by Gideon Marcus
The once proud golden pages of F&SF have taken a definite turn for the worse under the Executive Editorship of onef Avram Davidson. At last, after two years, we arrive at a new bottom. Those of you with months remaining on your subscription can look forward to a guaranteed supply of kindling through the winter.
The Tree of Time (Part 1 of 2) by Damon Knight
Gordon Naismith is professor of Temporal Physics at an early 21st Century university. We quickly learn that this 35-year old veteran has lost all memory of his life prior to a crash that occurred five years ago. Moreover, he keeps suffering blackouts, during which people close to him are killed, fried by unknown energies. Who is he? Is he even human? And what is the nefarious scheme of the pair of froggy humanoids from the 200th Century who kidnap Naismith before the police can nab him?
Damon Knight, an ofttimes brilliant author, seems to have taken a bet. His challenge: to recreate the hoariest, most cliche-ridden dialogue and style of the "Golden Age of Science Fiction," the sort of stuff A.E. Van Vogt did much better. 66 pages is far too much space to take up with a joke. And this is only Part 1!
Two stars.
The Court of Tartary by T. P. Caravan
A stodgy professor of the classics wakes up as a bull the day his herd is scheduled for the stockyard. Attempts to convince the wranglers of his humanity prove fruitless, and in the end (as an astute reader will have figured out), we learn that his circumstances were not unique.
Some might find it droll. I thought it pointless. Two stars.
The Eternal Lovers by Robert F. Young
The same Robert F. Young who gave us the brilliant To Fell a Tree has been reduced to cranking out overly sentimental shorts. This one stars the astronaut whose ship misses the moon and the adoring wife who shanghais her own craft to join him on his voyage to nowhere.
The story relies on the notion that astronauts cannot stand the mental rigors of being alone in space for "any length of time," an hypothesis clearly disproven by Comrades Tereshkova, Bykovsky, Nikolaev, Popov, and Titov (not to mention Captain Cooper). The rest of the details are equally woolly. Even for a poetic tale, it's lazy.
Two stars.
Pete Gets His Man by J. P. Sellers
Don Kramer is hounded by Pete Kelly, the most famous, most handsome, and most fearless detective in the world. Is Don a criminal? A jealous rival? The answer to this question is the brilliant spot in an otherwise pedestrian tale of a descent into madness. Three stars.
Roll Call, by Isaac Asimov
Like Willy Ley over in Galaxy this month, Asimov has decided to phone things in for his nonfiction article. It's about the origin of the names of the planets. Schoolboy stuff. Three stars.
What Strange Stars and Skies, by Avram Davidson
Damon Knight is not the only one aping an out of date style in this issue. Editor Davidson, in an impenetrable imitation of interwar British composition, writes the tale of a do-gooder Dame who is abducted by aliens to do-good elsewhere.
I'm sure my readers will point out that Davidson has done a perfect send-up of some 1920s writer or other, thus exposing me for the boor that I am. Nevertheless, I was only able to soldier halfway through this dreck before skimming.
One star.
While I appreciate Mr. Davidson's earnest desire to augment his (dwindling number of) readers' coal supply, all the same, I think I'd rather have my favorite SF magazine back.
F&SF certainly got off to a very rocky start under Davidson, but I felt that the last several months have been decent. This particular issue is nothing to write home about, but it's a darn sight better than the first few issues under AD.
The Knight tale is rather pulpy. Thus far. It's entirely possible that he'll turn it all around and give us an unexpected payoff in the second installment. This half was readable, if nothing special, but I'll reserve judgement until I've seen the whole.
"The Court of Tartary" was drab and dull. Not to mention quickly predictable. Caravan turned out a few stories back in the early 50s, but none have stuck in my memory, if I even read them. He had an utterly forgettable short-short in the August issue, but nothing for several years before. The question is does Davidson have something on Caravan to get him to start writing again, or does Caravan have something on Davidson to make him buy his stories?
I really don't know what to make of Robert F. Young. The man has absolutely no middle ground. His stories are either very, very good or just horrible. Maudlin schmaltz like this or those awful Biblical things. There's always that moment of hope when you start one of his pieces, but that hope seems to be dashed more often than not.
"Pete Gets His Man" wasn't bad, though again nothing special. The ending was a touch predictable, but a competent story.
Dr. A apparently promised to do an article with no math and this was the best he could do. Either last month or the month before, he admitted to dashing off the article on his way out the door for the Memorial Day weekend. I conclude that he must have been on his way out the door for a summer vacation this time.
The Davidson story was, well, words on a page. The style was utterly wrong for the setting. The time was clearly between the Wars, but the style was late Victorian. Agatha Christie never wrote like this, nor did Wodehouse or any other author from the period. Bad stuff from an author who was once capable of so much better.
If Davidson's story selection starts affecting sales and subscription numbers, maybe the publishers will look for a new editor. A lot more letters declining to renew subscriptions, like from that kid with the weird name a few months ago, would help. On the other hand, he bought "A Rose for Ecclesiastes."
The link is broken.
Fixed! Thank you.
This was a very weak issue indeed. It may tell you something about the magazine, and even more about me, to admit that my favorite story was actually the one by Robert F. Young; but I'm a sucker for his sentimental science fiction love stories.
"The Tree of Time" just seems to be one darn thing after another.
"The Court of Tartary" may have some satiric point, but I missed it.
"Pete Gets His Man" was OK, but not the most original idea in the world.
"What Strange Stars and Skies" was 99% Davidson amusing himself with language and 1% plot.
Spoiler:
The "Caravan" story is horror about how, their personalities trapped in cattle about to be slaughtered, the various trapped characters try various forms of expression in the hope they can make their plight clear…not having a chance to realize that a cattle-brainer isn't too likely to be the most sophisticated, imaginative nor sensitive audience. A lot more akin to Kafka than Campbell.