 4 in Phoenix, Arizona. To vote for the Hugos, all you have to do is join Iggycon as a supporting member. Your $7.00 fee gets you the progress reports (great for info and articles on fan history), the fabulous program book (usually an excellent publication worth the money by itself), Hugo balloting, and the chance to vote for the site of the 1980 world con, probably either Boston or Baltimore. Of course, if you actually attend, you can get to meet JL, Jean Lorrah, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and many Sime and Darkover fans.

We're most excited about the Hugos this year because JL's mentor MZB has a book, The Forbidden Tower, nominated for Best Novel. This is one of the reasons you will find with this zine either an entire list of the Hugo nominees or a copy of the actual Hugo ballot which you can use to vote when you send in your membership fee.

But it isn't the only reason. The Sectuib shares a "crusade" with many concerned people in the sf world who feel that the Hugos are not all that they might be. Awards should go to writers whose work excites the thinking process in readers, not for work that is shallow but very popular. The Hugo winners are the face sf turns to the world. Libraries, teachers, literary critics, and readers investigating the field all look to the award winners. The Hugo winners should be our best representative's.

The only way for this to happen is if informed fans nominate and vote wisely. It's best if fans have read most or all of the nominees in each category in which they choose to vote. Why? Because the final ballot is an Australian type, where each voter lists his choices in order of preference. The vote counters tally up all the "1" votes. The people who voted "1" beside whoever came in last have their second choice counted as "1" and added to the survivors' totals. This process continues until someone has a majority. It pays to know all the nominees and put numbers beside them all. But people who do not know a category well should think twice before voting in it.

Companion is trying to do its bit to help. Throughout the year, we would like to print reviews of novels and stories appearing in 1978 that our readers consider Hugo material. Send these reviews to us, please! At the end of the year, summaries will be compiled and presented. By next February, hopefully our readers will have an idea what to write when confronted with the zillions of imposing blank lines that constitute the 1978 Hugo nomination ballot!

* * * * * * * * * *

39.

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40.

1977 Year

NOVEL:

The Forbidden Tower: Marion Zimmer Bradley (Daw)

Time Storm: Gordon R. Dickson (St. Martin's)

Dying of the Light: George R.R. Martin (Simon & Schuster)

(as After the Festival -- Analog - April-July 1977)

Lucifer's Hammer: Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

(Playboy Press)

Gateway: Frederik Pohl (St. Martin's)

(originally appeared in Galaxy, Nov. '76-Mar. '77)

NOVELLA:

"A Snark in the Night" - Gregory Benford (F & SF, Aug. '77)

"The Wonderful Secret" - Keith Laumer (Analog, Sept. Oct.)

"Aztecs" - Vonda N. McIntyre 2076: The American

Tricentennial ed. Edward Bryant (Pyramid)

"Stardance" - Jeanne & Spider Robinson (Analog, Mar. '77)

"In the Hall of the Martian Kings" - John Varley

(F & SF, Feb. '77)

NOVELETTE:

"Ender's Game" - Orson Scott Card (Analog, Aug. '77)

"Prismatica" - Samuel R. Delany (F & SF, Oct. '77)

"The Ninth Symphony of Ludwig Van Beethoven and Other

Lost Songs" - Carter Scholz (Universe 7, Ed. Terry

Carr - Doubleday)

"Eyes of Amber" - Joan D. Vinge (Analog, June '77)

SHORT STORY:

"Jeffty Is Five" - Harlan Ellison (F & SF, July '77)

"Lauralyn" - Randall Garrett (Analog, April '77)

"Dog Day Evening" - Spider Robinson (Analog, Oct. '77)

"Time-Sharing Angel" - James Tiptee, Jr. (F & SF, Oct. '77)

"Air Raid" - John Varley (as Herb Boehm) (Isaac Asimov's

SF Magazine - Spring 1977)

DRAMATIC PRESENTATION:

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (Columbia Pictures)

"BLOOD! THE LIFE AND FUTURE TIMES OF JACK THE RIPPER"

Robert Bloch & Harlan Ellison (Alternate World

Recordings)

THE HOBBIT (Rankin/Bass Productions)

STAR WARS (Twentieth Century Fox Pictures)

WIZARDS (Twentieth Century Fox Pictures)

PROFESSIONAL ARTIST:

Frank Kelly Freas Vincent DiFate

Stephen Fabian Rick Sternbach

Michael Whelan

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41.

Better Householding

and Gardens

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This is our regular letter column. We're looking for letters from within the Householding and from those still out in the gardens wondering if they should come in. Here is fertile soil for the seeds of new ideas: comments on Jacqueline's work, this zine, or just on what you, the Sime fan, are thinking about and doing. Of course, if we print your letter, you get a free copy of CZ.

Any comments you see ((between the double parentheses)) are mine, unless noted otherwise. Send letters to Katie Filipowicz, 23 Oakridge Circle, Wilmington, MA 01887.

Gayen K. Reiss, Westgate Village #421, Frazer, PA 19355 to CAF

Re: House of Zeor: (These are still "first impressions", as I've only read it once, which may in itself be a unique thing, judging from what I've heard/read . . .) I enjoyed reading it. I was interested in the main characters, and sympathized with them.

My major BUT is that the obvious solution seemed so clear from the first few pages--it seemed like time was just frittered away until Hugh would finally have to donate, and they would of course find and rescue his (ex-) girl friend. The attraction between the two opposing forces (species), and the obvious solution to the culture's problems is so overwhelming to me it seemed the author was spending X hundreds of pages just trying to hold them apart, when it would be "so easy" to just let it all come together.

("Untrue!" you protest.)

I believe that the reason I didn't fall head over heels in love with the book is that the plotline is too "clean" for me. The solution seems obvious, and there is no dirt in the corners to confuse the issue or make it seem like any less a solution.

That was basically my pet peeve, although we seem to have the same old "logic vs. emotion" conflict transferred to these new species, with no real evolution or change in viewpoint, which generated the equivalent of a yawn in me.

*****************************************************************

From Clyde Lyman, head of CZ's "Secondary Loonyverse Dept.":

If King Kong were remade on Darkover, it would be by Dino DiLarantis.

*****************************************************************

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42.

Donna Sutton, 289 Altura Dr., Perris, CA 92370 (To JL)

I had an exciting class in my Writer Workshop last night. The winter quarter has ended now and when we start again after Easter we are going to do something different. We've been discussing what or how an author creates her characters. I made the suggestion that we might try "role-playing" our stories in class. Everyone thought it would be fun, so that's what each of us will be doing. So I am going to role play the story I've been playing with for Ambrov Zeor. My teacher has become interested in Sci-Fi due to my constant prodding and last week I lent him my copy of House of Zeor and Kraith Collected, plus a few others. I was trying to explain fanzines, he was really surprised about fandom in general. He really liked your writing, I think he's hooked. He's constantly at me with a whip to get down to business, so I guess I really will have to produce something now. My basic problem has been--time. If I didn't have a nine to five job, six days a week, I could do a lot more, but then again I'd also starve.

((She goes on to describe the plot of her story, which concerns a pair of out-Territory seventeen year old twins during the time of the Householdings--but we don't want to give it away! We at CZ and AZ are always looking for good Sime fan fiction, so let us hear about YOUR stories. too.))

Katherine Kane, 160 Forrest Ave. #50, Springfield, IL 62702 CAF

Maybe it's the life or death importance of things that make the earlier times ((HoZ)) more interesting--the newness, the sense of growing as opposed to the refining and perfecting of later times. Do you think so?

When I read "Hop, Skip & Jump" ((in AZ #4)) the idea of batteries and getting ones (sic RBW one's) selyn from them, never mind replacing electricity with them was a little odd, but the interpersonal relationships were drawing most of my attention and I didn't spare much thought to selyn batteries. Where do they get so much selyn? Even with storage means could they actually have enough to meet demands? . . . This development makes the Sime-Gen universe just as artificial as our own world often seems with all its plastics and synthetics. Who needs that?

As for shooting selyn, or whatever Yone is actually doing in "Channel's Exemption", how come no one did it before if it was possible? Or, were there maybe selyn duels between arguing Simes in House of Zeor, but Jacqueline neglected to mention them? Certainly would mean you had to have an extra Gen that month! All the foregoing comments add up to the fact that I think all this hanky-panky with selyn makes Simes seem next door to the $6,000,000 Man--fantasy stuff.

((Well, Aild Ercy Farris, Digen's daughter, is going to be the first functional esper channel. That story will be told in Mahogany Trinrose. And I don't think Yone is actually shooting selyn, but rather using it in some way internally to do psychokinesis.))

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43.

Judy Kopman, 1647 56 Street, Brooklyn, NY 11204 (To JL)

((At Boskone)) Katie and I were sitting around discussing your world, and I came up with something. Let me first stress that it is pretty horrible, and I don't personally like it, but I do think it would happen. In the time of HoZ and before, the Gens are very uptight about the Simes, and especially about their children becoming Sime. In a prechannel situation, I can't totally blame them. One thing that they could do to make sure that their kids don't live through changeover and become one of "those evil murdering monsters" is to take every kid from, oh 10 to 15 (or whatever the ages are before and after which changeover never occurs) and put on their arms heavy leather armlets that need tools to remove them (sort of like primitive versions of retainers). Katie says that a Sime wearing this would probably die during changeover. To make it easier on parents, they could also have the custom of fostering out children in that age group. Note I am not saying that I think that it is a good idea, but I do think given what the Gens think about the Simes that it might happen. Furthermore, if this did happen it would slow down, at least slightly, Zelerod's Doom, because you would be getting slightly less adult Simes, since one factor in the growth of Sime population has been the few kids who are managing to survive changeover and escape to Sime territory.

Jacqueline:

Undoubtedly somewhere it is done!!! Just not right in the geographical regions I am working in. Where this is done further steps in civilization would be retarded. This sounds like something you would find in China (they used to do that to kids' feet) or Africa (those lips!).

Jean Lorrah:

However, this practice would atrophy muscle development in the forearms during puberty, resulting in weakness--loss of dexterity?--in adult Gens in this society, and if they're primitive, neighboring Gen societies would easily overpower them.

JL:

Yes.

[CZ01IL07.TIF]

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44.

A WEEKEND AT THE LICHTENBERGS BY: CATHY FILIPOWICZ

Jacqueline Lichtenberg invited Jan McCrossen and me to spend a weekend at her house. Naturally, after two months of anticipation, we prolonged the anxiety by getting lost on the way down. But once we found the right street, it was easy enough to spot the Lichtenbergs' - - the house with the large scale mailbox. Inside we found that Jacqueline's menage consists of a husband, two daughters, and one turtle that scratches and goes bump at odd moments.

We also discovered a principle of science fiction fandom: that in the SF world, writers and editors are fans and fans are writers and editors. We went to visit Jacqueline-the-pro, but how we enjoyed being fellow STAR TREK fans with her! She took us on a tour of her basement, which contains the largest collection of cabinets and drawers outside of a furnature (sic RBW furniture) store. These hold runs of old prozines, neat piles of old and new fanzines, Kraith stories, several ST scripts, and much more. Jan soon obtained permission to go back down, and throughout the weekend could be heard chuckling over some famous but now out-of-print fanzine.

Jan later asked JL to describe how the Kraith series will eventually end. Meanwhile, I read the manuscript of Judy Segal's new Kraith Dictionary, which she hopes will help ST fans to recognize Kraith concepts when they appear in non-Kraith fan fiction.

But the biggest moment of all came Saturday night, when we settled down to watch STAR TREK, the first time the Lichtenbergs had seen it in color on their absolutely magnificent TV set. The episode was from the end of the Third Season and not one of our favorites, but nobody seemed to care. There were the usual wails of, "They cut out the best part!" And someone always tried to comment while other people were trying to listen. We analyzed the commercials and discussed which age/sex/economic groups the sponsors thought watched ST. This was fascinating, but the number of commercials was appalling! Jacqueline also told us about the thrill she had once when she held a real, authentic communicator actually used on the show.

But we did a lot more than talk STAR TREK. Jan and I read the most recent additions to the manuscripts of First Channel and Mahogany Trinrose (one page of which JL actually had to take out of her typewriter). Then we were subjected to numerous questions on our reactions, generally across the table during and after meals. Jan was even asked to predict the next scene of Trinrose. I did a great deal of my reading sitting at the kitchen table, beginning at 6 AM, accompanied by Jacqueline's daughters, also quietly reading. That is a most unique way to read the novels of a favorite writer!

Jacqueline and Jan also spent hours discussing astrology, theories of the universe . . . and the Sime gypsies. I read some fascinating material about Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series. Jacqueline is deeply involved in MZB's writing. Like many ST fans, I find that I also like the Darkover books.

While we enjoy Jacqueline as pro writer and fan, she seems to relish turning us fans into editors and writers. Anyone who answered questions for her during her research for Star Trek Lives! knows first hand about her infamous writing assignments. Last summer, Jan volunteered to help and found herself editing Ambrov Zeor. Of course, she intends to be a writer herself, anyway. I accepted the job of writing, editing and publishing a Sime/Gen concordance which won't appear for years. Jacqueline also hands out reading assignments very freely. Oh well, SHE doesn't have leisure time. Why should we be more privileged?

Jan and I left on Sunday, mentally exhausted, but in the long run exhilarated by the visit. The vivid memories will linger for a long, long time.

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(sic RBW 45.)

AMBROV ZEOR

[CZ01IL08.TIF]

The fanzine devoted to Jacqueline Lichtenberg's Sime Series just as Kraith Collected is devoted to her series of STAR TREK stories. AMBROV ZEOR contains ads for ST/sf fanzines, Sime genealogy/chronology, poetry, artwork, letter column, Sime universe background, news of the next Sime stories, and Sime stories written by fans. Most editions printed photo-reduced to 67% (a little larger than this flier).

It is available quarterly for accepted submissions or money; no subscriptions. File SASE for notification of the next issue's price. For issues in print, MAKE CHECKS OR INTERNATIONAL POSTAL MONEY ORDERS PAYABLE TO: Anne Golar, 40 South Cole Ave. Spring Valley, NY 10977. Letters of Comment and submissions should be sent to Patricia Gribben, 1114 North Ott St., Allentown PA 18104. All other submissions and artwork (please! Artwork!) should be sent to Anne Golar, 40 South Cole Ave. Spring Valley NY 10977.

AMBROV ZEOR

New edition issues 1, 2, 3 combined, with Jean Lorrah's first Sime story

________ File SASE for notification

Some copies of first edition AZ issues #2 and #3 remain. While they last . . . #3 contains Jean Lorrah's first Sime story.

________ copies, @ $2.25 each (1st class postage included)

#4 with two novelettes by Jacqueline Lichtenberg. Second edition printed photoreduced to 67%.

________ copies, @ $2.75 (reprint summer '78) (1st class)

#5 with Jean Lorrah's second Sime story (printed, not photoreduced)

________ copies, @ $2.75 (first class)

#6 with reprint of Jacqueline Lichtenberg's first professional sale, OPERATION HIGH TIME, (IF '69.) Introducing Digen Farris, hero of UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER.

________ copies, @ $2.75 (first class)

#7 with Part One of Sime Surgeon, an early version of UNTO ZEOR FOREVER.

________ copies, @ $2.75 (first class)

#8 with more Sime Surgeon plus what you send us.

________ copies, @ $3.00 (first class)

#9 with more Sime Surgeon (it's longer than the book)

________ FILE SASE FOR NOTIFICATION.

#10 SPECIAL ISSUE: Mary McCoy's Bachelor's Thesis proving Sime genetics works & other things.

________ FILE SASE FOR NOTIFICATION. (publ. date 1979)

Name __________________________________

Address _______________________________

_______________________________

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

FROM JACQUELINE LICHTENBERG: 9 Maple Terrace, Monsey, NY 10952

HOUSE OF ZEOR (paperback) personally autographed to you,

________ copies, @ $2.00, (incl. postage & padded mailer)

UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER (hardcover, Dbdy) NOW AVAILABLE.

_____ copies @ $9.00 (incl. autograph/postage)

CHANNEL'S EXEMPTION, Sime novelette in GALILEO #4

_____ copies @ $1.75 (incl. autograph/postage)

FIRST CHANNEL, by Jean Lorrah & Jacqueline Lichtenberg. The third novel in the Sime series, set hundreds of years before HOUSE OF ZEOR, detailing how a channel discovers he can channel. FILE SASE FOR NOTIFICATION. (Dbdy C. 1980)

MAHOGANY TRINROSE by Jacqueline Lichtenberg. 4th book in the Series set 20 years after UNTO. File SASE for notification - c. 1981.

VANILLAMINT TAPESTRY by Jacqueline Lichtenberg. NON-SIME novelette in Dbdy anthology CASANDRA RISING. File SASE.

DON'T MISS: A COMPANION IN ZEOR 2nd Sime fanzine, mimeo, from Karen MacLeod 316 North Surrey Ave. Ventnor NJ 08406.

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(sic RBW 46.)

BOOKS BY JEAN LORRAH CURRENTLY AVAILABLE

THE NIGHT OF THE TWIN MOONS. This is the classic novel of Trekfan fiction that is the basis of the NTM universe. It is the story of Spock's parents, Sarek and Amanda, set against action/adventure as they seek to arrange a trade agreement on a planet ruled by women, where Amanda is the Ambassador and Sarek must pose as her "favorite" - her property, servant, and sexual companion. But it is also the story of forty years of a most unusual marriage, a new interpretation of the way we saw Vulcans act on aired Trek - frequently compared with Kraith - and the background of Spock's birth and childhood. 158 pp. offset, with illustrations by Monica Miller, Theresa Holmes, and Signe Landon. $3.00 plus $1.06 ($1.80 first class)

NTM COLLECTED now available. No duplication of material in NTM (above). $2.50 plus $1.06 postage, or plus $1.50 1ST Class

"PARTED FROM ME" AND OTHER STORIES BY JEAN LORRAH. 4 stories reprinted from out-of-print fanzines. Not NTM universe. 36 pp offset, with illustrations. $1.00 plus 41¢ postage.

The Miller and Landon artwork from NTM, in folio, 35¢ plus one first-class stamp.

(NOTE NEW POSTAL RATES INCLUDED)

Send self-addressed stamped envelope for info on future volumes of NTM Collected.

ALL PAYMENT IN U.S. FUNDS Dr. Jean Lorrah

SASE for overseas postal rates 301 South 15th St., Dept. B

Murray, NY 42017

*****************************************************************

FULL MOON RISING. 4 stories in the NTM universe, giving more details than the flashbacks in the novel about the early days of Sarek and Amanda's life together. "The Sensuous Thing To Do" tells of their bonding; "The Tenth Night" explains how Sarek's fingerprints got embedded in Amanda's brass bed; "Time of Mating" takes them through first Pon Farr; and "Full Moon Rising" tells how Spock came to be. 98 pp. offset; illustrated by Monica Miller, Connie Faddis, Signe Landon, & Amy Harlib. $3.60 plus new postal raise (send $3.85 at least, I'm guessing on this).

ORDER FROM: Yoeman Press

5465 Valles Avenue

Bronx, N.Y. 10471

*****************************************************************

EPILOGUE. This is a series of stories about Spock, not connected with the NTM universe at all, but fully displaying Jean Lorrah's talent. An intergalactic war ends the five-year mission of the Enterprise after only three years, and Spock is given his own command. The eight stories tell of his maturation when he is forced out of the secure world of the Enterprise, and also deal with life on Vulcan, which is captured by the Romulan/Klingon Alliance, during the war. There are four stories in each volume, all illustrated by Laura Virgil and now available.

FOR PRICE INFO. SASE Jacqueline Bielowicz (she also pub's

4677 N. Boulder a fine ST 'zine)

Tulsa, OK 74126

*****************************************************************

SINCE JEAN LORRAH AND JACQUELINE LICHTENBERG ARE COLLABORATING ON THE SIME NOVEL, FIRST CHANNEL, IT IS EXPECTED THAT A FAMILIARITY WITH BOTH JEAN'S STAR TREK STORIES LISTED ABOVE AND JACQUELINE'S STAR TREK STORIES, THE KRAITH SERIES (for info. SASE Carol Lynn, 11524 Nashville, Detroit, MI 48205) WILL ENRICH THE SIME FAN'S ENJOYMENT OF FIRST CHANNEL.

LIKEWISE, A FAMILIARITY WITH JACQUELINE'S MAJOR SOURCE OF INSPRIATION, (sic RBW INSPIRATION,) MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY'S DARKOVER SERIES, SHOULD ADD MUCH TO THE SIME FAN'S ENJOYMENT, AND TO THE ENJOYMENT OF ALL SF.

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DARKOVER NEWS

The fans of Darkover now have a newsletter, a fanzine, plus many other publications: for info SASE Friends of Darkover, Box 72 Berkeley, CA 94701.

The fans are now organized into Councils which are clubs open to all Darkover fans. The Councils are nonpolitical, nonreligious, and EMPHATICALLY nonprofit groups of volunteers sharing a common interest in the Darkover novels. There are no dues, and no membership requirements apart from a wish to participate in discussions of Darkover and similar fantasy worlds. Many Councils overlap dragonfen, Amber fen, SCA, and Sime-Kraith-ST groups. The well-known by-laws of the Baker Street Irregulars (a group dedicated to exploring their own fantasy world, that of Sherlock Holmes) contain two clauses which fit the Councils.

"All other business shall be deferred to the monthly meetings.

"There shall be no monthly meetings."

Well, not quite. Reunions of the Friends occur at Council meetings across the country and at various Science Fiction and STAR TREK conventions where groups of Darkover fans congregate. Many councils take nonlocal members and communicate basically by penpal roundrobins or by publishing their own newsletters or fanzines. TO FORM OR JOIN A COUNCIL 1) get a list of the more than 50 Councils by sending a legal sized, STAMPED self-addressed envelope to WENDY REED, COUNCIL OF THE CRYSTAL CHAMBER, 200 Knudtsen Lane, Petaluma, CA 94952. 2) check for Councils near you and if you still want to form your own, check the list and pick 3 names that are not on the list, 3) send your chosen names and list of names and addresses of your members to Jacqueline Lichtenberg, 9 Maple Terrace Monsey, NY 10952 and apply to form your own council.

The Darkover books are, in the order MZB wrote them, PLANET SAVERS Ace 1962/'76; SWORD OF ALDONES Ace 1962/'76; BLOODY SUN Ace 1964/'75; STAR OF DANGER Ace 1966/'75; WINDS OF DARKOVER Ace 1970/'77; WORLD WRECKERS Ace 1971/'77; DARKOVER LANDFALL, Daw 1972/'75; SPELL SWORD Daw 1974/'76; HERITAGE OF HASTUR Daw 1975/'77; SHATTERED CHAIN Daw 1976/77; FORBIDDEN TOWER Daw 1977; STORMQUEEN Daw 1978. There are several more in the planning stages. The Darkover newsletter will keep you informed. Copies of the above are often available from the Friends of Darkover, Box 72, Berkeley, CA 94701. SASE for info.

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(sic RBW 47)

Characterization . . . . . . . . Jacqueline Lichtenberg

A Report on Darkover Grand Council Meeting

Marion Zimmer Bradley

Poetry

Fan Fiction

Discussions

Reviews

Anne McCaffrey

Much, much more!

ADDRESS UPDATES:

July 1980

Jacqueline, Anne and

Katie:

P.O. Box 290

Monsey, NY 10952

Karen MacLeod Litman

Companion in Zeor

B-17 Champagne Apartments

Somers Point, NJ 08244

SASE each of these listed below. Please mention CZ.

WINSTON A. HOWLETT announces a cassette "Fanzine" with musical selections, Kraith 'Affirmation' music, dramatic-comedy readings, M'Pingo Press P.O. Box 206 New Rochelle, NY 10804

MARTHA BONDS of Omachron Ceti Three announces the group's recording THE COLORS OF LOVE, a songbook of these songs and others, as well as a poetry/art zine "Nourishment". For information write her at 6812-B Sturbridge Drive Baltimore, Maryland 21093

"SPANG BLAH" an SF information zine, with worldwide info and general zine features. J. H. Finder Box 428 Latham, NY 12110

BILL-DALE MARCINKO announces a wonderful SF zine "AFTA" Issue one is out, and I love it. Write: RPO 5009 Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ 08903

"ATAVACHRON" Darlene Oreschnick 3507 Hamilton Avenue Baltimore, Maryland 21214.

Edited by Karen MacLeod

OOPS (again) Karen the Klutz incorrectly gave the address for "AFTA" the correct summer address is: 47 Crater Avenue Wharton, NJ 07885.

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(sic RBW 48)

A COMPANION IN ZEOR

c/o Karen MacLeod

316 North Surrey Avenue

Ventnor, New Jersey 08406

OPEN STAPLES THIS SIDE

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