Tag Archives: 1962

Science / Space Race

[May 24, 1962] Adrift in Two Oceans (The Flight of Aurora 7)

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by Gideon Marcus

They say things get tedious in repetition.  Well, I can assure you that at no point during Scott Carpenter's three-orbit flight, planned to be a duplicate of predecessor John Glenn's, was I in the least bit bored.  In fact, of the six manned space shots, this was the most moving for me.  Since the launch this morning from the East coast of Florida, a couple of hours after dawn, I've been hooked to the television and radio, engaged to a greater degree than ever before.

Perhaps it's the thoughtful, enigmatic nature of Carpenter, a contrast to the gung ho Glenn, the taciturn Shepard, the consummate test pilot Grissom.  Maybe it's the fact that Carpenter's flight had its fair share of drama (but then, so did Glenn's).  It could well be that, now that Glenn has set the template for space travel, I could spend time contemplating what it all meant.

Certainly, NASA wanted to get the most out of the flight out of Aurora 7.  Its pilot was smothered with tasks, each of them taking longer than scheduled.  First, there were the pictures to take.  Carpenter, cramped into a cockpit barely larger than that of the navy planes he used to fly for a living, fumbled to load film of the special space camera.  Then he had to make haste to spin the little Mercury spacecraft around so as to get good pictures of the horizon and ground features of interest.  By the end of Orbit One, half of the ship's fuel was gone.

During the second orbit, Carpenter's suit began to overheat.  Sweat dripping into his eyes, the astronaut deployed a parti-colored beachball.  It was supposed to trail behind the Mercury, providing data on the density of the rarefied atmosphere at that height, as well as the reflectivity of light in orbit.  Well, it never quite inflated.  The wilted thing followed along dispiritedly behind Aurora 7 for the next few hours.

This is not to say that Carpenter was having a bad time.  From his first exuberant exclamation upon becoming weightless, it was clear the astronaut was enjoying himself.  He got to eat the first full meal in space…from tubes: one of peaches, and one of beef and vegetables.  And, for a blessed four-and-a-half hours, the heavy space suit weighed nothing at all.  Even overtasked, Carpenter felt free as a bird, even in his tiny, spacecraft-shaped cage.  The dark sky framed three sunrises and three sunsets, punctuated by flurries of the same fireflies that accompanied Glenn in his flight (the astronaut believes they are ice particles shaken from the capsule). 

Fun, to be sure, but at the end of the third orbit, Carpenter was in a pickle.  Almost out of fuel, the ship misaligned thanks to a balky thruster, and the window for firing his retrorockets sliver-thin, the astronaut fired his braking thrusters a few seconds late.  For half an hour, first in the shuddering initial reentry, and then in the chest crushing crashing through the atmosphere, culminating in the gentle sway beneath parachutes before splashdown in the Atlantic, Carpenter had no idea where he would end up.

Neither did the recovery fleet.  In fact, Carpenter landed some 250 miles away from where he was supposed to.  This did not bother the philosophical spaceman, who spent the next hours relaxing on his inflatable raft, sitting in pleasant companionship with a little black fish nearby.  When the boats of the U.S.S. Intrepid finally arrived, hours later, Carpenter was completely calm.  In fact, like a good guest, he offered them some of his food. 

Aside from a little dehydration (he'd lost seven pounds in space!) Carpenter was in tip-top shape.  He has since been whisked off to Grand Turk island for extensive post-flight evaluation, and it is my understanding he got quite the hug from Glenn upon arrival.  There he will stay for a couple of days before he gets to make a tour of his home town of Boulder, Colorado. 

The folks there must be proud of their native son who has ascended far beyond the lofty Rockies.  I know I am.

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Magazine

[May 21, 1962] Old AND New (UK's New Worlds Magazine)

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By Ashley R. Pollard

Here, as I sit writing in May 1962, I’m contemplating change.  The change that occurs when the old is phased out, and new things are built that replace the familiar.  What spurred this moment of reflection was the news of the last trolley bus run in London which, as fate would have it, happened on the eighth of May in my manor—London slang for my local area.  The irony is that the trolley buses were built to replace the old trams, but have now themselves fallen to the same fate of being old, and no longer appreciated for the modern convenience they once were.

Science fiction is arguably about change, hopefully not in the didactic way of, say, the classroom lecture, but rather through exploring the changes that comes from the introduction of the new.  While I’m sure that some of the Galactic Journey’s readers may consider American SF stories to be the wellspring of all that the future holds, Britain does have magazines of its own to bring stories to aficionados of the genre on this side of the Atlantic.

One of them is called New Worlds.

I will say that the history of this magazine is rather complex, and presented me with a Gordian Knot to unravel; unlike Alexander the Great, I’m not able to slice through it with a sword as the popular legend has it.  Instead I shall unravel the story by starting at the beginning, and work through to the end.  As an aside, I understand this is a better fit for what Alexander actually did, which was to pull pole pin out of the knot and unravel the loose ends, but I digress.

The roots of New Worlds lies in science fiction fandom, which in 1934 was being actively promoted by Hugo Gernsback and Charles D. Hornig at Wonder Stories, who had created the Science Fiction League as an association to further the growth of fandom.  People from around the world could apply to form an SFL chapter, and in 1935 Maurice K. Hanson and Dennis A. Jacques formed Chapter 22 of the SFL in Nuneaton, near Leicester for those who’ve never heard of the place.


Hanson, in 1937

Chapter 22 was the third of five SFL chapters formed on this side of the Atlantic: the other four being in Leeds, Belfast, Glasgow, and Barnsley.  And while they may have been the third chapter, Hanson and Jacques produced in 1936 the first fanzine published in the United Kingdom called Novae Terrae.

A total of twenty-nine issues of this British fanzine were produced between 1936 and January 1939.  I understand the workload associated with producing it eventually became too much for Hanson, and he handed it over to John Carnell, who renamed it New Worlds: a translation of the Latin title into plain English.  However, Carnell only produced four issues before the war started in 1939 and paper rationing came into effect.


Carnell, in 1936

But, when production started again in 1946, New Worlds had been transformed into a professional magazine produced by Pendulum Publications.  The first issue didn’t sell very well, but the second did, which was attributed to the cover art being very eye catching.  As a result, Carnell had all the covers stripped off the unsold copies of issue one, and reissued the magazine with the same cover art as issue two, but without the content lettering—see the illustrations for comparison.  With the new cover issue one also sold well, and things looked promising.  Unfortunately, as luck would have it, the publisher went bankrupt.

However, a group of passionate science fiction fans came together and formed Nova Publications Limited to keep New Worlds on the newsstands.  The publication schedule was what I would describe as irregular, some might say sporadic, but New Worlds thrived and went from two issues in 1949, rising to three in 1950 and four in 1951, up to six issues in 1952 before falling back to three in 1953.  Then there was a nine month hiatus, due to problems with the printer, but regular monthly issues in a new digest format appeared after Nova Publications was taken over by Maclaren & Sons.

Ever since then New Worlds has graced the newsstands across the country, and for a short time even America.  The magazine provides a source of science fiction to British readers who may not have easy access to the American magazines that Galactic Journey reviews each month.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to read May’s issue, which contains the following stories: Terminal by Lee Harding; Think of a Number by Steve Hall; Dictator Bait by Philip E. High; The Analyser by Bill Spencer; and the concluding part of a serial called The Dawson Diaries by John Rackham.  However, I will say that I’ve enjoyed most things I’ve read by Philip E. High and the tease for the story is intriguing, “Finding an alien who could change shape at will would be harder than finding the proverbial needle. There is one way, however, of flushing him out of hiding, given time and the necessary will-power.” Colour me interested.

In addition, this month’s issue of New Worlds features section has a guest editorial by J. G. Ballard, in addition to the regular readers letters page called Postmortem, a section called The Literary Line-Up, and Book Reviews by Leslie Flood.

And to end this month’s column, I would like to point to something new.  In a few days time the Coventry Cathedral will be consecrated.  The old one was destroyed by the German Luftwaffe during the second world war.  The design for the replacement building was the winner of a competition held in 1950, but the foundation stone wasn’t laid until 1956.  Now the building is finished the consecration of the cathedral will take place on May the 25th and is remarkable for being so modern—dare I say a science fictional church for a better tomorrow?

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[May 19, 1962] I Sing the Future Electric (Fashion for the Future)

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by Gwyn Conaway

I have noticed trends swinging wildly these past few months. Shapes, colors, and patterns that we’ve rarely seen in the past are appearing in advertisements and our favorite magazines. We are in a transition phase, ladies and gentlemen.

Behind us, the Golden Age of the fifties is rosy and romantic, a time of economic surplus and increasing leisure. I see this past decade as the slow climb of a roller coaster. With John Glenn’s successful Mercury-Atlas 6 spaceflight just months behind us, I realize now that his success marks the top of the roller coaster’s first hill. We’re now looking down at a twisting, speeding track. It’s the sixties, and I can tell it’s going to be a wild ride.

A recent episode of The Twilight Zone entitled ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ sparked my clarity on the subject of fashions heading our way these next several years.  It was the show’s one-hundredth episode, written by Ray Bradbury. A widowed father fears that his children don’t have the motherly guidance they need, and so purchases a made-to-order robot grandmother to care for them. Although his eldest daughter, Anne, is angry that her real mother died, she eventually sees Grandmother as a part of the family. Once the children have grown up, Grandmother returns to her manufacturer to be disassembled and await the next family.

This particular episode struck me in a way others have not. The costume design, which complements the script beautifully, communicates a future in fashion and popular mindset that is both exciting and chilling. It speaks of our scientific euphoria, but also our fears in embracing such an utopia.

Our optimism toward science and the future is evident in the costumes. The entire main cast wears grid-like stripes, plaids, and other formulaic patterns rather than organic motifs such as florals. Only when the children grow up and truly see Grandmother as a family member, do these regimented patterns disappear.


(From left to right) Karen, Anne, and Tom discuss purchasing a robot grandmother.

Note the siblings in the photograph above. Karen and Tom wear windowpane and plaid, respectively. Anne, the most hesitant of the three to adopt the ideas in their Modern Science magazine, wears bows on her dress, but even these organic motifs are arranged in a grid.

I opened my copies of Montgomery Ward from 1959 and this year’s most recent issue of Lana Lobell for comparison. Just two and a half years ago, young women wore romantically arranged florals that took up the entire cloth. This year, however, we see the same motifs separated into sparse patterns and parallel lines.


The Montgomery Ward versus the Lana Lobell fashions of the past few years. This subtle change in pattern arrangement marks the beginning of a new era.

One could say this is simply an evolution of aesthetic; reinventing established symbols for the next era. However, I postulate that this shift is indicative of a larger change coming our way. Younger generations have begun to protect themselves against a larger, more dangerous world. Where before our florals were a ‘garden’ upon the cloth, now they’re sparsely placed single blooms. We’re stepping away from such romanticism in favor of arming ourselves with both excitement and fear of the future.

Let us return to the episode to explore this more technologically-driven aesthetic. The company Fascimile offers the children many physical options for creating their perfect caregiver. Unquestionably the most provocative scene of the story, I was struck by the realization that we no longer romanticize a balance of leisure, work, and home in the way of the fifties. Rather, we view our lives and bodies as the canvas of modernism. We are beginning to package ourselves as a certain model of person.


These ensembles are decorated in this year’s latest floral motifs and stripes. The Fascimile salesman offers a wide selection of parts to build your perfect caregiver. From eye color to hair style, fashion to height, voice to sturdiness, the choice is yours!

In fact, the renewed popularity of square patterns, such as windowpane and plaid, can be definitively linked to the way in which our workplaces and homes are changing. As computing systems become more pervasive, the rooms in which we work become more ‘square’ as well. Offices and homes are becoming sleek, plastic, metallic, rubberized.

In ‘I Sing the Body Electric,’ we can see this relationship emerging. Perhaps the most interesting ensemble of the episode is the dress Grandmother wears during the climax of the story. It’s vertical lines trapped in neat horizontal rows reminded me immediately of the first integrated circuit created by Jack Kilby in 1958. These circuits, I’m told, are now being used in large computing machines, such as the IBM 7030. The IBM 7030 also arranges its various compartments in rows of vertical towers.


Grandmother’s dress compared to the IBM 7030 (top) and Kilby’s circuit (bottom). Note that even Grandmother’s belt maintains the horizontal rows of vertical lines.

But couldn’t this be a pattern only within this episode of The Twilight Zone? I asked myself the same question. I perused my fashion magazines and became excited. Women’s accessories, coats, purses, and clothing are all following this same pattern of evolution when we compare the fashions of just a few years ago to our current season:

While this hat from 1960 (left) is sweeping and sweet, the current fashion of 1962 (right) feels more like a helmet to protect the wearer from the outside world. This is another symbol that both showcases our fear of nuclear war, and our excitement for the future.

Christian Dior swings from a return to the Watteau back, the most romantic of all French Rococo 18th century women’s silhouettes in 1959 (left) to experimenting with the human body as geometric shape in one of his most recent designs of this year (right).

Christian Dior’s 1962 collection continues to push the boundaries of shape. This ensemble mirrors the silhouette of the Mercury-Atlas 6 right down to the flat-top hat. The luscious shine of the coat suggests sleek and minimalist will reign supreme in the coming years.

—

Ray Bradbury’s one-hundredth episode of The Twilight Zone did not disappoint. ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ took me on a whirlwind of a ride. His masterful screenplay helped me see the mouthwatering potential for change in the latter half of our decade. What will more scientific advancement do to our fashion? Will we wear flight suits instead of dresses? Helmets instead of hats? Will we integrate with computing machines in the far future so that we too can be made-to-order?

Young men and women may think they’re buying simple clothes, but in reality, they’re arming themselves for an unpredictable yet invigorating future. They’re setting aside romance in favor of progress.

But who’s to say modeling themselves after computing machines and space capsules isn’t a sort of romance of its own?

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Magazine

[May 17, 1962] Not as bad as it looks (June 1962 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

A wise fellow once opined that the problem with a one-dimensional rating system (in my case, 1-5 Galactic Stars) is that there is little differentiating the flawed jewel from the moderately amusing.  That had not really been an issue for me until this month's issue of Analog.  With the exception of the opening story, which though it provides excellent subject matter for the cover's striking picture, is a pretty unimpressive piece, the rest of the tales have much to recommend them.  They just aren't quite brilliant for one reason or another. 

So you're about to encounter a bunch of titles that got three-star ratings, but don't let that deter you if the summaries pique your interest:

The Weather Man, by Theodore L. Thomas

"Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it," so the old saw goes.  But in Thomas' future, the Earth's weather is completely under the control of the all-powerful Weather Bureau; and it follows that the associated Weather Council is ruler of the world.  One councilor decides to stake his political future on the odd request of a resident of Holtville, California whose dying wish is to see snow before he dies…in July.

A couple of notable points: We seem increasingly confident that weather will be a trivial problem to solve.  That's reassuring given the threat of global warming.  Another is the featuring of Holtville, a tiny farm town in the middle of the country's richest farmland: the Imperial Valley.  I know the place fairly well – it's the next town over from my hometown of El Centro, the county seat.  Aside from its healthy Future Farmers of America chapter, its surprisingly able High School Speech Team, and that it was the residence of a brief ex-girlfriend, it has no outstanding qualities.  Just another stinky, buggy, windy settlement in an irrigated hot desert.

Anyway, Weatherman is a dull, plodding piece, and in contrast to the later stories in this issue, has very few trappings of a far, or even near, future.  Aside from the boats that sail over the sun, that is.  I'm not sure how pinpoint weather modification is somehow easier by tampering with a star rather than its planet.  I couldn't swallow it.  Two stars.

Three-Part Puzzle, by Gordon R. Dickson

In galaxy where the races divide neatly into Conquerers, Submissives, and Invulnerables (the last uninterested in conquering and incapable of beating into submission), what do you do when you discover humanity fits into none of these categories?  A cute tale no longer than it needs to be.  Three stars.

Anything You Can Do! (Part 2 of 2), by Randall Garrett

This latter installment depicting the battle of superhuman Stanton brothers vs. the frighteningly alien Nipe (begun last month) ends satisfactorily.  In fact, Garrett weaves together a number of plot threads with some fair skill, explaining the weird psychology of the shipwrecked ET; resolving the mysterious situation of the twin Stantons, one of whom had been crippled from birth and yet no longer has any physical ailments; and concluding the Nipe menace without resorting to bloodshed.  I am shocked, myself, to admit that I liked a Garrett story from start to finish, without qualifications.  Could the Randy fellow have turned a corner?  Three stars for this part, three-and-a-half in aggregate.

Interstellar Passenger Capsule, by Ralph A. Hall, M.D.

Dr. Hall takes on the currently popular topic of panspermia, the idea that life is spread around the cosmos by interstellar meteors.  It's overlong, a bit meandery, and I don't believe for a second that meteorites have been found with spores in them (at least, spores that were there before their carrier hit the Earth).  It reads like something submitted for a high school paper.  In that context, it might get a 'B.'  Here, it barely rates two stars.

The Sound of Silence, by Barbara Constant

An interesting, almost F&SFish piece about a young mind-reader who struggles to come to grips with her powers.  Lonely is the existence of a telepath with no one to send thoughts to.  I've never heard of Ms. Constant, but this was a solid piece, and a somewhat unique take on a hoary topic.  Three stars.

Novice, by James H. Schmitz

Young Telzey Amberdon has got quite a task ahead of her!  Can this second-year law student prove the sentience of an extraterrestrial race of giant cats while thwarting the nefarious schemes, upon Telzey and the kitties, of her evil aunt?  Here's an interesting story that combines telepathy, a female protagonist, and felines.  We also see progressive details like a Galactic Federation Councilwoman and a wallet-sized law library.  Its demerits are a slightly disjointed narrative style and a coda that is a bit creepy in its implications.  Nevertheless, I'd love more in this vein, please.  Three stars. 

***

That tallies up to an average of 2.7 – not very promising on the surface, but if you take out the leading novelette and the lackluster science fact article, you're left with some very readable, if not astonishing, stuff.  I'm not sorry I read this ish, which is more than I can say for some of the prior ones.

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[May 15, 1962] RUMBLING (the June 1962 Amazing)

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by John Boston

Oh groan.  The lead story in the June 1962 Amazing is Thunder in Space by Lester del Rey.  He’s been at this for 25 years and well knows that in space, no one can hear—oh, never mind.  I know, it’s a metaphor—but’s it’s dumb in context and cliched regardless of context.  Quickly turning the page, I'm slightly mollified, seeing that the story is about Cold War politics.  My favorite! 

Only a few weeks ago, one of my teachers assigned us all to write essays about current affairs, to be read to the rest of the class.  Mine suggested that the government of China is no more to be found on Taiwan than the government of the United States is in London, and it might be wise to drop the current pretense keeping Taiwan in China’s United Nations seat, along with the fantasy of invading mainland China and reinstating Chiang Kai-shek to the power he couldn’t hold on to.  After I had read this, one of the other students turned to me and said, “John . . . are you a communist?” I assured him I am not, but in hindsight, I should have said, “That’s right, Jimmy.  I get my orders straight from Albania.”

Compared to this black and white comic-strip world-view, Thunder in Space is a masterpiece of sophistication—it’s at least on the level of the Sunday funnies, which are in color.  (A few colors, anyway.) There are two nuclear-armed space stations, the US Goddard and the Russian Tsiolkovsky.  An apparent accident destroys the Soviet space fleet, and the American government refuses to help out by resupplying their station unless they unilaterally disarm it. 

But our boys in space are having none of it, and our and their space crews realize they have more in common with each other than with their governments, so there’ll be some changes made.  This feel-good fable for SF fans and other technophiles is not especially plausible—the response of governments to insurrection on military bases in low orbit would likely be speedy and definitive—but the story is reasonably readable and conventionally well-assembled, and refreshing in the acknowledgment that our leadership may be as brutal and ruthless as theirs.  On the other hand, del Rey can’t let the title go, and there are annoying attempts to justify it, such as one character’s declaration that “Most of the thunder down there is caused by the chained lightning we’re carrying up here.” Three grudging stars.

Near-future political problems also preoccupy Tom Purdom in The Warriors, in which a foreign mercenary force is struggling to get to the airport despite the resistance of the local forces.  But violence has been abolished!  So the contending mercenary armies maneuver respectively to evade and to block each other, since touching in combat is now a crime, and the result is a taut narrative of bobbing and weaving.  This all seemed silly and annoying at first, but maybe that’s the point: we’ve got to do something to abolish warfare as we know it, and if not this, what?  Got a better idea? 

So it’s at least thought-provoking: but there’s something else to think about here too.  The casus belli is the USA’s attempt to spirit away the African country Belderkan’s resident genius, Doctor Warren, whose inventions have helped make Belderkan prosperous; the locals are trying to get to him to persuade him to change his mind. 

Right now, we’re in the age of decolonization.  Almost 20 countries have become independent in the last couple of years; Algeria will vote on independence in July, after years of bloody warfare.  But will their independence be real, or just another guise for the exploitation of their resources by more powerful countries?  Consider the former Belgian Congo, which elected someone a little too independent for some tastes, who was quickly deposed and murdered in a rebellion sponsored by the ex-colonial power (and, it is rumored, by others, maybe including us).  I’m not sure Purdom meant to evoke all these concerns, or if he just needed a plot motor, but either way, the result is to his credit and mitigates the story’s weakness as fiction.  Three stars.

But enough of politics; let’s have something gaudy and irresponsible.  The most well-turned piece of fiction here is from J.G. Ballard, though Passport to Eternity is not among his best.  It’s a trifle about an affluent, bored future couple trying to decide where to go on vacation.  Each option is more ridiculous than the last, and then the options show up uninvited at their house with their sales pitches.  It ends badly. 

This hectic lampoon is mostly a satire on the profligate and disjointed invention of much grade-B SF.  Ballard refers to clothing made of “bioplastic materials,” then: “Upstairs in her wardrobes the gowns and dresses purred on their hangers like the drowsing inmates of some exquisite arboreal zoo.” Or: “She was a Canopan slave, hot-housed out of imported germ, a slender green-skinned beauty with moth-like fluttering gills.” So: amusing, but in an hour you’ll be hungry again.  The story’s first line, “It was half past love on New Day in Zenith and the clocks were striking heaven,” recalls the famous first line of Orwell’s 1984.  Is Ballard comparing the tyranny of excessive consumer choice to the tyranny of Big Brother?  Beats me.  Three stars, plus for style and minus for content.

(Note that in this one-dimensional rating system, the middle rating covers a multitude of sins and virtues in various combinations.) [One dimensional indeed! (ED)]

This month’s Classic Reprint is a cut above the usual: ridiculous, but amusingly so, rather than stupidly or offensively.  The Council of Drones by the mysterious W.K. Sonneman, from the October 1936 issue, follows a standard plot of the times: ordinary guy, Fred, living on his father’s farm, is invited by his friend the brilliant scientist to see his invention; things go wrong; perilous adventures ensue.  This time it’s “Cross-Rays, with Lifex Modulation”: swapping of human consciousness with other organisms.  Fred’s father keeps bees, so obviously Fred’s consciousness should be swapped with a queen bee’s.  But the promised five minutes turns into hours and days.  Fred is in despair.  But then his father comes, smoking the hive and stealing the honey, and Fred, enraged, goes bee, as it were. 

He persuades the other bees to go along with his schemes, first of self-defense and then of . . . why not . . . world domination, much assisted by the fact that bees from the eggs the queen lays after the insertion of human intelligence are themselves pretty intelligent.  This is all done straight, or at least straight-faced, with a number of apiaristic footnotes along the way.  Sam Moskowitz’s introduction praises the author’s “intimate knowledge of the bee society,” plausibly speculates that he was a beekeeper himself, and touts the value of “scientifically informative science fiction.” (Come back Lamarck, all is forgiven!) Three charmingly archaic stars.

Ben Bova is back, this time with a science article, Extra-Terrestrial Life: An Astronomer’s Theory.  It is a somewhat rambling and disorganized article touching on how life arose on Earth and what it might look like elsewhere, by way of much biochemistry, emphasizing this DNA stuff we are starting to hear a lot about.  But Bova is an engaging writer and there’s a lot of interesting information here.  Three stars. 

Bova is also featured in the editorial, complete with low-resolution photo, making me wonder whether he is about to replace the unfortunately dull Frank Tinsley as the regular science-monger.  Incidentally, the astronomer of the title is Bova, employed as a “technical communications executive,” but also described as “an ardent amateur astronomer.”

Sam Moskowitz contributes another “SF Profile,” this one The Saintly Heresy of Clifford D. Simak.” It’s reasonably perceptive and informative, but—like his profile of Theodore Sturgeon—it neglects Simak’s excellent recent stories while dwelling in detail on his apprentice work of the 1930s, with no mention, for example, of his well-received novels Ring Around the Sun (1953) and last year’s Time Is the Simplest Thing.  And Moskowitz’s clumsy and often outright ungrammatical writing is even more noticeable than usual.  Three stars.

And finally . . . to break the three-star monotony . . .

Bndct Brdfrt.

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Book, Magazine

[May 11, 1962] Unfixed in the Heavens (The Seed of Earth, by Robert Silverberg)

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by Gideon Marcus

A hundred and fifty years from now, the stars are finally attainable.  With the invention of a reliable and quick interstellar drive, the galaxy is now ripe for colonization.  But humanity is too fat and happy to leave the nest; the world government is forced to conscript candidates to become unwilling pioneers.  Six thousand men and women are sent on sixty starships every day toward some farflung world.  The goal: to ensure that the human race can be spread as widely as possible.

This is the premise of Robert Silverberg's newest piece, a short novel published in the :June 1962 Galaxy called The Seed of Earth.  It's really two novellas in one, the first half dealing with the lives of four conscriptees as they are selected and prepared for departure, and the second half about what happens to them once they reach their destination. 

Seed has an interesting, complicated history.  The second part originally appeared in the May 1957 issue of Venture as The Winds of Siros.  In this story, two newlywed colonist couples are abducted from their settlement by voyeuristic aliens who lock them in a cave and watch the emotional drama ensue.  After the four escape, the women determine that they were with the wrong men and change partners.  It's all supposed to be rather daring and progressive.

Venture was a short-lived companion to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, designed to be a "more adult" alternative to F&SF.  What this really meant was more stories about sex, and since the stories were almost exclusively written by men (and modern society being what it is), there were a lot of demeaning, disturbing pieces in Venture. 

The example that turned me off of the magazine was, in fact, also by Robert Silverberg.  Called Eve and the Twenty-three Adams (March 1958), it featured an all-stag starship crew and the lone woman included on the roster to "service" them.  When she expressed reluctance at her role, she was drugged into submission for the duration of the flight.  It was all very light-hearted, just a rollicking tale.  Like Garrett's Queen Bee.

Silverberg's difficulty with the concept of feminine agency was also evident in Siros (and thus, in Seed).  The male colonists get to choose whom they want to marry from among the female colonists, and while the women have the right of refusal for the first few rounds, all of them must end up with someone, ultimately.  Now, as Siros plays out, we see that the system is not particularly rigid and, in the end, the woman colonists do have some choice in the matter.  But it's informal, and it's at the sufferance of the men.  Hardly an equal situation.

In fact, there is a strong streak of puritanical prudishness in Seed.  At one point, a woman's pregnancy is described as "a lapse in virtue."  I recognize that Silverberg's intent was to show that our current (late 50's/early 60's) morality is antiquated and needs to be shaken up.  Hence, the laudable plot elements of wife-swapping and polyamory that form the core of Siros/Seed Part 2.  But it just doesn't seem plausible that Earth of 2117 would be exactly as, if not more, conservative as modern day, and that only by unleashing humans on a raw world can they undo the straitjacket. 

Seed's first part was added to Siros to make the piece long enough for publication as a stand-alone novel.  Ballantine and Doubleday, the "respectable" s-f publishers, rejected it.  H.L. Gold, Galaxy's editor, accepted Seed for its paperback series (I reviewed one of them: the excellent The City in the Sea), but the series was discontinued before Seed saw print.  Ultimately, it ended up in the magazine proper.

Part One of Seed isn't bad: a quartet of reasonably interesting character portraits with a bonus view through the eyes of the fellow tasked with finalizing the crew selections.  The characterization is better in this half, which makes sense – the Silverberg writing Part One was older than the one who wrote Part Two.  The problem here isn't so much the writing or the flow.  It's the flaws in the fundamental premise.  In Seed, forced emigration has gone on for a generation.  Are there really hundreds of thousands of habitable planets within 30 light years of Earth ripe for colonization without any need for protective technology or planetary engineering?  Are there even that many planets?  Does it make sense to invest just one hundred strangers in a colony rather than shipping more than one load to a promising destination? 

And how is it plausible that a draft for colonization is even required?  To all accounts, Silverberg's world is no utopia – in fact, it seems hardly different from our current one, societally and technologically.  Surely there would be 2,190,000 immigrant candidates out of billions every year.  Contrast Seed with Heinlein's Farmer in the Sky – there, one was lucky if one could leave Earth. 

The Seed of Earth is ultimately a rather unsuccessful "fix-up" story.  The beginning doesn't flow well into the end, and neither portion rings very true.  I'd charitably give three stars to the first part and two to the second, for an aggregate of 2.5 stars.  That's probably overgenerous, but I can give Silverberg credit for the effort, at least.

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Science / Space Race

[May 9, 1962] The Chilly Frontier (Uranus, the Seventh Planet)

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by Gideon Marcus

Every so often, serendipity chooses what I write about.  Last month, the Traveler family Journeyed to the Seventh Planet in film.  Then, the Good Doctor wrote about the giant planet in his science fact article in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  And now, in this month's Galaxy, Willy Ley tells of the origin of the the names of our celestial neighbors, Uranus included. 

And there's a 7th Planet-sized gap in my series on the planets of the solar system.  Who am I to fight fate?


Uranus from a telescope

How much could we know about a world that is twice as far away from us as Saturn?  The answer is at once "more than you'd think" and "less than we'd like."

Uranus is a small green disc when viewed through a telescope.  In fact, the planet is technically visible with the naked eye, but it is so small that it is no surprise that it wasn't discovered until 1781.  Over the course of several late-Winter nights, a German expatriate living in England named William Herschel saw the fuzzy circle of Uranus slowly travel among the fixed tableau of the stars.  He thought he'd found a comet.  But its orbit and characteristics made it apparent that it was, in fact, the first new planet discovered in thousands of years.

Herschel tried to name the planet after his King, George III, just as Galileo had tried to name the Jovian moons he had discovered after his sovereigns, the De Medici family.  Others tried to name the planet after Herschel, himself!  In the end, a name of classical derivation won out – and what more fitting name than the father of Saturn, who was, himself, father of Jupiter, who was father of Mercury, Venus, and Mars?

Uranus hugs the ecliptic, the plane of the solar system, more closely than any of the other planets.  Using older observations of Uranus from before the object was recognized as a planet, astronomers quickly determined the new planet's year: 84 years.  We are fortunate that Uranus has moons (five of them, the latest discovered just 14 years ago), for we are able to determine the mass of the planet from the length of time it takes for the moons to orbit their parent.  There are 15 Earths of mass in the planet, the least of the four giant planets.  Nevertheless, you could fit 60 Earths inside Uranus.  That makes it the second-smallest in volume (Neptune has a volume of 40 Earths). 

You can tell how long the day of a planet is using a spectroscope, which breaks up light into its component wavelengths.  The waves of light coming from the side of a planet rotating toward us are compressed and made bluer.  The side going away reflects redder light.  This is the Doppler Effect – the same phenomenon that makes train whistles seem to rise and fall as the locomotives approach and recede. Uranus' day is just under 11 hours long.  This is slightly longer than Saturn's, and shorter than Neptune's.

So in terms of raw physical characteristics, Uranus is kind of a middlin' gas giant.  But there is one feature that makes it absolutely unique among the planets.  Thanks again to the trek of Uranus' moons, we know that the planet is tipped way over on its side with respect to the ecliptic – a whopping 98 degrees!  Compare that to Earth's slightly wobbled 23 degrees.  As you may know, this tilt is responsible for our planet's seasons; imagine what kind of severe seasons Uranus must have!  The Poles of the seventh planet are in perpetual sunlight for 21 years, in darkness for the same amount of time. 


Exploring the Planets, 1958, Roy A. Gallant

An observer on the surface of Uranus, if such a thing exists, probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.  There is a 3000 mile thick atmosphere that we know contains methane, thanks again to the spectroscope.  Below that is an ocean of increasingly slushy hydrogen some 6000 miles thick.  By the time you get to solid ground, whatever that be made of, you can be sure that no light penetrates.  As at the bottom of terrestrial oceans, the surface of Uranus must be seasonless.

Now, while the edge of Uranus' atmosphere is a chilly 300 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit), it is certain that things heat up as one goes deeper into the pressure cooker of the planet's gaseous envelope.  It is even possible that an ocean of water floats at some level of the giant's composition, though we'll never know until we go there.


Exploring the Planets, 1958, Roy A. Gallant

The last bit we know about Uranus is a piece of negative information.  Over the last decade or so, we have turned the giant dishes pf radio telescopes toward the heavens and discovered all sorts of staticy emanations, some associated with things we can see, and some appearing to radiate from nowhere.  Jupiter, it turns out, is a chatty subject on the radio.  Uranus, however, is not. 

By the way, my favorite aspect of Uranus is the naming of its moons.  They are (closest in to farthest out) Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon.  Unlike Jove's mistresses that orbit Jupiter and the elder Titans that circle Saturn, Uranus' moons are named after the literary creations of Shakespeare and Pope.  The most ancient of Gods is thus attended by some of humanity's more recent fairies.


Uranus from a telescope

There you have it: virtually the entire sum of knowledge we have about the 7th planet.  Not a whole lot for nearly 200 years of observation.  However, I suspect that, with powerful rockets like the Saturn at our disposal, it won't be long before Uranus gets a new moon, one with a NASA sticker (or perhaps, a Sickle and Hammer) on the side.  Then we'll truly learn about this mysterious, grand, tipped-over world.


Classics Illustrated. Illustrated by Torres, Angelo, Kirby, Jack, and Glanzman, Sam. To the Stars!

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TV

[May 7, 1962] Escape (The Twilight Zone, Season 3, Episodes 30-33)

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by Gideon Marcus

It's a scary world outside, between Berlin, Cuba, and Laos (not to mention prejudice and hunger right here at home).  That's why we turn to fantasy – to distract ourselves.  Of course, sometimes the stories we turn to are scarier than our real-world problems.  The truly macabre, the horrifying, take some of the edge off our everyday woes.

Since its inception almost three years ago, anthology show The Twilight Zone has been a stunner.  Filled with literary merit and some whiz-bang ideas, one could always count on CBS to deliver far out chills every Friday evening.  This Third Season of the show hasn't been as good, overall, as the prior two seasons; its creator, Rod Serling, seems to be written out.  Nevertheless, even at its worst, The Twilight Zone generally has something to recommend itself.  Perhaps after this season is done, Serling will take a well-deserved rejuvenating sabbatical.  But then, who will take us from our woes?

Hocus-Pocus and Frisby, by Rod Serling, based on a story by Frederic Louis Fox

Right off the streets of Mayberry (even to the sharing of at least one of the bit characters), Hocus is the tale of a teller of tall-tales, a shopkeep who cannot refrain from telling the biggest whoppers about himself.  Unfortunately for him, a flock of aliens take his claims seriously and make to abscond with him to their home planet, where he can entertain the folks at home with his unparalleled prowess. 

It runs a bit long, and there's only so much one can take, but Hocus isn't bad.  It's at least fun to watch.  Three stars.

The Trade-ins, by Rod Serling

The time is the future.  The gimmick is a process that allows the aged to turn in their worn physical vessels in exchange for perfect androids.  But when only one member of a devoted old couple can afford the operation, can their relationship survive?

Told like that, I think this story could have been a real winner.  An exposé of an utterly changed partnership.  Instead, too much time is spent on the prelude; a lot of exposition is blown (though not without an effective piece of acting on the part of the expositioners) in the first act.

The gem of this piece comes at the two-thirds mark, when the husband attempts to double his money in a card game.  This 5-minute detour, alone, is worth the price of admission. 

All told, a missed opportunity, but not a wasted half hours.  Three stars.

The Gift, by Rod Serling

Just over the border, a spaceman crashlanded on Earth, despite his peaceful intentions, receives a chilly reception from the peasant yokels of Mexico.  If the Third Season has unexpectedly given us the best episodes of the series, it has now undoubtedly given us the worst.  Not only is The Gift an incredibly insensitive portrayal of our neighbors to the South, but the acting is almost universally horrid.  Yes, I know that Americans are also skewered on Sterling's show (witness The Monsters are Due on Maple Street and The Shelter, but the brush used to paint the Mexicans in The Gift is broad enough to service a superhighway.  Bad script, bad portrayal, one star.

The Dummy, by Rod Serling, based on a story by Lee Polk

Last up is this fascinating, if opaque, piece on a ventriloquist haunted by the dummy of whom he is supposed to be the master.  Cliff Robertson, who we've seen before, does a fine job, as do his cast-mates.  But the ending, which seems to imply that the wooden and the living have switched places, is so ambiguous and untelegraphed that it is either a brilliantly subtle twist, or the sign of a writer who doesn't know how to end the story.  I give it three stars; you might award more or fewer depending on if you get it better than I do.

***

And now for a look from the younger perspective… The Young Traveler:


by Lorelei Marcus

I can't believe it.  We're almost done with Season 3 of Twilight Zone! Only four more episodes to go. Still, that's four weeks from now, so I should probably focus on the episodes we've already watched.

Hocus-Pocus and Frisby, by Rod Serling, based on a story by Frederic Louis Fox

This first episode was fairly predictable from the beginning. It stars this old farmer man named Frisbee, who is either the most talented person in the world…or just the most talented liar in the world. He gets captured by aliens who believe that all of his grand tales are true. He finally escapes by playing his harmonica and running home.

Of course his friends don't believe him when he tells them about the aliens. It was the classic “boy who cried wolf” story, and I think its a good example of how Serling is running out of ideas. I did like the main character Frisbee and his old fashioned general store, as well as his tall tales, but that's really all the episode had going for it. I give it 2.5 stars – the story was unoriginal, but the setting and characters were fun.

The Trade-ins, by Rod Serling

Episode 2 was more original, and bitter sweet. It begins with a sweet old couple going to a company to buy new bodies! The process allows one to transplant one's consciousnesses into the body of a young adult in its prime, letting one live the best of life over again. The couple is very excited and dream about all the things they could do together once they're young again. Unfortunately, the procedure is very expensive, and they can only afford it to be done to one of the two of them.

I don't want to say any more, because I do want you to watch the episode yourself. It's not one of the best Twilight Zone episodes ever, but it is very sweet. I was very worried the episode was going to end tragically, but it also created some suspense, figuring out which path the story was going to take. I give this episode 3 stars; sweet and not too drawn out.

The Gift, by Rod Serling

Episode 3 felt very weird to me. It was about an alien(in the form of a white man) who came to a small Mexican town. He was injured and looked at by the town doctor. Along the way he befriends a little Mexican boy. They connect because they both seemed to be outcasts to different degrees. Meanwhile, the town grows increasingly uneasy as one of their officers seemed to have been killed by the strange man/alien. At the climax the man is shot and killed as he tries to give the towns people a gift.  Out of fear the townspeople burn part of the gift, which turns out to be the formula for a cure for cancer.

I don't quite know how to explain why this episode was so weird to me, but I'll try to convey it best I can.The pacing was clunky and off, the story confusing, and the acting… Well, let's just say the child actor they chose to play one of the most crucial characters in the story, couldn't act all. I believe this was Serling's attempt at turning the idea of racism and white supremacy on its head, but it didn't turn out that way at all. Instead we got a, “not all strangers are bad” story. I give it 1.5 stars.

The Dummy, by Rod Serling, based on a story by Lee Polk

Ah the final episode. This one was suitably weird, but also very confusing. It opens with a ventriloquist's act at a nightclub. My first thought was, “Oh I bet the dummy's going to come to life.” Well, I was right, but as my father pointed out, the dummy being alive was not the twist but the problem. The rest of the episode is the man slowly coming to terms with the fact that the dummy is alive. It haunts him and he becomes more and more distressed until he finally accepts that he put so much of himself in the dummy, that it's now alive. The twist at the end, is the dummy and the ventriloquist have switched places.

I found this incredibly confusing. We kept expecting the story to go somewhere, but it never really did. It was just this man's spiral into the Twilight Zone with a confusing ending. I, personally, believe the dummy being alive was actually all in the man's head, and he'd made himself believe that it wasn't.  I would like to know what you think this episode means – we'll attach your ideas to this column. Maybe together we can figure it out. This episode gets 2 stars.

***

Well it was a less than exciting lineup today, but at least there's only four more episodes. Unless it gets renewed for a 4th season, which I'm not so sure it will considering how bad its been. Still, we won't know for a while yet, so I'll see you in 4 weeks!

This is the Young Traveler, signing off.

[Note: It appears that we completely forgot about the…well…forgettable 29th episode of this season.  We'll cover it next time.  Stay tuned!]

[Note Two (5-10-1964): We never did.  That's how unnoteworthy the episode, Four O'Clock was!  In short, Theodore Bikel plays an unpleasant crank who threatens to shrink every human being to two feet tall as punishment for humanity's collective evil.  Instead, as one might predict, he is, himself, shrunk to that diminutive height as the clock strikes four.  This piece, by Rod Serling, is neither surprising nor entertaining.  Two stars at best.]

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Magazine

[May 4, 1962] Cleft in Twain (June 1962 Galaxy, Part 1)

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by Gideon Marcus

A few years ago, Galaxy Science Fiction changed its format, becoming half again as thick but published half as often.  196 pages can be a lot to digest in one sitting, so I used to review the magazine in two articles.  Over time, I simply bit the bullet and crammed all those stories into one piece – it was cleaner for reference.

But not this time.

You see, the June 1962 issue of Galaxy has got one extra-jumbo novella in the back of it, the kind of thing they used to build issues of Satellite Science Fiction around.  So it just makes sense to split things up this time around.

I've said before that Galaxy is a stable magazine – rarely too outstanding, rarely terrible.  Its editor, Fred Pohl, tends to keep the more daring stuff in Galaxy's sister mag, IF, which has gotten pretty interesting lately.  So I enjoyed this month's issue, but not overmuch.  Have a look:

The Deadly Mission of Phineas Snodgrass, by Frederik Pohl

Instead of an editor's essay, Pohl has written a cute vignette on overpopulation without remediation.  Old Man Malthus in a three-page nightmare.  Apparently, good old Phineas didn't think to pack Enovid when he brought perfect health back in time to the Roman Empire.  Anyway, I liked it.  Four stars.

For Love, by Algis Budrys

Budrys strikes a nice balance between satirical and macabre in this post-alien-invasion epic.  The last remnants of Homo Sapiens, driven underground after a tremendous ET tetrahedron crashes into the base of the Rockies, launch a pair of daring attacks against the invaders.  But at what cost to their humanity?  Four stars.

The Lamps of the Angels, by Richard Sabia

I viciously panned Sabia's first work, I was a Teen-Age Superweapon; his latest is an improvement.  A thousand years from now, the human race is on the verge of reaching out for the stars, and one Mexico City-born pilot is selected for the honor of scouting Alpha Centauri.  But if humanity was meant to explore beyond the sun, surely God would have given us hyperdrives at birth.  A bit clunky in that "translated foreign languages way" (and I can be guilty of the same charge), but also compelling.  Three stars.

For Your Information: Names in the Sky, by Willy Ley

Every now and then, Ley returns to his former greatness and gives us a really good article.  This one, on the origins of the names of planets and stars is filled with good information pleasantly dispensed.  Of course, I'm always more kindly disposed towards articles that deal with etymology and/or astronomy… Four stars.

On the Wall of the Lodge, by James Blish and Virginia Blish

The latter portion of the magazine takes a sad turn for the worse.  Lodge is an avante garde piece about (I believe) a fellow whose life takes place in a television show.  It tries too hard and doesn't make a lot of sense.  More significantly, it lost my interest ten pages in.  Thus, I must give it the lowest of scores: one star.

Dawningsburgh, by Wallace West

A cute piece about a callow tourist on Mars, who resents the other callow tourists of Mars, and the attempts to revive departed Martian culture with robots, to make a few bucks for the callow tourist industry.  Three stars.

Origins of Galactic Philosophy, by Edward Wellen

Wellen's Origins series has deteriorated badly.  This latest entry, involving a space entrepreneur and the robot society he finds, is utterly unreadable.  One star.

Dreamworld, by R. A. Lafferty

Last up is a whimsical piece on a literal nightmare world with an telegraphed ending made tolerable by Lafferty's unique touch.  Worth two or three stars, depending on your mood (and on which side of the bed one woke).

***

I'll save The Seed of Earth, by Robert Silverberg, for next time.  Here's hoping it is in keeping with the first third rather than the second third of the magazine.  In the meantime, stay tuned…and try not to get drafted.

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[May 02, 1962] A Good Lie (Letter Column #2)

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[Our penpal is back, this time with a highly topical story…]

Dear Editor:

How nice that you've published my letter, with Barney's picture!  Geez, I shouldn't have sent my picture–just wanted you to know which one I was of all the people I'm sure you talked to.  Anyway, I thought of something I didn't write about in my first letter to you.  (Thanks for sending some back issues of your publication.) I see that you are aware that there is something going on in Indochina that involves the US (March 31, 1961), but now, a year later, yes, it is clear that we as a nation are involved in war, but are just being sort of secretive about it. 

Last summer I participated in my first demonstration.  It was a "lie-in."

I wouldn't have gotten involved, but I heard through my boyfriend Leon that it was happening and he invited me.  He has been keeping me up to date on Indochina, and when I can listen to the radio (public radio) I know that he is right.  The US is this year pouring in "advisers" and maybe even regular troops.  The Christian Science Monitor is keeping tabs on what is going on over there, and it isn't pretty.

So I decided to go demonstrate against sending US troops, with Leon, and we arrived after classes with blankets, his sleeping bag, and warm clothing (even summer nights can be cold here.) There weren't many of us, and I didn't know the others, but everybody was friendly.  There was plenty of room on the Administration lawn, even though it is small, for us all to lie down without getting into anyone else's space.  I was surprised to see that someone had invented a new symbol.  They had painted it on cardboard and it occupied a place on the lawn close to the walkway for passersby, who were vocally invited to join us.


from David McReynolds

It's an anti-war sign that consists of two semaphore signals, one for "N," and one for "D," standing for "Nuclear" and "Disarmament," with a circle around them.  So "nuclear disarmament" is broadened to all weapons and war.  Funny looking sign, but I think you'll see more of it.

I think Leon and I shared his sleeping bag, since the only blanket I had wasn't adequate.  (Of course nothing could happen between us with everybody around us awake for much of the night.  It was too cold, anyway.) In the morning, we were covered with dew.

Thanks for your forum.  Please keep an ear or eye out for this Indochina War stuff.  I'm sure I'm missing something.

Vicki

[The government won't tell how many troops are in South Vietnam since the Geneva Accords that ended the French-Indochinese War restrict the US to 685 troops.  Estimates have the number at 6000, climbing to 9000 by the end of summer.  We are involved in what the papers describe as a "hot war." 

This is bigger than Lebanon, could be as big as Korea before it's over.]

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