Science Fiction Club of London
The Science Fiction Club of London[1] (SFCoL) was an invitational club formed in 1959 after the London Circle disbanded in October.
Its inaugural meetings were held at Inchmery on October 23, 1959. From April 1960 meetings moved to Ella Parker's flat, 'The Penitentiary', and a few months later they moved to Ethel Lindsay's flat in Surrey. A series of open meetings begun in early 1966, and continued for about a year, with talks by prominent SF pros and fans including John Brunner's 'The Fiction in SF' later reprinted in New Worlds.
The club also published the Science Fiction Club of London Club Combozine that featured writings of the club's active members, and excerpts from other fanzines. The first was produced for the BSFA Convention, 1960 and a second for the 1961 Eastercon, LXICON.
The club staged the London Minicon in November, 1967 but disbanded in May, 1968. ATom said that after 10 years of seeing the same people, everyone knew what the others were going to say before they said it. They had planned to hold annual meetings to keep the club alive at least in name, but it turned out not to be a workable idea. The last club activity would have been the London Minicon 2 in November 1968 but that was cancelled due to lack of interest.
Founder Members[edit]
Later Members[edit]
Honorary Members[edit]
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- ↑ Pedantically, officially the Club name hyphenated 'Science-Fiction' in its constitution. In practice the more common usage was unhyphenated.
- ↑ By 1965 Groves was listed as a honorary member. He had planned to emigrate to the United States in late 1965 and finally succeeded in October 1966.
- ↑ In 1965 Burgess, then living in Bournemouth, was listed as an 'out of town member'.
Club | 1959—1968 |
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