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dormouse1953) wrote2013-12-30 02:55 pm
More coincidences
I do like it when two unrelated events impact on each other. Just before Christmas I read Midnight Blue-Light Special, the second in Seanan McGuire's Cryptid series. Just now I read an article in Foundation by David Ketterer on John Wyndham's date of birth.
I'm not convinced by the Ketterer article. He suggests that Wyndham was a year older than his official age because he was born out of wedlock in 1902 (not 1903 as given on his birth certificate), a few weeks before his parents were married (under a "special licence"). He bases this on a letter written by William F. Temple in 1971 where he says he "caught him out about it". Ketterer links this to a visit by Temple to Wyndham in 1958 and suggests that on this occasion, Wyndham gave an age a year older than his official age. But there have been a number of times in the past few years I've been thinking along the lines "I'm 58 next birthday" and then asked my age say 58 not 57, and I have no reason to lie about my age.
During the course of the article, Ketterer tries to find more evidence that Wyndham lied about his age, most of which I find tenuous. At one point, he mentions the births in The Midwich Cuckoos and a name leapt out - Zellaby. Gordon Zellaby is one of the main characters in the book but it is a long time since I read it. However, I knew the name from somewhere. Then I remembered there is a character in Midnight Blue-Light Special called Sarah Zellaby. And her race is known as the Cuckoos.
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Did meet her back in San Antonio this summer when she came round the Loncon table. I said, "I have to admit that I enjoyed your Newsflesh trilogy." "Why do you have to admit it?" she replied. Well, I'm British, we say things like that.