I was never a real SF fan until a few months ago. At least, that's what I am beginning to believe, having only recently acquired a modem for my computer. Those of you who already have access to a modem will know what I mean. There is a whole universe of virtual SF fandom out there, criss-crossing the world through the telephone lines. You can join any number of SF discussion groups (Star Trek, Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Terry Pratchett...), download SF graphics, sound and software, and even play long-distance SF simulation and role playing games. The biggest problem I've encountered with this treasure trove of SF infotainment is in forcing myself to turn the computer off and get back to what I'm supposed to be doing!
Being a Perth resident, my favourite Bulletin Board at the moment is the Patlabor News Network. As you may (or may not) gather from the name, it is primarily devoted to Anime, but also has information and discussions about a wide range of other media SF. Last night I downloaded a free Doctor Who database, called, funnily enough, "Doctor Who Database". It's an excellent graphical program for DOS which provides details of all the Doctor Who stories, novelisations, Doctors and companions, and even displays colour photographs of some of the more notable actors. If you have a modem, you can download a copy from the Patlabor News Network by dialling (09) 378 1974, or from many other good Bulletin Boards. If you don't have a modem, you can obtain a free copy from the author, Anthony Wolf, by sending a disk and SSAE to Casual Software, P.O. Box 861, Campbelltown NSW 2560.
Leading off this issue is our regular "Worlds of Fandom" feature, this time on Twin Peaks. Those of you who doubt that Twin Peaks qualifies as SF obviously didn't stick with the series through to the end. By the time the executives axed it, it had become so imaginative, intelligent and thought provoking that no American television network could afford to support it.
The first installment of an interview with well-known fan Grant Stone follows. In the second installment, to be published next issue, Grant talks about the science fiction and fantasy collection he has built at Murdoch University, the science fiction personalities he has spoken to on his radio show, and the Golden Age of Australian SF; so don't forget to renew your subscription if it expires this issue. Finally, part 3 of Other People's Flesh, which I'm sorry to tell you isn't even half way through yet...
Worlds of Fandom: Twin
Peaks
Twin Peaks Short
Story: It is Happening Again
In 1990 it was the most talked about programme on television. Spin-off books hit the best seller lists. Donoghue devoted a show to it. People wore T-shirts proclaiming "I killed Laura Palmer... and Bart Simpson's next!" In 1994, however, Twin Peaks is no longer hip. The last person to whom I intimated that my favourite episodes were nos. 1, 9, 16, 18, 22 and 30 looked at me like I was the Little Man From Another Place.
But don't worry, Twin Peaks isn't dead, it's just gone
underground, where it always should have been. The masses were
attracted by the first season, which appeared (for a time) to be
a quirky, artistically directed whodunnit. After Leland was
apparently revealed as the killer, they switched off in droves. 
But
it was arguably the second season which established the series as
pure speculative fiction, and set it apart from any television
series that had gone before.
Twin Peaks operated on two levels. The first, a somewhat bizarre small-town detective story cum soap opera, was the level to which the media was attuned, and which turned the series into a fad. The other, a surreal supernatural horror story, is what has turned it into a cult. Like all good horror, Twin Peaks' underlying theme is the archetypal clash between good and evil. The series is constructed upon symbols of this duality: Agent Cooper and Bob, the Black and White Lodges, the dwarf and the giant, the RR Diner and One-Eyed Jack's, even the name of the series - Twin Peaks.
Of course, the end of the series is a sticking point for many fans, as with so many other SF series, including two - The Prisoner and Blake's 7 - featured in this column. But it is possible to salvage some hope from it. We know from the movie Fire Walk With Me that the good Coop is safe in the White Lodge. We know that there are agents of the White Lodge in Twin Peaks; some human (the one-armed man, Pierre Tremond and his grandmother, the Log Lady) and some spirit (the Little Man From Another Place, the giant). We know, as does Harry, how to enter the Black Lodge. So mightn't another rescue mission be in order?
The following short story takes place immediately after the final episode of the TV series. For those who missed the final episode, or indeed the entire series, there is no easy way for you to be brought up to speed. However, I will tell you three things. (1) The owls are not what they seem. (2) The evil is in the woods. (3) You will understand it a lot better over doughnuts and black coffee.
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Special Agent Dale Cooper of the FBI hurried into the Twin Peaks Hospital, carried along by a dusty wind, which, angry at the events which had once again disturbed the peace of the town, swept through it like a cold wave. Cooper neatened his hair and straightened his tie, in time to accost Dr Hayward as he rushed between two of the recently occurred emergencies.
"Dale!" the doctor greeted him, "You must be
here to see Annie. She's still under observation, because she's
feeling a bit weak. 
We've checked her over and there's
nothing physically wrong, so we will probably let her out when
she wakes up. You should be lying down too, Dale, from all
accounts."
"Oh no, Dr Hayward; I've just finished sleeping for rather longer than I intended to. Actually I've come to see Audrey, to see what she knows about the explosion, and what she was doing chained to a bank vault."
"They're both in the same ward. I think Audrey's conscious at the moment, but you'll have to be quick. She's concussed and she needs all the rest she can get." Dr Hayward hurriedly directed the detective through several identical long, white corridors to a small room which he entered.
"How are you, Audrey?" Cooper smiled.
Audrey opened her eyes, then closed them again. "Dizzy. Headaches, broken ribs, nose and foot, half the skin on my back burnt off. Internal bruising, plus I black out at regular intervals and go into convulsions. Otherwise, great. How about you, Special Agent?"
"Diane," Cooper dictated, contemplating a doughnut in his other hand, "I've just been to see Audrey. She didn't know much about the explosion, but she did point out that it made her demonstration against the bank rather successful. Neither she nor her father are in very good..." He was interrupted by a sing-song nasal voice interjecting from the intercom.
"Message for you from Dr Hayward, Mr Cooper. Shall I put him through for you?"
"Thank you Lucy."
"Dale... Annie Blackburn is dead."
Agent Cooper's doughnut fell to the desk, but his featured remained inert. Uncomfortably, the voice continued.
"She was strangled by Audrey Horne. Shortly after you left her, Audrey fell into a dissociated mental state triggered by her concussion and shock. She couldn't control her actions. She was found unconscious across Annie's bed with her hands around her neck. I'm sorry, Dale, really I am. I know how much she..."
"Thank you Dr Hayward," Cooper breathed through motionless lips. After a long silence, he said "I'll be over in half an hour."
The ward was the same as that Cooper had recently left, except that Annie's empty bed had been freshly made, and Audrey was bound down by thick leather straps. Perspiration or tears streamed down her pale face as she struggled hopelessly against her bonds.
"Agent Cooper," she exclaimed as he entered, "what's happening? What am I supposed to have done? Nobody will tell me anything!"
"You strangled Annie," Cooper informed her impassionately. Audrey's struggling stopped. He cleared his throat and continued. "I'm here to ask you some questions about what you remember of what happened. Since you were in a non-insane automatic state at the time you have a defence to the crimes of murder and manslaughter. If Dr Jacoby thinks you could have strangled Annie in that state, we will not press charges."
He appeared to wait for Audrey to reply, but her face was frozen into a mask of shock and fear. Cooper continued. "What is the last think you remember?" he intoned, staring past her eyes out the window.
"The last thing I remember," Audrey stammered in a reedy voice, then strained to recapture the memory, "I was talking to you, I think... I don't know whether you had finished or not. Then I woke up strapped to the bed."
"When was the last time you saw Annie?"
"I... I can't remember. Maybe before you came in."
"Did you bear any grudge against her, such as losing the Miss Twin Peaks Contest to her?"
"No!" Audrey cried in a choked voice.
Agent Cooper strode slowly around the room, occasionally jotting an observation down in a note pad. Then abruptly he turned to her and said, "It seems that it was an unavoidable accident then. Try not to worry about it. I'm sure her family will understand. Now, I'll have to get back to the bomb investigation."
"What?" Audrey squeaked, confused by everything he had said to her. "You loved Annie, didn't you? You sound as if you don't care about what I've done! As if you wanted her to die! As if you..."
The room went dark. Audrey was about to reach for her reading lamp, before she realised that the sunlight streaming through the window had also gone. But then she saw that it was not quite dark. Audrey's bed was glowing white, as if immersed in a brilliant aura from a spotlight which she could not see. She noticed (although it did not surprise her, as if it had always been on the edge of her vision) that there was a dwarf at the foot of her bed. He wore a tight red suit, his brown hair was neatly parted, and he was dancing slowly. His dance reminded her of something: the tail of a lizard that had been pulled off, still twitching in the face of the predator while the lizard made its escape. As the dwarf circled around to face Audrey for the last time, a word escaped from its lips. It resonated in her head, distorted and spasmodic as the dance - "Doppelganger".
"Audrey, what's wrong? Are you okay? Have you blacked out again?"
Audrey took a few seconds to remember where she was. She knew she had just discovered something important, but it was all too hazy, too unreal. Blacked out again? Had she? Then before she could stop herself, she replied "You should know, you've seen me black out before."
Dale stared blankly at her for what seemed like a long time, and murmured "I'll call the nurse."
"Because you lied about that, didn't you?" she continued, hardly daring to contemplate what she was saying. "I didn't black out after you had left at all." Her voice took on a harsher tone. "I think it happened while you were still here. That's why I can't remember you leaving."
Dale laughed unaccountably. "Why would I do that?"
"Because once I was unconscious, you strangled Annie to death and put my hands around her throat. When I woke up, I didn't know any better. That's what happened isn't it?", she accused him waveringly.
But Special Agent Dale Cooper was no longer there to reply. The man who stood in his place wore a hunting jacket and dirty jeans, with animal savagery in his eyes and an obscene smile on his lips. Tangled strands of greasy grey hair fell from his shoulders as he climbed over the foot of the bed, like a panther stalking its prey. Audrey tried to get away, but, like in the nightmares she had had as a child, she was frozen to the spot. She remembered the leather straps pinning her down to the bed. Bob stopped Audrey's last scream from ever escaping her throat.
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Grant Stone is perhaps the best known SF fan in Western Australia. An active participant in WA fandom since the inaugural Swan Con in 1976, Grant is best known as the host of the Faster Than Light Radio Show on public radio station 6RTR fm. As a librarian at Perth's Murdoch University, he also presides over one of the most impressive public collections of SF in the country. He was kind enough to take time from his schedule to speak with Ibn Qirtaiba:
IQ: Tell me about yourself; give me a brief CV.
GS: A brief CV? My name is Grant Stone. I originally studied science at UWA in the late '60s-early '70s, did a botany-zoology double major and ended up doing Honours in plant genetics, and I did a Dip. Ed., and then I started working at Murdoch as a library assistant in '74, and did a post-grad diploma in the evenings at Curtin '74-'75. Graduated in librarianship at the end of '75 and was maintained at Murdoch then as a professional librarian from '76 on.
In 1974 when I first came on staff and we were building a collection, the first PhD student of the university was doing a PhD in science fiction. She was looking at some of the newer authors who were then seen to be breaking ground, and all their names seemed to start with "B". People like Ballard, Blish, Brunner... and Ursula le Guin, whose name didn't start with "B", but she was a woman, so it didn't count.
Mainly British authors are the ones she seemed to be preoccupied with, although Blish was an American author who had adopted England as a home and Brunner was the same. But that science fiction coming out of Britain in the late '60s early '70s tended to have a satire, stroke... she called it Menippean satire. So she ended up doing a thesis that was extending the notion from 16th, 17th century literary criticism using Menippean satire as a type, and applying it to this sort of science fiction.
When the World Science Fiction Convention came round to Australia in 1975, I went off to that because I'd been building a science fiction fanzine and book collection for Maureen Smith's thesis at Murdoch in '74 and '75, and the World Con seemed to be a good place to go off and meet some of these people and make contacts. So I went off to the World Con, which just happened to be the week before the National Library Association conference, so I went to both of them in Melbourne and had a riotous time.
Met Ursula le Guin, spent a day or more talking to her about how you could integrate science fiction into university courses, which was then seen as something a bit radical - some Americans had done it, it might be interesting to do elsewhere in the world - and came back somewhat inspired.
With some friends started the first science fiction convention in the State, which was Swan Con in early '76, and the fan scene really took off from there. There was a gamers' league in town and they all came to the con. The con was eventually held in someone's house - Anthony Peasey's, who's now a lecturer at Murdoch University. We had 30-40 people who rocked up over the weekend. I had borrowed films from the National Library through Murdoch, borrowed vast amounts of equipment from Murdoch, 16mm projectors and slide projectors and so on, and stuffed it all in this house and we ran a convention.
We had a fanzine writers' day where we put typewriters in a room and wrote stuff all day and collated it. It didn't get finished, of course, at the convention; no-one was sober enough or had enough energy, so some months later we ended up typing together Cygnetures. "Cygnet"-tures, you see, because it was "Swan Con". [Blank stare from me.] It's a joke, really, Jeremy, it's a very bad joke. I always thought it was a wonderful title for a magazine to come out of Swan Con, but it's never been taken up; there's only ever been the one.
The con became annual, mainly because people wanted to do it, WASFA formed around it towards the end of '76, and in early '77 I went overseas, so I left it to other people, and when I came back they were up to Swan Con 4. With the excitement of the early Swan Cons, though, they very quickly outgrew houses and from 2 onwards they've been held in hotels of one sort or another. This year's con at the International will probably get 300 or 350 people. And that's a State convention.
In Western Australia the State convention gets a
good roll-up, because it's always been a meeting ground of the
various sub-groups that make up the various associations in the
State. So the Doctor Who people go, the Star Trek
people go, and the people who are more interested in literary
science fiction or comics or Anime, or television - you can
always expect to see someone out of those groups at a convention,
and sometimes running the programming items that go with their
specialty interest.
The con hasn't broken down into a convention for only Star Trek fans or a convention for only Doctor Who fans, although from time to time those things have happened in the State as well. Swan Con has gone blindly on being this nebulous, all-encompassing good-time convention for between three and four days, or two and three days depending on how you want to count the hours.
There have been a number of national conventions held in Western Australia, and there's not been a lot of difference between the attendance at a national convention and a State convention, because it's so expensive for people to come from the East to the West. So you get maybe 40 people making the trek when there's a national convention here, and because the State conventions have got such a good name, you can expect to get 10 people coming across from the East just because it's a State convention.
We used to use the rule of thumb that we'd get an Australian guest if it was a local convention and an international guest if it was a national convention, that tradition carrying on since '75 with the World Con. But in this State we started bringing in international guests to the local convention when the money in the bank account started going through the roof. So we have Sylvia Anderson this year, Harry Harrison in previous years, Anne McCaffrey... and they weren't coming to NatCons, they were coming to State conventions, which is pretty interesting.
IQ: One of the things I have tried to do with Ibn Qirtaiba is to give equal emphasis to media and literary science fiction. In doing this, it's struck me how completely different they are; they're almost two different genres. Media science fiction is very - I mean, I'm a great fan of media SF, but it would be fair to say that it's ten or twenty years behind literary science fiction in many ways. Do you think there's ever going to be a unification of the literary and media genres?
GS: I guess the short answer to your question is no. The problem with the difference between literary and media science fiction as they're currently constructed has to do with production values and risk. An author will risk anything for a decent story, because it's words on the page, and they don't have to produce anything in actuality. They can also be outrageous, and just as long as the cover isn't too outrageous, they'll probably find their way onto library shelves.
So where you can have acts of passion and violence within the pages of a book and not offend anyone, just so long as the cover isn't offensive - someone can take it home and be totally outraged in their house, and bring it back and say "Goodness gracious me, I didn't know that sort of stuff went on in the real world!" - you can't do that in a film. You fail the rating, you get a XX certificate rating and have to re-edit and all those sorts of things. There's a much larger public sensibility and censoring of material in the multi-media area. You also find that because of production values, there's little risk. You've got to go with something that sells, that can get bums on seats.
You've also got to do something which at the end of the day you can actually produce. If you blow up a city in a book, you might blow up two buildings in a film, because there's no point in a special effect that blows up a city; you don't get anything back for your money, it's just a whole lot of little flashes on the screen. It's much more sensational to blow up a single building, or whatever. So there's those essential differences.
But I think the question is interesting, in that in the future I don't think that either of them will be like we know them. It may be that what people will choose to read are extended versions of multimedia, with the text coming at them as an audio track that's being read, so we're looking at an oral tradition, and with images going across the screen at the same time.
Or maybe it would be multidirectional stuff, the sort of material whereby you could push the story in the direction of an ending you would be satisfied with, or you get to choose particular events out of a large string of events that allows you to make sense of the story. If that happens then obviously the nature of story-writing that we've got in books is going to change dramatically.
But having said that, the one thing in favour of retaining books is that they're a very cheap medium to sell and distribute stories. So as long as people have a hunger for story and are they are literate, then the medium of the book is an efficient way to deliver notions of story, for whatever reason, to a literate society. Much cheaper than it is to pump out CD ROMs, and much more efficient, because you don't need any technology to interact with the book.
To be continued next issue...
"A parking ticket? AAURGH!!"
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The story so far: Mark Heydon was about to transmat from Perth to Singapore when the operator of the transmat, who had been having trouble with the machine, inexplicably started shooting at him. A fight ensued and Heydon accidentally killed her. He fled the scene in a panic. Meanwhile, apparently in Singapore, Heydon is questioned by the police about the shooting, which he claims to know nothing about. Back in Perth, after sleeping through most of the day, Heydon is amazed at being able to escape the scene of the crime after some hours without arousing police interest.
It was after midnight, and Heydon was shivering in a phone booth outside his favourite all hours cafe. He knew that he had to phone somebody, but he couldn't decide who. He had reduced the possibilities down to two. The first was the police, to confess what had happened that morning. Perhaps they had withdrawn from the terminal when they realised that the transmat operator had done the shooting, and that her killer had acted in self defence. If so, they would probably let him off with a caution.
The second possibility was his wife Penny, to let her know that he wasn't in Singapore, that he had accidentally killed somebody, that he wasn't going to confess to the police just yet, and that he couldn't come home in case they looked for him there. He fished a coin out of his pocket. Heads, the police; tails, Penny. He tossed it, caught it and slapped it on the back of his hand. Heads.
He dialled his home number. He let the phone ring until the engaged signal broke in. (If Penny could sleep through his snoring, the telephone would be no trouble.) He rang again for good measure, before eventually slamming the receiver down and stalking into the Tempus Fugit.
The cool jazz within failed to assuage Heydon's fiery mood. He ordered a cappuccino and carried it towards his favourite table at the back of the deserted cafe. He was annoyed to find that it was already taken, by a man wearing a green and whi...
By himself.
What? Heydon steadied himself against a nearby table. His double noticed, and looked up.
"Hello Mark, I've been waiting for you." He spoke with Heydon's voice.
"Who the hell are you?", Heydon managed to squeak.
"Don't you recognise me?", his twin asked innocently.
Heydon sank into a chair and studied his other self. After all he had been through, this was the last thing he needed... "You're impersonating me. You're in league with that woman who tried to kill me. Why? What have I done?"
"I'm not impersonating you, I am you. Have you ever read - Sorry, stupid question. You have, and so have I. About how transmats work."
"Transmats? What the hell -?" Heydon was steadily growing more confused. "They work just like replicators, except that the original copy isn't retained."
"Right; it's atomised. A transmat is just a long-distance replicator hooked up to a high powered laser to incinerate the original copy. The elements of the original are broken down, stored in the machine and recycled into passengers coming the other way."
"Like you said, I know," Heydon snapped, "but what's all that got to do with you impersonating me?"
The other Heydon leaned forward. "Did you ever think why the original copy isn't retained?"
"Because otherwise whenever you used the transmat, you'd end up with two..." The other Heydon smiled. "...two..." Heydon's face grew pale. "Oh my God, you are telling the truth."
"The penny drops at last," the other almost smirked. "That transmat to Singapore worked; I ended up there. But my old body didn't get destroyed. The operator didn't know what to do. She knew you were supposed to be so much carbon dust and water in the storage tanks of the transmat. So she had to dispose of you quickly, any way she could."
"Dispose of? Murder!"
"Murder? So who would be dead? Not Mark Heydon - here I am. I signed a form - and so did you, for that matter - consenting to having my body incinerated and reconstituted elsewhere. Actually it's reconstituted before it's incinerated, for safety reasons; but either way, you're not supposed to be here."
Heydon had signed the consent form without even thinking about it. You couldn't think about it; transmats were too convenient. Like eggs; people ate them without thinking about where they come from. It was easier to accept the greatest advance in transit technology since the wheel without worrying about what became of its passengers. But it was too late now, and the more Heydon thought about it the more horrified he became.
The other Heydon sensed that his counterpart remained unconvinced, and kept talking. "You're just my old body. You've kept on living for a while after you were supposed to, but I'm Mark Heydon now. I know this must be hard to accept, but you can't expect to take over my life just because you used to be me. You consented to have your body destroyed. Your mind lives on in here." He tapped his skull.
"So what the hell are you saying?", Heydon challenged him.
"Mark, I am going to ask you to do something which you will have to think very hard about," the other said in suddenly more reasonable tones. Heydon looked at him impassively, so he continued. "I want to ask you if you will trust me to take over your life. I want the Mark Heydon who stepped into cell 25 yesterday to pass on the reins to the Mark Heydon who arrived in Singapore a moment later. That was what you always intended to do."
Heydon could hardly believe what he was hearing. "You want me to kill myself, don't you."
"Don't think of it like that. I've worked out the perfect way to do it. You can go back to the transmat machine you used yesterday. Instransit can set it to send you to Singapore, but disable the transmat at the other side, so that you never arrive. It will be just like taking the transmat you intended to yesterday, except that I arrived a little early."
"How dare you ask me to kill myself!", Heydon spluttered.
"Be reasonable, Mark," the other pleaded, with a self-conscious glance around the cafe. "There isn't room in my life for two of me. Which of us would get the job? The house? The car?"
"We could divide them up."
"Penny?"
Heydon had no answer. But he had a feeling that something was wrong. This was all too clinical, too perfunctory. "That's not like me," he accused the other. His conviction grew. "That is not like me. If you're me, you couldn't possibly be so dispassionate. You would never ask me to kill myself... not unless your own life was in danger." The other made no reply. Although Heydon was sure his other self knew what he meant, he spelt it out anyway. "You're hiding something."
For a moment the other looked as if he was going to deny it, but instead he held up his wrist to reveal a tight metal bracelet. "Do you know what this is? It's a bail bracelet. It lets the police know exactly where I am. If I try to take it off it will inject an anaesthetic drug into my bloodstream, and we'll be knee deep in officers within minutes."
"Why? What have you done?"
"Murdered a transmat operator."
"But you didn't kill her, I did."
"You don't bloody well say!", the other exploded. "But they still don't believe that you exist! There are only two ways for me to prove to them that you do. First, they can check with Instransit to try to confirm my story. They're going to do that tomorrow morning. The transmat I - we - used was damaged by gunfire when the operator was killed, so nobody else has travelled in it. If they find that the laser incinerator is broken, like I think it is, that will be good evidence that I'm telling the truth, and they'll come looking for you."
"And the other way?"
The other Heydon started involuntarily. "Pardon?"
"You said there were two ways that they could be convinced that I exist."
"Err... yes. That's if you give yourself up. They'll take your body to be atomised, and they'll set me free. Otherwise, you'll only be delaying the inevitable. You'll have to live in hiding, and I'll have to serve time for a murder I didn't commit. It's not worth it for either of us."
Heydon wasn't listening any more. He was watching the other Heydon's eyes. They were hiding something again. Giving himself up hadn't been the alternative the other had intended to mention; there was something else. Something he didn't want Heydon to know. Too late, he realised that his own eyes were as transparent to the other Heydon as the other's were to him. The other sprang away from the table with a table knife in hand. In the fraction of a second that followed, Heydon was engulfed with emotions. Disbelief, that someone closer than a twin could think of threatening his life. Fear for his safety. Then amusement, as the inadequacy of the weapon before him registered. Finally horror, as he realised that it wasn't intended as a weapon at all. The other held his wrist out in front of his body, and slid the knife under the metal bracelet. With a sharp motion of his hand a red light on the bracelet began to flash, and the other's body slumped unconscious to the floor.