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Tale of the 'Evans, v. 4, issue 1, January, 1946
Page 13
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January 11, 1946 Last night I attended the Los Angeles ATOMICON, where A. E. VanVogt gave us a splendid talk, after which the various attendees gave some of their ideas of the new Atomic discoveries, adn what will follow those discoveries. And I was amazed! Here we fans have been reading, writing, talking and thinking about such a thing, for the past twenty-odd years. We have investigated, through the efforts of our various authors, the possible effects of such inventions and discoveries on all sorts of civilizations, including our own present type. It has been our hope, our dream, our life, that it would arrive in our time. And now it is here -- a fact. AND FANDOM DOESN'T BELIEVE IT! It was so plain to see from the things that were said, and not said, last night, that the fans actually CANNOT CONCEIVE THAT THE NEW AGE IS UPON US! Vainly I tried to steer the talk into serious discussion of the sociological and psychological changes that MUST come to us, because we have reached the end of one era, and the beginning of a new and totally different one. And I was stunned to find that Fandom -- which I had always thought was so forward-looiking; so keen ly alive to changes; who would be the first to recognize and welcome the actuality of the New Worlds that we had been studying and talking about for the past two decades -- our Fandom just can't make themselves FEEL that it is now true. Oh, yes, VanVogt told us very interestingly, of how we could use the by-products of atomic conversion to change the climate of various parts of the world -- and it was a splendid address. But it didn't go nearly far enough -- it stopped so far short of the REAL and vital problems that confront us. In reply to a question of time, asking him about the possible sociological changes, he gave a straight-forward answer -- AS FAR AS IT WENT -- but didn't seem to see anything more important on the horizon than that the people who lives nearest such possible projects would want the government to bear the expense. The talk quickly degenerated into a discussion of the Atomic BOMB, and that probable crisis between the US and Russia. Later I tried in my poor way to bring the discussion back to the importance of sociological questions -- which was what I understood was to be the real basis of the meeting -- and got exactly nowhere. On the day that the first Atomic Bomb was dropped, I was so proud of Fandom, and proud that I was a fan. For while the general mass of people were saying "Now we can kill all the yellow B-------s; now we can blow their damned island off the ma", fans were saying, "Now Science Fiction has come of age; now we have
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January 11, 1946 Last night I attended the Los Angeles ATOMICON, where A. E. VanVogt gave us a splendid talk, after which the various attendees gave some of their ideas of the new Atomic discoveries, adn what will follow those discoveries. And I was amazed! Here we fans have been reading, writing, talking and thinking about such a thing, for the past twenty-odd years. We have investigated, through the efforts of our various authors, the possible effects of such inventions and discoveries on all sorts of civilizations, including our own present type. It has been our hope, our dream, our life, that it would arrive in our time. And now it is here -- a fact. AND FANDOM DOESN'T BELIEVE IT! It was so plain to see from the things that were said, and not said, last night, that the fans actually CANNOT CONCEIVE THAT THE NEW AGE IS UPON US! Vainly I tried to steer the talk into serious discussion of the sociological and psychological changes that MUST come to us, because we have reached the end of one era, and the beginning of a new and totally different one. And I was stunned to find that Fandom -- which I had always thought was so forward-looiking; so keen ly alive to changes; who would be the first to recognize and welcome the actuality of the New Worlds that we had been studying and talking about for the past two decades -- our Fandom just can't make themselves FEEL that it is now true. Oh, yes, VanVogt told us very interestingly, of how we could use the by-products of atomic conversion to change the climate of various parts of the world -- and it was a splendid address. But it didn't go nearly far enough -- it stopped so far short of the REAL and vital problems that confront us. In reply to a question of time, asking him about the possible sociological changes, he gave a straight-forward answer -- AS FAR AS IT WENT -- but didn't seem to see anything more important on the horizon than that the people who lives nearest such possible projects would want the government to bear the expense. The talk quickly degenerated into a discussion of the Atomic BOMB, and that probable crisis between the US and Russia. Later I tried in my poor way to bring the discussion back to the importance of sociological questions -- which was what I understood was to be the real basis of the meeting -- and got exactly nowhere. On the day that the first Atomic Bomb was dropped, I was so proud of Fandom, and proud that I was a fan. For while the general mass of people were saying "Now we can kill all the yellow B-------s; now we can blow their damned island off the ma", fans were saying, "Now Science Fiction has come of age; now we have
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