Way back in 1969 Tex and Rita Cooper sent a letter (snail mail) to “The Sunday Times”, asking the newspaper to print it in the letters column. They had been in contact with the N3F, the National Fan Fiction Federation in America, and they were in search of fellow South Africans who were keen to share their love of Science Fiction.
On the 29th of June 1969 nine hardy souls made the trek to the Pretoria home of Tex and Rita and the South African Science Fiction club was born. Its name was later changed to Science Fiction South Africa. The committee started out by producing a monthly newsletter, which included meeting minutes, book reviews, stories, news of other SF clubs and various other items of SF interest.
After a year or so it was decided to create a Club Zine and members voted on a name which came from such as Beep, Xenon, Stargaze, War of the Words, Nucleus, and Utopia to name a few. PROBE was chosen and the June/July of 1970 newsletter, which was Volume 1 number 8, was printed on a Roneo machine and sent out to members. By March 1974 Probe had been become issue 25 and it has more or less been published 4 times a year for a while and now, and as of March 2022, issue 191, a fully electronic as well as a hard copy, has just gone to the printer.
The club decided, as one of its aims, to promote the writing of Science Fiction by South African authors, and to start up a short story competition. I can’t find out the exact date that this first occurred but by May 1978 in issue 36, stories from the competition were being printed in PROBE.
And as PROBE progressed, the stories from the competition, which at some point became the “Nova”, began to be the backbone of each issue. Over each year the winning stories from the previous year were published as well as some that took the fancy of the Editor.
The Nova has always been pre-judged anonymously by at least four or five members of the club. The top ten stories then went to a final judge who would rank them. We’ve had a very respectable selection of final judges, including Dave Freer, Lauren Beukes, Jennie Ridyard, Deirdre Byrne, Arthur Goldstuck, Gerald Gaylard, James Sey, David Levey, Digby Ricci, and Allyson Kreuiter; and in the very early days, noted South African astronomer Professor Arthur Bleksley. All are noted academics and many are professors of English departments in many of our noted Universities. There are even a number of internationally published authors among them.
I first came into contact with the club in 1973 when I saw an advert for the short story competition in the newspaper. I’d just completed my Matric and already an avid SF reader. So I entered a story. I was delighted to get into the top 20 stories and joined the club. In 1979 I took on the editorship of PROBE for the first time and was bitten by the editing bug.
Among our club members we have been delighted to have had Claude Nunes who was the first published South African author. He even had a couple of Ace doubles printed. Also the now well published Dave Freer and Yvonne Walus, who has changed to crime writing. A regular contributor to Nova and PROBE was the late Liz Simmonds, who I consider one of the most talented South African authors I have come across. One of the fillers that are found in PROBE are the 99-word “Wormholes” that were written at our annual MiniCons and many of them were co-authored by Liz. We miss her.
Up until 1994 we had published “The Best of South African Science Fiction”, volumes 1, 2 and 3. Then there was a long hiatus but as the club, now Science Fiction and Fantasy South Africa approached its 50th anniversary, long time member Gary Kuyper suggested that we do a Best of 50 Years of the Nova Competition.
I’d been threatening, for some time to look at doing a Volume 4 once I finally retired and it seemed to be a good idea to add it to the list of things I would need to keep me busy once I was no longer working.
The SFFSA committee deliberated and agreed that it would be a very good idea. It is currently approaching a point where it will be ready to be published.
Besides PROBE, the club has a long established tradition of meeting on the 3rd Saturday of each month. We have had many really entertaining speakers on topics ranging from “Hard” science topics such as nanotechnology, space travel and chemistry to archaeology, flying cars, Spacex, Afrofuturism, Tuberculosis vs. Man, Game of Thrones, renewable energy, black holes, What makes an alien, alien and also some literary discourses as a few examples. We’ve been to the Planetarium, the Radio Astronomy site at Pelindaba, the crater sites at Parys as well as at Tswaing. We’ve even hosted authors Terry Pratchett and Raymond E. Feist. We’ve had many socials and lots of Quizzes. We’ve been a small core of members who have become good friends of each other and of science fiction over many years.
With the advent of Covid-19 we were forced to stop meeting in person but within a short time had converted our monthly meetings to the Zoom forum. We found that we were able to find speakers from beyond our borders and indeed as we have members in a number of other countries they were able to join us as well.
Going forward it looks as if our monthly meetings will be a combination of live and Zoom meetings, depending on who we find is willing to talk to us.
And I should mention that a small number of us have been lucky enough to attend a few of the Science Fiction WorldCons in places such as Glasgow, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto, London and even Yokohama. It is the most amazing sensation to be in a group of up to 5000 fans when we generally number our member meetings in the 20’s. To walk along passages and be passed by people like Harry Harrison and Robert Silverberg, Lois McMaster Bujold as well as George R. R. Martin, whose books we had been reading since childhood is mind blowing. To sit down and drink coffee with people like James White or Gene Wolfe and discover they are people just like us is a humbling experience. To listen to a debate amongst Terry Pratchett, Anne McCaffery and Terry Brooks was enthralling. To hear David Brin address the opening of the Nippon 2007 WorldCon in Japanese was astonishing. I doubt that there is any other genre of fiction on earth which brings together authors and readers than Science Fiction and Fantasy with such gatherings.
One issue that has often concerned the club over the years has been the lack of representation of people of the other colours of our “rainbow” nation. We’ve had a couple of Black, Coloured and Indian members but few who have seemed to stay long term. We’ve always been a speculative fiction club and that has been the main reason for joining up. Thinking back over the years, perhaps the best I can do is to quote one of our long time members Ahmed Wadee. He stood up at the 50th SFFSA Anniversary dinner that we held to celebrate and said,” I first came to a meeting, with some trepidation, in 1978, and was the only dark face there. I was welcomed as a Science Fiction fan and have been an active member ever since. The club has only ever been interested in my interest in SF and never in whom I was or where I came from. “
I have seen a change in the authorship of stories over the years and we’ve received review books from a number of black authors. And Nick Wood has given us an overview of all the speculative fiction that is being written on the African continent. One of our biggest concerns is not only not gaining members of other colours but of not gaining young members of any colour. There are so many seemingly exciting options out on the Internet and we’re finding it difficult to attract members, which is one of the reasons that we are glad to be part of this collaboration. We’re hoping that more people will be interested in helping to balance the make-up of the club to enable it become more like the society in which it exists.
Long live Speculative Fiction in Africa.
Gail Jamieson
Editor PROBE
SFFSA
