[July 22, 1964] (August 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)


by Gideon Marcus

(If you found us at San Diego Comic-Con and can't figure out why we seem to be 55 years behind you, this should clear things up!)

Bayside Heroics

This weekend, the family and I took a mini-vacation in our home town.  Living in the suburbs as we do, it's easy to forget that San Diego has so much to offer.  Balboa Park, Old Town, the Gaslamp, not to mention the docks and the waterfront. 

Of course, being who we are, we needed some kind of event to anchor the trip, such excuse being provided by a little get together of comics enthusiasts ambitiously dubbed "Comic-Con."  I think San Diego is big enough to warrant a real SFF con — perhaps we'll get our equivalent of Lunacon someday?

Anyway, time travel was the theme, and I ran across this fellow who looked a bit like a medieval version of me:

There were also these fantastic women dressed up as Spy vs. Spy from Mad Magazine.  Very impressive!

All was not roses, however.  I took along some reading material to while away the calm hours by the hotel poolside, a bunch of books and the latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  I had (dim) hopes that this installment might reverse, or at least halt, the declining trend in the magazine's quality.  Alas, such was not meant to be.

The Issue at Hand


Cover by James Roth

A Bulletin from the Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Research at Marmouth, Mass., by Wilma Shore

It's always a good idea to start your magazine with a hook, your best stuff.  Instead, Editor Davidson led the August 1964 issue with a short piece by newcomer Wilma Shore, a dialog between a scientist from the present and an everyman from the future — one that proves utterly fruitless.  It's the sort of throwaway gag that Jack Benny might make mildly amusing.  Here, it just droops like a wet rag.

Two stars.

"I Had Vacantly Crumpled It into My Pocket … But By God, Eliot, It Was a Photograph from Life!", by Joanna Russ

Evoking but not aping Lovecraft, Joanna Russ' latest turn involves a fellow with a taste for the pulps and nothing fantastical written since 1940ish.  An abrasive anti-social, he unexpectedly finds his love in a park, her nose in a tome by the long-dead H.P.  But does she really exist?  And what ominous specter animates her, gives her purpose?

Russ never fails to deliver something atmospheric, but in the end, I found the piece as insubstantial as the story's mysterious femme fatale.

Three stars.

Poor Planet, by J. T. McIntosh

A few pages into this "latest" tale by McIntosh, I had a distinct impression of deja vu.  In fact, my description from his story in the April 1959 Satellite, The Solomon Plan, will summarize things quite adequately:

"A terran spy tries to succeed where all of his predecessors have failed before: solving the mystery of the backward planet of [Solitaire].  Where the other planets of the 26th century terran federation enjoy a correspondingly advanced quality of life, the hyper-patriotic [Solitaire] seems to be stuck in the 20th century.  Moreover, their population is unaccountably low given the length of time it has been settled."

In fact, Poor Planet is almost identical to the prior tale (which, itself, was a reprint!) including the sub-plot involving our middle-aged spy meeting with, and ultimately turning, a young local spy.  However, in this one, the spy spends much of his time leering at the girl, noting her affections for him, and then decides that it's best if he be her new father-figure.  Because all girls (even ones who are adults) need a daddy, and her current one wasn't doing his job very well.

I thought the original story decent if somewhat implausible.  This new version is the worse for its ickyness.

Two stars.

Nada, by Thomas M. Disch

I had such high hopes for this one.  It starts like something from the pen of Zenna Henderson, a sweeping piece about a teacher trying to connect with a gifted but apathetic pre-teen.  But what starts out like the next installment of The People falters and ends as a lesser episode of The Twilight Zone

Two stars.

The Red Cells, by Theodore L. Thomas

Another short "Science Springboard" piece in which Mr. Thomas says that, since red blood cells are more robust in our youth, that the key to youth is to strengthen our red blood cells.  Correlation, causation… what's the difference?

Two stars.

Epitaph for the Future, by Ethan Ayer

Decent but forgettable poetry about a man (or a planet) and his/its desire for a plain, unadorned grave.

Three stars?

A Nice, Shady Place, by Dennis Etchison

Another newcomer, and a story straight from Weird Tales.  Young woman with freckled skin (we are told this many times) goes to summer camp with her lip-licking (we are told this many times) boyfriend to find out what became of her brother.  Turns out that the campers are all forcibly made hosts to salamander-thingies that take over their minds.  A la The Puppet Masters.

Young Etchison has not yet learned Polonius's dictum, and the piece is pure corn.

Two stars.

Redman, by Robert Lipsyte and Thomas Rogers

Lipsyte and Rogers offer a perhaps prescient look into the television of tomorrow, when shows won't just simulate violence but will actually feature real violence.  In this case, the program is Massacre, portraying the slaughter of the White Man at the hand of the Indians.  Except, in this case, the Blue-eyed Devils aren't actors.

At first, I thought this was going to be an interesting take on (perhaps justified) revenge by the consistently decimated natives of our continent, as seen by an actor who derives lineage from both camps.  In the end, I'm really not sure what the two authors were trying to say.

Two stars.

The Days of Our Years, by Isaac Asimov

If you want to know how the calendar got to be the way it is today, the good Doctor's article is a nice primer on the subject.  There's little in here I didn't know, but it was a fun read, nevertheless.  Also, I happen to know that the entertainer, whom he got off the hot seat by performing in his place, was none other than Tom Lehrer.

Four stars.

When the Change-Winds Blow, by Fritz Leiber

This one started well enough — a fellow wings through the air of partially terraformed Mars, trying to forget the atomic destruction that savaged Earth and killed his would-be beloved.  But it then segues into a vividly (one might uncharitably say "purplishly") rendered lucid dream involving a cathedral of sand and people from a poem.  I didn't like it.  I'm sure it'll be nominated for the Hugo.

One star.

In the Calendar of Saints, by Leonard Tushnet

Last up is (yet another) Deal with the Devil story, this one won by Old Nick.  The gotcha is only mildly clever, but the portrayal of Communist Poland, with which Tushnet is well-acquainted, is fascinating.

Three stars.

Summing Up

It's a good thing the rest of the weekend was such a blast because this issue was really quite lacking.  Oh well.  You tune in for the sardonic (half) wit, right?  On the positive side, there was some discussion of a renewal of The Twilight Zone.  The issue is finding a new host since Serling doesn't want the job anymore.

I have a modest proposal…


[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge!  Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




15 thoughts on “[July 22, 1964] (August 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)”

  1. A matter of taste? Nearly all of the stories were reprinted later.  Many of them multiple times. The Leiber appeared in Carr's annual anthology. The Disch in an F&SF best of anthology.  As was the Shore.  Both the Disch and Leiber were Merril alternate choices.

    1. Good grief, you don't even like Leiber's "Change-Winds"?  You are an ignorant little turdwattle.  –Chris DeVito

  2. Missives from the future to the contrary, I'm in near total agreement with Gideon on this one. Usually, there's one I like better, one I like less and it all averages out. But this time, it's right down the line.

    The Shore was a decent attempt that failed in the execution. It must be set in the same timeline as "The Marching Morons", because the supposed everyman was unbelievably stupid.

    Russ gave us a good story, though less Lovecraftian than I was expecting from the title. My only real problem with it is that I remember a very similar story from a while back set in… Paris? Rome? Something like that, and the male protagonist could only meet his paramour after dark.

    I literally cannot remember a single thing about "Poor Planet". That pretty much says it all.

    The Disch could have been better. It started off well, but missed the mark. Call it a screaming line drive that landed just outside the foul line. Disch hasn't been living up to the potential he showed early on. Let's hope he turns things around. He's got talent.

    This was the weakest of Ted Thomas's idea pieces yet, which is saying something. And poetry tends to go in one eye and out the other for me.

    Etchison shows promise, but this story needed a good editor to tighten it up. Alas, it first ran in a college magazine or paper and then Davidson got his hands on it and just ran it as is. Not that he's ever demonstrated any skill in editorial work.

    "Redman" might have been trying to take a poke at television and the ways it influences public opinion. Well enough written, but meandering and not sure of whatever point it's trying to make.

    The Leiber was disappointing. Very atmospheric, but just got too weird. I really have no idea what was going on there at the end.

    The final story was good deal with the devil tale. The twist was good, though the title sort of gave the game away.

    Another weak issue of F&SF. It's long past time for Davidson to move on. With the editorial grind off his back, maybe he could turn his own writing around to the clever sort of thing he once wrote. Heck, even "Joyleg" was kind of fun.

    1. How can I disagree?

      With regard to the Leiber, someone once criticized one of my stories saying that the protagonist saw many things but didn't do very much (I disagree, but I can see where he was coming from).  The star of the Leiber story has a lucid dream, but he makes no decisions and is unchanged by the experience.  Add to that the highly affected, but not particularly effective (for me), prose, and I was frustrated and bored.

  3. The Leiber is included in the recent Change War collection, Snakes & Spiders. Perhaps it has more significance in that context.

  4. Mostly agreement here, with a couple of exceptions.

    The Wilma Shore story with the world's second longest title was a cute joke, nothing more.

    The Joanna Russ story with the world's longest title was well-written; maybe deliberately over-written, in the Lovecraftian way, and I suspect Ms Russ had her tongue firmly in cheek.

    "Poor Planet" was not good at all.  I didn't buy it for a minute, and the relationship was creepy, as you say.

    I liked "Nada" more than you did.  I noted the Zenna Henderson resemblance, and I thought this was a pretty effective anti-Henderson horror story.

    The Etchison was a so-so horror story, by comparison.

    "Redman" wasn't much of a story, and I may have detected a touch of stereotyping of American Indians.  (To be fair, that may have been part of the point.)

    As you say, "In the Calendar of Saints" was much more memorable for its setting than its plot.

    Which leads me to the big disagreement.  "When the Change-Winds Blow" was my favorite story in the issue.  I'll be the first to admit that it doesn't have a shred of plot.  That's OK with me, and I greatly enjoyed it as a piece of prose poetry.

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