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National Fantasy Fan, v. 5, issue 1, January 1946
Page 6
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- 2 - IT"S nice to have on your shelves a complete set of all the science fiction magazines. It's a hard thing to obtain nowadays, but still is fun to collect all that you can from whatever sources there are. In this way you read the fine science fiction that was written ten or more years ago, and you get an idea of the history of this form of literature. I do not suggest collecting just for the sake of collecting, as some people do. Read what you buy, and keep it on your shelves so that somebody else can read it later on, or so that you yourself might look at it in the future. WHERE can you get old magazines? In the big cities there are back-date magazine stores which formerly were a rich source of science fiction magazines. Nowadays they are no so good. A few certan fans make a business of selling old magazines through the mail, and often other people have advertisements in the fan magazines when they have something to sell. Unfortunately, for them you need money. No more 1928 Amazings for a nickle each. THE moral of this activity is that since you are starting a hobby based on a literature, you want to have a nice big stock of this literature on your shelves for purposes of pleasure and reference. And most of the pleasure comes in shopping around for the stuff. 3. WRITING LETTERS: Before science fiction fan magazines and clubs became so highly organized, most activity centered around the writing of letters. A person with less than ten correspondents just didn't rate. At this present time, with me in the Army, that's the only kind of fan activity I have, and I see no reason why that should not still be a large part of any fan's activity. THE organ of the NFFF periodically runs a membership list with addresses. The obvious thing to do is to pick out some names and write to them. You may find people who live quite close to you. You will find people in all age groups. The next thing is to meet those people. In other words, we're setting out deliberately to make a lot of friends in this science fiction world. Most fans are quite delighted to receive letters, and they will answer them, even if they have never heard of you. If they are too busy to carry on a corresondence, most of them will politely tell you so. WHAT do you write about in these letters? You start out by discussing science fiction -- the stories that came out recently, the books, the movies, the radio programs, the fan activities, collecting adventures and misadventures, magazing trading, and so on. Later you probably spread out to other things, like general literature, music, art, and perhaps the mundane things like the best liquor, but you still mention science fiction occasionally. That is correspondence: conversations in writing between people who have interesting things to tell each other. 4. INEVITABLY you get to meet some of the people you are writing letters to. And this is a good place to mention what I think is the most important thing about science fiction fandom:
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- 2 - IT"S nice to have on your shelves a complete set of all the science fiction magazines. It's a hard thing to obtain nowadays, but still is fun to collect all that you can from whatever sources there are. In this way you read the fine science fiction that was written ten or more years ago, and you get an idea of the history of this form of literature. I do not suggest collecting just for the sake of collecting, as some people do. Read what you buy, and keep it on your shelves so that somebody else can read it later on, or so that you yourself might look at it in the future. WHERE can you get old magazines? In the big cities there are back-date magazine stores which formerly were a rich source of science fiction magazines. Nowadays they are no so good. A few certan fans make a business of selling old magazines through the mail, and often other people have advertisements in the fan magazines when they have something to sell. Unfortunately, for them you need money. No more 1928 Amazings for a nickle each. THE moral of this activity is that since you are starting a hobby based on a literature, you want to have a nice big stock of this literature on your shelves for purposes of pleasure and reference. And most of the pleasure comes in shopping around for the stuff. 3. WRITING LETTERS: Before science fiction fan magazines and clubs became so highly organized, most activity centered around the writing of letters. A person with less than ten correspondents just didn't rate. At this present time, with me in the Army, that's the only kind of fan activity I have, and I see no reason why that should not still be a large part of any fan's activity. THE organ of the NFFF periodically runs a membership list with addresses. The obvious thing to do is to pick out some names and write to them. You may find people who live quite close to you. You will find people in all age groups. The next thing is to meet those people. In other words, we're setting out deliberately to make a lot of friends in this science fiction world. Most fans are quite delighted to receive letters, and they will answer them, even if they have never heard of you. If they are too busy to carry on a corresondence, most of them will politely tell you so. WHAT do you write about in these letters? You start out by discussing science fiction -- the stories that came out recently, the books, the movies, the radio programs, the fan activities, collecting adventures and misadventures, magazing trading, and so on. Later you probably spread out to other things, like general literature, music, art, and perhaps the mundane things like the best liquor, but you still mention science fiction occasionally. That is correspondence: conversations in writing between people who have interesting things to tell each other. 4. INEVITABLY you get to meet some of the people you are writing letters to. And this is a good place to mention what I think is the most important thing about science fiction fandom:
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