I’ve been thinking about exploding cows for the past couple of days, and of how I should finally share in some permanent way that long shaggy dog (shaggy cow?) story of mine. I’ve shared it several times to crowded rooms at conventions, but that’s as far as it’s gone.

What has me recalling those unfortunate bovines right now is The Collected Stores of Jack Williamson Volume Eight, which showed up in the mail this week.

When I began flipping through the book, what first caught my eye were the two Science Fiction Age covers printed on the inside front and back covers, which made me smile. Then, looking to see what was written about the stories reprinted from those issues, I got a little choked up, because I discovered that Jack had spoken to me from beyond the grave.

Since Jack died several years ago, I’d assumed that any story notes would have to be written by someone else, but no—Jack had known the contents of this volume so far in advance that he’d been able to write about them in 2005. And this is the final sentence of his passage about having “The Firefly Tree” published in Science Fiction Age:

It was the first of mine that Scott Edelman bought for Science Fiction Age, a great magazine while it lived.

Thank, Jack. That means a lot.

After reading that, I set the book aside for a bit, pleased by Jack’s kudos. When I picked it up again, it was to read Connie Willis’ introduction. I expected to see her love for Jack shining through, but what I didn’t expect to find were exploding cows.

Yes. Exploding cows. My exploding cows.

First Connie mentioned in passing that some of the difficulties those of us who visited Portales faced in getting there were “floods, blizzards, and exploding cows.” But in the next paragraph, discussing those of us who’d made multiple visits to the Jack Williamson Lectureship series, she got more explicit, saying that I personally had returned:

” … in spite of the fact that one time, he not only witnessed a wreck between a train and a truck full of cattle, but ended up on a smoke-filled plane which had to make an emergency landing.”

Which got me to thinking—I’ve told the tale of this adventure before crowds many times at cons, once with Connie on my lap as if she were a little girl being told a bedtime story. So isn’t it time I told it to you?

I think i should. But how? I can’t decide whether to simply write it out as a blog entry here, record a podcast, or create a YouTube video so you can see me as I recount that crazy day. I’m not sure when I’ll get the time to do any of those things, but when I finally do, which do you think it should be?

Let me know.

[BTW –this is my first attempt to post here from my iPad as opposed to my laptop, so if you’re reading this — it worked!]

I dreamt this morning that I was at a summit meeting of sorts. Only this wasn’t the high-end kind taking place in an oak-paneled boardroom with plush carpeting. Instead, it was rather low rent, being held under the bright lights of a gymnasium. There were ten of us there, five on either side of a long, narrow formica table. On one side, the elder statesmen of science fiction. On the other, some young punks. Well, call them not-so-young punks, since one of them was me.

This was a dream which immediately began to evaporate upon waking, so I can only remember that Jack Williamson and Fred Pohl were among the giants on the opposite side of the table. It didn’t strike me at all odd that Jack was there, even though he died two years ago. Unfortunately, the only writer I can remember from my side of the table was … me. I’m sad that this particular dream happened to evanesce; I’d love to know which writers my subconscious thought should be joining us!

Anyway, as this meeting of the minds took place, Fred kept hogging the conversation, and Jack, who was shuffling through papers while this was going on, finally had to tell him to keep quiet. “I want to hear what the kids think,” said Jack. Only to someone Jack’s age—he died at 98½—could I possibly seem like a kid!

With Fred quiet, the writers on my side started to share their thoughts about science fiction, but then, with the limberness of a teenager, Fred vanished under the table. He began to pull some sort of prank having to do with my feet, but as to whether he tied my shoelaces together or stuck matches in my shoes to set them on fire the way you only see in old movies and comic books, well, that’s another detail that’s been lost to me, and I vaguely remember both.

I woke as the writers on my side of the table were speaking, and immediately began to scribble down the dream, but these details were gone, all gone.

Symmetry magazine, which is put out by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, recently published an essay by William S. Higgins on Jack Williamson’s 1942 short story “Collision Orbit.” That story contained science fiction’s first reference to contraterrene, or as we know it today, antimatter. You can find a manuscript page from that story here.

A sidebar to the main article references my 2003 visit to the Williamson ranch. Included are photos of the shack in which Jack wrote “Collision Orbit.” That’s me at right inside Jack’s shack.

The article has been linked to by many blogs, usually those focused on either science or science fiction. But what I found most interesting were the two links from sites unconcerned with either of those topics.

Here’s a link from Materialicious, which bills itself as “just another shelter blog,” and here’s one from Shedworking, which is “a lifestyle guide for shedworkers.”

Who knew that there was such a thing as shed fandom?

Jack Williamson was born 100 years ago today, and we should all pause for at least a moment to remember the humble science-fiction Grand Master who published in nine consecutive decades.

My own feelings about Jack were laid out in an editorial titled “Celebrating Science Fiction’s Living National Treasure,” which I wrote about him for the March 5, 2001 issue of Science Fiction Weekly. I don’t think that I could improve upon those thoughts now. One paragraph reads:

In a more just culture, Jack Williamson would be treated as the Japanese treat their elders who are masters of a given art—painters, calligraphers, writers. He would be officially named as a “living national treasure.” Jack certainly qualifies as that, which is, I think, a more comfortable thing to be after all than Mount Rushmore. Jack Williamson deserves that honor not just because he has taught me how to create compelling science fiction, but also because Jack has taught me—with his honesty, his endless wonder and curiosity at the universe, his rare ability to continue to grow and change with each passing year where others would have petrified, and his graciousness for the generations of SF writers and editors who have followed him—how best to live a life.

The above picture was taken in 2003, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the publication of Jack’s first short story, “The Metal Man,” in the December 1928 Amazing Stories. I’m holding a copy of that magazine, which I’d just had him autograph. It now hangs framed in my office, where it inspires me each day.

I last saw Jack in 2006, shortly before his 98th birthday, and though his body was weakening, his amazing mind was as alive as ever. It almost seemed as if he could go on forever, but, of course, he could not. I wish he could be with us still, continuing to point the way.

Today I miss him a little more than usual. So please join me in missing him, too.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Jack Williamson’s birth, which is now just fifteen days away, Haffner Press has published The Worlds of Jack Williamson: A Centennial Tribute. The volume includes many of Jack’s classic stories, as well as previously unpublished tales, a film treatment, and appreciations by both friends and academics.

My new icon today is a picture of Jack and me taken on the 75th anniversary of the publication of his first short story. (more…)

I just ran across a 2005 post which appeared at The Comics Reporter site in which comic-book personalities were asked to share famous industry events at which they wish they’d been flies on the wall, such as “Sit in on a Lee/Kirby or Lee/Ditko plotting session, circa 1963” and “Joe and Jerry signing the contract to give Superman to DC.”

Which got me thinking—what science-fiction events would I have wanted to witness as a fly on the wall? Here are the first five that came to mind:

The discussion in which Astounding editor John W. Campbell, Jr. inspired Isaac Asimov to create his classic story “Nightfall.”

Jack Williamson’s face at the newsstand that day in 1928 upon seeing his creature from “The Metal Man” illustrated on the cover of Amazing and realizing that he must have made his first fiction sale—only no one had bothered to tell him!

The screening George Lucas held for friends such as Steven Spielberg and Brian De Palma of a rough cut of Star Wars before the special effects were laid in.

Don Wollheim, Frederik Pohl, Cyril Kornbluth and others as they were being ejected from the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939 by Sam Moskowitz and Will Sykora as part of one of the earliest fan feuds.

Daniel Keyes bringing the manuscript of “Flowers for Algernon” over to the apartment of Horace Gold, and listening as the agoraphobic editor of Galaxy told him that he needed to change the ending to make it more upbeat.

I can think of many other moments I’d like to have witnessed. How about you?