Goldberg: Science friction

By Tod Goldberg

The story I'm about to tell you happened in 1985. I was 14, my sister Linda was 16 and my brother Lee was 23 and had just published a series of men's action adventure novels under the pen name Ian Ludlow called 357: Vigilante. Lee also wrote for Starlog Magazine, which, if you've never picked it up, was (is) masturbatory fodder for the 16-sided dice crowd. During this time in history, the Internet was just a dream of Al Gore's and those interested in all things spacey had less physical outlets to espouse their beliefs and/or trade uniforms and thus conventions were more of a, well, convention. With this in mind, my phone rang.

"What are you doing next weekend?" Lee asked. At 14, the only thing I likely had going on in my life was a driving affection for the Thompson Twins.

"Nothing."

"What about Linda?"

Linda was a wild card. She was actively rebelling against all things she could actively rebel against and, as such, was prone to running off on flights of fancy with weird boyfriends (including, notably, a guy really into Eckankar) and often spent long hours alone in her bedroom listening to Wham! albums at high decibels.

"I think she's gonna be fighting with Mom."

"Great!" Lee said. "I thought maybe you guys could sell books for me at this convention I'm going to."

I agreed for both of us, but had I known the convention in question would be filled with entire families dressed in "Battlestar Galactica" garb, I probably would have declined. Sadly, that information wasn't imparted to us until we arrived at the Anaheim Convention Center and saw people holstering their phasers and read a sign that said "Welcome Starlog Readers!"

"I thought this was some kind of book thing," Linda said.

"It is," Lee said. We were sitting in his red Honda Accord among stacks of his novel--or, well, Ian Ludlow's novel--about a man who takes justice into his own hands in present-day 1985 L.A., nary a spaceship or Vulcan to be found in the prose. "I'm selling books here."

We hustled inside and set up a table between a man selling origami "Star Trek" items and a woman selling her massive backlog of Fangoria issues. The man and woman looked at us like we were space aliens, chiefly because, we figured, we were the only people not actually dressed like space aliens.

"Okay," Lee said. "I have to go do a panel discussion on interviewing Harlan Ellison. You guys just sit here and talk up the book."

"Anything you want us to say?" I asked.

Lee thought about this for a moment. "Don't be real specific about when and where the story takes place."

Linda and I looked at each other. Lee had just used his "lie to Mom" voice, which we took to mean, "Tell people it takes place in space."

For the next three hours, my sister and I sat behind a table and tried to interest passing humanoids in my brother's book. While the man with the origami did brisk business ("Yes, I do special requests but I won't do Klingon ships. I just think it is wrong") and the woman with Fangoria was coining money on issues about Lovecraft ("I do have that issue. Just hold on. I do have it."), Linda and I were having no success whatsoever. Men and women in various costumes along the time-space continuum would stand in front of us and just stare at the book, trying to figure out how it melded with their world of ships, lasers and pointy-eared men. Since my sister had become otherwise engaged with a scintillating issue of BOP magazine, I took it upon myself to try to drum up some cash for our brother.

"It takes place in a futuristic L.A.," I said to the man in the "V" uniform who'd stopped to handle the book.

"Yeah? Are there aliens?"

"Only illegal ones," I said. When I was 14, I thought this was a pretty funny thing to say.

"I only read books with real aliens in them," he said, setting the book down.

"You're an idiot," my sister said from behind her magazine. It was the first time Linda had spoken for at least an hour.

"Pardon me?" the man said.

"You said you only read books with `real aliens' in them and I said that you're an idiot," Linda said, still not looking up.

"You're very rude," he said.

"'V' was canceled," Linda said, "just FYI."

The man walked off in a huff, which was good because we could see Lee making his way back to the table through several aisles filled with sci-fi accoutrements.

"So," Lee said, "how did it go?"

"Linda called that guy over there an idiot and the guy selling origami won't make anything involving Klingons."

Lee nodded gravely, looked over at the "V" man in question (he was haranguing an official-looking gentleman with a clipboard) and started packing up his books, quickly.

"Are we going so soon?" Linda asked, but Lee just glared at both of us. It was a long ride home, believe me.