by Gideon Marcus
Shifting Vistas
The universe is changing.
One of the fundamental tenets of quantum physics is that one cannot observe the universe without fundamentally affecting it. In ancient times, the stars and planets were objects of mystery. They lay fixed in crystal spheres; they influenced human affairs with strange forces; they were Gods; they were little fires.
And then we observed them with telescope, and the fuzzy waveforms collapsed into particles. The stars were just the Sun's brethren. Planets were actually spheres of matter, and the Earth was one of them. These discoveries did not make the celestial bodies any less interesting, but it did more narrowly confine the bounds of their possible natures.
Still, that left lots of wiggle room for imagination. Why, Venus must be a primeval swamp or perhaps a vast desert. Mars was clearly the home of an elderly civilization, huddling close to their dying canals. Even the Moon might be home to a hardy lichen on its surface (and perhaps a society of aliens beneath it — perhaps they nourished themselves on green cheese).
Then came the Pioneers, Rangers, and Mariners. The Pioneers told us that the Moon had no atmosphere at all, and the Rangers confirmed that Luna was a dead, cratered world. Then Mariner 2 dashed our carefully wrought picture of Venus, revealing a searing inferno of a planet.
Now Mariner 4, which zoomed just 6000 feet over the surface of Mars on July 14, has slain another fantasy land. Preliminary data show that the Red Planet has a much thinner atmosphere than expected and no magnetic field. Without significant erosion from wind and rain, and without a liquid core to drive vulcanism and resurfacing, Mars is probably a cratered wasteland like the Moon. We'll know more when photos start coming in (look for an article on the 20th from Kaye Dee).
Again, this does not make Venus or Mars any less interesting…to science. But for science fiction, the stories are yet again constrained. They still exist: Niven's recent Becalmed in Hell takes place in the new Venus; perhaps he'll be the first to set a story on the new Mars. But for the most part, increased knowledge has excluded our solar system from fantastic speculation.
It's no surprise, then, that the very newest science fiction, that coming out in our monthly magazines, has turned to other settings: other dimensions and faraway stars. Or focused closer to home, offering up cautionary and satirical stories of human, terrestrial society.
Though it cautiously stays on the safe side of the weird, more nuanced New Wave that has started to flood the pages of our books and digests, this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction offers a nice survey of the current frontier of science fiction:
The issue at hand
by Bert Tanner
The Masculinist Revolt, by William Tenn
At the dawn of the 21st Century, the feminist revolt is complete and there is, with one exception, complete equality between the sexes. This doesn't sit well with one P. Edward Pollyglow, a clothier who finds that demand for his made-for-men jumpsuits has dropped to nil. So he tries to restore le difference between the sexes by reviving that most manly of garments, the codpiece. In so doing, he sets off a revolution that restores men's clubs, dueling, and other brands of overt masculinity.
There are two major flaws in this story. The first is that the piece has no real through line. Things happen, get more ridiculous, and the masculinist revolt eventually overripens and collapses.
The second flaw is the doozy, however. From the second page:
Women kept gaining prestige and political power. The F.E.P.C. started policing discriminatory employment practices in any way based on sex. A Supreme Court decision (Mrs. Staub's Employment Agency for Lady Athletes vs. The New York State Boxing Commission) enunciated the law in Justice Emmeline Craggly's historic words: "Sex is a private, internal matter and ends at the individual's skin. From the skin outwards, in family chores, job opportunities, or even cloting, the sexes must be considered legally interchangeable in all respects save one. That one is the traditional duty of the male to support his family to the limit of his physical powers–the fixed cornerstone of all civilized existence.
I'm sure everyone was fine until the part at the end (bolding added by me). It straw(wo)mans the feminist movement. What women want to day is equality, the freedom to pursue a life as unfettered in opportunity, as rewarding in ambition and compensation as that enjoyed by men. I don't know any women espousing for equality in all fields and a free ride on the back of men.
Thus, what could have been a piquant tale is a flop at the beginning and end, destroying the value of any droll cleverness inbetween.
One star.
I'm not sure how this month's Gahan Wilson piece does any more than fill a page.
Explosion, by Robert Rohrer
The starship Southern Cross, crewed by a mixed complement of Terrans and feline Maxyd, encounters an ancient missile that threatens to destroy the ship if its shields are not raised in time. Unfortunately for two Maxyd, repairs had been underway when the Captain made his fateful decision, and they are killed. The missile turns out to be a dud.
However, the ancient hatred between the two races of the crew, only thinly papered over since a brutal war in recent memory, flares brightly. A mutiny ensues, completing what the ancient alien warhead could not.
In defter hands, I suppose this could have been something. As is, Explosion is both heavy handed and forgettable. Two stars.
Crystal Surfaces, by Theodore L. Thomas
In the future, Thomas posits, data will be stored not with chemical residue (pen/pencil) or magnetic charging (computer tape) but the careful positioning of atoms. Thus, information will be stored and conveyed at the maximum possible density.
Neat idea. Three stars.
Everyone's Hometown Is Guernica, by Willard Marsh
A starving painter adopts a scraggly kitten and, almost simultaneously, is consumed with an art idea he must commit to canvas. As he pours his soul into his work, the kitten disappears, replaced by an alluring, independent woman who cooks and cleans for him, never saying a word. I won't betray the ending, which is powerful, sad and poetic.
This is definitely the standout piece of the issue. Four stars.
The 2-D Problem, by Jody Scott
Things slip into mediocrity again with the subsequent nonsensical piece from Jody Scott. Apparently, folks from Callisto have the ability to translate fiction into reality. This becomes problematic when one Callistan, slated to be an ambassador of sorts to Earth, gets a hold of a comic book and brings Little Orphan Annie to life. Flat life, but life nevertheless.
It's never explained how this power works, and the humor is about as flat as the story's subject matter.
Two stars.
First Context, by Laurence M. Janifer and S. J. Treibich
Speaking of Mariner, it is the subject for this punchline-focused vignette in which the human race gets fined by aliens for letting a probe go errant into a restricted zone.
First Context is like one of those four panel comics that should have ended on panel three.
Two stars.
Behind the Teacher's Back, by Isaac Asimov
A sequel of sorts to Asimov's article in the April issue on the uncertainty principle, Dr. A. describes the discovery of the third of the four presently known fundamental forces of the universe. There's nothing in here I didn't already know, thanks to my time as an astrophysics major, but the energy version of the uncertainty principle is one of my favorite subjects.
You tell me if he succeeded in conveying what he was trying to convey.
Four stars.
A Stick for Harry Eddington, by Chad Oliver
By the turn of the 21st Century, retirement comes at 50 and boredom soon after. What's left to do when one's salad days are in the rear view mirror, the kids are off to college, and the spouse fails to excite? Have your mind exchanged with someone from a "primitive" culture, one which still values the important things in life!
Stick seems more a vehicle to denigrate the upcoming decadent, materialistic life we seem to be headed for. On the other hand, the sting in the story's ending is pretty clever.
A solid three stars.
The Immortal, by Gordon R. Dickson
Hundreds of parsecs behind enemy lines, the ancient fighting ship La Chasse Gallerie, struggles its way home over a series of ten light-year hops. Its pilot and sole crewmember, who left Earth a young man, is now a staggering two hundred years old. Yet he continues to fend off enemy interceptors, always gustily singing one French shanty or another.
Back on Earth, it is concluded that this survivor, who has somehow pushed the boundaries of the human life span, might hold the key to immortality. A risky penetration and rescue mission is executed.
The first ten pages of this story are rather dry and slow, and I can't help but think they could have been condensed into a page or two. Also marring this piece is the melodramatic portrayal of the leader of the rescuing task force, a bitter battle-fatigued man with a death wish, and the geriatric specialist assigned to his ship.
But The Immortal eventually hits its stride, and if the end result is not perfection, it is not unsatisfying.
Call it a high three stars.
The New Frontier
Science fiction, like science, seems to be in a transitional stage. As writers explore the new, as-yet unsurveyed realms of the universe, the resulting stories should only grow in quality and scope. Until, of course, some new probe upends everything again!
What frontier's literary exploration do you look most forward to?
"The Masculinist Revolt" was an unusually clumsy piece for Tenn. He's generally a much better writer. It would help if I could be sure just what it is he's satirizing. Is it feminism, the typical knuckle-dragging response to feminism by some men, advertising, political propaganda, political movements? The possible list is nearly endless. Whatever he was trying to tell us is hopelessly muddled.
The Rohrer is a touch heavy-handed. He's been at this for a while now, so one could say he ought to have improved much more as a writer than he has, but it's easy to forget that he's also just out of high school. He probably needs a bit more seasoning to tell this story than a year of college can give.
Ted Thomas has actually found an interesting idea. This might even be two months in a row. I'm not sure you could build a story around this, but it would make a nice bit of background to flesh out a world.
"Guernica" was very good. I found the ending a bit obvious, but that didn't detract from the story too much.
"2-D" was just dumb. Little Orphan Annie as a McCarthyite red hunter was a little jarring, but on reflection I guess I can see it.
"First Context" might have worked if it had been considerably shorter. Pared down to a page, page and a half, get rid of the cut-rate Jack D. Ripper, and it might at least evince a mild smirk.
Dr. A's article was good. Certainly better than a lot of what he's been offering of late. It did take him a little too long to get to the point, but then he's a long-winded fellow.
The Oliver was decent, though not really my cup of tea. But two Oliver stories this year may mean he's coming back from his hiatus of the last few years, and that's a good thing.
The Dickson was solid. As usual, military themes seem to bring out his better writing. I agree that it could have been shorter. On the other hand, maybe longer would have been better, using the extra length to give us the protagonist's back story in real detail, thus making his motivations seem more believable, and then letting the main story here be the climax.
Well, "The Masculinist Revolt" is certainly designed to raise some eyebrows. I get the feeling that Tenn is out to skewer everybody, from the most traditional of male supremacists to the most radical of feminists. Nobody is spared from his poison pen, it seems.
The Wilson cartoon seems to be just a visual pun, making a connection between an old-fashioned gramophone's horn and a cornucopia. Cute, if not really funny.
Most of the rest of the fiction is just filler, it seems, either adventure or comedy, with a touch of social commentary.
Which leaves "Everyone's Hometown is Guernica." This is a perfect example of the "literary" end of the spectrum of fantastic fiction. It's a telling point that they had to reprint this from a "little" magazine.
(The copyright line under the story gave me a clue. Digging through some journals at the library, I was able to discover that it was published in "motive" {the small "m" is mandatory}, a publication from {deep breath} the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry hosted at Boston University School of Theology. That's a mouthful, and makes it sound like some kind of church newsletter, but it fact it's considered to be an avant garde magazine with a liberal viewpoint. I took a quick look at the same issue where the story appeared.)
http://sth-archon.bu.edu/motive/issues/1964_May/assets/basic-html/page-55.html
There are articles about Christianity, of course, but also some very modern poetry, and discussion of controversial issues.
Which makes me wonder where the line between fantasy and science fiction, as opposed to "literary" fiction might be. The more blurring the better, I think.
It's possible to go so far into what's being called New Wave (courtesy of New Worlds, mostly) that you lose the reader in a sea of incomprehensibility. On the other hand, it's possible for SF and fantasy to ignore traditional literary values and turn into worthless rehashings of old space opera and sword-and-sorcery.
The best of imaginative fiction combines original, clear thinking, avoiding the fuzziness of the worse of the "literary," with the attention to style, theme, and characterization often ignored by the worst pulp fiction.
There's plenty of room for thoughtful, well-written fantasy adventure (such as Leiber) and equally intelligent and smoothly narrated ""hard" SF (such as this new guy Niven, or some of Anderson.) There's also plenty of room for highly "literary," experimental fiction, that just barely fits into the category of speculative fiction. F&SF would seem to be the perfect place to find this mixture of contrasting, but equally enjoyable fiction.
I got so deep into my wordy musings about the field that I forgot to sign my name.
"I don’t know any women espousing for equality in all fields and a free ride on the back of men. "
You sweet summer child. Such dinosaurs still exist in the 21st century, sadly..
With Mariner 4 the canale on Mars passed into an alternate universe.
Imaging was the final nail in the coffin for the canals , something a lot of astronomers had known for a long time but SF writers didn't buy into , until now.
Got this issue used (yard sale?) around 1968. Started subscribing about a year or two later. Still remember most of the stories; the magazine itself is at the back of one of my two-deep bookshelves, and more trouble to dig out than it's worth. Guernica was certainly the best, and the Dickson a second place. I do recall that this was the first Asimov essay I ever read, and it was quite intriguing for me back in either 7th or 8th grade. Without Guernica it would, however, be something of a forgettable issue (though I'll always love that cover).
Thank you, Snark!
I believe these covers were all purloined from the New York Worlds Fair. That's why they're both beautiful and have nothing to do with the stories in the book…
Coming late to this so don't have much more to add than others have already said. A bit of a lame issue with Guernica and Immortal being the only interesting ones.
I had been looking at my personal numbers on my feelings on F&SF this year compared with Avram Davidson's tenure. What I noticed is my ratings for vigenettes and short stories has remained largely the same but the ratings for novelettes+ have improved significantly. And I do think even here there is a better quality to these even in this issue, even if the Dickson doesn't amount to much and the Masculinist ends up being very confused.
I see the ad saying in a couple of months we will be getting a Zelazny serial. Given how good He Who Shapes was, hopefully he can help bring back some quality to the longer pieces again.