First Transfer # 4 8803.01

Happy Spring, fellow fans! At least I hope by the time this reaches you, spring will be here. Right now Iowa is in the midst of another raging blizzard complete with slick streets and poor visibility. If I had any sense I would go home and stay there. Instead, here I am downtown working on this newsletter. Does anybody know if this type of sacrifice earns me an extra transfer with a Farris channel?

First a warm welcome to anyone receiving this for the first time. I hope that you will find it useful and will enjoy your association with the S/G fans. If there is anything I or any member of the Wel can do for you, please don't hesitate to contact us. We serve so that others don't have to stand alone.

The biggest news in our fandom I guess is the Litman move. Karen Litman, editor of Companion in Zeor and her husband Bruce have just purchased their own home in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. Their address is in the announcements column. Congratulations, Bruce and Karen!

The Welcommittee has lost one member and gained another. Lisa Calhoun, for personal reasons, is gafiating. We are sorry to see her go and wish her well. See the Householding News for some interesting roleplaying developments concerning Householding Takear.

Donell Meadows will be taking Lisa's place on the Welcommittee where I know she will do a super job. Welcome, Donell!

Jacqueline just informed me that she has a definite acceptance for the final draft of THOSE OF MY BLOOD. She's currently doing research for a dynamite novel on the Tarot.

Yours in Unity,

Marjorie Robbins, Sosectu in Chanel

ANNOUNCEMENTS

ZEOR FORUM #6 is available. SASE Katie Filipowicz for information. Her address is (street address removed), Spring Valley, NY 10977. She has some back issues available.

COMPANION IN ZEOR #9 is now available. SASE Karen Litman for details. Her address is (street address removed), Pleasantville, NJ 08232. She also has some back issues available.

AMBROV ZEOR #15 is available from Kerry Lindemann-Schaefer. SASE her at Box 39 (street address removed), S. Yarmouth, MA 02664. Kerry also has back issues of AZ, and some of CZ and ZF, plus Postsyndrome, a one-shot on sexuality in the S/G universe, and a very lovely S/G Songbook. AZ 15 is due out in April 1988.

HOUSEHOLDING CHANEL INQUIRER is now available from Marjorie Robbins, (street address removed), Cedar Rapids, IA 52403. HCI is a question and answer zine devoted to Jacqueline's universes. We do have JL's permission to do future issues, so we are looking for questions from you. All questions used will receive a complimentary copy of the issue they appear in.

Send your questions, neatly typed or written one to a page, to the Q&A dept at my address. All questions will receive a personal answer from me or JL.

Karen Litman is in charge of the taping project. This involves putting JL's books and zines on tape for the blind and print handicapped. She has recently expanded this to include Jean Lorrah's Savage Empire series. If you would like to read for this project or receive the tapes, please SASE Karen.

Jacqueline will be leading a Writer's Workshop entitled USING THE TAROT FOR CHARACTERIZATION AND PLOT DEVELOPMENT at Ecumenicon I July 29-31 1988, Arlington VA. For more information SASE the Welcommittee.

Kerry Lindemann-Schaefer, editor of Ambrov Zeor, has available a limited number of copies of GEEP, the book of stories and poetry recently published containing material by members of the N3F (National Fan Federation). The cover price is $10, but by special arrangement, Kerry can offer them to S/G fans for $6 (Including postage). Kerry has a story in the book and will autograph your copy if so desired. Contact her if you'd like a copy.

Judy Segal is taking over editorship of the ST Welcommittee Directory. Her address is P.O. Box 414, Pawling, NY 12564. Congratulations, Judy.

Kay Johnson Chemotherapy fund 6310 Wyndale Court, Kansas City, Missouri 64129

Kay Johnson, known as Mama Star Trek has been a mainstay of the ST Wel for 14 years. She now has leukemia and is undergoing radical chemotherapy and receiving regular blood transfusions. Money is being collected to help with medical expenses and transfusions. Jacqueline is supporting this, as Kay is important to her, and asks that we do too.

A SECRET PLACE is a new zine devoted to the Beauty and the Beast universe. For more information contact MKASHEF Enterprises P.O. Box 368, Poway, CA 92064-0005

Empire Books (Jean Lorrah) has two new fanzines in the works.

TRUST, LIKE THE SOUL by Jean Lorrah is a Blake's 7 novel. It is planned for release in the Spring.

RING OF DECEIT by Susan Moore, edited by Jean Lorrah is a trekzine. Planned release will be at MediaWestCon (Memorial day weekend)

If interested in either zine please SASE Empire Books P.O. Box 625, Murray, KY 42071-0625. (25 cents postage please.)

Jacqueline would like to attend Shore Leave Towsen MD, July 8-9, but can't unless she finds 2 or 3 roommates. She also needs one more roommate for NolaCon. If you are interested in attending either one of these cons and would like to room with JL, please contact her as soon as possible.

First Transfer is the official newsletter of the Sime/Gen Welcommittee, sponsored by Householding Chanel and printed under the authority of the Tecton printing office. It is published quarterly, with content to depend-on contributions from fans.

The current issue is available to all new contacts as part of their welcome to S/G fandom. Otherwise, file a sase with Marjorie Robbins, editor, (street address removed), Cedar Rapids, IA 52404.

Why a Vampire Novel

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Since my vampire novel, THOSE OF MY BLOOD, was bought by St. Martin's Press for hard and soft cover release, (probably 1988), I've been asked why I, of all people, would write a vampire novel, and the question bewilders me.

Vampire stories have always fascinated and frustrated me because I always felt that they lacked something. Even the good ones such as ASYLUM and Yarbro's St. Germaine novels edge up to the real issue, then retreat without confronting it. Marion Zimmer Bradley taught me that pulling punches like that leaves the readers dissatisfied. Maybe calling my novel a "vampire novel" is a mistake because it won't be like all those very frustrating vampire novels. (It will probably be frustrating in a completely different way.)

Mine is, of course, not a horror novel, though it contains some of the horrible things common to horror novels. We have the lab specimen on the mortuary slab who wakes up starving for blood. We have the female lead character who discovers that she's been sleeping with a "thing" and worse yet, liking it. We have the isolated group of humans in a dome on the moon left to die in quarantine to prevent "contagion." We have plenty of blood and gore, murder, explosions, intrigue assassinations, and confusion about which are the "good guys".

But the mere presence of these motifs does not make a horror novel any more than a apace ship captain with a half-human first officer makes STAR TREK. I have discovered that "genre" is defined more by what is absent than by what is present. THOSE OF MY BLOOD also contains SF as well as horror, love as well as sex.

My vampires (they call themselves "luren") are (apparently) nonhumans from outer space whose ancestors crashed on earth. Their food-beasts all perished in the crash, and they learned to live on human blood. Problem: they also interbreed with humans.

Half the vampires (the Tourist faction) believe that their species is thus dying out and they must send an SOS home and ask to be rescued. The other half (the Residents faction) think of earth as their home, and believe that if the rescue comes, there is the real possibility that earth's luren won't be considered legally enfranchised since none of them are pure-bred anymore. They could also become food beasts.

Another luren spaceship crashes, this time on the moon, and earth sets up a space station around it and prepares to send a message back to its point of origin saying, "Here we are, ready to trade!" The Tourists send a secret agent to the moon base to add an SOS message "under" the humans' message describing Earth's situation. The Residents send an agent to stop the Tourists' message from getting out.

The main character, Titus Shiddehara, is the Residents' agent. Problem: the Tourists' agent is Abbot Nandoha, the vampire who brought Titus to life after he died (a natural part of luren life-cycle), and who is thus Titus' vampire father, the one with real power over him.

All the myths and legends about vampires that we know of have arisen from the "luren" on Earth, but few vampire traits are exactly as humans have thought them to be. Yet Abbot does have real, compelling power over Titus as well as legal rights under luren law. Titus' options are severely limited from the start of his mission, and though he wins a few points against his father, he loses the one woman he has chosen as a source of nourishment. And Abbot is within his legal rights to have taken her from Titus. All of this is delineated in the first three chapters. Then the real complication comes in.

Titus just arrives in his Lunar laboratory to go to work when he discovers that his chief assistant is Inea Cellura, his ex-fiancee, the woman who saw him die in a car crash, saw him buried, and has grieved for him ever since. He still loves her more than life itself. Right in front of a dozen humans, she recognizes him, and he has to use his powers to prevent her from revealing that he was not always known as Titus Shiddehara. (A really tight computer check would reveal the existence of the luren on Earth, which could trigger a genocidal pogrom against them.)

Meanwhile, the Tourist faction has scored against Titus, depriving him of the powdered cloned blood he lives on. He must also have what the luren call ectoplasm directly from a human, but between the smallness of the closed community of the dome and the ethics of the Residents, Titus has a hard time with this simple problem too. Furthermore, Titus has a lot of trouble convincing Inea that he is a vampire risen from the grave rather than a murderer who had somebody else buried in his coffin. When she finally does accept it, and realizes that he's starving and offers to feed him, he then begins to let her in on the more complex nature of his mission.

In bed one morning, he reveals that he is not wholly human and that the "corpse" they have recovered from the wreck is not dead, not quite, not entirely. She can't tolerate this final revelation and turns from him. He leaves, but still has the problem of protecting her from his father, and preventing his father from learning that Inea is his achilles heel. But it isn't long before he finds Inea in a catatonic state from having been mind-raped by his father.

From there on, things begin to get complicated as the pace of the action increases. His father magnanimously uses his luren powers to save Titus from accidentally revealing the existence of luren, the "corpse" awakens, and Titus and his father have to form an alliance to protect the existence of luren on Earth while they are both starving.

The reader learns more about the situation in the galaxy than the humans on earth ever do, but still the wakened "corpse's", H'lim's motives remain in this volume, a total mystery. At one point H'lim's whole attitude shifts when he discovers that humans and Earth-luren dream. The reason for this will be revealed in another novel, if I ever sell it, which takes us out into the galactic war, but with a different set of characters.

Inea and the wakened "corpse" (named H'lim) are both independent heroes of their own stories and make decisions that affect Titus' available options. I won't tell you who wins (I keep changing my mind), but there is a final confrontation between Titus and his father, and you won't like his father any better than Titus does.

WELCOMMITTEE STAFF

Marjorie Robbins, (street address removed), Cedar Rapids, IA 52403 - Wel Head

Joan Panichella, (street address removed), Avenel, NJ 07001 - Contact Letters

Linda Whitten, (street address removed), Anaheim, CA 92805 - Robin Master

Donna Banzhoff, (street address removed), El Cajon, CA 92020 - Roleplaying Dept

Torun Almer, (street address removed), Sacramento, CA 95825 - Contact Letters

Mark Kadey, (street address removed), Oshawa, Ontario L1J-5X8 Canada - Contact letters

Beth Anne Wempe, (street address removed), Redlands, CA 92373 - Contact Letters

Donell Meadows, (street address removed), Birmingham, AL 35222 - Contact Letters

Timothy Carney, c/o S/G Welcommittee, (street address removed), Cedar Rapids, IA 52403 - Dushau dept

puzzle page

Answers to Pledge Puzzle

Barko, GN1, from Capitol pledges Rior

Preneh RN from Mdison pledges Keon

Tunon TN1 from Gulf pledges Gulf

Arnel GN1 from Westfield pledges Zeor

WORD SCRAMBLE FROM HOUSEHOLDING GLEN EYRIE

unscramble the following words. They can all be found in HOUSE OF ZEOR

INAHENC

RCSTEOSARDRS

ONPAOCIMIN

SNRATRFE

ELYAVLRO

AREZNHT

UZNRI

GEIUHOHSODNL

CBEUSIT

PADEDRO

KATHERINE KURTZ'S DERYNI UNIVERSE

BY

Beth Anne Wempe

The Deryni are a race of people with special psychic powers. They live in an alternate universe, or perhaps an earth that might have been. The time frame is comparable to our own 8th to 11th centuries A.D. The place is Great Briton as it might have been had Wales been severed from the rest of the island by a long ago earthquake. Most of the action takes place in the kingdom of Gwynedd, which is the actual name of northern Wales.

The psychic powers of the Deryni are viewed as evil by many of the humans among whom they live. In reality, the powers are mere tools put to good or bad use, depending upon the objective of the wielders of the power. Misuse of the powers leads to persecution and suppression of the Deryni in the First three chronological novels--CAMBER OF CULDI, ST. CAMBER, and CAMBER THE HERETIC. This period is a long, bloody nightmare from which the Deryni only begin to emerge in the second two trilogies.

The re-emergence of the Deryni is led by four Deryni: Alaric Morgan, a duke and general, his cousin Duncan Maclain, a priest and duke, Kelson Haldane, the young king of Gwynedd, and his best friend, Dhugal MacArdry MacLain, Duncan's son. These books are DERYNI RISING, DERYNI CHECKMATE, and HIGH DERYNI, the last trilogy being THE BISHOP'S HEIR, THE KING'S JUSTICE, and THE SEARCH FOR ST. CAMBER. More novels are planned, and there is also a boon of short stories, DERYNI ARCHIVES, which spans several centuries.

Katherine Kurtz has created a world of people who seem as real as though they might have lived, or at least, should have--or, perhaps, are now living in an alternate time period with a time frame different from our own.

((Sosectu's note: I highly recommend this series. Other than my S/G books, I reread these most often. (On the rare occasions the Tecton alloys me free time for reading, that is.)))

HOUSEHOLDING NEWS

Due to a definite lack of space, I'm only listing Householdings that are currently accepting new pledges. For a complete list, SASE Mark Kadey, (street address removed), Oshawa L1J-5X8, Ontario, Canada. I will be glad to run Householding announcements in future editions of this newsletter.

Householding Takear

motto To express creativity and talents

colors red and metallic grey

membership open

Sectuib Marjorie Robbins, (street address removed), Cedar Rapids, IA 52403

Householding Kamali

motto A lie is the most destructive when you tell it to yourself

virtue truth

colors amber and silver

Sectuib Mark Kadey, (street address removed), Oshawa ONT. L1J-5X8 Canada

Householding Glen Eyrie

Sosectu Dana Dickens, (street address removed), Aravada, CO 80003

Householding Turan

crest two mountains and a tree

colors gold and brown

virtue wholeness

motto from division to unity

Sosectu Julie Hines, (street address removed), Louisville, KY 40206

Householding Chanel

Specialty: Psychology

motto: He rises highest who helps others up

virtue: service

colors: red, gold, brown

membership by invitation

Sosectu Marjorie Robbins

Householding Larien

motto: Keeping nature in balance

virtue: the preservation of environmental quality

colors: gold and turquoise blue

roleplaying encouraged

Sectuib Donna Banzhoff, (street address removed), El Cajon, CA 92020

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

NEW PLEDGES

TERRILYNN MCMANUS TO CHANEL

RUTH SACKSTEDER TO CHANEL

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

Though Lisa Calhoun is gafiating, she has expressed an interest in seeing Householding Takear continue under new leadership. So, since I do have a channel persona, Controller Quimn ambrov Takear, she has asked me to take the House. Her character, Sectuib Kyrryn, just disappears much as Klyd did after his breakup with Hugh Valleroy.

However, Quimn, while perfectly capable of being a Sectuib, doesn't want to. He's planning on abdicating to Parham, ambrov Takear (a new persona we're developing for Linda Whitten) as soon as roleplaying catches up with the real world.

In the meantime I want to reassure everybody, especially Lisa, that Takear is alive and well. And will be carrying on business as usual during this period of transition. We are also looking for new members. If any one wishes more information, contact Sectuib Marjorie Robbins.