Fashion, music, politics, sports

[March 21, 1964] Building the City of the Future upon Ruins: A Look at Postwar Architecture in Germany, Europe and the World

2 Comments


by Cora Buhlert

[From Seattle's Sky Needle, to Chicago's Marina Towers, to the soon to be built World Trade Center in New York, the country is finally getting science fiction's buildings of the future.  But the United States isn't the only nation undergoing an architectural revolution.  Cora Buhlert is here with a report from Germany on what's going up…]

From the Ashes

Not quite twenty years ago, World War II left much of Europe in ruin. Bombing raids and ground fighting destroyed much of the infrastructure and reduced most cities to rubble.

Rebuilding Europe's cities after World War II posed both a challenge and an opportunity: architects could realise their vision of the ideal city of the future on a blank or almost blank canvas. Some of the most famous architects of our time rose to the task and created buildings both functional and unique.

The Bauhaus and the International Style

The dominant architectural movement of our time is the so-called International Style, characterised by unadorned rectangles of concrete, glass and steel. The name is certainly apt, for the International Style has spread across the globe from Europe to the Americas to the emerging nations of Asia and Africa. But its origins lie in Germany, in the provincial East German towns of Weimar and Dessau, home to the legendary Bauhaus school of architecture, art and design.

Under founder Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus took the maxim "form follows function", coined by Chicago architect Louis Sullivan in 1896, and reinterpreted it as purely functional architecture and design eschewing all ornamentation. The results, whether buildings, furniture or household goods, still look remarkably modern some forty years later. Even if you've never heard of the Bauhaus, I can guarantee you have seen and probably used some of their iconic designs.

Founded in Weimar in 1919, the Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1925 and finally to Berlin in 1932, before the school was shut down by the Nazis. Many of the professors and alumni, including Gropius himself, left Germany, spreading the Bauhaus ideas all over the world, and eventually created the International Style, with some input from the Dutch De Stijl movement and Frenchman Le Corbusier.

The Bauhaus building in Dessau, designed by Walter Gropius in 1925, is an early example of a glass curtain wall construction, a technique Gropius himself had pioneered at the Fagus shoe last factory in the West German town of Alfeld an der Leine in 1911. Fifty years later, glass curtain wall constructions can be found all over the world and are the favoured architectural style for American skyscrapers such as the Seagram Building in New York, designed by Bauhaus alumnus Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1958.

I had the chance to visit the Bauhaus building in Dessau a few years ago. It is still a vocational school, though the building itself was badly damaged in World War II and has been heavily altered since. However, there are plans to restore it to its original glory for the fortieth anniversary next year.

Housing for the masses

The main application of the architectural principles of the Bauhaus and the International Style lies not in representative office buildings, but in new housing estates that are going up all over Europe to provide desperately needed homes for the masses of refugees, displaced persons and people rendered homeless by World War II.

The solutions to the postwar housing crisis vary from city to city. Some municipalities prefer more traditional designs such as row houses with slanted roofs, built from traditional materials like red brick. Other cities go for high rise apartment blocks that can house thousands of people.

In 1957, West Berlin ran the Interbau exhibition, and invited world famous architects including Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto and Oscar Niemeyer to design and build their vision of the apartment block of the future. The resulting Hansaviertel neighbourhood is a housing estate that doubles as a showcase of modern architecture.

Meanwhile, a very exciting housing project, the Neue Vahr, was recently completed in my hometown Bremen. Like many other German cities, Bremen was badly damaged by World War II bombings and was missing about one hundred thousand homes by the early 1950s. The solution was to build a completely new neighbourhood for thirty thousand people on what had up to then been agricultural land on the edge of the city.

This new neighbourhood was designed by architects Ernst May and Hans Bernhard Reichow according to the "garden city" principle developed by Englishman Ebenezer Howard in the late nineteenth century, which involves housing tracts interspersed with extensive green belts and separation of functions such as housing, work, shopping and traffic.

The modern interpretation of a garden city implemented by the Neue Vahr project involves apartment blocks varying in size from four to fourteen stories interspersed with green belts. Two multi-lane roads cut through the neighbourhood, dividing it into four sub-neighbourhoods. Pedestrian bridges connect the sub-neighbourhoods to each other, keeping motorised traffic and pedestrians separated and accidents down.

At the centre of the Neue Vahr, there is a signature building, a sixty metre high, twenty-two storey apartment block designed by celebrated Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Known as the Aalto building, it currently the tallest residential building in Bremen and towers above the Berliner Freiheit (Berlin freedom) shopping precinct that serves as a town centre for the new neighbourhood.

New approaches to shopping

Talking of shopping, retail buildings such as shops and department stores are another area where modern architecture asserts itself. World War II left in ruins the town centres of many European cities. Gone were their open air markets, narrow streets lined with small shops and grand department stores But this made room for new approaches.

Probably the most characteristic type of commercial architecture in the postwar era is the shopping centre or – as Americans prefer to call it – the shopping mall. These malls that are currently popping up like the proverbial weeds in the suburbs of American cities are usually enclosed indoor complexes, air-conditioned against weather extremes. Indoor malls exist in Europe, but they are rare. One example is the soon to be finished Bull Ring shopping centre in Birmingham, which combines an American style indoor mall with an outdoor market. But most of the time, Europeans prefer open air shopping precincts in the centre of old and new towns.

The prototype for many European shopping precincts is the Lijnbaan (rope makers' street) in Rotterdam. The Dutch port city of Rotterdam was almost completely destroyed by German bombs in May 1940. Designed by architects Jo van den Broek and Jaap Bakema and built between 1949 and 1953, the Lijnbaan is a street lined by sixty-six two-storey shops with apartment blocks set further back. Unusual for the otherwise car-friendly architecture of the postwar era, the Lijnbaan is a pedestrian zone and completely car-free. Delivery traffic has been moved to the back of the shops, allowing shoppers to promenade among flower beds, sculptures and bird cages and enjoy a cup of coffee or a glass of beer in one of the many outdoor cafés.

The Lijnbaan was an instant sensation. "Lijnbaanen" is now a Dutch verb. In 1960, the shopping street and the youth gangs who hang out at the cafés there even became the subject of a novel by John den Admirant fittingly entitled Lijnbaan Djungel (Lijnbaan Jungle). The idea of a pedestrian shopping precinct was soon copied all over Europe. One example is the Treppenstraße (staircase street) in the German town of Kassel, which was completed in 1953 a few months after the Lijnbaan. 

These days, Lijnbaan architects Jo van den Broek and Jaap Bakema have established themselves as masters of retail architecture. Two other projects of theirs, the Ter Meulen department store and the H.H. De Klerk furniture store, both in Rotterdam, look like fairly unremarkable concrete boxes from the outside. Inside, both stores feature an arrangement of mezzanines connected by staircases that make the buildings seem much bigger than they look from the outside.

Department stores are the other great challenge of postwar retail architecture. For while the great department stores of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – Harrod's and Liberty's in London, Galeries Lafayette in Paris or À L'Innovation in Brussels – are beautiful, their design with open atriums surrounded by retail space is not very efficient. Modern department stores do not have atriums and so offer more retail space – not to mention modern amenities such as escalators, elevators and safety features like sprinkler systems. However, the downside is that they tend to look like windowless concrete boxes from the outside.

There have been several attempts to make department store exteriors more visually interesting. For the De Bijenkorf department store in Rotterdam (completed in 1957), Bauhaus alumnus Marcel Breuer took a cue from the name, which means "beehive" in Dutch, and covered the façade with travertine tiles shaped like honeycombs. Combined with a 26-metre tall abstract steel sculpture by artist Gabo, affectionately named "Het Ding" (The Thing) by the people of Rotterdam, the result is spectacular.

German architect Egon Eiermann came up with a similar solution for the German department store chain Horten and developed white ceramic tiles in the shape of a stylized H, which are currently being applied to the façades of Horten stores all over West Germany for an iconic space age look.

Breaking out of boxes

The attempts to make department stores more visually interesting highlight a major problem with modern architecture and the International Style. Rectangular buildings may be functional, but they are also boring. And so we are increasingly seeing attempts to break out of the pervasive box shape of postwar architecture. Many of those attempts involve representative buildings such as theatres, events centres and churches, where architects have more leeway than with residential or retail buildings.

One of my favourite new buildings in my hometown Bremen is the Stadthalle, a multi-purpose arena for exhibitions, sports events and concerts. Designed by Roland Rainer and completed only this year, the Stadthalle is notable by the six concrete struts which jut out of the front of the building and hold both the stands as well as the roof in a design reminiscent of tents and sailing ships.

For the Kongresshalle conference centre in Berlin, built for the Interbau exhibition of 1957, American architect Hugh Stubbins designed a spectacular hyperbolic paraboloid saddle roof, inspired by the Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina. The people of Berlin quickly nicknamed the organic structure the "pregnant oyster".

Last year, Bremen got its very own "pregnant oyster" with the St. Lukas church in the Grolland neighbourhood. Designed by architects Carsten Schöck and Frei Otto, a specialist for lightweight roof constructions, the St. Lukas church has a saddle roof consisting of two frames of glued laminated timber which hold a net of steel wires, on which the actual roof rests. I recently had the chance to attend a service at St. Lukas and the stunning interior makes even the most boring of sermons exciting.

Indeed, some of the most exciting architecture of our secular times can be found in churches. When Egon Eiermann won the competition to rebuild the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in West Berlin, he was faced with a problem. The ruins of the original church, which had been destroyed by bombing in 1943, were still standing and could not be torn down because of massive protests. So Eiermann decided to keep the bombed out tower of the old church and built his new church, consisting of a hexagonal clocktower and an octagonal nave, all rendered in a concrete honeycomb design with glass inlays, around it. From the outside, the new church doesn't look like much, but once you step inside, the blue glass inlays, designed by French artist Gabriel Loire, light up with a truly otherworldly glow.

Completed in 1961, the new Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church became an instant landmark. The old church is nicknamed "hollow tooth" by the people of Berlin, the new church "powder box and lipstick".

Next stop: The World

It seems as if the spectacular designs described above are merely a harbinger of things to come, as architecture finally moves beyond the all-pervasive rectangular shapes of the International Style. New and exciting movements are emerging such as the British Archigram group, who have proposed such positively science fictional designs as the Plug-in City or the Walking City. So far, these are still concepts, but they might well be the cities of our future. 

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge!  Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




2 Comments Leave A Comment
Movies

[March 19, 1964] When Vampires Rule the World (Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow's The Last Man on Earth)

4 Comments


by Rosemary Benton

Horror meets SF

As creators and Hollywood producers have found, horror is a versatile complementary genre that has been instrumental to the fear factor within thrillers, the stark human experience in film noir, and the complex depth of character behind a compelling villain. Recently, the genre has been going through a bit of a self-imposed revolution as it moves away from late 1800s and early 1900s stock-stories to pair off with 1950s science fiction literature such as John Wyndham's book The Day of the Triffids. Comedy has increasingly been a partnered with horror, as in The Tingler (1959), the self-aware movie The Comedy of Terrors (January 1964), and the upcoming freaky-family sitcom The Addams Family.

Those who have made a name for themselves as character actors within horror (Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi, Peter Cushing, and of course Vincent Price) are more and more finding themselves in roles that are written to be the very embodiments of the characters they were initially typecast as. While they take on these roles with flair and aplomb, seeing them act outside of their comfortable and accommodating niches is an exciting opportunity for their fans. This month the debonair gentleman-villain/tragic aristocrat character actor Vincent Price was given the opportunity to showcase his acting talent in the newly released film, The Last Man on Earth, a film that promised to be a stark departure from his previous roles.

Based on the 1954 novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, The Last Man on Earth follows the depressing life of Robert Morgan (played by Vincent Price) after a deadly plague sweeps the planet, turning infected people and animals into shambling, blood thirsty vampire ghouls. Even with the book's heavy reliance on internal dialogue and the writing's somewhat disjointed flow, a brilliant movie adaptation of I Am Legend would be entirely possible in the hands of a succinct screenwriter, a brooding leading actor, and a director capable of bringing severe emotional distress to the screen. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the talented team behind Last Man, none of these elements quite linked up with one another. The result is severely disappointing.

What Happened?

Robert Morgan was once a scientist working to find a cure to the plague creeping across the globe. But when the disease took his neighbors, his fellow scientists, then his child and finally his wife, Robert found himself alone with the terrible burden of quite possibly being the last human being alive.

Boarding up his house and festooning it with garlic strands, crosses and mirrors, Robert whiles away his evenings making stakes and farming garlic as the zombie-like vampires beat away at the outside of his house. Alcohol, records, books and home videos are some comfort, but also stand as constant reminders of the civilization he is now bereft of. During the day when the vampires seek shelter from the sun Morgan methodically sweeps the area to hunt them down, stake them, load them into his station wagon and drive the bodies out to an ever burning plague pit.

After three years of this grim routine Robert happens to come across a woman named Ruth Collins (played by Franca Bettoia) who is out walking in the sunlight. He chases her down and brings her back to his home. Robert soon deduces that she is one of the infected, but comes to find out that the vampire disease has been contained with a drug that must be taken regularly lest the victim lose their sanity. She tells him that she was sent to spy on him by order of the new society of vampires she belongs to. The group intends to find a way to take revenge on Robert for killing many of their number as they hid from the sun. She explains to him that he is the new monster in this world, killing during the day while the new norm sleep.

After a short altercation Ruth becomes unconscious. While she is out Robert filters Ruth's blood through his own body via a makeshift dialysis setup, effectively curing her of the vampirism. But Robert's discovery of a cure is too little too late. As Ruth and Robert come to realize the miracle that has taken place a vampire breaks into the house and bites Ruth, effectively ending her brief return to full humanity. Just then black vans full of heavily armed vampires roll up and begin to slaughter the feral ghouls stalking around Robert's property. Their mission is to exterminate Robert, just as he has been doing to any sleeping vampires he has come across. Fleeing the house and running into a church, Robert is pursued and fatally wounded. Spitting venom and insults at the vampires, Robert crumples on the steps to the pulpit and dies as Ruth looks on. The church begins to fill with worshipers as Ruth walks out. She comforts a crying child saying that there is nothing to be afraid of anymore, and then the film fades to black. 

What went wrong

To preface my oncoming analysis of The Last Man on Earth, I wholeheartedly believe that a movie adaptation of a book is not obligated to be a carbon copy of its source material. Movies such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Most Dangerous Game (1932) prove this well, both of which were wonderful films even though the creators took liberties with the characters, scenes, and atmosphere of the literature they were based on. That being said, given what the writers of Last Man chose to keep from Matheson's novel and what they chose to tweak, the movie just doesn't come across as raw, desperate and angry as it should be. The blame lies primarily in the music, and as much as it pains me to say this, in the casting of Vincent Price as Robert Morgan.

Upon hearing the opening trills of the music, heralding the credits to begin rolling onto the screen, I felt something was wrong. The music blares loudly over the words with a cliché cacophony of horns and violin before switching to a melodramatic lilting tune, then back to clashing force full of a powerful energy completely at odds with the fragile looking, depressed Vincent Price mulling around his boarded up home. The musical scoring doesn't get any better from there. At times when the audience is supposed to feel the tedium of Robert Morgan's existence there is music that makes you feel as if his daily routine is full of exciting danger. In actuality it is full of mundane horror as he forces himself awake day after day with only the acts of eating, repairing his home, and exterminating the sleeping vampires (men and women alike) to keep his mind occupied.

Most insultingly the entrance of Franca Bettoia's character brings with it a strange romantic subplot that seems to come out of the blue with little buildup and conflicting sincerity. The interplay between Price and Bettoia takes on a very jarring fast succession of shoulder shaking, menacing staring, hysterics and hugging. During all of this the score flips wildly between lovely crescendos and stricken horns blares and drum rolls to show betrayal and hurt. It's reminiscent of the sweeping operatic film scoring common of old horror films from Universal Pictures, but feels very out of date for a modern movie that is supposed to be seething with barely repressed despair and scant few moments of actual hope.

Finally, the visual reason the film fails to emote properly comes to rest on the unfortunately sub-par performance of Vincent Price. For a character who is fast coming to believe that he is the last uninfected human on Earth, Price plays the role of Robert Morgan with too much restraint. Robert Morgan is a man with a young family taken by the plague and who lived to see his wife and neighbors come after him from beyond the grave. Such a character should be deeply shaken and depressed as he goes through his remaining days with monotony and acceptance of a life alongside the undead.

Price, however, carries himself like someone who is physically fragile and emotionally cold. His rounded back and stiff-armed walk speak of a man afraid he might break a bone if he moves with more than a shuffle, as opposed to a barely middle-aged man with a heavy burden on his shoulders but a determination to survive. His emotional connection to the other characters in the story seems very distant as well. One could argue that this was a fault of the script, but when the audience sees him chasing the van carrying his still living daughter to the plague pit to be burned, Price is turned away from her body with little effort. He barely struggles at all, and walks away in a daze too easily for a man supposed to be a hysterical, grieving father.

At one point in the story Price's character encounters a ragged dog out in the daylight. His disappointment at learning that a wounded animal he brings home with him is infected is minimal, and in the next scene we see him burying a small bundle with a stake in it. There is little remorse in his posture or expression, even though he is burying the first living creature he has had contact with in three years (before he meets Ruth). Vincent Price just can't do desperation. He can emote long suffering sadness well as is evident in the scene when he visits his wife's tomb and when he is watching home movies and begins to laugh before breaking down into tears, but he just can't seem to nail down what it must be like for a character as raw, desperate and hungry for social contact as Robert Morgan.

The verdict

Sadly, this particular movie is only worthy of a two and a half star rating.

In terms of its competence as a whole, The Last Man on Earth is a solid enough science-fiction/horror movie from directors Sidney Salkow and Ubaldo Ragona, and will likely please the casual movie goer looking for a darker story. But given the material it had to work with in I Am Legend, the movie feels flat. Some films are better when you have read the novel beforehand, but this is not one of them. For those who are die hard fans of Vincent Price I would also avoid seeing this movie as it is hardly his best performance. Instead save your money for the upcoming Roger Corman film The Mask of the Red Death in June.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge!  Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




4 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[March 17, 1964] It's all Downhill(April 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

3 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

A friend of mine inquired about an obscure science fiction story the other day.  She expressed surprise that I had, in fact, read it, and wondered what my criteria were for choosing my reading material.  I had to explain that I didn't have any: I read everything published as science fiction and/or fantasy. 

My friend found this refrain from judgment admirable.  I think it's just a form of insanity, particularly as it subjects me to frequent painful slogs.  For instance, this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction continues the magazine's (occasionally abated) slide into the kaka.  With the exception of a couple of pieces, it's bad.  Beyond bad — dull.

The Issue at Hand


Cover by Jack Gaughan illustrating Into the Shop

Fred One, by James Ransom

We start off on reasonably sound footing, with a pair of preternaturally intelligent laboratory rats named Freds One and Two.  One is a genius, the brains of the operation.  The other, though possessed of a high order of intelligence for his kind, is clearly a sidekick.  It is not made clear whether the rats gained their smarts as a result of human intervention, or if they've always been bright and endure testing for their own reasons.

Not much happens, really.  The author relies on the humor of the conceit, writing with deadly earnestness from the brain rat's point of view.  The result is a fun but somewhat inconsequential story.  It might make a good cartoon someday.

Three stars.

Beware of the Dog, by Gahan Wilson

Here's a one-page vignette that's far better than the monthly Feghoots (which have recently stopped being produced).  I found it funny enough to read to my daughter.

Four stars.

Sun Creation, by B. Traven

Author Traven is some kind of ethnologist, a German who transplanted himself to Mexico and now translates native creation myths.  Sun Creation is about a brave warrior who makes a new sun after the old one is devoured by evil spirits; it's as good (if not better) than any of the Greek myths I grew up with.  I don't know if it belongs in this magazine, but it was my favorite piece of the issue.

Four stars.

A Piece of the Action, by Isaac Asimov

And now begins our downward slide.  The Good Doctor, brilliant as he may be in chemistry, has oft confessed to having a blind spot when it comes to math.  This is especially unfortunate as regards to this month's article, in which he tries to explain quantum mechanics and the discovery of Planck's constant.

The problem is, there are just some things you can't explain without math.  I remember being bored and frustrated with high school physics; it wasn't until college, when they taught us the calculus-based stuff that things really clicked.  I went on to take quantum mechanics my junior year in college (as part of an astrophysics curriculum).  Let me tell you, it is a subject that is absolutely beautiful with the proper mathematical underpinning…and utterly meaningless without it.

Asimov's explanation of the subject, bereft of any math, doesn't work.  I was barely able to follow along thanks to my prior education.  I can't imagine any of his readers will be able to make much of it.

My first two-star score for Dr. A.

Welcome, Comrade, by Simon Bagley

Ugh continues.  Here's a piece about a top secret project to orbit a brainwashing satellite.  The goal is to instill every human on Earth with a love for and inability to sway from American values.  You know: capitalism, democracy, and dispute resolution by fisticuffs.  The title gives away the ending, which you'd have seen miles away anyhow. 

Decent beginning, Analog-esque middle (especially if Bagley'd played it straight rather than satire), numbskull predictable ending.

Two stars.

Urgent Message for Mr. Prosser, by J. P. Sellers

Night watchman, so British that the rendition seems farcical, receives breathless calls at 1 AM.  The caller urgently desires to warn Mr. Prosser, the watchman's boss, that he is in danger of being poisoned by his wife.  Our protagonist meets with the caller one night and finds that he is, in fact, a dead ringer for Mr. Prosser.

The odd situation is never explained, though my guess is the caller is some sort of phantom made real out of the real Prosser's paranoid fears.  In any event, this is another facile story that doesn't do much but mildly entertain and take up pages.  Three stars, I suppose.

Van Allen Belts, by Theodore L. Thomas

I'm not sure why Thomas has this column; it's never worth reading.  This one, like all his others, starts like a non-fiction article and ends with a science fictional tail-sting.  Thomas recommends that the electrical current created by the charged particles circling the Earth could power satellites.  This is nonsense — the sun's photons provide far more energy than the weak fields in orbit could ever provide.

One star and stop wasting my time.

The Old Man Lay Down, by Sonya Dorman

A poem by an author I generally look forward to.  I couldn't make heads or tails of it.  Explain it to me?  Two stars.

The Crazy Mathematician, by R. Underwood

Mad scientist finds a way to travel the universes by way of a shrinking machine.  He takes a handsome journalist along on his journeys, who spends the trip romancing the various versions of femininity he finds at the various stops. 

Complete fantasy and not worth your energy.  Two stars.

Fanzine Fanfaronade, by Terry Carr

The third in F&SF's series on fandom, it is neither as good as last month's (on conventions), nor as mediocre as the one from the month before (on fandom in general).

Three stars.

The Compleat Consumators, by Alan E. Nourse

The premise to this piece is that two lovers, ideally matched, will not just become one metaphorically, but will fuse into a single physical identity.  It's a lovely idea, but here it's played for horror, and abandoned right when it could have become interesting. 

Two stars.

Into the Shop, by Ron Goulart

Intelligent cop car mistakes everyone for a suspect, including its human partner, with fatal results.  Sub-par stuff, and doubly disappointing given Goulart's fine reputation.

Two stars.

Oreste, by Henry Shultz

And here we hit the bottom with a reprint from 1952(!) about an eight year old child and the odd uncle with whom he has a telepathic connection.  It seems young Titus is stealing the thoughts of Uncle Oreste, writing books and composing music on borrowed talent.

Or something.  There's a twist ending, but after 20+ pages of a story that could easily have fit into five, I was too bored to care.

One star.

Summing Up

Oh dear.  Didn't I pledge just last month to be a lot nicer in my reviews?  I guess there's something about reading eighty pages of muck that puts me in a bad mood.  Like Uncle Oreste, someone has stolen my beautiful F&SF (my favorite magazine until Editor Davidson showed up in '62), and replaced it with nonsense.

I do bring one piece of good news, though.  I've got prints of my performance at San Diego Comic Fest.  If you've got a sound-capable 8mm, let me know, and I'll Parcel Post it to you:

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge!  Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




3 Comments Leave A Comment
TV

[March 15th, 1964] Maaaarco! (Doctor Who: Marco Polo, Parts 1 to 4)

1 Comment


By Jessica Holmes

Welcome back, everyone. Get comfy, because this is our first proper historical episode. This means that I’m about to go off on about a dozen different tangents before we’re done.

(I'd like to note that I was having some difficulty with my television set whilst watching this episode, so if I seem to have missed anything, that's why, and I apologise in advance.)

I must admit that I didn't know much about the historical Marco Polo going in, so I've gone along with my notes to the library and examined the facts in order to compare them to the episode, and see if there are any slip-ups. Other than obviously no time travellers in a phone box turning up halfway in.

THE ROOF OF THE WORLD

In which the companions find themselves in the Himalayas, but soon discover they are not alone. Are they about to fall victim to the terrible Yeti? No, it's the Mongols! And who should be with them but Marco Polo himself.

With the TARDIS in need of repairs, Marco invites the companions to travel with him to Shang-Tu, where he plans to meet with the great Kublai Khan himself. Also accompanying him are Ping-Cho, a young lady of around Susan's age who is on her way to be married (!), and Tegana, a Mongol warlord.

Ping-Cho, as far as I can tell, is not a real historical figure; however Marco Polo did once escort a wedding party from China to Persia, so this could perhaps have been the inspiration for her character. Tegana isn’t real, either, though Marco Polo probably would have travelled with Mongols of high status like Tegana many times, being something of a favourite of the court.

We get our first dose of educational entertainment when not long into the episode, Barbara, being the history teacher, explains to Susan who Marco Polo is.

For anybody unaware, Marco Polo was one of the earliest European travellers to document his travels across Asia. In his lifetime, and for a good long time afterwards, many doubted the veracity of his claims, but we now know that much of what he wrote was indeed accurate. He spent many years at the court of the leader of the Mongols, Kublai Khan, grandson of the legendary Genghis Khan. Did you know that Genghis Khan simply means 'great leader'? That's how highly the Mongols thought of him, that even today we don't refer to him by his true name (which, for those curious, was Temujin).

Basically, Kublai Khan had a hell of a legacy to live up to. Genghis Khan may have carved out the empire, but going by the records, Kublai made it truly great. Fabulously rich, high education rates, freedom of religion. If you ignore the truly biblical death rate, the Mongol Empire was rather amazing. Still, a lot of people died to make it happen.


And their yurts look very cosy, too.

Not a minute later, Ian steps in to fulfil his role as a science teacher, when he explains to Marco Polo why the water is boiling at a lower temperature than it should: because they are at high altitude and the air pressure is low. Indeed, the low air pressure is also causing the Doctor to suffer from altitude sickness. He doesn’t go into the mechanics of why, but that’s perhaps beyond the scope of the show.

While certainly educational, and fulfilling the stated goal of Doctor Who as a programme, these little bits of educational exposition do feel a bit jarring and clunky, as if the show suddenly remembers it’s supposed to be edifying.

Travelling with Marco soon proves to be a bad idea when he informs the time travellers of his true intentions. He's going to present their TARDIS as a gift to the Khan in hopes that the Khan will see fit to release him from his service.

Oh, and to make matters worse, Tegana is planning to poison everyone and take the TARDIS for himself.

At this point it would be remiss of me not to bring up the casting of this serial. I have to say…I'm disappointed.

I am disappointed that more people of Chinese or Mongolian heritage were not cast in speaking roles. I know that casting actors of one ethnicity and putting them in heavy makeup to look like another ethnicity is pretty much par for the course in the current film and television industries. It’s not even unusual for the BBC. Just tune in during Saturday evening primetime and you’ll see what I mean.

I had hoped that Doctor Who might make more of an effort to cast authentically, but alas, most of the Asian characters in this serial are portrayed by actors of no Asian heritage. After all, isn’t speculative fiction supposed to go against the status quo, not uphold it? It’s a real missed opportunity.

Three and a half out of five.

THE SINGING SANDS

In this honestly pretty dull episode, the caravan winds its way across the Gobi desert, the Doctor spends the entire time sulking, the girls get lost in a sandstorm while tailing Tegana, who for some reason changes his mind about his plan. Rather than poisoning the water gourds, like he said he was going to do, he just slashes them open and hopes everyone will die of thirst.

Why?

I don't really know.

Two and a half out of five.

FIVE HUNDRED EYES

The caravan makes it to Tun-Huang and the plot starts getting interesting again.


Ping-Cho tells us a story.

We get a little bit of linguistic history, which is a bit of history I am fond of because I'm that sort of a person. Never end up alone with me at a party. When I start talking, I don't stop. You've probably read enough of my articles by now to have gathered that.

Anyway, it's in the telling of the tale of the hashshashin, though quite heavily mythologised. The hashshashin were an Islamic sect present from the eleventh to thirteenth centuries in what is today Iran, roughly speaking. They were known for fighting their enemies in a most unconventional way: with espionage, assassinations and psychological warfare. Oh, and for smoking a drug called hashish, which is a resin derived from the cannabis plant. Everyone who can spot the potential etymological link please raise your hands.

So, Ping-Cho regales the group with the tale of a wicked lord named Aladdin who lived in the mountains and gave his men a powerful drug which made them feel rather marvellous, and all they had to do for him in return was go out and kill people for him.

This is not exactly how it went but it's a very interesting group with an intricate history. Also I can't find out who this Aladdin is, or who he's meant to be.

Following the not-entirely-accurate history lesson (you should probably pick up a book on the Assassins, more formally known as the Nizari Ismailis; they were an fascinating bunch), Barbara tails him to the eponymous cave of five hundred eyes, where she gets caught, and also the budget suddenly runs out, for this ‘cave’ looks an awful lot like it’s made of plywood.


Tegana, on the hunt for the budget.

The girls are quick to notice Barbara's absence however, and rush to tell the Doctor, who, having had a marked change for the better in terms of personality following his brief absence, immediately sets out with them to find her. Could it be that the Doctor is learning to care about…other PEOPLE?

I think I might faint.

Three and a half out of five. 

THE WALL OF LIES

Marco learns what the others have been up to, and rushes to the cave. He is the one to save Barbara's life, but he's cross at her for putting herself in that position, and at the others for sneaking off without telling him. What's more, he doesn't believe that the girls were following Tegana at all, for Tegana denies having ever been to the cave before.

Tegana is has long been poisoning Marco's mind against our companions, and it seems to be taking root when he orders that the girls be separated. I really enjoyed the relationship between the girls. It feels very natural, and it's lovely to see Susan having a friend her own age. These girls are from different times and cultures entirely, but they get along like two peas in a pod.

The caravan pushes ever onward, and in the city of Sin-Ju (A city which I can’t seem to find out anything about. The name doesn’t come up anywhere that I can find.), Ping-Cho tries to prove to Marco that Tegana lied about having been to the cave before the group rescued Barbara, when he asked earlier about a passageway. It's important to note that this passageway is in fact a secret passageway, which is of course about ten times cooler than any other passageway.

Marco scoffs at her evidence and gets rather cross with her, trusting Tegana over her, even though Tegana might as well walk around with I AM UP TO NO GOOD tattooed on his forehead.
Speaking of Tegana, he's now plotting, yet again, to kill all the travellers. This guy is so rubbish at plotting it's unbelievable. I could have killed all these people five times over by the time we got to this point.

Don't believe me? Let’s go through them right now.

  1. Back in the desert, I could have poisoned the water gourds. You know. Like Tegana said he was going to do and then didn’t.
  2. I could have slashed the gourds open and taken the last entirely for myself, and ridden off to the oasis, there to relax and sip water while the others die. After all, this plan almost worked, only they managed to drink a bit of condensation from the TARDIS. That wouldn’t have been enough if they didn’t have that last water gourd.
  3. Assuming I didn't poison the water, I could have poisoned any of the meals. Then again, everyone does eat the same thing. Also then again, I could just go without one meal. Better hungry than dead, right?
  4. Tegana has a sword. A very sharp sword. Wait until everyone is asleep, tiptoe about, kill them one by one. Nobody gets a chance to fight back. Simple.
  5. The capture of Barbara was the ideal opportunity to bait the others into an ambush.

In conclusion, Tegana is absolutely rubbish at murder plots, and nobody should have me as a travelling companion. Especially not if you’re prone to snoring.

What he is good at, however, is getting Marco to turn against the Doctor and his companions, who become prisoners rather than guests.

Not that that’s going to stop Ian cutting his way out of captivity. With plates!

I was mildly disappointed when it turned out he meant literally cutting his way out of the tent with shards of ceramic, as opposed to taking on the guards armed with a set of fine china. But shock, horror, as Ian goes to subdue the guard, it turns out that someone's beaten him to it!

I'm not saying it was Tegana…
But it was definitely Tegana.
And if he can't manage to kill them next time, I'll just be embarrassed on his behalf.

CONCLUSION

So, that was the first half (ish) of Marco Polo! We’ve travelled a long, long way over these last few episodes.

One thing I do have to commend about this serial is its ambition. It's clear this is where most of the cost-cutting on previous episodes went, with far more detailed sets and some wonderful costumes. I also enjoyed our foray into real history, with real people, and I am really looking forward to meeting Kublai Khan. The Mongol Empire was a real marvel, and I am excited to see more of it. 

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




1 Comment Leave A Comment
Book, Magazine

[March 13, 1964] NOTHING MUCH TO SAY (the April 1964 Amazing)

2 Comments


by John Boston

Within Narrow Constraints

The April 1964 issue of Amazing features a story titled Prisoner in Orbit and a cover (by Alex Schomburg) depicting a guy in a transparent bubble, scarcely taller than he, looking out into space with a disgruntled expression.  One might suspect that this depiction is overly literal, but no: it’s just what the author called for.  Or, more likely, the story was written around the cover, an old magazine practice that has undoubtedly survived to the present. 

Prisoner in Orbit, by Henry Slesar

The story is by Henry Slesar, a prolific contributor to Amazing in the late ‘50s and an occasional one since then, though that may be changing: he had a story in the last issue and has two in this one.  Here, humans are fighting against the Maks, the android army of the Indasians, and the protagonist and his soldier buddies have been captured and sent to a prison asteroid, run entirely by the Maks.  The story slips into the familiar groove of prisoner of war stories, with the captives scheming to escape and the Maks trying to keep them in line. 

This old plot is made science-fictional by the rigid mechanical thinking of the Maks, who, after being informed that they really don’t need to kill prisoners who misbehave, since a little solitary confinement will do just as well, devise a confinement so solitary it drives the miscreants crazy.  The cover thus justified, the story moves on to its real business: the war is over, won by the humans so conclusively that there’s no chain of command left to tell the authority-minded Maks to stand down and let the humans go.  How to persuade them? 

Clever solution, coming right up.  Slesar has served a rigorous and prolific apprenticeship in Ellery Queen’s, Alfred Hitchcock’s, and other crime fiction magazines as well as in sf, and it shows.  This is a highly professional if rather bloodless performance, with background deftly sketched in, the pace jazzed up with flashbacks and flash-forwards, in as smooth a style as you’ll find anywhere.  Three stars for slick execution, even if there’s no reason to remember the story once you’re done.

The Chair, by O.H. Leslie

Slesar’s other story, The Chair, appears under his pseudonym O.H. Leslie, familiar from the Ziff-Davis magazines but even more so to the readers of Alfred Hitchcock’s. It is a bit livelier than Prisoner in Orbit but just as formulaic, splitting the difference between early Galaxy satire and the cautionary mode of, say, Richard Matheson or Charles Beaumont when they are not writing outright fantasy. 

The eponymous Chair is an expensive commercial product that promises the ultimate in comfort and satisfaction of every need, at least if you get the extras like the Food-o-Mat and the Chem-o-Mat Plumbing Unit.  You can see where that is going, and go it does, with the journalist protagonist chronicling the decline of his friend who gets a Chair, until the manufacturer figures out the perfect way to silence him.  This one too is slickly executed, and enhanced by Slesar’s obvious familiarity with advertising style.  Also there’s more of a point to it and you might remember it a little longer than Prisoner in Orbit.  Three stars, a bit more lustrous than those for Prisoner.

The Other Inhabitant, by Edward W. Ludwig

Of course most of us presumably read sf for something other than slick execution.  But we might miss it when it’s not there, as illustrated by this story, in which Astro-Lieutenant Sam Harding, exploring “Alpha III” (a planet of Alpha Centauri, apparently), discovers that he’s not alone; something is following him.  As the story proceeds we learn that Lt. Harding’s situation is not quite what he thinks it is.  This kind of psychological near-horror stands or falls on execution, and this one falls.  In the hands of a more skilled writer it might have been quite effective.  Two stars.

A Question of Theology, by George Whitley

A. Bertram Chandler, using his frequent pseudonym George Whitley for no apparent reason, contributes A Question of Theology, in which humans are about to land on a planet of Alpha Centauri (yes, that one again), which some time ago was visited by an unmanned vessel carrying experimental animals, and which now seems to have a well-developed civilization with cities.  The humans’ reception is predictable to the reader if not to the characters.  It’s perfectly readable—Chandler is no Slesar but he will serve for most purposes—but it reads as if the author wasn’t really very interested in it, and the theme is unfortunately reminiscent of some of his earlier, much better stories: the incisive The Cage, from Fantasy and Science Fiction seven or so years ago, and Giant Killer, the 1945 Astounding novella that made his reputation.  Two stars.

Sunburst (Part 2 of 3), by Phyllis Gotlieb and The Saga of “Skylark” Smith, by Sam Moskowitz

The rest of the issue is taken up by the second installment of Phyllis Gotlieb’s serial Sunburst, to be reviewed next month, and another of Sam Moskowitz’s SF Profiles: The Saga of “Skylark” Smith.  Edward E. Smith, Ph.D., is of course author of The Skylark of Space and numerous other grandiose space operas of bygone days done in a bygone style, and has failed to adapt to a more sophisticated genre and its audience, as Moskowitz essentially acknowledges.  While some of the biographical detail is interesting, the point is otherwise elusive.  Two stars.

Spectroscope

Last month, the editor proudly announced the advent of Lester del Rey as new proprietor of The Spectroscope, the book review column.  This month, with no comment at all, del Rey is gone and the book reviewer is Robert Silverberg, who is knowledgeable and adept.  Let’s hope he lasts more than a month.

Post-Mortem

So, the upshot: nothing terrible, which compared to recent performance is an improvement, but nothing especially interesting either, except possibly the serial installment.  To be continued.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




2 Comments Leave A Comment
TV

[March 11, 1964] Brought into Focus (The Outer Limits, Season 1, Episodes 21-24)

1 Comment


by Natalie Devitt

Last month’s episodes of The Outer Limits really raised the bar for the series. The newest batch of stories are mostly good, but do not quite meet last month‘s contributions to the series. This month, many characters make some pretty important realizations. Episodes include a story about young man who finds out the real identity of his father after being accused of a heinous crime, a group of scientists that learn some pretty scary things about a plant that they discover in space, amusement park attendees who find out first hand that a spaceship simulator ride is really equipped to handle space travel, and a team of scientists that discover the contents of a moonstone.

The Children of Spider County, by Anthony Lawrence

In The Children of Spider County, “four of the most magnificent and promising young minds in the country suddenly disappear off the face of the Earth.” All of these young men have a lot in common. Not only are they all smart, but they are “physically superior.“ They were born during the same month of the same year in a little place called Spider County. The men also share the same middle name, Aros, a planet in another galaxy. Each one was born prematurely and does not know his father.

The fifth and final member of this group, Ethan, is the only one not missing and he is behind bars, accused of murder. Ethan is played by Lee Kinsolving, who just starred in Twilight Zone’s Black Leather Jackets. Ethan has been having strange dreams of a creature from outer space following him. Turns out, he is being followed by an extraterrestrial, who is also his long lost father.

His father, Aabel, is played by Kent Smith, who appeared in Val Lewton's Cat People. Ethan’s father helps his son escape the police. Aabel warns Ethan that, “Fear, suspicion and ignorance will sentence you to die, not facts.” He offers to take him “home” to Aros, where he can be with others that are like him in a place “where superstition and fear can never reach you.” Meanwhile, an investigator is trying to get to the bottom of the “abductions by representatives of an alien planet.”

In this episode, Aable has an interesting appearance. For starters, he always wears a suit. Also, he switches between looking like a human and an alien (thus fulfilling in two senses The Outer Limits' trademark of featuring a "man in a suit"). A trait of Ethan’s father that I did not particularly enjoy was his penchant for very long monologues. Luckily, most of the speeches were followed by action, picking up the pace. One thing this entry does have going for it is the way it is photographed; the director of photography, Kenneth Peach, uses anything from Dutch angles to birds-eye views to really create the mood for the episode. The Children of Spider County was intriguing, but it was just too uneven to really be satisfying, which is why it earns two and a half stars.

Specimen: Unknown, by Stephen Lord

Men aboard a space station in Specimen: Unknown discover small mushrooms-shaped objects. The episode stars western actor Stephen McNally and Come Back, Little Sheba ‘s Richard Jaeckel. Also, Gail Kobe, who recently appeared in The Twilight Zone’s The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross is another performer in Specimen: Unknown. Thinking that the objects are “dormant spores,” the crew members take them to their lab and put them underneath a heat lamp, where the objects quickly grow into large plants with flowers. In the lab, the flowers begin to spray “some kind of vapor,” killing a member of the crew.

Worried about bringing the deceased member home to Earth and possibly spreading the illness to others, the crew disposes of his body in space. Following the funeral, a member of the crew notices another “mushroom thing” attached to the space station. He decides to study it, completely unaware that it is the same type of plant that is responsible for his colleague’s tragic death. Not surprisingly, the plant grows much quicker than anyone could have ever anticipated and it starts “shooting off spores.”

They isolate the “alien plant life” and store it in metal storage containers, where they believe that plant will no longer pose a threat any humans. That is, until said containers are accidentally tipped over and the alien plants are once again able to start releasing more spores in the air, which leads to a number of the men falling ill with the “alien virus.” With a crew this oblivious, will they be able outwit these plants from outer space and stop the illness that they spread?

Specimen: Unknown seems to have been heavily influenced by The Day of the Triffids. That said, one of the things the episode has going for is its space creatures, which offer a nice break from the usual men in monsters suits. I know objectively, this far from the best entry in the series. I mean, the plants seem to be much more intelligent than just any of the people in the episode. But if you like schlock as much as I do, then Specimen: Unknown is kind of fun. That is why I am giving the episode three stars.

Second Chance, by Lin Dane and Lou Morheim

Employees and attendees at an amusement park realize that a spaceship simulator attraction is really capable of space travel in Second Chance. Actor Don Gordon (Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross) makes another appearance in The Outer Limits as the simulator‘s operator, Dave. Simon Oakland, who everyone has seen in anything from The Twilight Zone to Psycho is completely unrecognizable as the episode’s extraterrestrial, Empyria. He has been watching over the attraction, studying human behavior and preparing it for just the right time to make his journey back into space.

For the trip, Empyria wants company for so he can have assistance with setting up a colony is space. He walks around the park, passing out free tickets for the ride, pretending to be a employee in character, intentionally picking people “who would have the least regret, and would have the most to gain in a new chance in a new undistorted world,” telling people things like, the “universe may be just the place to go and start over.“ But shortly after taking over the attraction, Empyria realizes he does not know humans as well as he thinks he does.

I am not totally sure I am convinced of Empyria’s reasoning for abducting the people, but I really liked this episode. Empyria had a lot of great one-liners. The sequences involving him hiding in the simulator and sneaking around the park were pretty creepy, but it is really the acting that made the story work. Also, everything from the set design and the costumes were great, too. Second Chance was easily the most fun I had watching The Outer Limits this past month, so I give it three and a half stars.

Moonstone, by William Bast

Ruth Roman of Strangers on a Train stars as part of a team of scientists exploring the moon’s surface, who discover a “mysterious moonstone.” The sphere-shaped stone is examined. During the examination, a laser that is said to be so strong that “it can drill holes in diamonds“ has no effect on the moonstone. They assume that it must be made of metal and be used for “collecting data for transmission to Earth” by the Russians.

As it turns out, the moonstone does not belong to the Russians; on the side of the stone are eyeballs that appear and watch everything. Inside the moonstone are aliens that became stranded while trying to flee their tyrannical government that wants to use them for their knowledge. There is not much time before the aliens will be forced to return home. Until then, everyone has to decide what they are willing to sacrifice to make sure that esoteric knowledge does not end up in the wrong hands.

Moonstone has a few of storylines going. The storyline with the aliens is pretty solid. There is also a romantic subplot and some workplace drama that I did not find quite as compelling. In addition to the storylines, the set design and the paintings used for exterior shots of the moon’s surface were quite stunning. The moonstone with eyeballs floating around was really pretty creative. Overall, I would say that Moonstone deserves three stars.

It was another mostly strong month on The Outer Limits, filled with some pretty creative discoveries. With rumors having been confirmed of Twilight Zone's cancellation, The Outer Limits is probably guaranteed another season.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]



!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

1 Comment Leave A Comment
Magazine

[March 9, 1964] Deviant from the Norm (April 1964 Galaxy)

10 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

It's Spreading

25 years ago, a group of fen met in New York for the first World's Science Fiction Convention.  Now, conclaves are springing up all over the nation (and internationally, too).  Just this weekend, I attended a small event ambitiously titled San Diego Comic Fest.  It was a kind of "Comics-in," where fans of the funny pages could discuss their peculiar interests: Is Superman better than Batman?  Are the X-Men and the Doom Patrol related?  Is Steve Ditko one of the best comics artists ever?

I was there as an invited guest to speak on the current state of comics and science fiction.  I understand that the proceeding was filmed and may even be broadcast on local television.  When that happens, I shall be sure to give you a heads up.

Slinging my new color camera, I took photos of some of the new friends I made.  There was also excellent space-themed decor, which I had to capture for posterity.  Many thanks to my friends with the private dark room who developed these prints so quickly for publication:


Posters lining the bar at the Lunar Lounge


Mercury meets Sputnik


The Young Traveler (initials L.E.M.) poses with a mock-up of the Apollo LEM


Alvin of the Chipmunks (his name really is Alvin!)


The artist known as Napoleon Doom


The Traveler with a familiar face


A beautiful, newly commissioned drawing of Dr. Martha Dane, the Journey's unofficial mascot

While the con possessed many superlative qualities, I think my fondest memories involved reading the latest issue of Galaxy, sitting in the lobby of the event hotel, listening to one of the fans play an endless medley of classic and new tunes on the piano.  With that, I suppose it's appropriate I tell you about what I read…

The Issue at Hand


Cover by Sol Dember illustrating Final Contact

The Boy Who Bought Old Earth, by Cordwainer Smith

For years, Cordwainer Smith has teased us with views of his future tales of the Instrumentality, the rigid, computer-facilitated government of Old Earth.  We've learned that there are the rich humans, whose every whim is catered to.  Beneath them, literally, are the Underpeople — animals shaped into human guise (a la Dr. Moreau) who live in subterranean cities.  A giant tower, miles high, launches spaceships to the heavens, spreading the Instrumentality to the hundreds of settled stars of the galaxy.  All but one, the setting of Smith's newest book.

Old North Australia stands alone, an island in an Instrumentality-dominated sea of space.  On that grey, dusty world, its inhabitants still pledge fealty to the Queen of the British Commonwealth (she and that confederation dead some 15,000 years).  What enables this world, dubbed "Norstrilia," to stand alone?  Like Frank Herbert's Arrakis, Norstrilia is the sole producer of the longevity drug, stroon.  This has made Norstrilia fantastically wealthy, able to produce the most lethal of defenses (including Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons).

Our viewpoint in Boy is Rod McBan, a protagonist with a problem.  The scion of one of Norstrilia's oldest and richest families, he has been barred from achieving adulthood for his inability to communicate telepathically with his peers.  Four times the boy has lived to the age of sixteen; three times, he has had his memories erased in the hopes that Rod might develop the appropriate mental gifts to participate meaningfully in society.  Failure to do so a fourth time means judgment by tribunal and possible sentence to death.

How Rod escapes this fate and turns around his fortune so entirely (figuratively and literally) such that he becomes possessor of the Manhome, Old Earth itself, is an interesting tale I shan't spoil.  I can, however, share my thoughts on the story's execution.

Smith is one of the more unusual authors out there.  Having been raised in pre-Communist China and then employed by intelligence agencies, Smith has much more experience with non-Western cultures.  This shows up in his writing, with the Instrumentality and its denizens a fair bit further from the norm of SF societal depictions. 

The author is hampered, however, by choosing Norstrilia as his setting.  The planet is prosaic, deliberately so by choice of the inhabitants.  Missing is that lucid dream-like quality Smith has imparted his other Instrumentality stories.

Moreover, the novel is very short, and it ends abruptly just as it's getting interesting.  I suspect the piece has been cut for space.  The result is just two thirds of a story arc.

For these reasons, I give Boy 3.5 stars and hope that a fuller rendition comes out in proper book form.  Perhaps, like Heinlein's Starship Troopers, this will turn a flawed gem into a masterpiece.

Earth Eighteen, by Ernst Mason

After finishing the serious, humorless piece that was Boy, it was quite a jolt to be thrown into this comedy article, a tourguide for aliens visiting a ruined and mostly depopulated Earth.  Thus, it took me a while to slow down and get into the thing, but once I did, I found moments of genuine cleverness.  The Gaughan pictures are cute, too. 

Three stars.

For Your Information, by Willy Ley

The non-fiction article this month deals with statistical bell curves: the phenomenon whereby any set of things (height of people, size of noses, width of beans) falls within boundaries with the most common incidence being right in the middle.  It's not a bad piece, but it's short and ends abruptly. 

Three stars.

The End of the Race, by Albert Bermel

If you've read the recent novel (soon to be movie) Fail-safe, then you know the ending to this story, a farcical piece about negotiated disarmament between the superpowers.  It was better when it wasn't played for laughs, and not very good laughs at that.

Two stars.

Final Encounter, by Harry Harrison

Now here is the real gem of the book, and a real departure from the norm.  Ship's captain Hautamaki, of the race of Men, takes aboard a married pair of more conventionally human anthropologists, Gulyas and Tjond.  Their mission: to make first contact with aliens.  The extraterrestrials have left tantalizing clues of their existence, beacons on various worlds pointing to one star in the galaxy.  Friction quickly erupts amongst the crew.  Tjond, the sole woman, finds Hautamaki's insistence on nudity disturbing.  And she cannot comprehend at all the society of Men, which includes no women, involves marriage, love, and production of children by homosexual union alone. 

Worse yet, Hautamaki insists on jettisoning all weaponry and adopting a completely peaceful posture when approaching the aliens.  His reasoning is that the threat of violence could jeopardize the contact, and if the aliens prove hostile even in the face of no provocation, well, the next mission will be so alerted.

I absolutely loved this story.  It possessed that well-executed strangeness that I'd sort of expected from the Smith.  I appreciated that it was the Man who was the gentle pacifist.  And, as in Evelyn Smith's They Also Serve, a homosexual man is key to a peaceful first contact.  But unlike Smith's story, this is the first instance in SF (aside from Sturgeon's The World Well Lost from 1953) where the homosexuality is explicit — and completely unapologetic.

How times have changed.  Five stars.

At the Feelies, by Jack Sharkey

At the con, I had a discussion with a fellow who mused on the future of movies.  After silent films came talkies.  Then color, 3-D, "Sens-o-rama," and so on.  It was timely, then, that I read this piece right after.  It's a (fictional) review of Gone with the Wind redone such that the audience can feel and smell from the point of view of the actors — a technology with mixed blessings, as you can imagine.

It's cute.  Three stars.

Soft and Soupy Whispers, by Sydney Van Scyoc

Van Scyoc offers up a typically macabre piece about a mentally disturbed man whose insanity is kept under control through the installation of a mental companion.  In essence, the fellow is made sane through schizophrenia.  It's subtle and interesting, but a bit obtuse and more artful than plausible.

Three stars.

The Blasphemers, by Philip José Farmer

Last up is another piece from left field, this one dealing with a race of centaurs that possesses four sexes, all of which are necessary to produce (and capable of bearing) children.  The aliens are an advanced, starfaring race.  Highly religious, they venerate the spirits of their ancestors, holding sacred the statues of their elders.  One iconoclast leads his mated quartet to a shrine and proceeds to make love amongst the monuments.

He is caught and brought before a judge, but instead of being sentenced to immolation, he is congratulated for his heresy and informed that the state religion is bunk, actually a tool to justify the conquest of planets: one of the faith's tenets is that an early ancestor left statues of himself on planets to be colonized by the race; such statues were actually carved recently by advance scouts.

Our protagonist is then made a ship's captain and dispatched to colonize as many worlds as he and his companions can, until common sense prevails over faith and the old order is toppled.

Particularly interesting about this piece is the assertion that religious faith is instilled by nature, not nurture.  Like sexual preference, one can't help one's feelings on the subject, the story says.

Ambitious and laudable as Farmer's goals are in this piece, his execution is workmanlike.  Ted Sturgeon once called Farmer an author who always almost gets it right, and that record continues with The Blasphemers.  I suppose Harrison can't write all the iconoclastic tales.

Three stars.

Summing Up

With just one very short clunker in the mix, and despite the (relative) disappointment of the Smith novel, the April 1964 Galaxy is a welcome departure from the standard.  I'm impressed.  What wonders await us in two months?

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge!  Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




10 Comments Leave A Comment
Comics

[March 7, 1964] Look both ways (Marvel and National Comics round-up)

2 Comments

[While you're reading this article, why not tune in to KGJ, Radio Galactic Journey, playing all the current hits: pop, rock, soul, folk, jazz, country — it's the tops, pops…]


by Gideon Marcus

Overcoming prejudice

Once, I was a snob.

For the most part, I was raised on a steady diet of L. Frank Baum, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and H.P. Lovecraft.  I devoured the complete canons of each.  I also enjoyed the superhero comics of the war years — who doesn't like watching Captain America slug Nazis?  But after the war, I was getting tired of the pulps, and comics were getting tired.  I wanted something new.

Then, 'round 1950, I discovered science fiction digests — grown-up mags like Galaxy and Fantasy and Science Fiction — and my snobbish attitude was firmly established.  It didn't help that comics had entered a real slump by the 1950s, with National Comics (DC to the hep kids) in a rut and Atlas running Westerns and half-bit anthologies.  With the demise of the American News Company, Atlas went the way of the dodo, along with most of the inferior digests.  Survival of the fittest, right?

So I certainly didn't expect that I would find myself getting into those very same comics I'd once turned my nose at.  I first took notice when Marvel Comics arose from the ashes of Atlas Comics and started publication of The Fantastic Four.  Not only did this mag showcase the talents of Jack Kirby, the fellow who invented Captain America, but it featured a more realistic team dynamic than I'd ever seen before.  Why, these folks hardly even liked each other sometimes.  I appreciated the dilemma of The Thing, a hideous rock monster who nevertheless wasn't keen on returning to his human form, lest he give up his evil-clobbering powers.

Then came The Amazing Spiderman and The X-Men, and I was hooked.  I sang Marvel's virtues and scoffed at the kiddie fare that DC was peddling.  Around that time, I picked up an adversary, a Mr. Jason Sacks who delighted in telling me how wrong-headed my tastes were.

Late last year, Jason and I decided, unlike Tareyton smokers, that we'd rather switch than fight.  You see, Jason had discovered the charm of the new line-up of Marvel superheroes, and I was taken with D.C.'s new X-men-like group, the Doom Patrol.  Instead of picking a side, why not enjoy the virtues of both?

State of the Union

Here in March 1964 (May on the comics I buy at the news stand), Marvel's line-up has fully flowered.  The newest member of the superhero pantheon is Matt Murdock, a blind attorney whose other senses have compensated to such a degree (sounds inspired by Galouye's Dark Universe doesn't it?) that he is able to fight crime as The Daredevil!  The debut issue of this hero, written by Stan Lee and drawn by Bill Everett, was a hoot, and I look forward to the next.

Sidebar: I'm impressed that both comics houses are exploring the idea of handicapped heroes: Daredevil is blind, Professor X and The Chief (leaders of the X-Men and the Doom Patrol) both use wheelchairs, Thor's human form requires a cane, The Thing, Doom Patrol's Automaton and Negative Man and X-Men's Angel all have obvious physical peculiarities that make them stand out.  This makes for more mature storylines, and those of us with some kind of disability find a measure of comfort in having these folks with whom to identify.

Spiderman, a Stan Lee/Steve Ditko effort, continues to entertain.  This month's issue, #8, features the return of Dr. Octopus and spotlights the problem of recidivism amongst supervillains.

Both Fantastic Four (Lee/Kirby) and Spiderman demonstrate Marvel's increasing reliance on multi-book story arcs.  It's funny to think that two stories per issue used to be the norm — now it might take several issues to wrap up a plotline.  Speaking of Fantastic Four, in issue #24, the Thing goes toe to toe with the Hulk in a match-up every bit as exciting as the recent Heavyweight Championship between Cassius Clay and Sonny Liston. 

Avengers (Lee/Kirby) is a bi-monthly, like X-Men; in the last issue (#4), Captain America was thawed from the ice in which he's been frozen since World War 2.  I can't tell you how excited I am to have Cap back, and I urge you to check it out.

As for the "anthologies," these are increasingly becoming character books, and I have to wonder if they will just get renamed for the hero that stars in them.  For instance, Strange Tales has become the home of the mysterious Dr. Strange, although this issue also features a popular rivalry/team-up: the flaming Torch and the frozen Turd…er… Ice Man!

Journey into Mystery #103 is Thor's mag.

Tales of Suspense #52 stars Iron Man fighting the Black Widow, and an immortal alien called The Watcher.

I'm always happy to see the Wasp, and she got an outing with her beaux, Giant Man, in Tales to Astonish #54. 

And then there is the host of girls comics featuring the latest in fashion:

Let's not forget the western titles, which I don't bother with, but which still linger on.

For the WW2 buffs who don't get enough from DC's Sgt. Rock, this month's Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos is a riveting courtmartial drama.

Finally, I want to give recognition to the fellows who most often go unsung, the Letterers: Sol Rosen and Art Simek.  Without them, comics would be just a bunch of pictures.

Oh, and what do we have here?  Mr. Sacks is invoking the Fairness Doctrine and wants to tell us all about the state of National Comics.  Well, why not?

Better Read than Dead


by Jason Sacks

The big comic news for me in ‘64 is that the Doom Patrol have finally emerged into their own title. Moving out from an anthology slot in My Greatest Adventure, these oddball adventurers continue to delight. Thankfully National has identified the artist on this sterling series as Bruno Premiani, and the Italian master delivers fascinating tales of “The world’s strangest heroes.” For a change such a blurb is accurate, as the weird Negative Man, charmingly acerbic Robotman and enchanting Elasti-Girl continue working for the mysterious chief.  It’s similar to Marvel’s much duller X-Men — though the similarities are apparently an accident of timing, if you believe the fanzines — but more insightful and stranger.

Recently, Hawkman debuted his own solo comic after a series of showcase appearances in  Mystery In Space. National editor Julius Schwartz’s latest resurrection of a long-forgotten Golden Age character, the new Hawkman is an alien from the delightfully named Thanagar, working on Earth as a museum manager and in the stars as a great space policeman. The art, most likely by Murphy Anderson, is all National Comics smoothness and ease, making the winged wonder’s adventures a thorough delight.

With Hawkman moving out from Mystery in Space, that anthology series is now devoted to full-length tales featuring the hero of Rann, Adam Strange. With sleek, moderne art by Carmine Infantino, well known for his fabulous Flash, this thrilling series mixes astounding adventure with a smart space romance for a surprisingly heady mix that even adults can enjoy.

It’s not all greatness for National in ‘64, though. Editor Mort Weisinger continues his stultifyingly stale children’s stories in the Superman titles, while Metal Men is seldom as clever as it wants to be and Wonder Woman is so dull even my kid sister won’t pick it up. Worst of all are Batman and Detective Comics. A recent issue of Detective, issue #326, shows the nadir of this abysmal series with the pathetically stupid “Captives of the Alien Zoo,” a story so dumb and so contrived that it should result in the immediate firing of everyone responsible for its creation. Compared to that, even Archie Comics’ idiotic Adventures of The Fly seems like the work of a genius.

Overall DC is following some of the same trends Marvel has embraced recently. For one thing, a reader has to wonder if anthology series are on their way out. My Greatest Adventure disappeared while others, like Mystery in Space and House of Secrets (with the intriguing Eclipso), are going full action hero. In other ways National blazes their own trail. That company continues to have a wider diversity of titles than Marvel – hardly a surprise with the larger set of titles they deliver each month. Humor and romance still have their place with the likes of Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, Girls’ Love Stories and Secret Hearts. As usual with National all their titles demonstrate that traditional sheen of professionalism Marvel often lacks. Will kids go for smoothness over unpredictability in ‘64? Only time will tell.

[And that's our comics round-up for San Diego Comic Fest!  If I met any of you folk this weekend, please drop me a line.  I'd love to hear from you.]




2 Comments Leave A Comment
Book

[March 5, 1964] Brushwinged, I Soar (Hannah Green's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden)

3 Comments


by Erica Frank

Deborah Blau lives in two worlds. One is the world of post-World War II America, where she faces anti-Semitism at school, and her family is fraught with guilt from relying on her grandfather's wealth instead of her father's limited wages. The other is the Kingdom of Yr: a world with vast open plains and the endless chasm of The Pit. Yr's residents include Anterrabae, the Falling God; Lactamaeon, second in command; and Idat the Dissembler, who is neither male nor female. "You are not of them," the Yri gods tell her, and they teach her to soar the skies in her eagle-self, and she sings with them in the secret language of the hidden realm. The Censor stands guard to prevent the words from mingling when she shifts between the Rising Calendar of Yr and the Heavy Calendar of Earth.

But I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is not a science fiction novel, and Deborah is neither a time-traveler nor a sorceress. She is a sixteen-year-old girl, and Yr is the delusional world of her mental illness.

Cover of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Yr is a compelling world; Yri is an intriguing language. We only see them in glimpses as Deborah struggles to explain her truths to Doctor Fried, whom she names Furii, Fire-Touch, in her secret language. Yr is Deborah's protection and way of explaining to herself the traumas of her life: the tumor removed when she was five, the racist girls at her summer camp, the endless tensions between her parents and grandfather. She is surrounded by lies, and Yr is the place where nobody lies to her.

Nobody in Yr tells her, "This will not hurt at all, and when you wake up, you will be all better." Nobody tells her, "None of these girls called you a stinking Jew." Nobody says, "You are smart and special and that means you will be successful in life." In Yr, the customary greeting is "suffer, victim," and the calendar rises in good times and falls in bad times, and Deborah flies as a bird or gallops as a horse, unfettered and free. The incantation that calls forth her freedom is beautiful:

“e, quio quio quaru ar Yr aedat
temoluqu' braown elepr kyryr…”
(Brushwinged, I soar above the canyons of your sleep singing…)

Of course she wants to stay there. Yr has been her solace and sanctuary since she was six years old; it will be very, very hard for her to acknowledge it might not be a real place. If she loses it, she believes life will be nothing but falsehoods and distortions and incomprehensible tasks assigned by others.

But Yr is turning dark. The Collect, the swarm of voices who shout instructions and insults at her, are growing louder, and she spends less time celebrating its beauty and more in regions of fear and pain. The gods who were delightful companions at first, distracting her from real-world tensions and abuses, now bring her messages of bitterness and horror. Even so, Deborah retreats into Yr more and more, losing entire days from memory and not knowing what she did or said in that time.

Deborah is committed to a mental institution, and it begins as a great relief to her. For the first time in years, nobody is pretending she is normal, that there is nothing wrong with her. Of course, what Deborah thinks is wrong with her, and what the doctors think is wrong with her, don't match–but fixing that can come later. First, she has to trust that they can recognize that she has real problems.

Deborah's doctor is much in demand; she wouldn't take the case if she didn't believe Deborah could get better. Dr. Fried is acclaimed, even famous, and she needs that cachet of status when convincing the parents to leave her there, especially after Deborah is committed to the "Disturbed" ward, with bars on the windows and ratty-haired women wearing pajamas all day. Her parents are dismayed at the idea of their "sensitive" little girl being in such a place, and they worry about the community finding out about her illness. The doctor needs to persuade them, and keep persuading them, that Deborah needs this.

And she does. She has to get worse before she can get better. She has to let go of the constraints of blending in, of being polite, of pretending that social interactions mean the same things to her that they do to others.

Deborah's journey is a hard battle, and a big part of it is how she relates to the other inmates. At first, they are all mysteries to her, just another set of talking obstacles she navigates around while she tries to sort out truth from fantasy. Slowly, she comes to realize that each of them has her own traumas, her own methods of coping, and to recognize the potential of future health in some of them–a terrifying thought for people who find hope a burden as much as a source of strength.

She learns the secret codes they use to sneak forbidden items past the nurses. She makes a friend, when she was never able to do so at school. She seeks out those who can teach her Latin and Greek, in fragments and amidst the fights that explode any time something changes in the ward. (Just hearing about someone who used to be here, but is now working in the real world, is enough strain to disrupt the place for days.) She learns that the staff thinks of her as cold and vicious, and that her intellect is weapon as much as tool. And she learns compassion, the baffling wonder of having the power to help someone else, when she had been convinced that her very essence was nothing but poison.

While the story is set in the late 40s and early 50s, it's timeless. The town and the institute are never named, nor do they need to be. While today's mental institutions won't have a regular influx of conscientious objectors serving as orderlies to avoid prison, there are always some staff who obviously don't want to be there. The patients recognize the ones who fear and hate them, and treat them differently. Some of the security practices seem almost barbaric, but Deborah shrugs them off; her trials are internal, and physical comforts are irrelevant to her.

Rose Garden is intense and fascinating. It gives a glimpse into both mental illness and how the stigma surrounding it can make it worse: Deborah's troubles are harder for having to pretend she is "normal." The world of Yr would make a delightful setting for a novel in its own right, and it is hard, as a science fiction fan, to favor the termination of such a place–but that is what Deborah needs, so that is what the reader comes to want as well.

5 stars; it doesn't get better than this.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




3 Comments Leave A Comment
Book, Magazine

[March 3, 1964] Out and about (March 1964 Analog)

5 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Braving My Shadow

Every year on February 2, a groundhog named Punxatawney Phil decides if it's worth vacating his winter hiding place before spring. 

For Galactic Gideon, on the other hand, the end of winter always happens in February.  The annual convention season wraps up around Thanksgiving with the little gathering of Los Angeles Science Fiction Fans called "Loscon."  There is a lull of events in December and January, but well before the vernal equinox, the Journey's dance card is full.  In fact, I've already been to two events in as many weeks, and I've got another one planned next weekend! 

My birthday weekend was spent at a small Los Angeles conclave called Escapade, where we discussed Johnson's tax cut, The Outer Limits vs. The Twilight Zone, and the more peculiar elements of the TV show, Burke's Law.  Unusually for sf-related gatherings, most of the attendees were women.

Last night, I presented at a local pub on the woman pioneers of space, the scientists, engineers, and computers I first wrote about a couple of years ago.  It was a tremendous event, and I am grateful to the folks who crowded the venue to bursting.

The Issue at Hand

In contrast to these past two events, the last magazine of the month is mostly stag.  Nevertheless, the March 1964 Analog is still a pretty good, if not outstanding, read:


Cover by Schoenherr, illustrating Spaceman

Clouds, Bubbles and Sparks, by Edward C. Walterscheid

There are three qualities by which I rate science fact articles: Are they fun to read, do I learn something, and are there bits where I feel compelled to joggle the elbow of the person next to me (usually my wife) and relate to them a neat bit of scientific trivia.

This latest piece, on the detection of subatomic particles, excels in all three.  If you ever wanted to know how a geiger counter works, or what a cloud chamber is for, or what those tubes in our scientific spacecraft do, this is the article for you. 

Five stars.

Spaceman (Part 1 of 2), by Murray Leinster

The dean of Golden Age science fiction returns with yet another entry in his well-developed galactic setting.  In the Leinster-verse, perhaps best represented in his Med Series stories, interstellar travel is a bit like ocean travel in the 19th Century — reliable but not instant.  Colonies are days or weeks apart, and what separates a thriving hub from a backwater is the existence of a magnetic landing grid on which cargo ships can land and trade.

Spaceman is the story of Braden, a ship's mate who seeks passage aboard the Rim Star.  This giant vessel is an experiment — it carries an entire, unassembled landing grid in its hold, and it also possesses the rockets to make a landing on a world without a grid.  Having one ship bring an entire landing grid for installation has never been tried before, but no one is certain that the ship can fulfill this purpose.  Moreover, there are all sorts of bad omens for Braden: he is waylaid by the ship's crew while on his way to his interview; the captain seems negligent to a criminal degree, and the obsequiousness of the ship's steward rings false.  In spite of these alarms, Braden takes the job anyway, feeling it his duty to see the ship through its special mission, and also to protect the six passengers the Rim Star has aboard.

The other shoe drops near the end of this first part of what's promised to be a two-part serial.  The crew is, in fact, up to no good, and the entire ship is imperiled.  Stay tuned.

It's not a bad yarn.  The plot is interesting and the characters reasonably developed.  Where it creaks is the writing.  Leinster has developed an odd sort of plodding and padded style of late, with endless sequences of short sentences and whole paragraphs that repeat information we already know.  Used sparingly, I suppose it's a style that could be effective.  Used excessively, it slows things down.

And then, there's this gem of a line (an internal musing of Braden's) on page 36:

When a man admits that a woman is a better man than he is, he may be honest, but he should be ashamed.

Three stars, barely.  We'll see what happens next month.

The Pie-Duddle Puddle, by Walt and Leigh Richmond

Recently, in Papa needs shorts, the Richmonds showed us how a four-year old child can save the day even with an imperfect understanding of the situation.  The husband-and-wife writing team try it again, this time from an even more exotic viewpoint (which you'll guess pretty quickly).  It's not nearly as effective or plausible a piece.  Two stars.

Outward Bound, by Norman Spinrad

I'm getting a little worried about new author, Norman Spinrad.  He hit it out of the park with his first story, and scored a double with his second.  The latest, about a decades-long relativistic chase across the galaxy in pursuit of the man who has the secret to superluminous travel, is barely a walk to first base.  It's not bad; there's just no mystery to the thing.  Three stars.

Third Alternative, by Robin Wilson

On the other hand, this first story by new author Robin Wilson is rather charming.  It's a time travel piece featuring a fellow who goes back from 2012 to 1904 with naught but what he can cram into his bodily orifices (inorganic matter doesn't transport).  You don't find out his purpose until the end, and it's an engaging, effective piece.  Another three-star story, but at the high end of the range.

Summing up

Reviewing the numbers, it seems like leaving the burrow was worth it.  Least mag of the bunch was Amazing at 2.3 stars and with no four star tales.  Next was IF at 2.4 stars, again with no exceptional pieces.  Fantastic clocked in at 2.7, but it had the excellent The Graveyard Heart by Zelazny; New Worlds, three stars, had Ballard's The Terminal Breach.  At the positive end of the scale were F&SF and Analog at 3.3 stars — their non-fiction articles were the real stand-outs.  Finally, Worlds of Tomorrow was mostly superior, definitely worth the 50 cent cover price.

Women had a banner month, producing 5.5 out of 39 new pieces (14.1%). 

Looks like we'll have a warm spring!

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge!  Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




5 Comments Leave A Comment

55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction