Niekas

• 1. Introduction

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  Niekas is a word borrowed from Lithuanian, and it means nothing or nobody. Ed Meskys of New Hampshire chose that name for a science fiction fanzine he launched in June 1962, and for the next three and a half decades the little publication called Nobody would become one of the most recognized titles in science fiction fan culture. It won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine in 1967, appeared on the ballot two other times, and attracted contributions from some of the biggest names in the genre. What drove a professor at a small New Hampshire college to build something so lasting from scratch? And how did a fanzine devoted to Tolkien end up shaping the early years of an entire fandom movement in the United States?

• 2. Origins at Belknap

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  Meskys was a professor and a member of The Tolkien Society at Belknap College in Center Harbor, New Hampshire, an institution that no longer exists. For the first five issues of Niekas, he edited the publication entirely on his own before Felice Rolfe and Anne Chatland joined him. Chatland departed after issue eight, and by the late 1980s Meskys was running the fanzine alone again. The publication began its life as an apazine, a format circulated within a small amateur press association, before it expanded into a full-fledged fanzine with a wider readership. In his own words, Meskys wrote that he started a separate mailing-comments zine for the APA, changed its name to Niekas, and began the numbering over again with the June 1962 issue. His reasoning for the subject matter was straightforward: since there was no Tolkien fanzine being published, he decided to devote Niekas to Tolkien and try to run at least one Tolkien-related piece in each issue.

• 3. Tolkien's Footprint

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  Niekas played a prominent role in the early development of Tolkien fandom in the United States, and one item from issue seven illustrates just how close that circle was to the source material. That issue carried a letter from C. S. Lewis to Meskys, a letter that mentions The Lord of the Rings directly. An ongoing feature called a Glossary of Middle Earth by Al Halevy ran across multiple issues, and Robert Foster contributed regular material as well. Foster later published The Complete Guide to Middle-earth, meaning that work that appeared in Niekas was a proving ground for scholarship that would reach a far broader audience.

• 4. A Who's Who of Contributors

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  Philip K. Dick contributed a piece called Naziism and the High Castle. Roger Zelazny offered a poem titled Song of the Ring. Marion Zimmer Bradley contributed an essay called Bloodthirsty for Power: Vampirism in Hambly's Those Who Hunt the Night. Beyond those named works, Niekas published contributions from Piers Anthony, Isaac Asimov, John Boardman, Vaughn Bode, Anthony Boucher, Charles N. Brown, Algis Budrys, Avram Davidson, Raymond Z. Gallun, Jack Gaughan, Harry Harrison, S. T. Joshi, Clyde Kilby, Tim Kirk, Sam Moskowitz, Andre Norton, Andrew J. Offutt, Alexei Panshin, Diana Paxson, Jerry Pournelle, Darrell Schweitzer, Arthur Thompson, Bjo Trimble, Donald A. Wollheim, and others. For a fanzine whose name meant nobody, the bylines read like a directory of mid-century science fiction and fantasy.

• 5. Hugo Recognition and Rivals

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  The Hugo Award for Best Fanzine came to Niekas in 1967, the clearest sign that the field had taken notice. The year before, in 1966, it lost the award to ERB-dom. More than two decades later, in 1989, it appeared on the ballot again and lost that time to File 770. Three nominations across a span of more than twenty years points to a publication that sustained its reputation rather than burning out after an early moment of recognition.

• 6. Gaps, Blindness, and the Final Issue

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  Niekas ceased publication after issue twenty in 1968, then sat dormant for nearly a decade before Meskys revived it in 1977 with issue twenty-one. When Meskys moved from Belknap College to Mankato State University, now known as Minnesota State University, Mankato, in Mankato, Minnesota, he kept the fanzine going through the change. By 1995 he had become blind, and the masthead reflected his situation: he was listed as editor-in-chief while Mike Bastrow took on the roles of editor and designer. The final issue, number forty-eight, described itself as published by Meskys and edited by Joe R. Christopher. The run that began in June 1962 finally closed in 1998, thirty-six years after the first issue went out under a name that meant nothing at all.