by David Levinson

The angels of our better nature…

It all started in January with a day of music and speeches called the Human Be-In in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Young people came from all over, and as many as 30,000 people attended. When spring break rolled around, more and more descended on the city’s Haight-Ashbury district and other places around the Bay Area. Alarmed by the growing “hippie problem”, the Mayor and Board of Supervisors tried to stem the tide, but only drew greater attention to the mass migration. The trickle has become a flood, and tens of thousands of “flower children” have come to San Francisco. In response to the city’s inaction, various groups and organizations formed the Council for the Summer of Love, creating a free clinic and helping newcomers to find food and housing.

The official poster created by Bob Schnepf

Music is important to the youth movement, and two events in the Bay Area proved very popular. On June 10th and 11th, radio station KFRC held the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival in the Cushing Memorial Amphitheater on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, with all proceeds going to the Hunter’s Point Child Care Center. Bands from the region and farther afield performed on two stages, while visitors could also wander through the arts and crafts fair in the woods around the theater. Some of the bigger names included Dionne Warwick, the Byrds, Jefferson Airplane and the Doors. The event appears to have gone off without incident.

The festival was delayed one week due to bad weather.

One week later, the Monterey International Pop Festival took place down the coast. Inspired by the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Big Sur Folk Festival, this brainchild of John Phillips (of the Mamas and the Papas) and record producer Lou Adler was put together in just seven weeks. There was some overlap with the Fantasy Fair (Jefferson Airplane and the Byrds, for example), but there were some really big names as well, such as Simon and Garfunkel, the Animals, the Who, and of course the Mamas and the Papas. Sunday afternoon was given over to sitar player Ravi Shankar. The Who and Jimi Hendrix were afraid of being upstaged by the other, so they flipped a coin. Hendrix got to go second on Sunday evening, and after the Who finished their set by smashing their instruments, Hendrix topped them by setting his guitar on fire, smashing it and tossing the pieces into the audience.

This poster is a good example of the new psychedelic art style.

Summer officially begins with the solstice, when the sun reaches its northernmost point. In the pre-dawn hours on the 21st, a thousand or so hippies climbed the Twin Peaks in the heart of San Francisco to greet the sunrise with chants, drums and incense to inaugurate their hoped for Summer of Love. The sun even managed to burn through the fog around 7:00. Whether it really will be a summer of love or another long, hot summer like last year remains to be seen.

Hippie Randall DeLeon greets the sun and makes the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle.

… and the demons of our worst

This month’s IF is full of demons: personal, metaphorical and literal. But first, editor Fred Pohl makes the death of Worlds of Tomorrow official. The problem was distribution. Not enough news stands carried the magazine, and digests (unlike the slicks and their high ad rates) can’t get by on just subscription sales. So some of the features exclusive to Worlds of Tomorrow have been rolled into IF and the price is going up, both of which are reflected on the cover.

That’s not quite how black magic works in the new Blish novel, but it ought to be. Art by Morrow

Faust Aleph-Null (Part 1 of 3), by James Blish

Arms dealer Baines has come to Italy to meet with Theron Ware, a magician specializing in crimes of violence, whose power comes from trafficking with demons. Baines is naturally skeptical and asks Ware to prove his abilities by causing the apparently natural death of Governor Rogan of California. Meanwhile, the monks of Monte Albano, who derive their powers from dealing with angels, have learned through divination that something serious will come of this meeting. In accordance with ancient agreements, they send an observer, Father Domenico. Following the death of Governor Rogan, Fr. Domenico and Baines arrive at Ware’s villa on Christmas Day. To be continued.

Ware has set a demon to follow Baines around, probably until his check clears. Art by Morrow

Interesting. This is our world, but magic works, though not openly. I suspect this may have been inspired by Blish’s research for his novel about Roger Bacon a few years ago. In any case, the writing is sound, much better than The Hour Before Earthrise, although none of the characters – not even the white monks – are terribly pleasant. I’m curious to see where this is going.

A solid three stars.

The Trouble With Vegans, by Roger Deeley

Vegans are inveterate smugglers, aided by their unusual biology. The former Chief Customs Officer of Newyorkport explains how he lost his job.

Here is this month’s new author. It’s not bad for a freshman effort, but it’s also rather contrived. Acceptable, but the author has a lot of room to grow.

Barely three stars.

Clear as Mud, by Keith Laumer

Retief is Vice-consul of the Terran envoy to Slunch, a planet beset by massive mudflows. He has a plan for fixing the problem, but is interrupted by the arrival of a trade mission. Rainsinger, the head of the mission, proceeds to make things much worse.

Retief and Magnan head for the source of the mud. Art by Gaughan

While this is a lesser Retief story, a couple of things do set it apart. For one thing, Retief is barely in it outside of the action scenes. Most of the focus is on his usual immediate superior, Ben Magnan. For another, the high-ranking diplomat recognizes and acknowledges his mistake, apologizes for it, and then helps Retief set things right. Very unusual.

A low three stars.

Fan Into Pro, by Lin Carter

Picking up where he left off last month, Our Man in Fandom talks about fans who have become writers. After name-checking a few older writers like Ray Bradbury and Fred Pohl, he looks at some newer writers to come out of fandom, with people like Ted White, Tom Purdom or Terry Carr. Artists also come out of fandom, like Frazetta and Morrow.

Three stars.

The Winged Helmet, by Fred Saberhagen

On a world where a quirk of physics has humanity fighting the deadly Berserkers across time, the life-hating machines have killed the semi-legendary King Ay. In the present, Time Ops has only a few days to find the keyhole that will let them correct the disaster before the ripples of the change in history catch up to them. The only person who can go back to Ay’s day and not lose his memory is the Stone Age man Matt. Has time operative Derron suggested Matt’s name because that’s the man for the job or because the girl he loves is in love with Matt?

Matt, posing as Ay, fights a “demon”. Art by Wood

This is a direct sequel to Stone Man from the final issue of Worlds of Tomorrow. The main characters here are all from that story, but this reads well enough without knowing the other tale. Saberhagen continues to keep this series fresh, especially because they’re really about the people in them, not the war against the machines. The parts set in the past read like a decent fantasy story, so I wonder if it might not be time for Mr. Saberhagen to branch out and write about something else.

Three stars.

Paint ‘em Green, by Burt K. Filer

Ambrija (America, Britain, Japan) and Russia are locked into a Cold War race to come up with a non-nuclear superweapon. Junk dealer Jack Booth might be able to help engineer Charlie come up with something, but it’s going to be expensive.

Filer’s sophomore outing is slightly better than his debut, but only slightly. The writing is fine, but the story has little internal logic and is hurt by leading to a “humorous” conclusion.

Two stars.

When Women Rule, by Sam Moskowitz

Moving over from Worlds of Tomorrow, Sam Moskowitz takes a look at the long fascination with stories in which women are in charge, with or without the presence of men. He traces those stories from the Greek myths of the Amazons, through the Spanish novel which gave California its name, and on through the Pulp Era to today (his most recent example is Amazon Planet, which I’m not sure he actually understood). As usual, his knowledge is encyclopedic, but he doesn’t do much with it beyond reciting a catalogue. He also fails to engage with the question of why the women are of enormous size in so many of these stories. The best he can do for a conclusion is that society needs both men and women, but he seems content with the status quo.

Barely three stars.

The Felled Star (Part 2 of 2), by Philip José Farmer

On the Riverworld, Samuel Clemens, aided by the ape-man Joe Miller and Lothar von Richtofen, has joined forces with a group of vikings led by Erik Bloodaxe to find a large source of iron. Bloodaxe wants power, Sam wants a steamboat. Having survived the fall of a giant meteor, they’ve landed where they think it fell, but have no luck finding it. One night, Sam is visited by a Mysterious Stranger claiming to be a high-ranking member of the Ethicals, the people responsible for calling humanity back from death. The Stranger is opposed to the goals of his compatriots and is recruiting a group to thwart their aims. He tells Sam where to find the resources he needs and promises to find Sam’s wife Livy. Sam puts the whole thing down to a drug-induced dream, but Joe says he can smell the Stranger and reveals that he encountered people who smell like that in his original life back on Earth. But first, Sam is going to have to betray Bloodaxe before Bloodaxe betrays him.

The Mysterious Stranger sends a fellow by the name of Odysseus to help Sam. Art by Gaughan

There’s a story here, but it’s awfully incomplete. Most of it is Sam wrestling with his inner demons and some exposition about the overarching story of why the Riverworld exists. Farmer drops the bombshell of Joe encountering Ethicals hundreds of thousands of years ago, but its only purpose is to get Sam to believe in the Mysterious Stranger. And the whole thing ends on a huge cliffhanger. There’s obviously much more to come, and I can only hope Farmer gets to it soon. Unfortunately, we all know he has problems with endings.

Still, three stars for this and the serial as a whole (pending a real conclusion).

Summing up

Another stroll through the garden of mediocrity. The new Blish serial certainly looks promising, but he’s not an author I necessarily trust. The Farmer could have been a lot more than it is, if only he’d written the rest of the story. But then, he’s another author I don’t really trust to get things right. I don’t mind middle of the road if there’s also something that really stands out. At this point, I’d take a really bad story, just to enjoy ripping it apart. Better luck next month.

Harl Vincent. Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.

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