The Clean Zine

Zine
Title:	The Clean Zine
Publisher:	Empathy Publications
Editor(s):
Date(s):	not dated, sometime before 1982
Series?:
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	Star Trek: TOS
Language:	English
External Links:
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The Clean Zine is a gen fiction Star Trek: TOS fiction anthology by Helen McCarthy and Barbara Kitson. It was published in the UK.

The zine is undated, there is no table of contents or interior illos, and the pages are not numbered.

The zine is titled for "its grammatical and sexual purity." It has four typos in the introduction.

Helen's Foreword

The Clean Zine: O.K., I admit it's a pretty wierd [sic] title.

When we decided to do a collection of our early Trek stories, there were two things that struck us both as we dug into our archives and unearthed stuff first written in the very early days of British Trekdom. One was that the standard of literacy of the average story does seem to have gone down a bit. In the early days, Zines had their share of typos and spelling errors and Zine editors still allowed sloppy grammar and appallingly overwritten stories to get past them.... but to our ancient eyes, they appear to do it more often today. There are honourable exceptions, but exceptions they are.

The second thing to strike us was how very innnocent [sic] most of the stories seemed in comparison with the rampant sexuality which it is almost impossible to avoid in zines today. K/S is catching. I have nothing against sexuality or sex, but I never saw the point in putting it in everywhere, whether it belonged or not; and especially did I never see the point of making it part of a relationship in which it had no logical place. Kirk and Spock, in my view, were never preseneted [sic] as men who had it in their natures to have a homosexual relationship. This is not to say they did not have it in their natures to love one another; but to imply that all love must be sexually expressed to be valid is to degrade both sex and love. So, I have never written K/S, and I never will. I don't write much for publication in Trek zines these days anyway; this is partly because my costume book and our U.F.O. novel are taking up my time, and partly because of the two striking characteristics of modern Trekfan publishing mentioned above. Let me hasten to add, too, that this is a purely personal view. It may or may not be shared by Barbara; I haven't asked her.

Anyway, for its grammatical and sexual purity, this zine earned its rather odd name. We hope, despite these two factors, or even because of them, that you, the reader, will enjoy it. The work up to and including 'AND PEACE ON THE HAVEN...' is mine; all thereafter is Barbara's.

Writing being what it is, the rest, as Ann McCaffrey [sic] would say, is subject to change without notice.

Contents

• ... But Would You let Your Sister Marry One?, by Helen McCarthy (poem about racism) (1 page)
• The Word Merchant, fiction by Helen McCarthy (from Enterprise Log Entries #1) (3 pages)
• The Sound of the Sea, fiction by Helen McCarthy (unknown zine) (5 pages)
• A Kind of Caring, fiction by Helen McCarthy (from Alnitah #1) (10 pages)
• Poem for Uhura by Helen McCarthy (unknown zine) (1/2 a page)
• The Doctor Fixation, or The Un-Dreaded Lurgy, poem by Helen McCarthy (unknown zine) (1/2 page)
• And Peace on the Haven, and Peace on the Sea, fiction by Helen McCarthy (Alnitah #6) (8 pages)
• Reflections of Paradise, poem by Barbara Kitson (unknown zine) (1/2 page)
• To Be Alone, poem by Barbara Kitson (unknown zine) (1/2 page)
• Revival?, fiction by Barbara Kitson (from Emanon #1) (2 pages)
• Voyagers, Enter Here, fiction by Barbara Kitson (unknown zine) (6 pages)
• Where No Man..., poem by Barbara Kitson (unknown zine) (1/2 page)
• Star Death, poem by Barbara Kitson (from "City" #2) (1/2 page)
• Pandora, fiction by Barbara Kitson (from "City" #1) (7 pages)
• The Saga of the Merthyr Tribble Male Voice Choir, poem by Barbara Kitson (unknown zine) (1 page)

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Reactions and Reviews

See reactions and reviews for And Peace on the Haven, and Peace on the Sea.

[zine]:

This zine, by Helen McCarthy and Barbara Kitson, is a collection of stories and poems reprinted from zines published in the early days of fandom and as such will be especially welcomed by new fans who otherwise have little opportunity to see what was being written in those days.

It contains eight poems and seven stories, ranging in length from two to ten pages and all the work of the two author editors. Two of the stories are mainly concerned with the author's own characters and sensitive readers should be warned that the zine contains one 'death' story. There is a wide range of subject matter and all the stories are well told, the printing is clear and readable.

The policy of the zine is stated in the editorial, which explains the title; the authors feel that the standard of literacy in British zines has declined in recent years and that "rampant sexuality...is almost impossible to avoid in zines today". 'The Clean Zine' they state, has earned its title for 'its grammatical and sexual purity'.

I have no quarrel with this objective - not everyone cares for explicit sex of K/S over the cornflakes - but I'm old-fashioned enough to think that a story in which Spock spends a night with a whore, or in which Kirk has a mistress of thirty years standing, whom he has never bothered to marry, have little place in a gen zine. That said, I would recommend 'The Clean Zine' to anyone who is interested in the early days of British fan fiction.