Books: Comments

Nelson Bond
contributed by "Friendly Old Cliff"

"Nelson was a well-known science fiction writer when I met him, in late 1952. I was only 13 years old and he was in his early 30s, a couple of years older than my mother. I met him at the chess club in my home town of Roanoke, Va., in the United States, where he still resides. I have not seen him or communicated with him since the early 1960s.

Among his credits were many, many science-fiction stories in both pulp magazines and slick magazines such as Saturday Evening Post and Collier's. He had written radio plays for such shows as "Suspense" (the old "Squeaking Door" show). He had had two books of his stories published with good reception: "Mr. Mergenthwerker's Lobblies" and "The 31st Of
February" (one of my candidates for all time best book title).

Nelson was a nervous wreck when I met him -- thin, chain-smoker, cadaverous -- yet nevertheless good humoured, witty, and charitable. He had been city chess champion but did not win again after the time that I met him. He had actively travelled and played tournament chess, as if to become a master, but no longer did so. He was an adviser and helper to people active in local theatre, but did not participate actively himself. He gave me and other kids hints on writing, yet was writing little. None of his stuff was in the current science-fiction magazines that I read avidly. In short, he was a brilliant, friendly, accomplished man who was respected and admired by everyone, but who was doing nothing at all in furthering his own life and career.

I discovered that he himself admitted readily that he was suffering from writer's block. In the time before 1955, when I went to college, he published only one story that I know of, a rather pedestrian science-fiction novella with a theme incorporating an actual chess game and its moves. I did not think it was good -- it didn't even appeal to a fan of both chess and science-fiction who admired him. He did appear to have lost "it", whatever "it" may be.

There did seem to be a traumatic event that caused much, if not all, of Nelson's problems. Just a couple of years before I met him, he had been playing in a chess tournament at a hotel, and had ordered a pot of coffee, which was delved scalding hot and dumped in his lap, severely burning him and putting him in the hospital. He said that after that he could no longer stand to go to competitive chess meets, and could also whip up no ardour to study the game or play it other than casually, at our local chess club. His writer's block also started then. He gave up actively working in theatre as he had done before.

I grew to feel very much for him over the years. It was clear that he and the well-being and social status of his family were going downhill, though they were by no means on the skids. They moved from the fine home, a near-mansion, that they had lived in when I met them, to a lesser part of town. Nelson opened a small public-relations agency, mainly on the strength of his reputation, I think. It did not do very well, I think, but I do know that it persisted over the years. I more or less lost track of him, but occasionally thought of him. My mother had admired him and would sometimes tell me what she had heard of him, when I visited Roanoke or called. I think he even promoted an unsuccessful real estate development.

I haven't said much of Nelson's writing, by the way. He was very good. His stuff was witty science-fiction, mostly short stories, with an urbane vocabulary and sharp humour -- often ironic or satiric. He wrote great dialogue, as you might expect from a successful radio playwright, which he was. It was a thinking person's science fiction. He was extremely well read, particularly on subjects such as Lost Civilisations, Theopsohy, etc. He verbally derided L. Ron Hubbard as a quack when Hubbard wrote scientology. One of his great, good science-fiction friends was A. E. van Vogt, who had a larger reputation than Nelson, but not much larger, during the late 1940s. Nelson was actually probably more successful than van Vogt, financially, during that time, because of the radio shows.

Nelson is past 80, now, I am sure. He was a minor writer who was near great for a while, but did not make it. I always liked and admired him, his wit and good will, and his works -- the small amount I saw of them.

Amazon.com lists Mr. Mergenthwerker's Lobblies (warns of possible unavailability) and The 31st of February (apparently available). The 31st of February is a very entertaining collection of short science-fiction stories which I believe most readers would enjoy. You might try it -- it is worth what they want for it, and it might even be in a library. A sample of Nelson's wit that I remember, from the story Button, Button -- an end of mankind story that also was done as a
radio play. The scene is apocalyptic, after a nuclear holocaust has wiped out all but one man, so far as he knows. He thinks of a piece of doggerel regarding man and his indomitability and nobility:

Man the better,
Man the higher,
Man the pumps,
The world's on fire."

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