Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 18, 1966] Rocannon and the Kar-Chee

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by Jason Sacks

One of my favorite sci-fi publishers these days is Ace Books. We've talked about their double novels a lot on the Journey, so I'm sure you're well aware of them, but I'd like to take a moment to consider just how delightful their line has been over the last decade-plus.

For the last 15 years or so, Ace's flip books, or tête-bêches if you want to get all French about them, have presented a wide spectrum of science fiction from some of the grand masters. Asimov, Brackett, deCamp and Dick have all been published under the Ace banner along with more modern writers like John Brunner, Kenneth Bulmer and Damon Knight. And while some of these little novels haven't been great –  Agent of the Unknown, to choose one at random, has a fun cover but an uninspiring story – others are thoroughly delightful.

And best of all, all these little novels are all short! Most are 120 pages or less: a quick couple hours' read while on the bus or after school.

Whether delivered as an opportunity to repackage Ziff-Davis novels, or a chance for a young writer to experiment with his or her craft, or a chance for an older writer to burn off an unpublished tale, the reader gets real value from his or her 35¢ (in the '50s) or 50¢ today. And whether the reader discovers a nice treasure or total drek, the low price point and quick-read style of the books seldom leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

The biggest thrill for me with these Ace novels is to get to see a growing science fiction talent spread his or her wings a bit and deliver a terrific first novel. Rocannon's World is exactly that kind of thrill. Written by up-and-coming author Ursula K. LeGuin, this expansion of an earlier Amazing Stories tale shows a passion for alien cultures that demonstrates a unique and intriguing viewpoint.

Rocannon's World is a kind of sci-fi/fantasy hybrid. Our protagonist is Gaverel Rocannon, an ethnologist on a mission to explore the biology of the planet Fomalhaut II. Though Fomalhaut II is nominally under an exploration embargo by the League of All Worlds, the League's enemy establishes a base on Formalhut to battle them.

If you're thinking this sounds like the launch of one of those novels all about the lone hero fighting and defeating a staunch enemy, you're both right and wrong. Eventually Rocannon is able to win, but he only does so after a long and arduous — and exciting — journey, and only after causing himself great trauma and pain.

Formalhut is an intriguing planet, and LeGuin gives this planet an clever sort of fantasy feel. Rocannon and his native companions fly on "windsteeds," giant flying cat creatures, he encountrers dwarflike Gdemiar, rodent like Kiemhir, elven Fiia, even nightmarish creatures just called Winged Ones. It all feels like a bit of lesser Tolkien, and that gives this brief book a lot of its charm.

The author Ms. LeGuin

But charming as this book is, LeGuin wrote something more interesting and complex than a simple story about a battle on another planet. Rocannon goes through an archetypical journey to his heroism. He starts a bit feckless but soon learns the importance of his journey. After enlisting the help of newfound friends, Rocannon gains confidence and trust. His moment of transformation happens when he goes into a mountainside cave. While in the cave, he encounters "the Old One", a strange entity who grants Rocannon "mindspeech", or telepathy, in exchange for giving himself to the planet.

That mindspeech is a blessing and curse, granting Rocannon the ability to win his war but also granting him the chance to psychically feel the pain of all the beings he has killed.

All of this is heady stuff that expands on the considerable promise Ms. LeGuin has shown in her short stories. Though the novel has some flaws, most of them are tied to its abbreviated length. There's a feeling throughout of playing with key ideas and concepts, a kind of authorial exploration of her own mind. I hope we get to return to this world, but even more I hope the author has more good novels in her.

Rocannon's World 3.5 stars

[Note: This novel appears to be a sequel of sorts to Dowry of the Angyar, reviewed in these pages two years ago (ed.)]

I was surprised and happy to discover I liked the flip side of this double novel nearly as much. I've never been a big fan of Avram Davidson's stories in the mags, finding them a bit wordy and dull. Somehow, though, this novel clicked in for me much more than his short stories usually do, and I found myself intrigued and captived by a lot of The Kar-Chee Reign.

Kar-Chee takes place in a far-future Earth. Hollowed out by over-mining and ecological collapse, Earth has been abandoned and forgotten by her children who have long since settled on distant planets. Only a small number of humans remain on the planet, eking out a small subsistence lifestyle. Those humans, though, are imperiled by an insectlike alien race called the Kar-Chee, out to strip Earth of its few remaining minerals, for reasons completely unknown to humans.

As with the LeGuin novel, you can probably guess how Mr. Davidson's story will play out: a group of humans rally their forces, gather up their courage, build smart weapons and begin to beat back the invaders and reclaim Earth's birthright.

The author Mr. Davidson

Like Rocannon, the pleasure in Kar-Chee lies in its journey, not in its destination. Davidson delivers large amounts of expository text in this book, giving readers the background of Earth's downfall in a lyrical style that feels as evocative as stories told around a campfire. Those sections of this novel have a suprising power and I found myself missing the expository elements when the book settled back into its action-packed elements. I wonder if Mr. Davidson has any interest in writing a future history chronicle, because I would love to read something like that.

The Kar-Chee Reign: 3 stars

The April '66 Ace Double turned out to be… well, aces, or at least a Jack and a Queen. Who knows what the next publication will bring? I'll be haunting the paperback rack at my local Woolworth's till the next book arrives.




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Magazine

[April 16, 1966] Non-taxing (May 1966 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Three certainties

They say you can only be sure of two things in life: death and taxes.  I can't offer any personal assurances on the former, but I can say a thing or two about the latter.  Yesterday was, as it has been since my second year on the Journey (1955), tax day.  That special time of the year when Uncle Sam gets his due so that the potholes can be filled, the guns can be loaded, and (more recently and most welcomely) the poor can be relieved.

As you know, LBJ got his predecessor's big tax cut passed a couple of years back, a move that outraged the conservatives.  Of course, the benefits of that have largely passed me by — I make enough from running Journey Press to buy a cup of coffee, second-hand.  (Feel free to help change this state of affairs by buying more of our books!) On the other hand, a penurious existence means I don't have to cough up much dough come April 15.

Nevertheless, I did part with some shekels.  It was fortunate indeed that the latest issue of F&SF was at hand to balm the wound.  As has been the case for several months now, the mag was decidedly non-taxing.  Thank you, Ed Ferman, for giving us a third certainty in our lives!

The Issue at Hand


by Mel Hunter

And Madly Teach, by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

With the advent of TV has arisen the notion of educational television, augmenting the classroom with studio-produced classes.  They have the advantage of combining nearly universal reach as well as the possibility of securing the best professionals.

But what if, in the interests both of frugality and inflicting the least bother on children, the traditional classroom is completely eschewed for the new format?  One might get Lloyd Biggle's newest novelette, detailing the culture shift a spinster English teacher from Mars encounters when she tries to adapt to the new Terran ways.

It's about as realistic as Harrison Bergeron and perhaps not as important, but I think there are some good subtle messages layered beneath the obvious ones, and Biggle is a very good writer.

Four stars.

Three for Carnival, by John Shepley

It's carnival time in near-future New York.  Old Mother Gimp (young, clear-eyed Barbara), the Harlequin (henpecked merchant, Saul Cooperman), and Lloyd (just Lloyd) take turns being themselves and someones else through the increasing chaos overtaking the Five Roses.

A difficult, abstract story, and not really science fiction or fantasy, I nevertheless found it engaging.

Three stars.


by Gahan Wilson

The Colony, by Miriam Allen deFord

Humans found a colony light years from home.  After twenty promising years, they are overrun by rapacious half-men, who abduct a settler and generally make mayhem.  Though the abductee is recovered, the presence of alien intelligence means the colonists must leave, which they do with sadness.  But not before it is learned that the half-men are actually a variety of human.

The kicker?  The events of the story took place 30,000 years ago, and the savages were Neanderthals.

This kind of gotcha story might have flown back in the 40s, but it creaks in the 60s.  Moreover, it doesn't make a lick of sense.  It is, however, decently written.  No one can fault deFord for not knowing her craft; she just needs to take a refresher course in plot ideas.

Two stars.

Breakaway House, by Ron Goulart

Pete Goodwin scratched at his short blond hair and said, "Gretchen exaggerates, Max. We're still on our shakedown cruise with this house and little things are going to show up."

Max watched the sherry in his glass. "Of course, Jillian and I are apartment types so far. But maple syrup in the closets and bobcats in the shower. That stuff sounds unusual, Pete."

"Life is different in the suburbs, Max."

Yes, amateur occult detective Max Kearney is out of retirement for another droll tale of investigation.  This time, he and his new wife, Jillian the witch, are helping out a neighbor in the new tract housing subdivision.  It must be haunted, but Pete seems strangely reluctant to deal with it.  Is he possessed?  Has he made a deal with the Devil?  Or is it really not a very big matter after all?

It wraps up a little quickly, but it's great fun along the way.  Four stars.

Beamed Power, by Theodore L. Thomas

Someday Tesla will be proven right, and we won't need wires to transmit energy.  But will the result be a utopia or a terrorist's playground?  It's a subject worthy of a full-length article, perhaps in Analog.  As is, this is an unsatisfying appertif.

Three stars.

Flattop, by Gregory Benford

New author Benford offers up a Nivenesque tale of first contact between a human astronaut and a mobile Martian bath rug.  Except this creature has explosive capabilities for growth, and a single sample threatens an entire expedition.

Very crunchy stuff.  I liked it.  Four stars.

H. P. Lovecraft: The House and the Shadows, by J. Vernon Shea

Apparently, the Weirdest of the Weird Tales bunch wasn't quite the weirdo his stories would lead us to believe.  Racist and anti-semitic, sure (though he was buddies with Robert Bloch and he married a Jew).  Anti-social, absolutely (and yet generous to a fault despite his poverty; he wrote his fans lavish and helpful letters, even at the expense of his own writing time).  Sexless and haunted?  Arguably, but if one looks for Lovecraft in his stories, they're not going to find him.

I'm neither a lover of Lovecraft not a detractor.  I feel he had three good stories in him, and he kept writing them throughout his career until he got them right.  Along the way, he evaded critical praise but amassed a fandom that really only came to the fore after his death at 47 (ouch! That's my age!)

Shea's biography is interesting, poetic, and enlightening.  Four stars.

The Third Dragon, by Ed M. Clinton, Jr.

A lovely tale of three dragons and a girl that underscores that nice guys can finish first.  Four stars.

Time and Tide, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor offers up a good, if slightly padded, piece on the mechanism of tides with a brief look at tides around the solar system.  Good stuff.  Four stars.

Man of Parts, by H. L. Gold

Lastly, a story you know has to be a reprint since the former editor of Galaxy isn't doing much of anything these days.  In brief: Major Hugh Savold of the Fourth Terran Expedition against Vega, crashes onto the peaceful planet of Dorfel.  With very little salvageable but two arms and much of a brain, he is fused with the similarly mangled Dorfellow Gam Nex Biad.

Now a living rock-borer and legally no longer human, can the Major make it back to his ship and leave the living nightmare he finds himself trapped in?

Pleasant enough, but it shows its age.  Three stars.

Summing Up

Tallying the numbers on my form 1040-GJ, I find the May 1965 F&SF scores a respectable 3.5 stars.  I wouldn't say any of the stories will be up for this year's Galactic Stars, but all of them are readable and several are memorable.

I can almost forget how light my pocketbook has become… at least until the next time I have to buy a month's worth of science fiction!




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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 14, 1966] A New & Clear Bombshell (The War Game)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

The War Game

War Game Poster

Not since The Chatterley Trial has there been a piece of media more debated in the UK than Peter Watkins’ The War Game. After being pulled from the air in October I finally managed to see it at the National Film Theatre last night.

Before I get into my review, I think we need to look back at how a 48-minute BBC pseudo-documentary about one of the most discussed contemporary issues became involved in such a storm of controversy. For that we will have to start by travelling back over 300 years to the fields of Culloden.

Culloden

Culloden

After doing a series of well noted amateur short films, Watkins came to general attention with his 1964 BBC documentary\reenactment\drama Culloden. It is extremely hard to define precisely as it is a style I have not seen elsewhere before. Whilst going into a historic event, he presents it as if it is a contemporary documentary on the event, combining narration, action and scripted interviews with various people involved in the battle.

In itself this would be enough of a leap to get it on people’s radars, but Watkins also went further. Firstly, he used an all-amateur cast, in order to get a sense of reality into what we were seeing. Secondly, almost all the shots are done with a handheld camera, getting us further away from the idea we are watching a carefully staged play. Next, he refuses to sanitize the level of violence, both in explaining in the events and showing us the gore of those wounded in both the battle and its aftermath.

Perhaps, most radically of all, he does not give it a comfortable narrative. Among Scottish Nationalists it is often seen as the last flowering of the independent Scotland. Among Unionists it is often seen as the last rebelling of an invasion or major insurrection on British soil. This goes to lengths to show us this was a horrendous situation, where ordinary people were often press ganged into fighting, generals made an awful mess of every decision and so many suffered for pointless reasons.

It is a really affecting piece of television and received both a BAFTA and a British Screenwriters Award. So, it should be no surprise the BBC were interested in getting more work from Mr. Watkins. Though, given the contents of Culloden, they really should not have been surprised at what they got next.

A Political Game?

Peter Watkins in full director mode
Peter Watkins in full director mode

Watkins’ next project was to try to move away from his historical critiques (aside from Culloden, his short films include such subjects as The American Civil War, World War One and The 1956 Hungarian Uprising) to something more contemporary, a realistic account of what would actually happen if Britain were attacked by a nuclear strike, rather than the government propaganda films or SF adventure stories.

Apparently originally designed for the 20th anniversary of Hiroshima, it was then scheduled for an October broadcast, then unceremoniously pulled from our screens. The reasoning being that:

the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting.

This has raised some question as to whether this was legitimately the reason. On the face of it this film is genuinely horrifying and, whilst the BBC has also broadcast material that could be argued to be equally harrowing (e.g., the aforementioned Culloden or their recent documentary on Belsen), there is always a difference between what has happened historically and what could happen to the viewer next week.

However, what else did the BBC expect from a project Peter Watkins would do on nuclear war? Why not demand changes earlier? Or air it in a late-night slot with a warning beforehand that it is not for those of a weak disposition?

Whilst the Prime Minister has fully denied any government involvement in the House of Commons, many people (myself included) fail to believe there is not either some political pressure put on the BBC or self-censorship on the part of Director-General Sir Hugh Carlton Greene.

Either way, some of us have been lucky enough to see the final product, thanks to a limited theatrical release. It is both exactly what you would expect and something even more amazing.

A Different Frontier

Star Man's Son by Andre Norton

In science fiction there has been a tendency to treat the result of nuclear war as a chance for a new kind of western or sword & sorcery tale. Consider, for example Andre Norton’s Star Man’s Son or George Pal’s The Time Machine, where the destruction of civilization allows for a form of old-fashioned adventure not available in contemporary society. Even two of the bleakest post-nuclear films so far fall into this trap.

On The Beach Poster

In On The Beach, the destruction of the rest of the world allows for a kind of morose luxury, as those last survivors expecting to die are allowed to choose how things would end and what they want to do with the remainder of their lives. We never see the effect of the radiation clouds coming on the survivors, instead the film merely cuts from people in the streets of Melbourne to their absence.

Panic In Year Zero Poster

Whilst in Panic In Year Zero the family are already outside of the cities when the bombs fall, manage to eke out a survival in the wilderness and then are able to rejoin society afterwards. You could easily make a few changes to the script and make it about a settler family travelling west in the 19th Century.

Peter Watkin’s The War Game does not allow for any shred of optimism. The situation is that China invades South Vietnam, this in turn results in the US threatening to use nuclear weapons to stop them. In solidarity the East German government blocks off West Berlin. As tensions rise, we follow a town in Kent as they first try to cope with the evacuation of women and children from the cities and then the effect of nuclear attack on the area. It shows the full impact this may have, physically, mentally, and socially before what will probably be their inevitable demise.

In itself this would be harrowing enough, but this goes further to really ram the message home to those watching.

No Comfort, Only Fallout

War Game 7a
Resident of a housing estate being interviewed on the fire from a nuclear attack.

The first elements Watkins uses are the stylistic techniques he used in Culloden. Filming in handheld style and doing interviews with non-actors (both real members of the public being asked questions about the possible impact of nuclear attack and the non-actors being hired to act out scripted sections) there were also great touches to make this feel real for example one woman when told about needing to barrack people in her house asked if they will be “coloured”, showing the level of pessimism that Peter Watkins has for humanity and also giving a sense of realism to the film that we're watching.

Doctor interviewed on the categories of injuries in an overburdened hospital.
Doctor interviewed on the categories of injuries in an overburdened hospital.

It takes great pains to show us that the sources for this production are based in reality, both in terms of predictions, such as NATO mock battles and expert panels, and in historical examples, particularly concentrating on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the firebombing of Dresden. What is more it makes sure to say this is modelling a better case scenario, and that the bombs used could actually be significantly more powerful.

A lorry full of corpses being driven away.
A lorry full of corpses being driven away.

One area where I could understand some of the criticism of the suitability of the viewing of this film on television would be with some of the actual gore that is shown. This is not to say that it is gratuitous, rather it is showing the real impact of nuclear weapons on members of the general public. For example, it does not vary considerably from the images that have been shared on the victims of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

One of the real quotes used between images of nuclear attack.
One of the real quotes used between images of nuclear attack.

It also then works to counterpose this with the standard ways in which ordinary people are used to encountering talk of nuclear war, in order to show how unrealistic and glib they are in comparison to what we see unfolding before us. This is also demonstrated in the choice of Michael Aspel as the narrator, primarily known to the British public for his commentaries on Come Dancing and The Eurovision Song Contest, helping to make someone that would usually be cozy and comforting into something terrifying. For American readers, try to imagine how unsettling it would have been if Panic in Year Zero not only contained teen idol Frankie Avalon, but also had Roger Miller playing the misanthropic father instead of noir star Ray Milland.

“Orphans of the Attack”
“Orphans of the Attack”

All of this combined gives a truly haunting impression that lasts with you long after you have finished watching it. There are so many little moments that burrow into your mind that I could use 2000 words to just list them, and I would still have many sections left to describe. Whether it is the Christmas Church Service at the refugee camp, seagulls squawking as people are shot, or a nurse breaking down as she tries to discuss casualties, it is hard to go away unaffected by the experience.

Critical Targets

An “expert” cut to for further explanations.
An “expert” cut to for further explanations.

There have many criticisms launched at The War Game, so I want to spend some time addressing a few of them.

The first of these is factual. Whilst Watkins and his team have gone to great lengths to ensure a realistic portrayal of a nuclear attack on Britain, there has still been criticism of their predictions. One in particular is that a nuclear attack would not likely take place in such a short space of time, allowing people time to prepare and civil defense authorities to carry out their duties fully.

The response to this is surely to look at the Cuban Missile Crisis a few years ago. Though it is true that it did evolve over some time and we did come perilously close to nuclear war, none of these plans were instituted. As such the preparations will likely only start when it is too late. Further, The War Game goes to great lengths to show that even those able to carry out these plans would not be helped in the long term.

Policemen shooting people with more than 50% burns to alleviate hospital pressure.
Policemen shooting people with more than 50% burns to alleviate hospital pressure.

Another is that narratively it does not have enough impact because of the various tragedies piled on top of each other. For example, it has been argued, that if the sandbag defenses are ineffective, why should we care about the fact that there would be panic buying, scalping and lack of supplies? Or if millions have died, why should it bother us they would have to incinerate piles of corpses in buildings and only identify people via buckets of wedding rings?

I find this critique to be at best facile, and at worst lacking in real humanity. The fact that common human decency also gets lost, and the standard functions of civil society are so lost is what compounds the tragedy of the nuclear death and makes it so terrible. The fact that the extinction of almost all life in Britain is shown to be the inevitable result of what is unfolding does not mean what happens along the way is any less important.

Food control centre used primarily for law enforcement being raided by ordinary people.
Food control centre used primarily for law enforcement being raided by ordinary people.

The final area is political. I am not talking about the criticism from church groups or police about their depiction (criticisms which I do not feel are worth devoting time to) but rather the political impact on the public. The film is so unrelentingly terrifying it could well reduce sentiment in favor of nuclear deterrence on the Western side, whilst it is unlikely to be available in places like the Soviet Union or China.

My response to this is twofold. First, if there is to be a true belief in the value of freedom in the western democracies, it must allow for truth, however unpleasant. Otherwise surely the whole exercise of battling ideologies is nothing more than football teams demanding the loyalty of their local supporters.

But, more importantly, maybe this isn’t a bad idea? If the NATO nations begin to disarm, maybe others will too? Anything that could avert the destruction of humanity is surely a positive step.

End the MADness

Anti-Nuclear march in London, 1961
Anti-Nuclear march in London, 1961

With the war in Vietnam continuing to escalate and more nations developing their own nuclear capability, the scenario outlined in this film becomes more and more likely.

My only worry is that the limited theatrical release will limit the impact this essential piece of cinema could have had. It is one I would want to be shown everywhere, from schools to retirement communities, to both educate and promote debate on where the world is going.

Five Stars and a request that after you have seen it, you share the message with your friends.

We may not have much time to prevent from this becoming a true documentary…




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Book, Fashion, music, politics, sports

[April 12, 1966] The Degenerate Modern Era

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by Erica Frank

Interesting Times

It's been a tumultuous half a year since my last article. In that time, the world of music and activism has grown tremendously. Joan Baez has released a new album with several anti-war songs and has relentlessly protested against the Vietnam war. Ken Kesey has begun his "Acid Test" concert-parties in San Francisco, and the headline band is often the Grateful Dead, formerly known as the Warlocks. Timothy Leary was arrested for pot smuggling – maybe he should've stuck to the more legal LSD. Poll taxes are now illegal, and formerly-obscene racy novel Fanny Hill is now protected by the first amendment and can be freely published. In the midst of all these political and social changes, Time Magazine is asking, "Is God Dead?" raising cries of "blasphemy" from conservative preachers across the nation.

Time Cover: Is God Dead?

Time Magazine, April 8 1966, asking the hard questions.

It is at that last point where I wish to begin, because I feel entirely qualified to answer that question: No, God is not dead; God is a female and Her name is Eris, Goddess of Discord.

The Best of All One True Religions

I can say this confidently because I have come into possession of the new scripture for our age, the Principia Discordia, or, How the West Was Lost, "beeing the Officiale Handebooke of the Difcordian Societye and A Beginning Introdyctun to The Erisian Misterees."

Yes, as is common with many of the younger folk involved in today's spiritual movements, I have apparently fallen prey to a religious cult, this one centered around the divine principles of Disorder and Chaos.

Sacred Chao of Eris

The Sacred Chao, drawing on the Taoist "yin and yang" symbolism–a circle divided into the Hodge and Podge, with a Pentagon on the Hodge side and the Golden Apple of Discord on the Podge side.

Principia was written by "Malaclypse (the Younger), Omniscient Polyfather of Virginity-in-gold" and "Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, Bull Goose of Limbo and Protector of Switzerland" in 1963; they distributed copies made on Jim Garrison's Xerox printer. Garrison is a New Orleans lawyer with a penchant for going after corrupt judges: a laudable goal, but likely a frustrating career choice. I can understand why his office assistants might pray to spirits of Chaos.

The Principia describes what we know of Eris (not much, but that she was worshipped by the ancient Greeks as goddess of strife and discord, and the Romans thereby named her Discordia) and her part in the Myth of the Apple of Discord – a retelling of the Greek myth of the start of the Trojan war. Much of the fable is lost in my copy of the book, alas. Perhaps later editions will contain the complete text.

The Discordian Society purports to provide false but comforting answers to questions like, "why do today's leaders ignore the principles of science and instead embroil us all in totalitarianism and war?" It promotes "unworkable principles of discord" with the intent of providing a workshop for the insane, and thus keeping them out of the mischief they can create as "Presidents, Ambassadors, Priests, Ministers and other Dictators."

I love this book. Five golden apples. Please, seek out a copy at a bookstore near you, or demand to have one provided instead of a bible when you check into a hotel.

The Psychedelic Revolution

No religious movement would be complete without its music, and the music of the Age of Chaos is, in a word, "trippy." As in, it is often accompanied by acid trips, the experience of being under the influence of LSD. Kesey and his Merry Pranksters are at the heart of the psychedelic movement, and the Grateful Dead – formerly the Warlocks – are playing its tunes.

Can You Pass the Acid Test? Poster

Can YOU pass the Acid Test? Poster for one of Ken Kesey's events. Possibly used as an actual test: if the spiral starts spinning, it's working!

In January, they played at the Filmore in San Francisco. From that set, "Death Don't Have No Mercy" is memorable – somber and poignant. In February, they were at the Ivar Theater and played "I Know You Rider," a traditional folk ballad that's one of their staples. Their version as The Warlocks was heavier on drums, more "rock" and less "folk blues."  Their bluesy-rock music with long instrumental sections is the perfect background for Kesey's entirely legal, if a little unorthodox, LSD experiments.

But the Grateful Dead aren't the only ones directing the swirling energies of modern life into something more profound. Joan Baez's newest album, "Farewell, Angelina," includes both the anti-war title song, written by Bob Dylan, and "Sagt Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind" – Pete Seeger's German translation of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

She is in West Germany right now, involved in the Easter peace demonstrations. She and her fellow marchers are trying to get governments around the world to realize that we cannot solve problems caused by poverty, fear, and violence by creating more of all three.

Wherein the Law Is Less of an Ass Than Usual

While we among the lunatic fringe are often at odds with our governments (especially when those governments are dedicating incredible amounts of our tax dollars toward killing people whom we don't want dead), occasionally we get a bright moment, a win for tolerance and a step toward true democracy. This past month, we have had both.

On March 24th, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Virginia's state poll tax was unconstitutional. Harper vs Viriginia State Board of Elections brought some of the protections of the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act to state laws. Justice Douglas delivered the ruling, including:

[T]he interest of the State, when it comes to voting, is limited to the power to fix qualifications. Wealth, like race, creed, or color, is not germane to one's ability to participate intelligently in the electoral process.

The court noted that the state may decide who is qualified to vote, based on reasonable criteria. States may disagree about the age of adulthood, or which crimes are so terrible that committing one removes a person's right to vote. But states do not have the right to declare soldiers non-residents, nor to apportion representatives differently for urban and rural areas. And now, it is established that "Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth nor to paying or not paying this or any other tax."

Poll Tax Receipt from 1966

Poll tax receipt from Alabama, showing a fee of $3–the price of a pair of sneakers–to vote for the year. Anyone who misplaced their receipt would not be permitted to vote.

No more shutting people out of voting because they're poor… or because their wallet was recently stolen… or because of a fire in their home… or because the receipt got damaged… or because the election official decided it was illegible… or whatever other excuse a district had decided on, as a way to keep anyone who wasn't white and wealthy away from the polls.

More Books to Read

Tom Lehrer fans rejoice! On March 21st, we scored a victory for smut: Cleland's Fanny Hill, also known as Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, originally published in 1749, is now legal to distribute throughout the US. Memoirs vs Massachusetts overturned the ban in Massachussets which followed the ban (and removal thereof) in New York.

The court ruled that the book has obvious literary and historical value, proving that it cannot be held obscene by the Roth test, and that since it is not linked to any illegal activities, there is no justifiable reason to censor it. The no-longer-obscene racy novel is now available to be printed by any publisher that cares to do the typesetting… and is willing to accept the hit to their reputation.

Fanny Hill paperback front and back covers

Includes the New York State Supreme Court decision – possibly even Desmond's dissent, which points out that "it describes to the last intimate physical detail numerous instances not only of prostitution but of voyeurism, transvestism, homosexuality, lesbianism, flogging, seduction of a boy, etc., etc."

Speaking of "reputation for publishing the wrong books"… Ace has been soundly castigated for their unauthorized editions of Lord of the Rings. The backlash against Ace was strong enough that they have offered repayment to Tolkien (which he has accepted), and have agreed to stop publishing and not reprint the book. Ballantine is now publishing fully authorized versions that pay royalties, and they are selling as fast as stores can get them.

However, it's likely that, without Ace's bold (and arguably unethical) plan, we would never have seen these books in paperback. Tolkien had initially refused to publish them in "so degenerate a form," and it is likely US publishers declined to republish in hardcover, as they didn't believe a big enough market existed. The hardcover books were a whopping $5.95 each; the Ace paperbacks were 75 cents. Ballantine's paperbacks, which factor royalties into their price, are 95 cents.

The hardcovers sold an estimated 15,000 copies… the paperbacks have sold almost eight times that many in a handful of months. So let's give a cheer for degenerate publishing and hope for a long and happy future of access to forbidden books!




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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 10, 1966] A Fairy Tale from the East: King Thrushbeard

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by Cora Buhlert

Marching for Peace

The long Easter holiday weekend has just passed. For most West Germans, Easter is a time for church services, family dinners, bunnies and chocolate eggs.

However, in the past six years, Easter has also become a time for peace protests. These so-called Easter marches have been inspired by the British Aldermaston marches and always take place during the Easter weekend throughout West Germany.

Easter March in Delmenhorst, 1966
The Easter march in Delmenhorst, a town of 60000 people in my region.

Initially, Easter marches only happened in big cities. But now, fuelled by fears about the war in Vietnam and nuclear armament, even places like Delmenhorst, a town of 60000 people in my region, have Easter marches of their own. Meanwhile, the big marches such as Frankfurt's attract celebrities such as US folk singer Joan Baez, West German actor, singer and comedian Wolfgang Neuss and US peace activist Ira Sandperl.

Easter march 1966 in Frankfurt/Main
Celebrity protesters at the 1966 Easter march in Frankfurt include US peace activist Ira Sandperl, singer Joan Baez and German actor, singer and comedian Wolfgang Neuss

Springtime in Leipzig

However, marches are not the only way to promote world peace and global understanding. Meeting people from the Eastern bloc also helps and so I ventured across the Iron Curtain last month to attend the 1966 spring fair in Leipzig, East Germany. Based on a tradition going back to the middle ages, the Leipzig spring and autumn fairs have become a showcase for East European industry since the war. The Leipzig fairs are also a time when East and West move a little closer together and the Iron Curtain becomes a bit more porous. Particularly, the associated Leipzig book fair offers a chance for booklovers from East and West to meet.

Leipzig spring fair 1966 Wartburg
The brand-new Wartburg 312 is the pride of the East German car industry. But don't think you can just walk into a showroom to buy one. The waiting list is several years long.
Leipzig spring fair 1966
East German construction equipment on display at the Leipzig spring fair
Soviet space probes on display at the Leipzig spring fair
My favourite part of the 1966 Leipzig spring fair was this display of Soviet spacecraft.
East German chocolate bunnies
This young lady presents tasty chocolate Easter treats at the Leipzig spring fair. Finding them in stores is much more difficult.

Because I have family in the nearby town of Schkeuditz, I eschewed the pricy and spy-ridden hotels catering to western visitors and instead spent the night on my Aunt Metel's couch. During the day, I admired the products of East European industrial ingenuity, including a fascinating display of Soviet space probes, and in the evening, I enjoyed the cultural life of Leipzig. Among other things, I went to the cinema to watch the latest East European movies. And this is how I came to see König Drosselbart (King Thrushbeard), a delightful fairy tale that was the highest grossing East German movie of 1965.

Capitol cinema Leipzig
The Capitol cinema in Leipzig with its striking neon sign.

Fairy Tales from the East

Eastern Europe in general and East Germany and Czechoslovakia in particular produce a lot of fairy tale movies. These films rarely reach the English speaking world, but they do make their way onto West German movie and TV screens, because they offer well-made and – at least on the surface – apolitical entertainment for viewers of all ages.

Poster King Thrushbeard

In 1950, the state-owned East German film studio DEFA kicked off its series of fairy tale movies with Das kalte Herz (The Cold Heart), based on a fairy tale by Wilhelm Hauff. The movie was a huge success and so the DEFA started adapting more fairy tales, borrowing stories from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, but also from Russian folklore. King Thrushbeard, based on the eponymous fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, is already the seventeenth fairy tale movie the DEFA has made since 1950.

Haughty Princesses and Handsome Strangers

The movie follows the plot of the fairy tale very closely and opens with Princess Roswitha (Karin Ugowski) on a coach ride with her governess Beatrix (Evamaria Heyse). Roswitha urges the coachman to go faster and faster, until the inevitable happens. The coach strikes a pothole and loses a wheel.

King Thrushbeard 1965
Princess Roswitha (Karin Ugowski) confronts coachman Sebastian (Nico Turoff) after her carriage suffers a mishap in the woods.

Lucky for Roswitha and her entourage, a dashing horseman (Manfred Krug) just happens to pass by and immediately offers his help. The horseman is quite taken by the princess. Roswitha, in turn, doesn't quite know what to make of this handsome and helpful stranger, so she reacts with what we quickly realise is her default response to any situation, haughtiness and snark.

King Thrushbeard
Princess Roswitha pretends not to be interested in the handsome stranger (Manfred Krug).

Roswitha is not just haughty and snarky, she's also a spoiled brat and would be difficult to like if the movie didn't show us her softer side, when she uses her own handkerchief to bind the coachman's bleeding hand. This glimpse at Roswitha's kinder side is not lost on the handsome stranger either, who shamelessly flirts with Roswitha and even gives her a bouquet of little blue wildflowers. This bouquet will reappear throughout the film, indicating that in spite of her behaviour, Roswitha is attracted to the handsome stranger.

However, Roswitha doesn't have time to act on her attraction to handsome strangers she meets in the woods, for she has to return to the castle of her father, King Dandelion (Martin Flörchinger) who is throwing a feast in her honour and has invited several aristocratic and eligible bachelors, hoping Roswitha will choose one of them. Roswitha, however, doesn't want to marry, least of all one of the men her father has chosen for her.

King Thrushbeard 1965
Roswitha and her long suffering father King Dandelion (Martin Flörchinger)

The Hateful Eight

We first meet Roswitha's suitors at the castle, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the Princess. And immediately, the viewer sympathises with Roswitha and her reluctance to marry any of these men, because the suitors are a terrible bunch.

There is King Heinz-Eduard, the favourite of Roswitha's father, who's rich, fat and eats way too much. Roswitha compares him to a wine barrel. King Wenzel of Weinreich is ugly, has crooked teeth and likes alcohol a little too much. Knight Balduin von Backenstreich is rotund, clumsy (he has his proposal written down on a cue card he carries in his sleeve and still messes it up) and so short that Roswitha wonders how he can even carry his sword. Lord Zacharias von Zackenschwert is bald, scarred and really, really loves battles and telling war stories. He presents Roswitha with the medals he's won. Duke Adolar von Antenpfiff has a terrible dress sense and is also old enough to be Roswitha's grandfather. Count Eitelfritz von Supp is incredibly vain, thinks wearing a red shag carpet is the height of fashion. He also appears to find Roswitha's other suitors far more interesting than the princess herself, but since this is a movie for children, Count Eitelfritz's romantic preferences remain allusions. Prince Kasimir, finally, seems tolerable at first glance, except that he never had an original thought in his life and always says what he thinks the other person wants to hear.

King Thrushbeard 1965 The terrible suitors
Would you want to marry any of these men? Roswitha's suitors are not exactly promising.

In short, they're all terrible and Roswitha is not shy about letting her suitors know exactly what she thinks of them. In general, it is notable that while Roswitha may be haughty and a pain in the backside at times, she's also a far cry from the wilting and bland princesses found in western fairy tale movies such as Disney's. Roswitha is sassy and knows exactly what she wants, whether in a husband or in a gown. There is a scene early on where she refuses to wear the (very ugly) gown and blonde wig her father has chosen for her and instead opts for a simpler gown and her natural red hair. 22-year-old East German actress Karin Ugowski, a regular in the DEFA fairy tale movies, imbues Roswitha with a lot of charm without losing her prickliness.

King Thrushbeard 1966
The entire annual East German curtain production was used up to make this gown and then Roswitha doesn't even want to wear it, much to the dismay of her governess Beatrix (Evamaria Heyse)

In addition to the terrible eight, a surprise suitor puts in an appearance and he's none other than the handsome stranger Roswitha met in the woods. But though Roswitha was quite taken by the handsome stranger before, she now rejects him as well. This time around, Roswitha objects to the handsome stranger's beard, which she insists looks like the beak of a thrush, hence the nickname King Thrushbeard.

Manfred Krug King Thrushbeard
I'm not a fan of the beard Manfred Krug is sporting here either, but Roswitha should know that beards can be shaved off.

A King in Disguise

However, Roswitha has overplayed her hand. Her father is furious that she rejected all the suitors again and was extremely rude about it as well. So the king swears that he will marry off Roswitha to the first beggar who appears at the castle gates. Lo and behold, promptly a wandering minstrel playing a hurdy-gurdy appears outside the castle. Meanwhile, King Thrushbeard has mysteriously vanished.

King Dandelion wavers about marrying off his only daughter to a wandering minstrel, but the insulted suitors hold him to his word and so Roswitha is married to the minstrel and cast out of the castle.

The true identity of the minstrel will not come as a surprise to anybody but Roswitha, even if the DEFA make-up department did its best to disguise Manfred Krug with a fake beard and to cover up the distinctive scar on Krug's forehead, legacy of his pre-acting career as a steelworker, with a hairpiece. Yes, the wandering minstrel is none other than King Thrushbeard in disguise, out to teach the princess a lesson and win her after all.

King Thrushbeard 1965
Roswitha and her minstrel husband at the castle gates.

Eastern Jazz

28-year-old Manfred Krug is a rising star in East Germany and King Thrushbeard certainly demonstrates why. Whether king or minstrel, he always displays his cocky working class charm and has great chemistry with his co-star Karin Ugowski. King Thrushbeard (we later learn that his real name is Hans) takes no crap from Roswitha and gives as good as he gets. But contrary to his fairy tale counterpart, he's not a jerk, but instead treats Roswitha with kindness and patience.

Manfred Krug is not just an actor, but also a talented singer and songwriter, skills that he gets ample chance to show off in King Thrushbeard. Both East and West Germans love schlager, sappy pop songs of love lost and won, so schlager make up most of Manfred Krug's musical output. However, his true love is jazz, which he calls "the best gift our American brothers ever gave us".

Manfred Krug plays jazz
Manfred Krug and his band Die Jazz Optimisten play jazz in East Germany.

So how good a singer is Manfred Krug? A very good one, it turns out. Check out his amazing version of "House of the Rising Sun", which I for one prefer to The Animals'. Krug also wrote the German lyrics, which touch on taboo subjects such as race relations in the US South.

Jazz und Lyrik
Jazz und Lyrik, one of Manfred Krug's records

Crafting Lessons in the Woods

The songs that Krug sings in King Thrushbeard are far more traditional, though pleasant. However, the people of the town, through which Roswitha and her new husband pass, only have a few pennies to spare for a wandering minstrel. The minstrel spends those few pennies on an apple for Roswitha. In the real world, he tells her, things cost money and they have none.

King Thrushbeard 1965
Roswitha and her new husband take a stroll across the market
Manfred Kurg and Karin Ugowski in King Thrushbeard
The minstrel performed such a lovely song to buy this apple and now Roswitha doesn't even want it.

The minstrel takes Roswitha to a shack in the woods, where Roswitha turns out to be absolutely hopeless at housework. Nor does she have any marketable skills, which does not bode well for the couple's financial future.

Now the movie turns into "Crafting with Manfred Krug", as King Thrushbeard tries to teach Roswitha basket weaving, spinning and finally pottery (we never learn just how a king came by such practical skills). Roswitha turns out to be bad at all three crafts, but she reveals herself to be a talented painter, so she paints the pots and jugs that her husband makes. Meanwhile, Roswitha is thrilled that her painting skills are actually appreciated, because back at the castle, no one ever did.

Manfred Krug and Karin Ugowski in King Thrushbeard
Crafting with Manfred Krug: Lesson 2: Spinning

Next, King Thrushbeard sends Roswitha to market to sell the pots and jugs they made. Her success is middling, because Roswitha just isn't the stereotypically noisy market wife. On the second day, she sets up her stall a bit apart from the others, only to have a drunk soldier ride straight into it, shattering all her pottery. Humiliated and deeply ashamed, Roswitha runs off into the woods, believing she cannot come home to her husband, after she lost their entire stock.

King Thrushbeard
Roswitha is selling handpainted pottery at the market.
King Thrushbeard
Disaster is about to strike, for in a few seconds this horseman will destroy Roswitha's wares.

Happily Ever After with Meatballs and Parsley

At a well in the woods, Roswitha asks her reflection for advice and gets it in the form of a kitchen boy from the nearby castle who is gathering mushrooms for the royal table. The boy tells Roswitha of an open position in the castle as a kitchen maid, so Roswitha goes with him. She is quickly hired, especially since it turns out that she is very good at making the king's favourite dish, meatballs with parsley sauce, which – quelle surprise – also just happens to be her husband's favourite dish.

Meanwhile, King Thrushbeard is looking for his missing wife and learns what happened from the other market vendors. Realising that he overdid the whole charade, he goes in search of Roswitha, enlisting the aid of his most trusted courtiers and servants. The cook recognises the king's description as the new kitchen maid.

King Thrushbeard 1965
Roswitha has made meatballs with parsley sauce for the king.

So King Thrushbeard throws a big wedding feast and has Roswitha make meatballs with parsley sauce (a specialty from Saxony) as the main course. He also insists that she personally serves the meal. When Roswitha realises who the king is she drops the tureen with the meatballs (this movie certainly is hard on tableware) and runs off once again. King Thrushbeard catches up with her, apologises and the two are married for real. And they lived happily ever after.

King Thrushbeard wedding
Roswitha and King Thrushbeard celebrate their wedding with a dance.

King Thrushbeard is an delightful film. It sticks close enough to the original plot that everybody recognises it at once, but also updates the 150-year-old story to remove some of the more unpleasant aspects of the original, where King Thrushbeard is very much a jerk. The cast is excellent, particularly the two leads, but also the supporting actors playing the various suitors.

One thing about the film that surprised me were the rather basic sets. The movie was shot entirely in the DEFA studios in Potsdam Babelsberg and it shows. Even the woods through which Roswitha and King Thrushbeard pass repeatedly are obviously a studio set. The castle, the town and the minstrel's shack consist of random set pieces and bits of furniture against a plain grey studio background. The result is a highly stylized look, partly reminiscent of silent movies and partly of the fairy tale stage plays that are a staple of German theatres in the run-up to Christmas. I have seen DEFA movies with location footage and elaborate sets, so this is a deliberate artistic choice, not an economic necessity. Allegedly, the reason for the stylized sets is the theory that realistic sets would only confuse young viewers and distract from the plot.

A Socialist Fairy Tale?

So how political is King Thrushbeard, considering it is a movie from beyond the iron curtain? On the surface, it's not very political at all, considering it is an adaptation of a 150-year-old fairy tale cum morality play, featuring kings and princesses. However, at second glance, Socialist politics do become apparent, though they are more subtle than the blunt messaging e.g. in the East German science fiction film The Silent Star.

For starters, the movie very much stresses the value and importance of work. It is his ability to work with his hands that sets King Thrushbeard apart from the useless suitors and Roswitha's redemption involves getting a good honest proletarian job, first as a ceramic painter, then as a pottery vendor and finally as a kitchen maid.

Furthermore, the second song the minstrel sings explicitly states that both excessive wealth and poverty are bad for society and that equality is the best state. It's the Socialist message in a nutshell.

King Thrushbeard 1965
King Heinz-Eduard, one of Roswitha's terrible suitors, is a caricature of a fat and rich capitalist.
King Thrushbeard
Lord Zacharias von Zackenschwert is a stereotypical war mongering Prussian officer.

The terrible suitors can also be seen as an indictment of various vices. We have a drunkard, a war monger, a glutton, a man who ostentatiously shows off his wealth, a pompous fellow with a monocle, a yes-man who parrots what others wants to hear, a stammering idiot and a man who cares about his own appearance above all else. These, the movie tells us very clearly, are the sort of people the real existing Socialist republic of East Germany does not need. Though it is notable that the vices of the bad suitors also line up with the seven deadly sins of Christianity.

King Thrushbeard Russian poster
The Russian poster for "King Thrushbeard"

But don't let my comments about the political content of the movie scare you off. King Thrushbeard is an enjoyable fairy tale for young and old.

Four stars




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 8, 1966] Search Parties (May 1966 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Keep Watching the Skies!

The good citizens of Michigan were recently reminded of the warning I've quoted above, from 1951's The Thing from Another World (a loose cinematic adaptation of John W. Campbell's 1938 novella Who Goes There?).


Father and son describe what they saw.

Folks in Washtenaw County (just look for the city of Ann Arbor on the map, and you're smack dab in the middle of it) reported seeing strange lights in the sky last month. Supposedly, a UFO even landed in a swampy area near the tiny community of Dexter Township.


Looks like a classic flying saucer to me.

About one hundred people witnessed these phenomena. Naturally, the federal government got involved. They sent astronomer J. Allen Hynek to the area to check things out. Reportedly, he thinks at least some of the sightings can be explained as swamp gas. One politician isn't so sure.


Note that the article uses the phrase marsh gas. One person's swamp is another person's marsh, I suppose.

Gerald R. Ford is a United States Congressman from the Grand Rapids district of Michigan, so this situation strikes close to home for him. (He's a Republican, and the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives. Maybe this event will make him famous.)

Here's a picture of Representative Ford and wife Betty on a recent fishing trip, so you'll recognize him if his face shows up in the news in times to come.

It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier

While some Americans are tracking down UFO's, others are searching for ways to justify their nation's involvement in the conflict in Vietnam. As a counterpoint to the many demonstrations against the war, a patriotic song celebrating the heroism of the Army Special Forces has been at the top of the charts for several weeks. The Ballad of the Green Berets, sung by Sergeant Barry Sadler, seems to have struck just the right note with many conservative music lovers.


Personally, I prefer the Tom Lehrer song I have alluded to above.

Hunting Through the Pages

Meanwhile, I've been searching for good reading. Take, for example, the latest issue of Fantastic. Fittingly, many of the stories feature characters who are on quests of one kind or another.


Art by Frank R. Paul.

(I might add that I had to search through piles of old pulp magazines to find the original source of the magazine's cover art. It turned out to be the back cover of the September 1944 issue of Amazing Stories.)


Confused? We'll get to an explanation of this weird scene later in the issue.

The Phoenix and the Mirror, by Avram Davidson

Let's begin our journey with a new novella from the former editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

The author's introductory note explains that the ancient Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, was depicted as a sorcerer in legends of the Middle Ages. (Davidson prefers the spelling Vergil, which I will use for the name of the fictional character in this story. He also prefers nigromancer to necromancer and Renascence to Renaissance, but that's typical erudite eccentricity on his part.) He also notes that this tale is the first part of a series to be called Vergil Magus.

Anyway, we begin in medias res, with Vergil trying to escape from an underground labyrinth full of malevolent manticores. (These are not the lion-scorpions of myth, but something more like large, clever weasels.) He manages to get out, winding up at the palace of an aristocrat with magical powers. She forces him to undertake the extremely difficult quest of creating a very special enchanted mirror, so she can see where in the world her daughter might be. He can't say no, because she steals one of his souls.

You read that right. People in this world have more than one soul, it seems. Losing one isn't fatal, but it seems to be so traumatic an event that Vergil feels compelled to undertake the nearly impossible task. He has to obtain unrefined tin and copper ore from the far ends of the known world, and then form the mirror through a long and laborious process. After many struggles, with the help of his alchemist sidekick, he manages to complete this onerous undertaking.


The mirror in use.

That isn't the end of his troubles, however. After instantly falling in love with the daughter after one glimpse in the mirror, he treks through desert wastelands, with an enigmatic Phoenician at his side, to rescue her from a Cyclops.


The lady and the cyclops.

This isn't the typical brutal, dimwitted Cyclops from mythology, but an intelligent, even sensitive creature. Multiple plot twists follow, and we find out why a phoenix is mentioned in the title.

Davidson keeps his baroque writing style under control here, and the plot is cleverly crafted. The background, which is kind of a mixture of the ancient world and the Middle Ages, with a strong dose of pure fantasy, is unique and interesting. Some readers may be impatient with several pages describing in great detail the exact method of creating the mirror, but I found it fascinating.

My one major complaint is that Vergil's lengthy and dangerous voyage to obtain copper ore is skipped over almost entirely, related in just a few sentences of flashback. I would like to learn more about his adventures there. Maybe Davidson plans to expand this novella into a novel, as authors of science fiction and fantasy often do. Otherwise, I greatly enjoyed this witty and imaginative excursion into a past that never existed.

Four stars.

Seven Came Back, by Clifford D. Simak


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

As usual, the rest of the magazine is filled up with reprints. Let's start with a tale from the pages of the October 1950 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustrations by Arthur Hutah.

The setting is Mars, the favorite world of SF writers. Like many fictional versions of the red planet, this is a place where humans can survive without spacesuits. It's still a very dangerous environment, however, with all sorts of deadly creatures living in the endless desert.

The protagonist is on a quest to find the fabled lost city of the nearly extinct Martians. He hires a couple of tough guys to guide him through the wasteland. As we'll see, this turns out to be a big mistake.

Six Martians show up at their camp. It seems that they're the last of their kind, and they think that the men can lead them to a seventh. The Martians have seven sexes, you see, and this is their last chance to reproduce. (That must certainly make things complicated.)

If the humans help them out, they'll take them to the city, which is supposed to be full of fabulous treasures. The two roughnecks take off on their own, leaving the protagonist alone in the deadly desert.

Things get a lot stranger after this, and I don't want to give too much away. Suffice to say that the main character manages to survive, wins an unexpected ally, and has a mystical experience at the city.


The lost Martian city.

At first, I thought this was more or less a science fiction Western, with the hero heading for a showdown with the no-good polecats who left him to die. I have to admit that the plot went in completely unexpected directions. I'm still pondering the meaning of the ending. The author mixes space adventure with his usual warmth and concern for all living things and a touch of Bradbury's magical Mars.

Four stars.

The Third Guest, by B. Traven

The mysterious author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre offers a fable of life and death that appeared in the March-April 1953 issue of Fantastic.


Cover art by Richard Powers.

Like everything else about the author, the provenance of this story is puzzling. As far as I have been able to determine, it was written under the title The Healer, was first published in German in 1950 as Macario, and somehow wound up with its current title when it showed up in Fantastic.


Illustrations by Tom O'Sullivan.

One of the few facts known about the author is that he — or she? — lives in Mexico, the setting for most of his — or her? — fiction. This tale is no exception. It takes place when the region was still known as New Spain, during the colonial period.

Macario, a dirt-poor woodcutter, barely manages to feed himself, his wife, and their many children. For most of his life, his greatest dream has been to eat an entire roast turkey by himself. Over several years, his wife saves the tiny payments she receives for doing chores for slightly less poverty-stricken folks. She buys a turkey, prepares it exquisitely, and presents it to her husband, telling him to go into the woods and devour it alone.

Before he can enjoy the delicious feast, however, three strange visitors show up. The first is a sinister fellow, richly dressed. He offers Macario enormous wealth for a share of the turkey. Macario refuses.


The first guest.

The second one is poorly dressed, gentle, and saintly. Despite his kindly manner, Macario again refuses to share his meal. The visitor blesses him anyway.


The second guest.

The third guest, as the title suggests, is the one most vital to the plot. Macario knows he cannot refuse this cadaverous figure, so he at least manages to keep half of the turkey for himself. In exchange, the guest gives him an elixir that will cure all ills, but only if the visitor chooses who will live and who will die. The rest of the story follows Macario as he wins a reputation as a great healer. A summons from the Viceroy of New Spain, whose child is dying, leads to a final confrontation with the third guest.

This is a remarkable fantasy, with the simplicity of a folktale but the sophistication of great literature. It appeared in The Best American Short Stories 1954 (edited by Martha Foley), so I'm not alone in my opinion. It was even made into a Mexican movie in 1960, which you might be able to catch at your local arthouse cinema, if you don't mind subtitles.

Five stars.

The Tanner of Kiev, by Wallace West

The last time we met this author, it was with a reprint of the antifeminist dystopia The Last Man, to which my esteemed colleague John Boston awarded one star. Even if we ignore that story's political stance, it's poorly written. Will this tale, from the October 1944 issue of Fantastic Adventures, be any better? It could hardly be worse.


Cover art by J. Allen St. John.

The first thing to keep in mind is that this is a story about World War Two, written and published during the height of the conflict. You have to expect Our Side to be heroic Good Guys, and Their Side to be sadistic Bad Guys. In particular, the Soviets are definitely on the side of the angels here.


Illustrations by Malcolm Smith.

The hero parachutes behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Ukraine. His mission is to deliver a radio transmitter to the underground resistance. Things get weird pretty quickly, as he runs into an immortal magician from Russian folklore.


The wizard and his pets.

Next thing you know, he's at the chicken-legged hut of the legendary old witch Baba Yaga. None of this supernatural stuff seems to bother him, and soon he's on his way into Kiev. He contacts the Russian guerillas, including the pretty female one with whom he falls in love. With the help of the warlock and witch, as well as a talking squirrel and a were-rat, the brave Soviets overcome the craven Germans.

Given the fact that, inevitably, a wartime story is going to paint things in black and white, this isn't a bad yarn at all. It's pretty well written, and the wild and wooly plot held my interest. The changes in mood from whimsical to romantic to horrific are disconcerting, and the love story is a little sappy, but's it worth a read.

Three stars.

Wolf Pack, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.


Cover art by Leo Summers.

The Second World War is also the background for this story, from the September-October 1953 issue of Fantastic, but this time the battle rages in Italy instead of the Soviet Union.


Illustrations by Bernard Krigstein.

The main character is the pilot of an American bomber who has already flown nearly fifty missions, raining destruction from the skies. He has recurring dreams about a alluring woman he thinks of as La Femme, or just La. It would be easy to dismiss this as a predictable fantasy for a young man deprived of female company for an extended period of time, or as an idealized image of his girlfriend back home. Yet she seems very real, and he appears to be in some kind of telepathic communication with her, even while awake.


The woman known as La.

During his latest bombing run, he nearly aborts the mission, terrified that he might destroy her. The other members of the crew have to physically restrain him to complete their gruesome task.


A bomber's world.

The author was a radio operator and tail gunner during World War Two, participating in as many bombing missions over Italy as the story's protagonist. It's no surprise, then, that the details of life as a bomber pilot are extremely realistic and convincing.   Miller took part in the bombing of the Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino in 1944, which certainly had an influence on the writing of his award-winning novel A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), already considered a modern classic.

Unlike the previous story, which, understandably, was full of gung-ho patriotic glory (much like Sergeant Sadler's hit song, come to think of it) this is a somber, emotionally powerful account of the way that war turns men into machines, and how the innocent suffer as much as the guilty.

Five stars.

Betelgeuse, in Orion: The Walking Cities of Frank R. Paul, by Anonymous

I wasn't sure if I should even bother discussing this little article, but what the heck. It originally appeared under the slightly different title Stories of the Stars: Betelgeuse in Orion, supposedly by a Sergeant Morris J. Steele in the September 1944 issue of Amazing Stories. This is probably a pseudonym for the magazine's editor, Raymond A. Palmer, but I can't prove that.


Cover art by Julian S. Krupa.

Anyway, after some facts about the giant star, we get wild speculation about the beings who might live there. It's pretty much just a way to fill up some space.

Two stars.

The End of the Search

Well, my search for enjoyable fiction certainly paid off! This was an outstanding issue. Even the worst story was pretty good, and the best were excellent. It makes me ponder my skepticism about reprinting old stuff. After all, I don't complain when an movie from yesteryear shows up on television, as long as it's a good one.


Check your local listings to see if this decade-old classic will be showing in your area any time soon.




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Comics

[April 6, 1966] Say Konnichwa to the Newest Comics from Japan!

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[Our comics coverage has spanned much of the globe, but one region has remained unexplored by the Journey…until now.  With this article, we welcome Erica Friedman to the ranks of the Journey's associates!]


by Erica Friedman

If you joined us for the Journey Show last October, you were able to learn about the newest popular TV medium coming from Japan. Japanese cartoons are making their mark with themes of nature versus man's drive to develop technology, frequently exploring what truly makes us human…and some lucky American viewers have already had a chance to see some of these cartoons on television. But what you may not know, is that many of these cartoons were already popular in Japan in the form of comics which are called "manga."

What are Japanese Manga?

"Manga" is a word that means "loose drawing," i.e., a sketched image. The word manga was coined in the late 18th century, but the painter Hokusai made it famous with his sketchbooks, Hokusai Manga, which were first published in 1814.The British Museum goes so far as to ask if maybe Hokusai himself is the father of manga, but I think it is a bit much to assume that no other artists before him ever did a sketch, don't you think?

Katsushika Hokusai Buddhist monks, from Hokusai manga, 1814

Japanese comics really took off after the war. One of the first truly breakout manga was Shin Takarajima (New Treasure Island) by Osamu Tezuka, based on Robert Louis Stevenson's rollicking tale. Published in 1947, this comic launched a new age of comics in Japan. You might also recognize Mr. Tezuka's name from our conversation about Japanese cartoons. Mr. Tezuka is a very busy and successful creator and his name will come up again and again as we talk.

New Treasure Island, by Osamu Tezuka

Magazines Full Of Comics

When we think of comics, probably what comes to mind first is superheroes like Batman and Superman. One of the things that makes Japanese comics unique is – like comics here before the Comics Code – there are manga for all ages and sexes. Not only are there comics for girls and boys, even adults read manga. Whole magazines that are nothing but serialized comics stories are sold in Japan. People can even rent a magazine for a few cents, then return it, just like a library. Imagine a magazine where you could get the latest issue of all your favorite superheroes at once. These manga magazines in Japan are targeted to different ages and sexes, but its pretty easy to tell who reads which magazines.

Shoten Magazine 1966 featuring Shotaro Ishinomori's Cyborg 099.
Nakayoshi, January 1966. Cover by Macoto Takahashi.

Here's an interesting question for you to ponder. Of these two magazines, which one had a comic by Mr. Tezuka running in it? You might be tempted to answer the top one, Shoten Magazine, because Mr. Tezuka's comics seem to be about robot boys and other adventures. You probably can guess where I'm going with this…Mr. Tezuka's comic Princess Knight runs in the girl's magazine, Nakayoshi. And that's just one of the amazing things about these magazines. You might see a comic by our Mr. Tezuka in a magazine for girls or boys or adults. Because he and Mr. Ishinomori are are so prolific, you might see them both in multiple magazines at the same time.

Just as we have comic strips in our newspapers, Japanese newspapers have comic strips, too. They are read from top to bottom, but like Nancy and Blondie in any American paper, the average Japanese mom or pop can read the daily adventures of Mrs. Sazae, an award-winning comic by Miss Michiko Hasegawa. This comic has been one of the most popular series in all of Japan since it was first published in 1946.

Sazae-san, Mrs. Sazae, by Michiko Hasegawa,

I mentioned that Miss Hasegawa received an award for her comic strip. In fact, there are a number of awards given to comic art, where we only have the Alley Awards from the Academy of Comic-Book Fans and Collectors. The Bungeishunjuu Manga Award was given to Miss Hasegawa, but you've already heard some names here of other award winning creators including Mr. Tezuka and Mr. Ishinomori, who is this year's award winner of the Kodansha Children's Manga Award for his story we saw up above, Cyborg 009.

Popular Japanese Comics

Some of the animated series we talked about in our Journey Show, are also popular manga stories.

Jungle Emperor Leo, which has that amazing full-color animation, is another series by Mr Tezuka. Notably, this story is very pro-nature and anti-technological development, a theme you can find in many of his works. Also notable in a story for children, the complexities and harsh realities of adult life aren't hidden away from young eyes. The world Leo exists in is cruel – and the law of man is much crueler than the laws of nature.

Jungle Taitei Leo by Osamu Tezuka, published by Shogakukan

Mr. Tezuka is also writing comics for other series we talked about in the show, like Big X, Wonder 3 and the above-mentioned Princess Knight. These all run in different magazines!

Big X, by Osamu Tezuka
Ribon no Kishi, aka Princess Knight , by Osamu Tezuka

Not everything is so serious in manga, though. Magical girls are a new trend that is very fun. We have Bewitched on our TVs (and you might not be aware of this, but it is a comic book, as well) and Japanese comics fans have The Secrets of Miss Akko. Where Samantha wiggles her nose to make magic, Miss Akko uses a magical mirror. Girls all over Japan love this series and I expect we'll be seeing many more like it.

Himitsu no Akko-chan by Fujio Akatsuka.

In the beginning I mentioned that we probably think of Batman or Superman when we think of comic books today. Well, the Japanese manga fan can also enjoy a Batmanga of their very own. But don't tell DC! I'm not sure they have permission.

The Future of Japanese Comic

Even as TV continues to gain in popularity and more animation appears, I think we won't see a slowdown in manga for a long while. And remember, those children who grew up reading comics are likely to become the manga artists of the future. It will be very interesting to tune back in five years and see what's hip and new in manga in Japan.




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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[April 4, 1966] A Bookstore to Remember (City Lights)

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by Victoria Lucas

I will never forget that afternoon when I first saw Lawrence Ferlinghetti.


Lawrence Ferlinghetti

It might have been a weekend, but I spent many evenings after work in North Beach, either going to see The Committee (improv) at 622 Broadway, a movie at an independent moviehouse, or volunteer at the Playhouse theater.  So I would often pass his bookstore, walking from my apartment (now at Army and 25th) or taking the cable car. It was still light, in any case. He was surrounded by a crowd, but I had a height advantage from the lay of the land at the off-grid intersection of Columbus and Broadway, and he could see me and I him. It seemed to me that our eyes locked and my world changed. (Cue romantic music.)


Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr in "Affair to Remember"

But not for long. (Music stops abruptly with the sound of a needle scratching a record.) He went off with some people and that was that. End of story. My affair to remember (thank you very much, Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, but no thanks) was with the bookstore and not with the poet. (In any case, I'm now seeing someone, and we're moving in together.)

As for the books, I should admit that I was a virgin when it came to political bookstores. This was my very first time coming into contact with leftist publications and ideas beyond Ramparts Magazine and Stop-the-War demonstrations. That was only foreplay to the heavy breathing of anarchism and leftward utopianism, and the airy sparkle (or existential wail) of life among the poets.


One of Ferlinghetti's books from City Lights Publishers

This is particularly heavy for me since I'm currently working for a band of lawyers who are creating this type of bank card like the Diner's Club or gasoline or department store cards. (They call it "MasterCard," including Crocker Bank.) I am learning far too much about both how lawyers operate (meetings for which I type minutes but that never happened) and how Xerox machines work (some days I'm just all over black plastic dust that doesn't come off easily–one has to stir the stuff occasionally, you see) and how the frequent repairmen do too.

I'm not entirely sure which is the real me, the junior legal secretary or the beatnik-in-waiting. But I'm pretty sure it's the beatnik; like the Zen koan of the man dreaming he's a butterfly vs. the butterfly dreaming he's a man, I think I'm the butterfly.

So walking into that bookstore is an experience both warm and scary, both imaginary and real, the lights glinting off the windows, the chairs all occupied before I get there, the discussions I hear, and the erotic feel of the books themselves. I've learned it's the only all-paperback bookstore, that City Lights became a publisher 2 years after Ferlinghetti opened the bookstore, and that (with the help of the ACLU) Ferlinghetti beat a rap after publishing Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" for the first time ("obscenity"–when even I know it's the government that's the obscenity). (Oops, sorry, did I just violate a norm? It must be the butterfly fluttering inside me.)


The "obscene" book

My affair will only end (and maybe only temporarily?) when I leave San Francisco. I keep coming back to California: born in LA, move to Tucson, move to San Francisco. What's next? Only time will tell.

I digress. I love North Beach. I wander around there every weekend. I think my new boyfriend and I will settle here for a spell close by. And then maybe I can spend even more time wandering from the Spaghetti Factory to City Lights to the Playhouse to The Committee and beyond.


The "obscene" bookstore

In the meantime, I sometimes take the cable car (and/or I walk) to City Lights. After seeing that there was no pressure to buy (an important part of the experience, given my still impecunious state), I take advantage of what appears to be a policy that no one bothers people who read the books or even the magazines. They also have great bulletin boards with notices of readings, concerts, plays, everything that's Going On. The more people inside the windows in the brightly lit store, reading, the more come in from outside–and maybe buy something. I don't buy very much at City Lights, but I am becoming familiar with a lot of titles, a lot of poetry, and a lot of polemics, politics, Asian and Indian religions, new ideas.

As I caress the new ideas, and they sweet-talk me, I still find an analytical spirit within me that doubts that their ideas of the future are any more valid than other promises I've heard. I resist the temptation to embrace them fully, even though I am also pushed into the arms of the left by Pacifica Radio (KPFA/KPFB with studios in SF & Berkeley) and its reports from the Vietnam front sent by intrepid reporters from the Christian Science Monitor who manage to elude the US government and find out what's really happening there. I try to be clear-eyed about what I swallow, but sometimes it's not so easy to avoid becoming emotional about the fate of the human species.

And then there's my new boy friend. Mel is an insurance inspector (steam boiler) who has spent much of his life at sea, a graduate of the Merchant Marine Academy. While having a girl in every port, he became seriously leftist and went to meetings of the Communist Party at one time. (He finally rejected the Party as being too reactionary.) We have both decided, I think, that the only hopeful politics are radical, but nonviolent and seriously sexual.


Sometimes I feel like the City Lights logo

We met because he is a sometime actor and poet who wants to make films. So do I, and we met in such a group–but I want to write for them. In the group we met a filmmaker who only lacked a camera. Marks that we were, we bought him a camera, believing that we would be working together. Guess who absconded with the camera–it wasn't us. So we bonded over the loss and resolved to be less gullible. But we still believe in each other and try not to believe everything we read or hear (or everyone who asks for money).

So Mel has had to put up with my affair with the bookstore–after all, we aren't married (yet). He reads, but he's not in love with print as I am. Meanwhile, please excuse me while I get back to my copy of The Berkeley Barb, for which I occasionally write.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[April 2, 1966] Hidden Truths (May 1966 IF)

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Don't miss tomorrow's exciting Adventure-themed episode of The Journey Show, taking you to the highest peaks, the deepest wildernesses, the coldest extremes, the vacuum of space, and the depths of the sea.  April 3 at 1PM — book your (free) ticket for adventure now!)


by David Levinson

They’re on our side (I believe)

There’s no question that French President Charles de Gaulle has a larger-than-life, albeit rather prickly, personality. It stood him in good stead through the War and in midwifing the Fifth Republic a few years ago. It’s also a big part of what underlies his “politics of grandeur”. Alas, it also makes him a sometimes troublesome partner on the world stage. As early as 1958, he was urging a greater role for France in NATO, kicking against the traces of the Anglo-American “special relationship”. In 1959, he pulled the French Mediterranean fleet and air defenses from NATO command and banned the United States from positioning nuclear weapons in France. A year later, he even tried to renegotiate the NATO treaty, but no other member nation supported him. He was fairly quiet during the Kennedy administration and showed great solidarity during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but he’s up to his old tricks again.


French President Charles de Gaulle announcing that France will go her own way.

In February, de Gaulle declared that the changed world order has “stripped NATO of its justification” and demanded French control of all foreign troops and bases in France when the current NATO agreement ends in 1969. Apparently, he decided that was too far in the future. On March 7th, he ordered all foreign troops and equipment removed from France by next year. Two days later, France formally withdrew its officers from the NATO unified command, assumed full control of the 70,000 French troops in Germany and announced that they will close all allied bases that don’t surrender to French control. President Johnson appears to have taken all this with the poise of a matador performing a verónica, with the faith that de Gaulle can be brought around in a time of need, though there is a rumor he instructed Secretary of State Dean Rusk to ask if that withdrawal includes the thousands of American war dead in French cemeteries. “De l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace.”

Unearthing the past

Oftentimes, what we think we know about the past and how we got where we are is simply wrong. Learning the truth may make us change our course, shatter our identity or turn the whole world upside down. Quite a lot of this month’s IF features characters facing the consequences of just such a revelation.


Supposedly from Silkies in Space. Silkies don’t need spacesuits. Art by Schelling

Silkies in Space, by A. E. van Vogt

Nat Cemp is a Silkie, a genetically engineered human who can adapt his body so that he can live underwater or in space as easily as he can on land. While walking down the street, he encounters a man who appears to be his twin and delivers an ultimatum to Nat. All Silkies are to end their association with humans and return to the nation of Silkies or be deemed traitors. Around one fifth of all Silkies have had a similar experience at roughly the same time. The Silkie nation is traced to a planetoid that travels from outside the orbit of Neptune to inside that of Mercury, and Nat is sent to investigate. What he discovers will have enormous consequences, not only for the 2,000 Silkies of Earth, but for the entire planet.


Gregor Samsa… er, Nat in spacegoing form enters the mysterious planetoid. Art by Gaughan

This is a direct sequel to “The Silkie” from a couple of years ago. While this story largely stands alone, it might make more sense if the first story is fresh in your mind. Parts of it are quite good, other parts (mostly when Nat starts using his mental powers) rather confused and nonsensical. As we’ve discussed many times here at the Journey, van Vogt is a polarizing writer. Oddly, I find myself in both camps. There are stories I like a lot, but I’m also put off by his long fascination with supermen and his strong association with dianetics. There are bits here, like the “logic of levels” where I wonder if I’m being spoonfed Hubbard’s nonsense, and it detracts from the whole. The story goes completely off the rails at the end, as well. I’m waffling on the score, but I think I liked it just enough. Barely three stars.

The Historian, by Carroll J. Clem

We open with a chapter from a history book telling us that as humanity spread to the stars, no intelligence was found to equal man’s own. A few vignettes of humans engaging in the worst forms of colonization and oppression follow. The story concludes with the historian discussing his work with the people who commissioned it.

Clem is this month’s new writer. Stylistically, it’s decent and it’s short, but it’s also fairly obvious. Again, I find myself wavering on the score, but the fact that the author felt compelled to spell out the ironic twist is a mark against it. A high two stars.

The Hide Hunters, by Robert Moore Williams

Ed Grayson is exploring the Amazon, looking for the next big psychedelic drug. When the old chief of the tribe he is staying with begs the use of Ed’s rifle to kill the hide of his dead grandson, Ed is appalled. Later, he finds the chief skinning his grandson and horrified by the strange white filaments connecting the skin to what is inside it. His partner McPherson returns by helicopter and is worried by Ed’s behavior. Ed is going to return to civilization with the helicopter, but a poison dart attacks and kills the pilot. McPherson tries to fly them out and instead crashes near some ancient ruins, where they find Egyptian hieroglyphs and something much more disturbing.


An injured Grayson waits for his partner’s return. Art by Adkins

If Weird Tales were still publishing, this would have fit right in. The story clearly shows Williams’ roots in the pulp days, but is reasonably well updated for today, apart from the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Why not something Incan? One the whole, this is a decent representative of stories of this kind. Too bad the attack on the pilot makes absolutely no sense. Still, it’s three stars.

An APA For Everyone, by Lin Carter

Building on his look at fanzines last month, Carter takes a look at amateur press associations, an idea that goes back nearly a century. Unlike fanzines, which will send a copy to anybody willing to pay the postage, APAs limit circulation to a limited group of contributors who must submit a certain number of pages every month. There are even waiting lists for people to join. Carter examines some of the bigger APAs in fantasy and science fiction, as well as what drives someone to contribute to them. His breezy style is slightly tempered from last time, but it still grates. Three stars.

Mountains Like Mice, by Gene Wolfe

Dirk is being prepared for his Retreat by Otho the Captive. If he can avoid being found for the two months it will take for the dye to wear off, he will become a Master. That night, Otho leads him to the spot where his Retreat will begin at sunrise. Later, he sees what he thinks is Otho being captured by the gyrda, a race of people half the height of a normal person. He tracks them into the mountains with the plan of rescuing Otho. In the end, things known to Dirk are revealed to the reader, and he gains deeper insight.


A captive of the gyrda. Art by Lutjens

Wolfe is unknown to me, but after some digging I see that he had one previous sale to the “gentlemen’s” magazine Sir!. If he can write like this so early in his career, I foresee big things. He’s clearly in love with language and words, and every sentence is beautifully crafted. I don’t claim to really understand the metaphor of the title or the implications of the final paragraph, but the journey there is incredibly beautiful. Four stars.

Golden Trabant, by R. A. Lafferty

A man enters Patrick T. K.’s store to sell a huge lump of greenish gold, clearly of extraterrestrial origin. We then learn of the unscrupulous men seeking the legendary golden asteroid and the consequences of their success.

This is an unusually traditional story for Lafferty, but it still has his unique touch. Of course, it’s largely a retelling of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Diamond as Big as the Ritz without the romance and with a few Lafferty-esque bits. This might be a good starting point for someone who has never read Lafferty and is concerned about some of the things they’ve heard. Three stars.

Earthblood (Part Two of Four), by Keith Laumer and Rosel G. Brown

Last time, Roan, a purebred Terran who grew up among aliens, was forced to join an interstellar circus. There he met the beautiful Stellaraire and rescued her from the villainous Ithc. Now he has hatched a plan for the two of them to escape so that he can make his way back to his mother and then find lost Terra. Those plans are thwarted when Iron Robert, the rock creature who was Stellaraire’s only friend, is grievously injured in a fight. At Roan’s insistence, Robert is brought aboard the ship and nursed back to health, rather than being left behind to die.

En route to another stop, the ship is attacked by the pirate Henry Dread. Many are killed when the ship enters emergency acceleration, and the rest are gunned down by Dread’s crew. Roan is spared, because he is fully human, as is Iron Robert again at Roan’s insistence. But Stellaraire was killed, crushed by a falling beam. Dread views the world divided into three groups: Terrans, Gooks, who are humanoid and may have some Terran in them, and Geeks, the rest of the aliens. And for him only Terrans matter, so he takes Roan under his wing.

Dread takes Roan along on a raid of the old imperial capital of Aldo Cerise. Roan saves Dread’s life and afterward Dread reveals that he is actually a member of a group calling themselves the Terran Navy, supposedly formed from the remnants of the old navy thousands of years ago. He inducts Roan and explains that he’s on a long mission recruiting and financing. Eventually, they find a Niss ship and Dread’s hate leads him to make a foolish attack. Roan winds up killing Dread in an attempt to save Iron Robert, but in the end, Robert must be left behind on the dying ship while Roan leads a desperate raid on the Niss ship, their only hope for survival. To be continued.


Iron Robert meets his match. Art by Wood

Well, that didn’t go how I expected. After last month, I was sure I could see the course of this story. The circus ship would prove to be an extremely powerful warship that Roan would use to break the Niss and Stellaraire would prove not to be a sterile mule. Instead, she’s dead and the ship was about as effective in combat as a Greek trireme against an Iowa-class battleship. In fact, almost everyone who ever supported Roan is dead. His father, Stellaraire, Iron Robert (presumably) and Henry Dread.

Last time, I also expressed concern about the human superiority that was expressed. Some of that is there again, but it’s more clearly an ugly thing. Roan lashes out once at Iron Robert with the vile language Dread uses, but immediately regrets it, and his constant support of Iron Robert shows his real attitudes. I’m more hopeful.

I still don’t see much Laumer here, other than in names (Groaci and Aldo Cerise this time) and the presence of Bolos. And it looks like Wally Wood is indeed the artist for the illos. Three stars.

Summing up

Not as good an issue as last month, certainly. But Earthblood looks like it will be much more than I expected, and we have an interesting new voice in Gene Wolfe. If he can hone his craft a bit more and keep his beautiful language, he may be a force to be reckoned with.


No hype at all for next month? That’s not a good sign.




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Magazine

[March 31, 1966] Shapes of Things (April 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Change

Out in the world of music, there's a change brewing. One can hear it in the experimentation of the Beatles' Rubber Soul album or the otherworldly tinge of The Yardbirds' latest hit, Shapes of Things. I've been long planning to write an article on the musical scene, and I'd best get it done quickly before the landscape changes entirely!

My friend and associate, Cora Buhlert, has noted that although the Stones and Beatles are popular in Germany, the number one hit right now is the syrupy Schlager tune by Roy Black, "Ganz in Weiß" (All in white). In other words, even in times of great flux, conservative forces remain steadfast, like stubborn boulders in a stream.

Oh look — it's time to review the latest issue of Analog.

Stagnation


by Kelly Freas

Moon Prospector, by William B. Ellern

It would be hard to find a more emblematic story of the reactionary SF outlet that is Analog than this, the lead story in the April issue. Set early in E.E. Smith's Lensman series, it apparently got the full blessing of "Doc" Smith just a few days before he died! That's pretty remarkable.

The story, however, isn't. A lunar prospector in is semi-sentient "creeper" gets a distress call. Turns out an old buddy has been buried in the aftereffects of a meteor shower, and ol' Pete has to dig him out. But what was the fellow doing out in that quadrant of the Moon to begin with, and does it have anything to do with a centuries-old missile base abandoned around there?


by Kelly Freas

There's no water on the Moon, so I suppose it's appropriate that the story, itself, is dry as a bone. Perhaps it would have been more exciting if I'd had some stake in the universe. Maybe I'd have thrilled at the mention of the Solar Patrol being evolved into a Galactic Patrol. The fact is, I didn't care for Doc Smith's stories much when I was a kid, so they evoke no nostalgia for me now.

Two stars.

Rat Race, by Raymond F. Jones


by Kelly Freas

A century and a half in the future, when a completely computer-planned economy has resulted in plenty for all of humanity, a fellow decides to recreate the hobby of model train running (though not in the destructive manner of the Addams family, more's the pity).

This hobby runs the fellow afoul of the Computer, for when he tries to make his own trains, he is accused of attempting his own production, which will upset the finely balanced economy and lead to scarcity. Our protagonist must find a way to satisfy the human urge to create while not upsetting the economic apple cart. The story ends with the suggestion that do-it-yourselfism will spread and eventually topple the current order.

It's a pleasant-enough story, and I suppose the "stick-it-to-communism" sentiment appealed to editor Campbell. On the other hand, while I appreciate that some folks really like to build things even when they could just be bought (and I have to think that hobbyist building would not break a planned economy), the notion that we've become too centralized and folks should all be able to be self-sufficient, making a living from the land, is unworkable.

The fact is, we've long since populated the Earth beyond its ability to sustain a society of independent farmers. The great island cities, the vast modern nations, they only support their teeming millions through coordinated and interconnected systems. The writer in the air-conditioned apartment, who bangs out a paean to independent living before catching a television show and then popping off to the deli for dinner, is a dreamer, not a visionary.

Three stars.

The Easy Way Out, by Lee Correy


by John Schoenherr

Aliens conduct a survey of planet Earth, evaluating its species for aggressive tendencies. After coming across a grizzly bear and a wolverine, and then the human family that has adopted the latter, they decide Earth is more trouble than it's worth.

Typical Campbellian Earth-firsterism. Two stars.

Drifting Continents, by Robert S. Dietz


by John Holden

If it's a crackpot theory that flies in the face of the scientific establishment, chances are you'll read about it in Analog. But sometimes a theory is crackpot, flies in the face of the scientific establishment, and is probably right. As someone born in earthquake country, I've probably heard more about "continental drift" than many. It's the idea that the continents very slowly move around the globe. It's why the coasts of South America and Africa seem like edges of the same torn newspaper. It explains why there are similar fossils at similar depths across continents that are nowhere near each other…today.

It's a theory I found little reference to in my science books of the 50s, including Rachel Carson's seminal The Sea Around Us. But damned if Dietz doesn't make some very compelling arguments. I would not be surprised if continental drift, as has happened recently with the Big Bang Theory and global warming, did not become thoroughly accepted this decade.

Five stars.

Who Needs Insurance?, by Robin S. Scott


by Kelly Freas

Pete "Lucky Pierre" Albers has always been blessed with good fortune. Twenty years a pilot, he has always managed to avoid even the slightest injury, despite 8500 hours of flying time. He first suspected that his lucky streak was not completely due to chance after a harrowing mission over Ploesti left his B-24 with just one working engine. That tortured device not only held together all the way back to Libya, but it spun with the 800 horsepower needed to keep the plane in the air. After the crash landing, Albers found a little gray box attached to the driveshaft.

Twenty years later, over Vietnam, Colonel Albers was in a bullet-riddled Huey whose engine somehow held together long enough to get him and his charges back to base. Sure enough, a little box was installed on the engine.

Clearly someone, or something, has taken an interest in Albers' survival. It's up to Albers and his closest friends to discover the secret.

I really enjoyed this story, told in narrative fashion. It's a fun mystery, the details are evocative, and I like when a piece includes a competent woman scientist (in this case, Marty the programmer, with her pet 2706).

Four stars.

A Sun Invisible, by Poul Anderson


by Domenic Iaia

With this latest installation in the adventures of David Falkayn, the momentum gained by the magazine comes to a shuddering halt. Anderson's writing is of widely varying quality, and the adventures of this troubleshooting young protogé of Nicholas van Rijn are among the worst.

The plot takes forever to develop, but it's something about a planet of Germanics looking to take on the Polesotechnic League by working with the belligerent Kroaka. The trick is that Falkayn has to figure out where the would-be enemies make their home. By getting the female leader of Neuheim drunk and talkative, Falkayn learns enough astronomical clues to deduce the star around which the insurgents' planet revolves. Falkayn stops the threat and gets the girl.

I do like the astronomy Anderson weaves into these stories and I also appreciated the seamless way he introduced a new pronoun for an alien race with three sexes. Other than that, it's a deadly dull story, and smug to boot. Falkayn is like a boring, Sexist Retief.

Two stars.

Computation

After all that, the conservative reef that is Analog finishes near the bottom of the pack, though that is as much due to the relative excellence of the other mags that came out this month. Campbell's mag clocks in at a reasonable 3 stars, beating out the truly bad, all-reprint Amazing (2.3).

Above Analog, starting at the top, are Impulse (3.5), Galaxy (3.4), IF (3.3), New Worlds (3.1), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.1).

It was something of a banner month for SF mags, actually. Enough worthy stuff was printed to fill two full-size mags (and if you take out Amazing, that means a full third of everything printed was four stars and up). Also, women produced 11.5% of the new fiction published this month, the highest proportion I've seen in a long time. We'll see if this trend holds out.

That's it for March! April is a whole new ballgame, starting with the next issue of IF. I'm very keen to see how that magazine does now that the excellent Heinlein serial has ended (I've high hopes for the Laumer/Brown novel.)

Until then, all we can to is keep trying to discern the pattern of Shapes of Things to Come…

Don't miss the next exciting Adventure-themed episode of The Journey Show, taking you to the highest peaks, the deepest wildernesses, the coldest extremes, the vacuum of space, and the depths of the sea. April 3 at 1PM — book your (free) ticket for adventure now!)




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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction