Foreword

Once, at a convention, I walked into a party where a group were busy gossiping about other people in fandom. As usual the gossip was malicious and vile. It had been a long night. I challenged the group to say something nice about people for a change.

Instantly there was a change in the air, you could see it happen. As we went around the group getting each person to name someone they liked in fandom, you could see people thinking: “ who should I name, which name will show the least weakness, who will be offended if I don’t mention them”.

When the circle came around to me, I answered: “Alan Robson. I’d do anything for him”. “How about being suspended from a parallel bar and letting him tickle you with a peacock’s feather?” said a voice hidden in the dimness of the room and bearing a faint English accent.

“Of course,” I replied without hesitation. “I said I’d do anything”.

Years later, I wrote an article for a SF magazine that was a criticism of Media Science Fiction (Star Trek, Blake’s 7—that sort of thing). The very next issue had a rebuttal that poured scorn upon my arguments.

I was annoyed, I wrote a seventeen hundred word rebuttal to the rebuttal and the editor rejected it—which was just as well, my rebuttal was longer than the original article. But I became even more annoyed.

Then Alan came to dinner. The after dinner talk turned to writing and I produced my article. Alan read it. Then I let him read the rebuttal. I gloated, I would be vindicated. Alan would side with me.

Alan read both articles, then he thought for a moment. He looked at me and said: “You both believe strongly in your positions and you both argue them very well.”

I looked at Alan in shock and then burst out laughing, he’d brought me back to reality with a thump. It really wasn’t something to get angry about.

And that is Alan Robson. In all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him take sides in a disagreement among fans. Wherever you find people moaning about the faults of others, Alan is there to mention their virtues.

Elsewhere I have said that Alan is the Switzerland of Kiwi fandom (when I said that to Alan, he grinned and said: “Switzerland is a beautiful country; people can swim in my lakes and admire my fountain”).

Alan came to Aotearoa in 1981, and within months of his arrival he had made a splash in SF circles by being part of the team that won the first ever SF quiz to be held at a National convention.

Shortly after that he was a regular attendee at the Wellington branch meetings of the National Association of Science Fiction. It was there that Alan and I became fast friends. I don’t know why, I was an obnoxious, brash youth still in my teens, and Alan was fourteen years my senior. But somehow we found that we enjoyed each other’s company. For me, Alan was everything I wanted to be, immensely well read, soft-spoken, gentle, witty. If I have matured over the years, it is in part, due to Alan being one of the best role-models I could have wished for.

Over the years Alan has been involved in every part of fandom. He has organised conventions (Windycon ’83, Kiwicon), presented quizzes at conventions—an Alan Robson quiz, with its fiendish questions is still one of the high points for many fans attending a convention—and he has appeared on panels on topics as varied as Sex in Science Fiction and When was the Golden Age of SF? Whenever Alan attends a convention, he is always somehow involved, if only as an entertaining, witty and knowledgable person to talk with, on virtually any topic.

The most enduring thing that Alan has been doing over the last twelve years is writing. He has been producing essays on Science Fiction since he arrived on these shores and they have rolled out in a steady stream. After a while the print media took notice and reviews and articles have appeared by Alan in both the Listener and The Dominion Sunday Times.

Fandom was not without appreciation either. In the four years that fannish awards have been presented at the National conventions, Alan has won the Best Writer award every year.

This volume celebrates twelve years of writing by Alan. I am proud to be associated with publishing it. And I look forward to many more years of Bearded Triffids.

In the pages of this book, Alan will tell you that, according to Alfred Bester, the best way to end an article (or a preface) is with your best anecdote…

Alan appeared on a panel with Forest J. Ackerman at one convention. The topic of discussion was the obsession of collecting.

I was in the audience but that didn’t stop me from trying to be a third panel member. Alan had just said that collecting books was a fine obsession, and the person who dies with the most books wins. I couldn’t pass up an opening like that! I put my hand up and said: “I’ve known Alan for a long time, and I know that he has more books than me. And he keeps getting more books, faster than I can add to my own collection”.

“But what Alan doesn’t know is that I have a trump card in this contest. You see I’m younger than Alan, so I just have to wait…his collection will be mine!”

The room erupted into laughter. And I grinned, smug in having scored a point in our friendly rivalry. Alan waited for the laughter to die.

“You know,” he said, “I visit Alex from time to time, and when I admire a book that he has that I don’t have, he gives it to me. I realise now that it isn’t a gift… it’s a loan”.

Alex Heatley 1993

© Dan McCarthy