David McDaniel

[helrunar]

I'm starting a thread here for David McDaniel, mostly remembered for his Man from UNCLE tie-in novels of 1966-69, published in the US by Ace. I just read The Vampire Affair, McDaniel's second novel for the UNCLE series, and thought it was great fun. I've ordered a few more of those books and may write about them here.

In this initial post, I wanted to paste in some interesting notes about McDaniel's life and his involvement with UNCLE fandom I found on a somewhat obscure site. Call it yet another episode in "Remembrance of Fandoms Past." I enjoy reading about the era when spending serious amounts of one's free time in fannish activities was regarded as somewhere between eccentric and insane, not the sort of thing that would have one described as an "influencer" on social media news sites.

Someone who evidently is very familiar with various intimate details of McDaniel's life shared these stories on a site called FAMPeople. I gather from the front page of the site that FAM stands for "Famous" people. McDaniel could never have been described as famous or infamous but he certainly was that rarity amongst the serried ranks of the human species--an original.

Some interesting passages:

David McDaniel was born June 16, 1939, in Toledo, Ohio. He studied cinematography at San Diego State University, then moved to Los Angeles to be near his mother. While living in Los Angeles he joined science fiction fandom, using the pseudonym Ted Johnstone. This makes him one of the few authors to write under his real name but conduct his social life under a pseudonym. He was also known by the nickname "Tedron", the name of his character in a Shared universe fantasy called Coventry. [Note from Hel: it's unclear to me just what a "Shared universe fantasy" was--presumably an early version of "LARPing," "Second Life" or similar.]

McDaniel wrote several filk songs, including "High Fly the Nazgul-O" (tune: "Green Grow the Rushes-O) and "The Mimeo Crank Chanty" (tune: "Haul Away Joe"). ...

McDaniel came to write books in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. series at least partly because of a prank. He got some patches with the THRUSH sigil through a friend who worked for MGM Studios. Then a group of his friends sewed the patches on dark suits and they showed up at a theater where UNCLE star Robert Vaughn was playing Hamlet. Afterward they stood politely in line to greet Vaughn, and equally politely insisted that they were from the "Public Relations" department of THRUSH. There were several more "THRUSH runs" to various places where they could startle people who weren’t expecting a group of fictional villains to show up. McDaniel referred to these actions as "Zaps". ....

The acronym for THRUSH, "The Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity", was created by McDaniel’s friend Dean Dickensheet. McDaniel called into a talk show where UNCLE producer Norm Felton was a guest and insisted that THRUSH existed. Felton of course denied this, and McDaniel asked what "THRUSH" stood for. Felton said it didn’t stand for anything, and McDaniel said, "It’s the Technological Hierarchy for…." Felton’s reaction was "The Technological Hierarchy for What?" McDaniel used that line in his first UNCLE novel, The Dagger Affair. 

[McDaniel was signed to Ace Books to write UNCLE novels.] Later on, McDaniel noted that THRUSH field agents were always doing stupid things and getting killed or arrested by U.N.C.L.E. agents—but THRUSH continued to exist and flourish, so there was obviously another group that was competent. He mentioned this conundrum to a friend, Don Simpson. Simpson came up with the idea that there were three levels of THRUSH:

1. The incompetent field agents who we saw getting killed or arrested every week on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
2. A group that weeded out the incompetents and made sure that only the best THRUSH agents graduated to the third level.
3. A central core of highly motivated and competent people, who ran the various major groups ("Satrapies") and THRUSH Central
The Second level of THRUSH was…U.N.C.L.E. Most people in the U.N.C.L.E. organization had no idea that this was the case, believing themselves to be "the good guys". This enabled them to fight THRUSH and weed out the incompetent personnel of that organization. But the head of U.N.C.L.E. (Section 1, number 1 — Alexander Waverly), knew. McDaniel once threatened to write a story in which Kuryakin was promoted to the Third Level of THRUSH, and had to find a way to let Solo know without blowing the "three levels" secret. Such a story could not have been published, of course; it does not conform with MGM’s official "bible" for the U.N.C.L.E. universe.

McDaniel died sometime in the early morning of November 1, 1977. A friend found him several days later, and associated evidence suggested accidental death from autoerotic asphyxiation. [Records cited include public records and McDaniel's death certificate.] The family preferred to not discuss this publicly, and his death was originally described to those outside his immediate circle of friends as being from less controversial causes, from slipping and falling in the bath or from a cerebral hemorrhage. At the time of his death he was contracted to fly to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for freelance work as a cameraman.

[helrunar]

I stumbled across some interesting info about the game Coventry:

Coventry can best be described as a role-playing universe, with many elements of science fiction and fantasy. Influences were drawn from the fiction of James Blish, James Gunn, Fred Pohl, Cyril Kornbluth, and Robert Heinlein, and the 1950s movie Forbidden Planet. The location of the game was a self-contained hollowed-out asteroid habitat, constructed by aliens, which had become the refuge of human survivors of World War Three.

Players in Coventry converted their true-life identities into fictional role-playing personae. rich brown provided a concise explanation of what Coventry actually was: "Coventry wasn't actually 'played'; it was written. Basically, people wrote stories about their characters in the setting of Coventry. The ideas would be talked-out for pre-approval, just to be sure they didn't conflict with what had gone on before." Joining the game required taking various oaths, including the Glark and Brood Oaths. Advancement through five levels of connectedness required Service Credits, which involved writing or other work.

Said to have "ended badly." More info here: fancyclopedia.org/Coventry

H.