Movies

[December 26, 1965] Murders per Minute (James Bond in Thunderball)

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by Victoria Lucas

Bring Earplugs

It was a date. This guy wanted someone to go with him to a Panavision premiere of the latest Bond movie. I should not have complained so much; I should have been grateful that he paid for the movie. But every time the music came back on it singed my eardrums. I had to stick my fingers in my ears since I had not thought to bring earplugs. Next time–if I ever see another Bond film, which I hope I won't have to–I'll bring earplugs.

Shaken, Not Stirred

I know, I know, Sean Connery. He has made his name in these Bond movies. Can't say I understand why. I don't find him at all attractive, and his character's behavior toward women is disgusting. Yes, he rescues some, but he is perfectly capable of rape. In one scene in the movie he threatens a woman with exposure of a secret and exacts his blackmail in a steam room in which all you can see is her hands against the steamy glass. Frankly, I have difficulty telling the women apart in the film–they are all willowy, small, and mostly helpless.

Sharks Win

…although one of the murders (of which there are probably one per minute if you average the whole movie and count the battle at the end) is committed by the woman with whom he is rescued by a military airplane, to revenge her brother's death. Oh, good. Murder leads to murder. It should be said that there is one suicide. And is it murder if a shark eats someone? (I would say not for the shark.)


[The Villain's Villa in the Bahamas–Not Really]

Blood in the Water

I read somewhere that nearly a third of this movie was filmed underwater. The shark mentioned above? It was supposed to be at the estate shown above, but there was a real shark pool kept for filming, and Connery is said to have narrowly escaped being eaten by a shark himself.

Plot and Theme

It is a movie filled with the most murderous, discourteous, illegal, nonsensical, trivially violent and nasty behaviors that I've ever seen before in one place. Car chases, explosions, myriad guns. Not my thing. These movies are probably a young teenage boy's dream: lots of sexy women, fast cars, and fighting (successfully). As for plot, here it is: a Russian (global) villainous group steals 2 atom bombs and threatens the US & UK with them for ransom. Apparently "Thunderball" is the name of a UK national lottery, and Bond "won the lottery" when he discovered the location of the bombs and helped the military prevent their use. Ah, the good governments triumph yet again!


[Sean Connery with his rocket pack]

Summary and Fish

I'm sorry to tell you that this is a very violent film, and between the sexual assaults (by Bond) and torture (by the villain), the puerile remarks from Bond that are supposed to be funny, and the number of murders per minute (at least one), oh! and the music and sounds of a parade that were deafening as well, I cannot recommend this movie. On a scale of 10? I'd give it a 3. (There are some lovely fish and other animals in some of the underwater scenes.)


[Pretty, but I could also just watch Flipper.]




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 24, 1965] Gallimaufry du Saison(The Year's best Science Fiction and Paingod and Other Delusions)

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by John Boston

Adventures in Miscellany

If it’s 1965, then it must be time for Judith Merril’s annual anthology from 1964.  Admittedly, it’s pretty late in the year, which likely has to do with Merril’s change of publishers.  After five years with Simon and Schuster, the new volume is from Delacorte Press, an imprint of Dell Publishing, which has published these anthologies in paperback since their inception in the mid-1950s.  But here it is, styled 10th Annual Edition THE YEAR’S BEST SF, in time for the Christmas trade.


by G. Ziel

Over the years these anthologies have become larger.  The growth is mostly in density; the page count has gone up a bit (400 pages this year), but the amount of text per page has grown remarkably from the early Gnome Press volumes. 

The books have also grown much more miscellaneous.  Their contents were initially drawn mostly from the familiar SF magazines, with a few other items from the well-known slick magazines.  No more.  This volume includes a gallimaufry of stories, quasi-stories, satirical essays, and what have you from sources as various as The Socialist Call, motive (sic—official magazine of the Methodist Student Movement), New Directions, and Cosmopolitan.  (No cartoons this year, unlike last year’s book.)

This is all in service of Merril’s editorial philosophy of science fiction, which is that it doesn’t exist—or, at least, that there’s no difference between it and everything else, or at least something else.  (See her soliloquy in the previous volume on what “S” and “F” really stand for, quoted in my previous comment on this series.  The theme is continued here in her between-stories commentary, like a background noise you stop noticing after a while). You may find this view intellectually incoherent, but, like the feller (or Feller) said, by their fruits ye shall know them, and Merril makes a pretty interesting fruit salad.  (Even if I have a bone to pick with parts of it.)

Unfortunately it’s hard to review a salad this big without sorting out its ingredients, which Merril might say defeats her purpose.  Nonetheless, onwards.  The book can only be discussed in layers.

Usual Suspects

The top layer, analytically speaking, is the first-class, or at least pretty good, SF and F from genre sources.  The outstanding items here are J.G. Ballard’s The Terminal Beach from New Worlds and Roger Zelazny’s A Rose for Ecclesiastes from F&SF—and stop right there: Merril’s benign eclecticism is nowhere better illustrated than in the contrast between Ballard, driving avant-garde style and imagery and his preoccupation with psychological “inner space” into the genre’s brain like an ice pick, and Zelazny, rehabilitating the old-fashioned pseudo-other-wordly costume drama of the pulps with high style and intellectual decoration.  Runners-up include Thomas Disch’s chilly Descending from Fantastic, John Brunner’s well-turned gimmick story The Last Lonely Man from New Worlds (the only story also to have appeared in the Wollheim/Carr best of the year volume), Norman Kagan’s audaciously zany The Mathenauts from If, and Kit Reed’s sprightly self-help/morality tale Automatic Tiger from F&SF. 

Barely making the cut is Mack Reynolds’s Pacifist, also from F&SF, a sharp piece of political didacticism about a pacifist underground that uses decidedly non-pacifist means to fight against warmongering politicians, unfortunately too contrived to have much impact.  Surprisingly, Arthur Porges, perpetrator of the dreadful Ensign Ruyter stories in Amazing, rises briefly from the muck with the affecting Problem Child, from Analog, about a professor of mathematics whose wife died bearing a mentally retarded child; the child proves to be anything but retarded in one significant way.  This one gets “better than expected” credit.  So does Training Talk, by the militantly eccentric David R. Bunch (Fantastic), in which he outdoes himself in grotesque lyricism (“It was one of those days when cheer came out of a rubbery sky in great splotches and globs of half-snow and eased down the windowpanes like breakups of little glaciers.”), complementing his even more grotesque plot.  Edging into this category is The Search, a poem by (Merril says) high school student Bruce Simonds, from F&SF, which is minor but clever, pointed, and readable. 

All right, downhill to the next layer, the less distinguished selections from the SF magazines, ranging from the merely competent or inconsequential to the actively dreary. There are several supposedly humorous trifles.  Fritz Leiber’s Be of Good Cheer, from Galaxy, is an epistolary satire, a letter from a robot at the Bureau of Public Morale to a Senior Citizen (as they are known these days) reassuring her unconvincingly that the absence of humans and prevalence of robots that she observes is nothing to worry about.  Larry Eisenberg’s The Pirokin Effect, from Amazing, is a more slapsticky satire about extraterrestrial signals received in a restaurant kitchen which may or may not be from the Lost Tribes of Israel, now resident on Mars; this one is distinguished from the Leiber story by actually being mildly amusing.  The same is true of Family Portrait by new author Morgan Kent, from Fantastic, a vignette about the mundane domestic life of a family that proves to have unusual talents. 

The same is unfortunately not true of The New Encyclopaedist, from F&SF, by Stephen Becker, a novelist (see last year’s A Covenant with Death) and translator of some repute, with no prior SF credits.  This comprises several satirical encyclopedia entries about events in the near future, but their main purpose seems to be to prove the author’s superior sensibilities, and they’re more tedious than funny.  I’m guessing the New Yorker rejected them.  Czech author Josef Nesvadba’s The Last Secret Weapon of the Third Reich belongs here as much as anywhere—it’s from his collection Vampires Ltd., which is apparently devoted to SF stories.  It’s a frenetic black comedy about a last-ditch Nazi effort to generate a new fighting force with a process for developing embryos to adulthood within seven days of conception; the story is less effective than it should be since . . . gosh . . . Nazis are kind of hard to satirize.

There are also a couple of yokel epics here, which is almost always bad news.  Sonny, by Rick Raphael, from Analog (where else?) is a dreary attempt at humor about a kid from West Virginia whose psionic talents come to light after he is drafted into the Army.  The Man Who Found Proteus, by the always promising but never quite delivering Robert H. Rohrer, Jr., from Fantastic, features a caricatured semi-literate miner encountering a hungry shape-changing monster and coming off no better than you’d expect.

Several other more conventional SF stories are just not very lively.  Richard Wilson’s The Carson Effect, from Worlds of Tomorrow, like much of his work to my taste, is a rather limp account of strange human behavior in what everybody thinks are the last days, but prove not to be, a denouement explained by a gimmick reminiscent of Hawthorne’s Rappaccini’s Daughter.  The Carson of the title is Rachel.  Jack Sharkey’s The Twerlik, from Worlds of Tomorrow, is an alien contact story in which the alien, a planet-encompassing plant, tries to make sense of explorers from Earth landing in a spaceship; it’s an earnest effort (unusually for this author) that doesn’t quite revive a hackneyed theme.  A Miracle Too Many, by Philip H. Smith and Alan E. Nourse, from F&SF, concerns a doctor who wishes he could save all his patients, and suddenly he can, with grim consequences that are all too obvious.  Its problem is not ennui but predictability. 

That’s an awful lot of lackluster for a book with “Best” in the title.  More on that problem later.

Neighboring Provinces

The next stratum consists of fairly straightforward SF/F that Merril has trawled or excavated from the established mainstream magazines in the way of SF/F.  A couple of these are by well-established (or –remembered) genre names.  One of the best in the book is Arthur C. Clarke’s The Shining Ones, from Playboy, about an encounter with the fauna of the sea, rendered with the same dignified enthusiasm as Clarke’s portrayals of human encounters with the Moon and the other planets.  This is a writer who will never lose his sense of wonder, or his discipline in writing about it.  Interestingly, the plot takes off from the notion of powering a city with energy derived from temperature differentials between oceanic depths and the surface.  Maybe somebody should try that sometime.  The other big name is John D. MacDonald, who wrote a lot of quite good SF from 1948 to 1953 but gave it up for crime fiction.  Unfortunately his The Legend of Joe Lee from Cosmopolitan is unimpressive, a lame sort of ghost story about a teen-age hot-rodder whom the cops can’t catch, for reasons revealed at the end. 

The others in this category are all satirical extrapolations of things the authors have seen around them, a standard maneuver in standard SF and a game that anyone can play—though not always well.  The best of the lot is A Living Doll by Robert Wallace, from Harper’s; Wallace is said to be a photographer for Life, and the story to have been inspired by an encounter in a toy store with a doll that spoke to him and nibbled his finger.  The narrator’s sullen and sadistic daughter wants a doll for Christmas, along with some needles and pins and a book on Voodoo.  He discovers that dolls have become more sophisticated than he realized, and purchases one who proves to mix a mean Martini and to discourse knowledgeably about Mexican art—a considerable improvement over his daughter.  The rest follows logically.  Almost as good is Frank Roberts’s It Could Be You, from the Australian Coast to Coast (which seem to be an annual anthology of stories from the previous year, just like this one).  In the future, it posits, the populace will be kept entertained by a televised game: one person in the city is selected to be killed, with a hundred thousand-pound prize to the winner; and clues narrowing down the victim’s identity are given through the day to build suspense (a man; never wears a hat; black hair; blue eyes; etc.).  This is not exactly a new idea to readers of the SF magazines, but it’s sharply written and no longer than it needs to be.  James D. Houston’s Gas Mask, from Nugget, one of many cheap Playboy imitations, is a reasonably well done “if this goes on” piece about future traffic problems and people’s adaptation to them. 

And there are selections from places you wouldn’t think to look, but Merril always casts a wide net.  The satirical motif continues, unfortunately in combinations of facile, arch and ponderous.  Russell Baker’s A Sinister Metamorphosis is apparently one of his regular columns from The New York Times, taking off from the theme that sociologists “thought the machines would gradually become more like people.  Nobody expected people to become more like machines.” James T. Farrell’s A Benefactor of Humanity—the one from the Socialist Call—is about a man who can’t read but loves books; however, he dislikes authors, and devises a machine to replace them.  It’s overlong and not funny.  Hap Cawood’s one-page Synchromocracy, from motive, is a rather undeveloped sketch of government by computer and constant public opinion polling.

Farther Out

From here, things just get weird, for better or worse.  Donald Hall, a well-known poet and former poetry editor of the Paris Review, is present with The Wonderful Dog Suit, from the Carleton Miscellany (literary magazine of Carleton College), about a precocious child who is given a dog suit, and takes to it; the dog becomes rather shaggy by the end.  I suppose this is brilliance taking a day off.  The Red Egg, by Jose Maria Gironella, apparently a well-established Spanish writer, is a jolly tale about a cancer which flees its home on the skin of a laboratory mouse and takes to the air, feeding on industrial smoke and other toxic delicacies, terrorizing the populace while contemplating which human victim to descend upon.  It’s quite entertaining, but the point is elusive; too profound for me, I guess.  This first appeared in a collection titled Journeys to the Improbable, collecting the author’s “psychic experience” over a period of two years. 

Probably the weirdest item here—since I can detect no element of anything resembling S or F even by Merril’s ecumenical standard—is Romain Gary’s Decadence, from Saga (the men’s magazine?  Really?) by way of Gary’s collection Hissing Tales.  A group of mobsters goes to Italy to meet their charismatic leader, who after taking over a union was prosecuted and deported; now he’s eligible to return, but they find he has meanwhile become an acclaimed modernist sculptor with a rather different outlook than they had expected.  M.E. White’s The Power of Positive Thinking, from New Directions, is a first-person story told by a smart, fanatically religious schoolgirl which amounts to a horror story with no trace of fantasy, the horror only suggested, but heightened by the relentless mundanity of the account. 

The book closes with Yachid and Yechida by Isaac Bashevis Singer, from his collection Short Friday.  Singer is among other things the book reviewer for the Jewish Daily Forward, and the story was translated from Yiddish.  It is a theological fantasy about dead souls condemned to Sheol, a/k/a Earth, and their posthumous lives there, and it is absolutely captivating, one of the best things in the book.  This Singer really has something going; if he works at it, he might crack F&SF.

Summing Up

So, what to make of this “best SF” anthology, in which much of the SF/F is just not very interesting and is outshone by some of the loose marbles Merril has found in other yards?  At least part of the problem is her seeming unwillingness to include longer stories, which of course would displace multiple shorter ones and yield a less crowded contents page.  But much of the best SF writing these days is at novella length or close to it; consider Jack Vance’s The Kragen and Roger Zelazny’s The Graveyard Heart, from Fantastic, and Gordon R. Dickson’s Soldier, Ask Not and Wyman Guin’s A Man of the Renaissance, from Galaxy.  Merril would probably be better advised to devote a little more space to substance and less to short trifles.

But still, there’s a lot here—much of it quite good, much of it unexpected, and some of it both.  This anthology series is still in a class by itself.


by Gideon Marcus

Paingod and Other Delusions

Three years ago, Harlan Ellison released his first collection of science fiction stories.  It was a fine collection, representing the era of his writing career before he struck out for Hollywood to become a big-time screenwriter (some of his work not surviving to the small screen unscathed…)

Now he's back with a new collection.  A mix of stories recently written and others excavated from the vault, it offers up a strange combination of mature and callow Ellison, though none of it is unworthy.  Dig it:


by Jack Gaughan

Introduction

After seven stabs at it, Harlan reportedly threw up his hands and decided he wasn't going to write an introduction.  Instead, we get a several page nontroduction that is probably worth the price of the book in and of itself.  I read it aloud to my family while we were waiting to get into a new sushi place in town.  It's excellent, funny, self deprecatory, and illuminating.

Paingod

If God is Love, why does He allow pain to exist?  This moving, brilliant story tries to answer this question.  Nominated for the Galactic Star last year and covered previously by Victoria Silverwolf, there's a reason it leads this book.

Five stars.

"Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman

In an increasingly time-ordered world, the wildest rebel is he who would gum up the works of society.

I didn't much care for this story when I first reviewed it, finding it a bit overwrought and consciously artistic.  Ellison's introduction, in which he explains his congenital inability to mark time accurately, makes the piece much more understandable.  I'd had trouble relating in part because my time sense is preternaturally perfect (I can tell you what time it is even after being asleep for hours).  So, with the story now in context, I can understand the enthusiasm with which it's been received.

Four stars.

The Crackpots

An exploration of a planet of misfits, who it turns out are the real movers and shakers of the galactic federation.

Based on the odd characters Ellison observed when manning an adult book stand on 42nd Street, this is an older piece, and it shows.  About ten pages too long and a little obtuse, but even young, imperfect Ellison is usually worth reading.

Three stars.

Bright Eyes

The former masters of the Earth have been diminished by war to just one representative and his oversized rodent sidekick.  Like a salmon swimming upstream, he returns to the blasted surface to witness the destruction one last time.

Inspired by a piece of art (that later accompanied the story—you can see it at Victoria's original review—it's a vivid piece.

Four stars.

The Discarded

A plague turns a number of humans into "monsters", who are exiled to an orbiting colony.  When a new outbreak occurs, suddenly the discarded find themselves valued as the potential source of a cure.  But will normal humans ever really tolerate the deviant?

I will go out on a limb here — this is my favorite story of the collection, one I enjoyed when I first read it in the 1959 issue of Fantastic.  It's a much more effective "misfit" piece than the previous story.

Five stars.

Wanted in Surgery

Automated surgeons displace their human counterparts.  Are they truly infallible?  And is it ethical to find fault in them?

This piece doesn't work on a lot of levels, plausibility-wise and narratively, as even Ellison concedes.  I suppose it's here to fill space and to make sure it got in some collection.

Two stars.

Deeper than the Darkness

Another misfit, this time about a pyrokinetic recruited to destroy the star of an enemy race.  Fools be they who expect a hated rebel to suddenly be overcome with patriotism…

This is another flawed, early piece that shows Ellison's potential without realizing it.

Three stars.

Summing Up

Two fives, two fours, two threes, and a two, not to mention a great Intro.  If that's not worth four bits, I'm not sure what is.  Get it!




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Science Fiction/Fantasy

[Dec. 22, 1965] Swann Lake (the 1965 Galactic Stars)

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by Gideon Marcus

[Time is running out to get your Worldcon membership!  Register here to be able to vote for the Hugos next year.]

Joyeux Noël

Another year has gone by, and what fun it has been to continue our annual tradition of offering up the very best science fiction.  This is the real payoff of the Journey, I think.  When we can take all of the year's harvest, throw it into the thresher and get rid of all the chaff.  What's left is nothing but good SF, from start to finish.

And what better time to offer this bounty than right before Christmas?  So grab yourself a mug of your favorite warm beverage (unless you're antipodal, in which case I recommend a Dacquiri, iced punch, or pop) and get ready to enjoy weeks' worth of fine entertainment — and learn why this edition of the Stars has its unusual title!

The 1965 Galactic Stars

——
Best Poetry
——

Nabodinus, by L. Sprague de Camp

There were very few poems to choose from this year, but this one, in which an archaeologist meets a ghostly colleague of ancient vintage, is good.

——
Best Vignette (1-9 pages):
——

Everyone's Home Town is Guernica, by Willard Marsh

In which a kitten becomes the emblem of a starving artist's soul.

Girl with Robot and Flowers, by Brian Aldss

A beautifully metatextual piece about the science fiction story creation process.

The Switch, by Calvin Demmon

Sometimes it's best to let sleeping professors lie!

Thelinde's Song, by Roger Zelazny

Do not speak the name of Jelerak, the young sorceress sings…

Honorable Mention:

The Walking Talking I-Don't-Care Man, by David R. Bunch

Eyes do More than See, by Isaac Asimov

In One Sad Day, by George Collyn

The Music Makers, by Langdon Jones

—

There were no 5-star vignettes this year, but many good ones for many different tastes spread across a wide number of magazines.

——
Best Short Story (10-19 pages):
——

"Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman , by Harlan Ellison

Time is not on your side…

Balanced Ecology , by James H. Schmitz

Conservationists take heart: sometimes the kids get a little help from their planet.

Over the River and Through the Woods , by Clifford D. Simak

The strange young visitors seem lost in the 19th Century, but they sure do feel like family.

Honorable Mention:

The Wall, by Josephine Saxton

The Liberators, by Lee Harding

Test in Orbit, by Ben Bova

Come to Venus Melancholy, by Thomas M. Disch

The Life of Your Time, by Michael Karageorge (Poul Anderson)

Traveller's Rest , by David Masson

Becalmed in Hell, by Larry Niven

Jabez O'Brien and Davy Jones' Locker , by Robert Arthur

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, by Fredric Brown and Carl Onspaugh

Bright Eyes, by Harlan Ellison

Wrong-Way Street, by Larry Niven

The Sixth Palace, by Robert Silverberg

On the River , by Robert F. Young

—

Another torrent of short stories, and I didn't have the heart to prune it much since tastes vary so widely among the recommenders.  But all of them are good.  Sadly, you can really see the paucity of women-penned publications this year.

——
Best Novelette (20-45 pages)
——

No Different Flesh, by Zenna Henderson

A virtually unanimous Journey choice — the best story of The People yet (and that's saying something!)

Shall We Have a Little Talk?, by Robert Sheckley

Subjugating the natives starts with learning the language — lots of luck, pal!

The Overworld, by Jack Vance

To the ends of a Dying Earth in search of a dream-inducing artifact.

Honorable Mention:

Greenslaves, by Frank Herbert

Man in His Time, by Brian Aldiss

Four Ghosts in Hamlet, by Fritz Leiber

The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth, by Roger Zelazny

Three to a Given Star, by Cordwainer Smith

Escape from the Evening, by Michael Moorcock

—

The winners are all veterans who burst on the scene ~1950, but the honorable mentions are split 50/50 with the subsequent wave.

——
Best Novella (46+ pages)
——

Vashti, by Thomas Burnett Swann

Of Xerxes' queen Vashti, and the Greek Ianiskos who follows her into exile…

Stardock, by Fritz Leiber

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser brave the frozen wastes to find a treasure.

World of Ptavvs, by Larry Niven

To defeat a billion year old telepath, a Earthman must become the alien.

Honorable Mention:

On the Storm Planet, by Cordwainer Smith

The Saliva Tree, by Brian Aldiss

The Inner Wheel, by Keith Roberts

Mindswap, by Robert Sheckley

Lone Zone, by Charles Platt

—

This is always a tough category as many novellas are truncated novels (I understand an expanded Ptavvs will be released next year).  That said, Vashti was pretty universally praised. and it's hard to argue with Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser if you like fantasy…

——
Best Novel/Serial
——

…And Call me Conrad, by Roger Zelazny

Hemmingway-esque tale of an immortal fighting a guerrila war for the soul of a post-atomic humanity.

The Sundered Worlds, by Michael Moorcock

The psychic Renark to seek out the problem must go to the Sundered Worlds outside the normal rule of time and space to save humanity — and the whole of reality!

The Blue Monkeys, by Thomas Burnett Swann

Ajax against the Minotaur — another myth come to life by the inimitable Swann.

Honorable Mention:

Of Godlike Power, by Mack Reynolds

The Weirwoods, by Thomas Burnett Swann

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch , by Phillip K. Dick

The Rithian Terror, by Damon Knight

The Ballad of Beta-2, by Samuel R. Delany

Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb , by Phillip K. Dick

Bill, the Galactic Hero , by Harry Harrison

Stormbringer, by Michael Moorcock

The Genocides, by Thomas M. Disch

The Squares of the City, by John Brunner

—

Swann is definitely a winner with his myth-inspired tales, Zelazny is hit or miss, but he hit it with Conrad, and Moorcock is a rising star to watch!

——
Science Fact
——

The Man who Discovered Atlantis, by Robert Silverberg

Paul Schliemann was so desperate to live up to the Schielmann name that he hoaxed finding the Lost Continent.

Death in the Laboratory, by Isaac Asimov

Fluorine is a killer…

The Land of Mu, by Isaac Asimov

The subatomic world keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Honorable Mention:

The Space Technology of a Track Meet , by Robert S. Richardson

With a Piece of Twisted Wire… , by Harry Harrison

—

The Harrison is from a fanzine, SF Horizons.  Silverberg makes his first appearance in this category this year, and Asimov is a perennial.  Richardson is always a highlight when he appears in Analog.

——
Best Magazine
——

New Writings in Science Fiction 3.25 stars, 2 Star nominees
F&SF 3.1 stars, 15 Star nominees
Fantasy 3.07 stars, 2 Star nominees
Worlds of Tomorrow 3.05 stars, 2 Star nominees
Science Fantasy 3.03 stars, 5 Star nominees
New Worlds 3.02 stars, 6 Star nominees
Galaxy 2.83 stars, 7 Star nominees
Analog 2.76 stars, 4 Star nominees
Amazing 2.61 stars, 2 Star nominees
IF 2.57 stars, 0 Star nominees
Gamma 1.7 stars, 0 Star nominees

—

F&SF shows strong now that Davidson is gone.  Sadly, this may be the last time we see Fantasy so high up with departure of Cele Lalli.  Amazing will suffer, too.  The British magazines are all mid-to-upper tier this year while Pohl's triplets are dependable if not extraordinary.

And then there's Gamma, which blessedly ended its short run this year.

——
Best author(s)
——

Thomas Burnett Swann

Turning fable into fantasy, Swann has definitely made his biggest impact so far this year.  Runners up for best author include Roger Zelazny, Phillip K. Dick, and Larry Niven.

——
Best Artist
——

John Schoenherr

John Schoenherr continues to impress with his starkly beautiful work, singlehandedly elevating the otherwise mediocre Dune.  This is another unanimous Journey decision.

Honorable Mention:

Gray Morrow

Kelly Freas

Richard Powers

Johnny Bruck

——
Best Dramatic Presentation
——

Alphaville

A spy thriller set in the galactic capital.

Doctor Who

Maybe it's just Jessica's reviews that sell it, but I'm enjoying what I get to see of this show.

Honorable Mention:

The 10th Victim

Incubus (starring William Shatner and entirely in Esperanto!)

Repulsion

Out of the Unknown

The Saragossa Manuscript

and, of course,

The Journey Show.  The best fifteen hours in science fiction television, I think!  I hope it gets the nod for a Hugo next year…

——
Best Fanzine
——

Zenith

A nice mix of articles and stories by pros, semi-pros, and fen.

Honorable Mention:

Amra

Tolkien Journal

Vector

And, of course, three time Hugo Finalist Galactic Journey. Perhaps this will be the year we finally appear on the official ballot.  With your help, anything is possible…

That's a wrap!  All in all, I think 1965 was not quite as strong as last year, and the dearth of women is really quite alarming.  I'd like to think this is a statistical blip, like the solar 11 year cycle, and that things will improve from here on out.

In any event, even a weak year yields a lot of stuff that breaks the Sturgeon barrier.  As you catch up on your back reading, do feel free to drop us a line and tell us what you think of each piece.  It's the community that really makes the Journey (and the Stars) shine!

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Science / Space Race

[December 20, 1965] Rendezvous in space (Gemini 6 and 7)

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by Gideon Marcus

Ahead by a nosecone

If there was any doubt as to America's position in the Space Race, such has been dispelled this month with the amazing double mission of Geminis 6 and 7.  In a single fortnight, a slew of new records has been made, leaving those of the Soviets, and those made by prior Gemini flights, in the dust.

It all started way back on October 25.  The United States already had three successful two-person flights under its belt, having tested the new Gemini spacecraft with Gemini 3, experimented with spacewalking on Gemini 4, and set a space endurance record with Gemini 5.

Gemini 6, commanded by Mercury veteran Wally Schirra, would be the first test of the Agena docking adapter — an upper rocket stage remodeled to fit the nose of a Gemini so that the spacecraft could be boosted to high orbit.

Sadly for Schirra, the Agena, launched just minutes before Gemini 6's blast off time, failed to make orbit.  The whole mission had to be scrubbed.

But a super-endurance flight was already in the works for December: a fourteen day slog planned for Group 2 NASA astronauts Jim Lovell and Frank Borman.  Seeing how they'd just be spending two weeks jawing and sleeping, why not combine the missions of Gemini 6 and 7?  While they wouldn't be able to dock, they would be able to test their orbit maneuvering engines and rendezvous techniques by getting within 20 feet of each other.  Plus, it would mean four Americans in space, which would beat the Soviet record by 33%.

So it was that Gemini 7 blasted off in the afternoon of December 4 with the sweet anticipation of being joined just in space eight days later by Gemini 6A.

The long wait

Of course, Gemini 7 still had to log as many hours just in the first part of the mission than Gemini 5's astronauts did during their whole excursion.  That meant a lot of endless hours.  To be sure, NASA tried to occupy them by taking pictures of the Earth as they orbited, and halfway through the trip, there was a visual acuity test in which astronauts tried to pick out specially made targets on the ground.

There was also an interesting experiment in which Gemini astronauts beamed a hand laser out the window of the spacecraft, bouncing it off mirror-sided Explorer 22.  This was a communications test; laser beams cannot be intercepted and are not limited by line-of-sight with the ground.  Unfortunately, although the receiving station was able to see the beam, it got no useful messages from it.

Other than that, Gemini 7's crew was mostly bored and uncomfortable.  They argued with NASA for several days before they were allowed to both keep their suits off.  Jim Lovell wished he'd brought a book along.  Things got very whiffie, and when, after week, they just couldn't delay certain bodily functions anymore, the cabin's atmosphere took a turn for the worse.

T for two

On December 12, after an early morning breakfast of steak and eggs, Schirra and his rookie companion, Tom Stafford, buckled into Gemini 6A.  This would be the day they made space history by becoming the third and fourth simultaneous men in space.

It was not meant to be.  At T-0, the familiar plume of smoke erupted from Gemini 6's Titan II rocket, but even before the unique groan of blast-off could reach the launch block house, the engine had already shut down.  Schirra now had a microsecond to react — if the booster had left the pad at all, it would come back down, collapsing in on itself in a conflagration.  But the experienced test pilot was certain the rocket hadn't moved, and he did not punch the ejector button.  As a result, the mission was just delayed, rather than scrubbed.

Just four days later, the third time proved to be the charm as Gemini 6 made a perfect ascent into orbit and immediately began closing in on Gemini 7.  Within just five hours, Schirra had maneuvered his spacecraft to within 100 feet, and he continued his approach.  When all was said and done, both spacecraft were just one foot away from each other.  Compare that to the dual flights of Vostoks 3 and 4, and later 5 and 6: while those spacecraft had gotten fairly close to one another, that was the result of accurate launching rather than onboard maneuvering.  Indeed, the moment of rendezvous was the first time since Alan Shepard's 1961 launch in Freedom 7 that the entire flight crew at Mission Control was standing at their consoles.


Getting it on film

If the rest of the flights of Geminis 6 and 7 were anticlimactic for their crews, they were anything but for the anchors at CBS and NBC…or the folks on the ground glued to their boob tubes.  Schirra and Stafford reentered just one day after taking off, splashing down in the Atlantic near the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Wasp.  And we were there, remotely.  For the first time, live cameras aboard the recovery fleet caught the action: the sight of the Gemini capsule bobbing on the placid ocean, the helicopters keeping careful watch, the divers bringing the spacecraft and its astronauts aboard ship to be feted by the thousands of crew members. 

We actually got many hours of special coverage for these flights, although we had to get up very early for the splashdowns.  They were mostly in color, too.  I particularly liked watching CBS reporter Mike Wallace playing with the IBM computer, which was programmed for orbital mechanics calculations.  And at every juncture, there were folks playing in the Gemini simulator to give us an idea what the astronauts were doing.

Who would have thought that as humanity took its first steps into space, we would be able to look over their shoulders every step of the way?  All that's left is incorporating "instant replay" somehow!

What's next?

We are already halfway through the Gemini program.  A total of twelve flights are planned, and seven have flown.  These next flights will all take place in 1966, the first scheduled for March, which means we will have a crowded viewing schedule next year!  It's got to be a fast schedule, though; the first Apollo will go up in early 1967.  Next year's missions will focus on docking, extended spacewalks, and large scale orbital maneuvers — all skills we'll need for our trips to the Moon.

You can bet I'll keep tuning in to Cronkite!

The holidays are coming!  Looking for the perfect gift for a niece, nephew, or other young relative?  Kitra is the hopeful, found family novel that they've been waiting for.  Buy a copy for them today…and perhaps one for yourself!




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Magazine/Anthology

[December 18, 1965] Bulges and Depressions (January 1966 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Blitzkrieg

Sometimes war is a crackling thing, a coiled spring of conflict that sees an enemy pouncing on and through a hapless foe.  Such a campaign marked the German invasion of France through the "impassable" Ardennes forest in May 1940; a similar campaign occurred in December 1944 by the same combatants at the same spot.

They say, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me," and indeed the Americans and British soldiers in France should have known better than to pooh pooh the idea of a Wehrmacht onslaught at exactly the same location they'd used four years prior.  Nevertheless, it happened, the Nazis made a big indentation in the Allied lines, and so "The Battle of the Bulge" forever got its name.

There's little surprise that Avalon Hill has made a game out of the battle.  It's a fight with a lot of appeal (odious ideologies aside): As the Germans, there's the hope that enough momentum will push the tide of your forces to the coast, splitting the Allies irrevocably.  As the Allies, there's the desperate holding action while you wait for reinforcements to gird the lines and throw back the Hun horde.

This year, a new war epic debuted on the 21st anniversary of the start of the battle simply called The Battle of the Bulge.  Of course, we drove up to Los Angeles on the new interstate to see it.  Verdict: not bad, though it's always a little disorienting to see American tanks play the role of German panzers. 

To truly mark the occasion, we also started another game of Battle of the Bulge, this time switching sides.  We're playing it out day by day, exactly matching the turns of the game to the days they represented.  This time-shifted experience is actually a lot of fun.  I wonder if I can find other opportunities to do it…

Sitzkrieg

If The Battle of the Bulge represents the essence of the blitzkrieg, this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction is a recreation of World War 1 — overlong, with little movement, ultimately pointless.  Such a sad contrast to last month's issue, which was the best in years.  Ah, such are the vicissitudes of war.  Come slog along with me, would you?


by Jack Gaughan

L'Arc De Jeanne, by Robert F. Young

We start with the story illustrated on the front cover, sort of a cross between Young's science fiction-tinged fables and actual SF.  The rapacious O'Riordan the Reorganizer, a would-be tyrant of the Terran Empire, invades the world of Ciel Bleu only to be thwarted by a young virgin with a bow and arrow named Jeanne.  Her arrows, by the way, create torrential thunderstorms.

Rather than continue a hopeless fight, O'Riordan retreats his forces, instead dispatching a handsome young fellow to seduce and capture the Maiden of New New Orleans before she can fully rally the planet's defenses.

Like most Young stories, it is a bit rambling and sentimental, but it avoids the over-saccharine nature of his worst works (while missing the sublime levels of his best).  It also takes a while to get going, but I enjoyed it well enough by the end.

Three stars.


by Gahan Wilson

Beaulieu, by Margaret St. Clair

A young man on the edge of a losing battle with a fatal disease is picked up by an enigmatic woman.  Will she be able to drive him down the wind in the road that leads to an alternate universe where things have gone right instead of tragically wrong?

A nice psychological piece.  Three stars.

Books, by Judith Merril

I don't usually review the reviews, but Merril's column is especially good this month, describing fandom and publishing in the United Kingdom, as well as devoting inches to Aldiss and Ballard.  Worth a read (Mark Yon, are you reading?)

To the Rescue, by Ron Goulart

Space private dick wrestles with his sentient car companion, which is suffering a progressive nervous breakdown.  Is the detective just unlucky?  Or is his dissatisfaction with his chosen profession unlocking his psychic abilities?

Perhaps better suited to Analog, it's the kind of frivolous story I had to keep revisiting to remember just what had happened.

Two stars.

The Most Wonderful News, by Len Guttridge

A Welshman with a hospital-bound wife is desperate for news, any news, which he can relate to her on this week's visit.  When all the usual sources dry up, he is left with one tidbit that is certifiably out of this world.

This story just goes on and on, and you won't be at all surprised by the ending.  Two stars.

Smog, by Theodore L. Thomas

After a nice summary of what smog is, Thomas suggests using additives to combat automotive emissions rather than filters or oxidizers.  I'm not sure how this makes any sense; oxidizers are additives.  Moreover, I'm not sure one could make an emission less harmful than the carbon dioxide and water a catalytic converter produces (in the short term — in the long term, of course, we could see an accelerated global greenhouse effect).

So two stars, and learn some chemistry, Ted.

Survey of the Third Planet, by Keith Roberts

Greedy aliens arrive on Earth to add it to their collection of worlds only to be repulsed by the doughty primitives.  The gimmick to the story is the revelation of who the primitives actually are.

Shrug.  We saw this trick in Garrett's Despoiler of the Golden Empire, and I didn't like it much there, either.

Two stars.

The Proton-Reckoner, by Isaac Asimov

Here's a fun article about how big Archimedes thought the universe was, how big the universe actually is, and why the proton is the smallest meaningful unit of volume.

There is also a brief plug for the Steady State model of the universe, which is unfortunate given that, between the article's writing and its publication, the Big Bang model has garnered overwhelming favor.

Four stars.

Representative From Earth, by Gregory Benford

A Jovian skydiver from Earth is scooped up by aliens and given a series of tasks to complete to prove his worthiness.  All of them have some element of physical prowess and intellectual cunning involved.  In the end, we find out just whom he's trying to impress.

It is a story at once too overwrought and too sketchy to please, all of it in service to an off color joke.

Two stars.

Apology to Inky, by Robert M. Green, Jr.

Haunted by an incident from his past he can only vaguely remember, but which tore apart his one true love, experimental musician Walton Ulster finds himself living in several times at once: 1930, 1944, and 1965.  At the intersection of these three eras is a double-murder and, perhaps, true love.

At half the length, and in more capable hands, this interminable novelette could have been something special.  As is, it wavers between interest and boredom, settling in for the latter by the end.

Two stars.

Casualties of War

I suppose after last month's all-star issue, it was a matter of course that the follow up would be dismal.  Part of the issue is the abundance of new/newish writers (Green, Benford, Guttridge).  Ah well.  I'm inclined to take the long view.

After all — one battle does not a war make!

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Movies

[December 16, 1965] Two Creepy Terrors (Die Monster Die! and Planet of the Vampires)

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By Jason Sacks

Last weekend I took my girlfriend down to our local drive-in theatre, the good ol' Puget Park Drive-in, to catch a delightfully moody double feature of sci fi scares. Die, Monster, Die and Planet of the Vampires are perfect drive-in fodder. Both films offer atmospheric adventures accentuated with dread and tension, presented in vivid color that adds to the fear created in each scene. We were surprised by how much we enjoyed both of these flicks and I hope I can persuade you to catch them when they come to your town.

The Puget Park Drive-in. It doesn't look like much, but it's brought plenty of thrills over the last few years.

Die Monster Die!

The first movie on our double bill was Die Monster Die! This flick, released by our good friends at American International Pictures, is apparently a loose adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story "The Color Out of Space" and co- stars a cadaverous Boris Karloff along with Nick Adams and Suzan Farmer in a thoroughly entertaining, moody tale that has some powerful moments influenced by the horror master of Arkham, Massachusetts.

When American Stephen Reinhart (Adams) travels to Arkham, England to visit his fiancée Susan Witley at her family's strange mansion, he clearly has no idea the kind of bizarre adventure he will find there. From the moment Reinhart leaves the train, he meets surprising resistance to his getting to the Witley home. A taxi driver refuses to take his fare, a bike shop owner refuses to rent him a bike, and Reinhart is snubbed by villagers for even suggesting he wants to travel to visit his fiancée's family. The countryside around Arkham is scorched with a deep crater, and it's pretty clear the crater has left scars in the villagers' minds along with their town. Is the crater related to the fear of the pariah Witley family? As we'll soon discover, there is ample reason for the villagers' fears.

Stephen marches to the Whitley mansion on foot. When the intrepid American finally arrives at the house, he begins to understand why the villagers think him crazy for wanting to spend time there. The once-stately home has fallen into a state of deep disrepair. Its gate is rusted, plants grow wild in the yard, and the whole place seems to need a new coat of paint. This slow unfolding of deepening confusion transitions the viewer into a sense of dread about what Stephen will find at the house, and makes the viewer concerned about the people living there.

Meandering quietly into the house, Reinhart nearly stumbles over the wheelchair-bound patriarch Nahum Witley (Karloff), who tries desperately to frighten our American hero away. Karloff is wonderful here, with a deep sense of gravitas, but he also carries some real sadness, as his advanced age and significant medical problems are clearly on display. Nahum keeps his reasons vague, but his words make it clear that there are true horrors there, including dread creatures that imperil everyone.  Just as it seems Nahum is ready to literally push Stephen out of his house, his lovely daughter intervenes. Susan Witley (Farmer) is the opposite of her father: welcoming, kind and optimistic.

It's obvious from the first moment we meet Susan that she and Stephen will soon find themselves in opposition to Nahum. Less obvious is the looming presence of Susan's mother Letitia (Freda Jackson), a woman seemingly at death's door who speaks to Stephen in foreboding murmurs about meteors and monsters, bewildering descriptions of seemingly indescribable objects and events that leave our hero deeply confused. Letitia's body also appears to be rotting away, and perhaps Stephen wonders if her mind is rotting as well. To  show her physical rot, we get a few weird glimpses of Letitia's body, including a hand that seems to lose its flesh the longer we watch it.

Good ol' Boris Karloff, trying to scare Stephen away from his house. Run away, Stephen!

The movie cuts from Letitia to Nahum and his trusty aide Merwyn (Terence De Marney) as they wander into the basement of the mansion — and it is in this scene that the horror starts to become clear. Amidst smart set decorations of distended faces and glowing neon colors, it's clear that Nahum and Merwyn have a deep and dreadful secret, tied to the strange glowing thing locked in that basement, the thing that alternately scares and interests Nahum.

From there, the movie begins to really take off into its own creepy territory, a smart mix of Lovecraft with the darkest work of Edgar Allan Poe along with a few AIP stylistic flares. If you've seen the trailer for Die Monster Die!, you've seen the wonderfully strange monster below which indeed seems to come right from the typewriter of the great Mr. Lovecraft.

This definitely looks like something out of Lovecraft

I was legitimately creeped out by that otherworldly monstrosity and the eerie keening noise it made. As the secrets of Nahum's home become more and more evident, this monster proves to be just one of the many horrors living there. We encounter living plants, see a shockingly dark end to Letitia's life and eventually get another chance to see the great Mr. Karloff made up to be a frightening killer. By the time we witness a strongly Poe-influenced ending to the film, viewers have witnessed some real strangeness on screen.

My girlfriend and I both really enjoyed this flick. Karloff is at his classic best here, providing his character with real depth and pathos. Despite his obvious illnesses, Karloff frankly thoroughly out-acts his counterparts on the screen. Adams and Farmer are an attractive couple, but they are two-dimensional. We learn little or nothing about either one of them, and Stephen mostly exists in this film as a plot device rather than a real character. Similarly, Susan was a character with great potential as a woman with one foot in the supernatural world and the other in our human world, but she is never given much to do beyond being Stephen's sidekick.

Karloff showing his inner glow

I also would have loved to see more about the villagers' fears, and explore the meteor's impact more, but all of my complaints about depth are kind of moot here. As the front half of a double-bill, Die Monster Die! had to be about an hour and fifteen minutes long. And as a movie of that length, it triumphs. The photography is excellent, Karloff is loads of fun, and the monsters are spooky.

Planet of the Vampires

After grabbing some popcorn and jujubes, we got back in the front seat of my Mustang for the second film of the evening. Planet of the Vampires was the perfect film companion to Die Monster Die. Both movies are spooky, atmospheric tales with lovely colors and intriguing acting.

Nothing on this poster matches the movie but I didn't mind!

In fact, most everything I enjoyed about Die Monster Die! is done even better in Planet of the Vampires. The great Italian director  Mario Bava (maybe best known in the US for his brilliant and terrifying debut film Black Sunday) journeys into space to deliver one of the most deeply upsetting movies I've seen in a while.

Two ships, the Argos and the Galliot, are exploring deep space together. When the rockets receive a distress signal from a nearby planet, they must land on that planet to investigate. On the way down to the planet, the ships' crews begin to go crazy, as if possessed by an alien force, and try to kill each other. The captain of the Argos, Captain Markary (Barry Sullivan), keeps his wits about himself and is able to force sanity and stop the fighting on his ship. The other ship… well, we shall soon see their fate.

The Argos lands on a strange planet. Dig that colorful sky!

Both ships land on the surface of the planet, and what a strange surface it is. Eternally shrouded in fog, with glowing rocks and mysterious sounds, the planet seems wrapped in deep mystery, and as the crew investigates the planet and the fate of the Galliot, terrible horrors begin to bedevil both crews in their ships and on the planet itself. We soon discover the bodies of the Galliot's crew, shredded and bloodied. But despite their seemingly life threatening damage, the bodies rise again and begin walking around. The bodies even go outside the spaceship and spread their terror to both crews.

Bava does a brilliant job with many elements of this movie, elements which add smartly to the viewer's deep feeling of disquiet. The astronauts' uniforms are beautiful. The cast wears well-fitting leather jumpsuits with high collars that seem practical but also strange. The cockpits of the ships are surprisingly spacious, with a lot of open space on them, which gives a strange sense of alienness to anyone used to cramped rocket capsules. The film is also deeply, eerily quiet, with just a few electronic noises to accentuate the horror. The deep silence seems to accentuate the tension, making viewers feel a deep sense of unease.

I think these uniforms are about the most beautiful in sci fi.
There's one sequence in which Bava's artistry really shines. In one intriguing set-piece, Captain Markary and his right-hand assistant Sanya (Norma Bengell) discover an enormous spacecraft which appears to have been trapped on the planet for seemingly thousands of years. Bava does brilliant work with perspective in these scenes, emphasizing the miniscule size of the humans in the midst of this bizarre alien craft. And as befits a master of horror films, Bava presents the craft as looking incredibly strange and dislocating for both the viewers and the crew.  It's old and looks decayed, with paint peeling and nature taking over the edges of the ship. Their exploration leads to a fascinating deathtrap unlike any I've seen before in film. It also makes the viewer wonder, profoundly, that if creatures this large can be killed by the residents of this planet, what chance do humans have?
The giant alien on the strange abandoned ship

The creatures on this planet aren't vampires in our usual sense of the word (perhaps they're energy vampires or body possessors or something else slightly ineffable). But that lack of definition makes the creatures more frightening. These vampires are a constant, eerie threat that both viewers and crew can't quite understand. We all know a cross and stake will kill Dracula, but we have no idea how to kill these vampires. That uncertainty makes the film more frightening. There seems to be no easy way out, and the ending helps reinforce that concept.

In fact, Bava and his crew also do something delightful in this movie: they deliver a twist ending, then another twist, and then yet another twist.  Each of the twists feel earned because they are well foreshadowed and yet completely surprising. I want you to be surprised, too, so I won't ruin the fun. I will say this, though. For my money the best twists are the ones that leave the viewers giggling, and my girlfriend and I laughed our heads off at the twists.

The alien planet looks spookier because of all the fog

It seems the budget for this movie was incredibly small (a piece in last month's Famous Monsters reports it cost roughly $200,000 in American dollars to film this movie in Italy). It's intriguing how director Bava worked with his international cast. There are actors from Brazil, Italy, the US and Spain, and each spoke their native languages on set. Bava's team then dubbed their lines in the local language for prints distributed around the world. Brazilians heard Portuguese, Spaniards hear the movie in Spanish and Americans in English. Because everyone spoke a different language on set, the movie has an often dreamlike feel, as if the actors are speaking around each other. That feel helps give this film its unique and wonderful energy.

And though Bava didn't spend a lot on the sets or ships, he gets real value for his lira. Maybe it's the eternal fog that makes the planet surface so compelling, or maybe the colored lights, but the planet of the vampires looked way better than it should have. I felt pulled into the mystery of this movie because of its low budget. Now I want to see more Bava films!

Driving Home
On our way to her home from the drive-in, my girlfriend and I couldn't stop laughing about all the fun we had watching these movies. There's a certain thrill to finding out a movie is way better than you expect it to be. In fact, we had that excitement with both movies last weekend and I think you will, too.

I don't care how popular they are. I love my Mustang!

Hop in your Chev, Plymouth or Pontiac and catch these flicks at your local drive-in while you still can.




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 14, 1965] Expect the Unexpected (January 1966 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's . . . a Meteor? A Satellite? A Flying Saucer?

Things got off to a bang earlier this month, in a most unexpected way. On the evening of December 9, folks in Canada and the United States saw a fireball in the sky. According to witnesses, something crashed in the woods near the town of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania.

(Cue eerie theremin music.)

The US military and state troopers sealed off the area and began a search. So far, they haven't reported finding anything.

(That's what they want you to think.)


Isn't this the way The Blob started?

After eliminating things like a plane crash, the authorities seem to think the most likely suspect is a meteor that exploded in the atmosphere. (Vocabulary lesson for today: A very bright meteor, particularly one that blows up spectacularly, is known as a bolide.) It might possibly be debris from a satellite, some suggest. Of course, you and I know it's really little green men . . .

Another Song of Solomon?

Almost as surprising as a blazing visitor from outer space is a modern pop song with lyrics that are a couple of thousand years old. The Byrds are currently at the top of the American music charts with their version of Turn! Turn! Turn!

Composed by folk singer Pete Seeger, almost all the words are taken from the Old Testament book Ecclesiastes, supposedly written by King Solomon. The exceptions are the title, repeated several times, and the closing line I swear it's not too late, emphasizing the song's antiwar message.


She don't care about grammar either, I guess.

What Do You Expect For Four Bits?

Appropriately, the latest issue of Fantastic is full of unexpected happenings.


Cover art by James B. Settles, taken from the back cover of the August 1942 issue of Amazing Stories.


The best copy I can find of the original. Please excuse the tiny print. I doubt this is a very accurate representation of the planet Uranus anyway.

Six and Ten Are Johnny, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.


Cover art by Barye Phillips and Leo Summers.

From the very first issue of Fantastic comes this tale of an unexpected encounter on a distant world.


Illustrations by Virgil Finlay.

A shuttle carries a survey team from a starship down to the surface of the planet. The crew has an uneasy feeling about the place, for no obvious reason. They land on a plateau above a dense jungle. They are shocked to meet Johnny, who claims to be the sole survivor of a lost starship. Things get even weirder when some of the crew members vanish, and the others claim that they never even existed.


Officers from the starship join the survey team in an attempt to figure out what's going on.

Everybody seems to be in a dazed condition, except the protagonist. That's because he's got a metal plate in his head, which protects him from having his mind controlled by the alien organism that makes up the jungle.


The wild-eyed madman in this picture is actually our completely sane hero, who is trying to protect a colleague from the creature's telepathic powers.

This is a grim little science fiction horror story with a feverish, eerie mood. I'm not sure I believe the way the alien organism works, or if the behavior of the crew is plausible. (Would you really bring a bunch of dogs on a starship to test if a planet's atmosphere is breathable? Of course, the real reason they're present is so they can go crazy and bark wildly, like in any scary movie.) Not the most profound story in the world, but a competent spine chiller.

Three stars.

Wonder Child, by Joseph Shallit


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

The January/February 1953 issue of the magazine supplies this account of an invention with unexpected effects.


Illustrations by Ed Emshwiller (better known as Emsh.)

A married couple would like to have a child, but they don't want to deal with all the work of raising it from infancy. They happen to know a scientist who has created a gizmo that will speed up the nerve growth of a fetus in the womb. Their son develops rapidly, sparing them a lot of trouble with things like toilet training.


He also develops a precocious interest in sex.

Despite some problems with teachers, neighbors, and other kids, things seem to be going pretty well. What they don't know is that their acquaintance is a classic Mad Scientist, who has also given the child increased aggression. It's not hard to see that things won't work out for the best.

I found both the technology and the behavior of the characters implausible. The ending of the story left a bad taste in my mouth. I suppose the author does a decent job portraying a pair of self-centered bohemian parents, but they're not much fun to read about.

Two stars.

Axe and Dragon (Part Two of Three), by Keith Laumer

Let's take a break from reprints and turn to the latest installment in this new novel.


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

As you may recall, the improbably named Lafayette O'Leary wound up in a strange, supposedly imaginary world through self-hypnosis. He has some control over things, creating food, drink, clothing, shelter, and the like. However, the place has a stubborn reality of its own.

After surviving a duel in a slapstick fashion, he winds up being framed for the kidnapping of the land's beautiful princess. Much running around follows, with O'Leary even creating a secret door for himself, so he can escape into it.


He also briefly returns to the so-called real world, where he runs afoul of the law.

Determined to clear his name, he sets out to rescue the princess from a fabled giant and his supposed dragon. Complicating matters is the king's magician, who has more advanced technology than you'd expect in this steam-powered world, and who seems to know more about what's going on than he admits.


There's also a big guy.

The mood remains very light, with even more comedy than the first part.  The breakneck pace of events holds the reader's attention.  Even if the whole thing could be dismissed as much ado about nothing, it provides adequate, forgettable entertainment.

Three stars.

What a Man Believes, by Robert Sheckley


Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

Back to reprints with this tale of the afterlife, from the November/December 1953 issue.


Illustrations by Henry C. Pitz.

A guy who didn't expect anything after death winds up in an oddly accommodating Hell.  It seems he has a choice of eternal punishment: he can undergo physical torture, fight wolves, or drift in a boat.


He can also climb a mountain.

Predictably, he selects the boat, preferring endless boredom to unending agony.  This leads to an ending that, well, didn't make a lot of sense to me.  I suppose some irony is intended, but it falls flat.

Two stars.

Three Wishes, by Poul Anderson


Wraparound cover art by Richard Powers.

A nice old man makes an unexpected discovery in this yarn from the March/April 1953 issue.


Illustration by Dick Francis.

The elderly fellow is Papa Himmelschoen.  If that sounds familiar, you're probably thinking of Papa Schimmelhorn, a character created by Reginald Bretnor in the story The Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork Out back in 1950.  Anderson's old man has a similar thick accent, so I assume this is a deliberate allusion.

Anyway, the kindly Papa mends a pair of pants for a neighbor, and gets a little statue of a fairy as payment.  It comes to life when, in a burst of gaiety, he kisses it.  His reward is three wishes.  Since he's completely happy with his life, he doesn't know how to use his wishes.  The solution to his problem isn't completely satisfying, and involves a bit of circular reasoning.

This is a trivial work from a talented writer.  The mood is pleasant enough, and Himmelschoen is a lot less obnoxious than Schimmelhorn, but it doesn't add up to much.

Two stars.

Phoney Meteor, by John Beynon


Cover art by J. Allen St. John.

From the yellowing pages of the March 1941 issue of Amazing Stories comes this piece, by an author better known as John Wyndham.


Illustration by Jay Jackson.

Neatly wrapping up the magazine with an incident similar to the one I mentioned at the start of this article, this story involves a mysterious object falling to Earth.  Since the setting is England during the Second World War, the local folks treat it as a possible Nazi weapon. 

Alternating sections of narration reveal that it's really a spaceship, carrying a large number of aliens from their dying world.  It's obvious from the start, and the illustration, that they're tiny beings, so Earth seems like a planet full of giant monsters.

That's about all there is to the story.  Beynon/Wyndham writes well enough, but I found the accounts of life in England during the Blitz more interesting than the science fiction stuff.

(Everybody seems very coolheaded when faced with this potentially deadly object.  I suppose that's a bit of wartime propaganda, to maintain morale.  Keep Calm and Carry On, and all that.)

Two stars.

Did It Meet Your Expectations?

I wasn't expecting this issue to be so weak, ranging from so-so to below average.  I can understand the financial reason for using so many reprints — I believe the publishers have full rights to the stories and art, so they don't have to pay anything for them — but it results in a lot of disappointing early work from well-known writers.  If I were in a worse mood, I'd be tempted to tell the editor exactly where he can go with all these old relics.


Cartoon by Ray Dillon.  It's a reprint, too, from the same issue as Poul Anderson's story.




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Movies, TV

[December 12, 1965] Something Old, something New (The Bishop's Wife and A Charlie Brown Christmas

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by Janice L. Newman

TV Christmas

The holidays are here! In other times and places, people gather or huddle around a bright, crackling fire, drinking hot cider and pressing close to keep out winter’s chill. In the Traveler’s house, here in Southern California in the year of 1965, we gather around a bright, staticky TV screen, watching movies and sipping Ovaltine as the Santa Ana winds bluster outside our windows.

And that is how we came to see a pair of Christmas-themed features on our small screen in the first half of December.

Devil or Angel

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Book

[December 10, 1965] For the People, By the People The Makepeace Experiment, by Andrei Sinyavsky

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by Margarita Mospanova

Long time no read, dear readers!

My dearly beloved, but monumentally aggravating home country has once again done what it has been doing since its unfortunate conception — the USSR has arrested another pair of writers that happened to disagree with some of its tenets. The court has yet to pass judgement but there is very little doubt the case will not go in favor of the accused, even despite the very public demonstration in Moscow in their defense on December 5.

Andrei Sinyavsky

Andrei Sinyavsky, who some of you might know under the name of Abram Tertz, is a prolific Russian writer and literary critic. He has published some of his works in the West due to their… stylistic differences compared to the usual sort of literature permitted in the USSR.

The demonstration in support of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel

As such, I thought it would be appropriate to review one of his fantastical novellas.

Lyubimov or The Makepeace Experiment is an allegorical story about Leonid Tikhomirov (Lenny Makepeace) and a small town of Lyubimov. Lenny starts out as a simple bicycle repairman who falls in love with a new school teacher in town, Serafima. Serafima spurns his affection, saying he is too unambitious and unimportant for her. In despair, Lenny ransacks the local library, trying to find a way to improve himself, until he comes across an old tome containing the secret to mind control.

Yes, dear readers. Mind control. I was surprised, too.

Armed with that new power, he gains control over Lyubimov, forces Serafima to marry him, and attempts to create a veritable communist utopia in his town while cutting all ties to the USSR. Spoiler: he fails. And fails spectacularly.

So does the Soviet military while trying to retake the town, but at least that is expected in a story like this.

The novella, while absurdist, is also a political satire and commentary on human nature, rational versus irrational, and the dangers of the cult of personality. Unsurprisingly, it’s one of the reasons for the author’s arrest.

While the protagonist of Lyubimov is undoubtedly Lenny, the story is told to us by the town’s librarian (who becomes Lenny’s assistant) and commented upon by the librarian’s ancestor (a disembodied ghost who sometimes hijacks the narrative completely) through rather amusing footnotes. In the beginning the humor had me in stitches, even reminding me of Gogol sometimes. Sharp, cutting, and borderline sarcastic, it added richness to an otherwise not particularly compelling plot. Unfortunately, the farther in we got, the more jumbled the text itself became. It might have been on purpose, but it was hard to tell.

Still, the footnotes where the narrator argues with his ancestor about how to start the story or the scenes where Lenny makes the whole town see mineral water as pure alcohol or toothpaste as vobla paste were pretty funny. So was the way the Soviet military attempted to disguise itself to get into Lyubimov.

Vobla. For those of you who have no idea what vobla paste is.

It is a pity that most of the humor was lost in translation, as far as I could tell. The style of the original text was incredibly informal, almost folksy, which added to the absurdism of the whole mind controlled utopia situation, but I saw practically none of that in the translated version. That is not to say that the translation is bad, exactly. It is functional. However, it could be better.

The same could be said about the story itself. It could be better. As I said earlier, it started off well enough. But by the time the plot got to the middle of the book it was so meandering and vague it was hard to pay attention to the characters. The abundance of metaphors and allegories did not help matters.

The core ideas do still come through loud and clear, but I would have preferred them to be adorned in something I didn’t need to muddle through on the way over. By the end of the book I was actually looking to when I could turn the last page and finally say goodbye to it. It is certainly not something I would ever pick up on a whim to reread. Which is, again, a pity, since the first few chapters were incredibly enjoyable.

Another thing that made me grimace with disappointment was female characters. The novella has only three types: superstitious old women, harlots, or stupid peasants. Not the best combination at the best of times. Even Serafima, Lenny’s wife, is depicted as a harlot who our main hero is trying to mold into a respectable woman. Watching him get jealous over Serafima’s past lovers was not pleasant. Or, really, all that necessary to the plot or the characters’ development, now that I think about it.

That is not to say that the male characters are all the shining examples of intellect and nobility, but they are all somewhat sympathetic. The narrator is probably the only one that can be categorized as a good man. But at least the men are not cardboard cutouts of the worst stereotypes in literature.

So, to summarize. Does the book work as intended political satire? Yes. Do I recommend it to those interested in the subject? Yes. Do I recommend it to anyone just looking to have a good time? A definite no.

Additional warning for an extremely non consensual nature of the relationship between Lenny and Serafima which includes some very degrading and upsetting scenes. Mind control is not a healthy basis for a successful marriage; please remember that, folks.

I give Lyubimov a very generous two red stars.




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Science / Space Race

[December 8, 1965] Space is Getting Crowded (A-1/Asterix, FR-1, Explorer-31, Alouette-2, Luna-8, Gemini-7

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by Kaye Dee

A few weeks ago, I wrote that November had been a busy month for space missions, but just in the past three weeks the heavens have become even more crowded, with six more launches taking place

France Joins the Space Club-Twice!

Congratulations to France on orbiting its first two satellites within ten days of each other, joining that exclusive club of nations that have either launched their own satellite, or put a satellite into orbit with the help of the United States. In France’s case it has done both!

In addition to its participation in the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO), France has its own national space programme, managed by its space agency, the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (National Centre for Space Studies, or CNES for short). Established just on four years ago (19 December 1961), CNES has moved rapidly to make France a leading player in the Space Race: it has been working with the French Army on the development of a satellite carrier rocket, named Diamant, and with the United States on a series of satellites dubbed “FR” (for France, of course).

France’s first satellite, A-1, was launched on 26 November on the first flight of the Diamant (Diamond) launcher from the French ballistic missile test site at Hammaguir, in Algeria. With this launch, France has become the sixth country to have a satellite in orbit—and only the third nation after the USSR and United States to launch a satellite on its own launch vehicle (Canada, the UK and Italy all launched their satellites on American rockets). 


France's Diamant rocket lifts off successfully on its maiden flight, carrying the A-1 satellite

The 60ft tall Diamant is derived from France’s “Precious Stones” nuclear ballistic missile development programme. It is a three-stage rocket, with the first stage being liquid-fuelled and the two upper stages derived from solid-fuel missiles. The satellite is officially named A-1 (Armée-1/Army-1) as it is the first satellite launched by the French Army, but the French media quickly nicknamed it Asterix, after a popular character in French comic strips. This character isn’t well-known in the English-speaking world, but apparently “Asterix the Gaul” is hugely popular in France. According to some of the ELDO people at Woomera, the A-1 satellite was originally intended to be the second satellite in the FR series. It was hurriedly selected to fly on the first Diamant test launch, because FR-1 was in the final stages of being readied for launch in the United States (more on that below). 


A-1 being readied for launch, mounted on top of the Diamant's third stage

A-1/Asterix is shaped a bit like a spinning-top and, rather unusually, its body is made of fibreglass, which is decorated with black stripes for passive thermal control, to stop the satellite’s interior overheating. A-1 is 22 inches in diameter and 22 inches high, with four antennae around its midriff. It weighs 92 ½lbs and carries instruments for taking measurements of the ionosphere. Battery powered, A-1 was expected to transmit for about 10 days, but although the launch was successful, the signals from the satellite quickly faded, possibly due to damage to its antennae caused by part of the protective nosecone hitting the satellite as it fell away. However, even though it is no longer transmitting, A-1 will remain in orbit for several centuries!


On 30 November, the French Post Office celebrated the successful launch of France's first satellite with the release of a stamp triptych

France’s second satellite, FR-1, was launched on 6 December local time using a Scout X-4 vehicle from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Originally intended to be the first French satellite, FR-1 is the first of a series of French scientific satellites that have been developed by CNES in conjunction with the Centre National d'Etudes des Telecommunications (National Centre for Telecommunications Studies, or CNET). This project is partially funded by NASA’s Office of Space Science Applications as part of a co-operative programme that commenced in 1959, when the United States offered to launch satellites for any nation that wished to take part. Canada, Britain and Italy have all launched their first satellites under this programme (which is why they were launched on US rockets). Australia has been invited to participate but, so far, our government has rejected proposals from the scientific community on the basis that it cannot afford to fund the development of a satellite.


FR-1, the second French satellite mounted on its Scout launch vehicle, before the rocket is moved to the pad

The FR-1 satellite (France-1, also known as FR-1A) carries experiments to study VLF propagation in the magnetosphere and irregularities in the topside ionosphere. It also has an electron density probe to measure electron concentration in the vicinity of the satellite. Weighing 135lb, FR-1 looks like two truncated octagonal pyramids joined at their bases by an octagonal prism measuring 27 inches across from corner to corner. The body is covered with solar cells and bristles with antennae and probe booms. FR-1 is operating smoothly so far, but it carries no onboard tape recorder, so the satellite’s data has to be transmitted in real time when it passes over designated ground stations.

So why the rush to get the Asterix out before FR-1? The launch of Asterix seems to have been a combination of expediency and French nationalism. CNES and the Army were ready to do the first test launch of the Diamant rocket, and these sort of first tests are usually just done with a ballast payload, so that if the rocket fails nothing important is lost. In this case, CNES seems to have thought that they might as well take the risk of putting a satellite on the rocket, because if it succeeded it would give France the honour of being the third nation to launch its own satellite. As FR-1 was already at Vandenberg being prepped for launch, it was easier to pull out FR-2, which was a smaller satellite and already pretty well completed development, to become the payload for the Diamant flight. If the Diamant launch was then delayed for some reason, or failed, France would still become one of the earliest nations with a satellite in orbit with the launch of FR-1. So, as we say in Australia, they "had a bob both ways" on gaining some space kudos!

ISIS-X: International Cooperation Exploring the Ionosphere

NASA must now have a virtual production line, churning out Explorer satellites like sausages for launch about two weeks apart, if the past month has been anything to go by: there was Explorer-29 on 6 November, Explorer-30 on 19 November and now Explorer-31 on 29 November. This latest Explorer is also known as Direct Measurement Explorer-A (DME-A) and it represents the American half of a joint ionospheric research program with Canada, which is collectively known as International Satellites for Ionospheric Studies-X (ISIS-X).


Explorer-31 ready for shipment to Vandenberg Air Force Base

Explorer-31 weighs about 218lb and carries seven experiments that can be operated simultaneously or sequentially, taking direct measurements immediately in front of, and behind, the satellite's path. Solar cells that cover about 15 percent of the satellite’s surface provide its power. Like FR-1, this small spacecraft does not carry an onboard tape recorder, so its data has to be transmitted ‘live’ when it is turned on while passing over one of NASA’s Space Tracking and Data Acquisition Network (STADAN) ground stations.

Explorer-31 was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base by a Thor Agena-B rocket, riding piggy-back with its Canadian ISIS-X counterpart, Alouette-2. This satellite has been developed by the Canadian Defence Research Board-Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment, as part of the same programme under which Canada’s first satellite, Alouette-1 was launched back in September 1962. This second Alouette has been developed from the original Alouette-1 back-up satellite, although it has more experiments and is a more sophisticated satellite than its predecessor. The name “Alouette” (skylark) comes from that popular French-Canadian folk song that I think everyone knows, even if they have never learned French.


Photos of Alouette-2 and Explorer-31 are hard to find, but they are reasonably well depicted on this souvenir cover marking their joint launch. It's lucky my Uncle Ernie goes to so much effort to build his space philately collection

At 323lb, Alouette is much larger than Explorer-31, but the two satellites have been placed in near identical orbits so that their data can complement each other. Alouette-2 is designed to explore the ionosphere using the technique of ‘topside sounding’, which determines ion concentration within the ionosphere by taking measurements from above the ionosphere. Alouette-1 was also a topside sounder. The satellite is carrying five instruments, three of which utilise two very long dipole antennae (one is 240ft, the other 75ft long). Alouette 2 also has no onboard data recorder and downloads its data when passing over stations in NASA’s STADAN network.

Luna-8-Fourth Time Unlucky!

Despite its early lunar exploration triumphs with Luna-1, 2 and 3 (which we in the West nicknamed “Lunik”, to match with Sputnik), the USSR has not had much success since with its Moon program. USSR’s Luna-8 probe, launched on 3 December, was the Soviet Union’s fourth attempt to soft-land a spacecraft on the lunar surface this year. Being able to land safely on the Moon is a technique that both the United States and the Soviet Union need to master in order to successfully accomplish a manned lunar landing later this decade. Two of this year’s attempts, Luna-5 and Luna-7, crashed while attempting to land. Luna 6 went off course and missed the Moon, flying by at 99,000 miles.

Luna-8, intended to land in the Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms), also failed in its mission yesterday. According to TASS, the “probe’s soft-landing system worked normally through all stages except the final touch-down”. It looks like Luna-8 has followed Luna-7 in crashing on the Moon. Let’s see if Russia has better luck with Luna 9!

Gemini 7-Settling in for a Long Haul

Just a day after Luna-8, the latest mission in NASA’s Gemini program, Gemini-7 was launched on what is planned to be a two-week endurance mission, that will include a rendezvous with the Gemini-6 spacecraft. I’m not going to write about this mission, as one of my colleagues here will do that later this month, but I couldn’t sign off on this article without mentioning the latest addition to the impressive list of spacecraft launched in the past few weeks. The Space Race is really speeding up!




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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction