by Gideon Marcus
Pirates of the Caribbean
The Dominican Republic, half of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean, has never been a beacon of democracy. The Trujillo dictatorship lasted three long decades, ending only in 1961 after his assassination. The nation's first democratic elections, in 1963, brought Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño to the Presidency. In the same year, a military junta removed him from power, elevating Donald Reid Cabral to the position.
Reid was never popular, and on April 24, military constitutionalists and Dominican Revolutionary Party supporters launched a coup, José Rafael Molina Ureña taking the top post. He lasted all of two days. A counter coup restored the Reid government to power, although Reid, himself, had fled the country.
Meanwhile, the American military worked to evacuate some 3,500 U.S. citizens living in the country. Just this morning, elements of the 82nd Airborne Division landed at San Isidro Air Base, on the outskirts of Santo Domingo. Their mission is to enforce a ceasefire and guide the country back to democracy.
Thus, our nation is now involved in stabilizing missions on both sides of the globe. Will this action mark a long term involvement? Or, in the absence of a Communist menace (Haiti is not North Vietnam!) and with the aid of other O.A.S. nations, will this be a quick exercise to hasten Caribbean democracy?
Only time will tell.
Insurgency in the Old Country
At the very least, we can be certain that the Dominican involvement has no chance of developing into a nuclear confrontation (unlike Vietnam, where Sec. Def. MacNamara did not rule out that possibility). So it's a conventional affair for now.
Appropriately, we now turn to the most conventional of science fiction magazines, the oft-hidebound Analog. Like the Dominican Republic, it has been under a single strongman for several decades. And yet, like that island nation, we occasionally see signs of progress. Indeed, this latest issue has some refreshing entries, indeed.
by John Schoenherr
Trouble Tide, by James H. Schmitz
On the world of Nandy-Cline, herds of sea cows are abruptly and mysteriously disappearing from the costs of the Girard colonies. Danrich Parrol, head of the Nandy-Cline branch of Girard Pharmaceuticals, teams up with Dr. Nile Etland, head of Girard's station laboratory, to find the cause of the vanishing food animals. They suspect foul play from a rival company, Agenes. The poisoning of a herd of mammalian but native fraya seems somehow connected, too. The two embark on a forensic adventure that takes them across a thousand miles of coast and under miles of ocean.
by John Schoenherr
There are many features that make Tide stand out. What a delightful story this is, with an interesting pair of protagonists and a cute scientific solution. I appreciated the depiction of a planet as a big place, big enough to support many economies, colonies, and criminal activities. I also particularly liked the appearance of female characters. Indeed, Dr. Nile Etland is an equal partner in the investigation and is not a romantic foil — simply a competent scientist.
Why is this remarkable? I had become so inured to the lack of female characters in my science fiction that I'd almost started to challenge my convictions. Was it really fair of me to judge fiction (at least in part) by whether or not it included female characters? Isn't modern SF just a reflection of the male-dominant society we live in? Can we blame authors for writing "what they know?"
Yes, yes, and yes. The erasure of women in any kind of fiction, particularly one that projects present trends into the future, is inexcusable. Any portrayal of a world where women play minor roles or none at all isn't just unrealistic, it propagates a kind of ugly wish fulfillment. That's why, when I get a story like Tide with realistic and positive representation of women (and, indeed, Schmitz has always been good in this regard) it's such a breath of fresh air. Ditto the British import show, Danger Man, which regularly features competent professional women who are integral to the episodes.
It's what I want to see. It's what I should be seeing. That I'm seeing it in Analog of all places gives me hope.
Four stars.
Planetfall, by John Brunner
by Alan Moyler
A young Earth woman eagerly greets a young astronaut man, an ecologist on the crew of a starfaring colony with 2,500 residents that is making a brief stop. She's set on falling in love with and departing with this exotic fellow, who represents freedom, the exotic, and most of all, purpose in life.
He, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to jump ship, to escape the stultifying space-kibbutz life, to experience the beauty of humanity's Home.
Each of them poison each other's greener grass, and the encounter is an unhappy one.
If there's such a thing as a "meet cute," then this is a "meet ugly," but it's quite poignant. Brunner does good work. Four stars.
Magnetohydrodynamics, by Ben Bova
I really wanted to like this nonfiction article. After all, it's about a genuinely scientific topic, a revolutionary one. MHD allows the generation of power without moving physical parts, instead using magnetic fields and plasma. It's the kind of technology required if we ever want to build fusion power plants. Plus, Asimov likes the guy.
But boy is this piece dull. It's not quite as dry as reading a patent, but it's in the same ballpark. I've heard similar reviews of Bova's work in other magazines, so I can't be the only one who feels this way.
Anyway, two stars.
The Captive Djinn, by Christopher Anvil
by John Schoenherr
Captured human on a planet of cats at a 19th Century technology level outwits his jailers through the use of basic chemistry and the exploitation of the felines' stupidity.
If there were an award for "Story that best exemplifies Chris Anvil's work for John Campbell," this would win. Two stars.
Beautiful art by Schoenherr, though. He's definitely going to get a Galactic Star again this year!
The Prophet of Dune (Part 5 of 5), by Frank Herbert
And now we come to the greatest coup of all, the finale of the longest serial I've ever read in a magazine.
Technically, Dune is two serials, and there have been other five-part novels. But Prophet of Dune is not a sequel to Dune World but the latter "novel's" conclusion.
It's been a long trek. It started with Duke Leto Atreides acquiring the fiefdom that included Arrakis, a desert planet and the only source of the spice melange. This cinnamon-smelling spice is an anti-agathic and also conveys a limited form of precognition.
For the Empire's rich, it livens food and lengthens lives.
For the Navigators' Guild, the spice allows its specialists to navigate the hazardous byways of hyperspace.
For the Bene Gesserit, a religious order of women, it facilitates their plans to manipulate history through the deliberate mixing of blood-lines; their hope is to eventually produce the "Kwisatz Haderach," a sort of messiah, a man with the powers of the Bene Gesserit.
Duke Leto was not long for his reign. The Harkonnen family from whom Arrakis was transferred immediately schemed to regain it, attacking the planet, killing Leto, and forcing Leto's concubine, the Bene Gesserit Jessica, and their son, Paul, to go into hiding among the native "Fremen." So ended the first serial.
by John Schoenherr
Baron Harkonnen installed a ruthless nephew on Arrakis with the goal of fomenting a rebellion. His plan would then be to take personal control, relax the tyranny, and turn the Fremen into the greatest army the Empire had ever seen, even more fearsome than the Saudukar, the Imperial guard.
Out in the desert, Paul spends a harsh two years learning the ways of the desert. Moisture is priceless, and all sand-dwellers wear water-recycling "still-suits." The voracious sandworms are both a constant threat and a valuable commodity, for it is their waste that is refined into spice.
While among the Fremen, Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother, transforming poisonous sandworm effluence into a substance that allows her to commune with all of her brethren, living and dead. Because she does so while pregnant, her unborn daughter, Alia, gains the wisdom of a thousand women and is born an adult in a child's body.
Paul is initiated into Fremen culture, eventually assuming the mantle of Muad'Dib, savior of the desert people. Under his leadership, the Fremen are united. They will revolt, as Harkonnen expected, but the event will not unfold as the Baron desires.
In this final installment of Dune, Paul launches his attack even while the Padishah Emperor, himself, has visited the planet with five legions of Saudukar, and all of the great families have surrounded Arrakis with warships. But the hopeless position of Muad'Dib turns out to be unbeatable: for Paul controls the production of spice. Without it, the nobility is crippled, space is unnavigable. Thus young Atreides emerges utterly triumphant with virtual control of the Empire, a bethrothal to the Emperor's daughter, and freedom for the people of Arrakis.
I have to give credit to Frank Herbert for creating a universe of ambitious scope. There's a lot to Dune, and the author clearly has a penchant for world-building. He takes from a wide variety of sources, particularly Arabic and Persian, creating a setting quite different from what we usually see in science fiction. The result is not unlike the landscapes generated by Cordwainer Smith, whose upbringing included time in China, or Mack Reynolds, whose writing is informed by extensive travel behind the Iron Curtain and in the Mahgreb.
But.
There's plenty not to like, too. Herbert is an author of no great technical skill, and his writing ranges from passable to laughably bad. There wasn't so much of his third-person omniscient and everywhere-at-once in this installment, but it wasn't completely absent, either. The writing is humorless, grandiose (even pompous), and generally not a pleasure to read.
Beyond that, the work is highly reactionary. I was originally pleased to see several female characters in the story. Lady Jessica often is the viewpoint, though given Herbert's love of switching perspective every third line, that's not quite so noteworthy. But in the end, even the most prominent women are limited to their medieval roles, that of wife and bearer of greatness. Dune is a man's world.
Then there are the fedayken, the people of the desert clearly modeled on the Arabs. And who should lead them to freedom? Not a local son, no; only T. E. Lawrence Jesus Atreides can save them.
It's an unsettling subtext in our post-colonial times: a galactic empire, decadent and crumbling, requires an infusion of European boldness to restore it to vigor. Is it any surprise that this novel came out in Analog?
So, on the one hand, I give this installment four stars. It kept me interested, and I appreciated the intricacy of the conclusion. Looking over my tally for the other seven parts of this sprawling opus, that ends us at exactly three stars.
I think that's fair. Some will praise the book for its vision and be undaunted by the quality of the prose or the offensiveness of its underpinnings. Those folks will probably nominate it for another Hugo next year. Others will give up in boredom around page 35. I read the whole thing because I had to. I didn't hate it; I even respect it to a degree. But I see its many many flaws.
Let the adulatory/damning letters begin!
Running the Numbers
Once again, Analog finishes at the top of the heap; at 3.3 stars, it ties with Science-Fantasy. It's been a good month for fiction overall, with New Worlds and Amazing scoring 3.2.
Fantastic gets a solid 3 stars, and IF just misses the mark at 2.8.
Fantasy and Science Fiction disappoints with 2.7, though its Zenna Henderson story may be the best of the month.
While women may be making a comeback as fictional characters, as writers, they're still conspicuously absent. Only 2 of the 38 fiction pieces were written by women.
Perhaps it's time for a coup. Summon the 101st Airborne!
Our last three Journey shows were a gas! You can watch the kinescope reruns here). You don't want to miss the next episode, May 9 at 1PM PDT, a special Arts and Entertainment edition featuring Arel Lucas, Cora Buhlert, Erica Frank…and Dr. Who producer, Verity Lambert! Register today and we'll make sure you don't forget.
"Trouble Tide" was quite good, and proof that a problem story can turn on something other than Newtonian mechanics. It's almost like Hal Clement with biology instead of chemistry. But you were so busy praising it for having a competent woman in it that you forgot to rate it. I'd definitely go very high three, maybe even four.
"Plantetfall" was also quite good, if dark. Brunner might have it the "grass is greener" key a little too often, but it's still one of his better short pieces.
Bova's science article may have been a bit dry, but it still shows improvement over some of his early work. He needs to get out of the habits he developed explaining science to business executives. Also, it was ten times more engaging than the vast majority of science articles in Analog, with the added bonus of being about actual science.
The Anvil was, sadly, typical low end Anvil. Every once in a while he pulls off a really good story, even for Campbell. But he's been in a slump lately, both for Campbell and Pohl.
Your criticisms of "Dune" are entirely valid. I'd even add that the ending was a bit abrupt. Nevertheless, I found the whole thing engaging and immersive. One thought I've had about the viewpoint switching is that might be meant to reflect the telepathic nature of Paul and Jessica. In any case, we can hope that a REAL editor will give the whole thing a good going over before the inevitable book publication.
A Man of Double Deed did the telepathic slippery viewpoint much better.
You will have to tell me if the novelized version of Dune is much cleaned up. I don't know that I'll ever pick up a copy…
Frank Herbert had written a serial for Campbell back in 1955. So one wonders, did Herbert know his market? Was not Campbell always trying to get a wiz bang Galactic Empire novel , with PSI Powers (!), out of A E van Vogt?! …. and Alfred Elton tried…. but no cigar. Have been very curious about Campbell's correspondence with Herbert about Dune…..Campbell , in the past had been know to explode with editorial side bars and in your face soap boxing about story fix up. Was Campbell responsible for Dune being a ripping yarn ( with PSI powers!) space opera??? I don't know , where will Herbert go with this without Campbell's touch, or even with it?
That Herbert serial back in 1955, UNDER PRESSURE (aka THE DRAGON IN THE SEA in its UK edition; also 21st CENTURY SUB in its first U.S. book publication, IIRC) was in its time admired by quite a few other SF writers –and is still admirable on a re-read — for its relentless, claustrophobic building of tension at novel-length. It also took up an original theme that's not so far-fetched at all: what if the world starts running out of oil and the Cold War continues into the 21st century with both sides competing ever more desperately to extract oil from the ocean bottom?
In fact, Mr. Herbert has often attacked themes that are more meaty and insightful than those that most of his peers come up with.
Just as often, though, some of his stories veer off into being both flatly implausible and flatly written, especially those he sets in absurd far future settings.
It's a bit of a mystery. Arguably, this author has two problems that make him so hit and miss, and they may not be solvable because they seem to be part of the man.
Firstly, he seems to forget skills that he'd once mastered; it's hard to see how the expert engineer who constructed the tightly built, ever-mounting tension of UNDER PRESSURE is also responsible for the meandering plotting of DUNE — though the vision of the latter is grand and I predict it may find a readership if Herbert finds a publisher for it at book-length.
Secondly, Mr. Herbert sometimes produces truly clunky sentences, paragraphs and characterization (though in that last he's got something in common with many SF authors) — and this becomes really apparent without the tight construction that underlay UNDER PRESSUR.,
Mr. Herbert is a professional journalist and that may have something to do with it. Some of the worst writers I've encountered have been journalists. Having been professional writers for so long and having churned wordage out by the yard for years, most of them don't know how bad they are and wouldn't believe it if you told them. Aren't they professionals? Even when they do know how bad they are, it's usually too late for them to learn to do better. Old dogs, new tricks, and all that.
Still, it's a bit of a mystery that Mr. Herbert is so inconsistent.
Mr. Schmitz, on the other hand, continues to cultivate the rather humbler patch of SF that he's chosen with great consistency. In that context, "Trouble Tide" is one of his finer efforts, as you say.
And I shudder to think what might happen if Mr. Schmitz went away and editor Campbell had to fill his magazine without him. We'd probably get even more dreary efforts by the likes of Mr. Anvil — and featured as cover stories. Eh!
Finally, all the above said, one thing that's absolutely consistent about Campbell's magazine is that Mr. Schoenherr's art just keeps on getting better and better.
By the way. If you're not already aware of this, besides the obvious Middle Eastern and Islamist influences that Mr. Herbert is calling upon in DUNE, he also owes (and this is not to denigrate him, because this is a very original place to look for influence) quite a lot to a less obvious cultural reference point —
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-secret-history-of-dune/
THE SABRES OF PARADISE; CONQUEST AND VENGEANCE IN THE CAUSCASUS by Lesley Blanch
A fascinating book by a remarkable woman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesley_Blanch
Aside for the psionic witchcraft and the hand-wavy eschewing of computers (it certainly seems a solution to a spice embargo is to break out the IBMs) I found the ecology of Arrakis stupid. Sand is not water. How do they move through tons of dirt with ease? How do these worms maintain their structure against the square cube law? What the hell do they eat? Where is the rest of the Arrakeen ecosystem?
All excellent points.
"Trouble Tide" was very enjoyable. The transformation of the protagonists was fascinating. Schmitz does this kind of "alien ecology" story better than just about anybody else I can think of.
"Planetfall" was the gem of the issue for me. Beautifully written, with genuine emotion.
"The Captive Djinn" combined the usual by-the-numbers Anvil plot with a Mister Wizard science lesson, to the detriment of both.
Thanks, Vic! I needed that laugh!
I usually don't read Analog but with a well reviewed Brunner and Schmitz inside I had to try picking it up. Unfortunately still not a strong issue for myself
Trouble Tide I thought was okay. I liked the representation of women you called out (and always great to see more love for the amazing Danger Man) and Schmitz is a good writer but too much of a problem story for me with huge sections of dialogue devote to characters explaining the science. Not really my thing.
Planetfall was well written and I liked the darker side of it but lacked a real punch at the end for me.
Anvil's work was inoffensive but forgettable nonesense.
I have not been keeping up with Prophet of Dune so won't be reading the ending here. Might pick it up in book form sometime just to see what everyone is talking about, maybe Ace or Panther can do a cheap paperback in a year or two?
I pity you, Gideon Marcus, who can't enjoy a good story without judging it through your 2020 modern liberal sensibilities. It must be tiring when everything has to be political. And frustrating when a fictional world doesn't adhere to your modern sensibilities. But at least you were honest with this last installment, instead of nitpicking about grammar.
Thanks for coming by! We hope you continue to enjoy.