[March 16, 1967] A Matter of Life and Death (Why Call Them Back From Heaven? by Clifford D. Simak; Tarnsman of Gor, by John Norman)

March 16, 2022 Victoria Silverwolf 2 Comments

[Two VERY different books for you today on the Galactoscope…]

by Victoria Silverwolf

Wonder Stories From Wisconsin

Science fiction readers hardly need an introduction to the works of Clifford D. Simak. Born in Wisconsin in 1904, and working for the Minneapolis Star newspaper since 1939, he published his first story, The World of the Red Sun, in Wonder Stories in 1931.

Getting your name on the cover with your first story is quite an achievement. Art by Frank R. Paul.

His best known work may be City (1952), a book consisting of eight linked stories. It won the International Fantasy Award that year.

Cover art for the first edition by Frank Kelly Freas. There have been many other editions since.

He also won the Hugo Award for Best Novel with Way Station (1963), serialized in two parts in Galaxy as Here Gather the Stars.
(The Noble Editor gave the serialized version a mediocre three star rating. I read the book version and loved it. Chacun son goût!)

Cover art by Ronald Fratell.

Simak has a reputation as a gentle, humane pastoralist. His stories often celebrate nature and the outdoors, particularly the wilds of Wisconsin, and show compassion for all living beings. His latest novel displays this side of his character, to be sure, but it also has a darker, pessimistic mood that may not be as familiar to his readers.

Here's the author with his Hugo, looking just as friendly and optimistic as you'd expect.

Cold War

Cover art by Robert Webster.

In the year 2148, society is dominated by the Forever Center, a private company whose headquarters are located in a mile-high skyscraper. Their function is to store the frozen bodies of the recently deceased, in order to revive them into young, healthy, nearly immortal bodies in the near future. The catch is that they haven't quite figured out how to do this yet.

(If this reminds you of a proposal made by R. C. W. Ettinger, and discussed in a few issues of Worlds of Tomorrow, go to the head of the class. Simak explicitly mentions Ettinger in the novel.)

R. C. W. Ettinger. He also published a couple of science fiction stories some years ago.

In the real world, freezing people in the hope of reviving them has already begun. James Hiram Bedford, a professor of psychology, died on January 12 this year. His body was immediately chilled far below zero and placed in storage.

Bedford's body is injected with dimethyl sulfoxide, as part of the preservation process.

Nobody yet has the slightest clue about how to bring people like Bedford back to life. Besides that little technical problem, there's also the dilemma of where to put all these people when they're thawed out, if this process ever gets under way big time. Simak addresses that very issue.

The novel says there are about one hundred and fifty billion frozen corpses by the middle of the 22nd century, and a world population of one hundred billion! That seems very hard to believe, but it's a minor quibble. Simak tell us that food is provided through some kind of matter transformation rather than farming, so maybe that explains, to some extent, the gigantic population.

Humanity has achieved interstellar travel, but has not yet found livable planets for the huge number of expected revived folks. One possibility is terraforming these hostile worlds, but obviously that's going to be very difficult.

Another strategy, even more implausible, is to invent time travel, and send these people back millions of years into the remote past. The brilliant mathematician who is working on this problem vanishes, providing an important subplot.

The third suggested method, and the only one that seems remotely possible to me, is to cover the Earth with gigantic buildings, each one the size of a city.

Do you get the feeling that the Forever Center didn't really think things out too well? I believe that's part of Simak's satiric point, that the practicalities of freezing and resurrecting the dead have escaped those who are promoting it.

Despite these difficulties, the Forever Center virtually rules the world. People avoid risks and minimize spending, in order to have some wealth in their new life. Most people have transmitters near their hearts, so that when they die, rescue teams rush to carry their bodies into cold storage. Some people even choose to die, rather than wait for the Grim Reaper, in order to save money and make sure they're frozen safely.

The only folks who object to the Forever Center are the so-called Holies, who believe that humanity is giving up the hope of spiritual immortality for the promise of physical resurrection. The Holies are the ones who provide the book's title, writing that phrase on walls as a protest slogan.

A Man Alone

The protagonist is Daniel Frost. (An appropriate name!) He works in the public relations department of the Forever Center. A shady part of his job, which is not even known by his boss, is to exert a subtle form of censorship on the media. Anything that might make the company look bad is suppressed.

By sheer accident, Frost obtains a document that exposes corruption within the Forever Center. He doesn't even know what the document means, but it makes him the target of the company's head of security. Frost is knocked out and dragged into a kangaroo court, where he is convicted of treason to humanity, and given the second most dreaded punishment in the world.

(The worst punishment is to have your right to freezing and resurrection taken away. This happens to one of the novel's secondary characters, just because a mechanical breakdown of his vehicle prevented him from taking a dead person to the storage facility in time. His lawyer, who unsuccessfully tried to defend him against the judgement of a computer jury, becomes the protagonist's ally. She also serves as the love interest. Fortunately, Simak handles the romantic subplot in a more mature fashion than some writers.)

Frost is ostracized. Three circles are tattooed on his face, to warn people that they are not to have any relationship with him at all. (This is what gives the book its rather abstract cover image.) He is doomed to scavenge what food he can from garbage cans, and find shelter in ruined buildings.

(This part of the novel reminds me of Robert Silverberg's excellent story To See the Invisible Man, from the first issue of Worlds of Tomorrow.)

This portion of the book reads like one of Keith Laumer's more serious action/adventure/chase novels. Frost eventually winds up at a farm, now abandoned, where he vacationed as a boy. In what struck me as a wild coincidence, the missing mathematician — remember her? — happens to be there as well. She reveals a discovery that changes everything.

Although there's a happy ending for the main characters, with the good guys winning and love blooming, the book ends on a somber note. A fervently religious hermit provides the novel's last lines, and they aren't very hopeful.

The main plot is interrupted by chapters dealing with minor, often unnamed characters. These provide the reader with more details about this future world, and how the people in it react to the promise of physical immortality. There's a priest who has a crisis of faith, because he's chosen to be frozen and revived. There's an author who's written a carefully researched book exposing the Forever Center, but who can't get it published.

In addition to a traditional suspense plot, Simak provides philosophical musings about death and immortality. Although he's clearly on the side of the Holies, he avoids making things black and white.

I could quibble that parts of the story are implausible. (In a world with such a huge population, there are still tracts of unspoiled wilderness.) Some science fiction themes seem out of place. (The mathematician gets her inspiration from ancient alien records.) Overall, however, it's a thoughtful and serious book, well worth reading and pondering.

Why Call them Back from Heaven gets four stars.

by Cora Buhlert

A Ponderous Professor Among the Barbarians: Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman

During my last visit to my trusty local import bookstore, the trusty paperback spinner rack yielded a book that looked promising. I had never heard of John Norman nor did I have any idea what a Tarnsman is or where Gor is, but the blurb on the back promised an Edgar Rice Burroughs style adventure on an unknown planet.

I took the book home and eagerly cracked it open, only to find myself faced with a lengthy and very dull opening in which our narrator, one Tarl Cabot, holds forth about the origins of his name (from the Italian, though his family hails from Bristol), his family history (father vanished, mother dead), his education (Oxford, naturally) and his position as a professor of English history. The diction and plodding pacing are more reminiscent of justly forgotten Victorian novels than of a thrilling adventure tale.

Frustrated by the demanding duties of a college professor such as grading term papers, Cabot goes camping and finds a glowing envelope with his name on it on the ground. Inside, Cabot finds a signet ring as well as a letter from his missing father. Shortly, thereafter a spaceship arrives and whisks Cabot away to the planet Gor, which shares the orbit of Earth but sits on the opposite side of the sun, rendering it indetectable. The similarities to Mondas from the Doctor Who serial "The Tenth Planet" are notable, but likely a case of both stories drawing on the same discredited cosmology.

Cabot learns all this from his estranged father, who seems genuinely touched to see his son, only to immediately begin lecturing him on the history and society of Gor, on the importance of Home Stones and on the all-powerful Priest-Kings who may be aliens or gods. Of course, neither Cabot nor we have seen anything of Gor yet, so we have no reason to care about Home Stones or Priest-Kings. The dialogue is stiff and unnatural and the lecture portions read like a particularly dull college textbook. John Norman is apparently the pen name of a professor of philosophy, which explains a lot.

Tarl Cabot spends the next few chapters learning about "the history and legends of Gor, its geography and economics, its social structures and customs, such as the caste system and clan groups, the right of placing the Home Stone, the Places of Sanctuary, when quarter is and is not permitted in war" and sadly, so must the reader. The one bit of all this lore that will be relevant later is that Gor has a rigid caste system and practices slavery. As a man of the Sixties, Cabot is horrified by both.

Slaves, Chains and Adventures

The story picks up when Cabot is initiated into the warrior caste and given a tarn – a giant bird of prey – to ride. Cabot is also given a mission, to steal the Home Stone of the rival city Ar. Unfortunately, this raid will also cost the lives of two women, the slave girl Sana and Talena, daughter of the warlord of Ar. Cabot is not happy with this either.

He frees Sana and returns her home, manfully resisting her offer of some very physical gratitude. Then Cabot flies off to steal the Home Stone of Ar. He manages to acquire the stone as well as an unwanted hostage in Talena, who clings to the saddle of his tarn in an attempt to save the stone. Talena succeeds and manages to hurl Cabot from the saddle. He is saved by an intelligent, talking giant spider in one of the few surprising twists of this tale.

Talena's triumph does not last long. The tarn dumps her and takes off, carrying the Home Stone of Ar with it, leaving Cabot to deal with Talena, who alternately needs to be rescued and tries to kill Cabot.

The story now settles into the pattern of capture, deathly peril and escape familiar to readers of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom books and similar fare. With the Home Stone gone, the people of Ar turn on the warlord and want to execute his entire family, including Talena. So Cabot and Talena are stuck with each other now.

To avoid recognition, Cabot pretends to be a wandering warrior and passes off Talena as a new slave he has captured. They join a merchant caravan and prickly Talena becomes more submissive, as she falls for Cabot, who returns the feeling.

Compared to the barbarians of Gor, Cabot views himself as an enlightened man of the twentieth century. That said, his relationship with Talena and the focus on hoods, shackles, collars, leashes, whips and stripping her off her garments is unpleasantly reminiscent of the less savoury entertainment found in certain bars in Hamburg's famous redlight district St. Pauli. The phallic implications of the Goreans' favourite execution method impalement cannot be ignored either. Robert E. Howard's Conan, who actually is a barbarian, treats his female companions with far more respect than Tarl Cabot.

Night clubs on Große Freiheit in Hamburg's famous redlight district St. Pauli by night

Jungmühle Hamburg — Jungmühle's Hippdrome in St. Pauli, where you can ride horses and donkeys and camels and watch naked ladies wrestling in the mud.

St. Pauli by Day — St. Pauli's famous Reeperbahn is not quite as enticing by day, though these youths protesting the war in Vietnam in front of a topless bar are causing quite an uproar.

The novel ends, as such stories must, with Tarl Cabot uniting the warring cities of Gor. He rescues Talena from execution, marries her and finally does what has only been alluded to so far. Then… Cabot wakes up in New Hampshire again, even though there is no reason for this except that the same happened to John Carter.

Just Read Burroughs

The parallels to Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars are obvious. But even though A Princess of Mars is already more than fifty years old, it offers more adventure and entertainment than Tarnsman of Gor.

Once the story gets going, it's fun enough, though not up to the standards Burroughs, let alone Robert E. Howard or Leigh Brackett. But the entire first third of the book is devoted to endless lectures. Even in the later portions, Norman interrupts a scene where Cabot is about to be executed in some awful way by having him discuss philosophy at great length with the villain who just sentenced him to death. Maybe Cabot tries to escape by boring his executioners to death, but given how otherwise earnest this novel is, I seriously doubt it.

Rating this book is difficult. On the one hand, it is less ridiculous than Lin Carter's The Star Magicians. On the other hand, The Star Magicians was also highly entertaining, while large stretches of Tarnsman of Gor are just dull.

One and a half stars

2 Comments Leave A Comment

Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[March 14, 1967] Family Matters (April 1967 Amazing)

March 14, 2022 John Boston 2 Comments

Today is the LAST day you can nominate for the Hugos. Please consider voting for Galactic Journey for Best Fanzine. And here are all the other categories we and our associates are eligible for this year!

by John Boston

The April Amazing splashes an impressive array of marquee names on the cover: Hugo winners Frank Herbert and Philip K. Dick, the well-remembered sardonic satirist William Tenn, and Richard Matheson and Jerome Bixby, famous not only from the printed page but from celebrated Twilight Zone episodes made from their stories. The once prominent David H. Keller, M.D., is relegated to the inside of the magazine.

by Frank R. Paul

This blaze of celebrity serves to distract from the cover itself, which looks like it emerged from one of Frank R. Paul’s off days, though that is partly the fault of the present editorial regime; the picture is drastically cropped from its first appearance on the back cover of the July 1946 Fantastic Adventures, where it was considerably more impressive, though still far from the artist’s best.

This is one of the magazine’s accidental theme issues; I can’t speak for the serial yet, but the majority of the short fiction is at least partly preoccupied with domesticity, its meaning and its travails.

The Heaven Makers (Part 1 of 2), by Frank Herbert

by Gray Morrow

Frank Herbert’s The Heaven Makers is a two-part serial, and as usual I will wait for the end before commenting. The blurb says it “offers the chilling hypothesis that all the world really is a stage with each of us . . . its players.” How many times have we read that one? To be fair, new ideas are scarce these days, and treatment is all; it’s not the meat, it’s the motion, as a salacious old blues song has it. A quick glance at the first page reveals the dense and turgid writing for which Herbert has become known. To be fair (again), his virtues sometimes take longer to announce themselves than his faults.

The Last Bounce, by William Tenn

by Henry Sharp

William Tenn’s The Last Bounce, from the September 1950 Fantastic Adventures, is a remarkably bad story for the writer who at the time was several years past the classic Child’s Play and whose almost as well-known Null-P was a few months away. It’s a tale of stellar exploration, complete with mystery planet, deadly monsters, scientific mumbo-jumbo, and clichéd characters and dialogue. There’s even an embarrassing spacemen’s anthem, which shows up more than once. And domesticity (or its absence) rears its head! There is considerable musing about Why Men Risk All to Brave the Unknown and Why Their Women Put Up With It and Wait for Them. It would be nice to be able to read this as satire, but I can’t convince myself. More likely, Tenn made a barroom bet that he could write the most hackneyed piece of tripe he was capable of and some editor would buy it. You win! One star.

A Biological Experiment, by David H. Keller, M.D.

David H. Keller, M.D., is here with A Biological Experiment, from Amazing, June 1928—his third published story. The blurb says, correctly, that it anticipates 1932’s Brave New World. (You know the one about tragedy and farce? Here it’s the other way around.) Here is a veritable epic of domestic relations. Like Keller’s first story, Revolt of the Pedestrians, this one posits an extreme departure from our natural (well, familiar) social arrangements followed by a drastic reaction and restoration of the traditional. Unfortunately there’s entirely too much talk here, and the action that follows it is cartoonish.

by Frank R. Paul

In the far future everyone is sterilized at an appropriate age; marriage is “companionate,” easily terminable, and babies are made in factories and provided to couples who apply for and obtain the necessary permit. But Leuson and Elizabeth, a couple of young rebels, want to go back to the old ways. Why? Because no one is happy! Love has disappeared from the world!

So says Leuson, towards the end of a seven-page monologue. (Elizabeth says, midway through: “Tell me again why they are not happy. I have heard you tell it before but tell me again. I want to hear it out here in the wilderness where we are alone—together.”) Leuson has stolen some books from the Library of Congress, where he works, to learn the history and how to survive the old-fashioned way. The happy couple elopes (a word Leuson discovered in his research) to live happily in a mountain cave, along the way capturing a goat to milk. Unfortunately, far from modern medicine, Elizabeth dies in childbirth (good idea, that goat). Along the way it has been revealed that this was a covertly sponsored rebellion; the couple’s parents have subtly nudged them along towards this destiny.

And now, the plan’s consummation, at the annual meeting in Washington of the National Society of Federated Women! “Five thousand leaders of their sex had gathered for the meeting and every woman in the nation was listening to the proceedings over the radio.” Leuson appears, carrying a basket, and reprises his seven-page lecture. “On and on he talked and as he talked there arose in the hearts of the women who listened a strange unrest and hunger for something that had once been their heritage.”

And at the end of this spiel . . . “He reached down into the basket and, picking up his daughter, held the baby high above the heads of the five thousand women and showed them a baby, born of the love of a man and a woman in a home.” The finale: “And as they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, the women of the nation cried in unison: ‘Give us back our homes, our husbands, and our babies!’” Fade to black.

Whew! Two overripe stars, barely.

Little Girl Lost, by Richard Matheson

Richard Matheson’s Little Girl Lost (Amazing, October/November 1953) is a capable potboiler, efficiently recycling with stock characters a stock plot of the 1940s and ‘50s—domesticity upended by the weird and threatening. Young Tina disappears in her living room; her parents Chris and Ruth can hear her but not see her or figure out where she is. What to do in the wee hours with an invisible child but call Chris’s friend Bill, “an engineering man, CalTech, top man with Lockheed over in the valley.” Bill quickly susses it out: “I think she’s in another dimension.” (Later, he adds, “probably the fourth.”) Meanwhile, in the spirit of the times, Ruth is more or less continuously hysterical.

by Ray Houlihan

And so is the dog, but to better effect. He’s whining and scratching to be let in, and when he is admitted—to keep from waking the neighbors—he runs straight to the dimensional hole the people can’t see, and now little Tina has company. Soon enough, Chris blunders partly into the hole, grabs kid and dog, and Bill pulls him out by his legs, which are protruding into our dimension. Domestic tranquility is restored, and they switch the couch and the TV so if anything goes through again it will be Arthur Godfrey. It’s facile and economical, and perfectly fashioned for TV; it made one of the better Twilight Zone episodes five years or so ago. Three stars.

Small Town, by Philip K. Dick

by Bernard Krigstein

Philip K. Dick’s Small Town (Amazing, May 1954) is equally domestic, but not quite as domesticated, as the Matheson story. Here, the strains of a bad marriage exacerbated by an oppressive job burst out into the larger world. Verne Haskel doesn’t get along with his wife, hates his job, and finds comfort only in his basement, where, starting with an electric train layout, he has built a scale model of the entire town and tinkers with it constantly. As his frustrations build, he begins tearing things out of his faithful representation and remaking the model town, culminating in ripping out Larson’s Pump & Valve, the site of his torment, stomping it to pieces, and replacing it with a mortuary. And, of course, it turns out reality (or “reality”—this is after all PKD) now conforms to the fruits of Haskel’s tantrum—and things end with a suggestion (this is after all PKD) that there’s a higher power than Haskel keeping an eye on things.

Three stars, more lustrous than Matheson’s to my taste.

Angels in the Jets, by Jerome Bixby

by Paul Lundy

The issue winds up with Jerome Bixby’s Angels in the Jets (Fantastic, Fall 1952). At least one person likes this story; Frederik Pohl anthologized it in his 1954 anthology Assignment in Tomorrow. I disliked it when I read that book, and it hasn’t improved much since. Intrepid space explorers land on an inviting planet; one crew member is inadvertently directly exposed to its atmosphere, which renders her psychotic; she contrives to expose everyone else; and the protagonist, who has been out exploring while all this was going on, returns to the prospect of living in isolation as long as his bottled air holds out, or giving up, joining the crowd, and becoming psychotic right away. (Not much domesticity here, except for the hints of the deranged social order, or disorder, emerging among the psychotics.) A story that starts out at a dead end and consists of reaffirmations that it’s a dead end is not much of a story to my taste. But at least it’s well written. Two stars.

Summing Up

Hey, it's been worse in this bottom-of-the-market magazine. We have pretty readable and competent stories by Dick and Matheson and an amusing bad period piece by Keller, balanced against lackluster pieces by Tenn and Bixby; and the brooding prospect of Frank Herbert at length looms over it all as final judgment is postponed. Redemption? Maybe. To paraphrase generations of disgruntled baseball fans: Wait till next issue.

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2 Comments Leave A Comment

Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[March 12, 1967] Computerized Futures & Humanity (Out of the Unknown: Season Two)

March 12, 2022 Kris Vyas-Myall Leave a comment

by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Computers seem to be appearing in everywhere these days, and now are coming into our schools.

For the last few months, the Brentwood School in Palo Alto, California have been spending 30 minutes a day being taught by specially rigged up IBM 1800s.

One screen is setup to display images, whilst information is relayed over the headphones. The children will then answer simple questions using their “light pen” to write answers on another screen. If they answer correctly, it will move on to the next problem. If they do not, it will attempt to reexplain the problem in a new way, to see if it can help the child understand.

This kind of teaching appears to be effective, although it is likely to be a while before it is commonplace. The computers are still very expensive and there were issues with them breaking down (even, if the kids brought in a “get well soon card” to one of them). However, this kind of future is exactly the type that is being talked about in the latest series of Out of the Unknown.

Returning to the Unknown

It feels to me that Irene Shubik was paying close attention to the response to last season. The most beloved stories of 1965’s series were probably Andover and the Android and The Midas Plague. As such the plays we have this season concentrate heavily on robotics, changes to the nature of humanity and scientific control of people’s lives.

Return of the Robots

Starting with our mechanical friends we get 4 tales of robots (although one I will address in a different section as not to spoil the twist occurring later in the episode). Perhaps unsurprisingly, given Shubik’s friendship and his fame in this arena, two of these tales are from Asimov which round off the season.

I have seen them both classified as comedies, however I would not place them within that genre. They are certainly not as laugh out loud funny as The Midas Plague was. Rather they are satires of human nature.

The first is Satisfaction Guaranteed (originally a Susan Calvin story but she has been removed, apparently so she could be used in the second tale’s frame without confusing the viewer) and concerns the creation of a humanoid servant to a housewife. At first, she is reticent about his presence but, as time goes on, she finds herself developing feelings. I had not been a fan of the original short story, but I found this one engaged me, particularly as I feel the ending is made more ambiguous and downbeat.

The second is even more impressive, The Prophet, adapted from Reason in Asimov’s famed I, Robot collection. In this episode, Susan Calvin tells an interviewer the story of robots on a space station developing a belief that the power source of the station is their Master and humans are merely inferior earlier models. The design work and performances on this are excellent, and the additions of the Calvin frame and religious touches to the robots’ ceremonies make for an interesting and thought provoking spin on an already much lauded tale.

Less successful is the adaptation of Larry Eisenberg’s Fastest Draw. It wasn’t a particularly noteworthy story to begin with (our John Boston gave it just two stars) and it doesn’t amount to much on screen either. Having a millionaire want to relive a western using automata doesn’t end up being much more than a stretched-out version of a plot you might see on Gunsmoke or The Virginian. There is so much talking and padding the appearance of The Marshall is not so much a great reveal as just relief that events are finally unfolding. I think Robots and Westerns are just not meant to mix, on screen at least.

Whilst robots are a major part of the series, we also have Frankenstein-esque tales of scientists changing what it means to be human.

Frankenstein Marks 2, 3, 4 and 5

The most obvious example being Frankenstein Mark II, and not just in name. It follows Anna, whose ex-husband has seemingly vanished. After investigating she discovers he has been part of an experiment to change his body to be perfectly adapted to spaceflight. The unfolding mystery and horrific elements of this episode are well done but there just isn’t quite enough meat on this story as I would have hoped.

Watching Too Many Cooks, part of me wondered if Larry Eisenberg came up with the pun first and built a story around it. Humanity is in competition with a race called “The Sentients” from Alpha Centauri, to improve the position of the Solar System a plan is put in place to secretly duplicate their most successful scientist, Dr. Andrew Cook. As with some of these other pieces it starts out strong but by the end, I am left wondering what the point of it all was. It raises a number of interesting moral questions but then just lets them sit there without any real exploration. I still enjoyed it overall, just feels a little like a missed opportunity.

From duplication of an individual to a rebirth. Second Childhood starts out in a very memorable fashion with a game show, where the rich can risk a million pounds to win a prize money cannot buy. When Charles wins the jackpot, he is able to undergo an experimental operation to regain his youth. It then becomes an interesting morality tale following Charles, in some ways reminding me of Wells’ Invisible Man. Unfortunately, the ending is the kind of obvious twist that reminds me of the forgettable joke stories we used to get during Avram Davidson’s tenure editing Fantasy & Science Fiction.

The final of this class of tales, Walk’s End, starts promisingly enough, with the unusual setting of an old people’s home, where something strange is happening to the residents. With the exception of some apocalyptic novels like Aldiss’ Greybeard, we don’t get many stories of old age in science fiction, here we get two. Whilst Second Childhood approaches it from the perspective of trying to recapture youth, this is about continuing old age, a very interesting topic given the current trend of people living longer. However, I felt it didn’t really develop anywhere and the ending was also less impactful than I believe was intended.

One interesting feature to note about these plays is they are all new for Out of the Unknown, even Too Many Cooks by Larry Eisenberg is an unpublished piece he submitted for adaptation. As in the first season, these seemed to also be the weakest of the stories, perhaps due to the writers not having as much material to work from?

However, the largest selection of tales this season are those where people find themselves in computerized futures, where their lives are no longer their own.

Tomorrow’s World

The Machine Stops opened the season and has rightly been acclaimed as among the best productions the show has yet done. Following closely E. M. Forster’s tale, humans live inside an environment completely controlled by The Machine, no one has to leave their rooms at all, they can make calls, learn, be entertained, give lectures and more all without standing up from their chairs. Whilst Vashti is content in this world, her son Kuno wants to explore life outside The Machine. It is a strongly constructed play, with beautiful design work, and a stand-out performance of Yvonne Mitchell as Vashti.

Curiously, in the Radio Times preview for this episode, it is stated that the set design was inspired by the Edwardian era as they felt the concerns were of the period. I personally think the idea of human disconnection due to over-reliance on machines has become more prescient, not less, as we enter the computer age, and this makes it even more a powerful piece for that.

Level Seven has an interesting history. This script was written by the much-acclaimed J. B. Priestley (famed for such works as The Good Companions, I Have Been Here Before and An Inspector Calls) for an unmade 1960 film adaptation of Mordecai Roshwald’s novel. This was purchased for the series, but it was too long and had a number of elements which would not work on TV. However, Priestley refused to make the edits, so it was up to Shubik to make the necessary changes in-between her producing work for the series.

In spite of this troubled genesis, it is an incredible and powerful play. It is a story of nuclear war, yet for much of the episode it is all kept at a safe tidy distance, as this is meant to be an impenetrable base for launching nuclear attacks from. The people live in this bubble as the realities of war are merely seen through screens and computer displays and they try to go on with their lives as the world above collapses.

One issue is that I could not help but compare it to The Machine Stops at times. Take these two sections of dialogue. First from The Machine Stops:

You talk as if God made The Machine. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men but men.

And then from Level 7:

We built the machine. We were very clever people, and the machines told us what to do and we did it.

I still think they are both strong and worthwhile plays, but it does highlight the limitations of choosing to concentrate on such similar themes in a single run of episodes

Talking of stories that feel familiar, I imagine anyone watching the series would be unsurprised to learn Tunnel Under The World comes from the pen of Frederik Pohl, responsible for last year’s Midas Plague. Rather than an unhappy man struggling to cope in a world where he is forced to consume, here he is forced to endure endless advertising. What makes the play interesting, from our perspective, is that we see the day repeats in almost exactly the same manner, only the nature of adverts he experiences changes, even if it is for the same few products. Mr. Pohl clearly doesn’t like the advertising industry much, but he knows how to spin a fascinating yarn about it and this goes in an unexpected direction for those not familiar with the original story.

On the other hand, I don’t have much to say about The World in Silence. Set at a Further Education College, students are now being taught by teaching machines. But following a realignment the students seem to develop a kind of hive mind and take over the college as part of a computer system in themselves. Much like the story it is adapted from, Six Cubed Plus One by John Rankine, I felt there wasn’t enough there to build a tale around and I had trouble maintaining interest in it (in spite of the wonderful Deborah Watling in the lead).

I did wonder if the same problems would plague The Eye (adapted from Private Eye by Henry Kuttner) with a story that is just discussing a possible murder case by watching it on a TV screen. The premise is that with someone’s life completely observed, the investigators can determine the guilt of anyone by simply watching through the events as they see them. But what they cannot know is what is truly in someone’s mind.

It did manage to use its format to its advantage and kept me more engaged than I expected, even if I felt the ending was a bit weak. It was not the strongest play Out of the Unknown has produced, but still very tightly constructed and well worth your time.

Lambda 1 I have saved reviewing until last as it is easily the strangest. Transport in the future is being performed by Tau, international journeys barely take any time by travelling directly through the Earth via atomic space. On its way between New York and London, the Tau ship Elektron, slips into the theoretical Omega phase and becomes stuck in atomic space The controllers in London attempt to find away to retrieve them, whilst the passengers find themselves in a realm of nightmares.

Lambda 1 was not a short story I had personally rated highly (although Mark Yon gave it 4 stars) but the uniqueness of this play from the others in 1966 makes it memorable and shocking. It is probably destined to be one of the most controversial of the series entries, where viewers will either love or hate it. Personally, I came down on the positive side, appreciating the attempt to do something different, even if I didn’t quite understand all of it.

Into the Known

So, a strong season overall; however, I do believe it could have benefited from more variety as we had in the first run. Robots and Orwellian fiction are a key part of SF, but we have seen this show can do space voyages, time travel or alien encounters just as well.

Another season has been already confirmed and it is planned to be broadcast in colour later this year. Whilst news has emerged that Shubik is moving on to running the BBC’s top anthology slot, The Wednesday Play, she has said she will not leave her current post until all the scripts are in place for a third series. This should hopefully avoid any delays and the future looks bright for Britain’s premiere science fiction television show.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[March 10, 1967] Mediocrités, Slayer of Magazines (April 1967 Galaxy)

March 10, 2022 Gideon Marcus 4 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Not with a Bang

A rising tide floats all boats, but a tidal wave swamps them. 16 years ago, Galaxy magazine was the vanguard of the Silver Age of Science Fiction, along with Fantasy and Science Fiction and Astounding leading a pack of nearly forty monthly/bimonthly/quarterlies. By the end of the decade, we were down to just six mags, but the quality, by and large, was still there.

Now we're entering a new era. The number of mags is the same, but the stories are mediocre most of the time. Even the competently rendered ones feel like rehashes. In a letter I received last week, the writer said that there are yet too many outlets for the current crop of talent to supply with quality stuff.

I don't know that I agree, given that the British mags have folded and Amazing and Fantastic are mostly reprints these days. Plus, Galaxy's sister mag, Worlds of Tomorrow, has gone irregular (and Milk of Magnesia is no cure for this illness). No, I think there's some kind of general malaise in the genre. Maybe it's competition from the real world. Maybe it's higher pay-outs from the slicks.

No matter what the cause, we've got to find some way to get an influx of talent into this field. The alternative is, well, more magazines like the April 1967 issue of Galaxy.

by Douglas Chaffee

A Vast Wasteland

Thunderhead, Keith Laumer

Editor Fred Pohl saved his best for first. Laumer is a competent science fiction/adventure writer when he's not writing his increasingly tired satire, and Thunderhead is nothing if not a competent science fiction/adventure.

Lieutenant Carnaby has been more than twenty years in grade, stuck on the most frontierward of planetary outposts. Indeed, it seems the Navy has forgotten all about him, since it was supposed to pick him up fifteen years ago. The world he's on has slowly decayed to one dying settlement. Yet, he remains attached to his duty, to maintain and, in an emergency, activate the beacon that will turn this rim of the galaxy into an effective defense grid.

by Gray Morrow

Said emergency occurs, with the formerly contained enemy Djann breaking out of their containment, the Terran ship Malthusa in hot pursuit. Carnaby and a young friend begin their ascent of the snowbound peak on which the beacon rests, and the story alternates between the Lieutenant, the Djann crew, and the driving Commodore of the terran cruiser.

The writing is deft, the setup interesting, and the Djann particularly interesting and innovative. On the other hand, the other characters are caricatures, and the resolution by-the-numbers.

Thus, a pleasant three stars, but no more.

Fair Test, by Robin Scott

Two aliens land on Earth to resupply with fuel and food. They are successful despite the efforts of American local law enforcement. The end of the story is a bit of social commentary as the extraterrestrials note that light meat and dark meat taste the same.

I'd have expected this story in a lesser mag, circa 1954. Not Galaxy.

Two stars.

For Your Information: The Orbits of the Comets, Willy Ley

It's no exaggeration that, for a long time, Ley's science articles were my favorite part of the magazine. They have since gotten desultory. This one, in particular, meanders all over the place and, in one particular table, is nonsensical. I suspect a misprint.

Anyway, I think this is my first two-star review for Mr Ley. It is a sad day.

The New Member, Christopher Anvil

It's also a sad day whenever Anvil's name appears in the table of contents. It has been said that one can smell an Analog reject a mile away, and the stench of this one is profound. It's about a fictional Third World island country called "Bongolia". Said nation joins the United Nations and sets about trying to make a living by extorting the richer countries as payment for centuries-old crimes against their state.

There could be a satire here, albeit not in great taste given how recent (and not very well handled) decolonization has been. Instead, it's just a bunch of unfunny cheap shots.

One star.

The Young Priests of Adytum 199, James McKimmey

Forty young men and women, the last survivors of a nuclear war, live in a coddled paradise in one of the many American shelters. They do little more than eat and mate, save for the one oddball, Peter the Funny, who prefers the clarinet. He comes to a sticky end for his noncomformity.

I guess the moral is "Never Trust Anyone Under 30". Two stars.

The Purpose of Life, Hayden Howard

Could it be? Have we finally reached the last chapter in the sage of the Esks?

For the past year (or has it been two, already?) we have been following the viewpoint of Dr. Joe West, an ethnologist sent out in the 1960s to do a survey on Eskimos in the Canadian North. There he discovered a new race of beings, an unholy hybrid of human and alien. They look like Eskimos, but their pregnancies last but a month, and their children mature in just a few years. These "Esks" quickly supplant their human cousins and threaten to outrun their food supply. Luckily, the bleeding hearts of the world recognize the Esks as fully human and open their doors and purses to succor them.

West, unable to convince governments of the Esk threat, unsuccessfully tries to sterilize the half-aliens with a disease of his own devise, but only succeeds in killing a few innocent humans. He is then locked up in a padded cell, then put to sleep for fifteen years. When he is awoken, he is dispatched to mainland China by the CIA. Aided by telepathic control devices implanted in his legs, he is emplaced close to the Communist leader, Mao III, whose brain he takes hold over–for purposes unknown to Dr. West. So begins the latest and longest installement.

This bit takes place on an Earth whose societies are already being rocked by Esk overpopulation. In China, the few hundred relocated to the barren hillsides two decades ago now number more than a billion. The vast Communist land is suffering the least ill effects thus far, as the import labor has produced a terrific farm surplus and as yet is not integrated with Chinese society. In America, however, every household has an Esk slave…er…servant, a situation which cannot last much longer as the subordinate race will soon vastly outnumber the master. In Canada, civilization has collapsed, and the cities are populated by starving bands of Esks.

None of this seems to bother the Esks, who endure everything with endless patience and joy. They know that someday, "the Great Bear" will return to take them all back to the sky. Such is imprinted on their racial memories.

by Jack Gaughan

In China, Mao III's generals revolt, sealing the invalid leader in a mountain redoubt-cum-tomb along with his controller, Dr. West. All efforts to curtail the Esk population so as not to outstrip the food supply meet with failure. Only one option is left — to impress the hybrids into an operation to dig the thousands of feet through solid rock to the surface.

But there is a spark of anticipation in the air. Will the Great Bear arrive before the Esks liberate themselves from their underground prison? And if so, what will happen if they arrive at the surface with their brethren all departed?

It's really hard to properly rate this segment, and the series as a whole. The premise is dumb, the conclusion rather vague and dissatisfying, and for the most part, Dr. West is either ignored or ineffectual, or both.

Yet, damned if I didn't find myself vaguely looking forward to this chapter. Damned if I didn't read the current installment in one sitting despite having resolved to take a nap instead (I do like my naps).

And damned if I didn't spend way longer on this review than I'd intended.

Call it 3 stars for this chapter and 2.5 for the whole thing. I'm not sorry I read it, but I'm glad it's over.

Within the Cloud, Piers Anthony

I think this is the first solo piece by Mr. Anthony. The premise of this vignette is that the faces we see in the clouds are actually faces, and they have something to say.

Trivial stuff. Two stars.

Ballenger's People, Kris Neville

An insane fellow, whose fragmented mind is under the delusion that it is a polity of many parts rather than a single entity, becomes homicidal when threatened by "other nations" (i.e. other human individuals).

It started promisingly, but didn't really go anywhere. Two stars.

You Men of Violence, Harry Harrison

Finally, a tidbit from a fellow whose work I often confuse with Keith Laumer's. A pacifist on the run from military types figures out how to kill without being the killer.

Rather obvious and somewhat pointless. Two stars.

Gasping for breath

Wow. That wasn't very good, was it? And with one of Pohl's major talents, Mr. Cordwainer Smith, gone to the ages, we really don't have much to look forward to. At least until Messrs. Niven and/or Vance return.

Or Pohl finds some new talent. Maybe there's a large, mostly untapped demographic he could plumb…

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[March 8, 1967] Absolute perfection (Star Trek: "This Side of Paradise")

March 8, 2022 Gideon Marcus 4 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

The place: Omicron Ceti 3.

The hazard: A lethal showering of Berthold Rays, destructive to all animal tissue.

The mission: The Enterprise has the sad duty of following up on a new Omicron colony, where there are unlikely to be any survivors.

Yet, when the starship arrives, the colonists are not only alive and well, but in perfect health. Too perfect–even scars and excised organs are healed. Colony head Elias Sandoval talks of the new paradise they have found, and he flatly refuses to leave the planet. If only the Earthers knew what they were missing, they'd understand.

They soon do. First Mr. Spock, then the rest of the landing party, and finally the entire crew of the Enterprise succumb to the same spell as the Omicronites. All facilitated by a particular plant (fungus) that has taken root on Omicron. Each of the humans is hit by a shotgun blast of spores, and immediately they feel a burst of contentment and connection with their fellows, as well as an overriding urge to live on the planet. Spock, in particular, has extra incentive to stay: for the first time, he is capable of expressing love, and one of the colonists is a scientist who has held a torch for the Vulcanian for the past six years.

Love in the green grass.

Kirk, whether through happenstance or strong will, is the last to be infected by the Omicron disease. Nevertheless, fall under the spell he does, leaving a moment of utter bathos for the viewer. Is all lost?

But we know Jim Kirk. This has happened to him before, in "The Naked Time". In the end, his love of his ship (which is not just the girders, engines, and phasers, but also the people who crew it) snaps him out of his Lotus-Eating trance. Realizing that violent emotions are the key to breaking the hold of the spores, the captain beams Spock back aboard the vacant ship and hurls insult after insult at his first officer until the ensuing scuffle returns Spock to sanity.

A risky and painful maneuver.

Together, they then induce irritation in the colony members and deserted crew on the planet through a subsonic communicator transmission. A mass fracas breaks out, freeing the humans from the thrall of the spores. A much-chagrined Sandoval realizes that he and his people have accomplished nothing in the three years they have been on the planet, but produce minimal food and tend to the spore-plants. He accedes to Kirk's orders, and the colony is abandoned. Paradise lost, indeed.

This is the story in thumbnail, of course. I am leaving it to my colleagues to expand upon the myriad aspects of this episode that make it so brilliant. We've seen elements of this plot before: the stagnant, placid society with an external controller was just seen in "Return of the Archons". The members of the crew acting uncharacteristically emotional/somewhat intoxicated was explored in "The Naked Time". But the execution of these married threads, the bared souls of our favorite characters, the implications, both technological and philosophical, all are eminently fascinating.

This is my favorite episode of Trek yet. Five stars.

To thine own self be true

by Abigail Beaman

I would like to start off by noting that I have not seen the earlier episode, "The Naked Time", and from what I’ve heard, these two episodes are extremely similar. Which in all honesty, is sad, as I very much enjoyed this episode and hate the idea that it might be a retread. I also feel that, if I had seen "The Naked Time", I might have a lot more to say, but alas you’ll be getting whatever crummy ideas come to my head based on my incomplete knowledge.

Now even though I missed Naked Time, I’ve also heard (as I am a doll who fancies a bit of tittle-tattle) the episodes may air over the summer! So if you missed any Star Trek episodes (and I pray that you haven’t like I have) free up your schedule now for the reruns during 1967’s summer! Now back to the topic at hand.

Pull up a chair.

How would you describe Mister Lieutenant Commander Spock? Would you say he’s stoic? Or maybe the word emotionless comes to mind? My impression of the half-human, half-Vulcanian, is that Spock is a calm, logical, and controlled being who is amazingly portrayed by Leonard Nimoy. He in fact plays the normally cold Spock so well, that, seeing Leonard Nimoy happy and swinging on a tree was actually extremely off-putting for me (although I did love seeing Nimoy smile)!

Spock, just hanging around.

What I’m trying to say is that Spock is a being who simply can’t or won’t show emotions. That’s who he is, who he wants to be (and who I've come to fully accept). Now we don’t know if Spock has ever shown emotions, but none of the Enterprise or past co-workers for that matter, has seen Spock show emotions (except, I hear, in that "Naked Time" episode…). They all knew it was due to his Vulcanian heritage, and that Vulcanians either don’t feel emotions or flat out avoid them. When he gets sprayed with the spores, we see Spock show pain, as he seems to be fighting back his emotions, and even if it isn’t physical pain and just him trying to prevent showing even a sliver of emotion doesn’t that tell you something? He doesn’t want his emotions. To him emotions are illogical. Perhaps, even shameful.

Love hurts.

I haven’t forgotten the elephant in the room, that being Leila. While yes I want Spock to be happy (as his wife, I want the best for him always), Leila is not the girl for him. What she wants can never be achieved. She wanted to change Spock into someone who would love her, but that wouldn't be Spock. Even when she is off the spores (drug parlance intended), and knows what they did to her mind, she still wants to be on them so she can be happy and love Spock without all the pain it brings her. That’s why I feel nothing but pity for her. At the end of the episode she does, in fact, accept that Spock is who Spock wants to be. He is in his own “self-made purgatory” and so is she. Spock’s is to shun emotions, while hers is being in love with a man who shuns emotions.

"We all live in our own self-made Purgatories…"

That’s why one of the biggest lines uttered in this episode, “For the first time in my life, I was happy” feels like a stab in the back to fans (and might I say lovers) of Spock. Some people believe it’s Spock being wistful for an emotion he felt, at last, and can no longer feel again (and it’s torturous, to say the least, as a wife of Spock, to know I can't make him happy), but I would argue Spock is instead ashamed of showing that emotion. It’s something he has, and will likely continue to actively avoid his whole life. He was happy, but at what cost? Being happy isn’t Spock. Being logical and computerized is Spock. He is in his own “self-made purgatory”, and it seems Spock is himself, when in it.

Not happy, but at least, perhaps, satisfied.

This episode did have some downers, like the introduction of spores being able to regrow organs, and the crew just sorta saying “doesn’t matter, let’s leave”, but it’s a solid episode I can get behind. I would rate this episode a high 4.5 stars.

Debating Paradise in a Vacuum

by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

What would you give to have perfect health and no worries? At first glance, it looks like Sandoval and the colonists have it all figured out. There’s no clear reason as to why they should leave, but Kirk says otherwise. Is he right? Initially he wanted to save them from the radiation. Yet, he continues to press the matter even after he quickly discovers it’s no longer a threat, which leads me to believe that his version of paradise is not the same as Sandoval’s.

Sandoval's paradise.

Kirk’s version of paradise requires some type of progress. For him, living in a world without it might be the furthest thing from paradise, but that’s not necessarily true for others. How does Kirk know what kind of progress is acceptable? Sandoval just wanted to build a garden. Couldn’t that also be considered progress? If one is content with life, isn’t achieving enlightenment a form of paradise? Does Kirk have the right to take that away from someone?

Kirk's paradise.

On the surface, one could interpret this episode as yet another bout of Kirk imposing his ideals and beliefs onto other cultures. But is it? Where “Return of the Archons” fails, “This Side of Paradise” succeeds, giving us a slightly different perspective where (I believe) Kirk’s intrusion is warranted. In both episodes, everyone is under some influence that causes them to behave in a way that is abnormal, and though the difference is subtle, it makes all the difference. In “Return of the Archons”, there’s an already existing culture. They’ve been living this way for a very long time, and the only justification for interference is that an uprising might well have been inevitable; Kirk just sped up the process. In “This Side of Paradise”, however, the colonists had desires and goals before they came under the influence of the spores. Kirk’s interference was necessary to break the colonists free from behaving out of the norm, and that none chose to go back to the spore-drugged existence is telling. Of course, one could argue that Spock and Kalomi might have been perfectly happy together (indeed, Spock implies it would be the only way he could be happy), but Spock chose a different path in the end.

There is a clear anti-drug metaphor in this episode, which I appreciate. It’s not much of a paradise to me if you’re not in your right mind and don’t have the capacity to make decisions for yourself. It may have made them physically healthy, but mentally, it was a different story. Then again, maybe ignorance is bliss.

Five stars

The Best of the Best

by Janice L. Newman

I have to agree with my friends above: this was one of the best episodes of Star Trek yet. As I watched I was drawn into the emotional core of the story, but I also couldn’t help but note how well crafted it was. The writing, the pacing, and the carefully set up reveals were very, very well done.

One sequence stands out in particular. Kirk, having avoided being infected by the spores, makes his way to the bridge. He encounters one of the flowers that his own crew have brought aboard, and tosses it aside in a rage. Several scenes later, he returns to the empty bridge and sits there, alone, expressing to the uncaring computer his frustration, helplessness and grief at the loss of his crew. And just as the audience thinks Kirk has reached the lowest point and are wondering how–nay, expecting that he’s going to turn things around…he gets hit with a blast of spores from the forgotten flower. It’s masterful.

This script was also particularly well-written, with memorable lines like, “I am what I am, Leila, and if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's.” And although the music was once again mostly recycled from earlier episodes, it was carefully integrated: the musical stings and cues emphasized the action without overwhelming it.

This episode is one of the best examples of how different Star Trek is from other so-called science fiction shows on television. It’s a nuanced, bittersweet story written for adults, and as such, it’s already miles ahead of Time Tunnel and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Maybe even The Twilight Zone. I cannot wait to see what the Star Trek writers, actors, and directors come up with next.

Five stars.

Too Many Shirts

by Erica Frank

This is Sulu's third incident of mind-altering effects resulting in bliss. If this keeps up, he's going to become known as the Enterprise's resident accidental "stoner." (He is a botanist, after all…) I suppose the need for agricultural labor kept his shirt on this time. Pity.

Happy Sulu

Nobody else is shirtless in this episode either. Is the planet a bit chilly? Are there no nudists aboard the Enterprise? Does Kirk only lose his shirt to violence, never to joy? And even the spores cannot overcome Spock's modesty. Such a shame.

Setting aside the emotional effects, the spores have tremendous medical possibilities. Surely Starfleet will want to study them—a plant that protects people from deadly radiation and heals past injuries? Incredible! Side effects include… happiness and contentment? What an amazing retirement colony Omicron Ceti 3 could be!

"And they've got shuffleboard at 3:30!"

Of course, in order to get such a place built, they'd need a way to regularly snap people out of the influence. The colonists have managed to sustain themselves but failed at their development plans. Also, we saw no children on this "colony" planet. That may be one of the other side effects of the pollen—one that would prevent it from functioning as a growing colony, but could be a tremendous benefit for a medical center or retirement home.

Alternatively, it could become a prison planet: used to house violent offenders who've been deemed to have no hope of integration with society. Would Khan's people have accepted this planet instead? I suppose Kirk would consider that a "waste of potential." And the Federation itself may have uses for this one.

The Federation should immediately start researching how to set up a permanent center, possibly with a starbase in orbit to snap key personnel out of their euphoric stupor. Perhaps the ground crews would wear gas masks while residents breathe freely. Of course, there are the deadly Berthold Rays to consider: the spores give immunity; anyone without them is limited to short-term visits. But even with that problem, I'd expect the Federation to value a planet where people return to perfect health while living in blissful peace.

Unless there are some unknown after-effects that McCoy failed to discover, OC3 seems like a wonderful planet, just not suited for the plan the Federation originally had for it.

It would, however, be delightfully suited for a planet-wide Be-In, a sprawling agrarian society with no violence (no ambition, I can hear Kirk's voice in my mind), no competition (no innovation), no war (no progress). And—if the settlement were in the warmer parts of the planet—no shirts.

Five stars; this one leaves me with happy thoughts, even though I know the possibilities will probably be ignored.

This Side of Potential

by Robin Rose Graves

After the episode’s close, I realized the true message and how the spores are ultimately nothing more than a device through which to convey it. This is a topical episode, representative of the issues that plague us now: the false respite of heroin abuse, the sirensong of Communism. Social commentary absolutely has a place in science fiction, and I don’t entirely hate how this episode is shaped by the message it tries to get across, but I feel it’s at the sacrifice of further exploring the fascinating nature of the spores.

In order to maintain a symbiotic relationship with humans, the spores keep their hosts alive in an environment that would otherwise kill them within a week. In return, the humans cultivate the plants that release these spores. The strangest part of all, this is posed as a problem rather than a brilliant discovery.

The spores not only kept the colony in perfect health for three years, but allowed them to regenerate organs as well as allowed humans to live on the planet despite the presence of harmful Berthold rays. I can’t help but think these plants are the perfect tool for the spacefaring crew of the Enterprise. It would allow them to venture on planets with otherwise hostile environments and to provide lifesaving medical treatment crew probably couldn’t even receive in a hospital, let alone on a starship.

This has been part of a trend I’ve noticed in Star Trek. Interesting ideas are introduced when convenient and abandoned the moment they no longer serve the story they’re trying to tell. Androids. Planetary computers. Time travel (twice!) This, of course, is a symptom of television's episodic nature, necessary to a degree so one doesn't necessarily have to watch all of it to understand what's going on.

Yet it still frustrates. Perhaps even more frustrating is when it happens with characters – particularly whenever there is a female guest star. In this episode, it’s Leila, a woman who has a history with Spock that has never been mentioned before this moment (and I have full confidence will never be referenced again as the story progresses), and who just so happens to be on Omicron Ceti 3.

It was nice knowing you, Leila. I'm sure we won't see you again.

We’ve seen the same thing happen with random past love interests appearing and disappearing in episodes “What are Little Girls Made Of,” (Chapel's Roger Korby) “Shore Leave” (Kirk's Ruth), “Court Martial” (Kirl's Areel Shaw) and even in the series debut episode “The Man Trap” (McCoy's Nancy). Not only is this giving us flat female characters and then sweeping them aside the moment they are no longer needed, but it is also cheating our male characters of development as well. If the series isn’t going to explore the science of its world, at least it could give better attention to its fascinating cast of characters. I say that out of love, because I like the crew (maybe not Kirk so much…) and I want to know more about them, but Star Trek isn’t delivering.

I give this episode 4 stars for what it did, but not 5, because I know what it never can.

Next episode promises to be very different. Join us tomorrow at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific) for a Star Trek:

Here's the invitation–beware the Blob!

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[March 6, 1967] Men On The Moon (Doctor Who: The Moonbase)

March 6, 2022 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

Hello again, everyone, and boy do I have a fun serial for you this month!

The Doctor and pals have had a bumpy landing on the Moon, arriving at a lunar base in the '70s– the 2070s, that is! However, it soon turns out that things are not quite what they seem at this weather station, and an old foe lurks in the shadows…

Let’s recap and review Kit Pedler’s The Moonbase.

EPISODE ONE

We start off with an absolutely cracking episode full of suspense, mystery and a looming sense of dread.

Following a bumpy landing and a nasty crack on the head for Jamie, the Doctor and company find themselves on a multinational lunar base, soon meeting their leader, Hobson (Patrick Barr). This is the station from which all the world's weather is controlled, but lately things haven't been going well.

There’s a nasty pathogen going around, a rapidly-progressing disease that leaves the victim helpless in a matter of seconds.

The base is expecting a relief doctor from Earth, so it’s pretty handy that our Doctor arrived when he did. Don’t worry, he is a real doctor. He got his medical degree from Joseph Lister himself back in the 1880s. I daresay medical science has progressed since then.

However, there may be more to this disease than meets the eye. In the storeroom, one of the base’s scientists notices signs of tampering and hears the approach of footsteps…and a familiar shadow appears on the wall.

Could it be?

While attending to Jamie in the sickbay, the Doctor and Polly bear witness to the last words of the base’s doctor, who screams something about a silver hand before dropping dead.

The Doctor runs off to tell the others, and the familiar silhouette appears again. Though Polly screams for help, it’s gone before anyone else arrives.

The group goes to examine the body, but to their surprise upon pulling back the sheet they find only a few large bags of sugar.

There’s a body snatcher on the loose!

The base staff still have a job to do preventing a hurricane smashing up half the world’s coastlines, so they leave Polly alone with Jamie again. Delirious, Jamie asks Polly to fetch him some water. No prizes for guessing what happens while she’s out of the room. It's almost like a pantomime! A really, really creepy pantomime, that is.

All together now: He's behiiiind you!

The silhouette appears once more, and we finally see what it belongs to. Did you guess right?

The design is a little different now, admittedly. A tad more high-budget, but no less unsettling. Where there was once fabric, the face is now smooth metal, the plastic casing on the chest a little less bulky, but there’s no mistaking those handles.

It’s a Cyberman.

EPISODE TWO

The Cyberman inspects Jamie before moving on and dragging one of the other patients off. Polly catches him leaving, and immediately tells the Doctor what she saw. He believes her, but Hobson doesn't, beginning to grow suspicious of the newcomers. He gives them 24 hours to solve this mystery, or get off his base. The Doctor gets to work, his demeanour much more serious than it has been of late. It's a little jarring!

Unfortunately, this episode is a bit of a drag, with much of its runtime eaten up by the base’s efforts to control a hurricane on Earth using a device called a Gravitron. The Gravitron will be important later, but that doesn’t mean it makes for interesting television right now. Still, it is somewhat amusing to watch everyone try to get on with their work while the Doctor goes around stealing people’s shoes for analysis.

Suspecting that it may have been sabotaged, two of the men on base head out to inspect the Gravitron, only to run afoul of a pair of Cybermen. Just how many of these things are lurking about?!

The body-snatching Cyberman comes back again while Polly attends to Jamie, knocking the pair out before absconding with yet another patient. Having had enough, Hobson accuses the Doctor of being behind all this sabotage, sending him into full pacification mode. He pretends to have found something, and Polly makes everyone coffee in an attempt to smooth things over.

It mollifies Hobson, but only for a moment, as one of the men suddenly collapses, his skin developing the tell-tale vein-like marks. That’s when the Doctor realises how this pathogen is spreading– it’s in the sugar!

See, this is why I don't sweeten my tea.

More worryingly than a bit of contaminated sugar however, the Doctor has another epiphany. The base has been thoroughly searched for signs of Cyberman incursion…but the sickbay, having been continually occupied, hasn’t.

And that’s when they realise that one of the patients isn’t a patient at all…

EPISODE THREE

It turns out that not only do the Cybermen have new faces, they have new voices. The odd sing-song has been replaced by a more straightforwardly robotic monotone, which is interesting, but I don’t find it as unnerving. Perhaps a combination of voice modulation and the uncanny sing-song vocal performance would maximize the terror?

Curiously, like the Daleks, the Cybermen also recognise the Doctor despite his new face. How can they tell it’s still him? Can they see something we can’t? Perhaps he still wears the same cologne.

In the nearby Cyber-ship, the other Cybermen prepare their captives for conversion. It’s all rather ghastly, but we’re spared any gruesome surgical scenes, as the ‘conversion’ appears to only go as far as mind-controlling the captives.

The Cybermen are kind enough to explain their dastardly plan and their motives. Why do villains always do that? Anyway, they’re going to take control of the Gravitron and use it to wreak havoc on the weather and obliterate everything on Earth’s surface. It’s nothing personal, but life on Earth is a threat to them, so they're eliminating it.

For a bunch of baddies that supposedly don’t feel emotions, I can’t help but think this sounds like they’re scared.

Jamie finally recovers from his head injury, and Ben and Polly discuss how they might beat the Cybermen. Unfortunately this time around they don’t have any handy radioactive material, so they’ll have to get creative. At Jamie’s mention of sprinkling witches with holy water, Polly gets a smart idea. Perhaps a solvent could corrode the boxes of machinery on their chests?

But what solvent to use? After all, there’s lots of different plastics out there and what works on one might not work on another.

In an experiment that absolutely should not be repeated at home, Polly mixes all the solvents she can get her hands on and puts the concoction into spray bottles.

Polly’s Magical Melting Potion:

1 part benzene (fair enough, that’d work on polystyrene)
1 part ether (permeates most plastics but won’t really melt them into goo)
1 part alcohol (Polly doesn’t say which kind, but I’d guess ethanol. Ethanol will degrade certain plastics, but only very slowly)
1 part acetone (probably the most useful solvent in the list)
1 part epoxy-propane (I’m not even sure if this can be used to melt plastic, and I’m not about to buy some and test it out)

Directions:

1. Mix ingredients
2. Put mixture in…plastic…spray bottles. Hmm.

Not only would this not work, I think it might actually be dangerous, and definitely not a good example for children, who might get it into their heads to make their own anti-Cyberman spray.

With that done, Ben and Jamie go off to squirt some Cybermen. Polly’s not invited, because this is MEN'S WORK! Polly does not pay them any mind, of course, and I admire her restraint in not spraying solvent in Ben’s eyes. Jeez, Ben, ever heard of feminism?

They burst into the control room and let loose, the Cybermen proving no match for Polly’s concoction. Their death noise is funnier than it should be: ‘wubwubwubwubwub!’ I had a guinea pig who used to make a noise just like that when he ran around on the carpet.

Safe for now, the Doctor and company remove the headpieces from the controlled men and rush them to the medical bay, while the others try to get the Gravitron back under control.

Realising something must have gone wrong, the Cybermen on the ship have a change of plan. The time for subterfuge is over. Now it’s time for an invasion.

EPISODE FOUR

Things come to a head in this episode, with plenty of tension (and sometimes stupidity) to go around.

The Cybermen cut off the base’s line of communication with Earth, but those inside the base don’t panic just yet. Having been unable to contact the base, Earth will surely have sent help by now, so all they need to do is sit tight until help arrives.

Sit tight, and maybe keep an eye on the recently mind-controlled men?

…No?

The Cybermen transmit their control signal again, directing one of their thralls to escape the sickbay and gain access to the Gravitron controls. Somehow, nobody notices as he walks right through the control room and into the Gravitron room, where he knocks out the man on duty and takes the controls. I’m not being funny, but there’s literally a window into the Gravitron room. Does nobody have eyes?!

Our heroes’ joy at seeing the approaching Earth ship is short-lived, as it abruptly turns around and starts accelerating towards the Sun, deflected by the beam from the Gravitron.

Taking things from bad to worse, the Cybermen blast the outer shell of the base with a laser weapon. Air rushes out through the hole, and it’s only with some quick thinking by Hobson that the whole group doesn’t suffocate.

With the mind-controlled thrall now unconscious, the group regains control of the Gravitron.

The Cybermen don’t realise this, however, and find themselves greatly surprised when their next laser blast deflects harmlessly off the Gravitron’s beam.

Now with the upper hand, the Doctor and Hobson disable the Gravitron’s safety controls and point it right at the advancing Cybermen, sending them floating off into the vacuum of space. Let’s hope wherever they land, they land with a crash.

The base gets to work to get the world’s weather back under control, and the Doctor and pals head off, not bothering to say goodbye.

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor decides to use the time scanner to get an idea of the future, and gets a glimpse of the dish of the day at the nearest seafood restaurant.

Or maybe a space monster.

But my money’s on the lobster.

Final Thoughts

I was a bit surprised to be seeing the Cybermen again so soon, but I’m not complaining. This serial doesn’t really expand on them much or explore their worldview in greater detail, but hopefully we might see some of that in the future.

It's also a little surprising that the Cybermen have been redesigned already, given other recurring enemies like the Daleks have been very consistent in their design. Then again I suppose it does make narrative sense. As their own technology improves, it follows that they would repair or replace outdated components. Still, I hope that the design won't end up completely inhuman. The real horror of the Cybermen is that you can very much recognise that there is a person under all the machinery, so it would be a real shame to lose that.

So, that was the Moonbase! Some jolly exciting stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. Admittedly the minor characters aren’t very interesting (they’re basically interchangeable, apart from their accents) and there’s a definite lull in the second episode. Still, on the whole it’s very well plotted and tense.

Here's hoping the Cybermen will be back again before too long, and that this streak of fun stories continues!

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[March 4, 1967] Mediocrities (April 1967 IF)

March 4, 2022 David Levinson 2 Comments

by David Levinson

Method or madness?

The assassination of President Kennedy a little more than three years ago is a moment engraved on everyone’s hearts and minds. The arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald brought some relief, but his subsequent murder by Jack Ruby denied Americans the catharsis a trial would have provided, with the clear presentation of all the evidence. Ruby’s recent death just before his retrial has denied whatever release that might have offered. As such, Americans have had to make do with the report issued by the Warren Commission on the assassination, and a lot of people aren’t satisfied with its conclusions. Rush to Judgment by Mark Lane calls into question many of the Commission’s findings and has found an audience. The book has spent 25 weeks on the New York Times list of best-selling non-fiction.

On February 17th, the New Orleans States-Item published a story revealing that District Attorney Jim Garrison was investigating the assassination. In a news conference the next day, Garrison announced his office was working on seeking an indictment of “some individuals in New Orleans” for their role in President Kennedy’s death and promised that arrests would be made. On February 22nd, pilot David Ferrie was found dead in his New Orleans home. Garrison has accused Ferrie of being the get-away pilot for the conspirators and had been preparing to take Ferrie into protective custody. In a news conference on the 24th, Garrison dropped a bombshell. Speaking about his office’s investigation of the Kennedy assassination, he declared, “We solved it weeks ago. There remains only the details of evidence, and there is no question about it. We have the names of everyone. We have all the details.”

New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison

Is there anything to this? Garrison seems pretty confident. On the other hand, he has a reputation as a grandstander. He’s overseen numerous vice raids in the French Quarter, resulting in lots of arrests and very few trials. The raids brought him into conflict with local judges and the police, and he’s accused both groups of corruption, but there have been no indictments. He’s even been unanimously censured by both houses of the state legislature for maligning their members. Time will tell if there’s something to this or if it’s just another dog-and-pony show.

Reversion to the mean

Knowing that last month’s spectacular issue was going to be a hard act to follow, I lowered my expectations for this month’s IF. I may not have recalibrated properly. Even some of the decent stuff is pretty forgettable.

This old-fashioned cover bears little relationship to the Chandler story it supposedly illustrates. Art by Gray Morrow

The Road to the Rim (Part 1 of 2), by A. Bertram Chandler

Fresh out of the Academy, Ensign John Grimes has come aboard the Delta Orionis for transport to his first posting. After getting off on the wrong foot with the captain, Grimes spends most of his time with attractive Purser Jane Pentecost, who is suspected of being a recruiter for the Rim Worlds independence movement. When word reaches the ship of a failed pirate attack on a ship bearing the captain’s fiancee, Grimes, with all the rigidity of a newly minted officer, refuses to release the naval stores in the ship’s cargo for hunting the pirates. After spending some time in the brig and a romantic farewell from Jane, he decides to throw away his career and join the captain’s hunt as a gunnery officer. To be continued.

The Mannschen drive in operation; forward in space and backward in time. Art by Gray Morrow

We’ve met John Grimes before, most recently as a Commodore about to retire. That’s not so strange; both C. S. Forester and Poul Anderson have gone back to look at the early career of established characters. However, knowing where Grimes’ career will take him removes a lot of the tension from the story. In terms of story and action, this is fairly typical Chandler (apart from a lack of hopping between universes). But Chandler excels at drawing the character of a raw young officer who doesn’t understand what rules can bend and when, and who sometimes thinks with parts farther south than his brain.

A solid, but not quite high three stars.

The Fantasque, by James McKimmey

Having come into a small inheritance, Homer Bemoth purchases a Fantasque over the objections of his conservative, prudish wife.

This isn’t so different from “The Dream Machine”, which we saw last June. It’s on a more personal level and has something resembling a story, but it also gives us a couple of fairly unpleasant characters.

A high two stars.

Retief, War Criminal, by Keith Laumer

The planet Sulinore is in decline, largely because the dwindling populace has declared most of the planet to be cemeteries and monuments to the dead heroes of the past. The Terran Mission has come for a peace conference sponsored by the Groaci, no doubt to aid their proteges the Blug. Fortunately, Retief is on hand.

Retief to the rescue. Art by Gaughan

It’s fairly typical of the species, but there’s more story here than you usually find in a Retief tale. Only the part where he’s held captive by the Groaci feels like Laumer is just going through the motions. Again, this is probably better if you’re new to Retief, but the inclusion of stronger story elements is a good sign. There may be hope for this series yet.

Three stars.

It’s New York in ‘67!, by Lin Carter

Carter gives us a preview of this year’s Worldcon, to be held in New York City over the Labor Day weekend. There will be both professional and fan Guests of Honor (Lester del Rey and Bob Tucker respectively), and Harlan Ellison will be the toastmaster. Jack Gaughan’s doing a comic book that will be sent out to registered members over the year, and there are a couple of new ideas on the program. One is in-depth interviews with various authors, but the big draw is likely to be the “Dialogues” in which two big names will debate various questions occupying the world of science fiction. The schedule isn’t set, but we are promised two well-known writers debating the “avant garde” and “traditional” styles of science fiction.

Three stars.

The Ethics of Madness, by Larry Niven

Douglas Hooker was born a potential paranoiac, but as long as he takes his medication regularly he will be fine. A freak maintenance problem with his autodoc results in him not getting his medicine, and he descends into paranoia. He steals a starship and ultimately causes the death of his former best friend’s wife. After completing his rehabilitation, he steals another ship and flees the anger of that former friend.

Doug Hooker flees Plateau. Art by Castellon

Another big story from Niven, but with more depth than he usually shows. The story is told largely through flashbacks, and we are able to watch Hooker’s slowly changing mental state. I found it reminiscent of a recent episode of Star Trek, but much the better for not being compressed into a few lines of dialogue. My one quibble is that there ought to have been more safety mechanisms on the autodoc than a single warning light. Otherwise, a very good story. (And if this had run last month, we could have had two forty-mile-high mountains in one issue.)

Four stars.

It Takes All Kinds, by Bruce W. Ronald

Only ten percent of the 59 million twenty-year-olds who have tested for college and the ability to get a job will be accepted. As the numbers come in, Terry Gordon watches his chances steadily decline. What does it mean to rank 5,900,001 when there are 5,900,000 places?

Ronald is clearly trying to say something about education and its value. Terry does a lot of math in his head over the story, but the classes he and the girl he meets talk about are trivialities. It’s not a terrible story, and I want to like it better than I do, but just a day after reading it, I couldn’t remember a single thing about it.

Just barely three stars.

The Accomplice, by Vernor Vinge

Over the last year, someone has stolen more than 70 hours of time on Royce Technology’s 4D5, the most powerful computer in the world. That time is worth close to $4,000,000. Royce and his chief of security, Arnold Su, go looking for the culprit.

Frankly, the story itself isn’t very good, but Vinge’s speculations on how fast computers will improve (the 4D5 is expected to be on the consumer market in just 8 years) and the way they will impact industries you might not expect are well worth the read. Those speculations probably wouldn’t have had the same impact and believability in a fact article.

Three stars, purely for the vision

The Purpose of It All, by W. I. Johnstone

The Snick has come to Earth seeking a new masterhost. It thinks it has found what it’s looking for, but has misunderstood the situation.

Johnstone is this month’s new author, and Fred must be getting desperate for first-timers. The story isn’t very good, and unlike the two stories before it, it has no redeeming features.

Two stars.

The Iron Thorn (Part 4 of 4), by Algis Budrys

Honor Jackson has arrived on Earth. The naked people who greet him are a group of Naturalists, the largest faction of humans, or so the master computer or Comp informs him. After spending some time with them, he stages an Amsir hunt with the help of Comp. This quickly makes him one of the most famous people on Earth, but at a party in his honor he soon becomes disgusted at the decadence of those around him.

Comp creates an Amsir for Jackson to hunt. Art by Gray Morrow

I’ve commented before on the rapid pacing of this story, and based on the author’s recap I’ve come to the conclusion that there must be a lot that was removed for serialization. That said, I don’t think I’ll be looking for the novel if and when it’s released. Budrys has written an engaging story, but it doesn’t appear to be about anything. It’s a hollow shell.

A low three stars for this installment and three for the novel as whole.

Summing up

All in all, a fairly typical issue of IF. I actually revised a couple of my assessments (Ronald and Vinge) upwards as I wrote my review, because I realized they did make me think, even if the stories weren’t much. On the other hand, I’ve grown less and less satisfied with the Budrys serial as it has progressed. It’s all quite a let-down after last month.

Still in all, things could be worse, knock on wood. We'll find out next month if this was an aberration or a return to the mean.

Which Laumer will we get? I’m guessing semi-comedic adventure.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[March 2, 1967] (Star Trek: "A Taste of Armageddon")

March 2, 2022 Jessica Dickinson Goodman 5 Comments

A Cold, Cruel Counting

by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Most of my friends only experience the war through numbers. Unless they have family on the streets where the bombs are falling, in uniform or not, kill counts reported on the screens in our homes are the only way many people track the war in real-time.

It helps me to remember that TV show writers don't live in a pocket universe, one more far-seeing, wiser than the one in which we all shower and shave and find holes in our socks every day. Unless they are unlucky enough to have participated in the current war, their knowledge of the war comes from those same sources.

The pictures we see on television or in our papers – bombs, bodies, landscapes we've never driven through, leaders speaking languages we do not, propaganda both crudely and delicately crafted – have limited currency. But numbers, kill counts especially, are strangely memorable. We repeat them, over and over, as if these numbers tell us something of what it is like to fight and die on the other side of the world.

Gideon's copy of The World in 1966: History as We Lived It by the Writers, Photographers, and Editors of The Associated Press (Published February 1967) has this to say about the ongoing conflict in Vietnam:

"The allied side lost nearly 14,500 dead during the year, including some 4,800 Americans. Enemy dead were placed at 50,000, but some officials privately said the figure was inflated."

The war in "A Taste of Armageddon" feels like the product of this numbers-based approach to understanding war. In this writerly extension of bloodlessly reported casualty counts, Captain Kirk and his crew face two entire societies (Eminiar Seven and Vendikar) which conduct their war via computers and then tally up the expected deaths. Living people then march into disintegration chambers to keep their 500 year war's gory score. Those societies have chosen to ensure that:

Anan: […] Our civilization lives. The people die, but our culture goes on.
Kirk: You mean to tell me your people just walk into a disintegration machine when they're told to?
Anan: We have a high consciousness of duty, Captain.

Backing up, Captain Kirk and his crew had been ferrying Ambassador Fox to open up diplomatic relations with Eminiar Seven, who they have little knowledge of. They are warned away, but acting under the Ambassador's orders, they disregard the warnings. It soon comes to light that, by entering orbit around Eminiar Seven, the Eminians and Vendikans now consider the Enterprise as a fair target in their murderously bloodless war games. When Captain Kirk declines to order the crew to transport themselves to the surface to be disintegrated, the leaders of the planet hold him and the rest of the landing party hostage.

There is some clever interplay, personal bravery, voice-faking trickery, stubborn commitment to principals on both sides, a self-sacrificing lady in distress, a self-important diplomat, some cruel things said about diplomats as a category by Mr. Scott ("Diplomats. The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank"), and finally, a threat of overwhelming force, via the apparently genocidal standing "Order Twenty Four." (I spent much of the episode hoping "Order 24" was an old joke between the Captain and Scotty, but that shoe never dropped, leaving me disturbed as to Starfleet's comfort with destroying sentient life en mass). Eventually, Captain Kirk gains the upper hand and forces the Eminians and Vendikans to the negotiating table, with the following mandate:

Kirk: "I've given you back the horrors of war. The Vendikans now assume that you've broken your agreement and that you're preparing to wage real war with real weapons. They'll want to do the same. Only the next attack they launch will do a lot more than count up numbers in a computer. They'll destroy cities, devastate your planet. You of course will want to retaliate. If I were you, I'd start making bombs. Yes, Councilman, you have a real war on your hands. You can either wage it with real weapons, or you might consider an alternative. Put an end to it. Make peace."

Make Love, not War

Because, despite the callow specimen of a diplomat that Ambassador Fox turns out to be, all wars – computer-run or otherwise – end at the negotiating table. Smart leaders try to get there as soon as possible, because they know the reality that the Eminians and Vendikans did not seem to grasp: every life lost in war is a blow to that culture. Every dead body, bomb explosion, pitted landscape, dead leader, and bit of corrosive propoganda is part of cultural death.

To be clear, I am not against self-defense in war. A proper pacifist, I am not. If I had the option of being drafted, I could not honestly mark myself a conscientious objector because I do believe there are some wars that need fighting; the jacket I wear in my photo was a relative's Plebe jacket from West Point, class of '49 and he is not the only one to serve in my family. But wars of choice are an entirely different matter to me. Those leaders who wake up one morning and decide to send other people's children to die over borders they should not have crossed in the first place are a curse upon our shared world. We have no idea how the war between the Eminians and Venikans began – by choice, by misunderstanding, by cement-shoe treaties, or with one attacking and the other defending. They do not seem to recall the inciting incident either. In the end, like all wars, peace will only come from talking.

And I find myself agreeing with Captain Kirk, wishing more people would know the consequences of war, and not just the counts of it. Perhaps we too would seek peace and hold her more dearly if we did.

Four stars.

A Polite and Gentle War?

by Erica Frank

I'm sure Dr. Leary would have something to say about the psychology of a whole society—two whole planets, in fact—that has indoctrinated its people so well that they politely march off to death when a computer tells them to.

This is exactly the opposite of the Human Be-In that took place in San Francisco last month, with its focus on "Turn on, tune in, drop out." Instead, the Eminians (and, presumably, Vendikans, although we don't meet them) have a whole culture of "Show up, tune out, drop dead."

The Eminians could take a page from our book…

While their society appears peaceful to Kirk and his team, there must be a great deal of turmoil under the surface. It's not easy to get people to just politely walk to their deaths, so their indoctrination must start very young—perhaps in infancy. Otherwise, how could you explain to a six-year-old that Mommy is leaving forever because a computer said she's dead now? Do parents calmly hand over their children to be disintegrated? …Or are children exempt from "war death," and that's one of the "messy" parts of war that their game avoids? Either way, Eminiar must have a booming business in last-minute video recordings left at the disintegration center for loved ones to pick up later.

However, I suspect the people are not so controlled as all that. While some people—like the High Council—might walk quietly to their own deaths for the sake of society, the general populace may not be so compliant.

"All those in favor of marching to your death, please remain seated."

What terrors must their death guardians commit on the populace, to convince millions of people to leave their families to die?

What do anti-war protests on Eminiar look like? Perhaps they hang around the death centers, handing out flyers that say "You Still Live! Reject the Computer and Reclaim Your Life!" Of course, the High Council would have the Enterprise crew believe that nobody protests, that everyone follows orders. But if that's true… why do their guards carry guns?

Eminiar seems to be a technologically advanced society. Surely a society that is at peace except for the cold calculations of the war itself, has little experience with interpersonal violence. But their guards are armed and well-trained. If people go to their deaths without complaint, why would their guards be so combat-ready that they are able to take down Kirk and his team? Who are they trained to fight when Federation agents aren't visiting?

I think we only got to see a tiny slice of Eminian life, filtered through the biases of the council that calmly declares millions of deaths and then makes sure that number comes true. We saw "Ministry of Peace" propaganda, not what life is actually like for most people.

Four stars. The more I think about this episode, the more chilling implications I find.

Mutually Assured Accounting

by Lorelei Marcus

How often can someone confidently say they are living through an historic event? The kind of world-altering occurrence or period that will go down in the textbooks, that kids will memorize for years to come.

I think everyone lives through three or four. I narrowly missed World War II, but the bulk of my life has been spent in the conflict that has succeeded it. Indeed, this one may be even more global in character than the last, because we all are living in its shadow: The Cold War.

I know the Cold War is a big deal, beyond the news items, the Duck and Cover drills, the Ban the Bomb protests, because it is everywhere in my entertainment. In songs like Barry MacGuire's Eve of Destruction. In movies like Dr. Strangelove, Failsafe, On the Beach, Panic in Year Zero. On the small screen in shows like Twilight Zone and Britain's The War Game. Books like Alas, Babylon and Farnham's Freehold.

These cautionary tales are so omnipresent that they've almost become cliché. Sure, we're all afraid of the Bomb. Using it is clearly senseless. What else can/need be said?

So you can imagine my surprise (and not a little delight) at Star Trek's complete inversion of this theme with its latest episode, "A Taste of Armageddon".

Rather than the typical structure of two equally matched parties tensely avoiding conflict because of mutually assured destruction, instead the episode plunges us right into a Hot War. A hot but clean war with no real weapons, but innumerable calculated casualties.

"G-4" "It's a hit!"

To stave off the possibility of total annihilation from an ever-escalating conflict, the two superpowers (planets in this case) chose to guarantee destruction, but only of people. What a clever, callous twist! Not only is it a comment on how nations might paradoxically value their existence over their constituents (what is a country if not the people living in it?) but it also highlights that no matter how efficiently one conducts a war, the result is still death and ruin.

The only answer is peace. Five stars.

Getting to Know You

by Gideon Marcus

My colleagues have done an excellent job discussing the content of the episode, so I just want to note a few nifty things about its production.

One of the things that endears Star Trek to me is its ensemble nature. This was a particularly balanced episode that saw many of its principals shining (though Uhura still remains underused, and Sulu was absent this week). I was particularly impressed with Chief Engineer Scott's first televised turn at the helm, at which I thought he did just fine. It seems a little strange to have the engineers in line for the bridge's center seat, but the "Starfleet" of the "United Federation of Planets" (terms of art we're starting to hear more and more) seems a lot looser on branch distinctions than the U.S. Navy. Viz. Kevin Riley (is he still around?) moving from Engineering, to Navigation, to Communications–a path Lt. Uhura also seems to have traveled.

"I'll nae lower th' screens!"

This is the second time we've had a special Federation commissioner on board. While I did not appreciate Mr. Fox most of the time, I do appreciate that the Enterprise is often a courier as well as a scientific vessel and sometimes warship. The jack-of-all-trades cruiser-like nature of the ship allows for a wide variety of interesting stories.

Joe Pevney has returned to take up the director's megaphone. He and Marc Daniels appear to have most put their imprimatur on this fledgling show, and they have yet to really disappoint (sometimes scripts let them down, of course). A name I am seeing more is Gene L. Coon, usually in co-writing credits. I've seen him all over television, particularly on Laredo, COMBAT!, and Wagon Train. I'm sure there are others I've missed/forgotten. Along with his arrival, I'm noticing a minor change in tone. Trek feels less like an anthology show that happens to have consistent characters, and more like its own entity–a lived-in universe.

I suppose it was inevitable that, as the world of Trek became established, folks not attached to the show would want to become part of the phenomenon, particularly in light of the big "Save Star Trek" campaign we saw at the end of last year. So it is no surprise that we are seeing our first Trek-specific clubs and even club 'zines.

Trek has been guaranteed at least one more season. I look forward not only to more great episodes like this one (I give it a solid four stars), but also to learning more about the inhabitants and worlds that populate it!

Something WEIRD is going on. Join us tonight at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific) for what looks like it will be a very strange episode of Star Trek:

Here's the invitation!

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[February 28, 1967] The Big Stall (March 1967 Analog)

February 28, 2022 Gideon Marcus 8 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

The Big Push

After a year of build-up, air raids, and smaller actions, the United States and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam have opened up the largest offensive of the war. Operation Junction Central involves some 50,000 troops pouring into the logistical heart of VC-controlled South Vietnam west of Saigon. Their goal: to find the communist equivalent of the "Pentagon". It's a classic hammer and anvil style operation, with nearly a thousand paratroopers forming the brunt of the anvil behind enemy lines. The push is accompanied by the biggest logistical bombing raid we've seen in weeks.

Whether this colossal effort will bear fruit remains to be seen. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army have only seemed to grow despite constant combat. More and more often, the fights occur on even, conventional terms rather than as furtive guerrila efforts.

But with half a million soldiers "in country", I suppose it was time to do something. Perhaps the momentum of operations will switch to the allied forces.

Business as Usual

Analog editor John Campbell seems unaware that institutional decay has set in. And with no great competitors from without, he is unwilling to change a formula for his magazine that has remained for the past two decades. I suppose that, as long as he sells more than everyone else, he doesn't need to.

On the other hand, I read that Analog's monthly distribution is down from the 200K+ it enjoyed early in the decade. Maybe the wolves at the door will instigate a sea change. Or a palace coup…

In any event, until that happen (note the subjunctive mood), we can expect more issues like the one for March 1967. Dull. Uninspiring.

by John Schoenherr

The Time-Machined Saga (Part 1 of 3), by Harry Harrison

Harrison once again displays his near interchangibility with Keith Laumer, at least when he writes "funny" stuff (his dramatic prose is a notch above Laumer's, I think). This serial involves a film company on the verge of bankruptcy. Salvation appears in the form of a time machine. Said "vremeatron" will not be used to alter history, purloin lost treasures from the past, or other, potentially lucrative (but old hat) endeavors. No, instead, the movie house is going to travel back to A.D. 1000 to film the True Story of Leif Erickson…Hollywood style.

Said on-location filming will cut costs dramatically: no need to hire extras, no unions, and best of all, since the time machine can come back to the moment after it departed, no time involved! (the production company still gets paid for the time it spends in the past, though). What could go wrong?

I suspect we'll get the answer to that question next installment.

A tepid three stars thus far. I could take it or leave it.

Radical Center, by Mack Reynolds

by John Schoenherr

In a piece designed for Campbell's reactionary heart, Reynolds writes about a time in the not-too-distant future when the trends of apathy, crime, and downright down-on-Americanism have reached a zenith. A hack journalist, badly in need of a story, posits an imaginary illuminati bringing this malaise upon us intentionally.

Little does he know how right he is.

I can't help but deplore the sentiment behind and suffused into this piece. Next, we'll have stories about how long hair is Ruining Society. On the other hand, I feel Reynolds has something when suggests that unscrupulous forces will utilize apathy of the masses to allow their comparatively small blocs to sway policy. Also, I really liked the line, regarding a clown of a politician, "He was laughed into office."

So two stars and a wrinkled nose.

Countdown for Surveyor, by Joseph Green

My eyes lit up at the title of this one. I love pieces on the Space Race, and this inside dope promised to be exciting.

It wasn't. It's as dull as reciting a checklist, and three times as long.

Two stars.

In the Shadow, by Michael Karageorge

by Kelly Freas

After a short piece (probably by Campbell) about ball lightning and free-floating plasma (interesting so far as it goes), we have the latest story by Michael Karageorge, whoever he is.

The space ship Shikari is exploring a new gravitational source zooming through our solar system. It emits no light, but it has the mass of a star. Is it a cold "black dwarf"? A rogue neutron star? Or something else entirely?

The characterization in this one can be reduced to a set of 3×5" index cards each with two or three words on them. Things like "irritable, downtrodden genius". "Absent-minded professor." "Weeping woman." "Comforting woman."

On the other hand, the science is pretty neat, even if I don't buy it for a minute.

I didn't hate it. It's not as good as Karageorge's first story, though. Three stars.

The Uninvited Guest, by Christopher Anvil

by Kelly Freas

A shiny ellipsoid appears on a launch pad and starts to take nibbles out of everything: walls, roads, machinery, people. It appears invulnerable to attack, but it also seems to be of failing vitality. The problem, it is deduced, is that if the thing dies entirely, it will explode with the power of an atom bomb.

Can the alien visitor be thwarted or succored before time runs out?

For an Anvil story, it's not bad. Which means a high two or a low three. I'm feeling charitable today.

The Compleat All-American, by R. C. FitzPatrick

by Kelly Freas

A young man, good at anything he wants to be, is dragooned by his father into playing football. His remarkable abilities, largely consisting of not getting hurt and performing miracles with the pigskin when under pressure, catch the eye of two government investigators.

After fifteen pages of shaggy dog fluff, we learn that said All-American is invulnerable and unstoppable. He also, luckily, has no ambition. Three more shaggy pages of dog fluff follow this revelation.

I guess this is what's under the barrel. One star.

What's the score?

Half way around the world, forces clash in a titanic struggle between Democracy and Communism. Or maybe it's pitched fight between a downtrodden people and the venal imperialists and their running dog lackeys. However you characterize it, Something Big is Happening.

But here on the pages of Campbell's mag, not much of interest is happening at all. Analog finishes at just 2.3 stars, by far the worst mag of the month. Above it are Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.6), Fantastic (3.2), New Worlds (3.25), and IF (3.3).

Things are actually worse than it seems. Only the last of these mags was really outstanding (Fantastic is mostly reprints, New Worlds was basically an Aldiss novel with a few vignettes for ballast).

Adding insult to injury, just one woman-penned story came out this month, and there were only 25 pieces of fiction in all the magazines, period.

Something's gotta change soon. This can't go on forever…

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[February 26th, 1967] Geoffrey Beene, The Master of Modernity

February 26, 2022 Gwyn Conaway Leave a comment

by Gwyn Conaway

As I lounge in my silk dressing gown this morning, sipping a cup of tea, I find myself loath to venture forth into the day. Must I don nylons and lady-like undergarments composed of hooks and wires and straps? Come to that, must a man wear a tie and a suit jacket? Today, I am belligerent about the world and its rules.

Rather than prepare for the office, I have turned towards fawning over the designs of Geoffrey Beene. Taking my rebellious streak into consideration, this is a perfectly logical digression. This rising fashion designer shares my distaste of formality and convention, and to my delight, has been turned away from fine restaurants for refusing to wear a dinner jacket on more than one occasion. I applaud his rejection of tradition, particularly on mornings like this, on which I have no intention of following the rules of decorum.

Geoffrey Beene, photographed in 1965, sporting a very relatable affably unimpressed expression.

Geoffrey Beene designs, Harper's Bazaar, 1967

Womenswear has become increasingly structured and columnar these last few years, and as a result has lost connection with the human body. Interestingly, this disconnect is by design. Pierre Cardin is quoted as saying that he doesn’t consider the woman within his gowns, but thinks of each creation as architecture. Though this is certainly a valid design approach, particularly in avant garde, fashion is no longer ruled by the elite and their runways. Rather, the young and broke have become a ringing voice within the industry; a voice that calls for freedom of movement and accessible fabrics.

Pierre Cardin’s Cosmos Collection was released this winter, but has been labeled too impractical for the market.

In comparison, Beene’s football gowns strike a fanciful balance between glamour and leisure that has piqued the interests of the younger, more personable generation.

Mr Beene is rather new to the industry, but his impact is already creating ripples of change. From a rural Louisiana town, he understands the importance of mobility, something with which many designers are currently unconcerned. While the likes of Rabanne, Courrèges, and Gernreich are focusing their designs on the distant future, Mr Beene is designing for today. Miniskirts are lengthening back towards the calves, textiles are relaxing, and notions are regressing from metal zippers and snaps to wooden buttons and ties.

Mr Beene is doing exactly the same, concerning himself primarily with modernity and autonomy. His point of view is uniquely American working class, with the goal of giving control back to the wearer, prioritizing comfort and mobility. To achieve this, he employs primarily sportswear materials, such as athletic mesh and wool jersey. Wool jersey was originally developed for men's swimwear at the turn of the century, and is his favorite medium for women's eveningwear today.

Two models stand in Beene’s fitting room, which is designed to feel comfortable and leisurely, much like his work.

Take, for instance, the eveningwear above, which debuted this winter. Note that the evening dress to the right combines Mr Beene’s love of sequins and lame with a collared cotton eyelet blouse. Collared shirts and cotton are both unconventional choices for an evening gown, as they’re usually associated with daywear. The use of daytime materials and cuts allows the woman wearing a Beene creation to feel simultaneously familiar and elegant. This combination highlights a sense of leisure, a facet of fashion that is traditionally relegated to the study, the resort, and the bedroom.

Beene poses with two models wearing his cocktail dresses from this year. The relaxed fit and miniskirt length suggest daywear while the materials, marabou and sequins, suggest eveningwear. Another perfect blend of American sportswear and formality.

Fashion is going through a metamorphosis, swinging from the uniformity of the Space Age and Mod fashion to a more temperate, organic frame of mind. I often see these pendulous motions swinging from one extreme to the other, and I am convinced that Mr Beene’s modern point of view is going to break open the fashion establishment. Personally, I’m looking forward to a more blasé approach to formality.

[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…]

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