ISBN 978-1-916508-35-4 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-913451-21-9 (ebook)
Front cover
Ansible Editions, April 2025
Cover photo taken at the 1951 London Festivention. Ted Carnell speaking at far left; Forrest J Ackerman at front right.
The trade paperback THEN Again was published in 2025, several years after the 2019 ebook. 9" x 6" with glossy cover; 253 pages; 123,000 words. All proceeds from book sales go to the TransAtlantic Fan Fund.
This companion to Rob Hansen’s monumental THEN: Science Fiction Fandom in the UK: 1930-1980 brings together the writings of many players on the stage of British and Irish fandom from 1930 to the end of 1979, telling in their own words the stories of SF groups – including the national British SF Association (BSFA) – fanzines, famous fannish addresses, bizarre fan activities and much more. There are 59 articles, several compiled from more then one source, plus an Introduction, Appendix (surveying 1970s fanzines at length) and Afterword.
As its name suggests, THEN Again is intended as a companion volume to THEN, one in which the story of the first half-century of SF fandom in the UK is told by others. As to what is and isn’t included, that’s largely a matter both of what was available and what I could find. I was careful to ensure England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland were all represented, yet Wales isn’t. This is ironic given that Dave Langford, Greg Pickersgill, and I are all Welsh, but the sad fact is that I could find no discrete articles of any substance about such as, say, the Cymrades of the 1950s or the Newport group of the late 1970s and 1980s. This despite me being a founder member of the latter. [...]
In the piece that opens this volume and sets the tone for it, Walt Willis envisioned the creation of a history of UK fandom by accretion. He saw a series of articles being written incorporating reprints of old material that, when collected together would form that fanhistory. More or less. THEN Again probably isn’t quite what he had in mind but it does suggest a way forward in assembling a history of fandom for the period after that covered by THEN. If no-one feels up to writing and producing something as densely researched, THEN Again provides what I hope is an alternate model.