In 1983, New Zealand fan Nigel Rowe published Timeless Sands, a history of fanzines and fan activity in New Zealand. This is an astonishingly detailed and extremely well researched work which gives a fascinating insight into New Zealand’s early involvement with science fiction. We consider it to be a very valuable historical document and a vital resource. Click here to download the PDF file (6.5MB).
We have tried to contact Nigel to ask for his permission to republish Timeless Sands but our emails have gone unanswered. Perhaps the addresses we have are no longer valid. If anyone reading this is still in touch with Nigel could you please ask him, on our behalf, if we can continue to make Timeless Sands available?
The copy of Timeless Sands that we have scanned in order to produce the PDF file is a little water damaged, and some of the pages are quite faded. Consequently the PDF file is not of the highest quality — but it is (mostly) legible. However we believe that Timeless Sands is such an important part of New Zealand fan history that it deserves to be made freely available, and so we have gone ahead with this project despite the damage that time has done to the original.
SFFANZ would like to take this opportunity to thank Alex Heatley who dug out Timeless Sands from a box in his garage and then spent many, many days scanning it for us. Thank you very much, Alex. And of course we must also give heartfelt thanks to Nigel Rowe whose research, scholarship and dedication gave us Timeless Sands in the first place.
SFFANZ News 