Sharyn McCrumb - Zombies of the Gene Pool

"He's another one of the Lanthanides, isn't he?" said Jay. "When we met him in the lobby, and he said that he was Pat Malone, I assumed that he was an editor or a film person, and that he was joking, but Woodard seemed to recognize him."

Marion scowled. "Woodard called him Pat Malone, which is ridiculous. Pat Malone has been dead since 1958. Everybody in fandom knows that. I know that and I wasn't even in fandom in 1958. I was in diapers!"

This was something of an exaggeration, but Jay wisely did not correct her arithmetic.

"I admit that it sounded like Woodard said 'Pat Malone,' but it's impossible. Pat Malone is dead. All the books say so."

Jay smiled. "That would explain the shocked looks on the faces of the rest of them."

"It certainly would," snickered Marion. "Pat Malone! I wonder how he found out about the reunion?"

"Ouija board?" suggested Jay Omega, trying to keep a straight face.

Marion, who had gone back to trying to figure things out, acknowledged his wit with the briefest of smiles. "Very clever. Actually, his knowing about the reunion is probably the least part of the mystery. Thanks to the dramatic effect of the drained lake, and to Ruben Mistral's excellent publicists, this reunion has been covered in everything from computer bulletin boards to the National Inquirer. You'd have to be dead not to know about it."

"I wonder if Elvis will show up," Jay mused. "He's from Tennessee, too, isn't he?"

"Don't be silly," said Marion. "Elvis Presley is dead."

"That doesn't seem to have stopped Pat Malone," he pointed out. "Can you explain that?"

Marion nodded. "I think so. Mark Twain said it best: All reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Actually, in fandom such misinformation isn't even uncommon. Fans chiefly correspond by letter and by hearsay, so it's very easy for someone to start an unsubstantiated rumor, which soon gets repeated as fact farther along the grapevine."

"Somebody said he was dead, and nobody checked?"

"Hardly anybody ever checks anything in fandom. Remember all the garbage that came out in fanzines after Bimbos of the Death Sun first came out? People thought 'Jay Omega' was a pseudonym for half of SFWA."

"I told you not to read the amateur commentary on my book," said Jay, downing the last of his milk."It only upsets you. Even good reviews upset you."

"I couldn't believe how shallow most of those reviewers were," said Marion, momentarily distracted. Then, noticing her companion's amused smile, she decided to jettison the tirade. "Well, never mind about literary criticism! The subject at the moment ought to be history. Apparently we have just witnessed the debunking of a death hoax of thirty years' standing."

"Hoax?" Jay looked bewildered. "So you're saying that somebody deliberately made an announcement that Pat Malone was dead, and everybody just believed it and let it go at that?"

"Something like that. Given the mentality of fandom, death hoaxes are inevitable occurrences. Some people do it as a practical joke; some declare themselves dead in order to get rid of people who otherwise will not go away; and some people do it in order to annoy the person they report as dead. Back in the fifties, fans were taking up a collection to bring the brilliant Irish fan Walt Willis to Chicon II in Chicago, and a neofan named Peter Graham sent out postcards announcing Willis' demise." "Why?"

"Apparently because Peter Graham felt like it, and because his parents had given him a postcard mimeo and he wanted to use it. He knew that it would cause a sensation because Willis was so popular. Most people realized that the postcard was a hoax at the time, because he had misspelled 'diphtheria,' and because it seemed strange that an Irishman's death announcement should be postmarked San Francisco."

"I suppose Walt Willis was pretty upset about it."

"I hear he wasn't. People said that when he got to the U.S., he charmed everyone by answering his telephone, 'Peter Graham speaking.'" Marion smiled at the memory of one of fandom's finest hours.

"But, of course, you don't approve," said Jay solemnly.

Marion looked stern. "Death hoaxes are cruel and pointless. I wonder who started this one?"

"I wonder why Pat Malone didn't bother to set anyone straight?"

"That may be what he is doing right now." Marion sighed. "I wish Erik Giles would come out. That is one conversation I'd give anything to hear."

"You may get your chance tomorrow," Jay told her. "Someone is going to have to explain his presence to the media people. Still, thirty years is a long time to wait to correct a mistake like that, don't you think?"

"I don't know. From what I hear about the personality of Pat Malone, he may have staged the hoax himself. And I know why everyone was so quick to believe in it."

"Why?"

Marion sighed. "Wishful thinking. Before Pat Malone died, he created a stink in fandom that lasted for decades. A lot of people will be dismayed to hear that he's back."

Alluvial-Volume 7, Number 4 June 16, 1958

***Special Issue of ALLUVIAL dedicated to Pat Malone ***

IN MEMORIAM PAT MALONE

By George Woodard, Editor

One of the most powerful, if strident, voices in fandom has been stilled by no less a censor than the Grim Reaper himself, who swept down with his black wings in the night, and carried off Patrick B. Malone, on June 8 in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Word has reached me here in Maryland that Pat Malone has died, and, since this information has not been generally released and since it concerns a fellow Lanthanide, I consider it my somber duty to relay that which I know concerning his passing to the late, great Pat's many associates in the realm of science fiction fandom. According to Jack L. Bexler (editor of JACKAL'S MEAT), he (Jack) received a letter from his (Pat's) widow, Ethel Lucille Malone, who resides in Cupertino, CA. (She did not write to me, one of Pat's oldest friends in fandom, but that is another matter.) Why he died in Mississippi is not clear to this writer. Bexler relates that Pat Malone had been sick for a number of years with a tuberculosis-related illness of some kind, and that he finally died of it this month, in great pain. His body was donated to the Washington Medical School, by his own instructions.

Pat will be remembered by his myriad correspondents as one of the founders of ALLUVIAL, one of the leading fanzines of this decade, but he is even better known as an incisive critic of the social order, the Jonathan Swift of fandom, the stinging gadfly of all he surveyed. He is the author of one SF

novel, River of Neptune, which is unfortunately out of print, but somewhere in the Library of Congress, his name will be listed for all time.

Who among us has not felt the barbed tongue of Patrick B. Malone? Of course, he will also be remembered for his perceptive analyses of the works of Jules Verne, and for his detailing the fulfillment of Verne's scientific prophecies (e.g. the submarine), but it is his fan-related writings which will make his name ring down through the ages. His opus THE LAST FANDANGO (privately mimeographed) is a classic of social commentary, and it revolutionized the heretofore timid accounts of fan politics and convention activities.

He left the editorship of ALLUVIAL in 1955, when he left the Fan Farm, and I have carried on. I like to think that Somewhere, he will keep reading, and will say, "Well done, Woodard!"

He is gone, and those of us who were his friends will miss his crisp forthrightness. His enemies have lost a chance to change his opinion of them. And we shall not see his like again.

GEORGE WOODABD, ED.

GOOD-BYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE, PM!

A Guest Column By Jack L. Bexler