I Remember Richard

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I Remember Richard

Post by Ye Admin » Tue May 07, 2019 4:47 pm

I remember the good old days of SF fandom, 20 or 30 years ago, when you could go to any SF convention and find dealers with boxes and boxes of old pulp sci fi magazines. The magazines were already 30 years old or older when I discovered them. The titles: Amazing, Astounding, Thrilling Wonder, Startling. I bought all of them I could get my hands on, but I eventually settled for Amazing Stories, specifically in the Ray Palmer era..

I can't say why Amazing resonated with me more than the other pulps—perhaps it was the gaudy covers, perhaps the bizarre selection of stories (the stories went from appallingly bad to what SF fans call “a good read”). Or, perhaps I felt a bond with Ray Palmer. The guy was a hunchbacked dwarf, who one of his authors referred to as looking like a human spider: no middle, all legs. Like a lot of SF fans in those days, I was considered by my peers as a freak. And, like a lot of fellow SF fans back then, I assumed that I was.

It didn't take me long to discover one of Palmer's most famous writers: Richard Shaver. Legend has it that Shaver sent his first contributions to Palmer written on grocery bags. Shaver himself admitted to being a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.
From: http://surprisingstories.thiels.us/SSV10/richard.htm

The article goes on from there. Here is Flint's description of this group. Can't say his assessment is accurate, though:
Shaver mystery fans are still around, but they are a dying breed. They have a discussion forum on Yahoo groups, but posts are infrequent. You can go to the forum at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shavermystery. Sadly, the UFO/paranormal people seem to be at the forefront there. They want to believe in the mystery. Frequently, they point to articles about weird creatures, strange things found in caves and so on. For me, a sense of humor is essential to enjoying the Shaver mystery, and they are entirely too serious. There is also an online version of a classic Richard Shaver fanzine, Shavertron...
That's the old link of course. This article was originally written in 2006. You can tell by his outdated links.

http://web.archive.org/web/200601171020 ... ndex2.html 2006

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