Movies

[November 16, 1961] Made in Japan (Mothra)

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Now here's a special treat.  Not long ago, the Junior Traveler began contributing as a co-author.  This time around, she has decided to take center stage.  My little girl is all growed up!  Excuse me.  I have something in my eye…


by Lorelei Marcus

Recently, me and my family thought we should take a break from time traveling (in fiction and movies) and do some real traveling!  We decided to go to Japan!  I was sad because we weren't going to be able to watch any Twilight Zone or new movies.  Luckily, we were treated to a new Japanese movie called Mothra.  Me and my father had the luxury to see it in theaters, in Japan!  It was a very similar (but intriguingly different) experience to an American movie in various ways.

Mothra, similar to many of the American movies we've watched, is a monster movie – in this case, about a giant moth that attacks Tokyo.  I noticed monster movies often start out the same, something or someone dear to the monster is taken from them to a big city, and the monster comes back to rescue it, destroying said city in the process.  It happened in Gorgo; this movie did not break the mold.

We start out with a ship crashing on an island that is being used as a nuclear test site by the Japanese.  A helicopter finds four survivors who were miraculously free of any radiation poisoning or side affects!  A team of scientists, including their sponsor Nelson, explore this mysterious island.  It turns out there have been natives living on this island the whole time!  Among these completely, naturally brown-skinned natives, are two foot-tall Japanese girls who communicate through song.  Nelson steals these girls thinking he can make a profit.  Of course the girls and the natives are distressed, so they call to Mothra for help, who at this point is still an egg.

After a ceremony and dance number, Mothra hatches as a little larvae and starts making her way across the ocean to Japan, where it wreaks havoc.  There was an exciting scene involving a baby and a bridge that had me on the edge of my seat.  I will not tell you how it ends, but I'm a real sucker when it comes to animals and babies in distress.  Anyway, after destroying many buildings, and killing many people, Mothra cocoons herself onto Tokyo Tower!  By this point, Nelson has now escaped to New Kirk City, in his native country of "Roliska."  There, he is relieved to hear that Mothra has been defeated by Roliskan-provided heat rays. 

Or has she?

The movie goes on for quite a bit longer, but to avoid spoiling you of the ending, I will stop my summary there.  Now for my opinions!  I actually enjoyed the movie a lot; however after seeing so many of this type of movie, it would be a lie to say I wasn't very bored at some parts.  The special effects were outstanding; it was hard to tell real from fake at some parts.  Though, by the second half they weren't nearly as good, it was understandable considering it was supposed to be a remake of America, which Japanese would not have much knowledge of its architecture.  The sets of Japan though, those were completely realistic.  Even the tanks — the tanks were so good I couldn't believe they were fake at first!  There is no doubt the effects in this movie had a high budget.

However, the story and acting at times were lacking.  I think the largest cases of terrible acting were Nelson and the incidental Americans.  Through the entire movie, Nelson's poor Japanese accent bugged us so much — it was just so annoying!  There were certainly American actors who couldn't do a proper Japanese accent to save their lives, but Nelson's halfway-servicable accent was somehow worse.  There's almost no way to describe how terrible it was! 

In contrast, the American dialogue, particularly that of one of the scientists, was probably the best part of the movie.  The emphasis on certain words was completely unnatural, and the words themselves were completely out of place!  Still it made my dad and I laugh every time one of these odd lines were just thrown into the background, simply for the heck of it!  "I wonder…a blood-sucking plant!"  Still gets me every time.

As I said before, the plot was your typical monster movie story. Though there were certainly exciting moments, with outstanding effects to complement them, I still found myself bored at times.  The story isn't bad, and certainly isn't weak, but I still find it lacking in a way that you can't simply add something to fix.  You would need to re-write the story rather than add something to it to make it better.  The movie is a very specific genre, and I'm starting to get bored of that genre, so adding a twist or different plot all together would likely really help make it interesting.  I knew what I was getting into from the start, and how it was going to end.  I think the movie would've been better if it was just a little less predictable at least.

Overall I'd say this movie was solid, if unsurprising.  Similar to Gorgo, it did exactly what it was trying to do: be a disaster monster movie.  Clever characters as well as hyper realistic special effects and an adorable giant moth managed to keep me watching, despite the mediocre story and bad acting that made me (for lack of a better word) cringe at times, really tied it all together.  With all of these factors in mind, I'd give this movie a solid 3 out of 5 stars.

Now rather than me signing off, I'll I have my father do the footer for a change!  Here are his thoughts on Mothra:


by Gideon Marcus

I don't have much to add to Lorelei's excellent report.  A few things elevated this movie above Gorgo for me, despite having a similar plot.  Firstly, I appreciated that the movie's protagonist, "Zen-Chan" the journalist, was atypical.  A chubby, comedic type, his performance might have simply been played for laughs.  Instead, we got a competent, plucky fellow to root for.  Similarly, his colleague, the photographer Michi Hanamura, was not a love interest or an appendage.  Rather, she was a strong character with agency. 

The production values were exceptional, easily the match of a high budget American production like Journey to the Center of the Earth.  In particular, the aerial scenes when the beautifully organic Mothra larvae wriggles across the Japanese countryside are just exquisite.  The scenes with the little Mothra maidens were well done and as convincing as the miniature scenes in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. 

So all in all, I think this was a better movie than Gorgo and thus deserves a higher score.  Three and a half stars from me.

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Magazine

[November 13, 1961] (un)Moving Pictures (December 1961 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

The last decade saw a boom in written science fiction as well as science fiction cinema, due in part to both the fear of atomic warfare and the promise of space exploration.  Both trends have tapered off recently, possibly due to the many stories and films of poor quality offered to a public grown tired of cheap thrills.  (No doubt such a fate awaits the countless Westerns currently dominating American television screens.)

In any case, the two media have had an influence on each other, not always to the advantage of either.  Although science fiction movies have sometimes made use of the talents of important writers within the genre, such as Robert A. Heinlein’s contribution to Destination Moon, too often they have turned to the most juvenile pulp magazines and comic books for inspiration.  In turn, some written science fiction has lost the sophistication it gained under editors such as John W. Campbell, H. L. Gold, and Anthony Boucher. 

These musings come to mind when one peruses the pages of the latest issue of Fantastic.  Of the two longest stories in the magazine, one is reminiscent of recent science fiction films, while the other deals directly with the movie business.

It seems likely that Daniel F. Galouye’s lead novelette Spawn of Doom (note the melodramatic title, which would not be out of place on a theater marquee) was inspired by Lloyd Birmingham’s cover painting.  The scene depicted by the artist is described in great detail within the story, down to the exact number of tentacle-like things coming out of the meteorite on display in a museum.
This tale of a dangerous alien life form brought to Earth on a chunk of rock from outer space inevitably reminds the reader of movies like The Blob.  However, the author brings imagination and intelligence to a familiar theme.

The story is told from three points of view.  First we meet the humanoid Lumarians, aliens who patrol the galaxy in search of deadly creatures known as EGMites.  These beings subsist on electro-gravito-magnetic energy, hence their name.  When they land on a world after traveling through empty space in an unconscious state for immense periods of time, they prepare for reproduction by tearing the planet apart and sending spores out in all directions.  Obviously this poses a threat to life everywhere in the cosmos.
Next we enter the newly awakened mind of an EGMite which has reached Earth.  Filled with the desire to reproduce, and to destroy anything which seeks to interfere, it soon begins wreaking havoc on its surroundings, starting on a small scale but quickly escalating to the point where it is demolishing entire buildings.

Providing the viewpoint of endangered humanity is the curator of the museum where the EGMite’s meteoric hiding place is being exhibited.  This rugged young hero is ably assisted by a capable and attractive archivist, who not only provides romantic interest, but is on hand to scream when the monster from space attacks.  One can’t help wondering if the author has his tongue firmly in his cheek while describing these characters.  However, the tale never degrades into farce, and the quick-moving plot builds the necessary amount of suspense.  The transitions between the three points of view are sometimes abrupt, and the story has nothing particularly profound to say, but it’s solid entertainment.  Three stars.

During the intermission between our two feature presentations, let’s take a look at something quite different.  David Ely’s unusual story, The Last Friday in August, offers much food for thought.  The protagonist dwells in a large city, and finds the crushing presence of the vast crowds nearly unbearable.  He only finds peace through long periods of meditation.  One day he finds that he has a strange power over others.  This leads to an unexpected climax, which will leave the reader pondering its meaning.  Well-written, subtle, and evocative, this tale is likely to haunt the reader for a long time.  Four stars.

Back to the movies.  Point, by John T. Phillifent (perhaps better known under his pen name John Rackham), deals with a group of filmmakers who travel to Venus to make their latest blockbuster.  The proposed feature involves beautiful female Venusians, and seems intended to provide a bit of satire of silly science fiction movies such as Queen of Outer Space.  Although the author’s description of Venus is a bit more realistic than that, it’s still not terribly plausible.  The Planet of Love is a very dangerous place, inhabited by all kinds of deadly creatures, but its atmosphere is breathable, and humans can walk around on its hot, steamy surface without spacesuits.  The plot deals with a pilot who agrees to take the film crew into the Venusian wilderness.  As you might expect, things quickly go very wrong, and the story turns into a violent account of survival in a hostile environment.  All in all it’s a fairly typical adventure yarn, competent but hardly noteworthy.  Two stars.

After the double feature of novelettes we have a pair of short stories, one new and one old, to round out the magazine.  Up first is The Voice Box, by Allan W. Eckert, a very brief tale about a man who hates and fears telephones.  Written in a rather baroque style, it leads to a grim conclusion.  Since I share the narrator’s loathing of that terribly intrusive instrument, I am forced to award three stars to what is admittedly a minor piece.

This issue’s "fantasy classic" is by Robert E. Howard, a prolific author of pulp fiction who committed suicide decades ago at the age of thirty.  Best known to readers of speculative fiction for his tales of Conan and other fantasy adventures and horror stories, Howard also produced numerous stories in other genres ranging from sports fiction to Westerns.  Published near the end of his life in the August 15, 1936 issue of Argosy, The Dead Remember is a tale of the supernatural set in Dodge City in 1877.  The first part of the story takes the form of a letter from a cowboy to his brother, in which he confesses to the killing of a man and his wife during a drunk argument over a game of dice.  Before she dies the woman places a curse on him.  The second part of the story consists of several formal statements of witnesses to the fate of the murderer. 

Although this is a typical story of revenge from beyond the grave, the unusual structure provides some novelty.  Of most interest, perhaps, are the racial implications.  The murdered man is a Negro, and his witch-like wife is a "high yellow" of mixed race.  Although at first the killer seems to treat the married couple no differently than whites, when tempers flare the racial insults come out.  The author seems to imply that a woman of mixed race would be closer to the supernatural than others.  For its historical value, I’ll give this story two and one-half stars.

Overall this issue comes very close to a three star rating.  It certainly provides a wide variety of reading material, and is almost certain to have something to please any reader of imaginative fiction.

See you at the movies! 

And as luck would have it, the next article will feature a movie – the latest monstrous spectacular straight from Japan.  Stay tuned! [the Traveler].

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Movies, TV

[November 10, 1961] EARTH ON FIRE (UK Sci-fi Report)

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By Ashley R. Pollard

Last month, I wrote about the shocking explosion of the world’s largest atomic bomb.  Now, I plan to entertain and delight you all with a review of the film The Day the Earth Caught Fire, which will be on general release in Great Britain from the 23rd of November.  Its subject matter is serendipitous, if not unnaturally timely, cast in the light of recent events.  This can’t hurt its chances of doing well at the box office, and if you'll pardon the levity, it’s surely guaranteed to become a blockbuster.  This early review has been made possible by influence of the Traveller, who has gone to great lengths in assisting me with gaining the credentials to see a pre-release screening of the film. 

The Day the Earth Caught Fire stars Edward Judd, Leo McKern and Janet Munro and starts in a most striking manner with Judd’s character walking in sweltering heat through the deserted streets of London.  The story then flashes back to how it all began when both the Americans and Russian simultaneously exploded atomic bombs at the Earth’s poles.  This caused both the axial tilt to change and also shifted our planet in its orbit around the Sun.

The effects of the axial tilt mean disruption to the regular weather: torrential rain and floods for example.  It’s only later we find out that the Earth has also been pushed closer to the Sun, which means the planet will soon become too hot for human life.  Unlike other nuclear horror stories, the emphasis here is on the hero discovering what is happening by putting together the bits of the puzzle, using his skill as a Fleet Street journalist to tell the story.  The way the film is shot has an almost cinéma-vérité feel to it, and arguably, the story pacing has produced a very British end of the world as we know it.

I was very much reminded of the Hollywood adaptation of Nevil Shute’s On The Beach as both stories deal with the anxiety generated by the existence of atomic bombs in the world.  However, while the former ends with the impending death of mankind, The Day the Earth Caught Fire has a more ambiguous ending, leaving us with the news of the detonation of bombs set to reset the Earth’s orbit, but without telling us whether the plan succeeded or not.

My understanding is that the film will be released in the United States in May of next year.  Also, for those readers who are concerned about atomic bombs knocking the Earth out of orbit, I have it on good authority that the energy required would be far greater than is currently achievable with our technology.

Now, last time I also promised to finish my summary of A for Andromeda.  We left-off waiting for what would happen to Fleming, Dawnay and Professor Reinhart in the next episode called, The Murderer. This episode gripped viewers around the country as the series premise of alien’s sending us the means to create life, and what that would mean for humanity, chilled people to the bone.

Christine, the character played by Julie Christie (who died in the previous episode) is re-created when the computer give the scientists the code for creating the next alien life form, which produces a copy of her called Andromeda.  The performance by Christie in her new role as the computer’s cat's paw is compelling, and I expect she will go on to star in other things.  Now that the alien intelligence is embodied in Andromeda, the original cyclops creature host is killed by the computer.

In episode six, called The Face of the Tiger, Andromeda is put to work on developing an orbital missile defence program for the British government.  Further developments also include the producing an enzyme that will aid in healing injuries.  But it soon becomes clear that humanity is in peril of coming under the influence and control of the computer, which is using Andromeda to further its own agenda.  The computer reveals itself when opposed by Fleming by making Dawney, the biologist working on the project, sick.

In the final episode, called The Last Mystery, the story is moved forward into the year 1972, when the signal from the Andromeda Galaxy has stopped.  The military are now in full control of the project, and the computer having failed to kill the other scientists, tries to kill Fleming by using Andromeda.  This plan fails, and Andromeda is revealed to be a slave of the computer; the scientist agree that it must be stopped, otherwise the world will fall under the alien computer’s control.

Fleming is able to release Andromeda from the computer control by destroying it with an axe, and Andromeda burns the plans for the machine.  The pair try to make their escape, but Andromeda falls into a pool and dies, while Fleming is captured by the military.  As endings go, this is great for mankind, but a bit of a downer for the hero.  Still, there’s always the possibility of a sequel, because, after all, this is science fiction…

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Magazine

[November 8, 1961] Points East (Air Travel and the December 1961 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

How small the world has gotten!

Less than a decade ago, trans-oceanic travel was limited to the speed of a propeller.  If you journeyed by boat, as many still do, it would take two weeks to cross the Pacific.  Airplanes were faster – with a couple of stops, one could get from California to the Orient in less than two days.  As a journalist and travel columnist, I spent a good amount of time in both hemispheres during the early 1950s.  I got to be quite seasoned at the travel game.

I have to tell you, things are so much faster these days.  The jet engine has cut flight times in half, taking much of the tedium out of travel.  Oh, sure, I always had plenty to do in the air, between writing and reading and planning my next adventures, but for my poor fellow travelers, there was little to do but drink, smoke, and write letters.  For hours and hours. 

These days, the Journey is my primary occupation.  I can do it from anywhere, and I often do, bringing my family along with me.  As we speak, I am writing out this article with the roar of the Japan Airlines DC-8's jets massaging my ears, music from pneumatic headphone cords joining the mix.  It's a smooth ride, too.  It would be idyllic, if not for the purple clouds of tobacco smoke filling the cabin.  But again, I suffer this annoyance for half the time as before.  I'll abide. 

We've just lifted off from Honolulu, and in less than 8 hours, we will touch down at Haneda airport, in the heart of Tokyo, Japan's capital.  We will be in the Land of the Rising Sun for two weeks, visiting friends and taking in the local culture.  I'll be sure to tell you all about our adventures, but don't worry.  I've also brought along a big stack of books and magazines so I can continue to keep you informed on the latest developments in science fiction.  Moreover, I'm sure we'll see a movie or two, and we'll report on those, too.

Speaking of reports, I've just finished up this month's Galaxy Science Fiction.  I almost didn't recognize this December issue as it lacks the usual fanciful depiction of St. Nick.  Instead, it features an illustration from Poul Anderson's new novel, The Day After Doomsday, whose first part takes up a third of the double-sized magazine.  As usual, I won't cover the serial until it's done, but Anderson has been reliable of late, and I've high hopes.

The rest of the magazine maintains and perhaps even elevates Galaxy's solid record.  The first short story is Oh, Rats!, by veteran Miriam Allen DeFord (the first of three woman authors in this book!) Rats reads like an episode of The Twilight Zone — I could practically hear Serling's narrating voice as the story of SK540, a super-rat bent on world domination, unfolded.  Tense and tight, if not innovative.  Three stars.

Willy Ley has returned to original form with his latest non-fiction article, Dragons and Hot-Air Balloons.  Did the Montgolfier brothers get their lighter-than-aircraft ideas from the Chinese?  Have balloons been around since the Middle Ages?  Has the winged ancestor of the pterosaurs been discovered?  And, as an aside, did the Nazis really invent the biggest cannon ever?  Good stuff.  Four stars.

Satisfaction Guaranteed is a cute tale of interstellar commerce by Joy Leache.  Washed up salesman and his assistant try to figure out a profitable-enough endeavor for the elf-like denizens of Felix II such that they might join the Galactic Federation.  It's a genuinely funny piece.  I've only one complaint: very early on, it is made clear that the woman assistant is the brains of the operation, yet she feels compelled to give credit the the fellow.  I prefer my futures looking a little less like the present!  Three stars.

Now, Algis Budrys, on the other hand, has no trouble breaking with the familiar entirely.  His Wall of Crystal, Eye of Night, involving a corporate executive whose plan to release television's successor is thwarted by a seemingly immortal competitor, is a chilling mystery.  Just what gift did the Martians grant the businessman's rival to make him so powerful?  And was it really a boon after all?  Four stars.

R.A. Lafferty tones his whimsical style down just a touch in his latest, Rainbird.  It's a sort of biography of one Higgston Rainbird, an inventor who could have been, in fact was the greatest tinkerer in human history.  It just goes to show that a person's greatest ally, and also one's greatest impediment, is oneself.  Four stars.

An Old Fashioned Bird Christmas is Margaret St. Clair's contribution, delivered in that off-beat, slightly macabre, but ever-poetic fashion that is her trademark.  A story of good vs. evil, of Luddism vs. progress, archaic religion vs. new, and with a strong lady protagonist to boot!  Four stars.

We're treated to a second piece of science fact by Theodore L. Thomas, called The Watery Wonders of Captain Nemo.  Thomas praises the literary great, Jules Verne, for his writing skill, but then excoriates the French author's use (or rather, lack of use) of science.  Every technical aspect of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is evaluated and picked apart.  To hear Thomas tell it, Verne knew about as much about science as his contemporary laymen…perhaps less.  An interesting blend of education and critique.  Three stars.

The issue is wraps up with a bang: The Little Man who wasn't Quite, by William W. Stuart, is a hard-hitting piece about the horror that lies at the bottom of Skid Row.  A sensitive piece by a fellow who seems to know, it's the kind of gripping thing Daniel Keyes might have turned in for F&SF.  Five stars.

And so Galaxy ends the year on a strong note.  Fred Pohl, now firmly in the editor's seat, has done a fine job helming one of s-f's finest digests into the 1960s.  This is the kind of magazine that could win the Hugo – it may well secure the Galactic Star this year.  It all depends on how F&SF is this month, the two are that close.

Next up… an article from our British correspondent, Ashley Pollard!

TV

[Nov. 5, 1961] Settling in (The Twilight Zone, Season 3, Episodes 5-8)

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by Gideon Marcus

and


by Lorelei Marcus

The house that Rod built was showing signs of decay, but, as happened last season, The Twilight Zone has gotten a little better a few episodes in.  It's not perfect, mind you, but I'm still tuning in on Friday.  In fact, Serling's show, Andy Griffith, and Route 66 are my strongest bulwark against the "vast wasteland" lying behind the screen of the one-eyed monster (sadly, Route 66 wasn't on this week, more's the pity).

Anyway, submitted for your approval are the next four episodes of the Third Season (descriptions followed by commentary by the Traveler and then the Young Traveler):

Jack Klugman returns for a amazing turn in A Game of Pool as a aspiring billiards shark who wants nothing more than to beat the best – a deceased legend called "Fats" (played by comedian, Jonathan Winters in a surprisingly humorless performance).  Well, he gets his chance…since this is The Twilight Zone. 

The writing is some of the pithiest I've seen on this show, and Klugman is an absolute scene-stealer. If there's any kind of downer, it's the ending.  While logical, it also feels "safest" for the show (I understand no one was really happy with Pool's conclusion, and it was shot several ways).  Four stars.

For the past four weeks I've watched another four episodes of Twilight Zone with my father!  The first episode we watched was about a wannabe legendary pool player, who had a pool game with the legend of that time.  I won't spoil the ending or anything, but it was very suspenseful and had great pacing.  I enjoyed it very much, there was just enough mystery to keep it interesting.  It was refreshing after a lot of badly paced and bland episodes.  Three and a half stars.

Up next is The Mirror, featuring a Castro stand-in (played by the decidedly non-Latin Peter Falk) as the paranoid dictator of a Cuba stand-in.  After Falk is notified by the captured Bautista stand-in that he has inherited a mirror that shows him his would-be assassins, the island dictator quickly dispatches his compatriots. 

Did I say quickly?  I meant over the course of twenty minutes of swaggering, tedious, brown-faced, fake-bearded monologues.  Falk may have been nominated for the Oscar last year, but this performance wouldn't let you on to that info.  On the other hand, while bad, the episode has the virtue of being memorable, at least.  My daughter and I have taken to doing faux-Castro/Falk impressions whenever we see each other in the bathroom looking glass…  Two stars.

Speaking of "badly paced and bland episodes," the next episode we watched was bad.  It was about a new Cuban leader who ends up murdering all his friends due to mistrust.  It's as boring as my father makes it sound.  The worst part, is this drags on for 20 minutes!  It's like they thought of one semi-interesting idea, and decided to stretch it so thin across the run time, that there was practically nothing there.  Please, save yourself some time and don't watch this episode.  One and a half stars.

The Grave is a Halloweeny piece set in the Old West.  Lee Marvin plays a bounty hunter who has been on the trail of an outlaw for months, never quite summoning the courage to face the criminal down.  The bandit's demise comes at the hands of his own kin, the people of his town resolving to finish the job themselves.  But with his last gasp, the outlaw threatens to strangle Marvin from beyond the grave.  After a good amount of whiskey-fueled goading, and after a little more whiskey-fueled loin-girding, Marvin visits the outlaw's burial site…and is found dead the next day.  Was it a heart attack?  Or the satisfaction of a death curse? 

A plodding episode, but with some decent acting.  Two and a half stars.

This third episode was fairly forgettable.  So forgettable that I actually had to get up, halfway through writing this, and ask my father what it was about again.  I found the ending to be the most interesting part, so I won't spoil it, however getting to there was painfully slow.  There wasn't a setting change until the very end, and the middle was just people sitting and talking.  I must admit that I almost fell asleep at times; still you may watch this if you like.  As I said before, it has a decent ending, but its a matter of if you want to waste your time getting there.  Two stars.

Last up is the thoroughly unpleasant It's a Good Life, starring Bill Mumy, a tyke who starred in one of last season's episodes.  The boy has the psychic ability to do, well, anything.  And, like most 6-year old kids with untempered power, he is a terror.  His fellow rural villagers live in constant fear of being brutally murdered and then "wished into the cornfield."  One brave soul decides he can't take anymore and attempts to distract Mumy with an angry outburst, entreating the adults to take the opportunity bash the kid's head in.  Alas, the townspeople, while they clearly are miserable, can't overcome their fears.  The rebel is slaughtered, and life, such as it is, goes on. 

As horror, Life is effective if overwrought.  I take it as allegory, however.  Life depicts the discomfort humans will endure to avoid a worse fate, even when these same humans have the power to eliminate the source of their discomfort.  As such, I found it effective.  Three stars.

Finally, today's episode.  I really don't have much to say about it honestly.  The story was very straightforward, and there was no real message or conflict.  I kept waiting for something to happen that would change the course of the story, but no, it was just a boy with mind powers who didn't feel empathy.  I felt it went on a little too long, like most Twilight Zone episodes do, and could've used another element to help keep the story interesting.  Two and a half stars.

In total I give all these episodes a mean of 2.5 stars.  They were fairly average, and I really only recommend the first one to watch.  The fourth one might be good to see as well, just to be literate (as I imagine "wishing people into the cornfield" is going to become a popular phrase); however I wouldn't recommend it otherwise.

This is the Young Traveler, signing off….

…and the less-Young Traveler, also signing off.  Next stop…Japan!  Stay tuned for pictures and articles from the Land of the Rising Sun.

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Book, Magazine

[Nov. 3, 1961] Study War no More (Naked to the Stars, by Gordon Dickson)

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War is still a ripe subject for fiction.  It has been a constant part of the human existence since there were nations.  For six thousand years, we've glorified it, hated it, resolved ourselves to it.  There's no reason to expect it will go away any time soon, and it's no wonder that war is a common theme in science fiction. 

A couple of years back, Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers made a big splash with its interesting take on interstellar combat and the character of patriotism.  It was a jingoistic piece that I'm sure resulted in a small spike in enlistments.  Gordy Dickson's war novel Dorsai also came out in in 1959.  Dorsai was a fairly straightforward war story of a genius mercenary with the temperament and training to become a renowned general.  Like Troopers, it was a runner up for the 1960 Hugo (Troopers won). 

Both are what I'd call "typical" of the genre.  I find it interesting how often war is positively portrayed: exciting, filled with tales of cunning, guts, and derring-do.  I suppose it's because World War Two was a "good" war.  Democracy vs. Tyranny with clear villains to fight.  Sure, we lost some of our boys, but we made the world safe again.  And so we have a stream of war movies which are by turns dramatic, gripping, even comedic, but rarely overtly anti-war.  A Walk in the Sun, a candid film that even included a portrayal of battle fatigue in the midst of action, is one of the few exceptions.

Pacifist sci-fi novels have been similarly rare.  Given the nature of Dickson's Dorsai, I was thus surprised (and delighted) to see that his recent Naked to the Stars, serialized over the last to months in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, is a thoughtful and engaging anti-war book.

A few hundred years in the future, humanity is rapidly expanding throughout the local part of the galaxy.  At Stars' beginning, we've already conquered one sentient race in our quest for stellar real estate, and a war is in progress against a second, the Lehaunans of Arcturus.  We meet Lieutenant Cal Truant, whose traumatic (but, at first, unexplained) experience on the Lehaunan home planet causes him to wound himself out of the army. 

He is then enlisted into the Contact Service, a subsidiary, non-combatant branch of the military whose role is to liaise with alien races.  Dickson only hints at the nature of this service for much of the book.  In fact, the author's style is provocatively oblique rather than expository, a refreshing experience.  We get to see Truant's second run through Basic Training, as interesting an episode in Stars as it was in Troopers.  Then we follow Truant as he is dispatched to the site of humanity's third wave of expansion: the planet Bellatrix, inhabited by the humanoid Paumons. 

It is there that Truant's disillusionment with warfare peaks.  Unwilling to watch the Paumons be brutally subjugated, Truant takes matters into his own hands, ultimately maneuvering the situation into a resolution in keeping with his morality.  It's an honest book; Truant's actions are not completely laudable, and he knows it.  But, given the situation and his beliefs, it's what he has to do.

War is Hell.  We can sugar-coat it all we want, but at its core, it is mass murder.  It is suffering.  Stars delivers this message without being overly histrionic or mawkish.  In fact, if there is anything wrong with Stars, it is that it is too short.  Like Troopers when it first appeared in F&SF, and like the more recent Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys, Stars was hacked down a bit to fit in two issues of a small digest.  I understand that an expanded version will be out next year.  I hope that, when this fine novel is nominated for a Hugo (which it inevitably will be), it will the full version that is evaluated. 

I give this serialized edition 4.5 stars, and I can imagine that the longer book will garner 5.

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Science / Space Race, TV

[Oct. 31, 1961] A is for Atomic (UK TV Sci-fi… and the Tsar Bomba)

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By Ashley R. Pollard

A is for atomic and apocalypse, and this month also for Andromeda.  Of the three, the most entertaining is the new TV series on the BBC, called A for Andromeda, written by Frederick Hoyle and John Elliot.  Hoyle is an astronomer and noted cosmologist who also wrote the science fiction novel The Black Cloud, while Elliot is novelist, screenwriter and television producer.

Andromeda gripped me from the very first episode, called The Message, the opening sequence being an interview with Professor Reinhart, explaining the project as something that had happened in the past.  The story cuts to the professor and his research assistants, Jason Fleming and Dennis Bridger, working at the new radio telescope at Bouldershaw Fell…in 1970.  If that’s not a hook that grabs your attention then I don’t know what is.  The episode title gives the gist of the plot — alien message — and the series title tells you where the aliens are from — Andromeda.

The second episode, The Machine, builds on the message and we discover it is the plans to build a better computer, which the British government decide to do at a military base in Thorness, Scotland.  Here the plot starts to twist and turn with Dennis Bridger selling the information to a slightly sinister corporate conglomerate called Intel (a clever name; someone should put it to good use).

The third episode, The Miracle, moves the story into Hoyle's special area of interest: life from space.  You may have heard of his famous stellar nucleosynthesis paper of 1954 — Frederick Hoyle is one of the foremost scientists of his generation and a populariser of the philosopher Anaxagoras theory of panspermia, a controversial theory.  The story introduces Madeline Dawnay, a biologist, who joins the team to help with the creation of a synthetic life-form that the computer instructions have given them.  Dennis Bridger’s betrayal is discovered, and he gets his just desserts while fleeing justice…when he falls off a cliff.

In last week’s episode, The Monster, the story has moved forward to 1971, where we bear witness to the creation of a protoplasmic life form named "the cyclops."  Fleming, our hero of the series, is skeptical of the machine’s agenda and worried that it can affect the minds of those who come into close proximity to the machine.  We are left wanting more, and next week’s episode title, The Murderer, certainly leaves us something exciting to look forward to!

However, this time, reality has the jump on fiction, excitement-wise.  It comes in the shape of what the press is calling the Tsar Bomba or Kuz’kina Mat’ — Russian for "Kuzma’s mother" — a reference to Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s promise to show the United States the true might of Soviet power during the United Nations General Assembly earlier this month.

Or more simply, the mother of all bombs.

The Russians turned their premier’s statement into a demonstration of their nuclear might at 11.32 Moscow time on October the 30th by detonating a 50 megaton bomb over the Mityushika Bay the Soviet nuclear testing range.  For those of you whose geography is a little hazy, this is just north of the Arctic Circle over the Novayo Zemlya archipelago.  The shock wave from the blast is reputed to have circled the Earth four times.  Reports of seeing the explosion came from a nearly thousand kilometres away from the blast site.

The size of the explosion is almost beyond comprehension.  The only way I can get my head around it is knowing that it’s the equivalent to ten percent of all the nuclear bombs detonated to date or ten times the combined energy from all the bombs dropped during the second world war.  Such numbers are frightening and make the threat from aliens trying to take over the Earth pale into insignificance by comparison.

Perhaps it is because the threat to all life on Earth becoming extinct is an existential one, now that we live in the atomic age, that we enjoy such outrageous fare as Andromeda.  When we consider such matters, our minds are overwhelmed by prime emotions, which reduce our reasoning to that of the hominids we’re descended from.  I would argue that science fiction allows us to discuss that which is too frightening to comprehend.

So whether A is for atomic, apocalypse or Andromeda is really not the question.  Rather, our need to tell stories to understand ourselves is the way we face the end of life.

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Science / Space Race

[October 28, 1961] Heavy Lifting (Saturn C-1 SA-1)

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by Rosemary Benton

It's a great leap forward for the United States.  This morning, October 28th 1961, one can open the newspaper and learn about yesterday's launch of the Saturn C-1.  Some of us even saw the live coverage of the launch on television, watching as the giant rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida and flew 95 miles into the air before plunging into the Atlantic Ocean.  A rocket this powerful has never been launched before, and I can only imagine that the scientific community must be trembling like the ground beneath Saturn C-1's S-1 first-stage cluster of nine tanks and eight engines. 

It was, quite simply, the biggest rocket ever launched.  By far.

As the world reaches farther and farther past the stratosphere, I wanted to take a look into the recent past in order to better appreciate where we are today.  The development of this impressive rocket was a potent combination of money, ambition, and potential, beginning in December 1957 when renowned rocket scientist Dr.  Wernher von Braun and his team proposed the creation of a booster with one million five hundred thousand pounds of thrust – that's five times that of the Atlas (the rocket that will take an American astronaut into orbit).  The Department of Defense listened, and by August 15, 1958 the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) began work at the Redstone Arsenal to create the vehicle that would culminate in the tower of flame that lifted slowly, inexorably, from its Florida launchpad yesterday.

The initial design of the booster was something of a lash-up, fusing the liquid oxygen and fuel tanks from the Redstone and Jupiter missiles with the tried and true S-3D engine from the Thor and Jupiter missiles.  After significant retooling, the upgraded S-3D engine was clearly a new beast.  So it got a new name: H-1.  As the development of the H-1 continued through 1958, ARPA began to take a more ambitious approach to the aims of the project.  It would not be enough to develop a booster capable of propelling enormous payloads.  Instead they set their sights on creating a multistage carrier vehicle for a long term manned expedition to space.  The result was the October 1958 project tentatively called Juno V, the name indicating the booster's kinship with its predecessor Juno rockets) based on the Jupiter missile.  The project quickly outgrew any resemblance to the Jupiter family.  On February 3, 1959 that the ARPA renamed the project after the next planet out from the Sun: Saturn. 

Saturn's development has been nothing less than breakneck.  Dr.  Von Braun's group at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) delivered the first production H-1 engine on April 28, 1959 and successfully tested it on May 26.  The Department of Defense prioritized the civilian Saturn.  July of that year was a particularly productive month.  At Cape Canaveral there began construction on a blockhouse for the project's Launch Complex 34, and the Redstone Arsenal shops shifted their focus away from Jupiter rockets in favor of the Saturn project.  By the end of July, the Army Ordnance Missile Command (AOMC) was ordered to cease work on the Titan second stage boosters in favor of the Saturn project. 

NASA stepped in to assume direction of the Saturn Project from ARPA on March 16, 1960.  From the start NASA saw the three stage Saturn C-1 as a starting point in the creation of more powerful, larger vehicles.  Through April and March of 1960, success after success met the Saturn project.  As is tradition, private companies were brought on board to design and construct components of the vehicle.  Contracts between NASA, Douglas Aircraft Company, and Pratt & Whitney, were drawn up in July and August of 1960 respectively.  Douglas Aircraft Company would be responsible for the conceptualization and production of the four-engine S-IV stage of Saturn C-1.  Pratt and Whitney would produce the LR-119 engines to be used in the S-IV and S-V stages. 

As forward thinking as he is driven, Dr. von Braun had bigger plans for the Saturn C-1.  In January 1960, shortly after Convair Astronautics submitted a proposal for an S-V upper stage for the Saturn vehicle, Dr. von Braun floated the idea past NASA administration that the developing lunar project “Apollo” did not need a three-stage C-1; two would be sufficient for the early orbital missions planned for the spacecraft.  His proposal was approved, and NASA removed the S-V stage.  But the S-V stage was not completely scrapped.  In May 1961 the S-1 stage of the vehicle was modified to allow the Saturn C-1 to be a two or three-stage vehicle, increasing its versatility. 

Even before its launch on October 27th, the Saturn C-1 design was already being improved upon in the form of the bigger C-2 and C-3 plans.  In March 1961, considerations were well under way to make use of the Centaur's LR-115 engines in Saturn C-2 rather than the more expensive LR-119 engines developed for Saturn C-1.  Fins were added to the C-2 design in order to make it more structurally sound, and the thrust capacities of the S-1 stage were reviewed for improvement.  Work continued to accelerate on the Saturn C-2 design until recently on June 23, 1961, when Dr. von Braun announced that the C-3 would hold priority over the C-2 due to the preferable use of the C-3 for the later stages of the Apollo project.

Even as the first of its family, the Saturn C-1 launch is a milestone of astronautics.  First and foremost it represents a great leap into the future of propulsion.  Developed under the guiding hand of Dr. von Braun, the The Saturn C-1 rocket itself is one hundred sixty two feet tall, four hundred sixty tons in weight, and packs one point three million pounds of thrust.  The payload of this particular rocket is 10 tons — far outstripping that of any previously launched rocket. 

More than anything, however, is the fact that the Saturn C-1 was a success on its first flight (albeit with a dummy 2nd stage — that will get tested next year).  This bodes well for future Saturn projects.  In terms of the evolution of rocket science, the C-1 has broken new ground in all aspects of rocket design, execution and function. 

The Saturn project has brought us one step closer to manned expeditions beyond orbital space. 

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Magazine

[Oct. 26, 1961] Fading Fancy (November 1961 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Have you ever ordered your favorite dessert only to find it just doesn't satisfy like it used to?  I'm a big fan of crème brûlée, and I used to get it every chance I could.  That crispy carmelized top and that warm custard bottom, paired with a steaming cup of coffee…mmm. 

These days, however, crème brûlée just hasn't done it for me.  The portions are too small, or they serve the custard cold.  The flavor doesn't seem as bold, the crust as crispy.  I've started giving dessert menus a serious peruse.  Maybe I want pie this time, or perhaps a slice of cake.

Among my subscription of monthly sf digests, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction used to be my dessert — saved for last and savored.  These days, its quality has declined some, and though tradition will keep it at the end of my review line-up, I don't look forward to reading the mag as much as once I did.  This month's, the November 1961 issue, is a typical example of the new normal for F&SF:

Keith Laumer is an exciting newish author whose work I often confuse with Harry Harrison's — probably because Retief reminds me of "Slippery Jim" diGriz.  Laumer has a knack for creating interesting sentient non-humans.  He gave us intelligent robot tanks in Combat Unit, and this month, he gives us sentient, symbiotic trees in Hybrid.  It's a story that teeters on the edge of greatness, but its brevity and rather unpleasant ending drag it from four to three stars.

The Other End of the Line is the first new story from Walter Tevis in three years.  Ever wonder what happens if you break a bootstrap paradox (i.e. one where your future self gives your present self a leg up)?  Well…it's not a good idea.  Cute stuff.  Three stars.

Rick Rubin is back with his second story, the first being his excellent F&SF-published Final Muster.  The Interplanetary Cat is a weird little fantasy involving an incorrigible feline with an insatiable appetite.  It's almost Lafferty-esque, which means some will love it, and some will hate it.  I'm in the middle.  Three stars.

Faq' is the latest by George P. Elliott, whose Among the Dangs was a minor masterpiece.  Elliott's new story is in the same vein — a Westerner who finds a fictional yet plausible tribe of people, alien from any we currently know.  It's got a nice, dreamy style to it, but it lacks the depth or the powerful conclusion of Dangs.  Three stars.

Doris Pitkin Buck is another F&SF new author.  Green Sunrise, like Buck's last work (Birth of a Gardner), Sunrise features a lovers' squabble between a scientist man and a non-scientist woman.  Once again, the language is evocative, but the plot is weak, the impression fleeting.  Two stars.

The Tunnel Ahead is an overpopulation dystopia-by-numbers tale by Alice Glaser.  Cramped living conditions?  Check.  Algae-based food products?  Check.  Drastic, random population reduction methods?  Check.  Two stars?  Check. 

Randy Garrett's been skulking around F&SF lately, but I don't know that it has been to the magazine's benefit.  Mustang is essentially Kit Reed's Piggy, but not as good.  Two stars.

Dethronement is Isaac Asimov's latest article, a sort of screed written in response to a bad review of his Intelligent Man's Guide to Science by biologist Barry Commoner.  The latter objected to the former's obliteration of the line between non-living and living matter.  This, Commoner maintained, destroyed the field of biology entirely.  The Good Doctor explains that finding bridges between disciplines does not destroy the disciplines any more than bridging Manhattan with the other four burroughs of New York makes Manhattan no longer an island.  It's a good piece.  Four stars.

Alfred Bester covers Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land in his books column.  He didn't like it either. 

John Updike has a bit of doggerel about scandalous neutrinos called Cosmic Gall.  It is followed by Algis Budrys' rather impenetrable article on science fiction, About Something Truly Wonderful.  Both rate two stars. 

Part 2 of Gordy Dickson's Naked to the Stars rounds out the otherwise lackluster issue.  It deserves its own article, but you're going to have to wait for it, since Rosemary Benton and Ashley Pollard will be covering some exciting scientific developments, first.  I'll give you a hint — they involve the biggest rocket and the biggest boom.

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Book, Magazine

[Oct. 23, 1961] Making Progress (Harry Harrison's Sense of Obligation)

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by Gideon Marcus

Author Harry Harrison has been around for a long time, starting his science fiction writing career at the beginning of the last decade (1951).  Yet, it was not until this decade that I (and probably many others) discovered him.  He came into my view with the stellar Deathworld, a novel that was a strong contender for last year's Hugo.  Then I found his popular Stainless Steel Rat stories, which were recently anthologized.  The fellow is definitely making a name for himself.

Harrison actually occupies a liberal spot in generally conservative Analog magazine's stable of authors.  While Harry tends to stick with typical Analog clichés (psionics, humano-centric stories, interstellar hijinx), there are themes in his work which are quite progressive – even subversive, at least for the medium in which they appear.

For instance, there is a strong pro-ecological message in Deathworld.  I also detect threads of pacifism in Harrison's works, not to mention rather unorthodox portrayal of women and sexual mores.  Harry isn't Ted Sturgeon or anything, but he is definitely an outlier for Analog, and refreshing for the genre as a whole.

Harrison's latest novel, Sense of Obligation (serialized over the last three issues of Analog) continues all of the trends described above.  On the surface, it has a plot that's not unusual: Brion Brandd is the most recent winner of "The Twenties," a combined Olympics-type event held on the inhospitable planet, Anvhar.  The residents of this difficult world already have to be tougher than the average Terran; Brion is the toughest of them.  He is recruited by a former Twenties winner to join the interstellar secret service. 

His first mission is to help stop the destruction of planet Dis by it's neighbor Nyjord.  It turns out that the Disans, a xenophobic branch of humanity, have assembled an arsenal of bombs and plan to attack its technologically superior neighbor.  The Nyjordians are a normally peaceful people, but they can see no way to combat the implacable Disans other than to utterly wipe them out from orbit.  Brion, and his partner, brilliant Terran xenobiologist LeaMorees, have but a few days before the Nyjordian ultimatum expires, and destruction ensues.

Sense is a solid read, though it is not the classic that Deathworld was.  Call it three stars.  But what I really appreciated was that, once again, Harrison has given us a female character who is not only interesting and talented, but also has romantic agency.  As with the superhumanly strong Meta, from Deathworld, Lea makes the first move with the book's protagonist.  Moreover, the Anvharrian take on romance is contrasted favorably with the one that prevails on Earth.  Terran males relentlessly pursue their women, who must frequently employ the "spike heel" defense – sound familiar?  On Anvhar, men are respectful and respond only once a woman has expressed interest.  Platonic friendship between members of opposite sexes is valuable in and of itself, and if the female partner desires something further, she is in the driver's seat.  It's different, and I dig it.

This portrayal of alternate societies is surprisingly rare in science fiction, particularly in Analog.  The focus is usually on futuristic technologies.  Harrison's willingness to incorporate both sociological and technological speculation in his works makes him part of science fiction's vanguard, broadening the scope of our genre for the better.  It's what makes his name a pleasant addition to any magazine's table of contents.  May he continue to be a luminary throughout the '60s… and beyond!

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction