[August 26, 1965] Stag Party (September 1965 Analog)


by Gideon Marcus

Boys Only Club?

A very curious phenomenon has taken place over the last several years.  When I started writing the Journey, women were a rising force in professional science fiction. In 1959, three of the six "Best New Authors" were women (Rosel George Brown, Kit Reed, and Pauline Ashwell – all Journey favorites). About 10% of the stories (and 25% of what was worth reading) was produced by women. Both Amazing and Fantastic, two of the main science fiction monthly digests, were helmed by Cele Goldsmith.

Then…something happened. Over the last few years, the appearances of women in magazines has dwindled to a trickle. There are fewer appearing in novels, too (and since women tended to produce short fiction more often than long form, this change was particularly noticeable). As of this month, no single title across all of the published magazines was done under a sole female byline. Five of the last 45 novels this year were written by four women – two were by Andre Norton, who writes under a masculine byline.

Cele Goldsmith became Cele Lalli and left her editor position. This was probably not a result of her getting married but rather due to a change in her two magazines to a reprints-mostly format.

Though the loss of women in SF has not always hurt the quality of fiction produced, (indeed, this was one of the better months in a long time), I've no doubt that this development is bad for the genre in the long run. The fewer perspectives, the less diversity of viewpoints, the more our stories are going to fall into ruts. A wider pool of authors also creates better work as more talented folks get a chance to rise to the top. I don't know why the genre has become bereft of one half of the population, but I hope the situation changes soon.

Still Plugging Along

As I said, this month was, despite the alarming paucity of women SF contributors, surprisingly and refreshingly good. This month's Analog, so often a turgid relic, was a pleasant read from back to front. Let's take a look inside:


by Kelly Freas

Space Pioneer (Part 1 of 3), by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

A nameless fellow wangles passage on the s/s Titov, a future-day Mayflower carrying 2000 colonists to New Arizona.  His goal is not exploring a new world, however – it's the assassination of the last of the Peshkopi clan. the would-be killer having gotten a tip that Peshkopi was slated to make the interstellar jaunt on the old freighter.

Inadvertently taking on the role of Roger Bock, holder of one of the mission's ten financial shares, the assassin quickly finds himself embroiled in a growing conflict between the mistreated passengers, little more than chattel in the holds, and the comparatively pampered crew and shareholders.  By the end of Part One, the identity of the Peshkopi is yet unknown to "Bock", but it is strongly implicated that it is actually Cathy Bergman, the elected representative of the colonists.  Of course, by the end of the serial's installment, Bock has much bigger things to worry about than his initial mission…

Pioneer is typically competent Reynolds stuff, even though the milieu is more Leinsterian.  If I have any complaint, it's that the science fiction trappings are virtually nonexistent.  This could be a story set in the 18th Century.

That said, I do enjoy the rather unflattering portrayal of colonist (and presumably planetary) exploitation, and the inclusion of developed female characters is nice.  Reynolds is usually good about that.

Four stars thus far.

The Life of Your Time, by Michael Karageorge


by Kelly Freas

On sublight but relativistic trip to Tau Ceti, the starship Emissary makes a shocking discovery: while time dilation affects the crew, slowing down the passage of time for their physical bodies and for the ship's systems, their minds remain at the speed of their original reference point – Earth.  Thus, to them, their bodies increasingly become prisons as their minds experience minutes, ultimately hours, for every second their bodies sense.  It's a story of tragedy, discovery, and triumph.

And a very unusual one for Analog.  It reminds me a bit of Niven's Wrong Way Street, featuring a gender-balanced and ethnically mixed crew (though they are all explicitly and deliberately Americans).  I don't know who Michael Karageorge is, but he definitely hit a triple on his first outing (and I dug the brand new concept of the hydrogen ramscoop ship).

Four stars.

LUT the Giant Mover, by Lyle R. Hamilton

The nonfiction article is both interesting and disappointing.  You can't fault the subject matter, which is the new launch facilities at Cape Kennedy.  But like most articles in Analog, it suffers for lack of subheadings and a coherent narrative.

So, three stars.  At least it's not about dowsing!

Computers Don't Argue, by Gordon R. Dickson


by John Schoenherr

Here is a dark cautionary tale about relying too heavily on computers, in which a fellow is sent a reader's club book by mistake, and is ultimately arrested and executed when he refuses to pay for it.

I get what they're trying to say, but the story takes place next year and while there is merit to avoiding overreliance on automated systems, there are just too many places where human involvement in the system would have broken the digital positive feedback loop. I hope. On the other hand, who knows?

A low three stars.

Test in Orbit, by Ben Bova


by Kelly Freas

Better is this story of a near-future conflict in space: Chet Kinsman, a USAF Captain with a week left to his hitch, is tasked to fly into space on an X-20 derivative and inspect an unknown satellite suspected of being an orbital bomb.  A mortal combat ensues.

I enjoyed all of this piece except the ending, which was both a little maudlin and should have had some falling action after the reveal.  Still, I think Ben Bova is a promising author, and I look forward to more of his stuff.

Three stars.

Psi for Sale, by Walter Bupp


by Kelly Freas

We've seen a lot of installments in the story of "Lefty" Walter Bupp, a telekinetic doctor with the grammar of a mook.  This time, John Berryman (the author's real name) offers us a look at Bupp's prehistory as well as the early history of the organization created for the benefit of American psychics.

I like the series, and this one was probably my favorite installment.  Perhaps a little superfluous, but still welcome (and it was neat to see a piece from the perspective of Maragon, the "Grand Master" of the "Lodge").

4 stars.

Say It with Flowers, by Winston P. Sanders


by Kelly Freas

Last up, we get another piece set in a future history in which the asteroid belt has won independence from the Earth.  Written under Poul Anderson's throwaway pen name, these are usually dry, technical stories of lesser appeal. 

This time, we get a fairly compelling tale about a Lieutenant in the "asterix" space service who is apprehended by North American forces on a courier mission.  It turns out that the message he is transmitting is carried on his person in an unique (but utterly telegraphed and unsurprising) way.

I liked the piece fine enough, though this line irked:

"The revolutionaries were so short of manpower that quite a few women held high rank."

An omission of that line would have gone a long way.  I don't need the suggestion that women are only able to succeed when there ain't enough men to do the work – especially when it's obvious that women can do the work.

Anyway, three stars.

Y marks the spot


Note, for the first time, the lack of women in the Journey round-up image – this one is of an IBM demonstration in Ethiopia.

Distressing lack of women authors aside, this was a good month for science fiction in magazines.  Analog clocked in at a respectable 3.5 stars, ahead of Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.2, largely thanks to its opening novella) and IF (2.9, dragged down by the Doc Smith serial).

Finishing roughly equivalent were Fantastic (3.5), New Worlds (3.5), and Science Fantasy (3.4).  If we include New Writings in SF #5 (3.5), which is a quarterly in book form but feels like a magazine, that makes the numbers even better.

So a mixed pleasure this month.  Let's hope this trend of female non-production reverses itself soon and results in even better times to come!






14 thoughts on “[August 26, 1965] Stag Party (September 1965 Analog)”

    1. As it happened I just read this issue — a few months late, sorry! As I read the "Michael Karageorge" story, my first thought was "Is this writer trying to parody Poul Anderson?" … I mean, it's more Andersonian than in his open pseudonym "Sanders", though the Sanders story does work in a mention of the Danish beer Tuborg.

      I have to admit, I didn't like it as much as Gideon did — low three stars for me. I thought the pandering to Campbell's love of psi a bit over the top.

      1. Better late than never!

        Psi doesn't automatically detract for me, even though I know it's a Campbellian tic.  I just treat it like other kinds of magic.

        Winston Sanders is where bad Anderson goes to die…

  1. I'm curious to see where Reynolds is going with his story. It's an unusual protagonist for him, and I'm not too sure how much I believe in ancient Balkan blood feuds still existing what must be many decades if not a few centuries from now and still less that they lead to clan members being trained to be highly skilled assassins. Still, it's a good story so far. And it should come as no surprise that Mack Reynolds has managed to write a solid indictment of colonial exploitation.

    It wouldn't surprise me in the least if John is right about the identity of Michael Karageorge. The story did feel fairly Andersonian. The ramjet idea was proposed a few years ago by a physicist by the name of Robert Bussard. I suspect we'll be seeing more of the idea.

    For me, the biggest lack in the science article was a map. It would have been nice to see just where all these are relative to one another. I also found it poorly titled, since the LUT was really only a part of the story here. But this is three or four months in a row that Analog has had a readable article about real science. I don't know what happened, but I approve.

    The Dickson story was all right. Readable and entertaining. But it's just an updated version of the old Vaudeville bit with the refrain, "Pay the two dollars!"

    Bova is definitely promising. I certainly wouldn't have expected him to be after his first science articles. He's coming along nicely, though. He needs to write some stories for Fred, so he can get some real editorial help in his growth as a writer. He's not going to learn anything from Campbell.

    1. And the cat hid the last page of my letter, so I'll send it separately.

      I haven't been a big fan of the Wally Bupp stories, but this one wasn't bad. Maybe the change in narrator helped.

      The Sanders story was decent enough. A nice little bit of misdirection in terms of the secret message at least.

      So, yes, an unusually good issue for Analog. Campbell can't keep it up, of course, so I fear that bodes ill for issues in the near future.

  2. Sounds like Michael Karageorge (aka Poul Anderson) is exploring topics that later appear in Tau Zero (1972). That said, his treatment of gender in Tau Zero is absolutely atrocious!

    As my review lays out at length…. and to great consternation from the Poul Anderson fan club that descended en masse.

    1. You are always welcome to explicitly provide the means for folks to find the fine reviews in your 'zine, Joachim!

      I am sad to hear that, though not surprised (q.v. the line I singled out in Flowers)

      He'll be right on the edge of being decent about it and then hash it up.

  3. Kelly Freas was gone for a while , not long ago, nice work this issue. Campbell always has an eye for illustrations.

  4. Whilst I agree that magazine fiction is definitely seeing a decline in the number of stories, by my count I have seen more women publishing novels this year (inc. those on the schedule) than 5 years ago.

    In 1960 I was aware of 16 novels (Adam Lukens, Andre Norton
    x2, Barbara Sleigh, Constantine FitzGibbon, Dorothy James Roberts, Eleanor Cameron, Eleanor Estes, Gina Berriault, J. Hunter Holly, Judith Merril, Margaret St. Clair, Peter Curtis, Rosalie Lieberman, Taylor Caldwell, Wilson Gage) coming out in the US.

    Whilst this year I am aware of 27 novels (A. M. Lightner x3, Andre Norton x5, Anya Seton, Bee Baldwin, Bryher, Carol Kendall, E. L. Arch, Elisabeth Beresford, Ellen MacGregor and  Dora Pantell, Evelyn Eaton, J. Hunter Holly, Jane Little, Joan Clarke, Joyce Gard, Madeleine L'Engle, Margery Allingham, Patricia Wrightson, Penelope Gilliatt, Rena Vale, Victoria Holt, Virginia Coffman) that have come out or are coming out in the US.

    However, fewer of them seem to be coming from science fiction or fantasy publishers, with a lot more coming from mainstream publishers and marketed as literary fiction.

    1. (I should say this only based on the ones I see in fanzines and publishers I follow, I am not a cataloguer or a librarian. Entirely possible I missed many.)

  5. "The Life of Your Time" was odd.  Partly a lot of technical talk, partly an almost New Wave kind of introspective/psychological narrative.  I didn't believe the premise of some vaguely defined "mind" not being affected by time dilation, although it's a product of the physical brain, which is.  The end was a weird kind of pseudo-scientific mysticism; Universal Mind and immortality, without the supernatural.

    "Computers Don't Argue" was just a very dark joke.  I suppose it's more anti-bureaucracy than anti-technology, although the title suggests the latter.

    "Test in Orbit" wasn't bad.  Pretty realistic, and it's a relief to have a "hero" who has to live with the guilt for his actions.  (You might ask, shouldn't Kinsman have felt just as guilty if we didn't have the revelation at the end?  Maybe so, in a perfect world, but his reaction seems more believable for a person of the near future.)

    'Psi for Sale" didn't do much for me.  Is there truly no way that a person with extrasensory powers could make a decent, honest living, before the one described in the story?  (Manipulating small objects in a toxic environment occurs to me, right off the bat.)

    "Say it with Flowers" had a twist ending I saw coming right away.  It seems to me the opposing forces would have at least suspected it, if they were clever enough.

  6. I liked "Say it With Flowers". I agree with the twist was guessable, but in a way that for me was fun because I could work it out in progress.

    As for the Reynolds novel, I think it's more promising than some other Reynolds I've read, but pretty routine so far. Still, competent and it makes me want to read the next issue. (Which I have on hand!)

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