Tag Archives: 1967

Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 20, 1967] Fresh Air? (December 1967 Amazing)

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by John Boston

A Fresh Heir

We have been harbinged.  When Harry Harrison, recently departed as editor of SF Impulse and suddenly appeared as book reviewer in this magazine that seemed to have eschewed features entirely, I wondered whether it was an omen of a larger change. 

And here that change is, in big letters at the top of the cover of this December Amazing: “HARRY HARRISON New Editor.” Joseph Ross is gone from the masthead and his departure is unheralded elsewhere in the magazine, though Harrison is quite gracious to him in his book review of Ross’s anthology The Best of Amazing.


by Johnny Bruck

Otherwise, the kudos are reserved for the recently-deceased Hugo Gernsback.  Harrison’s editorial is a tribute to him, and Science Fiction That Endures, Gernsback’s own guest editorial from the April 1961 anniversary issue, is reprinted.  Gernsback says among other things that enduring SF stories are those that “have as their wonder ingredient true or prophetic science,” and notes that Jules Verne and H.G. Wells wrote most of their notable SF early in their careers, later succumbing to “science fiction fatigue—the creative science distillate of the mind had been exhausted.” That sounds scientific!

But does this change in masthead mean any actual material change in this too frequently lackluster magazine?

The most visible difference is that the cover and title page have suddenly become more crowded.  Nine items are touted on the cover, five of them touted as “NEW” and others as “SPECIAL” or even “XTRA SPECIAL.” There’s so much puffery going on that the cover illustration, by Johnny Bruck from the German Perry Rhodan periodical, is confined to the bottom third of the cover, though little harm is done, since it’s quite horizontal in orientation, depicting a spaceship traveling very low and being pursued by flying snakes.  Beat that, Frank R. Paul! 

Other aspects of the magazine’s presentation represent both continuity and change.  The proofreading is still terrible; look no farther than the misspelling “Lester del Ray” on the title page of his story.  And curiously, part of the magazine—pages 90 through 125—is in a different, smaller typeface than the rest, though this increase in wordage is not touted on the cover or elsewhere.

As to the contents, the balance is shifted only a little.  Two short stories and the serial installment are original, one story is probably reprinted but this is its first appearance in English, and four short stories are reprinted from earlier issues of Amazing and Fantastic.  And of course we don’t know whether Harrison actually had much of a hand in selecting what went into this first issue of his incumbency.  But the question of reprints versus new material seems to be a continuing sore point.  Note the column on the left side of the cover—five iterations of "NEW"—which musters everything in the magazine that's not a reprint, including the book review column.

So, too early to tell, but promising—it almost has to be, given Amazing’s doldrums of mediocrity to date under Sol Cohen.  As Bob Dylan, the alleged troubadour of my generation, put it:

I wish I was on some Australian mountain range.
I wish I was on some Australian mountain range.
I got no reason to be there, but I imagine it would be some kind of change. 

Santaroga Barrier (Part 2 of 3), by Frank Herbert


by Gray Morrow

First, to the non-reprinted fiction.  The longest piece of fiction here is the second installment of Frank Herbert’s serial Santaroga Barrier, in which the suggestively named Gilbert Dasein tries to unlock the secret of the reclusive town of Santaroga, which seems to involve a psychoactive substance called Jaspers that the locals all consume.  As usual I’ll hold my comments until the story is complete.

The Forest of Zil, by Kris Neville


by Jeff Jones

Kris Neville, who contributed prolifically to the SF magazines during the early 1950s but slowed down considerably thereafter, opens the issue with The Forest of Zil, a cryptic story of space explorers who land on a planet entirely covered in forest and begin to make plans to clear trees to make space for human activities.  The forest begs leave to differ, and its response can be read either as an epic in brief of raising the ante exponentially, like A.E. van Vogt but not as noisy, or as a weary parody of the entire conceptual armamentarium of SF.  Or maybe something else!  How many faces can you find lurking in the coffee shop placemat?  Four stars for this subtly memorable piece.

The Million Year Patent, by Charles L. Harness


by Jeff Jones

Charles L. Harness, a patent lawyer by day, is present with The Million Year Patent, in which the technicalities of patent law collide with those of relativity, not very interestingly to this lay person.  Two stars.

An Unusual Case, by Gennadiy Gor

The “Sensational Story from behind the Iron Curtain” per the cover is Gennadiy Gor’s An Unusual Case, translated from Russian by one Stanley Frye.  Gor, born to a family exiled to Siberia by the Tsar, was apparently part of the avant-garde in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, but survived to write popular science texts as well, and to start writing SF in 1961.  There’s no indication where this story was previously published, if at all.  It’s a first-person account by the creator of an artificial intelligence (apparently at least humanoid; a hand is mentioned) of his rearing of this pseudo-child, which is cut short when representatives of the corporation that financed the project come to take it away, as it protests piteously.  It’s short and poignant, though blunted a bit by not making much sense; the ingenue develops detailed memories of human life that its creator didn’t put there.  Three stars, and I hope we see more of Gor’s work here (or anywhere).

The Smile, by Ray Bradbury


by L. Sterne Stevens

The ”Ray Bradbury Masterpiece” touted on the cover is The Smile, from the Summer 1952 Fantastic, set in what seems like an American town after a nuclear war has mostly destroyed civilization and left everyone who survived destitute.  People of course respond in the only logical way—by destroying or defiling any available relics of the former civilization.  A while back it was smashing an old car with sledgehammers; today everyone is lining up to spit on a fragment of a famous painting (clue: the title).  But young Tom just can’t get with the program.  It’s a bit overdone, but Bradbury’s overdone is better than many writers’ perfectly-baked.  Or something like that.  Three stars.

Stacked Deck, by Lester del Rey

Our Journeyer-in-Chief recently had occasion to mention “the sort of inferior stuff that filled the lesser mags of the ’50s.” Here’s the real article, Lester del Rey’s Stacked Deck from the November 1952 Amazing.  Del Rey is one of SF’s hardy journeyman professionals, in the game since 1937 as writer, first for John Campbell’s Astounding and Unknown, then for everyone in sight during the 1950s’ efflorescence of SF magazines.  In the ‘50s he edited magazines and anthologies and wrote novels as well as stories, including a prodigious ten of them under various pseudonyms for the Winston series of juvenile SF.  Occasionally he excelled, and his work almost always maintained a basic level of competence.

Almost always.  Sometimes a working writer just has to crank it out, inspiration or no, as in this excruciatingly contrived piece.  Before it opens, a man flew to the moon, without enough fuel to get back, expecting to be rescued in time by a later expedition.  (This already makes no sense.) But that rocketeer, inexplicably, showed up again on Earth, talking about entities he encountered on the moon but claiming scrambled memory.  So a better-equipped expedition sets out, only to discover that the Russians are neck and neck with them.  All this is told in an annoyingly jaunty, I’m-just-a-regular-guy first person style, as in the opening sentence: “The bright boys with their pep talks about space and the lack of gravity should try it once!”


by Ed Emshwiller

Upon landing, our heroes find a building with an airlock, and inside, a nice lounge with red leather chairs, a cigarette machine, and plenty of alcohol and food, along with a machine shop and a lot of electronic gear, with signs and manuals in English and Russian—and a vault full of missiles, ready to be armed with warheads.  They surmise the Russians are finding something similar.

So what gives?  All along there have been passing references to gambling, such as the protagonist’s having bought a sweepstakes ticket, and racing magazines lying around, some inside the mysterious building.  Our hero picks up one of the latter and finds a note in it written by the aliens who set up the building, explaining that they are all betting on whether the Earthfolk will blow themselves up in short order, or avoid extermination and come calling on the aliens a bit later.  Narrator ruminates: “I don’t like being the booby prize in a cosmic lottery.  And that’s all the human race is now, I guess.”

And that arid gimmick is the story, with no other redeeming feature.  Del Rey must have been short on the rent that month.  One star. 

Luvver, by Mack Reynolds

Speaking of gimmicks, arid ones that is, Mack Reynolds’s Luvver (Fantastic Adventures, June 1950) is about as contrived as Stacked Deck.  Old Donald Macbride and his flirtatious daughter Patricia are having spaceship problems and make an emergency landing on a handy planet despite the “RESTRICTED ZONE.  LANDING FORBIDDEN” warning that comes over the radio. The local garrison, consisting of Steve and Dave, hustles them off their ship—blindfolded—and into their quarters, warning them not to look around, not to go outside, not to open the windows, without explaining why. 

But Patricia, of course, goes outside, and before Steve can drag her in, she sees a little animal–a luvver.  He knocks her out and the guys shoot her up with “the lethe drug,” since wiping her memory is her only hope.  Steve explains to the old man that all animals have means of defense—speed, size, venom, scent, etc.  The luvvers’ defense is eliciting undying love—“a stronger force than the most vicious narcotic”—in anyone or anything that sees them.  If Patricia retains her memories, she will “die of melancholy” if kept away from them, and if they escaped their world, pandemonium would ensue.

The gimmick is slightly less inane than del Rey’s, and Reynolds writes in a style more facile and natural than del Rey’s artificial and irritating voice, so two stars, barely.

Sub-Satellite, by Charles Cloukey

The gem of the issue, remarkably, is Charles L. Cloukey’s Sub-Satellite, from the March 1928 Amazing.  It recounts a great inventor’s construction of a spaceship and his voyage to the Moon in it, and the attempt on his life there by a disgruntled and demented former employee who has stowed away.  It is well told in an agreeable, slightly stilted but very plain style with a good balance of narration and exposition, reminding me of (my old memories of) Jules Verne.  It too ends with a gimmick—one that has been used in later decades by better-known writers—but there’s much more of a story here than in del Rey’s or Reynolds’s efforts, so it doesn’t detract from the whole.  Four stars.

So who’s this Cloukey?  Never heard of him, though I’m familiar with most of Gernsback’s repeat contributors.  Turns out he died in 1931, at age 19, of typhoid fever, after publishing eight stories, a poem, and a serial novel in Gernsback’s magazines.  Sub-Satellite was his first story, and he was not quite 16 when it was published.  Forget G. Peyton Wertenbaker, whose The Man from the Atom, done when he was 16, was pretty terrible—Cloukey is the real prodigy of the Gernsback years.  Too bad he didn’t last.

Summing Up

So, not a bad issue, with a couple of four-star stories, and some evidence (mainly the cover and table of contents) that the new regime at least wants to make the magazine look a bit livelier.  Whether a sustained improvement is in process of course remains to be seen.




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 18, 1967] Escape Velocity (November Galactoscope)

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Books seem to be published faster than ever these days, and many are worth a gander. Please enjoy this triple-whammy featuring SEVEN sciencefictional titles…plus a surprise guest at the end!


by Gideon Marcus

Nightwalk, by Bob Shaw

Shaw recently made a big impact with his Hugo-nominated short story, Light of Other Days, and I've enjoyed everything he's come out with. So it was with great delight that I saw that he'd come out with a full length novel called Nightwalk.

I went in completely blind, and as a result, enjoyed the twists and turns the story took far more than if I'd known what was coming. Thus, I give you fair warning. Avoid the following few paragraphs if you wish to go into the book completely unaware.


by Frank Frazetta

Sam Tallon is an agent of Earth based on the former colony and now staunch adversary world, Emm Luther. In-between are 80,000 portals through null-space. Would that there could be but one, but hyperspace jumping is a blind affair, and the direct route between portals is impossible to compute. Only trial and error has mapped 80,000 matched pairs whose winding, untrackable route bridges the two worlds. Luckily, transfer is virtually instantaneous.

Literally inside Tallon's head is the meandering route to a brand new world. Given the dearth of inhabitable planets, both overcrowded Luther and teeming Earth want this knowledge. Before Tallon can escape with it, he is captured by the Lutheran secret police, tortured most vividly and unpleasantly, and sent for a life sentence to be spent at the Lutheran version of Devil's Island, the Pavillion.

Oh yes–in an escape attempt, the sadistic interrogator whom Tallon fails to kill on his way out zaps his eyes and leaves him quite blind.

Tallon is not overly upset by this development. At this point. he is quite content to spend the rest of his life in dark but not unpleasant captivity…except the wounded interrogator is coming for a visit, and Tallon knows he won't survive the encounter. Luckily, he and a fellow prisoner have managed to create a set of glasses tied into the optic nerve and tuned to nearby glial cells. They will not restore a man's sight…but they will allow him to tune in to the vision of any animal about him. With this newfound advantage, Tallon must make the thousand mile trek back to the spaceport, and then traverse the 80,000 portals to Earth.

Alright–you can read again. Nightwalk is 160 pages long. 60 of the pages, the first 30 and the last 30, are brilliant, nuanced, full of twists and turns, and genuinely exciting. The 100 pages inbetween comprise a well-written but forgettable thriller. I will not go so far as to agree with Buck Coulson, who wrote in the latest Yandro: "pulp standard; described by Damon Knight as "putting his hero in approximately the position of a seventy-year-old paralytic in a plaster cast who is required to do battle with a saber-tooth tiger and there being no place to go from there, kept him in the same predicament throughout the story, only adding an extra fang from time to time." But the assessment is not completely inapt.

Nevertheless, the book kept me reading, and if you can keep momentum through the middle, the whole is worthwhile.

3.5 stars.

ACE double H-34

Another month, another "ACE double". They seem to increasingly becoming my province these days, or perhaps I'm becoming the resident Tubb novel reviewer. Either way, I'm thoroughly amenable to the relationship!

Computer War, by Mack Reynolds


Cover by Hoot von Zitzewitz

I originally covered this novel when it appeared in the pages of Analog. Long story short: it's a history lesson disguised as an SF story–Reynolds doesn't even bother to color his nations, which retain their stock names of Alphaland and Betastan, as if this were an Avalon Hill wargame or something.

Not one of his better efforts, and it doesn't even have the benefit of Freas' nice art. A low three stars.

Death is a Dream, by E.C. Tubb


Cover by Rob Howard

Three centuries from now, England is still recovering from "the Debacle", an atomic paroxysm that all but destroyed the world in the 1980s. Society has calcified into an oligarchic, capitalist nightmare, with a few rich entities ultimately controlling everything: the loan sharks, the power generators, and the hypnotists. In many ways, it is the last group that is the most powerful, for a generation after the Debacle, they fostered a pervasive belief in reincarnation. With their guidance (or perhaps suggestion), all (save the rare odd "cripple") persons can Breakthrough to their past lives). So universal is this belief in multiple lives that many have become "retrophiles", living out their lives in the guise of a former existence, even to living in towns constructed along archaic lines.

Into this world are thrust three bonafide time travelers, put in stasis in the 1970s to await a cure for their radiation-caused illnesses. Not only are they exiles in an age not theirs, but they have also amassed a tremendous debt in their centuries asleep. Brad Stevens, an atomic physicist born in 1927, is determined to free himself and his 20th Century comrades from the fetters of financial obligation. Thus ensues a rip-roaring trip through an anti-utopian Britain, filled with narrow escapes, exotic scenery, and a few interesting, philosophical observations.

Tubb has already impressed me this year with his vivid The Winds of Gath, and he does so again with this adventure. Indeed, Tubb is such the master of the serial cliff-hanger that I found myself quite unable to put the book down, reading it in two marathon sessions. Of particular note are his observations on faith, on the seductiveness of nostalgia, and on the pernicious nature of laissez-faire capitalism, which inevitably degenerates into anything but a free market.

What keeps this story from a fifth star is precisely what garners it a fourth: it is quick, excellent reading, but it doesn't pause long enough to fully explore all of its intriguing points. Thus, it remains like Ted White's Jewels of Elsewhen–beautifully turned, but somewhat disposable.

Still, I'm not sorry I read it, and neither will you be. Four stars.


by Victoria Silverwolf

From the L File

Two new science fiction novels with titles that begin with the twelfth letter of the alphabet fell into my hands recently. Other than that trivial coincidence, they could hardly be more different. Let's look lingeringly, lest literature lie listlessly languid.

Lords of the Starship, by Mark S. Geston


Cover art by John Schoenherr

The first thing you'll notice when you open the book is a map. With that, and the title, I wonder if the author and/or the publisher is alluding to J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings, which has recently become quite popular here in the USA. That series has a map too.


Map by Jack Gaughan

Given the size of a paperback, it's darn hard to see everything on the map, which has a lot of detail. Fortunately, it's not really necessary. I'll point out a few landmarks as we go along.

A Public Works Project

We start in the middle of the map. At first, you might think the novel takes place in the past, with horse-drawn vehicles and such. We soon find out that it's thousands of years in the future. Our own technological society is nearly mythical, lost in the mists of time. There are bits and pieces of it here and there, left in ruins.

It seems that humanity lost its spirit long ago. Civilization has stagnated. A military officer has a plan to deal with that, and he explains it to a government official.

Take a look at the extreme southwest corner of the map, right next to the compass. That's a place where gigantic remnants of the glory days of yesteryear lie wasting away. The officer's scheme is to build a huge starship from what's left and carry its passengers to a new, better world.

If that sounds crazy to you, you're on the right track. There is no real intent to complete the project. Instead, it's just a trick to get the population excited about something, and working together for centuries. Think pyramids and cathedrals.

The first step is to launch a series of bloody wars, so the folks in the middle of the map can make their way to the coast, conquering and slaughtering along the way. Make no mistake; there are a lot of gruesome battle scenes in this book.

Many years later, society is divided into a small number of elites, who know the truth about the phony starship, and the ordinary people, who do not. The latter come to almost worship it. Under the leadership of a charismatic figure, they revolt against their rulers.

We're still not done with bloodshed. Without going into details, suffice to say that the naval fleets of the islands off the eastern coast (look at the map) get involved. This leads to a conflict that makes everything else that happens in the book look like minor skirmishes. Then we get a wild twist ending that really pulls the rug out from under you, making you rethink everything you thought you knew about what's going on.

This is a strange book. There are no real protagonists. The plot takes place over a couple of centuries or so, and characters come and go very quickly. This accelerates in the latter part of the novel. Some chapters consist of only one sentence, and read like excerpts from a history book. (The author is a history major, still in college.)

It's also a dark and cynical book. From the deception that starts the story to the completely unexpected revelation that ends it, it's full of sinister plots, secretive government agencies, and human lives sacrificed for the schemes of others.

A sense of despair and resignation to fate fills the novel. The commander of the naval fleet I mentioned above knows that building up his ships for the upcoming war will take eighty years, and also knows that wholesale destruction will be the outcome of the conflict, but accepts the situation as inevitable.

It's an intriguing work, but one that's very hard to love.

Three stars

Logan's Run, by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson


Cover art by Mercer Mayer

There's no map in this book, but it does have what must be the world's longest dedication. See for yourself.


I don't recognize everything on that massive list — The Ears of Johnny Bear? — but I am familiar with much of it. What do those things have in common? Unless I am mistaken, none of them are very recent. Keep that in mind.

Next we get the book's basic premise.

I get the message. It's that darn Youth Culture everybody is talking about. I suppose that's because a lot of post-World War Two babies are in their teens and early twenties now. Mods, hippies, bikers, protestors; they're all young folks, aren't they? The two authors of this novel don't seem too happy about the situation.

Don't Trust Anyone Over Twenty-One

(Apologies to political activist Jack Weinberg for stealing and distorting his famous quote. The original number was thirty.)

Something like a century and a half from now, people are only allowed to live to the age of twenty-one. We get an explanation late in the book as to how this happened, but never mind about that. Most folks go along with this, but some try to escape. These rebels are called — you guessed it — Runners.

There's a special police force that kills Runners. They're known as Sandmen. Our hero, Logan 3, is a Sandman near the end of his assigned lifetime. He gets a gizmo from a dying Runner that is supposed to lead the person who holds it to the fabled refuge known as Sanctuary. Determined to find and destroy the place, he pretends to be a Runner himself. The dead man's sister, Jessica 6, is also a Runner. You won't be surprised to find out she's the love interest, too.

Most of the book consists of the pair's wild adventures all over the world as they try to find Sanctuary. Feral children in a decaying part of a city; an inescapable prison at the North Pole; rebellious young folks who ride around on what seem to be flying motorcycles; robots recreating a Civil War battle; and much, much more. The plot moves at an insane pace, and you probably won't believe a minute of it.

Meanwhile, a Sandman named Francis 7 tracks down the two. He's kind of like Inspector Javert from Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables or Lieutenant Gerard from the TV series The Fugitive. Cold-blooded and relentless, he never gives up. He's also got a secret of his own, leading to a surprise ending.

I get the feeling that the co-authors threw wild twists and turns at each other, shouting Top This! as they tossed pages of the manuscript back and forth at each other. It's a wild ride indeed. As I've indicated, it's got a lot of implausible aspects. The one that really stood out for me was when Logan and Jessica instantly — and I mean instantly — fall in love when they pose nude for a ice sculpture carved by a half-man/half-robot. (Long story.)

If you like lightning-paced action/adventure novels with a touch of satire, you'll get some fun out of this one. Just don't expect serious speculation about where the younger generation is taking us older folks.

Three stars.


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Not Quite What We Were Tolkien About!

Whilst it has been delayed by the legal shenanigans around the paperback edition of The Lord of The Rings, we are going to be getting the next installment in Tolkien’s Middle Earth series, The Silmarillion, very soon. Cylde S. Kilby was helping Professor Tolkien over the summer and gives some details in a recent edition of The Tolkien Journal, including that this is going to borrow a lot from Norse Myths around the creation of Midgard. Sounds like an epic and complex work for sure.

However, in the meantime, we have a new tale from him, not related to Middle Earth. In some ways, it is a more traditional fairy story, but with many fascinating elements that make it well worth your while.

Smith of Wootton Major by J. R. R. Tolkien

Cover of Smith of Wootton Major
Note the lack of definitive article in the title

Every twenty-four years, in the village of Wootton Major, there is held the feast of Twenty-Four where a great cake is made by the Master Cook and shared with Twenty-Four children. The current Master is not particularly skilled in his job and often relies on his apprentice. However, he ignores it when the apprentice tells him not to add the Faery Star to the cake, which ends being eaten by young Smith.

On Smith’s tenth birthday, the star begins to glow on his forehead, and he has many adventures, including into Faery itself.

Pauline Byrnes Illustration of the Children's Feast and the Great fairy cake
One of Pauline Baynes many beautiful illustrations in the book

As you can probably tell, Smith of Wootton Major is not an epic quest narrative filled with battles and doom (as you may expect if you have only read The Lord of The Rings). Instead, this is a more charming and quiet work of his, resembling more closely Leaf by Niggle or The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

I don’t want you to get the impression from this it is boring or frivolous. If the Middle Earth novels are like your eighth Birthday Party with all your best friends, this is like snuggling up by a roaring fire with a mug of cocoa and a wonderful book. Different but can be equally enjoyable.

As anyone at all familiar with him will tell you, Tolkien is an absolute master of language and can use it multiple ways to create whatever effect is needed. Here he creates an effortless amiability about the whole thing, introducing wit and joy without seeming forced or conceited. The story is just a marvelous experience.

Cover of The Golden Key by George MacDonald

Apparently, this story came from another project, specifically as an introduction for a new version of George MacDonald’s The Golden Key. He wanted to explain about Faery using this as a kind of metaphor; however, this ended up being expanded into a story in its own right, one I am very glad to have.

A strong Four Stars


by Olav Rockne

The Starlight Barking

It seems odd that Dodie Smith’s latest novel The Starlight Barking has flown under the radar.

It is written by a great novelist who is beloved by mainstream literary publications, and whose play Dear Octopus is currently a hit in the West End. It has been praised by luminaries such as Christopher Isherwood. Moreover, it is the sequel to a beloved children’s classic, the movie version of which was the first movie ever to earn more than $100 million in the cinemas.

And yet, it is also a very odd illustrated novel. Though I find much to recommend in the work, I can understand why it seems not to have grabbed the public imagination as much as the work to which it is a sequel, The Hundred and One Dalmatians.

Picking up shortly after the first book, The Starlight Barking finds the protagonist Dalmatians Pongo and Missis living in Suffolk. One night, all living beings other than dogs fall into a deep magical sleep. The dogs also discover that they can fly, communicate across long distances, and operate machines.

Each dog takes on the jobs of their owners. Having been adopted by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Cadpig (the runt of the litter from the first book) is therefore now in charge of the country. She summons her family to London to help.

A subsequent scene in which the United Kingdom Cabinet goes to the dogs is a highlight of the book. Followers of British politics will note the well-drawn satire of Secretary of State George Brown depicted as a clumsy but cosmopolitan Boxer, and Minister of Transport Barbara Castle depicted as fussy and officious poodle. (Is the refusal of James Callaghan to devalue the Pound the reason that his dog is shown as being less mathematically inclined than the other dogs?)

Back in Suffolk, Cruella de Vil’s Persian cat — who helped the dogs escape in the first novel — turns out to be unaffected by the sleeping illness as she was named an “honourary dog.” The cat suggests that Cruella must be behind the plague of sleep, and therefore must be killed. But when the dogs find Cruella, she is asleep like the rest of humanity. So they spare her.

An alien, Dog Star Sirius, appears at the top of Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square. He admits that he is behind the sleep, and that he has come to Earth to save dogs from an impending cataclysmic nuclear war.

Sirius invites all dogs everywhere to join him in the sky, and gives them a day to decide. Pongo is given the final choice. I won’t spoil the ending, but let me be completely up-front here: it doesn’t get less weird.

This is a flawed and chaotic short novel. But it is that chaos of a childhood flight of fancy; unbounded by expectation, and brimming with whimsy. Dodie Smith’s writing alternates between compelling action writing, and something poetic and magical. Her evident affection for dogs in general leads her to make them very lovable characters.

Given that the only animated movie that Disney has released since 101 Dalmatians was a critical and commercial flop (The Sword In The Stone earned just $20M), they may try to film this sequel. If and when they decide to do so, I hope they have the ambition and the audacity to stay true to this novel.

I would wager that if there were a Hugo Award category to celebrate works geared for younger readers, The Starlight Barking would be a strong contender for that shortlist.



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TV

[November 16, 1967] Star Trek: "Metamorphosis"

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by Lorelei Marcus

What Ever Happened to Commissioner Nancy?

The tomfoolery of "I, Mudd" was a delight, but I'm personally more of a fan of the serious episodes that delve deeply into the drama and science. The preview for this week's episode presented a new planet, mystery, and even new characters–how exciting!

"Metamorphosis" begins with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on a Galileo shuttle craft, escorting a civilian woman back to the Enterprise. The woman is Nancy Hedford, Commissioner for the Federation, who was acting as a diplomat to prevent war between two colonies before she was pulled from her task after contracting a rare but deadly disease. She must be treated within the next twenty-four hours or she'll die.


Commissioner Hedford, after her promotion from the city council of Mayberry

I'm always pleased to see new competent female characters on Star Trek, and here's one that isn't set up to be a love interest for Kirk. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like her character is going to last long. Almost immediately, the shuttle craft is hit by a strange energy beam and is pulled towards an asteroid with its own atmosphere, almost exactly like that of Earth's. Spock theorizes that the planetoid is a fragment from a larger planet that's been split apart. That still doesn't explain how such a small celestial body could retain its own atmosphere, but perhaps there's some supernatural reason for it that they will explain later.

Hedford understandably begins panicking and orders Kirk to put the craft back on course. It's a fascinating contrast to see her civilian reaction compared to the coolheaded and seasoned Enterprise crew. Unfortunately, despite Kirk's best efforts, the craft is still forced to land on the asteroid, and thanks to a powerful dampening field, cannot take off again.


The Galileo Four

Soon after they land, something – or someone – calls to the party and begins to approach them. It turns out to be a young man in a jumpsuit, reminiscent of the Federation uniform, but clearly older in style. The man is amiable, and he seems relieved to see other people again. He recognizes Spock as a Vulcan, but he takes particular interest in Hedford because she is a "beautiful woman". Hedford, twenty-three hours away from death and stuck on an asteroid in the middle of nowhere, brushes off the advance irritably.


Disdain at first sight

The man takes the party to his home, a building he apparently built with the scraps of his ship which was pulled to this planetoid like the Galileo craft. Except, it's revealed, that his ship crashed 150 years ago and he's actually Zefram Cochrane, the original inventor of warp drive! Cochrane explains that at age 87 he took a ship into space to die, but he was discovered by an alien being which drew him to this asteroid and forced him to live there with it. The alien, which he calls the Companion, restored his youth and stopped him from aging, and he's since built a life here with his newfound immortality. (And he was able to grow crops to sustain himself, despite the asteroid's soil comprising almost entirely nickel and iron, but perhaps the Companion had something to do with that).

Kirk's craft was brought here because Cochrane told the Companion he would die of loneliness without other humans in the hopes of being freed. Instead the Companion brought the humans to him, and now refuses to let them leave. Hedford's fever worsens, and she breaks down hysterically, disgusted by the idea of being trapped and forced to be someone's consort.


I wouldn't be too happy, either.

Forced into action by Hedford's deteriorating condition, Kirk begins to think of a plan. The Companion is intelligent and can communicate with Cochrane fairly fluently. It also appears to be composed of raw electricity, and possesses great healing properties if Cochrane's de-aging is any example. Of course the only way to deal with a one-of-a-kind, sentient, all-powerful creature like that… is to kill it! (What is that speech that Kirk gives in the intro? Something about seeking out and exterminating new life and new civilizations? I can never remember.)

Spock conveniently pulls out his electric impulse scrambler (I can only guess where he keeps it), and their attack on the Companion goes about as well as you might expect. Kirk and Spock almost die and are saved only by Cochrane's intervention. McCoy gently suggests to Kirk that perhaps they could try negotiating with the alien instead of hurting it. Kirk agrees that the negotiation sounds like a good idea, and he orders Spock to adjust their universal translator to work on incorporeal beings.


Yes, maybe talking is the better option.

One cut later, and Spock's magically gotten the translator to work. Kirk explains that the alien's voice from the translator will be interpreted as however the creature perceives itself; what a surprise when the voice that comes out is female. Cochrane is dumbfounded, "how can that be possible?"

Kirk makes the point that male and female are universal concepts that apply to all living creatures, and obviously this creature is just female. (I guess he forgot about his basic biological studies and the numerous asexually reproducing living creatures: single celled organisms, plants, certain lizards, Talosians…)

Anyway, because of the Companion's newly discovered sex, Kirk makes the completely baseless assumption that the creature is romantically in love with Cochrane and that is why it sustains him. Cochrane, despite having the wisdom of two entire lifetimes, and living the better part of that time with this creature, finds the possibility of being loved by an alien absolutely disgusting, and he completely rejects the Companion.

Just then, Hedford cries out, and everyone remembers that she exists. On the verge of death, she makes a moving speech lamenting that though she lived an accomplished life with a successful career, she will never get the chance to love romantically or be loved. How selfish Cochrane is, for receiving such a pure form of love and then rejecting it because of his own biases.


I never had time for love because I stop wars for a living.  What's his excuse?

Kirk tries to negotiate with the Companion one last time, in the hopes that it might possibly free them to save Hedford's life. Except, instead of actually discussing a deal and offering the Companion literally anything, Kirk pulls his Kirk logic on the alien and convinces it that the only way for the Companion's love and Cochrane to coexist is for the Companion to be human. I think it would've been simpler to ask if the Companion could just let McCoy and Hedford go so they could save her life, and then he and Spock would stay behind to keep Cochrane company until the Enterprise could return and sort things out. Just me?


The Garden of Zephrem.

Of course the Companion disappears, and then shortly after a completely healed Hedford appears, restored by the Companion who has now occupied her body. Hedford walks towards Cochrane and explains with the Companion's voice that if not for the alien's intervention, Hedford would have ceased, but now they coexist inside her body and are both there, and are both in love with Cochrane. Cochrane instantly gets over his xenophobia now that his lover has a female body, and they decide to stay on the asteroid and live happily ever after together. Oh yeah, and by possessing Hedford's body, the Companion gave up her immortality and Cochrane's with it, and also she can't leave the asteroid because it's the source of her life force, so they are actually stuck there for the rest of their lives. But now they can spend the next 100 years planting fig trees and having sex, so it all works out.

And what about the intergalactic war that Hedford was supposed to stop? Well, in the words of Captain Kirk, "I'm sure the Federation will find some woman, somewhere to stop it."

This episode was so frustrating because it started with so much promise, and then failed in every regard at the ending. I was intrigued to see how they would handle the psyche of a 200-year-old man, and also the relationship between a human and a non-humanoid alien. The writer and Glenn Corbett's performance did neither of these subjects justice. Shatner's performance was particularly stilted, to the point where I had trouble following what he was saying at many points. The pacing started off sharp, but began to meander as the characters made stupider and stupider decisions, and the focus jumped to fun but unnecessary scenes on the Enterprise. But what bothers me most of all is the tragedy of Hedford's character framed as a happy ending.


Not necessarily a happy ending.

The companion speaks for Hedford at the end, and while it claims that both of them are there in consciousness, there is no evidence to justify it. All of Hedford's personality, her tenacity, her drive to complete her duty, and her anxiousness to return to her very pressing work, are gone after she is possessed. Presumably, she really did die on that asteroid, and all that remains are her body and her memories, which the companion takes advantage of to its own end. Or perhaps more horrifyingly, Hedford is still there, but so overpowered by the Companion that she is imprisoned in her own body, doomed to be the slave of this alien and its lover.

I can only hope that this type of story is a fluke, and will not become a standard for Star Trek.

Two stars.


by Joe Reid

Who’s Fooling Who?

It is often the case that at the end of an episode you are left with all of the answers to the questions that were posed in the show and a reasonable conclusion to the adventure of the week.  The intelligent heroes are drawn to a place.  In that place they discover a mystery.  They use the powers and abilities at their disposal to solve that mystery and are rewarded.  The rewards are treasure, or freedom, or their own safety, or that of the ship.  It’s been a reliable formula that I’ve never had reason to doubt, until this week’s episode.

We never doubt what we have seen, because Kirk and Spock directly tell us exactly what is or has happened.  In “Mirror, Mirror”, Kirk told us that the crew has traveled to a parallel universe.  In “The Changeling”, Spock told us the origins of the space robot named Nomad.  “The Doomsday Machine” had Kirk telling us that the giant space funnel was an ancient planet killing weapon that got out of control and destroyed its creators.  How in space did he know that?  More importantly, what if Kirk was wrong in some of his musings?

We ascribe superior intelligence to characters in sci-fi: they are smarter than us, and smarter than whatever baddy they face.  What if this time, instead of our heroes understanding, and outsmarting the baddy, it was the creature who outsmarted the members of the crew?


One smart lady.

“Metamorphosis” featured a powerful entity.  “The Companion” finds an 87-year-old man, Zefram Cochrane, who may or may not have been dead when she found him.  She rejuvenates him to the prime of youthful manhood, feeds him, and keeps him from going insane for 150 years.  She communicates with him in a physical way, enmeshing herself among his very cells.  She must have been pretty advanced to do that.

When the Companion discovered that “the man”, Cochrane, needed female companionship, she reached millions of miles into space and located a vessel containing a dying human woman which would provide the means for her to personally meet the needs of the man.  She grabbed the moving shuttle craft, and by power of force drew it several millions of miles to be stranded on her little asteroid.  If that wasn’t powerful enough, when the Enterprise started to search for the lost shuttle, they discovered a trail from the shuttle to follow.  The Companion, millions of miles away, made the trail vanish.  This creature possessed the ability to manipulate living and inanimate matter on a cellular level from a vast distance. 

As our heroes attempted to communicate with the companion, we thought we were shown a creature that demonstrated the intelligence of a child in her understanding of humans.  A creature that they had to guide to an understanding of humanity using their superior intellect.  What we really saw was a creature so smart that it guided the heroes down a path where they felt accomplished, but it met its own agenda.  All without threatening the Enterprise or killing anyone.

In the end the Companion was able to convince a 230 year old man to love her, everyone else that she was not a threat, and she convinced a dying, love-starved woman to allow her to possess her body.  This episode posed a challenge to the assumption that we understand the story as it is portrayed on the screen.  “Metamorphosis” gave me the satisfaction of doubt at the conclusion.  I liked it.

Four stars.

Boring Sex(es)


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

As I watched "Metamorphosis," I found myself thinking of fig wasps. In my evenings and weekends, I run a small community garden on a church campus; a volunteer fig tree grows long and tall between the fence and the tool shed. When Mr. Cochrane mentioned wanting to plant a fig tree, I figured he was referencing this line:

"But they shall sit every man under
his vine and under his fig-tree;
And none shall make them afraid;"
(Micah 4:4, Tanakh, New Jewish Publication Society of America; a similar quote can be found in 2 Kings 18:31-32 Christian Bible, Revised Standard Version)

The thing about fig trees is they require pollinators. Trees can't ask other trees on dates – or kidnap them for 150 years to flirt with them in incomprehensible energy being ways – so they rely on wind or other species for reproduction. Many trees are self-fertile, meaning the adventuring pollinator need only traipse from one blossom to the next on the same branch, finding different reproductive parts at every turn in a complex mosaic. A few dioecious trees segregate these roles tree-by-tree, but most are self-fertile and don't break into easy categories like "male" or "female."

In general I find, the more I know about plants and pollinators, the less concepts like "male" and "female" mean anything at all.


"Yes. The matter of gender could change the entire situation."

Take figs, as Mr. Cochrane so clearly wants to. Figs can only be pollinated by a tiny wasp who crawls through their fleshy outsides to get to tiny flowers inside, sometimes ripping its wings off in the exercise because the fit is so tight, and spreading pollen as it goes. You see, the fruity flesh we love to eat on toast or in jams is not actually a fruit, botanically speaking, but mushy flowers. The wasp repeats this journey from flower to flower until, exhausted, it lays its eggs and dies inside the fig, to be consumed by those flowers. One portion of the baby wasps – once they metamorphosize from eggs to adults and mate with their own siblings – will live and die without ever leaving that fruit, spending their entire lives carving tunnels for the other portion to escape and continue the cycle.

I don't know about you, but very little of the above sounds like human sex to me, whether the act or the category.


"The idea of male and female are universal constants."  Really?

Still, human scientists often slap labels like "female" on the wasps that climb into figs and "male" onto those who never leave them. They even do so for other pollinators for whose societies those categories fit even less well, like European honeybees, who have at least three clear reproductive roles, and for whom scientists have weirdly assigned "male" to two of (drones and workers) and "female" to the third (queen). The nature I work with every day is vastly more creative and varied than "male" and "female" – a fact which Jewish scholars know well, as the Talmud references up to eight sexes (zachar, nekevah, androgynos, tumtum, aylonit hamah, aylonit adam, saris hamah, and saris adam).

What about an alien society with three sexes, or eight, or none at all, or one who relies on star-blown space ships for their own reproduction? What if Hedford's death had been framed as part of the life-cycle needs of the energy being and not the pale nothing it was?

Now that is science fiction I would love to watch.

As Lorelei points out, this episode had so much promise. While I don't expect television writers to love the complex realities of Earth's natural world in the way that most gardeners do, I do expect them to do even the most basic of research about the world we all share every day, rather than slapping labels on alien life in ways that limit our imaginations rather than expanding them.

Two stars.

The next episode of Trek is tomorrow! Apparently, we're going to meet Spock's parents…

Come join us!



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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[November 14, 1967] March on the Pentagon, October 21, 1967–and After

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by Victoria Lucas

March on Washington

They're saying there were 100,000 of us. There were a lot of people, but 100,000?!? It just seems like an exaggeration to make the whole thing look more dangerous to the government than it really was.

We were not armed. We were not aggressive–well, at least not until later at the Pentagon.


Flower power

Those were flowers that girl put in the barrels of the rifles with fixed bayonets and that were offered to the soldiers, not some black-powder concoction. And it was a sit-in! People at the Pentagon sat down in front of the fixed bayonets.

But we didn’t get as far as the Pentagon. OK, let me start at the beginning–our beginning, for Mel and me and our new house guest.

If you have seen my articles these past few months you know Mel and I were living in New York City and planning to travel to Europe. Yes, our plans were a bit vague, and we were enjoying our stay in New York, with Mel working full time at a boiler insurance company and me part time for Aspen Magazine (Phyllis Johnson Glick). In our spare time we walked in parks, visited friends, joined demonstrations against The War, and went to concerts. We also occasionally went on automobile trips on the weekends, retrieving our VW van from a rented garage in New Jersey.

One such weekend not long ago, we went to pick up a family member of Mel’s who had been suspended from high school, and he came to live with us until we could decide what to do. I’m not going to mention his name or other circumstances, because I don’t have his permission to write about him. I will only say that he was living in the US at this time only on the condition that he stay in school, and because that was the bottom line we had to figure out how to get him back in school. We came to the reluctant conclusion that, given the drug-related nature of his suspension, the only likely high school we could get him into was in Berkeley.

So when we drove to Washington, DC for the protest, there were 3 of us, we were loaded down with all the belongings we could bring, and we did not return to New York. We parked as close as we could get to the Lincoln Memorial and spent our time at the Reflecting Pool with the crowds there, trying to keep track of one another. We never crossed the bridge to the Pentagon to attempt the “levitation” people have been talking about.

Yes, levitation. A silly idea, I suppose, but then–like our plans for Europe–expectations were pretty vague. From what I’ve read since, only about half the people who, like us, gathered at the Lincoln Memorial followed Abbie Hoffman to the Pentagon, where it is said 3,000 federal troops were waiting for them. Norman Mailer was there and managed to get himself busted. At the Lincoln Reflecting Pool, the rally was comparatively quiet, given what I’ve heard and read about the Pentagon crush.

They say a lot of famous people were there besides Hoffman and Mailer–such as Robert Lowell, Noam Chomsky, Paul Goodman, and Allen Ginsberg (who chanted in Tibetan?) as well as rally speakers Dr. Benjamin Spock and Rev. William Sloane Coffin. Unfortunately, ill-conceived attacks at and foray into the Pentagon by some resulted in bloody confrontations, and the protest did not end as peacefully as it began–or so I hear and have read.

Wagons West

Since we wanted to get to a campground to stay the night, we left early. You see, Mel had to quit his job to leave New York, and so did I. We had only our savings to go on, and we were going to be roughing it for the trip back to the West Coast. We plotted our journey by where we could find campgrounds for each night, and we cooked our food from the sort of large drawer on top of the van that Mel had built on weekends and days off in that New Jersey garage. It was closed in a watertight case on top, but once pulled down at the side of the van there were shelves holding a camp stove, a lantern, canned foods, a couple of pots and pans, etc.–a kitchen and pantry all in one. A table folded out from being a cover to the drawer and held the camp stove and provided a spot to prepare food. Quarters were tight, but campgrounds gave us room to spread out, although it got pretty chilly.

We haven’t accomplished much in Berkeley yet, but we have found an apartment and are sending our family member–-let’s call him Mervyn–-to Berkeley High. (He doesn’t have long before he finishes school.) I found a full-time, daytime nanny job with a Mrs. Kurzweil, who has a sweet little guy, not walking yet, so not a year old. And we are connecting with old friends from the pre-New York days, spending some time in San Francisco.

We are still connected with the protest movement, and I’ve found new concert venues.  Next time–adventures in Berkeley! (I love Tilden Park.)




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Science / Space Race

[November 12, 1967] Still in the Race! (Apollo-4, Surveyor-6, OSO-4 and Cosmos-186-188)

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by Kaye Dee

As I noted in my previous article, October was such a busy month for space activity that I had to hold over several items for this month. But November has already provided us with plenty of space news as well. Even though both American and Soviet manned spaceflight is currently on hold while the investigations into their respective accidents continue, preparations for putting astronauts and cosmonauts on the Moon are ongoing and the Moon race is still on!

“Oh, it’s terrific, the building’s shaking!”

Opening the door to human lunar exploration needs an immensely powerful booster, and the successful launch of Apollo-4 a few days ago on 9 November has demonstrated that NASA has a rocket that is up to the task. Although the Saturn 1B rocket intended to loft Apollo Earth-orbiting missions has already been tested, Apollo-4 (also designated SA-501) marked the first flight of a complete Saturn V lunar launcher.

The sheer power of the massive rocket took everyone by surprise. When Apollo-4 took off from Pad 39A at the John F. Kennedy Space Centre, the sound pressure waves it generated rattled the new Launch Control Centre, three miles from the launch pad, causing dust to fall from the ceiling onto the launch controllers’ consoles. At the nearby Press Centre, ceiling tiles fell from the roof. Reporting live from the site, Walter Cronkite described the experience: “… our building’s shaking here. Our building’s shaking! Oh, it’s terrific, the building’s shaking! This big blast window is shaking! We’re holding it with our hands! Look at that rocket go into the clouds at 3000 feet! … You can see it… you can see it… oh the roar is terrific!”

Firing Room 1 in the Launch Control Centre at Kennedy Space Centre, under construction in early 1966. The Apollo-4 launch was controlled from here

Could it be that the sound of a Saturn V launch is one of the loudest noises, natural or artificial, ever heard by human beings? (Apart, perhaps, from the explosion of an atomic bomb?) I hope I’ll get the opportunity to hear, and see, a Saturn V launch for myself at some point in the future.

The Power for the Glory

Developed by Dr. Wernher von Braun’s team at NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Centre, everything about the Saturn V is impressive. The 363-foot vehicle weighs 3,000-tons and the thrust of its first-stage motors alone is 71 million pounds! No wonder it rattled buildings miles away at liftoff!

The F-1 rocket motor, five of which power the Saturn V’s S1-C first stage, is the most powerful single combustion chamber liquid-propellant rocket engine so far developed (at least as far as we know, since whatever vehicle the USSR is developing for its lunar program could have even more powerful motors).

The launcher consists of three stages. The Boeing-built S1-C first stage, when fully fuelled with RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen, has a total mass of 4,881,000 pounds. Its five F-1 engines are arranged so that the four outer engines are gimballed, enabling them to turn so they can steer the rocket, while the fifth is fixed in position in the centre. Constructed by North American Aviation and weighing 1,060,000 pounds, the S-II second stage has five Rocketdyne-built cryogenic J-2 engines, powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. They are arranged in a similar manner to the first stage engines, and also used for steering. The Saturn V’s S-IVB third stage has been built by the Douglas Aircraft Company and has a single J-2 engine using the same cryogenic fuel as the second stage. Fully fuelled, it weighs approximately 262,000 pounds. Guidance and telemetry systems for the rocket are contained within an instrument unit located on top of the third stage.

Soaring into the Future

This first Saturn V test flight has been tremendously important to the ultimate success of the Apollo programme, marking several necessary first steps: the first launch from Complex 39 at Cape Kennedy, built especially for Apollo; the first flight of the complete Apollo/Saturn V space vehicle; and the first test of Apollo Command Module’s performance re-entering the Earth's atmosphere at a velocity approximating that expected when returning from a lunar mission. In addition, the flight enabled testing of many modifications made to the Command Module in the wake of the January fire. This included the functioning of the thermal seals used in the new quick-release spacecraft hatch design.

 
Up, Up and Away!

Apollo-4 lifted off on schedule at 7am US Eastern time. Just 12 minutes later it successfully placed a Command and Service Module (CSM), weighing a record 278,885 pounds, into orbit 115 miles above the Earth. This is equivalent to the parking orbit that will be used during lunar missions to check out the spacecraft before it embarks for the Moon.

After two orbits, the third stage engine was re-ignited (itself another space first) to simulate the trans-lunar injection burn that will be used to send Apollo missions on their way to the Moon. This sent the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 10,700 miles. Shortly afterwards, the CSM separated from the S-IVB stage and, after passing apogee, the Service Module engine was fired for 281 seconds to increase the re-entry speed to 36,639 feet per second, bringing the CSM into conditions simulating a return from the Moon.


An image of the Earth taken from an automatic camera on the Apollo-4 Command Module

After a successful re-entry, the Command Module splashed down approximately 10 miles from its target landing site in the North Pacific Ocean and was recovered by the aircraft carrier USS Bennington. The mission lasted just eight hours 36 minutes and 54 seconds (four minutes six seconds ahead of schedule!), but it successfully demonstrated all the major components of an Apollo mission, apart from the Lunar Module (which is still in development) that will make the actual landing on the Moon’s surface. In a special message of congratulations to the NASA team, President Johnson said the flight “symbolises the power this nation is harnessing for the peaceful exploration of space”.

Goodbye Lunar Orbiters…

While Apollo’s chariot was readied for its first test flight, NASA has continued its unmanned exploration of the Moon, to ensure a safe landing for the astronauts. In August, Gideon gave us an excellent summary of NASA’s Lunar Orbiter programme, the first three missions of which were designed to study potential Apollo landing sites. Lunar Orbiter-3, launched back in February this year, met its fate last month when the spacecraft was intentionally crashed into the lunar surface on 9 October. Despite the failure of its imaging system in March, Lunar Orbiter-3 was tracked from Earth for several months for lunar geodesy research and communication experiments. On 30 August, commands were sent to the spacecraft to circularise its orbit to 99 miles in order to simulate an Apollo trajectory.

Lunar Orbiter-3 image of the Moon's far side, showing the crater Tsiolkovski

Each Lunar Orbiter mission has been de-orbited so that it will not become a navigation hazard to future manned Apollo spacecraft. Consequently, before its manoeuvring thrusters were depleted, Lunar Orbiter 3 was commanded on 9 October to impact on the Moon, hitting the lunar surface at 14 degrees 36 minutes North latitude and 91 degrees 42 minutes West longitude. Co-incidentally, Lunar Orbiter-4, which failed back in July and could not be controlled, decayed naturally from orbit and impacted on the Moon on 6 October. Lunar Orbiter-5, launched in August, remains in orbit.

…Hello Surveyor 6

A month after the demise of the Lunar Orbiters, NASA’s Surveyor-6 probe has made a much softer landing on the lunar surface, achieving a “spot on” touchdown in the rugged Sinus Medii (Central Bay – it’s in the centre of the Moon's visible hemisphere) on 10 November (Australian time; 9 November in the US). This region is a potential site for the first Apollo landing, but since it appeared to be cratered and rocky, mission planners needed to know if its geological structure (different to the ‘plains’ areas where earlier Surveyor missions have landed) could support the weight of a manned Lunar Module.

Only an hour after landing safely, Surveyor-6 was operational and sent back pictures of a lunar cliff about a mile from its landing point, which has been described as “the most rugged feature we have yet seen on the Moon”. The first panoramas from Surveyor indicate that the landing site is not as rough as anticipated, and seems suitable for an Apollo landing.

Deep Space Network stations in Australia are helping to support the Surveyor-6 mission, as well as Surveyor-5, that landed in the Mare Tranquilitatis (Sea of Tranquillity) in September and is still operational. Hopefully both spacecraft will survive the next lunar night, commencing two weeks from now. NASA plans to send one more Surveyor probe to the Moon, in January, so look out for a review of the completed Surveyor programme early next year.

Watching the Sun for Astronaut Safety

With the Sun moving towards its maximum activity late next year or early in 1969, and likely to still be very active when the Apollo landing missions are occurring (assuming that the programme resumes some time within the next 12 months), NASA has wasted no time in launching another spacecraft in its Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO) series, to help characterise the effects of solar activity in deep space. A NASA spokesman was recently quoted as saying that “A study of solar activity and its effect on Earth, aside from basic scientific interest, is necessary for a greater understanding of the space environment prior to manned flights to the Moon”.

OSO-4 under construction

Launched on 18 October, OSO-4 (also known as OSO-D) is the latest satellite developed under the leadership of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first female executive, who is Chief of Astronomy and Solar Physics. The satellite is equipped to measure the direction and intensity of Ultraviolet, X-ray and Gamma radiation, not just from the Sun, but across the entire celestial sphere.

The OSO-4 spacecraft, like its predecessors, consists of a solar-cell covered “sail” section and a “wheel” section that spins about an axis perpendicular to the pointing direction of the sail. The sail carries a 75 pound payload of two instruments that are kept pointing on the centre of the Sun. The wheel carries a 100 pound payload of seven instruments and rotates once every two seconds. This rotation enables the instruments to scan the solar disc and atmosphere as well as other parts of the galaxy. The satellite’s extended arms give it greater axial stability.

Hopefully, OSO-4 will have a long lifespan, producing data as solar activity increases across the Sun’s cycle, and enhancing safety for the Apollo and Soviet crews who will venture beyond the protection of the van Allen belts on their way to the Moon.

What are the Soviets Up To?

The USSR has been remarkably quiet about its manned lunar programme. One could almost think that they had given up racing Apollo to the Moon, if not for the rumours and hints that constantly swirl around. Rumours abounded at the time of the tragically lost Soyuz-1 mission that it was intended to be a space spectacular, debuting in the Soyuz a new, much larger spacecraft which would participate in multiple rendezvous and docking manoeuvres, and possibly even crew transfers, with one or more other manned spacecraft.

Such a space feat has yet to occur, but the mysterious recent space missions of Cosmos-186 and 188 suggest that the Soviets have something of the sort in mind for the future, and are still quietly working to develop the techniques that they will need for lunar landing missions and/or a space station programme.

It Takes Two to Rendezvous

On 27 October, Cosmos-186 was launched into a low Earth orbit, with a perigee of 129 miles and an apogee of 146 miles and an orbital period of 88.7 minutes. Cosmos-187 was launched the following day, and there has been speculation that it was intended to be part of a rendezvous and docking demonstration with Cosmos-186 but was placed into an incorrect orbit. However, as is so often the case with Cosmos satellites, the Soviet authorities only described their missions as continuing studies of outer space and testing new systems, so the actual purpose of this mission remains a mystery.


A rare Soviet illustration of what is believed to be the Cosmos-186-188 docking

However, Cosmos-186 was joined by a companion on 30 October, when Cosmos-188 was placed into a very similar orbit with a separation of just 15 miles. This clearly demonstrates the precision with which the USSR can insert satellites into orbit. The two spacecraft then proceeded to perform the first fully automated space docking (unlike the manual dockings performed by Gemini missions from Gemini-8 onwards), just an hour after Cosmos-188 was launched. Soviet sources, and some electronic eavesdropping by the now-famous science class at Kettering Grammar School in England, using surprisingly unsophisticated equipment, indicate that Cosmos-186 was the ‘active’ partner in the docking. It used its onboard radar system to locate, approach and dock with the ‘passive’ Cosmos-188.

While the two spacecraft were mechanically docked, it seems that an electrical connection could not be made between them, and no other manoeuvres appear to have been carried out while Cosmos-186 and 188 were joined together. Perhaps there were technical issues surrounding the docking, but an onboard camera on Cosmos-186 did provide live (if rather low quality) television images of the rendezvous docking and separation, and some footage was publicly broadcast.

After three and a half hours docked together, the two satellites separated on command from the ground and continued to operate separately in orbit. Cosmos-186 made a soft-landing return to Earth on 31 October, lending credence to the speculations that it was testing out improvements to the Soyuz parachute system, while Cosmos-188 reportedly soft-landed on 2 November.

Speculating on Soviet Space Plans

Was Cosmos-186 a Soyuz-type vehicle, possibly testing out modifications made to prevent a recurrence of the re-entry parachute tangling that apparently led to the loss of Soyuz-1 and the death of Cosmonaut Komarov? Building on speculations from the time of the Soyuz-1 launch, there have even been suggestions that Cosmos-186, while unmanned, was a spacecraft large enough to hold a crew of five cosmonauts. There is also speculation that Cosmos-188 may have been the prototype of a new propulsion system for orbital operations. Does this mean, then, that the USSR is planning some kind of manned spaceflight feat in orbit to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Communist Revolution? Or that it will soon attempt a circumlunar flight, to reach the Moon ahead of the United States?

Whatever their future plans may be, the automated rendezvous and docking of two unmanned spacecraft in Earth orbit shows that the USSR’s space technology is still advancing rapidly. The joint Cosmos 186-188 mission proves that it is possible to launch small components and assemble them in space to make a larger structure, even without the assistance of astronauts. This means that massive rockets like the Saturn V might not be required to construct space stations in orbit, or even undertake lunar missions, if the project is designed around assembling the lunar spacecraft in Earth orbit. Has the Cosmos 186-188 mission therefore been a hint of what the USSR's Moon programme will look like, in contrast to Apollo? Only time will tell…


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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 10, 1967] Mudd in the computer (Star Trek: "I, Mudd")

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"And Thereby Hangs a Tale"


by Amber Dubin

"I, Mudd" follows the tradition set by three other episodes we've seen so far, in which the crew of the Enterprise has to out-logic a robot ("What are little girls made of," "Return of the Archons," "Changeling"). Even though this episode recycles many of the same themes we've seen in those episodes, it offers enough unique elements to make it my favorite of its kind.

We open on a hallway conversation between the ship's doctor and chief science officer where the ever-cynical medico's instincts lead him to correctly identify an interloper on the ship in the form of the newest crewmember, Lieutenant Norman.


"What did he call me?"

Unfortunately, Spock rebuffs Dr. McCoy's theory (logically) because his reasoning points out Norman's inhuman behaviors, many of which overlap with those of Spock himself. McCoy insists that "the ears make all the difference" but the damage is clearly done as the supposedly unemotional Spock abruptly extricates himself from the conversation with an acerbic retort.


"I mean, you're one of the good ones."

McCoy is immediately vindicated when Norman's next move is to hijack the ship. He single handedly dispatches two security teams, all of engineering including Scotty, rigs the controls to blow if the ship deviates from the course he assigns it, and barges straight onto the bridge to explain the now-captive crew's new situation. Norman presents Captain Kirk a "choice" to either go on a four day voyage to an unknown destination or face the immediate destruction of the Enterprise. Ever cool under pressure, Kirk demands to know the nature of his attacker. Norman responds only by peeling back a panel under his shirt to reveal an android abdomen full of wires.


An android's navel–note that these robots don't use integrated circuits…

Further inquiries over who sent him are met with "I am not programmed to respond in that area" before he immediately shuts himself off. So confident is he in his power play (pun intended) that Norman leaves his unconscious body standing in the middle of the doorway to the bridge. Apparently no one disturbs him for four days as the crew seems startled from their normal activities when Norman abruptly awakes and makes further demands. He acts as if he's giving the crew another choice as he requests a set of personnel to accompany him on the planet they're now orbiting, but again refusal means certain death. At least he said “please” this time.

It soon becomes clear why Norman was reluctant to reveal who sent him, because we next open up to a throne room centered around none other than the illustrious Harcourt Fenton Mudd. Undeterred by Mudd's declaration of newfound sovereignty, Kirk charges at him and commences a delightful volley of banter where Mudd catches the crew up on what he's been up to since they last left him in custody for his transgressions. Surprising no one, Harry's made a mess of every situation he's been involved in and has found himself marooned on this planet of 200,000 androids while fleeing the consequences of his actions. Through much childish bickering on Harry's part, Kirk manages to wrench the truth out of the scoundrel, soon discovering that Mudd is just as much a prisoner of the androids as the Enterprise crew is.


"They won't let me go!"

A strange detail comes into play when the crew is being led away and stumbles upon the shrine to Stella, Mudd's wife. It seems odd that Harry would be so sentimental as to make an exact replica of the nagging shrew he gratefully abandoned galaxies away. It must follow that either the loneliness of being the only human on an android planet compelled Mudd to seek security in the familiar or he is such an adversarial man that the ability to make a version of a nemesis he could program with an off button proved to be an irresistible temptation. The most ironic element of that situation is that Stella may be shrill and harping but with a husband like Harcourt, the audience can't help but be squarely on her side.

Unsurprisingly, the androids reject Mudd the second they have any other humans to compare him to, and devote themselves to providing everything the crew wants so they can better serve humanity. They explain that serving humans gives the androids renewed purpose and protects humans by taking care of their every need to save them from themselves. Elements of the gilded cage they're presented with tempt each of the crew members in turn, but whenever a wish contradicts the terms of their captivity, the crew begins to notice that the androids balk at the paradox by freezing in place, their ID necklaces flashing until the conflict is resolved. It is subsequently discovered that the androids are part of a partial hive-mind directed by Norman and that they defer to him to avoid overloading individual units when logical computation is stalled. Thus ensues a campaign to confuse and overload as many androids by whatever means possible. Fake music, subterfuge, logical fallacies, play acting and flat-out lies become weaponized against the unsuspecting computers; each crewman performs their ridiculous acts admirably, especially Spock, who befuddles several androids all by himself.


"Sorry, ladies.  I'm just too good for you."

The episode reaches a delightful climax as the crew's play-acting for Norman finally causes literal steam to billow out of his ears and he admits humans are too complex to be managed by anyone but other humans. In the even more satisfying conclusion, after reaching a peaceful solution to coexist with the androids, Mudd's punishment is revealed to be exile on the android planet so they can help him rehabilitate his nefarious ways. Mudd initially rejoices in this reward of a punishment, until the crew unveils his personal attendants: 500 copies of Stella, this time without her off switch.

Not one line of the script is superfluous and every crewman is at their most efficient and capable as they execute every plan flawlessly. The script, plot, performances and design of this episode click together as seamlessly as the gears powering a well-constructed android.

I am a self-confessed, dyed-in-the-wool robot-a-phile. It is thus inevitable that I give this episode…

5 stars

The Shrew in the Ointment


by Janice L. Newman

I’ll admit, the preview for this episode had me worried. “Mudd’s Women” had some good elements, but was overall one of the weaker episodes of the first season. Happily, this episode was much better than that first one starring Mudd. There was just one problem that took it down a star for me – a fly in the ointment, if you will.

It was an old, old, joke even when Shakespeare did it: the harridan wife and her ne’er-do-well husband. Despite the fact that the audience knows that Harry Mudd’s perspective is unreliable, and thus his version of his wife may not represent the real woman, upon seeing the cartoonishly-awful “Stella” android we can’t help but be repelled and thus sympathize with the charismatic Mudd. Yet a moment’s thought makes one realize how nonsensical it is in the context of Star Trek. This is the future. Is it really so hard to get a divorce if one is unhappy with one’s spouse? If two people are so miserable together, is it truly necessary for one of them to flee into outer space? And sure, another moment’s thought is all it takes to realize that Mudd likely married his wife to gain some kind of monetary benefit, and that if we were in her place, we might be shrill, too. Still, Stella isn’t particularly funny, and for me, even Mudd’s comeuppance was poisoned by her sour, nagging presence.


If Harry Mudd put you in a closet, you'd make this face, too.

The rest of the episode is great, though; one of the best “break the computer” ones we’ve seen. Four stars.

A little bit of Vaudeville


by Gideon Marcus

Something I love about the stellar anthology show, Star Trek, is how versatile it is.  One week, we're getting political commentary, with ramifications right from the headlines of today (e.g. "A Taste of Armageddon"), another we're getting a Halloween-themed piece ("Catspaw").  An episode might be a rendition of a classic war movie ("Balance of Terror") or a retelling of Hamlet ("Conscience of the King").

"I, Mudd" takes place almost entirely on a spartan subterranean set, and largely features entertaining characters conversing with each other.  It's like an extended Hollywood Palace sketch.  It really shouldn't work, but it does.

From Kirk's masterful exchanges with Mudd (with Kirk displaying just the right mix of exasperation, anger, and amusement) to Chekov's lively Cossack dances, to the halting…yet endearing…cadence of…the androids, to Uhura's silky mock betrayal (she really is getting a chance to shine this season!), to the grand finale filled with pantomimed absurdity–it's a stage-bound pageant of comedy.  Interestingly, the avante garde Marc Daniels was tapped to direct rather than the more stagey Joe Pevney.  You see his surrealistic influences particularly during the dance scenes.


No caption required.

That the story is actually pretty good is a bonus.  If the show doesn't quite reach five star status for me, it's because while I enjoyed the show thoroughly, it was a bit too frivolous to feel like "real" Star Trek–essentially the same complaint I had about "Catspaw", but with an execution that makes me all but forgive the lapse.

Four stars.

Tonight's episode seems like it will be more of a serious affair.  At least we'll find out what happened to Glenn Corbett after he left Route 66…

Here's the invitation! Come join us.

Also, copies of The Tricorder are still available — drop us a line for details!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 8, 1967] Four to go (December 1967 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

The New Frontier

Tomorrow, history will be made: the first Saturn V, largest rocket in the history of the world, will take off.  If successful, Project Apollo's launch vehicle will be "man-rated", and one hurdle between humanity and the moon will have been cleared.

Of course, we'll have full coverage of the event after it happens, but this sneak preview makes a dandy segue.  For today's article is on a literary type of explorer: Galaxy magazine.  Unlike Apollo, Galaxy, which started in 1950, is a tried, tested, and even somewhat tired entity.  Back in 1959, Galaxy moved to a larger, but bimonthly, format.  This has not been an entirely successful endeavor, and in few issues are the problems more glaring than in this one.  For if an editor needs to fill up 196 pages every other month (not to mention the 164 pages of one or two sister magazines), that editor's standards must sometimes slip…

The Old Frontier


by Gray Morrow

Outpost of Empire, by Poul Anderson

Out on the edge of space lies the mineral-poor planet of Freehold. Thinly settled by humans, and then also by the alien Arulians, it lies just outside the Empire.  A growing insurgency threatens to topple the existing order, and Ridenour, an imperial troubleshooter, is sent in to monitor the situation.


by Gray Morrow

Sounds pretty nifty, but it's not.  The first twenty pages of this seventy-page piece are nothing but characters explaining the story to each other.  Skimming the rest of the tale, I determined that it's all more of the same.  Moreover, Poul doesn't even try to disguise what he's doing.  He spotlights it by having his endlessly explaining protagonist marvel at what a pedant he's being–and when other characters do the same thing, he inwardly notes how much a pedant they're being.

As Kris notes:

Rule 1 of writing: If your characters are finding what you are doing contrived, so will the reader.

The whole thing is written in that archaic style Poul reverts to when given the chance, though there's no reason to do so in this book.  He also can't resist being a bit sexist, even in a story that takes place thousands of years from now.  Dig this gem:

"But in the parks, roses and Jasmine were abloom; and elsewhere the taverns brawled with merriment.  The male citizens were happily acquiring the money that the Imperialists brought with them; the females were still more happily helping spend it."

Because in the future, women don't work; they are parasites on the real producers–the men.

Feh.  One star.

That already gets us nearly halfway through the book.  Things do not immediately improve…

The South Waterford Rumple Club, by Richard Wilson


by Jack Gaughan

Aliens drop bags of counterfeit money on a small American town.  Economic collapse ensues, facilitating an extraterrestrial takeover.

I was about to write that Wilson was an unknown name to me, but looking through the archives, I see he's made several appearances in science fiction magazines over the past two years.  He's just eminently forgettable.  This story does not change the trend.  For one, he spends a couple of pages giving a history lesson as to why an influx of fake currency is such a deadly weapon–akin to anthrax and mustard gas.  And then we get a tedious demonstration of such an attack, followed by a couple of pages of (not well thought out) aftermath.

This is the sort of inferior stuff that filled the lesser mags of the '50s.  It doesn't belong here.

Two stars.

Thank goodness for Silverbob.  From here on, out, the issue is quite good.  But you have to make it to page 96!  (or simply skip the dross)

King of the Golden World, by Robert Silverberg

Elena, a human, has married Haugan, chief of a tribe of aliens that lives on an island dominated by twin volcanic mounts.  Theirs is a genuine love, despite their divergent evolutions, but full understanding still eludes the Earth woman.  Though the mountain on which the village is sited is clearly about to erupt, Haugan seems in no hurry to evacuate his people.  It is only on the eve of disaster that Elena learns the true, alien nature of Haugan's people.  Will she embrace it or be repelled?

This is really quite a sensitive story, timeless and nuanced.  I suspect it was influenced by Silverberg's recent nonfiction histories of the original American inhabitants (collectively referred to as "Indians").

Four stars.

For Your Information: Astronautics International, by Willy Ley

Ten years ago, it was enough to keep up with the Soviets and the Americans if you wanted to know what was up in space.  These days, Earth's orbit has become a truly international province, and this month's article focuses on the efforts of the non-superpowers, of which there are many.

As a space buff, articles on satellites always score extra marks with me, so I hope our tastes are aligned.  Four stars.

Black Corridor, by Fritz Leiber

A man awakens, naked, without memories, inside a featureless corridor.  Ahead of him lie two doors: one is labeled "Water", the other "Air".  Behind him a wall moves toward him implacably.  Choose…or die.

But beyond the first pair of doors is another, and another.  Is this a test?  Will the test end?  And what is its purpose?

Less a science fiction story and more a metaphor for life itself, this piece's worth depends solely on the execution.  Thankfully, Leiber is up to the task.

Four stars.

The Red Euphoric Bands, by Philip Latham

A comet is heading straight for an Earth on the brink of atomic war.  Is it our doom…or our salvation?

On the one hand, the storytelling and the science are quite excellent.  On the other, the conclusion is silly.  Moreover, there is a fundamental fault in this otherwise accurate piece: a comet with a two light year orbit would have a period of around six billion years–too high to serve the purposes of the story.

Thus, three stars.

Galactic Consumer Report No. 3: A Survey of the Membership, by John Brunner

The first galactic survey, conducted by Good Buy magazine, turned out to be something of a fiasco–too many beings responded, and they were just too variegated to provide anything like a profile of "an average consumer".  Yet, you couldn't call the exercise less than successful…

This series tends to be silly and throw-away, but this installment I liked a lot.  Why?  Because it's almost like a Theodore Thomas article from his F&SF column–a couple dozen story seeds all in one piece.  So many stories feature aliens that are little more than humans in costume.  This one presents some real aliens.  It also made me laugh a few times.

So, four stars.

Handicap, by Larry Niven


by Jack Gaughan

On the former Kzin world of Down, orbiting a feeble red dwarf, humans have established an agricultural colony.  In addition to its colorful history, Down offers another attraction: the Grogs.  These are comical-looking, human-sized creatures that have two phases in life.  At first, they are four-legged creatures with a dog-like intelligence.  In this form, they rove the deserts of Down, hunting and mating.  Eventually, the females anchor themselves to a rock, where they stay the rest of their lives.

And yet, these creatures have enormous brains, suggesting a great intelligence.  Why did they evolve them, and what can they do with them?  Garvey, an entrepreneur whose line is making prosthetics for "Handicapped" species, ones without manipulative organs of their own (e.g. dolphins, the enormous Bandersnatchi of planet Jinx), smells an opportunity.

Handicap, like last year's A Relic of Empire, expands what is becoming a sweeping common universe, tying in the Kzinti of The Warriors, the Thrintun of World of Ptavvs, and the hyperdrive era of Beowulf Shaeffer.  What I really like about Niven is that he isn't in a hurry to tell his story.  There are asides and subplots, weaving a meandering course through entertaining vignettes, before tying everything together at the end.  Niven's universe feels lived in, and all of its facets are interesting.  That there's a nifty story at the heart of Handicap is a bonus…though my eyebrows were raised a bit by this exchange:

Garvey: "For as long as we expand to other stars we're going to meet more and more handless, toolless, helpless civilizations.  Sometimes we won't even recognize them.  What are we going to do about them?"

Jilson (a guide): "Build Dolphin's Hands for them."

Garvey: "Well, yes, but we can't just give them away.  Once one species starts depending on another, they become parasites."

This feels a bit like an indictment of welfare, foreign aid…or assistance to the handicapped.  I would not jump to concluding that Garvey's views necessarily represent Niven's views, but I also would not be surprised, as he is a hereditary millionaire, and the plutocracy often thinks ill of public demands on their wealth.  I will simply note that I think Garvey is being short-sighted.  Isn't it worth the investment of a little charity to create an entirely new potential market of both imports and exports?  If you give away limbs to the crippled, schools to the poor, food to the starving, will they really just sit on their duffs?  Or will they simply now be unencumbered members of society, ready to participate fully?  I submit that equalization of opportunity through government assistance and charity actually serves capitalism rather than subverts it.

Well, that's a tiny quibble, and again, just because Garvey thinks this way doesn't mean the author does.  If anything, I'm glad he gave me something to think about–along with a good story!

Four stars.

The Fairly Civil Service, by Harry Harrison


by Jack Gaughan

A day in the life of the postal clerk of the future.  A particularly bad, seemingly endless day.  The kind that tries a person's soul…or tests one's abilities.

Harrison is reliably good.  He does not disappoint here.  Four stars.

To the Black Beyond

Having trudged through a barren literary landscape for half the span of a magazine, it was comforting to have solid ground to trod for the latter half.  But now that the Galaxy is done, I am once again adrift.  Who knows what lies in store within the covers of the next magazine or paperback that will cross my desk?  Like the expanses of space, it's all an unknown adventure.

Luckily, there are still enough treasures waiting to be found to make the journey worth it!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 6, 1967] Reaching the Peak (Doctor Who: The Abominable Snowmen [Part 2])

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By Jessica Holmes

It took a long time—far longer than it really should have—but The Abominable Snowman finally lurched towards a pretty good conclusion. Let’s take a look at the second half of the latest Doctor Who serial.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

EPISODE FOUR

As Victoria flees from the Yeti in the monastery, the Doctor and Jamie find another guarding the TARDIS—but neither of these perils pans out as you might expect. The monastery Yeti simply walks out the door (despite the monks’ attempts to stop it), and the one lurking by the TARDIS is apparently unaware of its surroundings, leaving the Doctor free to disable it. However, there is a very real danger on the mountain: whatever the Abbot is doing with the pyramid in the cave. Travers watches him curiously, but has no choice but to flee when the pyramid activates, producing a very unpleasant hum and a blinding light.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

As the pyramid activates, the disabled Yeti’s control sphere attempts to reconnect with its Yeti, prompting the Doctor and Jamie to realise that the missing orb in the monastery wasn't stolen…it moved by itself. They've left Victoria with a potentially active Yeti!

For her part, Victoria finds herself accused of resurrecting the Yeti herself. Unable to provide a good excuse for why she was hiding in the room with the Yeti, and with Thomni trying to protect her, Khrisong orders the pair of them to be locked up.

While in the cell together, the pair discuss how the Doctor came by the holy Ghanta in the first place, as he was under the impression that it was given to a stranger 300 years ago for safekeeping. Victoria braces herself for a tricky explanation of how the Doctor can travel through time and space, only for Thomni to be entirely unfazed by the idea. After all, with years of meditation, Padmasambhava himself learned to detach himself from his earthly body and travel great distances.

Astral travelling sounds pretty great. Shame I don’t have 300 years to dedicate myself to meditation. Or the patience. Or the capacity to sit still and quietly without anything to amuse me for longer than five minutes.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

Having completed his task, the Abbot returns to the monastery, where Padmasambhava tells him to prepare the monks to leave, as the Great Intelligence is starting to take on material form.

Now, I’ve seen episodes padded out in a lot of ways before. Sometimes there’s long establishing shots, sometimes there’s a filler scene, or perhaps a long fight sequence…or a musical number. By far the most annoying however is the technique used here. Every scene with Padmasambhava takes an absolute eternity to complete. Why?

Becaaaaaauuuuuse… heeeeeee… taaaaaalkssss… liiiiiiike… thiiiiiis.

I could go into the kitchen, stick the kettle on, make a cup of tea and drink it in the time it takes him to finish a sentence. (Indeed, I may have…)

On their way down the mountain, a group of Yeti corner the Doctor and Jamie, but like a pack of big potato-shaped dogs, they’re only interested in the ball. You’d think an entity called the Great Intelligence would create servants a little less mindless. Maybe he should be called the Mildly Smart.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

Victoria escapes from her cell by feigning sickness before the Doctor and Jamie make it back, which is unfortunate as it was apparently the Doctor’s idea for Khrisong to lock her up out of harm’s way in the first place (because we have to treat her like a delicate little flower, apparently), and now nobody knows where she is. At the same time, Travers makes it back to the monastery, ragged and babbling about the pyramid before fainting.

Although Khrisong is willing to hear the Doctor out, the rest of the monks still answer to the Abbot, and when the Abbot orders the Doctor, Travers and Jamie to be arrested, the monks see no reason not to comply.

And what of Victoria? She’s headed straight back to the inner sanctum, like a moth to a flame.

This time, Padmasambhava invites her inside.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

EPISODE FIVE

Padmasambhava takes this opportunity to hypnotise Victoria, before placing four Yeti (what is the plural of Yeti? Yetis? Yeti? Yetii?) in the courtyard. The monks are taking too long to leave.

Travers comes around from his fainting spell, but although he can remember the bright light and the noise (and the pain that came with them), he can’t remember anything he saw in his brief time away from the monastery. Before anyone can press him further, the monks learn that the Yeti have broken in, and most fall back. However, one insists on continuing to search for Victoria…and ends up squished by the Buddha statue for his troubles.

Well, if that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is.

Admittedly, it was the Yeti who pushed it over. But still. A sign’s a sign.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

The monks don’t need any more encouragement to leave, but the Doctor is not so easily dissuaded. This is where Victoria comes in. She comes to the monks with the holy ghanta, speaking with the voice of Padmasambhava, and tells them that they must all leave. It seems redundant.

Realising that Padmasambhava is the same monk who was at this monastery the last time he visited, the Doctor figures it would be a good idea to check in on his old friend.

Padmasambhava is not enjoying his old age, it’s safe to say. Most people don’t have ‘bring an evil disembodied intelligence to life and end the world’ in their retirement plans, and neither did he. He was just trying to do some astral travelling when he came upon the Great Intelligence. He decided to help it gain corporeal form, which was kind of him…until it took over his mind and body. Now it won’t let him die. He begs for the Doctor’s help, but passes out before he can reveal where the signal controlling the Yeti is coming from. The Great Intelligence presumably keeps him on a short leash.

Quite a nightmarish existence, really. He’s almost a parody of old age. His mind is slipping away from him, with it his body. He must have seen everyone he cares about die before him. It’s a cruel fate indeed. I wish there was a bit more focus given to this aspect of Padmasambhava. It’s an untapped well of horror and interesting character potential.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

Having run into a dead end here, the Doctor returns to the others. Victoria is still under Padmasambhava’s hypnotic influence, stuck begging the Doctor to go back to the TARDIS. To save her from losing her mind (or perhaps because her repeated pleas are quite annoying), the Doctor reveals his own skill in the art of hypnosis. He puts her to sleep, then makes her forget everything that happened since she escaped from her prison cell. It seems to do the trick.

I might normally say something about hypnosis being nonsense but this is a story about robot Yeti so maybe I’ll give the sarcasm a miss.

The Doctor and Travers then head back up the mountain to try and trace the signal again, only to realise to their horror that the signal was coming from inside the monastery the whole time.

Well, yes. We know. It’s played as some kind of revelation, but we were already in on the secret. Dramatic irony can be good, but there’s a lack of the necessary tension in this story to make it work. The Yeti don’t really feel all that threatening, so it doesn’t feel particularly urgent to work out how they’re being controlled. The Great Intelligence is the root of the threat, but everyone’s still fixated on the Yeti.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

As if to underscore my point, it’s here that the Great Intelligence’s rapidly expanding corporeal form bursts out from the cave and spills onto the mountainside. If I were an incorporeal entity, my choice for a physical form wouldn’t be ‘gigantic glowing blob thing’, but who am I to judge?

The Doctor and Travers rush back down the mountain and warn the others that Padmasambhava is controlling the Yeti from his sanctum. Khrisong, realising that the Abbot is alone with the master and fearing for his safety, immediately runs off to look for him. It’s then that Travers remembers–just moments too late–what he saw in the cave. Khrisong is running to his doom.

See, that’s some good dramatic irony.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

EPISODE SIX

The Doctor rushes to the sanctuary too late to save Khrisong, who dies of a stab wound inflicted by the Abbot moments after his arrival. Padmasambhava/the Great Intelligence’s immensely unsettling laugh echoes across the monastery as the monks come to investigate the commotion. The Doctor and Thomni stick up for the Abbot, recognising that he was hypnotised and not responsible for his own actions. He tells the monks to go, remaining behind with Jamie, Thomni and Victoria.

Travers, for his part, is convinced that the mysterious pyramid in the cave must be destroyed, and heads up the mountain.

The Doctor takes advantage of the Abbot’s trance state to interrogate him, and learns that there’s a room behind the master’s throne where the controls for the Yeti are hidden.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

Meanwhile, Travers finds that the Great Intelligence’s light is spreading all over the mountain. Before long, it’ll engulf the monastery. However, the Yeti are behind him, and he’s trapped up on the mountain.

The Doctor confronts Padmasambhava, and demands entrance to the sanctum. As he struggles across the room against a howling wind (courtesy of the master’s incredible psychic powers), Jamie and Thomni come in behind him to start smashing up the controls, finding another pyramid in the hidden room. However, Padmasambhava still has the Yeti figures, and starts bringing reinforcements into the monastery. Though Victoria tries to stop him, she can’t shake off his psychic influence, even with a mantra ('Om Mani Padme Hum', one of the most popular mantras in Tibetan Buddhism) to help her.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

Calling the Yeti back to the monastery leaves Travers free to come back down the mountain. Finding the dire predicament that the others are in, he takes out his gun, aims at Padmasambhava, and fires. But the old man catches the bullet in his hand, which is undeniably very cool.

Jamie then smashes the pyramid in the control room, which simultaneously (for some reason) causes the pyramid in the cave to explode–along with the top of the mountain. With that, the Great Intelligence is destroyed, assuming it’s even possible to truly destroy an incorporeal disembodied mind. It’s all jolly exciting, but it’s a shame that it took five episodes before it started getting good.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

Free at last from the Great Intelligence, Padmasambhava thanks the Doctor before finally shuffling off this mortal coil.  With the evil finally purged from the monastery, the monks can return to their peaceful life, and the Doctor and company can return to the TARDIS.

There’s one last surprise as they head up to the ship, though. The group, with Travers, spot a hairy, shaggy creature out on the mountain. But it’s not one of the Great Intelligence’s robots. Could it be… a real Yeti?

Travers runs off to search for it, and the Doctor and company head into the TARDIS, hoping for warmer climes.

Credit: BBC Photonovels

Final Thoughts

It’s a shame, really. After a long slog to the last episode, we finally get to see something good happen—and then it’s all over. I shan’t beat the authentic casting dead horse any more than I already have, though I can’t really comment on the authenticity of the religious practices shown. Nothing sticks out as glaringly wrong, as far as I can tell, so that’s encouraging. I think the writers did do their due diligence to get things right and it at least appears that they’re trying to respect Buddhist beliefs. They’ve definitely done at least some research. Padmasambhava is the name of an Indian Buddhist master who is still revered in many Buddhist traditions to this very day. However, I don’t think our Padmasambhava is meant to be the same person (the real one lived over a thousand years ago) which is for the best, I think. Turning a revered religious figure into a villain possessed by an alien ghost would be a bad idea indeed. I don’t know why they picked that name specifically, but I found it quite interesting when I looked him up.

The last episode was good, I will give it that much. Other than that, this serial doesn’t do much for me. I didn’t feel enough threat from the Yeti to really engage with them, and they serve only to distract from the more interesting Great Intelligence. However, there’s not enough information to go on there. Where did it come from? What did it want, once it had a body? Some mystery is good, but with too many unanswered questions, there aren’t enough clues to ponder.

3 out of 5 for The Abominable Snowmen



 

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial, Uncategorized

[November 4, 1967] Conflicts (December 1967 IF)

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by David Levinson

Conflicts at home over the conflict abroad

It seems like scarcely a day goes by without images of young people protesting showing up on the evening news and landing on our doorsteps. These days, it’s usually about the war in Vietnam as President Johnson ratchets up the number of troops involved yet again. Monday, October 16th saw the start of Stop the Draft week. Induction centers in cities all over the country were blockaded by protesters, while many young men either burned their draft cards or attempted to hand them in to authorities, which is now a criminal offense. Arrests were plentiful. In Oakland alone, 125 people (including singer Joan Baez) were arrested, and I’ve seen estimates that as many as 1,000 draft cards were either burned or turned in. The week culminated in a march on the Pentagon. Check back later this month for an eyewitness account from the Journey’s Vickie Lucas.

Joan Baez is arrested in Oakland.

Of course, the protests didn’t end there. On October 27th, Father Philip Berrigan, Rev. James Mengel and two other men, forced their way into Selective Service office in Baltimore, Maryland and poured blood into several file drawers containing draft records. The men have refused bail and are being held awaiting trial.

Fr. Berrigan pouring blood into a file drawer.

Conflicts big and small

When we study literature in school, we’re usually taught that conflict is one of the most important elements in narrative and drama. It’s often broken down into three types: man against man, man against nature and man against self. The December issue of IF has them all.

Futuristic combat in The City of Yesterday. Art by Chaffee

Herbert George Morley Roberts Wells, Esq., by Arthur C. Clarke

A guest editorial from Clarke regarding a literary mystery. In a story in the October 1966 Galaxy, he referred to a short story called “The Anticipator” which he attributed to H. G. Wells, but which no one could find. You can probably figure out the real author from the title of this piece. I’m sure the puzzle was very interesting for Arthur, but for most readers it’s rather pointless.

Barely three stars.

All Judgment Fled (Part 1 of 3), by James White

When a mysterious object enters the solar system and places itself in orbit around the sun between Mars and Jupiter, two ships, each containing three men, are sent to investigate. Both have two astronaut pilots and a supernumerary: a physicist aboard Prometheus-1 and a psychologist aboard Prometheus-2.

The trip is psychologically taxing. At one point, physicist Hollis suffers a breakdown and psychologist McCullough (our viewpoint character) must make a dangerous trip between the ships to treat him. Hollis appears to have grown paranoid, claiming that P-2 has been declared expendable and that P-1 is carrying a Dirty Annie, a highly destructive atomic bomb. McCullough manages to calm him down, and the journey continues.

When they reach the alien ship, it appears to be abandoned. McCullough and Walters (second in command of P-2) manage to get inside, but don’t get the chance to explore. They are attacked by a starfish-like, tentacled alien and then trapped in the compartment where they first entered by two of the starfish aliens and another that looks like a dumbbell. As they leave, McCullough gets a glimpse of something covered in white fur or maybe clothing. To be continued.

McCullough helps Walters deal with a tear in his suit. Art by Morrow

I’m of two minds about this one. The premise is excellent, and the decision to devote roughly half of this installment to the difficulties of the journey is interesting. Most authors would probably have rushed the narrative to get the characters to the ship as quickly as possible and focused on the mystery of the alien object. But that’s also where the problem lies. White is so thorough at describing the pressures and interpersonal problems these six men face that the tension creeps into his style and never goes away. That makes for a sometimes difficult read. You would also expect a mission like this to be much more international than six guys with English-sounding names.

Three stars.

On Conquered Earth, by Jay Kay Klein

The Hiroku are keeping a close eye on the backwards world of Earth. Their real focus is on expansion towards the galactic center, but a small, steady decrease in the human population has them worried. It might be necessary to bring in a fleet to smash the system to prevent a threat arising at their back. What’s really going on?

If you’re going to use art to boost the title, it should be more interesting than this. Art by Gaughan

Jay Kay Klein and his camera are a common sight at science fiction conventions, where he’s practically the official photographer. Here we have his first story sold, and it leaves a lot to be desired. The truth behind the population decline is questionable (though it might have qualified it for Dangerous Visions). I’m more bothered, though, by the description of the Hiroku as looking like Asian humans and having such Japanese sounding names (Admiral Ikara, Ambassador Sushi). That’s enough for me to knock off a star.

Two stars.

Answering Service, by Fritz Leiber

Unable to contact her doctor, a vicious old woman takes out her frustrations on his answering service. After all, it’s just a bunch of computer-controlled tapes on the other end.

Pay attention to me! Art by Gaughan

Fritz Leiber reminds us that he can write very effective horror. You can see where it’s going, but this is Leiber at the top of his game.

Four stars.

Fandom in Europe Today, by Lin Carter

Carter continues his world tour and looks at the state of European fandom. Much of what we read also appears in Europe in translation. Galaxy has a number of current and former foreign-language editions. In Germany, Perry Rhodan has come a long way since our own Cora Buhlert first wrote about him. And Gerfandom is exploring a Worldcon bid for 1970 or 1971. We get a brief look at the state of SF publishing in Britain and Italy, and then Carter talks about the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, which helps one deserving American fan visit an overseas convention or vice versa.

Three stars.

When Sea is Born Again, by C. C. MacApp

Latpur is the apprentice to Prognosticator Deeoon, who has seen signs that Sea will be born again soon and in their area. This happens every few years in some coastal area and well inland, destroying all life that fails to reach high ground. Matters are complicated by a foreign shaman trying to steal business from the scientific prognosticator and the arrival of aliens in a metal cylinder.

Latpur running errands for the Prognosticator. Art by Vaughn Bodé

MacApp continues his recent theme of looking at alien societies from the inside. Like the others, this one is enjoyable, if not particularly memorable.

Three stars.

City of Yesterday, by Terry Carr

J-1001011 has been awakened for an attack on a city on the planet Rhinstruk. The reason for the attack and the nature of the enemy are unimportant. Our protagonist was born human, and if he can survive enough missions, he’ll get to go to a home he no longer really remembers.

J-1001011 begins an attack run. Art by Gaughan.

Terry Carr is a familiar name as both writer and editor. He’s usually fairly reliable, but while I can see what he was trying to say, I don’t feel like he really achieved his goal. The story is competently written, but I never engaged with it.

A low three stars.

Swordsmen of the Stars, by Robert E. Margroff and Andrew J. Offutt

Varn is a rising gladiator for the Greenback team on the planet Solitos. Two high-ranking spectators seem to have taken an interest in his performance, one supporting him and the other backing the Bluechips. Varn decides he must be the secret son of a godling and will do whatever it takes to find out the truth.

This is actually one of the less ridiculous moments of combat. Art by Gaughan

Margroff and Offutt have produced a number of substandard stories alone and in collaboration. This might not be the worst, but it’s also not their best. Much here is borrowed from Mack Reynolds’ Joe Mauser stories with a large helping of Gladiator-at-Law by Fred Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth. Unlike either of its inspirations, this story is not a scathing criticism of modern capitalism; it’s just a bad adventure story with combat scenes that the worst hack of the Pulp Era would dismiss as unrealistic.

Two stars.

The Time Trollers, by Roger Deeley

Time travel is imprecise. While aiming for the United States in the mid-twentieth century, one man has found himself on St. Helena in the early nineteenth. And l’empereur has some surprising information for him.

Art uncredited

Mildly entertaining, but rather forgettable.

A low three stars.

Ocean on Top (Part 3 of 3), by Hal Clement

Searching for three vanished investigators for the global Power Board, our unnamed protagonist has discovered a thriving, power-wasting group of people living on the sea floor. In this installment, he learns the history of the ocean-dwelling people, the Board’s motives for ignoring the settlement, and resolves his unrequited crush.

The protagonist has found someone who doesn’t care about his hated name. Art by Castellon

Despite the slightly darker tone, this is a reasonably typical Clement tale. There’s a scientifically plausible basis, and almost all the characters are fundamentally good people. But this is not one of his better works. A lot of the pieces don’t really hang together. I don’t consider the Board’s stated reasoning for ignoring the power generation method used by the people here to be at all valid, although the reason for ignoring the people themselves makes some sense. The protagonist’s absolute hatred for his name (we learn of the nickname Tummy, but that’s it) is probably meant to give him some incentive to stay, but the whole business feels silly.

It’s a so-so read, at best, if you like Clement. When it eventually comes out as a novel, my tip is either to club together with some friends to buy a copy or encourage your local library to buy it and then check it out. It’s not worth the 60-75 cents it will assuredly cost.

Barely three stars.

Summing up

We finally got a stand-out story this month. This is the first time since May that I’ve rated a story higher than 3 stars, and that’s a long slog of mediocrity and worse. IF is proudly proclaiming their two consecutive Best Magazine Hugos. An overall grade of C- isn’t going to get them a third. The new serial has some promise, but White is going to have to release the psychological tension that is cramping the narrative. All I can suggest for Fred Pohl is more Delany, more Zelazny, lean on Saberhagen and Niven to polish their work a little more, and try to get some better novels to serialize.

A new Zelazny is a good sign, and Saberhagen could be good.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[November 2, 1967] Trouble and Toil (Star Trek: Catspaw)

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Such stuff as dreams are made of


by Joe Reid

For the first several episodes, this second season of Star Trek was solidly impressive.  We got to attend a Vulcan wedding.  We saw a mythological deity from human antiquity in a sci-fi setting.  We saw a transistorized deity faced and defeated.  Then a dark alternate universe, followed by a giant cornucopia of doom!  I regret that I must mention the episode with the red colored rock lizard worshippers, since that was undoubtedly the low point of this season.  Sadly, this week’s episode, titled “Catspaw” comes very close to hitting the low that “The Apple” achieved.

Dear readers, in my opinion, futuristic sci-fi shows should avoid doing holiday themed episodes.  I have no desire to watch sci-fi episodes about Christmas or Thanksgiving.  Nor Easter, the 4th of July, Passover, Saint Patrick’s Day, or Columbus Day.  So, watching what clearly stood out as "made for Halloween" was disappointing.  Especially since I do not feel that the episode was served by the inclusion of said theme.

We started this seventh episode of the second season on the bridge of the Enterprise as our heroes awaited a report from the landing party composed of Scotty, Sulu, and a Crewman Jackson.  A message came in from Jackson, with no word about the others.  As Jackson beamed up to the ship, he arrived on the transport circle dead on arrival.  Then from the non-moving mouth of the dead man came a ghostly warning to leave the planets and that the Enterprise was cursed.


"There is a curse on you!  Also, you've left the oven on"!

Determined to find out the fates of Scotty and Sulu, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy beam down to the planet to find their people.  Arriving on the surface they find that it was a dark and foggy night.  What comes next, I was not expecting: As the trio begin their search, they are confronted by three ugly witch apparitions, and wouldn’t you know it they have a poem to share.  “Winds shall rise, and fog descend, so leave here all, or meet your end.” Poetry so bad that it even garners a negative review from Spock.


"Hail Captain Kirk, Thane of Cawdor!"

If that isn’t a blatant enough holiday reference, Kirk and the others soon find themselves at a dark and eerie castle.  Upon entering they are startled by a black cat which leads Kirk to make the first explicit Halloween reference of the night about trick or treat.  They follow the cat hoping to see where it would lead them only to be knocked unconscious as the floor collapsed below their feet.


"There's my litter box!"

They awaken to find themselves chained to the walls of a dungeon next to a skeleton that looks exactly like what it is: a Halloween decoration, or maybe a model skeleton from my kid’s science classroom.  As the doors to their cell open, we get our first looks at Scotty and Sulu as they enter the dungeon.  Both are under some sort of magic spell and can’t speak but make it clear that they will take Kirk and the others to the people in charge.


I hope they weren't paid by the line for this one…

They meet two aliens that have taken the forms of a wand-sporting wizard named Korob, and the beautiful witch, Sylvia.  Kirk, Spock, and McCoy find themselves at the mercy of powers that could endanger the Enterprise in orbit, conjure items out of thin air, and mind control their crewmembers.


Korob and Sylvia–a tale of two coiffures

It is here that the spooky themes began to subside as the magicians reveal themselves as truly alien, with little understanding of humans or even having physical bodies.  They need humans and our minds to allow them more of the new experiences that they had created.  An interesting premise, but since this is Halloween, it is drowned in hocus pocus.

In the end, Kirk is able to learn about and destroy the magic wand…er…transmuter, the item that allowed their powers to work.  The defeated aliens returned to their original forms and promptly die.  The conclusion of the episode comes fast with virtually no transition, save for a brief explanation from Kirk to his newly liberated crew.


"The missing pages of the script are right there."

Outside of the unnecessary holiday theme, this episode managed to stay true to the elements of what makes Star Trek good.  The characters' behaviors were consistent with what we have come to expect.  Kirk was smart and brave.  Spock was insightful, and others, so long as they were not mind controlled, behaved as they should.  Also the aliens had actual, explained reasons for their actions. All this combined made this episode passable and not the absolute debacle that “The Apple” was.

3 stars.

A fool thinks himself to be wise


by Janice L. Newman

It wasn’t a surprise to learn that the same author who wrote "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", one of the worst episodes of the first season, also wrote "Catspaw". Robert Bloch is famous for his horror writing, particularly the movie Psycho. But his horror fantasy scripts simply do not translate well to the grounded science fiction of Star Trek.

"Catspaw" was a frustrating experience. Not just because it didn’t feel at all like a Star Trek episode (and naysayers in the fanzines will no doubt comment, as they did with "Miri" in the first season, that they happened to catch this episode and weren’t impressed), but also because it had the potential to be an interesting episode but simply couldn’t make it work.

Firstly, the idea that the ‘collective unconscious fears’ of our species would be reflected in a gothic castle, Shakespearian witches, and black cats, is simply ridiculous. If there is some kind of collective unconscious for humanity, the reflection of it must necessarily be both much more chaotic and universal to the human experience. This flaw could have been overcome either by saying that the aliens drew their ideas of us from our popular culture, or perhaps that they drew on one particular crewmember’s unconscious fears. Alternatively, rather than using the traditional gothic symbolism, the show could have tried something more innovative, imagining what might frighten any human anywhere throughout all of history.

Another flaw was the pacing. The scene of Sulu unlocking everyone’s chains took far too long, for example, while the final scene felt rushed. The scenes on the bridge were dull, especially with the wooden DeSalle in charge.


"I am acting!"

A particularly annoying problem with the episode was that it set up situations to be resolved and then didn’t follow through. The most egregious example of this occurs when the bridge crew finally manage to ‘dent’ the forcefield around them—only to have the forcefield lifted by one of the aliens before they can escape it on their own. While I would have been mildly irritated at the similarity to "Who Mourns for Adonais?" if the crew had cleverly managed to escape, I was far more irritated that the crew was set up to escape and then not given the opportunity to do. What was the point of those scenes on the bridge, then?

The ‘horrific’ aspects to the story often came across as comedic instead. Perhaps the ugly witches might scare a young child watching the show, but the room full of adults I was watching with chuckled at their appearance and their sung proclamations. One of the saddest pieces of wasted potential was the aliens’ true appearance. They looked like little birds made of pipe cleaners, and when they came on the screen they got the loudest laugh of the evening. A scene which could have and should have been poignant or grotesque was again turned comedic by poor writing, pacing, and framing.

I’m torn as to what rating to give this episode. On one hand, it didn’t even feel like an episode of Star Trek. On the other, there were some interesting elements, and it wasn’t confusing like "The Alternative Factor" or dully exasperating like "The Apple". Plus, there was a cat. Still, when all is said and done, the wince-inducing scenes between Kirk and the Sorceress canceled out what good there could have been. I can’t give it more than one star.

Signifying Nothing


by Amber Dubin

It's ironic that this episode is called "catspaw" because the plot is about as cohesive as a heavily pawed ball of yarn; a tangle of threads that don't hold together or go anywhere.

The acting quality of the episode peaks early with the deeply convincing collapse of ensign Jackson off the transporter pad. Yet the fact that he is the only non-essential crewman sent down to this clearly hostile planet makes less than no sense. Continuing the madness, after Jackson's corpse is used to deliver a message of warning that's immediately ignored, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are subjected to another gratuitous display from disembodied witch heads spouting Shakespearian-esque poetry. You would think this theme of theater-obsessed eccentric illusion-projectors would continue, but you would be wrong, as the only further theatrical implications come in the form of the heavily made up and costumed Korob, whose appearance is given no explanation.


Though you must admit: the camera loves him!

In further defiance of explanation, the crew wakes up chained to the walls of a dungeon after the floor of the castle they enter haphazardly collapses beneath them. Next ensues an absolutely mystifying scene where a zombified Sulu painstakingly unlocks their restraints cuff by cuff. This gesture is immediately made unnecessary when they are teleported into a throne room with Korob, one of their captors. As we've seen in "Squire of Gothos" or "Who Mourns for Adonais?" Korob reveals himself to be overpowered alien attempting to understand the nature of man. He doesn't get too far in his speech, however, before he is upstaged by the real star of the play, the necklace-wearing black cat that transforms into Sylvia, a beautiful woman.

I was hoping Sylvia's introduction would lead to a McCoy-centered episode, as Bones seems to be unable to take his eyes off her.. necklace.. from the moment she enters. That theory is immediately banished as they are all teleported back to the dungeon and McCoy re-enters as a zombie (a role to which he is well-suited). The task of seducing the femme-fatale then predictably falls on Kirk, who delivers his clunkiest and least believable performance in the series so far as he outright fails in his attempt to make her feel too pretty to harm them any longer.

Despite this entirely nonsensical plot, somehow the biggest disappointment of the episode is yet to come as the aliens descend into madness. Korob is killed by a giant door, which is as easily avoidable as it is imaginary, making it therefore harmless to a being capable of casting such illusions. Even more absurdly, these magical beings, who are said to be powerful conjurors with no abilities of sensory perception, are suddenly revealed to resemble tiny, delicate bundles of exposed nerves.


Jim Henson presents: rejected muppets!

The episode abruptly ends, nothing is resolved, no one understands anything better and I'm baffled by the fact that a simple framing device of a crewman explaining Halloween to Spock at the beginning of the episode could have cleared up where these aliens got material for all the imagery in the episode. Instead, we spent more time watching Sulu unlock imaginary restraints than we do deciphering the nature or motivations of crusty blue pipe-cleaner puppet-gods.

Ridiculous. Two stars.


by Gideon Marcus

The Play's the Thing

I must confess–I did not hate this episode.  Not because it was good; heavens no!  It wasn't even Star Trek.  Just our favorite characters having a Halloween lark.  In fact, in my mind, I've completely disregarded it as a Star Trek episode.  Just as Spock and Uhura sometimes jam together in the lounge (why haven't we seen that this season?), and just as Kirk insists that real turkey be served on Thanksgiving, I've concluded that it is an Enterprise tradition that Halloween is celebrated with a big todo.

I can see Sylvia actually being Lt. McGivers' replacement, and with a minor in theatrics.  Once aboard the Enterprise, she began penning her magnum opus: a play involving all of the senior officers of the ship.  Suddenly, all the nonsensical bits make sense.  The beaming down of Scotty and Sulu as a landing party, the spooky settings and effects, the endless kissing scenes ("Oh, but Captain, these are vital to the plot!  Really, it won't breach protocol at all…")


"Did I hear a door slam?  Darn.  We'll have to do the whole take over!"

Taken as such, suddenly the episode is palatable.  It does move pretty well. Theo Marcuse is always a delight (and a genuine war hero, and he has a great last name; he's probably my cousin).  The score was nifty, particularly in the fight scene.  Less so in the five minute bit when Sulu unlocked Kirk's fetters.

And there was abundant display of a cat.  That, alone, is worth a star.

So, again, "Catspaw" isn't a good episode.  But I would watch it in reruns three times before I suffered through "The Apple" again…

Two stars.

Something Wicked this way Comes


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

I rather enjoyed this episode. As Amber said, it wasn't good. But it was fun. Maybe it's because I enjoy camp. I liked Theo Marcuse's silks and jewels and perfectly shaved eyebrows. I liked the kitschy sets – perhaps borrowed from a recent vampire flick? – and as other writers have noted, the cat was a special treat.

I was less impressed by how many of the so-called ‘collective unconscious fears' involved woman-hating. Crones and seductresses, liars and cheats, the non-crewwomen in this episode were like something from Jesse Helms' fever dreams, no collective I'm a part of.

Janice's proposition that the episode would have been better if it had featured truly universal fears sparks my imagination far more than anything in the episode itself. What truly scares everyone? In a world with apocalypse-worshiping churchgoers, can we say everyone is afraid of death? I would say that many, many of us are afraid of a nuclear attack from our friends across the Bering Strait, but people living outside of the blast zones could be reasonably excused from the universality of that fear.

Stepping away from the philosophical mindtwister Janice gives us and back to this rather silly episode, I am looking forward to seeing this one in reruns. There's just something so fun about our heroes getting tied up – several times – like maidens in a gothic novel.


I think the Captain is starting to enjoy it…

Watching Captain Kirk once again try to kiss his way out of trouble was made all the more fun when his captor/target caught him at his game and refused to play anymore. Despite Sylvia's embodiment of a mushy handful of cruel gender stereotypes, I found myself enjoying her time on screen more than almost anyone aside from the core cast. Cheers to Antoinette Bower for taking a two-dimensional role and turning it into something fun and memorable.

There were many, many, many ways this episode could have been improved. I would be disappointed if next week's episode shared in the same nasty stereotypes of women. I fear it will, as it centers on one of my least favorite characters in this series, Mr. Mudd.

Perhaps Sylvia will make a guest appearance and turn him into a toad before he hurts more women.

Three stars.

I don't know how likely it is that Mudd will get his comeuppance, but we can certainly hope!

The episode airs tomorrow night.  Here's the invitation! Come join us.

Also, copies of The Tricorder are still available — drop us a line for details!




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