Monthly Archives: April 2016

Magazine

[April 30, 1961] Travel stories (June 1961 Galaxy, first half)

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My nephew, David, has been on an Israeli Kibbutz for a month now.  We get letters from him every few days, mostly about the hard work, the monotony of the diet, and the isolation from the world.  The other day, he sent a letter to my brother, Lou, who read it to me over the phone.  Apparently, David went into the big port-town of Haifa and bought copies of Life, Time, and Newsweek.  He was not impressed with the literary quality of any of them, but he did find Time particularly useful.

You see, Israeli bathrooms generally don't stock toilet paper…

Which segues nicely into the first fiction review of the month.  I'm happy to report I have absolutely nothing against the June 1961 Galaxy – including my backside.  In fact, this magazine is quite good, at least so far.  As usual, since this is a double-sized magazine, I'll review it in two parts.

First up is Mack Reynolds' unique novelette, Farmer.  Set thirty years from now in the replanted forests of the Western Sahara, it's an interesting tale of intrigue and politics the likes of which I've not seen before.  Reynolds has got a good grasp of the international scene, as evidenced by his spate of recent stories of the future Cold War.  If this story has a failing, it is its somewhat smug and one-sided tone.  Geopolitics should be a bit more ambiguous.  It's also too good a setting for such a short story.  Three stars.

Willy Ley's science column immediately follows.  There's some good stuff in this one, particularly the opening piece on plans to melt the Arctic ice cap to improve the climate of the USSR (and, presumably, Scandinavia and Canada).  Of course, if global warming happens on schedule, we won't need any outlandish engineering marvels to make this happen; we can just continue business as usual.  Hail progress!

I also appreciated Ley's reply to one of his fans, who asked why he rarely covers space launches anymore.  His answer?  They come too quickly!  Any reporting would have a 4-5 month delay – an eternity these days.  It's hard enough for me to keep up.  Four stars.

The Graybes of Raath is Neal Barret, Jr.'s third story in Galaxy.  It should be a throw-away, what with the punny title, the non-shocker ending, and the hideous Don Martin art.  But this tale of a well-meaning immigration agency attempting to find the home of a family of itinerant alien farmers is actually a lot of fun.  Barrett is nothing if not consistent.  Three stars.

Now here's a weird one.  Fred Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth have a new duet out called A Gentle Dying.  Now, the two have worked together for many years; that's not the surprising part.  Nor is the fact that the story, about an incredibly elderly and beloved children's author's last moments, is good.  No, it's strange because Kornbluth has been dead for five years!  I can only imagine that Pohl (now de-facto editor of Galaxy, per last month's F&SF) dusted this one off after having waited for the right venue/slot-size.  Three stars.

Last up is R.A. Lafferty's absolutely lovely The Weirdest World.  Can a marooned alien blob find sanctuary, even happiness, among aliens so strange as those that live on Earth?  I've always kind of liked Lafferty, but this one is his best to date, with its gentle writing, and its spot-on portrayal of cross-species telepathy.  Five stars.

This column began with travel, and it ends with travel.  My wife and I are in Las Vegas for a weekend, enjoying the food and the sights.  Sinatra doesn't seem to be at the Sands right now, but that's all right.  We'll catch Ol' Blue Eyes another time.

While we were here, we ran into Emily Jablon, a famous columnist and Jet Setter who spends much of her time flitting across the world.  She gave us some tips on travel that were new even to us!  Of course, we introduced her to Galactic Journeying, and what better way than with this month's Galaxy?

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Science / Space Race

[April 28, 1961] Newies but goodies (April space round-up!)

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They say "You're only as old as you feel," which explains why Asimov pinches co-eds at conventions.

I've been asked why someone of my advanced age is into the bop and rock and billy that the kids are into these days, when I should be preferring the likes of Glenn Miller or Caruso.  Truth be told, I do like the music of my youth, the swing of the 30s and the war years (no, I didn't serve.  I was 4F.  My brother, Lou, was in five Pacific invasions, though.) But there's something to today's music, something new.  Lou's kid, David, really turned me onto this stuff – the Cubano and the Rock n' Roll.  Music beyond whitebread and Lawrence Welk. 

It makes me feel…young.

I've got a full month of space news to catch up, in large part because I was remiss around the end of last month thanks to Wondercon.  And then Gagarin's flight eclipsed all else in significance for a while, but there is more to off-planet exploration than men in capsules.

Like dogs in capsules.  Gagarin's flight was preceded by Sputnik 10, launched March 25.  In retrospect, it is clear that it was a test flight of the Vostok spacecraft, and it carried a mannequin cosmonaut and a dog, Zvezdocha ("Little star" – a charming name).  Both passengers returned safely to Earth. 

The fact that Sputnik 9, Sputnik 10, and Vostok 1 all launched in such close succession is a testament to the robustness of the Soviet space program.  It is clear that they have plenty of boosters and capsules to fling into space.  One has to wonder if their second manned space shot will precede our first (currently scheduled for May 4.)

Also launched March 25 was the diminutive and short-lived Explorer 10.  Its brief lifespan was intentional.  The little probe was sent on a eccentric orbit that took it nearly half-way to the Moon.  For just 52 hours, the craft returned data on the magnetic fields in cislunar space, well above the energetic Van Allen Belts.  It may seem a waste to send a satellite up for such a short time, but solar panels are heavy, and the Thor Delta that boosted it can only throw so much into space. 

Some of the results are straightforward — it confirmed the speed and density of solar flare protons.  As for the magnetospheric results, well, their interpretation depends on the answer to one question: did Explorer 10 probe into a realm beyond Earth's magnetic field (thus measuring the sun's field) or just its outer reaches? 

Columbus' first trip returned inconclusive results about the New World; so it will take several more satellites to properly map the high electromagnetic frontier.

Speaking of seeing the unknown, many humans (yours truly included) have some degree of color-blindness.  That is, there are wavelengths of the visual electromagnetic spectrum that we cannot distinguish from others.  For all intents and purposes, those colors don't exist to us. 

All humans are subject to another kind of color-blindness, one caused by the atmosphere.  You see, while the sky seems perfectly clear to us, at least at night, in fact the air blocks a good many wavelengths of light that we'd be able to detect if it weren't there.  Not with our eyes, to be sure, but with equipment. 

X-Rays, for instance.  High-flying sounding rockets have found tantalizing evidence that the Sun emits those high energy waves.  Explorer 7's and Vanguard 3's X-Ray detectors were swamped by the radiation of the Van Allen Belts.  Solrad, equipped with a magnetic sweeper, was humanity's first eye in the sky that could see light in that spectrum, though only in a crude fashion, counting the photons as they struck its photocell.  Perhaps the upcoming Orbital Solar Observatory will see more.

Even more elusive are the extremely energetic gamma rays, normally only detected as radiation from natural and artificial nuclear reactions.  Logic would suggest that these rays are emitted by stars, but there is no way to be sure from the ground.

Enter Explorer 11, launched on one of the last Juno II rockets (thankfully, it worked; these neglected boosters have a mere 50/50 chance of success.) It looks to my eye like the early Explorers, which makes sense: the body of the probe is the little Sergeant rocket that makes up the fourth stage of both the Juno I and II.  This little guy is the first satellite that can detect light in the gamma ray end of the spectrum.  Again, it isn't a camera, but it will detect the number and direction of the rays that hit its sensors.  Who knows just what it will find!

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Magazine

[April 26, 1961] Dessert for last (May 1961 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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Del Shannon's on the radio, but I've got Benny Goodman on my hi-fi.  Say…that's a catchy lyric!  Well, here we are at the end of April, and that means I finally get to eat dessert.  That is, I finally get to crack into The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  While it is not the best selling science fiction digest (that honor goes to Analog by a wide margin), it is my favorite, and it has won the Best Magazine Hugo three years running.

So what kind of treat was the May 1961 F&SF?  Let's find out!

Carol Emshwiller returns with the lead story of the issue, the sublime Adapted.  It can be hard to resist the incessant mold of conformity, even when blending in means losing oneself.  Emshwiller's protagonist loses the battle, but, perhaps, not all hope.  Four stars.

The somber Avram Davidson teams up with unknown Sidney Klein (perhaps the idea man?) with The Teeth of Despair.  It's a cute but forgettable story involving a cabal of underpaid professors, a loser with a metal dental plate, a quiz show, and something that isn't quite telepathy.  Ever wonder how Van Doren did it?  Three stars.

All the Tea in China is offered up by Reginald Bretnor, the real name behind the Ferdinand Feghoot puns (q.v.).  Watch as despicable Jonas Hackett, a mean cuss who wouldn't commit a kind act for the entirety of the Orient's signature beverage, is given what for by Old Nick.  Nicely told.  Three stars.

Somebody to Play With, by Jay Williams, is a compelling story with a brutal sting in the tail.  It may make sense for the adults of a tiny colony on an alien world to be overly cautious, but does the desire for security warrant genocide?  Telling from a child's point of view, Williams skillfully conveys the claustrophobia of the outpost, the wonder of the strange world, the thrill of making an extraterrestrial friend, and the heartbreak of betrayal by one's closest kin.  Four stars.

I know nothing about C.D. Heriot save that I imagine he is British.  He writes Poltergeist in an affected manner that almost, but not quite, dulls the impact of this story of a neglected pre-adolescent who conjures up her own malicious playmate.  In the hands of Davidson, it'd rate four or five stars; in this case, just three.

Stephen Barr's Mr. Medley's Time Pill is By His Bootstraps all over again, and it commits the same sin: telling both sides of a time loop story.  We already know what will happen after reading the first half; what is the point of conveying it twice?  Two stars.

The Country Boy is the latest in G.C.Edmondson's Mexican-themed tales, a direct sequel to Misfit.  As is often the case with Edmondson, the story is clever, but the banter isn't, though he tries.  Too hard, really.  Three stars.

Heaven on Earth is The Good Doctor Asimov's science contribution for this issue, on the measurement of the celestial sphere and its resident stars.  It's all about degrees, base-60 number systems, and an Earth-sized planetarium.  I love his mathematical articles; I feel he often does his best work with what could be the most sterile of subjects.  Four stars.

The Flower is 11-year old Mildred Possert's submission.  Editor Mills thinks she shows promise, and I don't disagree.

Henry Slesar gives us The Self-improvement of Salvatore Ross, involving a fellow who can bargain for anything – including physical traits.  He swaps a broken leg for pneumonia, his hair for cash, and so on.  The twist ending is a bit out of nowhere, but it's a good story nonetheless, the sort of thing that might get adapted for The Twilight Zone.  Three stars.

The appropriately named Final Muster is, indeed, the last story in the book (and the inspiration for the issue's cover).  I believe this is Rick Rubin's first effort, and he hits a triple right out of the box.  The premise: by next century, war is such a specialized, abhorred profession that soldiers are frozen in stasis and thawed only when needed.  This is a volunteer corps whose ranks are filled with combatants who cannot find joy in peaceful civilian life.  But what happens when war ends entirely?  A thoughtful story whose only fault is that it perhaps doesn't go quite far enough in its projections.  Four stars.

With dessert finished, we can now run the numbers.  This issue came out at 3.3, edging out this month's Analog (3), and IF (2.75).  Analog had the best story of the month (Death and the Senator).  There was one (count them) woman writer out of 21 stories, an abysmal score. 

A lot of space news coming up soon what with Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, or John Glenn scheduled to be the first American in space on May 4th.  Stay tuned!

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TV

[April 22, 1961] Out of time (Twilight Zone, Season 2, Eps. 22-24)

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I've mentioned in previous articles that Rod Serling's horror/science fiction anthology show, The Twilight Zone, has been lackluster this second season.  But things have been looking up recently, and I'm happy to announce that the latest run has been quite solid.  The show did not air on the 14th, owing to some stop-press coverage of Gagarin's flight, so I just have three episodes for you this time around.  They are all worthy watching, should you catch them in the summer reruns.

First up is yet another of the awful run of video-tape experiments.  This is #6 for the season, and I hope they'll give up the effort soon.  Twilight Zone is superlative in so many ways; it's a shame when it has to settle for, at best, mediocre cinematography.  Long-Distance Call makes do rather admirably, however.  A 5-year old boy loses his doting grandmother but finds he can still reach her on the toy telephone she gave him just before she died.  Tragically for the boy's parents, the grandma exhorts the tyke to join her – and there's only one way that is possible.  It's a strong episode, another episode that telegraphs its twist a mile away but has stand-out character development.  Three stars.

100 Yards over the Rim not only gives the gimmick away early, it's a theme we've seen several times before on this show: namely, a fish out of water time travel story.  Chris Horne, a homesteader working his way West in a truncated wagon train, heads over a rise to secure game and water for his desperate party.  He finds, instead, a 1961 trucker's diner, and a very puzzled man-and-wife pair of owners. 

Despite the hackneyed premise, it's actually quite an excellent watch thanks to the efforts of the writer and the actors.  Cliff Robertson goes out of his way to recreate a pioneer from 1847.  Eschewing the cowboy duds that would have been used in a lesser show, Horne is inappropriately dressed for the desert in his Easterner's clothes, complete with stovepipe hat.  Not only is he out of place in the future, but in desolate New Mexico.  Also effectively conveyed is the idea that folks are pretty much the same, regardless of era.  I liked it.  Four stars.

It's pretty clear that the following episode, The Rip Van Winkle Caper, was shot at the same time so as to save costs – the backdrop is the same desert.  Interestingly enough, this episode is another time travel story, though of an entirely different sort.  It starts where Rim leaves off: in modern day.  Four men, one a scientist, hijack a million dollars in Fort Knox gold.  Their plan is to hide away in side a hill, put themselves in suspended animation for a century, and then stroll back into civilization with their ill-gotten, but now forgotten, gains.  It would be the perfect plan, if there were any honor among thieves…

Caper is a good watch, and it does a fine job of keeping you in suspense as to the outcome until the end.  It's a bit padded for the first half, however, and the characters are not quite so engaging as in Rim.  Three stars.

That's that for April.  There can't be too much left to the season, so I'll probably break up the remaining episodes into a couple of parts, with the latter summarizing the season as a whole.  Next up: the May 1961 Fantasy and Science Fiction!

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Book

[April 20, 1961] People are not the same all over (Pilgrimage, by Zenna Henderson)

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[Here is Rosemary Benton's article for April 1961.  She asked if she could do Zenna Henderson's compilation of The People stories, none of which she had previously read; I hadn't picked up the book since I have the stories in magazine form.  I thought it a smashing idea since it would give us all a fresh insight on Henderson's works.  I've been vindicated…(the Editor)]

In my quest to break my bookshelf under the weight of my science fiction, horror and fantasy collections, this month I picked up noted author Zenna Henderson's latest publication. To anyone who frequents Fantasy and Science Fiction and Galaxy, Zenna Henderson and her alien race, the People, should not be unknown to you. Pilgrimage: the Book of the People contains Ararat (1952), Gilead (1954), Pottage (1955), Wilderness (1956), Captivity (1958) and Jordan (1959), all tied together through an overarching narrative that tells the story of a human observing the People. As each one of the People takes their turn recounting their time on Earth, the book progresses along such themes as self-discovery, selflessness for the betterment of community, and the definition of home and belonging.

Pilgrimage: The Book of the People is, by authorial intent, the application of the accumulation of her personal experiences. Zenna Henderson clearly puts everything of herself into her stories, making her writing highly personal yet relatable. Her years in Arizona, first as a student at Arizona State and then as a teacher, crystalized the American West as the perfect setting for her stories of the People. In each of the chapters of Pilgrimage, the reader can detect hints of Henderson's spirituality, her compassion for humanity, and her willingness to believe in positive change effected by mindset and actions.

Born to Mormon parents but non-practicing beyond her marriage to Richard Harry Henderson in 1944, Zenna Henderson retains a deep sense of spirituality which she expresses in Methodism and in her writing. The People are a universalist group who believe that distance is without consequence when it comes to their relationship with the all knowing all being creator they call "the Presence." They are unafraid to acknowledge their religion and meet all other religions with respect. As Valancy, one of the People, says to the human Dita, “Two worlds and yet you're so like us” (162). Through words and non-violence the People manage to solve all of their dilemmas. It can read as a little saccharine, but Henderson's cleverness in creating solutions through diplomacy adds a refreshing taste to her stories. 

Either out of moral obligation or because they are simply decent people, Zenna Henderson's main cast holds a special understanding for the mentally ill. I found this to be highly interesting to observe as you don't see much science fiction that treats the mentally ill as multifaceted characters. In fact, the majority of the overarching narrative in Pilgrimage is told from the perspective of a suicidal woman, Lea, who is receiving counseling from Karen, one of the People. Her journey of stepping away from the edge is just one of the many reasons to pay attention to Henderson's approach to mental health. Of particular note is the minor character, Lucine, in “Wilderness”. Henderson takes the time to build her as a disabled little girl who is prone to fits of rage but still remorseful for her violence. This makes her eventual mental break and the manhunt that follows particularly painful. We can see that her death would not be befitting of her crimes, and the reader can't help but sympathize with such a debilitating illness as severe mental retardation. 

But mental anguish and flawed characters are not all that Zenna Henderson brings to tangible life within the genre of science fiction. Henderson is in a unique place to write on immigration, and she delves into the complications of it with full gusto. I understand that she taught at the Japanese interment camps in Sacaton, AZ; Henderson was able to see first hand the forced displacement of people from their homes. Her experience at a US Air Force dependents' school in France likewise taught her more about people exiled from their places of origin. Science fiction is replete with adventurers flung far away from their homes, but in few cases do we see frontier life complete with details of longing for a home that can never be returned to; one that the characters are tragically adrift from forever. In describing the People's collective memory of the voyage from their world, the human Melodye succinctly observes that, “Racial memory was truly a double-sided coin” (99). Henderson likewise writes about the loss of culture and recorded memory (33). The fear in the flight from one's home is made very clear on page 182 when Henderson writes, “From terror and from panic places. From hunger and from hiding – to live midway through madness and the dream”. 

In addition to her use of the world as she saw it, nowhere else in Henderson's writing do you see her own personal experience shine more brightly than in her portrayal of teaching and teachers. There is a fascinating realism and maturity that Henderson infuses her younger characters with. These are three dimensional children who are a product of their environments and whose stories reflect that. They express rage, harbor ambitions, and are powerful but still young. Most importantly they want to heard and be listened to. The story of the Francher Kid, a foster child in an unfortunate household, is a prime example of Henderson's ability to write a compelling child character who is a conflicted, lonely and trapped. I believe Henderson's description of Francher as a “My Child” best speaks to the author's authority on the topic of merging experience with fiction, “We teacher-types sometimes find [a My Child]. They aren't our pets; often they aren't even in our classes. But they are the children who move unasked into our hearts and make claims upon them over and above the call of duty” (178). Her explanation of how teachers relate to their charges rings true on page 17 as well, “They pour out the most personal things quite unsolicited to almost any adult who will listen – and who's more apt to listen than a teacher?”. Teachers in Henderson's writing seem to represent the closest equivalent Humans can get to the glowing moral fiber of the People. They are portrayed as saviors, love interests, authority figures, and even heroes.

Perhaps the most noticeable fault in Henderson's writing is the air of assurance that everything will turn out alright due to the moral uprightness of the People; their steadfast adherence to doing what is right erases any deep senses of urgency in the plot. The effect is that Henderson's writing is a slow, contemplative walk rather than a sprinting, adrenaline race to the finish.

On the other side, a slow burning plot gives the author time for investment in the characters. And even with their moral fortitude, the main characters are not boring guides. They experience a full range of situations that test her message of acceptance and tolerance, and although the reader can rest assured that things will work out, how they work out is entertaining to read, and often a touch bittersweet.

In sum, I highly recommend Pilgrimage: The Book of the People — of all the speculative fiction books you could read this year (1961), it may turn out to be the best.

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Magazine

[April 18, 1961] Starting on the wrong foot (May 1961 Analog)

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Gideon Marcus, age 42, lord of Galactic Journey, surveyed the proud column that was his creation.  Three years in the making, it represented the very best that old Terra had to offer.  He knew, with complete unironic sincerity, that the sublimity of his articles did much to keep the lesser writers in check, lest they develop sufficient confidence to challenge Gideon's primacy.  This man, this noble-visaged, pale-skinned man, possibly Earth's finest writer, knew without a doubt that this was the way to begin all of his stories…

…if he wants to be published in Analog, anyway.  One might suggest to John Campbell that he solicit stories with more subtle openings.  To be fair, the May 1961 isn't actually that bad, but every time a piece begins in the fashion described above, I feel like I've discovered a portal to 1949's slush pile.

Case in point is Chris Anvil's Identification.  I know Chris has got a good story in him somewhere, but not when he submits to Campbell.  This tale is about the use of actual bugs, psychically linked to a human operator, to eavesdrop on and prevent potential instances of crime.  It's not a bad premise, but the story is too padded at the beginning and end, and too clunky in the middle.  Two stars.

Arthur C. Clarke's Death and the Senator, on the other hand, is very good.  What evil irony for an anti-space politician when it turns out that space offers the cure to a fatal heart condition.  An intense, personal story, with some plausible speculation on the world circa 1976.  Four stars.

I can perhaps forgive Join our gang? for being Sterling Lanier's first piece.  It is the distillation of all that is wrong with Analog — not only is the Terran Empire the strongest force in the universe, but the animals of Earth are the toughest in the universe.  And preventative genocide is acceptable diplomacy.  I can't make this up, folks!  Two stars.

The teeter-totter goes up again with James Schmitz's Gone Fishin', as one might expect given his quite good Summer Guests from a couple of years back.  It starts out with the same hoary formula, but where it goes is quite surprising.  It's basically the The Door through Space concept done right.  Three stars; there's gold in there, but it gets docked for the slow beginning and the somewhat know-it-all air at the end.

There's a G. Harry Stine "non-fiction" article.  It's not worth reprinting, this piece about how science fiction writers are too conservative in their predictions given how fast everything is moving these days.  He includes a bunch of asymptotic curves that indicate, among other things, that we will have hyperdrive by 1980 and crushing overpopulation by the end of the century.  I believe that one should not interpret the trends of the last two decades as representative of a sustainable pace; rather, they represent a quantum jump to a new plateau.  In support of this observation is Enovid, the new "birth control" pill that will, mark my words, blow a hole in Malthusian population growth predictions.  Two stars.

The rest of the magazine comprises Part II of Cliff Simak's promising The Fisherman, which I won't spoil at this time.  All told, it's a 3-star mag — imagine how much higher it could be if Analog's authors could figure out a better way to start their stories!

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Movies, Science / Space Race, Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[April 15, 1961] London Calling (a peek at UK fandom)

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Every once in a while, one comes across a supremely talented, like-minded person.  Ashley R. Pollard is a gifted writer from England who is shopping around her first novel.  I discovered her through her columns in a British 'zine; I was so impressed that I asked if she'd like to join the Journey as a contributor, writing on fandom in the UK.  To my intense gratification, she agreed.  Here is her first article…

Out of the blue I received a letter from across the pond asking me if I would have a mind to contribute to Galactic Journey and that is how I came to find myself writing this entry for this journal.  To say I was delighted to be known to an American writer would be an understatement, but to be able to write for the Journey in such exciting times as these, the Dawn of the Space Age, is quite frankly a privilege.  When Sputnik took to the heavens on October the Fourth, 1957, my work colleagues could no longer pass off my taste for reading science fiction as some abnormal fancy but rather as a sign of prescience.

Now a Red star has risen in the East — Vostok — aboard the ship is the first human in space: Major Yuri Gagarin, who is now a Hero of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and by extension a hero for all mankind.  The local prestige of our former wartime allies had plunged due to the recent discovery and capture of the Portland Spy Ring, causing ripples of concern over secrets lost, so having Major Gagarin take over the headlines has been welcome change — if only from one kind of paranoia to another: Reds with atomic secrets versus Reds in Space!  And because it turns my liking for all things to do with rocketry into a respectable talking point at parties.

Certainly, Thursday nights conversation at The London Circle, a meeting of like minded science fiction fans, was of nothing else.  (The London Circle was the basis for Arthur C. Clarke's Tales from the White Hart.  I will not be drawn into the recent fan feud that has split the group because I attend for the ambience of the pub and the chance to have a G&T with ice and a slice. How very non-fannish of me.)

Of course, this being Britain, we had to draw comparisons to Nigel Kneale's Quatermass Experiment and the British Experimental Rocket Group and what happened to the hapless astronaut to leaven the concerns of those who see Soviet dominance in space as threat to World Peace.

As you can well imagine our conversations were more along the lines of aliens returning to Earth with Major Gagarin, and what would the Russian counter-part of Bernard Quatermass do?

Perhaps, it was opined, the reason that his landing site is undisclosed is because Russian forces are engaged in confronting the alien threat to save the world.  Though, as I said at the time this idea was broached, I imagined that if so then Pravda would be telling us all about the heroic actions of the brave Soviet soldiers who died to save the world.  As we've not heard anything to this effect it is simpler to imagine that secret of where Major Gagarin landed is merely something the Politburo do not wish to disclose for fear of Western spies — tit for tat being a common response.

As per my wont, I also mentioned a television series that had caught my eye, engaging fellow fans with a comparison and contrast of visions of the future and the impact of science fictional ideas upon.  I had my listeners' rapt attention until I revealed that said show was Supercar a production using puppets produced by Gerry Anderson & Arthur Provis of AP Films for ATV (the London independent TV franchise) and ITC Entertainment (a production and distribution company).

I came across this Saturday morning show quite by chance when looking after a friend's child who sat totally absorbed by the adventures of Mike Mercury, the pilot of the eponymous Supercar, and the science team who created it: Professor Rudolph Popkiss and Dr. Horatio Beaker.  Admittedly I missed some of the initial episode from being too caught up in reading my newspaper, the aforementioned headlines about the spy ring; but the catchy theme tune and more importantly the silence of the young boy watching kept drawing my attention from what I was reading.

What could be so fascinating that a six years old would stay still and quiet for so long?


I have since sat with him to watch Supercar together.  It's a delightful concoction with a totally over the top opening sequence that can't fail to attract the attention of the most jaded viewer.  The attention to detail is superb, for example, the opening sequence of events with Supercar flying up through the clouds banking over and then diving underwater are lovingly shot with music from Barry Gray that will stir the hearts of young and old alike.  More importantly it shows a future suffused with optimism…where cars fly!  I almost feel guilty for taking the babysitting money on Saturdays.  Almost but not quite.

Finally, to end this missive, and because I'm running out of blue airmail paper and worried about the cost of sending some photographs I acquired, I would like to mention another television show that has caught my eye.

It's called The Avengers and features the rather hunky and adorable Ian Hendry who is supported by a debonaire Patrick Macnee, who looks vaguely familiar but for the life of me I can't recall what he has performed in before.  I mention this show in passing because it riffs on the James Bond books, and with the Dr. No film coming out next year, I predict a spate of spy adventures gracing television and the silver screen.

However, the real excitement remains Major Gagarin's achievement and the effects this will have on East-West diplomacy.  If only the world leaders could see the bigger picture here and (to bang on my favourite drum) hope for the future — something that the makers of Supercar caught in their children's puppet show.  A future bright with possibilities from mankind's ingenuity which will save the day whatever the adversity we face.

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Science / Space Race

[April 12, 1961] Stargrazing (the flight of Vostok)

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The jangling of the telephone broke my slumber far too early.  Groggily, I paced to the handset, half concerned, half furious.  I picked it up, but before I could say a word, I heard a frantic voice.

"Turn on your radio right now!"

I blinked.  "Wha.." I managed. 

"Really!" the voice urged.  I still didn't even know who was calling. 

Nevertheless, I went to the little maroon Zenith on my dresser and turned the knob.  The 'phone was forgotten in my grip as I waited for the tubes to warm up.  10 seconds later, I heard the news.

It had happened.  A man had been shot into orbit.  And it wasn't one of ours.

Last night, Major Yuri Alekseyivich Gagarin blasted off from the Soviet Union in his Vostok spacecraft (Vostok means "East" in Russian, and it is in that direction that the rocket flew).  He circled the Earth once before landing with his vehicle.  Protected only by steel walls and a space suit, he made it to orbit and back.  I had to sit down, so dizzying was the news.

I've now had a few hours to think about this event and determine just what it means for all of us.

For ages, humanity has dreamed about journeying to outer space.  We have now finally taken our first shuffling steps off of our world. 

Half a century ago, a Russian named Tsiolkovsky determined the first practical way to get there — at the tips of rockets.  So it is appropriate that the first human to traverse the regions beyond our atmosphere was a Russian. 

For the Communists, it is yet another victory in a race that as yet has no finish line.  A demonstration of their superior rocketry, or perhaps a greater willingness to gamble with a person's life. 

For the Americans, it is a challenge to meet, not a discouragement.  "It doesn't change our program one bit," said Marine Colonel John Glenn, who may well be the first American in space.

For science fiction fans, the impact is tremendous.  We have been writing about space travel for decades like a virgin writes about intercourse: avidly, but without experience.  Just the other month, there were published stories involving the predicted psychic and physical dangers of space, too horrible to be surmounted.

And yet, Gagarin did it.  If he can, others will.  Space may not be safe, but it is survivable.

Soon, we will have a flood of new data, and our s-f stories will change accordingly to accommodate.  I expect we'll have fewer tales of astronauts who jaunt out in their rocket as if they're out on a Sunday drive, more stories of space programs and the thousands of engineers who make up the bulk of the logistical iceberg. 

Some have opined that the more we explore the frontiers that were once solely the province of fiction, the less magical we make our world.  I must disagree.  This new frontier has hardly been touched, and even when we have thoroughly mapped the regions of low orbit, there is then high orbit, the Moon, the planets, the stars.  Each frontier is a gateway to the next.

Today, science fiction is fact, and the domain of science fiction has broadened.  I've never been more excited.

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Book

[April 10, 1961] In the style of… (Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Door Through Space)

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In my last piece, I discussed how magazines can be better experiences than books because the variety mitigates uneven quality.  A good book lasts longer than a magazine, but a bad book lasts longer than eternity.

I try to read a new book every month.  With the decline of the science fiction digest, the novel seems to be taking its place as the medium of choice for new material.  March's book was The Door Through Space, by new(ish) author, Marion Zimmer Bradley.

I try not to let personal factors sway me when assessing the value of fiction, but I'm only human.  On the positive side, I was pleased to find a book by a woman author; on the other hand, Bradley is a weird occultist a la L. Ron Hubbard.  Let's just call the two factors mutually balancing, and I'll review the book on its merits.

In the book's preamble, the author writes:

I've always wanted to write. But not until I discovered the old pulp science-fantasy magazines, at the age of sixteen, did this general desire become a specific urge to write science-fantasy adventures.

I took a lot of detours on the way. I discovered s-f in its golden age: the age of Kuttner, C. L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, Ed Hamilton and Jack Vance. But while I was still collecting rejection slips for my early efforts, the fashion changed. Adventures on faraway worlds and strange dimensions went out of fashion, and the new look in science-fiction — emphasis on the science — came in.

So my first stories were straight science-fiction, and I'm not trying to put down that kind of story. It has its place. By and large, the kind of science-fiction which makes tomorrow's headlines as near as this morning's coffee, has enlarged popular awareness of the modern, miraculous world of science we live in. It has helped generations of young people feel at ease with a rapidly changing world.

But fashions change, old loves return, and now that Sputniks clutter up the sky with new and unfamiliar moons, the readers of science-fiction are willing to wait for tomorrow to read tomorrow's headlines. Once again, I think, there is a place, a wish, a need and hunger for the wonder and color of the world way out. The world beyond the stars. The world we won't live to see. That is why I wrote THE DOOR THROUGH SPACE.

That explains the book, which is not really science fiction at all, but more of a throwback to the pulp era.  The setting is the untamed planet of Wolf, whose human presence is limited to a couple of small Trade Cities.  Race Cargill is an agent of the Terran Empire involved in a blood feud with his former compatriot, Rakhal.  The latter is a villain of the mustache-twirling kind, though we learn this mostly by inference, as his presence in the book is nearly entirely off-screen.  Rakhal had married Juli, Race's sister six years before, and then disappeared into the wilds of Wolf with her.  The story begins with Juli's return, having left Rakhal for his cruelty and irrational behavior.

This incites Race to find Rakhal and end the feud, once and for all.  In the course of his travels, Bradley shows us a Howardian world of degenerate humans, subhumans, violence, torture and cults.  It's a savage affair, with lots of lusty prose, lurid descriptions, and bloody combat.  Rough men and enslaved women.  A hint of incest.  I would almost take it for satire, but it seems awfully earnest. 

In short, it feels like a kinescope of a television show – recognizably a copy of something, but lacking in dimension.  A not-too-picky person might enjoy the book as an adventure story with only the thinnest veneer of s-f (the "Door Through Space" hardly figures at all), but said reader will be hard pressed to recall much from the experience save for, perhaps, a mild, inexplicable sense of revulsion.

Two stars.

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Magazine

[April 8, 1961] Variety pack (May 1961 IF)

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The nice thing about a science fiction magazine (or anthology) as opposed to a novel is if you don't like one story, you might like the next.  Once you start a bad novel, your only options are to drag yourself through it or give it up unfinished.  And you can't very well review an unfinished novel, can you?

Galaxy's sister magazine, IF, is not as good, on the average, as the other members of the Big Four (including F&SF and Analog).  But because it is a digest, occasional stories surprise and delight.  There's one gem in this month's issue of IF, and a few other diverting tales.

Not the first one, though.  J.T. McIntosh tends to save his dreck for the lesser mags, and his That's the Way it Goes is a thinly redressed pioneer story grafted onto a Malthusian future.  Science fiction has to be at least a little visionary if not progressive.  Way fails at both, though to its credit, it's not unreadable; just unimpressive.  Two stars.

William Stuart's Out of Mind has an interesting concept: a planet of telepaths who present to you the experience you most want to have.  As one might expect, it is a dangerous world, indeed, for those who ever want to return home.  It's done in a droll satirical fashion that I didn't care for, but you might.  Two stars.

I think Frank Banta must be new, as I haven't encountered his name before.  The Connoisseur is a sad, humorous story about an off-course colony ship.  It doesn't tread new ground, but it is pleasant and short.  Three stars.

Seven Doors to Education is the jewel of this issue.  It is the third story by newcomer Fred Saberhagen, and I think it's my favorite thus far.  A young postal worker with no particular talents or prospects is abducted by unknown forces and presented with a series of increasingly difficult puzzles.  Why him?  And to what end?  A genuinely engaging story with a satisfying conclusion.  Four stars.

The Useless Bugbreeders may be James Stamers' best story to date.  That's not necessarily high praise given his track record of two and three star submissions, but this particular story, about an attorney attempting to spare a planet in the way of interstellar freeway construction, is silly fun.  Three stories.

Cinderella Story, the second story I've read by Allen Kim Lang, retains his breezy style.  It works in this tale, of a young woman federal agent who is sent to investigate a most peculiar bank.  It scores points for featuring a strong female lead, and for spotlighting the sexism women have to endure in the workplace (though I can't be certain if Lang did so deliberately or unconsciously).  Three stars.

Ending with a whimper, the last story is Jack Sharkey's The Flying Tuskies of K'niik K'naak — basically, about the comeuppance of an upper class big-game hunter by his mistreated servant.  Again, it's a science fiction story with no science fiction.  I appreciate the sentiment, but it's just not that good.  Two stars.

That puts us at 2.75 for the whole book, but if you start on page 50 and quit around page 124, you're actually in for a fine read.  And that's 75 more pages of good fiction than I've published this month!

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