Beginning with this issue I am experimenting with kinds of stories--I'm tired of publishing tales that "almost made the pulps;" eventually, FAN-FARE will be issued in a better format than mimeographing--I'd have it lithographed beginning right away if I thought reader support would pay most of the cost, but I've learned from others' mistakes. And I refuse to issue it in the not-so-costly microscopic form which early issues of SF DIGEST used.... I'd have to provide magnifying lenses! Next issue the regular page of book reviews should return, and I hope to have another installment of the Loverontz column--having been an observer to one of the latest atom explosions, he should have interesting things to comment on.... --8 June, 1953 --THE EDITOR THE ANNALS OF AARDVARK BY HARLAN ELLISON CHAPTER 1 THE ENTRANCE C'mon in won't you? You can sit right down there in that rocking chair. Oh! you saw the sign on the door and wanted to ask me about Aardvark, did you? Well, I guess I'm the best person to tell you about him since I was with him from the moment he entered the country. Do you want to hear from there or from the real beginning? Well, okay, I'll tell you about the start when he met the Valkyries. You see Aardvarks can live only in the warmest places. So, when the Aardvark got lost in the Swiss Alps, he was very uncomfortable. Don't ask me how an Aardvark got to the Swiss Alps or what he was doing there in the first place. He's never told anyone, except maybe the Valkyries. Anyhow, stumbling around in the freezing cold, he got lost; but good. Just as he was about to give up and say farewell cruel world, he stumbled upon an ice crypt. Stumbled, he ran into it and knocked out two teeth. This crypt which was set in the side of one of the glaciers was not an ordinary one, for frozen within its icy walls, rent free, were two Valkyries and a large elephant. Even the elephant was unusual. He was the sole owner (the Valkyries obviously had no use for one!) of a handsome brown handle-bar moustache, nicely waxed and glistening. The Aardvark, who was inquisitive as are all great men, strolled up to the ice crypt as nonchalantly as a freezing Aardvark could, and dying of hunger, put forth an exploratory tongue and licked the ice. To his amazement, the ice was lemon flavored. Wait a minute, I'll tell you why it was lemon flavored, but first let me tell you what happened. Knowing full well the consequences of licking open this age-old ice pack, but racked with hunger, the Aardvark proceeded to lick open the crypt. After several minutes of lightninglike licking, the Aardvark sated his hunger and in the process freed the Valkyries.