Archon 31

“Tucker”-Continued from page 8world’s first Chinese fan – and I called him Hoy Ping Pong.When the story was published, the story was listed as by HoyPing Pong. I liked it, and I kept publishing things in my fanzinesunder the name Hoy Ping Pong. Pretty soon, if you’ll sit stilllong enough and let the rest of the world build this legend, allof a sudden you’re famous. All over the United States I wasknown as the world’s first Chinesescience fiction fan.When I was doing my fanzines, ForryAckerman would contribute letters andonce in a while he would do a moviereview. Bradbury would send me shortessays, nutty verse and little sketchesfor interior illustrations. He once sentme an entire full-length cover with LeZombie across the top and a robot –not walking on two legs – rolling onone wheel. All around him the robotwas throwing out jokes and one-liners.It’s the only cover I can remember thathe did for me.My brother and sister were smallerthan I, and my father called mebrother. He would say, ‘Brother go dothis, brother go do that.’ The little kidstried to say brother and they couldn’tget it out, so it became bub. As I grewup it became Bob. There’s nothing toit. I wrote as Bob Tucker in Fandom,and was quite happy. I did the fanzinesunder Bob Tucker, and I did some of the short stories under theBob name. When I started doing books, the first book editorsaid, ‘No, Bob is too informal. Let’s give you a name.’ She wasgoing to make up a fancy name. So I took my real name. Itreally snowed her. My real name is Wilson Tucker.Some time ago I had discovered that if it looks like a businessletterhead, you can write away and get a lot of things for free.So I made up the fancy title Tucker Research, with my homeaddress, and here came all of these free samples. I madethem my research.Around about 1950, hotelrates started climbingalarmingly. Before 1950,you could get a room at aYMCA for about fifty cents anight. In 1940, theWorldcon was held inChicago in a hoteldowntown where the roomswere five dollars a night.Very few of us, hardlyanyone could afford fivebucks a night for a room.We all stayed at the YMCA.After the war, and after1946 when the pricecontrols were lifted, all of asudden rates started goingup. By 1950, that same fiveWilson “Bob” Tucker (Philcon, 1953)(Photograph by Charles Harris)dollar room had shot up toabout eight or nine dollars anight. Fans revolted. Wethought that the hotel owners and managers were takingadvantage of us. I started the idea of building a hotel, brick byCard game – World Science Fiction Convention(Cincinnati, 1949)At table, L-R: Wilson “Bob” Tucker, Oliver Saari,Erle Melvin Korshak, Bill DonahoBackground: Martin Greenberg and Pamela Bulmer(Photograph by Ben Jason)brick, and move it from city to city. You know what city the hotelis going to be at next week, so if you’re going to that con makeyour bookings in advance. A bunch of fans jumped on the ideaand named it the Tucker Hotel. I began to get bricks throughthe mail. I had a post office box, where they would put a cardtelling me to come to the office and claim my package. Dayafter day he would give bricks to me. I wouldn’t explain it andhe wouldn’t ask.Eventually, before it died out, I musthave accumulated sixty or seventybricks. I’d take them home and stackthem in my garage. Some other jokerdecided, ‘Tucker’s getting rich from ourbricks,’ so he started sending me strawso I could make my own bricks. By thistime, a bunch of fans from Ireland gotinto the game – Walter Willis, BobShaw, Chuck Harris, a few others, andone of them was a draftsman, anarchitect. And on a huge piece ofpaper, he did a drawing of the wholeTucker Hotel and he mailed it to me. Itwas too good to keep for myself so wehad several copies made, and we sentthem out with fanzines all over theUnited States. It became so well knownthat it wound up as a two-page reprint inthe Fancyclopedia. To this day, if youown a collection of early fanzines,somewhere in there is a copy of theTucker Hotel.Here comes the sequel to all of this. Eventually, I told thisstory to several people at different conventions, and people allover the United States knew that I had a pile of bricks at home.One day I was telling the story and someone asked me what Ihad done with the bricks. They asked if I had kids and if thekids had pets. They said that I should build a brick doghouse.Except my kids didn’t have dogs, they had cats. Pretty soon Iput a roof on it, and kids in the neighborhood came around tosee the Tucker cathouse.In 1975, at the World Convention in Australia, they sat medown in a room with three or four hundred fans and asked meto tell the story of the Tucker Hotel. I wondered about theAustralian fans, who were known at that time for beingsomewhat reserved, and whether or not they had the sameslang terms that Americans do. Did they know what a cathouseis? When I finished the story, there was dead silence. Slowly,the Australian reserve crumbled. Giggles began at the backrow and by the time they got to the front everyone was laughingat the story.In a couple of stories I dealt with something that used to becalled the atom bomb. I did some research about atomicartillery shells and worked it out that the critical mass wasabout 22.5 pounds. So I immediately used that figure in a shortstory and then in a novel, a few years apart. No onequestioned it. There was no criticism, nothing. Then, one dayat a convention, I met Greg Benford, who is a physicist. Wewere discussing fiction writing and so forth, when it just poppedup in conversation. He said, ‘You know, the critical mass is just22.5 pounds’. I asked him if he had authenticated that and hesaid that he remembered reading it somewhere.A long, long time ago I began attending conventions, andquite by accident I created traditions. I didn’t set out to do it, Ijust suggested that we do certain things. At one of the early“Tucker”-Continued on page 109