If I Werewolf

Fanfiction
Title:	If I Werewolf
Author(s):	Louis Russell Chauvenet, Jack Speer, Harry Jenkins, Jr., Elmer Perdue, Bob Tucker, the Minnesota Fantasy Society
Date(s):	Dec. 1941-Sept. 1942
Length:
Genre:	Fannish RPF
Fandom:	Science Fiction fandom
External Links:
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If I Werewolf was a 7-part RPF round robin written from December 1941 to September 1942.

It was first proposed in Spaceways #23, as a story in which a science fiction fan discovered a way of transforming people into werewolves and decided to use it on other fans to create a "super-race". Harry Warner, Jr., suggested that another fan learn a process to de-werewolf people that would be fatal to non-werewolves. "Some fans want to be werewolves; many think it's another ghu-foo bit of foolishness; and any number of things happen." He added that any fan who didn't want to appear had one chance to write in before the story began.

Featuring

• Louis Russell Chauvenet, capable of changing into birds
• Art Widner (cats, after his first appearance as a rabbit)
• Gertrude Kuslan (aquatic animals)
• Hannes Bok (a dragon)
• Robert A. W. Lowndes (a bat)
• Jack Speer (a sorcerer)
• Milton A. Rothman (a louse)
• Bob Tucker (a zombie)
• Joe Gilbert (a cobra)
• Lee Eastman (an elephant)
• Harry Jenkins, Jr. (an octopus)
• D. B. Thompson (a chimpanzee)
• Dale Hart (a horse)
• Morojo (a frog)
• Forrest J Ackerman (an aardvark)
• Walt Daugherty (a kangaroo)
• Paul Freehafer (a bat)
• T. Bruce Yerke (a tumbleweed)
• Elmer Perdue (Superman)
• H.C. Koenig and Harry Warner, Jr. (refusals)

Summary

Part I (Louis Russell Chauvenet): Chauvenet is awakened by Art Widner, in the form of a white rabbit. He needs Chauvenet to imagine him turning back into a human. Chauvenet and Widner recover a mysterious pebble, the Cwael Darth, that gave him the power to change shapes. Widner suggests spreading the power to fans en masse, and using it to do things like visiting Raymond A. Palmer, who actifans felt was doing a bad job as an editor.

They first visit Gertrude Kuslan, and then consider the Futurians: Robert Lowndes and Damon Knight are suitable candidates, with H.C. Koenig, John B. Michel and Hannes Bok the next most likely. H.C. Koenig refuses to join, as he wants to keep believing their shapeshifting is in his imagination, and gaining the power himself would force him to accept it as real. They travel to Philadelphia to pick up Milton A. Rothman and Jack Speer, but arrive to find Speer in robes and performing an incantation.

Part II: (Jack Speer): Speer summons a demon and exchanges temporary possession of his soul for the services of Slingo from L. Ron Hubbard's recent story The Case of the Friendly Corpse. Slingo sees a print of Edd Cartier's illustration of a menacing cat from Hubbard's Fear and tells Speer about an eight-sided jewel that gives people the power to change shape. He says that a similar cat was present recently. Speer, excited to meet werewolves after an article he wrote for The Southern Star, visits Milton A. Rothman's home and finds the other fans there. He notices that Trudy Kuslan and Chauvenet aren't enjoying Gilbert & Sullivan as they normally do, and as Widner offers Rothman the jewel, Speer objects: at that moment, Widner has just turned off a boogie-woogie piece that he should be enjoying.

Part III (Bob Tucker): Milton Rothman has vanished after touching the jewel. The fans argue over what he might have changed into. Trudy Kuslan accidentally turns into a whale and destroys part of Rothman's room. Finally Rothman is discovered as a louse on Hannes Bok's nose. Speer blames this on reading too much L. Sprague de Camp, and explains that the were-creatures have all lost pleasures they used to enjoy as full humans.

Bob Tucker is visited by the group on a rainy night. He identifies the jewel as a fake, and tells it to make him a were-dinosaur. The jewel fails. Lowndes tells Tucker that Rothman is in his hair.

Part IV (Art Widner): Chauvenet realizes that Tucker is a zombie, citing the real-life death hoax perpetrated by one of Tucker's acquaintances in 1935, and the fact that Tucker shortly afterwards started the fanzine Le Zombie. Tucker admits the truth, and the group heads for Hagerstown to pick up Harry Warner, Jr. Warner, a notorious recluse, refuses to join them because he doesn't want to stop enjoying the oboe.

The group now visits Joe Gilbert, Harry Jenkins, Jr., and Lee Eastman, all hard at work mimeographing fanzines. Gilbert becomes a cobra, Eastman a elephant, and Jenkins an octopus, so that he can turn out eight fanzines at once. The group heads west to the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, picking up D.B. Thompson (a chimpanzee) and Dale Hart (a stallion) along the way.

Morojo chooses to become a frog like Trudy Kuslan, Forrest J Ackerman an aardvark to make sure he appears first alphabetically, Walt Daugherty a kangaroo, Paul Freehafer a bat, and T. Bruce Yerke a tumbleweed. The Amalgamated Were-Fans of America assembles, and Art Widner announces that they should first gather Elmer Perdue and fans from Michigan, Chicago and Maine. Then to England to acquire some of the intellectual fans there. From there, they will head to Germany and kill Adolf Hitler, and after seizing Germany the possibilities will be limitless. Suddenly the fishbowl containing Morojo, Trudy Kuslan and Harry Jenkins is beamed through the ceiling. The other were-fans give chase, as the captives call out, "Help! Vitons! Perdue!" but fail to catch up.

Part V (Elmer Perdue): The Amalgamated Were-Fans of America track Elmer Perdue down to a musician's hangout in the red light district, where he's playing the piano. Upon questioning, he reveals that he had Jack Speer blast Trudy, Morojo and Jenkins with a green ray to return them to their original forms. When he finds out the ray was red, the fans suspect that it actually trapped them in their animal forms. Perdue takes the Cwael Darth and considers Doctor Fate, the Spectre, and the Flash before choosing to become a were-Superman. The fans regroup and Perdue flies them on a magic carpet to meet Speer in Washington. (Superman wasn't yet known for being able to fly.)

Part VI (Harry Jenkins, Jr.): The fans storm Speer's house and retrieve the fishbowl. Perdue-as-Superman falls down on the way out. The fans fight off some US air force planes pursuing them, with Jenkins scoring a major blow by shooting ink. They arrive in Minneapolis to find Morris S. Dollens, Phil Bronson, Samuel D. Russell and John Chapman. All four pull out guns and refuse to join the Were-Fans, having been warned ahead of time by Speer. As they return to their trailer, Lowndes discovers his friend John B. Michel and flies over to him. Michel accepts the Cwael Darth and wishes to become a Martian squigglepoof, upon which a form appears from the stone and asks what that is.

Part VII (Minnesota Fantasy Society): The Form can't turn Michel into a squigglepoof, as no one knows what it is. Dollens, Bronson, Russell and Chapman come into the trailer and reveal that the squigglepoof exists only in a story by Oliver E. Saari. The MFS confer together and decide to reveal that a certain set of rites are going on at Clifford D. Simak's house. On the way there, the were-fans end up entangled and were-elephant Lee Eastman accidentally inhales the fishbowl containing the aquatic fans.

At Simak's house, the fans catch a quick glimpse of a burnt object writhing on a stone altar, but the cultists clean it up quickly. Carl Jacobi, Oliver Saari, Arden Benson, Manse Brackney, and Gordon Dickson all make appearances, and Saari can't remember where he wrote about the Martian squigglepoof. The were-fans try to console a depressed Michel. Suddenly Phil Bronson remembers that it might be in the files of his zine The Fantasite.

Michel is taken in to the sacred files alone, and there the MFS members corner him, suspecting that the were-fans are planning to create a dictatorship. They convince Michel to side with them and give him the Cwael Darth so he can become a squigglepoof now that he finally knows what it is. Russell becomes a ghoul, Bronson a T. rex, Saari a gorilla, Benson a giraffe, Dollens a Kodiak bear, Chapman a vampire in a tuxedo, Dickson the Jabberwock, and Brackney a wolf, to his disappointment. They and Michel, now the Left Wing Party of the Amalgamated Werefans of America, charge back into the room to confront the other were-fans, at which point were-Jabberwock Dickson accidentally sends everyone into "the fabled thirteen and two-fifths Ganch dimension".

Part VII appeared in Spaceways #30, and was set to be continued, but it turned out to be the final issue and If I Werewolf was never completed.

Reviews

Jack Speer referenced the story in the June 1942 issue of his zine Ramblings:

Suppose a pack of werefans should bring the war to a successful conclusion next month, and at the peace conference everybody was reasonable, and set up a world federation which made war really a thing of the past...

Jack Speer: Ramblings #11 pg. 3. June 1942.

.....If I Werewolf IV degenerates to a new low; to think Art Widner did this to us! I have never seen more convincing proof of the fact that Art is extremely busy nowadays; this looks like something hastily scrawled on a sheet of wrapping paper during his lunch hour, and mailed to you without revision of any kind. It is a pitiful travesty on what Art could have done, had he considered the effort worth any time and trouble. 5.

Louis Russell Chauvenet: Letter printed in Spaceways #28 pg. 23. June 1942.

If I Werewolf is interesting, but not humorous. Suggest you would tell your authors to try inject a little satire....

Loren L. Sinn: Letter printed in Spaceways #28 pg. 25. June 1942.

"If I Werewolf" has its best installment to date. Not that a part of it that concerns Jenkins has anything to do it...harrumph!...but--it is that swellegant Widner humor. Give it a 9. Dammit, so Widner sez I'm an octopus, eh?! Well, just wait 'til Joe or I get a hold of that thing...just wait.

Now we're shuddering in fear of what Elmer will do to us. We seem to have a sort of mutual dislike for each other and...

Harry Jenkins, Jr.: Letter printed in Spaceways #28 pg. 25. June 1942.

If I Werewolf is beginning to wander as far away from what has gone before as winding stories generally do, and Perdue and Jenkins seem often to be pulling in opposite directions. They're still worth 8 and 7 respectively, tho.

Jack Speer: Letter printed in Spaceways #30 pg. 21. Sept. 1942.

If I Werewolf--pt. V--6. VI--9. Best of bunch, that ending got me. It should lead the story in a new--and if rightly treated--better direction. The thing was beginning to become a little boring until this was dropped in.

Fred A. Senour: Letter printed in Spaceways #30 pg. 22. Sept. 1942.

I have no comment on the "Werewolf" perpetration except that I would like to say that I didn't laugh.

Victor King: Letter printed in Spaceways #30 pg. 22. Sept. 1942.

The Perdue-Jenkins attempt at humor makes me think of a man trying to cut the facets on a diamond with an axe. I have searched in vain for something humorous. Perhaps it is amusing to the close acquaintances of the fans mentioned in the story because of certain characteristics that are lampooned. If this is the type of humor the authors were trying to handle, they acquitted themselves very amateurishly.

Joe Gilbert: Letter printed in Spaceways #30 pg. 23. Sept. 1942.

If I Werewolf--at the Strangers meeting when Art told us about Part IV he said he outlined the plot and he wanted Perdue to be the chief villain in league with the Vitons. If you ever need a good villain call for Suddsy and he will be the most villainous villain that ever drew an undeserved breath.

A. L. Schwartz: Letter printed in Spaceways #30 pg. 24. Sept. 1942.