Plague Dogs - The Heartwood Institute

The Heartwood Institute, the name used by Jonathan Sharp for his retro-electronica music, has previously released highly evocative imaginary soundtracks to Penelope Lively's children's novels Astercote (1970) and The Whispering Knights (1971), among other haunted and beguiling work. I greatly enjoy these wistful and atmospheric compositions, with their affinities to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and all those ancient mysteries books of the Nineteen Seventies. 

His latest release, from Folk Police Recordings, is a tribute to Richard Adams' The Plague Dogs (1977). In an interview for the label, the musician explains that with The Heartwood Institute he is 'trying to capture a mixture of melancholy, hauntology and rural darkness'. The inspiration for the new album came from an enthusiasm for Adams' work but more particularly the setting for the novel in rural Cumbria, remembered from his own childhood, 'from the craggy and mysterious fells to the gentle hills and pastoral farmland.' The pieces make use of field recordings made at some of the locations in the book. 

Plague Dogs is available as a compact disc in a limited edition of 200 copies and also as a digital download. Pre-orders are available now for late April release. 

Proceeds from the album will go to Animal Rescue Cumbria.

'New Worlds to Conquer': Vortex and Vargo - A Guest Post by John Howard

  

Not long before I discovered old science fiction magazines, I found a new one. It must have been a Saturday morning in the spring of 1977. I was in W.H. Smith’s with my pocket money, and looking to spend it on sf. For some reason my gaze must have wandered to the magazines – where one of them caught my eye. It was clearly an sf magazine: title and cover painting proclaimed it. This was Vortex, subtitled ‘The Science Fiction Fantasy’ (that subtitle confused me even then – where was the final what?). I picked out and bought the issue, Vol. 1 No. 5, monthly: the first I had seen – had I missed the previous four, or had the local Smith’s not stocked them?

Large-size but slim, heavily illustrated, Vortex contained only three stories, one of which was the first part of a serial by Colin Kapp, The Chaos Weapon. I remembered Kapp from his remarkable story “Lambda I” which I had read in John Carnell’s anthology of that name, which I had recently bought from the small independent bookshop in our town, rushing down there one afternoon after school to browse the several shelves of sf paperbacks it offered. Then there was “Due West: Vermillion Sun On Horizon: Dying” by Mark Ambient, which baffled me as much as its title allured. It was the interview with artist Eddie Jones that interested me most. He had painted the cover for this issue; his work was soon to become familiar as my sf collection slowly began to expand. But I was not to see any further issues of Vortex. That fifth issue was to be its last.

My discovery later that summer of Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed, the London bookshop entirely devoted to sf, fantasy, and horror, was to provide the first four issues of Vortex. There was a pile of unsold copies, with gorgeous covers by Rodney Matthews (the first three issues) and Eddie Jones (the fourth). They were beauties, and I could understand why the magazine had failed. The production costs must have been enormous – and completely unsupportable without the vastly higher sales that never materialised. Not for the first time a new sf magazine blossomed briefly – and vanished.  

I kept an eye on the new and back-issue magazines stocked at Dark They Were, and if there was never a new Vortex I made up for it by buying Amazing, by then edited by Ted White and published only quarterly. Together with its companion Fantastic, White produced lively, attractive and entertaining magazines on a minute budget – and told us everything. It was like being in on a show. When the publisher sold the magazines in 1979 and Ted White left, I stopped buying them. I would have to make do with the shop’s small shelf of second-hand copies of old magazines.

Among these were two issues of The British Science Fiction Magazine (which called itself the Vargo Statten Science Fiction Magazine inside and proclaimed itself ALL BRITISH). Published between 1954 and 1956, it ran for 19 issues under several names – but always maintained a connection with ‘Vargo Statten’, who was also credited as editor. Vargo Statten was the hyper-prolific Blackpool writer John Russell Fearn (1908-60) the popularity of whose sf novels under the Statten name led to the publisher, Scion, bringing out a magazine edited by Alistair Paterson (Fearn would later take over). I found the stories – nearly all written by Fearn, E.C. Tubb, and Kenneth Bulmer under a range of pseudonyms – entertaining and fun, even if often rather old-fashioned (Fearn’s were mainly reworkings of stories he had first published in American magazines during the 1930s and 40s). But as ever Ted Tubb provided good work, and the non-fiction features were interesting. There was one writer who made his debut in the magazine and was to become one of Britain’s best: Barrington J. Bayley (1937-2008). Still a teenager, he published his story “Combat’s End” in No. 4, an issue I found in 1978.

Unfortunately the magazine was betrayed, after the first two issues, by its somewhat amateurish appearance inside and out – and use of the same cover art on more than one issue – signs that the budget was small and the publisher stretched for money. Most of the issues I found carried the strapline ‘New Worlds to Conquer’ on a strip across the bottom of the cover. I had no idea whether or not it had been adapted from Plutarch on Alexander the Great: “When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.” At the time I thought it was a sly dig at the perceived main competition, Nova Publications’ magazine New Worlds.

Vargo Statten’s publishers did not lack ambition. In No. 4 (May 1954) there came the announcement for the ‘proposed Vargo Statten Science Fiction Fan League’. Written by editor Alistair Paterson, it ran to three pages and an expression of interest form to be filled in and returned. The League ‘would be a non-commercial membership organisation, whose aim would be the furtherance and moulding of [the readers of Vargo Statten novels’] enthusiasm into one individual and central movement, acting as the parent body to branch organisations throughout the country…’ It seems that quite some organisation was being considered, reminiscent of the Science Fiction League, which had been launched in the USA in 1934 by the editor of Wonder Stories, Charles D. Hornig, and Hugo Gernsback, its publisher. The SFL did not survive in the long term, although the local chapters served to help bring sf fans together, including in the UK.

The proposed League would produce a ‘handsome Membership Certificate’ and there would be a ‘handsomely enamelled Membership Badge which the members would wear at every possible opportunity’. A ‘list of Rules’ would be drawn up, with members agreeing that ‘at all times they would apply their enthusiastic efforts to the furtherance of Science Fiction in general, and the fiction of Vargo Statten in particular.’ A ‘covering Membership fee’ would pay for the certificates, badges, and other printed stationery, which would be supplied at cost.

It was section 6 that raised my eyebrows. ‘The V.S.S.F.F.L. would not be supported by any group of wealthy industrialists nor would it be confined in its aims by commercially inclined factions. The publishers of the V.S. Magazine have kindly placed at their disposal its organisation and the enthusiasm of its staff, to further the League’s earlier aims. But it is clearly understood that, once the League has become completely self-supporting, then its activities will be made a completely independent body. In short, the writer [Alistair Paterson] wants to see it survive alone on the enthusiasm of its members, without bowing the knee in any way to commercial influence.’

‘Wealthy industrialists’? I wondered who Paterson had in mind! Had there been, seriously, any industrialists of any sort prepared to put money into a league for science fiction fans, and Vargo Statten fans at that? Was it perhaps another dig at New Worlds? At that time Nova Publications had ceased to be a fan-led company on its absorption by a large and fully commercial publisher, Maclaren; this put Nova’s magazines on a firm financial basis and enabled them to adhere to a clockwork publishing schedule for the first time. Or perhaps it was just wishful thinking from the editor of a cash-strapped magazine, not always appearing regularly, from an ailing publisher.

Succeeding issues of The British Science Fiction Magazine carried further announcements and updates concerning the proposed League. However, an ominous note was sounded in No. 8 (December 1954). Although there had been a ‘tremendous response’ to the idea of a League, the large potential membership was too scattered, with proposed chapters each having no more than three members – and frequently fewer. ‘By and large it does begin to look as though the transition from theory to fact may prove insuperable; but on the other hand we are hoping, in the nature of true science-fictionists, to somehow “pluck a miracle from the air” by the time Issue No. 9 comes.’

No doubt some readers had been on tenterhooks as 1954 became 1955. Looking back from 1978, of course I knew the result, as I had a copy of the issue. In No. 9 (January 1955) the announcement duly appeared: ‘The publishers and your Editor, in complete union, are of the opinion that the present time is not propitious for the launching of the Vargo Statten Fan League.’ But there was still hope. ‘Everything depends on the progress of the magazine itself and how much liberty is afforded your Editor in time to come. Actually, the answer lies with you. Support us to the hilt and in time we can produce the League for which there is an undoubted demand, even if not the time at the moment, to supply it…’

What a disappointing New Year’s present for a fan. I could only sympathise – and, back in my time, carry on reading.

(John Howard)

 

Authentic Memories (Part 2) - A Guest Post by John Howard

Authentic Memories 2: ‘The Magazine of Tomorrow’

 I first encountered the British sf magazine Authentic Science Fiction in 1978, when over the course of several visits to the Vintage Magazine Shop in London I found three issues (Nos. 1, 41, and 55). Authentic was published between 1951 and 1957, and ran to 85 issues in total. I wanted more – but how to get them? If I had to depend on what could be found in the shops I knew in London, then it would take a very long time indeed to build my collection.

The solution was, of course, through mail-order. I didn’t know any dealers – but that was soon to change. I had seen a reference to the British Science Fiction Association – and joined. (The BSFA is, I am glad to say, still with us – and still has me as a member.) I was welcomed and sent a little pale-blue membership card (long since lost, alas) and my first mailing of the Association’s duplicated magazines Vector (its serious-minded journal) and Matrix, much more informal, which acted as a forum for members (and which used an eye-challenging microscopic font). Both were great fun to read – and often informative, too.

I noticed that Matrix published letters from members, so wrote in to say I wanted some old British sf magazines. I promptly received a list from a dealer in second-hand sf books and magazines – and became a regular customer. He offered a batch of Authentics for sale, which I snapped up. There were several of the single novel issues: Ten Years to Oblivion by Clem Macartney (No. 12); Beam of Terror by Roy Sheldon (No. 13); The Moon Is Heaven by H.J. Campbell (No. 16); and two by a name I recognised as a steady contributor to the Nova magazines, Francis G. Rayer: Coming of the Darakua (No. 17) and Earth Our New Eden (No. 20).

As its numbering advanced, I could trace Authentic’s development. What started as a line of paperback novels gradually took on the characteristics of a monthly magazine. A contents page listed an editor: L.G. Holmes. A column by American fan Forrest J. Ackerman was introduced, and readers’ letters were printed. There was also a technical editor, H.J. Campbell, who eventually succeeded Holmes as editor. From No. 29 (January 1953) Authentic changed its format and emerged as a ‘proper’ sf magazine with each issue consisting of several stories, editorial, non-fiction pieces, news, readers’ letters, and book reviews. Cover artwork improved hugely, although the first few were garish and frequently oddly bizarre given their science fictional context. They tended to illustrate a particular story symbolically or obliquely rather than through straightforward representation. But I liked them.

H.J. Campbell declared No. 33 (May 1953) a special issue to commemorate both that year’s British SF Convention and the coronation of Elizabeth II, boasting that Authentic was ‘beginning to rival the Romans when it comes to laying milestones’. The cover for No. 35 (July 1953) was the first of the series “From the Earth to the Stars”: ‘Accurate, scientific, exciting! This is the way it will happen.’ Over the next couple of years I accumulated a complete run of Authentic from No. 29 to its final issue No. 85 (dated October 1957). I would lay out my copies in rows and survey the magazine’s run from crude beginning through mature development to sudden demise. But apart from what I worked out by reading the editorials and taking note of changes to the logo, how the content changed and developed with different emphases on fiction and non-fiction, style of artwork, it wasn’t until three years later, in 1981, that I was able to discover more detail about Authentic and its origins, and especially about H.J. (Bert) Campbell (1925-83).

I had been given a copy of the third volume of Mike Ashley’s The History of the Science Fiction Magazine (1976). Ashley described how Authentic had been the creation of Gordon Landsborough, Hamiltons’ new publishing director. He inaugurated a programme of two sf pocketbook novels per month, which he labelled the ‘Authentic Science Fiction Series’. The series proved popular and the label stuck. Under Landsborough’s editorship as ‘L.G. Holmes’ Authentic gradually turned into a slim paperback magazine – each issue presenting a single novel usually written by one of Hamiltons’ coterie of authors under a house pseudonym. Prolific author Roy Sheldon was the equally prolific H.J. Campbell; Jon J. Deegan was Robert G. Sharp; Lee Stanton was almost certainly Rick Conroy. Much later I was astonished to read that Clem Macartney was W.D. Flackes (1921-93), a journalist whose reports from Ireland I remembered watching on television. As well as his contribution to Authentic he seems to have published two more paperback sf novels with Hamiltons during 1951-52 – and then no more.

Campbell’s editorial page was soon renamed “H.J. Campbell Writes” and given a header showing an avuncular figure, bearded and duffle-coated, sitting at his desk and writing with a quill pen – all in the guise, as it seemed to me, of an old-fashioned sea captain or lighthouse keeper. Campbell remained editor until No. 65 (January 1956), when he left in order to go into full-time scientific research. His successor was E.C. Tubb (1919-2010). Ted Tubb was already well known to readers of Authentic as a prolific contributor – probably even more so than some realised, as issues frequently featured two or three of his stories under various pseudonyms. This would not change!

Tubb immediately began to re-emphasise the magazine’s fiction content, reducing the number of scientific articles before getting rid of them altogether. Covers had started to carry the strapline THE MAGAZINE OF TOMORROW, and this was left in place until Authentic was changed to a larger format and completely redesigned with a new logo from No. 78 (March 1957). Covers had been dominated by the attractive artwork of J.E. Mortimer and E.L. Blandford, but now they were, with two exceptions, to be the work of Josh Kirby. Full of action and incident, they reflected the magazine’s new strapline ACTION – SCIENCE – ROMANCE – ADVENTURE printed in a yellow strip across the top of the cover (for some reason ROMANCE was dropped from the next issue onwards).

There were to be only eight issues of the new Authentic. When No. 85 (October 1957) appeared, there was no hint that it would be the last. Mike Ashley stated that Hamiltons took the decision to fold Authentic and concentrate on the more profitable Panther Books. It was ironic that Authentic had started as a paperback, and had become a magazine almost by accident. Authentic in personality as well as name, it not only entertained but held out for a future that would never be – except for those who fell under its spell and learned to dream. 

(John Howard)